Betty Before X

Eleven-year-old Betty wakes to the voice of her sister, Juanita. Betty shares a bed with her sister, Shirley. Juanita is always scared to go the bathroom in the night without Betty. Next to the bathroom, Betty sees a family photo that doesn’t include her: “Every time I see this photo, I think I really don’t belong here. That my mother’s house doesn’t feel like home” (12). Before she came to Detroit, she didn’t know that her mother—Ollie Mae—had three other girls: Shirley, Jimmie, and Juanita.

Ollie Mae is married to Arthur Burke, who has two sons: Henry and Arthur, who goes by Sonny. It makes Betty sad that her siblings call their mother Momma, but Betty calls her by her name. Back in bed, she replays pleasant memories, but the magnolia trees with the two bodies intrudes on anything she pictures: “A tree can never be just a tree after seeing that” (14). She falls asleep asking God if Fannie Mae is there with Him and whether her mother will ever look at her like she looks at her three sisters.

Betty thinks about how Jimmie always copies Betty’s behavior. Betty is jealous of Shirley. Shirley talks constantly about her memories with delight, but Betty wishes her own memories would go away. They talk about a scripture memorizing contest. Any Sunday school student who memorizes a Bible scripture gets a star. Anyone with 10 stars receives a trip to a park. Before they go to church, Ollie Mae tells Betty to behave because she always sees Betty passing notes to her friends.

At church, a woman named Mrs. Malloy gives the children candy but insists that they eat it after church. Mrs. Peck, Pastor Peck’s widow, runs the Housewives’ League, which helps Black businesses. She organizes boycotts of stores that don’t support equality, and Mrs. Malloy works with her. As always, Mrs. Malloy always asks Betty if she knows how beautiful she is. Mrs. Malloy has no children but always knows how to make Betty feel special.

Betty’s best friends are Suesetta and Phyllis. They have light brown skin, which is different from Betty’s darker complexion. Again, Ollie Mae warns Betty to behave. At church, Betty loves the choir. Suesetta says she should join. Then Phyllis wants Betty to skip out of church during the charitable offering time to go to the candy store. Phyllis says to keep some of her money from the offering plate so they have enough. The store is close. Betty thinks they might be able to get back before the prayer ends as long as they sneak out while pretending to go to the bathroom.

They reenter the church through the basement and come upstairs as if they’ve come from the bathroom. Pastor Dames, who has been the head of the church for a year, reads from the Bible and preaches against racism. He says, “we must not fight hate with hate. We must continue to sow goodness, forgiveness, love” (32). He reminds them that God sees everything, and no one gets away with deceit. Betty worries that he knows about the offering money and their sneaky trip to the candy store. She says “amen” louder than anyone when the prayer ends.

After church, Betty asks Ollie Mae if she can go to Suesetta’s house with Phyllis to bake cookies. Ollie Mae asks if she thinks she deserves to go. Betty remembers getting whipped for a small lie about eating all of her vegetables once and can’t decide how to answer. As Mrs. Malloy watches, Ollie Mae grabs Betty’s wrist and says she disobeyed her when she sat with her friends.

Mrs. Malloy says Betty should come to Suesetta’s and promises to have Betty home after supper, without waiting for Ollie Mae to agree. As they drive, Betty worries about the moment when Ollie Mae finds the candy in her purse. She imagines Ollie Mae berating her and whipping her, then wonders if she could run away and who else she could stay with.

Suesetta’s house is large and cozy, with photos of Suesetta everywhere. She says her uncle Clyde and Aunt Nina are staying there temporarily, along with her cousins: Kay, Bernice, and Allen. Betty thought they lived in Black Bottom. Clyde had been working on a machine line that made machine parts for the war, but with the war’s end, he lost his job.

When Betty asks if Suesetta’s relatives will ever move back to Alabama, Phyllis says there’s nothing in the South worth returning to. Betty doesn’t argue, even though Fannie Mae’s grave is in the South. “I also know there are good reasons why people who look like us would never, ever want to go back” (39). Then they dance to jazz records, even though Suesetta thinks it might be too rowdy for God after church.

Betty reads a poster on the wall that advertises the Housewives’ League: “DON’T BUY WHERE YOU CAN’T BE HIRED” (40). Mrs. Malloy has proposed that they only buy from other Black businesses. The girls can join as junior members, which would prepare them to canvas neighborhoods, recruit new members, and take relevant history classes to make them effective participants in the Civil Rights Movement.

Phyllis says her mother forbids her from joining the group and changes the subject. They look at Ebony magazine and say it’s better than Negro Digest. Betty hasn’t read either one before, but she enjoys looking at them. She says she wants to get her hair done at a New York salon—Rose-Meta House of Beauty—because Rose-Meta says their hair is not inferior. The other girls smile at Betty like she’s naïve. Betty then sees an advertisement for a skin lightener as Suesetta’s family enters. Betty wonders if they ever think about her skin.

Betty spends November being punished for the candy in her purse. She gets a whipping and has to do the chores for Shirley and Jimmie. This means she can’t go to Suesetta’s house on Sunday afternoons. There is something positive at school, however. In Mrs. Collins’s home economics class, they learn to sew aprons. Mrs. Collins says, “To be able to design something with your mind and your hands is a powerful skill to have. It’s your own creation” (49). This resonates with Betty, who looks forward to learning.

Mrs. Malloy picks her up that evening for choir rehearsal, which she is still allowed to attend during her punishment. Afterwards, Mrs. Malloy asks her to help her and Mrs. Peck staple registration forms for letters that will go to other chapters nationwide. They tell Betty to ask questions if she ever wants to join. On the way home, Betty is shocked to hear that Suesetta gets an allowance for her chores. She uses it for gifts. In Betty’s family, each person gets one gift from another family member. She wonders how she could get her own money.

She sees a HELP WANTED sign in Mr. Malloy’s shoe repair store as they drive. At Betty’s house, Mrs. Malloy apologizes Ollie Mae for bringing Betty late. Mrs. Malloy kisses Betty good-bye, chats briefly with Ollie Mae, and defuses the tension.

While she eats, Betty asks Ollie Mae for permission to talk to Mr. Malloy about the job and the Junior Housewives’ League. Ollie Mae asks what she likes about Mrs. Malloy. When Betty says she likes everything about her, they stare at each other, knowing that Betty will probably never say that about Ollie Mae.

A week before Christmas, Betty and Suesetta go shopping. Ollie Mae agrees to let Betty work for Mr. Malloy twice a week but not to join the Housewives’ League. There are more white people as they get closer to J.L.’s department store. Betty notices that only the elevator operators have dark skin.

A little girl stares at Betty as if she is an alien. In the toy section, Betty sees that all of the figurines in the Christmas train scene are white. Betty chooses a tea set as a gift. A white woman steps in front of them in line and pays for her things, never looking at them or apologizing.

The cashier takes their money but doesn’t look at them or speak. Outside, Betty says they were rude and suddenly agrees with everything the Housewives’ League stands for. Next, in a shoe store, a clerk tells them they can’t try on shoe without a shoe insert, although the white women aren’t using inserts. Betty says it’s not fair and they convince her to leave. She says they shouldn’t feel bad and they don’t deserve their money. She thinks about how many people like them can’t do what they want, or be treated kindly, because of their skin. She is ready to fight back, and before Betty mentions the Housewives’ League, Suesetta says, “I’ll join with you” (64).

Betty thinks about memories while lying in bed. She thinks of 1943, two years prior. Ollie Mae and Arthur had refused to talk about the war. She remembers women in church crying about the war and the American race riots. There was a collection for Mrs. Duncan’s son, Roger, who had been killed in the uprising. Mrs. Duncan was never the same after his funeral. Betty remembers seeing a newspaper showing Detroit on fire, and a white mob attacking a colored man. The headline was: “Race Riots Kill More Than 20, Injure 700” (68). Ollie Mae had torn the newspaper up with tears in her eyes as Betty wondered, “Where do uncried tears go?” (68).

Betty wanted to reconstruct the paper. She thought that people who died shouldn’t have their stories discarded. Eventually, she learns what was happening. The riots were too big a story to hide from children. She remembers Mrs. Malloy asking the congregation to help clean and restore the Black businesses. Ollie Mae and Arthur hadn’t signed up, but Betty wanted to.

Betty watches her siblings play with the tea set on Christmas. Ollie Mae got Betty a Singer sewing machine. Betty’s a fast learner, which will make her better at helping in Home Economics class. Ollie Mae is impressed by her skill. When Betty says that sewing is a way to be self-sufficient, Ollie Mae tells her not to bring up the Housewives’ League again. She tells her to be grateful and not to talk about Mrs. Malloy and Mrs. Peck all the time.

Then Ollie Mae orders Betty to help her clean. Betty agrees, thinking, “I don’t tell her that I was about to get up, that I really want to help her. That I want to do whatever it takes so she is not mad at me. That I will do anything to make her like me the way she likes my sisters” (73). As Ollie Mae scolds her and says she is like her father, Betty imagines running away.

In bed, Betty decides not to ask any questions as she listens to the rain. Instead, she decides to be quiet to see if God will speak to her.

On the last Saturday of 1945, Betty and her siblings talk about New Year’s resolutions. Suesetta calls and invites Betty to come over. Ollie Mae agrees, but says the dishes have to be done first, and there are a lot of them. Ollie Mae leaves. Betty asks Shirley to do them without telling her that Ollie Mae meant for her to do them, and Shirley agrees. When Betty gets home hours later, Shirley is crying. Ollie Mae whips Betty with a switch as Arthur tells her to stop. Betty now thinks she knows how she got the bruise when she was a baby.

She sits in her room while they eat, packing her clothes. Then she hugs her siblings and walks to Suesetta’s. No one answers when she knocks on the door. Then the Malloys arrive at their house next door. Mrs. Malloy hugs her and takes her inside. Betty feels silly as she cries, but Mrs. Malloy says she’s strong. Betty likes hearing this. She associates strength with boxers, or the men who carry the chairs in church. Mrs. Malloy shows Betty to her room, and they feed her before praying together. Mr. Malloy prays that Ollie Mae will heal from “whatever is hurting her” (84), which confuses Betty.

She falls asleep quickly that night, but wakes with a start, wondering who will take Juanita to the bathroom. She can’t go back to sleep.