I’d been knocking on doors in the industrial district one day, and I was running a little early to meet Henry at the soup kitchen for dinner. I didn’t want to stand in the line on my own, so I was dawdling when I found myself standing opposite the new Hilton hotel—the tallest building in downtown El Paso. I scanned the opulent front entrance, then cast my gaze up over twenty-one astounding stories to the rooftop balconies.

Just then, a woman emerged from the laneway beside the building. I recognized the exhaustion on her face—I’d seen it in the mirror a hundred times. That was the look of someone who had worked an honest day’s living, who had made it to the end of the day tired, dignity intact.

I knew that feeling. I wanted to feel that kind of tired again so bad, I could taste it.

That exhausted maid emerging from the hotel represented the first glimmer of familiarity I’d experienced in months. She might have laughed if she knew how inspired I was by the bags under her eyes and her slumped shoulders, her feet that dragged through sheer weariness.

But when I saw her, I also saw a way forward. I’d spent months trying to find work, finding every door I knocked on remained closed. Something had to change.

I was going to master city life, just as I’d mastered every skill I’d ever needed on the farm. I still didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I had just decided where.

21

Lizzie

Huntsville, Alabama
1950

As I pushed open the door to the restaurant, I studiously avoided looking at the Whites Only sign hanging in the window. Ever since Sofie Rhodes mentioned those signs, I was keenly aware of them everywhere I went.

I was late again that day. I’d noticed that one of Henry’s shirts on the clothesline had stains on it, so I took it back inside to treat it with turpentine. Henry did his own laundry—one blessed habit he’d picked up in the Army—but advanced stains like paint were beyond his skill set. He didn’t like me to baby him, so even once I got the paint out, I had to quickly rewash the turpentine smell out of his shirt and hang it on the line so he didn’t notice I’d interfered.

It had been hard to motivate myself to shower, fix my hair, and put my makeup on after that. Some part of me always wanted to skip those lunches, but forcing myself to go had become an ingrained habit. Now my heels echoed against the tiles in the restaurant as I walked briskly to the table where the Fort Bliss women sat.

“We almost started without you!” Becca said lightly. I reached to smooth my hair and forced a smile.

“Sorry,” I said. “Busy day.”