The Hat                           3,057 words

Corelle first saw the hat when she was hanging freshly ironed blouses in Mrs Earle’s wardrobe. The hat was sitting on top of a box behind Mrs Earle's shoe rack. It was a light, airy confection, trimmed in gold and yellow ribbon. There were patches of creamy amber satin cleverly alternated with faux leopard skin. Sitting there in the back of the closet it looked more like a richly-polished jewel than something you’d put on your head. She reached out and touched the brim with one finger. She longed to try it on, but she didn’t dare; Mrs Earle was in and out of the room, getting ready for a PTA meeting.

Three days later the hat was still in the exact same place even though Sunday had come and gone. Mrs Earle always wore a hat to church – as did Corelle – but she obviously hadn’t worn this one: the price tag was still on it!  Corelle took a peek at the price tag and nearly swooned. Marked down, it was still far more than she could ever justify spending, even on something this beautiful. Mrs Earle wasn’t at home at the time, so Corelle gently set the hat on her head and took a look at herself in the mirror.  

Her hair might be salt-and-pepper now, but she’d had it straightened just two weeks ago, and the hat sat easily on her head, neither too tight nor too loose. The gold and yellow went well with her dark skin. And what it did for her eyes! Simon, her husband of forty-two years, always told her that her eyes were whisky-brown with a hint of gold in them, and even though she pretended to scorn his fancy, in this hat even she could see it.

Down on her knees cleaning the bathtub, she pictured herself sitting in church in her good brown suit with gold buttons and piping – and the hat. The hat she generally wore to church was still serviceable, but it was getting old and dowdy. And a woman got tired of the same hat all the time. Same old hat, same old worn-at-the cuffs coat, same tired old shoes and gloves and beat-up handbag. Once in a while something pretty and new just made all the difference.

Corelle sighed. Usually getting the bathtub sparkling clean gave her a great sense of satisfaction – especially scouring the slime and mold off the hard-to-reach places around the fixtures and the cracked tiles – but today she took little pleasure in it. She wasn’t the sort of woman who needed to buy herself new clothes to be happy, but surely as hard as she worked, she ought to be able to afford something as nice as that hat once in a blue moon.  

Over the next few weeks, Corelle couldn’t help but notice that the hat stayed in the same place, and the price tag was never removed.  A few times she was even tempted to ask Mrs Earle about it. Every so often, Mrs Earle would give her a bag of Mr Earle’s used things for Simon. But because Mrs Earle herself was as slight and short as Corelle was tall and stout, she donated her own used clothing to the church. Occasionally Corelle was given Mrs Earle’s old handbags and gloves, but this brand-new hat was so obviously superior to Mrs Earle’s usual cast-off clothing and accessories that Corelle could not bring herself to mention it.

I do admire that hat, Mrs Earle –   Corelle imagined herself saying, as she dusted Mrs Earle’s carriage clock and polished her modest collection of silver spoons. But Mrs Earle had a certain brisk, no-nonsense manner that Corelle found intimidating, and she knew that if she ever brought herself to ask Mrs Earle about the hat, she could never keep the shameful longing out of her own voice.

The week before Christmas, Corelle was helping Mrs Earle get the house in order for the holidays. Corelle’s back was already hurting with all the stooping and bending. She was on her fourth trip outside, going through the laundry room with yet another rug to beat when she stopped short and gasped. The hat was sitting on a pile of clothing in a large carrier bag. There were three other carrier bags there too, all full of old clothes.

As soon as she had stretched the rug over the posts outside and given it a cursory beating, Corelle rushed back inside and quickly lifted the hat to see if the price tag was still on it. To her amazement, it was. The hat had not been worn once! Still brand new, and there it was with a mess of worn-out clothes. Mrs Earle, Corelle knew, donated her own cast-off clothing to the church. These clothes were surely destined for the church bazaar – along with this hat!   

Although there were more rugs to beat, Corelle busied herself with cleaning the top of the washing machine. She polished knobs that were already clean and pondered what to do about the hat.

Mrs Earle didn’t want it – that much was plain. If she’d been fixing to give it to someone, she’d have put it in a box and removed the price tag. Since that was the case, would it matter one tiny bit if Corelle just helped herself to the hat? She could offer to drop the clothes off at Mrs Earle’s church and leave the hat in the back of her car.

But even as the thought entered her mind, Corelle batted it away. Stealing was stealing, and the devil was always trying to find a way in. Quite apart from that, it was her cross to bear in life that she was the sort of person who always got caught. She and Daylene Berry had stolen a couple of cans of sweetened condensed milk from McPherson’s Grocery Store way back when they were fourteen. No reason in the world Corelle should have gotten caught, especially with Daylene masterminding the venture  – say what you like about Daylene, she was smart and fast – but for the fact that Corelle had stopped to scratch her leg and in doing so, managed to drop her own can on her bare foot. Auntie Susie had been passing by, and before long Corelle’s Daddy had caught wind of it, and that was that. Daylene had gotten off Scot-free, but Corelle had been marched straight down to old McPherson’s and made to give back her can and apologize. Clyde McPherson was a hateful old man who openly said ‘nigger’ instead of ‘colored’ and charged Negroes and whites two different prices. Her Daddy had been plenty humiliated having to stand there in front of him and acknowledge that his daughter was a common thief, but he’d done it alright, just to teach her a lesson. No, she’d been raised right, and taking the hat – even if it was meant to be a donation – was still stealing.

‘Corelle, there’s two more rugs here to beat.’ Corelle jumped half a foot.

Mrs Earle smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you, but I’m not sure how long the weather’ll hold and there’s the two rugs in the parlour that need a good beating.’

Corelle nodded. ‘I’ll get them out right, ma'am.’

‘You’ve done a fine job on the silver, Corelle,’ Mrs Earle commented. ‘The parlour is just as tidy as can be, too. And I haven’t seen the woodwork shine like that in years.’

Corelle flushed with pleasure.  Mrs Earle wasn’t just saying this; she knew for a fact that she’d let her last two cleaning ladies go because they were different from her, lazy, shiftless creatures whose hearts were not in cleaning.  She turned to go and get the rugs; Mrs Earle was right – the weather was surely not going to hold.

‘Oh, Corelle’ Mrs Earle called out after her, ‘One of these bags is for you. There’s a handbag and a pair of gloves, and some shirts that might fit your sons.’

Corelle had stopped in her tracks, but she now turned to face Mrs Earle. The words were out before she had a chance to stop them: What about that hat, ma'am?

Mrs Earle looked astonished, and Corelle felt her heart sink.  What had gotten into her making her speak out of turn like that! Mrs Earle picked up the hat and held it out. She had a funny look on her face. ‘You mean this?’ she enquired.

Corelle nodded, hardly daring to speak.

‘Why, you can have it if you like, Corelle.  My sister bought it the last time she was in Charleston. It doesn’t -- suit me.’ She looked at the hat as though it were a tacky art project a proud five-year old had brought home.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Corelle.  

Driving home that day, the hat next to her on the passenger seat along with an envelope containing Mrs Earle’s generous Christmas check, Corelle could have wept from happiness. She hadn’t had anything as pretty as this hat in a long time. Her sister-in-law, Ernestine, would eat her heart out. She and her husband owned a dry cleaning business and Ernestine got herself a new hat every year. But she’d never had one as fine as this one.

Corelle’s mind was full of the hat and what she would buy with Mrs Earle’s Christmas bonus – baby clothes for her latest granddaughter, definitely, and a fine, new belt for Simon, she decided. Waiting for the lights to change, she massaged her left shoulder. It had been paining her all day long, a nagging pain that shot right up into her jaw. But never mind – Christmas was in three days’ time and once she’d gotten her own house in order, she had a whole blissful week free.

*   *   *

Merlee Earle sat on the parlour sofa and contemplated the detritus of yet another Christmas. She had stuffed all the used wrapping paper into plastic bags and tidied away all the presents, but there was still plenty to be done. The tree, so beautiful a mere week ago, was fast losing its needles. It would have to go down today, no doubt about it; she’d get Corelle to do it. In fact, where was Corelle, come to think of it? She was supposed to come at 10:00, and here it was almost 11:00. Normally Corelle showed up like clockwork. Perhaps she was getting a little too sure of her position, a little too confident that she was indispensable.

Merlee remembered her mother telling her that you had to keep your distance from your domestics or there was no getting them to do anything properly. Her mother had treated their servants with cool disdain. As a child, Merlee had watched Hildy, the grown woman who helped her keep her room tidy and vacuumed their house, sit down to a meal of the family’s leftovers: chewed-on chicken bones, corn-on- the- cob, and watered down iced tea collected from all their glasses, and she had felt ashamed.  She had cringed to hear her mother tongue-lash Bayles, the man who cut their grass. But it had to be said that her mother always had much better luck with her domestics than she did.

The doorbell rang, startling her. Through the peephole, Merlee saw an elderly colored man, looking anxiously around him. She knew she’d seen him somewhere before, but it was only when she opened the door that she remembered who he was:  Corelle’s husband. She’d run into them in town one Sunday when they were on the way home from their respective churches.

‘I am sorry to barge in on you like this, ma’am,’ he began, and then his face crumpled.

Corelle had died just three days after New Years. He was sorry for the inconvenience, but he thought that she would want to know. He had not been able to find her telephone number so he’d had to come in person. The funeral was scheduled for tomorrow.

* * *

In Corelle’s church, Merlee felt embarrassingly conspicuous. Never in all her life had she felt quite so white, sitting in the middle of that sea of black faces. How relieved she was to spot two other white ladies in the crowd:  Velma, who she knew Corelle did ironing for, and Velma’s sister, who had come along to offer Velma moral support.

‘Sixty-three years old,’ Velma said in a stage whisper, leaning across her sister. ‘Worked for me for eight years and I never did know her age. Hard to tell, really. . .’ Merlee nodded, but stared straight ahead. Velma, she couldn’t help but notice, had alcohol on her breath.  And here it was only 11:00 in the morning!

After the service, which seemed to go on forever, Merlee, Velma and her sister filed past the coffin. Merlee put one hand quickly to her mouth. Corelle was wearing the hat!  Even in death, Corelle’s face was as serene and unreadable as it had always been, but dear Lord, that ridiculous hat! 

Velma, directly behind her, let out a little hoot of laughter, followed by an explosive noise of stifled giggling. As she quickly moved past the casket, Merlee felt her cheeks blaze. Who in the world had decided that Corelle should go to her grave in that outlandish thing? And how awful that Velma had laughed like that!

Merlee’s sister had given her the hat as a joke on her last birthday. She’d always had the habit of bringing silly presents:  one year a purple feather boa, the next year a lime-green troll with day-glo orange hair. And the last time she’d visited, it had been that hat. ‘I just dare you to wear it!’ she’d quipped.

Leaving the church, Velma and her sister made a beeline for their car. Velma’s shoulders seemed to be shaking in mirth, and Merlee could only hope that no one had noticed. She wanted to get home, but she felt that she should pay her respects to Corelle’s husband. He’d been surrounded by family in the church, and she felt that she really ought to say something.

Finally, she spotted him with two of Corelle’s grown-up daughters. The small group advanced slowly.  

‘Mr Jefferson,’ Merlee began, ‘I really am so very  – .’  Merlee stopped abruptly, shocked to find herself dangerously close to tears. And painfully aware that in the background, Velma’s voice was too loud, too cheerful.

Corelle’s husband nodded. ‘She was mighty grateful to you for everything –’ he began. ‘And that hat you gave her – well, she set great store by it. We knew that she would want to be wearing it when –’ His voice cracked, and one of his daughters quickly stepped forward. She was a big, raw-boned girl who looked so much like her mother Merlee almost smiled.

‘Mama was so proud of that hat, she had it on in church on Christmas Day,’ she began, her voice thick with grief. Merlee nodded dumbly.

Corelle’s youngest daughter didn’t look anywhere near as friendly as her sister. She was staring past Merlee at Velma and her sister who’d just gotten into Velma’s car. Merlee flushed with shame, realizing that Velma’s tipsy laughter had obviously been overheard.  

Merlee was nervous now, and desperate to take her leave. ‘I really am sor –’ she began again, but Corelle’s youngest daughter stepped up smartly before she could finish and spoke in a low, but sure voice.

‘Mama worked for so hard, for all of you. You ought to see our house – I’ll bet it’s cleaner than yours is now. She was cleaning it when she had her heart attack.’  The girl’s snapping black eyes, swollen from crying as they were, fairly blazed with anger and scorn. Her father and sister tried to take her arm, but she shrugged them off.

‘She worked so hard for you – cleaning, scrubbing, polishing – and you think it’s funny because she’s wearing your bargain basement hat at her funeral. You come to her funeral and laugh. Well go ahead and laugh, but Mama’s on her way to heaven now, laughing at you –’  The girl’s voice ended in a sob. Merlee stared back at her in dismay. ‘I really didn’t  –’ she began, but her words sounded weak and ineffectual.

‘I am sorry, ma’am,’ Corelle’s husband said, putting one arm around his daughter. ‘We’re all finding it very hard.’ Merlee stared back at him.  ‘I am so sorry for your loss,’ she managed to get out.  Then she turned and walked past the throngs of mourners, past Velma and her sister in their car.

The rudeness of the girl! Couldn’t she see that it was Velma who had laughed and not her? Just because she was sitting next to Velma and her sister-in-law, just because they were virtually the only white people in church, the girl had assumed that the three of them all thought alike, acted alike, were alike. Surely the girl could tell the difference between someone like Velma who started drinking in broad daylight and herself!

Merlee got into her own car, started the engine with trembling fingers, and drove off. The neighborhood the church was in frightened her with its cheap-looking storefronts, its blown-about trash and slouching, angry-eyed young men loitering on the streets.  

Imagine Corelle coming from this neighborhood every other day into neighborhoods like hers with their well-manicured, spacious gardens. Imagine her working all her life for ladies who spent their time playing bridge and cultivating roses. Or drinking all day, like Velma, apparently. Working for ladies who saw her as just another domestic instead of appreciating all her conscientious efforts. Up until now she’d hardly paid it any mind, but the more she thought about it, the worse she felt.

Merlee felt tears welling up in her eyes. She knew that she would never be able to forget the look of pure delight on Corelle’s face when she had first held the hat in her work-roughened hands. It had been nothing more than a joke, a piece of junk. Like the leftover food her mother had served her own servants, the hat had been something unwanted that Merlee was all too happy to discard. And now Corelle was wearing it proudly, laughing down at all of them from her new home in the Kingdom of Heaven.