“What’s your name?”
“Ashley Porter,” he said. “Or it used to be. Now it’s Mud.”
“Can I have one of those?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“A cigarette. Can I have one?”
“You can’t light up on the bus. You’ll get me suspended on top of everything else.”
“It’s for later,” I said. “I couldn’t bring any from Atlanta. My aunt put me through a metal detector and a body search when I came to her house.”
“Did not,” he said, smiling.
“Close to it.”
“What’s your name?”
“Phoebe Elder.”
“What class are you in?”
“How to be a millionaire.”
“What?” He laughed. “C’mon.”
“They put me in some remedial reading class for the time being because I read like someone who just came from another country. I’m not staying here long, so I don’t care.”
“Where you going?”
“Back to my apartment in Atlanta, one way or another,” I told him.
“Sure,” he said. He turned away, and then he turned back and gave me a cigarette.
“Thanks.”
“I should give you the whole pack. I wish you had asked me this morning and I had,” he moaned.
“Maybe your daddy will get him to take you back on the team.”
“My mother will try to get him to do that, but my father’s a hard guy. He’ll tell me I deserved worse and even call the coach and thank him for throwing me off the team. He was a marine.”
“Your daddy was?”
“Yeah, and he never lets me forget it, so don’t complain about your aunt.”
“Who says she wasn’t a marine, too?” I told him, and he laughed again.
I liked his smile. When he relaxed his lips, his eyes brightened like two candles of crystal blue light. He had a very small dimple in his left cheek, too. It flashed when he smiled.
“I get off here,” he said as the bus came to its first stop. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” I said as I stood to let him out. He brushed very close to me, pausing to look into my eyes, and then smiled again.
“How do I get into remedial reading class?” he teased.
“Flunk everything,” I told him, and he laughed.
“See you tomorrow if I’m still alive.”
“Same for me,” I called after him. He waved as he went down the bus steps.
Then I flopped back into my seat. When I turned to look at Barbara Ann, I saw she was glaring at me, looking more like her mother now, her eyes full of suspicion and criticism, as if it came natural.
“How come you were talking to that boy?” she asked when we reached our stop and got off.
“Don’t they let black girls talk to white boys here?”
“I don’t mean that. He’s on the basketball team. I saw him at the game. Shouldn’t he be at practice?”
“You’re awful nosy for an eight-year-old girl,” I told her. “Watch you don’t get it caught in a door.”
“Huh?”
I hurried along until we reached the house. Aunt Mae Louise looked like she had been waiting at the doorway for quite a while to greet me.
“How was your first day at school?” she asked as soon as I entered behind Barbara Ann. Jake was still attending a preschool at a different location.
“Peachy,” I said. “It’s run like a prison.”
“I’m not surprised to hear you say that. I’m sure you’re not accustomed to a well-run school,” she replied. “Never mind. Put your things away, change into something you can work in, and come to the kitchen. I’m rearranging the pantry and I want to clean it out first. Then we’ll work on dinner, and you can set the table before you wash up and dress for dinner.”
“Dress for dinner?”
“We always dress for dinner,” she said. “The dinner table is a special place for a family and should be treated with respect.”
I looked at her as if she had gone crazy, and she pulled those tiny shoulders back as she usually did when she didn’t like something I said or did.
“Hurry up and do what I say,” she snapped.
I wanted to say, “Aye, aye, sir,” and salute, but I knew it would only make her more angry.
She had me take everything off the pantry shelves and dust and polish. Then, I had to put it all back in an organized manner, alphabetizing soups, pasta, rice, and vegetables and fruit in cans. Every once in a while, she would look in and tell me I had a
d
or a
g
in the wrong place and I had to take it all off and rearrange it.
“Concentrate on what you’re doing,” she said. “You know your alphabet at least, don’t you?”
“What difference does it make if a soup starting with
c
comes after one starting with
t
?” I asked, referring to the chicken noodle and the tomato I had confused.
“I can tell instantly what I need. That’s what. Being organized saves us money and time. I can just imagine what your mother’s cabinets were like.”
I shrugged.
“Most of the time, empty,” I said, but she didn’t think that was funny.
Finally, I finished it to her satisfaction, and she sent me off to clean up and dress for dinner. I had no idea what she considered proper, but I showered and put on a black dress Mama gave me last year when she remembered she had forgotten my birthday. It was one of hers when she was younger and much slimmer. I hadn’t worn it since then, and when I put it on, I realized it was tight, especially around my breasts. It had a V-necked collar and because of the way it lifted and tucked, my cleavage deepened. I was going to change into something else when Barbara Ann opened my door to say, “Mama says it’s time to come to dinner. Right now,” she added. “Daddy’s already sitting at the table and Mama says you got to help serve,” she whined.
“Maybe I’ll help her eat it, too,” I said.
“What did you say?”
“Get your ears fixed,” I muttered as I charged past her.
Uncle Buster looked up as soon as I entered the dining room. Jake was already seated and sitting like a proper marionette with his back straight and his hands folded in his lap. Aunt Mae Louise came out of the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth opening and closing.
“What’s that you’re wearing to my dinner?” she cried.
“You said to get dressed up, and this is the best I have,” I told her; Uncle Buster was just staring, a little wide-eyed.
“That’s disgusting. You might as well have come in here naked,” she spit back at me. “Where did you get such a dress? Does Horace know you have it?”
“Mama gave it to me for my birthday last year. It was one of hers.”
“Well, that figures.”
“You want me to go change or what?”
“No,” she said. “We’re not eating a cold supper because you don’t dress properly. Get in here and bring out the string beans and then the mashed potatoes. Barbara Ann, you bring out the pitcher of cold water, and don’t spill any of it.”
She placed a roast chicken in front of Uncle Buster. He was still staring at me, now shaking his head slightly.
“Buster, you want to start carving the chicken?” Aunt Mae Louise asked him sharply.
“What? Oh, yeah,” he said, and began.
After everything was brought out, we sat and Uncle Buster recited a prayer. Aunt Mae Louise kept her head bowed, but I could see her eyes were lifted enough to watch me.
“You use the smaller fork for your salad,” she instructed.
“Why do we need two?” I asked, just curious.
“That’s the way a proper table is set. I’m not surprised you haven’t ever sat at one except the times you were here and obviously forgot.”
“It’s been a long time since we had dinner here,” I remarked. I had to admit to myself that her cooking was good. She had done something to make the potatoes delicious, too.
“You were always invited for the holidays, but your mother had something better to do, like hang out at some sleazy gin palace, I suppose. Even though she was impossible, I did my best to help that girl, but when the devil gets a good grip on you and you don’t care…”
“Amen to that,” Uncle Buster said, chewing vigorously on his chicken leg.
“How come Mama fell to the devil and you didn’t?” I asked. I was really curious about their upbringing, but she took it like a slap on the face.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You think our mama and daddy were bad people? They did their best to show that girl the right ways. She was just born to be bad. Nothing they did worked, and they tried. We all tried, even after your daddy made a fool of himself and married her. Just look at you. Look at what she wrought.”
Tears felt like little drops of burning acid under my lids, but I didn’t let them out. I looked down and ate in silence. I am in hell, I thought. She didn’t have to threaten me with it.
“Don’t you take another tablespoon of those potatoes, Barbara Ann. You got weight to lose,” Aunt Mae Louise snapped, and Barbara Ann’s hand recoiled like a snake. She went into a pout. Aunt Mae Louise turned back to me.
“What’s this I hear about you and some white boy on the bus?” she demanded.
“What?” I looked up at her and then at Barbara Ann, whose pout changed quickly to a smug smile on her lips.
“Not there five minutes and you make a scene?”
“I didn’t make any scene. There was an empty seat beside him so I sat there. What did she tell you?”
“Never mind that. You be sure you don’t bring any disgrace to our front door,” she warned.
The mashed potatoes choked in my throat. I glanced at Uncle Buster, who still had a little of that look of surprise in his face from when I had come in wearing the dress. He ate and was silent like someone who was himself an invited guest at the table and had no right to speak.
“We’ll clear the dishes and bring in the cups for your uncle Buster’s and my cup of coffee.”
“I don’t get any?”
“Children don’t need coffee,” she remarked.
“I’m not a child.”
“Girl,” she said, standing and leaning toward me, “until you learn to behave like a proper young lady and not some urban alley cat, you’re a child. You don’t become an adult because you turn a certain age. That’s the trouble with young people today, right, Buster?”
“Amen to that,” he said, nodding and wiping his mouth.
“Last Sunday, the minister said we should issue licenses for adulthood and not let anyone drive a car, marry, or have children until they pass a test. We coddle and spoil our youngsters so much, we stop them from learning how to be responsible citizens.”
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” Uncle Buster recited.
“Amen,” Aunt Mae Louise said.
“I guess the next thing we’ll do is pass the plate for donations,” I quipped, much louder than I intended.
Aunt Mae Louise looked like she was going to pop her eyes out onto the table. Uncle Buster dropped his jaw. Little Jake looked like he was going to laugh, and Barbara Ann bit down on her lower lip.
“You go right to your room,” Aunt Mae Louise ordered. “No apple pie and ice cream for you tonight. Go on,” she cried, her arm out and finger pointing.
No apple pie and ice cream? I guess I’ll go and cry my eyes out, I thought, but said nothing. I turned and left them gaping after me. When I got to the room, I closed the door and sat on the bed, pouting. Maybe I should just run off tonight, I thought. I could go to Sylvia’s for a day or so. Not having any real money made it all very hard, though. I barely had enough to pay for a bus ticket into the city.
Even though the door was closed, I could hear Barbara Ann moaning about her piece of pie being too small. Uncle Buster took her side, but Aunt Mae Louise was overpowering, and they all grew quiet again. Was this any more of a home than the apartment I had been forced to leave?
At this moment I really did feel like a trapped animal. It tore at my insides, making my nerve endings sing. I rose and went into the bathroom, locking the door. Then I took out the cigarette Ashley Porter had given me and lit up. Doing something as forbidden to me in this house as smoking made me feel a little free at least. I opened the window so the smoke would not be easily detected.
Just after I took one puff, Barbara Ann was at the door.
“I gotta go,” she wailed.
“Just a minute,” I said.
“I gotta go!” she cried louder.
“Damn it.” I took another long puff, blew the smoke out the window, tossed the cigarette into the toilet and flushed. Then I waved the towel about.
“I gotta go now!”
“What’s going on here?” I heard Aunt Mae Louise cry in the hallway.
I unlocked the door.
“I was just going to the bathroom. That’s allowed, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Go, but don’t dawdle in there,” she said.
Barbara Ann stood looking at me.
“I thought you had to go so bad,” I told her.
She glanced at her mother and then rushed in and closed the door.
“Go back to your room. I’ll tell you when to come out to wash the dishes,” Aunt Mae Louise said.
I started away when the bathroom door opened.
“Come look at what’s in the toilet, Mama,” Barbara Ann said.
“What?” Aunt Mae Louise looked at me and then went in.
My heart began to pound. I started for the bedroom.
“Stop!” Aunt Mae Louise shouted. “Just stay right there,” she ordered, her finger pointing to the floor. “Buster!”
Uncle Buster came around the corner.
“What?”
“You go into her room and tear everything apart. She brought in something she shouldn’t and who knows what else?”
“I didn’t bring in anything. I—”
“Go on, Buster,” Aunt Mae Louise commanded.
“What she bring in?”
“A cigarette. A cigarette!”
He looked at me and marched past and into my room.
“God help you if he finds anything else,” Aunt Mae Louise warned, her eyes on fire, “because He’ll be the only one who can.”
I was sure a correction officer looking for drugs in the most severe penitentiary didn’t rip apart a prison cell as completely as Uncle Buster took apart my room. All the while I was made to stand in the hallway and wait outride while he went through my things. So miserable and unhappy, I was like an island with the sea eddying around me.
“If he finds any more or anything else, I swear I’ll call the social services people and have them come and take you to be placed in a foster home this very minute,” Aunt Mae Louise threatened.