After I clean the kitchen

After I clean the kitchen, I go in the formal living room. I stop in the doorway and give that grizzly bear a good long stare. He’s seven feet tall and baring his teeth. His claws are long, curled, witchy-looking. At his feet lays a bone-handled hunting knife. I get closer and see his fur’s nappy with dust. There’s a cobweb between his jaws.
First, I swat at the dust with my broom, but it’s thick, matted up in his fur. All this does is move the dust around. So I take a cloth and try and wipe him down, but I squawk every time that wiry hair touches my hand. White people. I mean, I have cleaned everything from refrigerators to rear ends but what makes that lady think I know how to clean a damn grizzly bear?
I go get the Hoover. I suck the dirt off and except for a few spots where I sucked too hard and thinned him, I think it worked out pretty good.
After I’m done with the bear, I dust the fancy books nobody reads, the Confederate coat buttons, the silver pistol. On a table is a gold picture frame of Miss Celia and Mister Johnny at the altar and I look close to see what kind of man he is. I’m hoping he’s fat and short-legged in case it comes to running, but he’s not anywhere close. He’s strong, tall, thick. And he’s no stranger either. Lord. He’s the one who went steady with Miss Hilly all those years when I first worked for Miss Walters. I never met him, but I saw him enough times to be sure. I shiver, my fears tripling. Because that alone says more about that man than anything.
AT ONE O’CLOCK, Miss Celia comes in the kitchen and says she’s ready for her first cooking lesson. She settles on a stool. She’s wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.
“What you know how to cook already?” I ask.
She thinks this over, wrinkling her forehead. “Maybe we could just start at the beginning.”
“Must be something you know. What your mama teach you growing up?”
She looks down at the webby feet of her panty hose, says, “I can cook corn pone.”
I can’t help but laugh. “What else you know how to do sides corn pone?”
“I can boil potatoes.” Her voice drops even quieter. “And I can do grits. We didn’t have electric current out where I lived. But I’m ready to learn right. On a real stovetop.”
Lord. I’ve never met a white person worse off than me except for crazy Mister Wally, lives behind the Canton feed store and eats the cat food.
“You been feeding your husband grits and corn pone ever day?”
Miss Celia nods. “But you’ll teach me to cook right, won’t you?”
“I’ll try,” I say, even though I’ve never told a white woman what to do and I don’t really know how to start. I pull up my hose, think about it. Finally, I point to the can on the counter.
“I reckon if there’s anything you ought a know about cooking, it’s this.”
“That’s just lard, ain’t it?”
“No, it ain’t just lard,” I say. “It’s the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.”
“What’s so special about”—she wrinkles her nose at it—“pig fat?”
“Ain’t pig, it’s vegetable.” Who in this world doesn’t know what Crisco is? “You don’t have a clue of all the things you can do with this here can.”