Tania Mosswell was at her front window on Tuesday evening when Patty Trent and Emily Porter walked across the street to the Peterson house. Patty was carrying a paper sack, and the two women were laughing together as they scurried across and entered the house. A moment later, Terry Carter walked past Tania's window and crossed to the Peterson house.
What was going on? A party?
Tania was 44, tall, with skin the color of café au lait, and she was built with ample breasts and enough on the back side to fill a man's heart with nasty thoughts. She and her husband, Robert, were full professors at the university and well respected in their professions. She was satisfied with her standing and her life in general, but there were still nagging doubts about the neighborhood they'd moved into nearly three years ago. Were they respected in their neighborhood?
The Mosswells were the only African American family on the cul-de-sac, and that normally seemed to be no big deal. Their neighbors seemed to treat them just the same as they treated each other, and they were invited to the same back yard parties as the others, too. It was mostly the Trents and Porters who threw parties, though the Petersons had once, too. Nobody stared at them or talked down to them. And (thank God) nobody ever tried to impress them with some kind of urban street talk. It was a nice place.
But still . . .
Tania couldn't help but feel that she was being left out. In their old neighborhood, the people were in and out of each other's houses regularly, and they had a hard time going out in the yard without falling into a conversation with somebody. It had been friendlier there. Of course, that neighborhood had been a majority black suburb. Maybe white people really were more reserved, more stick-up-the-ass than what she was used to.
But still . . .
What were those women doing over there? Why hadn't she been invited?
"I wonder what's going on at the Petersons?" she said, turning to her husband, who was seated on his recliner reading a student essay.
Robert was tall and strong, with distinguished streaks of gray in his close cropped hair. She loved that man, but she couldn't help but feel a bit dissatisfied when she saw him in his usual place on that chair either reading papers or watching sports on the TV. He was becoming every bit as dull as this white neighborhood.
"What do you mean?" he said, looking up over his reading glasses.
"Women are going over there," she said. "It looks like a party."
"Tupperware party, I suppose," he said, with a dismissive little laugh.
"Women don't just get together for Tupperware," Tania said. "I don't need attitude about women's parties. You know damn well that . . ."
"Hold your horses, lady," he said. "I'm not dissing women in general. Just the stuck up, tight-ass women in this neighborhood. You know that."
"Okay, yeah, I know that." She smiled then. "I guess I'm feeling a little left out. Why wouldn't they invite me?"
"Cause a real woman would be a threat to their own femininity."
"You sure know what to say, don't you?"
"Go over and see what's going on," he suggested. "Go say you want to borrow something. See if they invite you to join them. If they don't, we'll sell the house and get the hell out of here."
"You don't feel it, do you? You don't feel left out."
"No, because there's nothing to be left out of. These folks don't do anything but watch TV. And the men talk about their lawns when you see them on the street. I really don't think those women mean to leave you out of anything."
"No, probably not," she said.
Tania left him to his reading and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, trying to put the thoughts out of her mind. She couldn't.
Did they dislike her because she was black? New in the neighborhood? Because she was better educated? What? What had she done wrong?
Nothing. She'd done nothing wrong, and there was no reason on earth not to go calling on Jenny Peterson if she wanted to. She wasn't going to let those women upset her any more.