I clenched my fist tighter. “Bonnie—”
“Know what else ol’ boss man said?” She snuck a glance at me, took a puff off her cigarette, and went back to the books, searching. “It’s important things we women need to tell other women.”
I warmed at that, grateful she saw me as an equal, appreciative another woman had said it.
She stopped, searched my face. “You know I’ve always shot it to you straight, sweet pea, and ol’ Bonnie ain’t going to dip the straight into honey. ’Cause sometimes it has to come from the dog-shit pile it came from and be called for what it is. Okay, sweet pea?”
I whispered a faint yes, but was afraid to hear what Bonnie was going to tell me next.
“Boss man done tol’ me them good ol’ boys work real hard, and it lifts their spirits some when a pretty female dresses up nice for ’em—said them boys make a mighty sacrifice while digging themselves a second grave for the Company kings, and it’s the least I could do… Then he let me know I could have myself an easier job, operating the shuttle carts instead of shoveling the heavy, muddy slop back onto the belts. Same as Big Dessie.”
I pressed a hand over my mouth, horrified for her.
Bonnie reached into my pannier, thumped another book onto her stack of picked reads. “Them ol’ boys always a’grabbin’ my breasts—crotching me with their stank, coal-dirt fingers, digging into my privates when I climb into the cage to head down into the damp mine and then on to the shuttle cart. Eight times, their filthy, scaly fingers pierced cloth, dug into my flesh today. Can’t afford new bibs so I gotta get out my sewing kit again.”
I lowered my head, feeling her shame that belonged to others—the menfolk.
Bonnie slammed down another book, tapped her cigarette ash, slightly spread her legs, examining her dungarees. She blinked hard and mumbled a curse.
I touched her arm, seeing she was worn and beaten down.
She quieted, but in a minute said hoarsely, “Damn, I want my man, my good man.” It came out in a low, long aching grind, a guttural caterwauling that had settled deep in her chest. “I sorely miss my sweet Joey.”
She pulled out the leather cord hidden underneath her shirt, and kissed a dangling five-cent coal scrip that had belonged to him. Joey always carried around a bunch of the Company coins and would always slip me a few extra nickels after I sat for them.
“He was a good man, your Joey was.” I put a hand on her shoulder, my heart breaking for the young, widowed mother, her grief weighing like stone.
She rubbed the scrip across her mouth. “I can still taste his kiss,” she whispered. “I taste it every day, sweet pea. Ya know, a girl should marry a man whose last kiss can stay on her lips forever.” She reached over and tucked back a stray lock that had fallen in my face. “Forever and ever. That’s what I did, sweet pea.”
My thoughts went to her cousin, wondering what his kisses were like, and I felt myself reddening.
Again, Bonnie fiddled with the thin wedding band, gliding it around and ’round her finger before dropping one more book onto her loans with a brutal slap. “Dammit, them sonsabitches are gonna have to kill me, ’cause I ain’t never, ever gonna be another Dessie peddling my pussy in a dark drift.”
Inside, the baby startled and whined.
Bonnie stood up with her books and reading material, a rebellion in her small parting smile. She sighed and looked over her shoulder, then flicked the cigarette into the yard. “Guess Joey Junior’s not gonna nap today. Thank you, I’ll take these, Honey.” She turned toward the door, but not before I saw her soaked eyes latching onto mine—her testimonial warning to me and other women stamped across her dispirited face.
Twenty-One
We followed the creek and stopped at a shady spot to let Junia graze and have a drink while I thought about Bonnie, studying on what books I could give her that would make her life easier, happier.