Etta Mae Johnson pulls back into Brewster Place in an “apple-green Cadillac” on a hot summer afternoon. The other residents and the children playing in the street watch as she gets out of the car with a bag of clothes and a stack of Billie Holiday records. From inside her own apartment, Mattie sees her friend coming up the steps and opens the door for her. With Mattie, Etta feels like she can be herself again and sits down to relax. She tells Mattie that the man she was seeing became “ornery” when she decided to go home and refused to give her money for a plane ticket, so she stole his car keys while he was passed out in a drunken stupor.

The narrative flashes back in time to explain that Etta and Mattie grew up together in Rock Vale, Tennessee, where Etta was “in constant trouble” for her “blooming independence.” She left Rock Vale but met similar luck in the big cities. In 1937, “America wasn’t ready for her yet” (60), so Etta took to attaching herself “to any promising rising black star” (60), moving from man to man throughout her life.