The Women of Brewster Place

After Ben’s death, it rains for a full week. The residents of Brewster Place are trapped indoors, unable to gossip about the dramatic events in the neighborhood. All the women—even the little girls—dream about Lorraine, “the tall yellow woman in the bloody green and black dress” (175). As the week progresses, the residents begin to worry that the block party will be rained out.

The narrative describes the details of Mattie’s dream. She dreams that the day of the party is clear, and she is grilling ribs when Lucielia arrives and tells her that she needed to get as far away from Brewster Place as possible, so she kept going until she reached the ocean. Now, Lucielia lives in San Francisco and has a new boyfriend. She apologizes for never writing, but Mattie understands. Ciel tells Mattie and Etta that she had a strange dream about Brewster Place, something about a tall woman in a green dress and Ben, and felt that she needed to visit. It is the same dream that all the women in Brewster Place have shared since Ben’s death, but Mattie and Etta don’t say anything to Ciel. The party swirls around them, but Mattie sees clouds forming and worries that it will rain.