Holding their plates and placing their glasses atop coasters on the coffee table in front of them, they got comfortable.
Sara observed that Phylicia was every bit as beautiful as she looked in the movies. In her late thirties, she was petite and had delicate bone structure. Her golden-brown skin was unmarred by age or injury and her dark, liquid brown eyes seemed as guileless as a young child’s.
Sara knew her estimation in that instance was faulty. Phylicia was not innocent by any means. She had fought her way to the top in Hollywood. She was not one to mince words about directors and producers whom she’d left whimpering like babes in her wake. Nobody messed with Phylicia Edwards and got away with it.
She was a warrior.
“How old are you, darlin’?” Phylicia asked Sara.
She was eating fast, obviously enjoying her food. But she didn’t talk with food in her mouth. She swallowed first, then spoke.
“I’m twenty-four,” Sara told her.
Phylicia’s eyes stretched. “I would have guessed twenty-one. You look fresh out of college.”
“I graduated from college at twenty. I saw no reason to stay any longer than three years if I could get my bachelor’s degree in three years’ time. I went to graduate school at NYU once I came here. That’s where I met my husband.”
“I never went to college,” Phylicia told her. She speared a piece of melon, chewed it thoroughly, swallowed, and said, “By the time I was twelve I was an expert at avoiding the hands of my lecherous stepfather. Two years later, I left home because he became more aggressive. I went to L.A. to live with my older sister who knew all about the bastard. She hadn’t been as lucky. But she refused to allow that episode in her life to define her. She went to school and became a teacher. I got to go to high school in L.A. and when I was sixteen I went to test for a role on a sitcom, got it…”
“Hocus Pocus,” Sara said excitedly. “I used to love it when I was a kid.”
“Be careful, you’re dating me,” Phylicia joked.
Hocus Pocus had been a sitcom about a family of African-American witches. Kind of like Bewitched, but with more flavor.
“It didn’t last very long,” Phylicia went on. “But at least I got my foot in the door and the rest, as they say, is history, or herstory. Now, tell me, Sara, do you want to be in advertising for the rest of your life?”
“What did you all do, read my file?” Sara joked.
“Something like that,” Phylicia confirmed. “We all got the memo on Sara Minton.”
“I don’t really know,” Sara said wistfully. She had yet to put a morsel of food in her mouth and didn’t know how in the world Phylicia managed a conversation while consuming everything on her plate.
Phylicia saw Sara’s eyes on her plate and laughed. “After loads of Hollywood lunches I’ve learned to eat fast and talk out of the corner of my mouth. Especially in the lean years when somebody else was paying. You also learn how to pack your purse with food without being found out. Girl, I could eat for days on what I pilfered at a party. Sorry, you were telling me what you want to do with your life.”
“I don’t really know,” Sara said again. “Before Billy died I thought I was reasonably happy working at the ad agency. But now, I’m not so sure. When I was a kid, I dreamed of owning a bookstore probably because I loved books so much, but I haven’t entertained that notion in a long time.”
“You know,” Phylicia said. “Our childhood dreams often tell us things about our personalities that we sometimes forget when we become adults. I’m not saying a grown man should go be a cowboy because he wanted to be one when he was a kid. But I do believe everybody should do something adventurous every now and then.”
Emboldened, Sara asked, “What have you done that was adventurous?”
“Last month, when I was filming in Ethiopia, I helped the wife of a government official escape out of his clutches. We went into his compound dressed like visiting nuns and when we left she and her two children were likewise attired. They were safely in Sudan before he realized they were missing.” Her tone was conspiratorial the whole while.
She’s talking about a movie role, Sara thought skeptically. However Phylicia, as she would soon learn, was telling the absolute truth.
A few minutes after everyone had finished eating, Eunice got up and went to stand in front of the huge fireplace. All of the ladies gave her their undivided attention.
“I’m so happy to see you, my sisters,” Eunice began, a warm smile on her face. “This year we celebrate over one hundred and forty-one years of existence, ever since an ex-slave woman who was a member of the Underground Railroad started a secret organization of women, black and white, who would aid women and children by helping them escape dangerous situations. Her name was Celestine and in 1860 when she started her secret society she referred to the members as Aminatu’s Daughters after the Nigerian princess, Aminatu, who gained wealth and fame by being a fierce warrior and who built walls around the city of Zaria in order to protect her people from invaders. We are still fierce warriors and we are still protecting the people!”
There was uproarious applause. The ladies got to their feet and gave their leader a standing ovation.
Eunice smiled benevolently and gestured for them to sit down. “Francesca has brought her best friend, Sara, to meet us. Sara is recently widowed, and some of us know what an emotional time that is, how we’re suddenly unsure of our direction in life.” She looked directly into Sara’s eyes, her own hypnotic. “The one thing that saved me, Sara, when I lost Zachary, was getting out of myself. I volunteered in the neighborhood, at my children’s school. It was at that time that I got involved with politics and I also went back to school and got my doctorate. I became an expert in foreign affairs. With my first assignment overseas I got to witness firsthand the subjugation of women in the country I visited. I won’t name the country. There are so many like it, where women are considered second-class citizens or, worse, as chattel. Women in the United States don’t know how good they have it compared to a lot of other women all over the world. So, after some research, I discovered Celestine and her story. And I realized that with the help of good friends, I could finish what Celestine had started. So, we pooled our resources, both financial and intellectual, and we started to do something about our sisters in countries where they had no rights. And since 1999, we have aided over five thousand women and children by educating them, where needed, and relocating them. Not always to the States, either. We have branches in over twenty countries.”
Her curiosity up, Sara asked, “But how do they contact you? How do you know who needs your help?”
“I’m the secretary of state,” Eunice said without bragging. “Special reports come across my desk all the time. Plus, we have people in governments all over the world who report cases of abuse. For example, I suppose you read about the Ethiopian woman who was going to be stoned to death for adultery while the man she had sex with, and whose child she gave birth to, got off scot-free?”
Sara nodded in the affirmative. The case had been in the news for weeks. Many countries expressed their outrage at the severity of the punishment, but apparently none of them had the authority to step in and remove the poor woman. Three days before her sentence was to be carried out, she disappeared from her prison cell. No one knew how she had escaped. Officials claimed the prison guards were guilty of taking a bribe to let her go. Prison guards swore they were innocent of such dirty dealings.
At any rate, she was not apprehended. The Ethiopian government had no proof of a conspiracy, so they let it go. They had bigger problems to worry about. They did, however, promise to keep an eye out for the young mother and if they ever caught her, she would then be put to death for her crime.
“She’s living in France now,” Eunice said. “She’s getting training