Seth and Samona (11 page)

T
he one good thing about the beauty contest was that I didn’t have to dress up. Manmi rushed us all out of the apartment a whole hour and a half early so we could get good seats. I saw her looking at me funny but she was too busy pushing everyone out the door to bother with me. I had put on Jean-Claude’s Yankees baseball cap and some big dark sunglasses that I found in the library at school. I didn’t want anybody to recognize me. Last night I had made a decision about Samona. I had to find a way to prove to her that she didn’t have to change. I’d done what Papi had said and tried hard to think of life without Samona. It
was
peaceful, just like I’d told Papi. But it was also boring. Then I thought about life with the new Samona in it, and it was just as boring. When I’d tried to help Jean-Claude that Sunday I’d helped to make things better with my family. Now it was time to make things better with Samona.

When we got to the auditorium, Manmi and Granmè made us walk all the way up front and take some seats
in the third row. Jean-Claude slouched down in his seat and started snoring right away. I could tell he was faking it. While Papi read the newspaper, Manmi, Granmè and Chantal started talking in whispers about Samona’s chances for winning. They kept looking around them like they expected enemy spies to be listening to what they had to say. Then they started talking about what everyone was wearing. Finally, Jean-Claude opened up one eye and said something about beauty contests being about exploitation and that Chantal, Manmi and Granmè were a bunch of “un-feminists.” That got Chantal all mad and she leaned toward him and started arguing that beauty contests were getting better and how they weren’t all about looks anymore and how about Miss America 1990 who was black and Haitian and smart and in law school but not all that beautiful and that’s when I stopped listening. At least they weren’t fighting about Jerome anymore. In fact, when Jean-Claude and Chantal did fight now, it was more like the way Samona’s brothers and sister fight. It wasn’t about serious stuff and they forgot about it almost right away. Most of the time they even seemed to get along.

I got up to look around the auditorium. It was half-full. A lot of people were dressed up in suits and church dresses. You could tell who the parents of the contestants were ’cause they were set up on one side of the stage in the reserved seats. They were looking around all nervous and giving each other fake smiles.

Way in the back I saw Mrs. Whitmore sitting in a seat with a big pole in front of it. I guessed that she didn’t have much faith in this new Samona and was expecting the real Samona to make an appearance and embarrass the entire fifth-grade class of Atticus Elementary School.

Way up front, sitting by herself in a white dress with her hands folded in her lap, was Mrs. Roberta Armstrong, Bessie’s mother. She was looking straight at the stage and not paying any attention to anyone else around her.

I saw Mrs. Fabiyi marching down the aisle heading for the reserved seating. She had on one of her Nigerian dresses but this one was a whole lot fancier. She had on a new head wrap too that was blue and black and stiff-looking. She looked like an old African queen and everybody turned their heads to stare at her.

Then I saw everyone looking toward the back and I turned to see Samona’s family walking in. I could hardly believe it, but Nigel and Anthony were wearing suits and ties. Leticia was in a long dress and there was Mrs. Gemini in a gold lame miniskirt and a white sequin shirt. She wore long curly hair and spike heels. I knew right away that Mrs. Gemini must be working on one of her stories for the
Intruder
’cause she keeps her hair in braids all the time and the only shoes she ever wears are black boots. She was holding on to the arm of a short, skinny, lemon-yellow man with round glasses and a red bow tie.

“Hey, y’all,” I said, impressed.

“Seth, honey.” Mrs. Gemini rubbed my head like she always does and pulled the man up closer to me. “This here is Mistah Biggs.”

“Hi, Mrs. Gemini. Mr. Biggs,” I mumbled. Now, I knew something was up. Mrs. Gemini never calls me Seth.

“Asailum malekum
, little brother.” Mr. Biggs shook my hand up and down.

“Mr. Biggs is in the Nation of Islam,” Mrs. Gemini said in a hushed tone. I saw Leticia, Nigel and Anthony rolling their eyes behind her back.

“Like Malcolm X?” I said, ’cause that was the only thing I could remember about the Nation of Islam.

“Just like Malcolm X,” Anthony said with a nod, then mouthed, “kicked out.”

“Why don’t we all take a seat,” Mr. Biggs said, coughing a little.

“Yeah.” Leticia smiled, letting Mr. Biggs and her mama lead the way.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked her quickly.

“Samona ain’t told you yet?” Leticia grinned even wider, showing the gap in her front teeth. “Mama’s thinking about converting. At least that’s what Mr. Biggs thinks. You got to hear this one, Seth.”

I watched Leticia, Nigel and Anthony move to the reserved seats, trying not to laugh at Mrs. Gemini’s disguise. The old Samona would have told me all about what’s going on by now. Mrs. Gemini must be doing
that religious assignment she was talking about the last time I’d gone to their house. Just as I sat down in my seat, the lights went off.

A tall, skinny lady with hair piled up on top of her head came out and started speaking into the microphone in the middle of the stage.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the fifteenth annual Little Miss Dorchester contest.” The skinny lady was smiling hard enough to make her face crack. She started going on and on about the history of the contest and then she began to introduce the contestants. One by one, fifty-five girls came up and spoke into the microphone.

At first I couldn’t tell one from the other. All of them had on frilly yellow, white or pink dresses. Everybody’s hair looked fresh from the hot comb. And they all said the same thing.

“Good morning, my name is Aneisha Maron and I live in Dorchester.”

“Good morning, my name is Shelita Gordon and I live in Dorchester.”

“Good morning, my name is Anita Kayne and I live in Dorchester.”

I was thinking they could have left out the “Dorchester” part, seeing as this was the Little Miss Dorchester contest, when Bessie Armstrong came out. She had on a frilly white dress too and her hair was twisted into a bunch of Shirley Temple curls. When she came up to the microphone, I saw her looking at
her mother. Mrs. Armstrong leaned forward and mouthed the words along with her.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, proud members of our community. My name is Bessie Armstrong and I’m proud to call Dorchester my home,” Bessie said in a loud voice. She was smiling more than I’d ever seen Bessie smile.

“She’s pretty,” I heard somebody behind me whispering.

Then, way in the back of the girl who was speaking now, I saw Samona coming across the stage. Only something was different. It wasn’t the new Samona. And it wasn’t the old Samona. This girl had on a white dress but it wasn’t frilly and she had a bright orange and green kente-cloth strip draped across her shoulders. This Samona had her hair in a fancy circle corn-row with bright white beads in it. I knew right away that Mrs. Fabiyi had done it for her. She wasn’t wearing a ton of makeup like all the other girls and she wasn’t smiling like crazy either. In fact, this girl looked scared.

When it was her turn, Samona walked up to the microphone and whispered,
“Akaroo
, my brothers and sisters. That means ‘good morning’ in Yoruba. I’m Samona Gemini and I live where you all live: Dorchester.”

Then her face split into a big grin and she walked to her place with the rest of the girls. I saw Bessie smiling at Samona. The audience just about went crazy clapping
for Samona and I heard people whispering how cute she was. For the first time, I thought—
Could Samona really win this contest?

The talent segment of the beauty contest started right after that. I’ve never seen so many girls twirl batons or play the piano before. One even played the tuba. A couple of girls did some tap-dancing. And a whole lot of them sang. The audience clapped the loudest for this one girl, Chiquita Arnold, who just stood there and made faces. Her face must have been made of rubber cause she could pull it and stretch it into all sorts of funny and scary faces. Then Bessie came onstage in a pink tutu and did some ballet dancing while twirling
two
batons. She never dropped them once either. Even I was impressed with that.

Finally, Samona came out and she had changed into some old raggedy long skirt and a shirt with holes in the arms. She had a handkerchief wrapped around her head and was carrying a big basket on one arm. I thought, Oh, no. Here it comes! Now Samona would make a fool of herself. But nothing happened. She just stood there, not moving, and staring at the stage. After a long minute, the audience started whispering. Samona looked more scared then she had during her introduction.

Come on, Samona, I said to myself, leaning forward. I was waiting for her pride to kick in. She’d led the way up those stairs to Mrs. Fabiyi’s apartment even though I knew she was just as scared as I was. Any minute now
she would get that hard look in her eyes and then it would be, “Watch out!”

“Come on, Samona,” I whispered out loud this time. But Samona didn’t do anything and a couple of kids in the audience started calling out, “Get off the stage!”

It was like she was trapped up there. Samona couldn’t do anything because she was trying to be somebody normal. Only this somebody normal didn’t have Samona’s guts or her attitude.

Before I could think about it, I’d jumped out of my chair and into the aisle. Maybe if I yelled at her and called her a bo-bo head she’d snap back to herself. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until I got to the first row and saw Samona still frozen on the stage. She didn’t even know I was there. Some people in the audience were looking at me so I did the first thing that came into my head.

I flapped my arms.

Then I wobbled my legs and stuck my head out back and forth.

I was doing Samona’s funky chicken dance and people in the audience were starting to point at me.

I wobbled down the aisle, flapping harder. I could hear some giggling coming from behind me.

“Oooohhh yeeeaaah!” I sang loudly, like I’d seen Samona do, and then I started shaking my legs in the air one at a time. By now the whole audience was laughing and watching me. I didn’t mind. It felt good to just jump around and just act any way I wanted to.
This was what Samona must feel like all the time, I thought.

“Stop that!”

The skinny lady from the stage was coming down the aisle after me, and she was mad. I started wobbling faster, until I was running around the auditorium with the skinny lady chasing after me. I passed Mrs. Whitmore once and saw that she was laughing as hard as the rest of the audience.

When I came back around to the stage, I saw that Samona was laughing too. She had her hand over her mouth to hide it but I could tell. She didn’t look scared anymore. I ran back to my seat, where Papi, Manmi, Jean-Claude, Granmè and Chantal were staring at me like they didn’t know me. The skinny lady didn’t know where I’d sat down. She walked up and down the aisle for a few minutes muttering things like “pageant integrity” before huffing back to the stage.

After everyone quieted down, Samona looked straight into the audience without smiling again and started talking in a loud, serious voice that sounded like an old woman.

   Samona was doing that speech by Sojourner Truth that Mrs. Whitmore had read to us one day in history class. Samona made every word ring out and put so much feeling into the speech that I forgot she wasn’t Sojourner Truth for a while. So did the audience, ’cause Samona got a standing ovation. Manmi had tears in her eyes and Jean-Claude was whistling and clapping his hands off. That’s when I started thinking that Samona
deserved
to win the contest. So I wasn’t so surprised when after giving the audience a lecture on proper pageant etiquette, the skinny lady announced that Samona, Bessie, Chiquita Arnold and some other girl had made it to the finals.

The next part of the contest was personality and it was pretty boring. The skinny lady just listed the achievements and community work or whatever else the contestants had done that made them look good. While she was doing this, the four finalists came out dressed in new fancy dresses. Then all of them stood in a row and waited for the skinny lady to stop talking
and begin the question part of the program. Bessie still looked scared. Samona just looked quiet and serious and the other two girls were smiling their heads off.