A Banner of Love
by
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“Taylor, Esther must be a good cook too,” Phyllis announced loudly during the applause.
The clapping stopped. The room was silent.
“Phyllis,” Richard muttered under his breath.Taylor smiled at her, but the veiled insult to me—to us—came through. He would not let it pass. Shirley and Sandra-Kay glanced at me before hastily withdrawing to the kitchen. A part of me wanted to flee with them. The rest of the faces suggested that Phyllis had done more harm to herself than to me. Even if they were all thinking the same thing, civility prohibited saying it. You were not supposed to remind a colleague to his face that he had married beneath him.
I readied myself. Taylor could cut with words, but it was just a stupid comment. I put myself in Phyllis’s place. We were competitors. She was merely trying to press her advantage. Maybe everybody was willing to overlook my being a Negro, but would they overlook my being a servant? Could they really imagine Shirley or Sandra-Kay playing the sophisticated hostess to a party of well-heeled clients?“What?” Phyllis asked nervously, looking around at everyone. She reached for a cigarette. No one moved to light it for her. “What did I say?” she said, the sound of a plea in her voice. “I mean, Esther’s…Esther’s probably a fabulous cook, right? That-that was her profession before--”
Profession. Nice try, I thought. I wondered if Shirley and Sandra-Kay—or Nettie, for that matter—considered themselves professionals.“She became my bride.” Taylor finished Phyllis’s sentence and then proceeded to coolly take a drink from his coffee cup, at perfect ease.
My bride. The way he said it made me completely forgive him for keeping me from his family. It was not because he was ashamed of me. He was proud of me. I was still his bride.
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About the Book
In the United States of the 1950s, there is peace, prosperity, and the American Dream. Aiming to claim their fair share of it, Taylor and Esther Payne begin their lives as a married couple in the haven of Haverly Street in Greenwich Village, New York. Here they can have their love and their license, and though their journey is one of love and trust, it is not without its challenges. As a Negro woman, Esther learns to live in Taylor’s white world no longer as his housekeeper but as his wife. In addition to the social conventions that are still against them, even in New York, Esther fears that their marriage has exacerbated the distance between Taylor and his family. Taylor won’t talk about it. He is dismissive of his sister and uncle, but Esther is haunted by their absence. She yearns for their family to be whole—but what she learns in the process may endanger their happiness permanently. Set in New York in the 1950s, this novel tells the story of a bold passion between two newly married people as they change their ways for the sake of love.
About the Author
Josephine Garner resides in Stone Mountain, Georgia. She is well traveled, yet her roots remain grounded in East Texas history and culture. A social worker, Garner works to promote health and social justice. Her writing explores and celebrates the fascinating complexities of life. A Banner of Love, a sequel to Solomon’s Blues, is her third novel.