When I have this dream lately, I know that I’m dreaming, but this understanding isn’t enough to wake me up. When I’m final y able to open my eyes, grateful for my familiar bedsheets, my body is damp and cold.
In the Magnolia Room, the partygoers were al silver as tea sets, and no one noticed me at al .
The DJ was playing a slow song, “Against Al Odds.” In the center of the dance floor was Ruth Nicole Elizabeth, swaying with her boyfriend, Marcus McCready, home from col ege. His hands rested respectful y at the smal of her back, just above the satin sash. Ruth Nicole Elizabeth’s dress, like her skin, was the color of sand. Her hair, glistening from a cel ophane rinse, reminded me of an oily lunch sack. Over the top of her head, Marcus met my eyes and kind of winked. I turned away and rushed toward the food.
The lady serving the cake, old as Grandma Bunny, was dressed almost the same as I was.
“Is it good?” I asked.
“It’s pretty,” she said, sliding a piece of cake onto my plate.
“Thank you.” I headed toward the door even though the plate probably wasn’t supposed to leave the Magnolia Room. On the twenty-three-story trip down, I tore into the lemon layer cake with my dirty hands.
In the lobby, I set the plate on a shiny-topped coffee table. I was tempted to fol ow the signs to the washroom so I could clean my hands, but I couldn’t bear the idea of mirrors. Instead, I set myself on the couch and sucked my fingers like a barbarian.
“
Psst,
” someone said from the direction of the bathroom. My mother had told me that a man who doesn’t talk to you with actual words isn’t worth your time, but stil I looked around. When I didn’t see anyone, I turned my attention to my hands. Pale yel ow icing rimmed my cuticles so I stuck my thumb in my mouth, wondering if everything on the twenty-third floor had been engineered to match Ruth Nicole Elizabeth’s magnolia-cream complexion. I had busted out of the party before I had a chance to check out the hot-food buffet. I amused myself imagining a pale spread —
cauliflower, baked fish, mashed potatoes. Enjoying these petty, jealous fantasies, I took my thumb out of my mouth and rearranged my hair.
“Ooh,” said a voice. “You got spit in your fake hair.”
“Dana!” I hated the hopeful lilt in my voice.
“Hey, girlie,” she said, strol ing toward me. “Have you seen a security guard around here?”
I shook my head.
“You sure?” she said. “He’s cute, like a DeBarge, but he was hassling us.” Dana looked behind her. At the wave of her hand, another girl appeared. This girl was even less silver than me. Her haircut had a kind of homemade look, like she had trimmed it with paper scissors; her ears were scabbed from amateur attempts with the curling iron. Like Dana, she wore a purple keyhole top and stretch Gloria Vanderbilts. They even wore the same shoes — purple dyed-to-match pumps, the kind other girls wear with prom dresses.
“This is Ronalda,” Dana said.
“We’re best friends,” Ronalda said, as if I didn’t catch the matching outfits.
“Nice to meet you.” I sighed.
Dana and Ronalda sat together on a leather love seat across from me. Ronalda dug into her bag and produced a tube of lotion. She squeezed a little on the tips of her fingers and dabbed the teardrop of skin inside the keyhole of her shirt.
“You so crazy,” Dana said, taking the lotion and doing the same thing. “You want some?”
“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“So,” Dana said to me. “Where does your mother think you are?” She nudged Ronalda with her shoulder. “We are supposed to be in a lock-in at my church.”
Dana put her hand in her hair and then stopped. She felt her ear. “I lost my earring,” she said.
Ronalda said, “Nobody move,” like she was looking for a lost contact. Dana’s voice climbed in pitch. “I hope I didn’t lose it on the MARTA.
They’re my mother’s and her mother gave them to her. Oh my God.”
Ronalda was on her hands and knees, looking under the love seat. Dana muttered and walked herself in little shaky circles. I got up and ran my hand in the crevices of the sofa. “We’l find it.” I took the cushion off the love seat, even though the ladies working the front desk were looking at us cross-eyed.
“I don’t see it,” Ronalda said, standing up.
“Hold on,” I said to Dana. I stepped toward her, lifting her hair from her neck. There, snagged at her neckline, was the hoop earring. I twisted it free and handed it to her. It was antique-looking, like something Grandma Bunny used to wear. The gold was etched with a careful pattern of leaves.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” She threaded it though the hole in her ear while Ronalda put the furniture back together.
I sat back on the little couch, and this time Dana sat by me.
“You saved my life,” she said.
I was pleased enough to break into song, but I waved it away.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“So how come you’re here?” Ronalda said.
“How come y’al are?” I shot back.
“We tried to get into the party upstairs,” Dana said. “But we got turned away.”
“Just because we weren’t invited,” Ronalda snorted.
“I went inside. It wasn’t al that great.”
“Who was there?”
“I don’t know. People. Ruth Nicole Elizabeth, her boyfriend Marcus.”
Ronalda sucked her teeth and Dana tapped her fingers against her cheek.
Dana said, “So you and Ruth Nicole Elizabeth are friends?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I been knowing her since kindergarten and she didn’t even invite me.”
“She lives down the street from me,” Ronalda said.
“She sits next to me in calculus,” Dana said.
“So,” Ronalda said. “If you’re not here for the party, then how come you’re here?”
“I’m working,” I said. “My dad has a limo company. We’re handling transport for Ruth Nicole Elizabeth and her family.”
“You can drive a limousine?” Ronalda asked.
“I
can,
but I’m not. I’m an attendant.” I spoke to her slowly, like she didn’t speak English.
“Your dad is here?” This was from Dana.
“Yeah,” I said. “You two want to go outside and see the cars?”
Ronalda spoke up. “No, we are not into al of that.” She stood and held out her hand. Dana took it and pul ed herself up from the sofa. “We got to go.”
“Wait,” I said, scrambling up. “Dana, you never did make your appointment for your wash-and-set. You want to come in on Tuesday?”
“No,” she said, doing a quick look-around to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything. “I can only come on a Wednesday.”
“Bye,” I cal ed as Ronalda pul ed my silver girl away. It was like a Shakespeare play; they just sort of vanished into the wings, with Dana watching me over her shoulder.
I got back in the elevator and rode down to the parking garage. Uncle Raleigh and Daddy were leaning against the hood of the Town Car, passing a single cigarette back and forth like a joint.
“Is that party almost done with? Me and Raleigh are running out of smokes.”
“They’l be out soon,” I said.
Something in my voice made my daddy turn his attention from the shared cigarette to me. “What’s the matter, Buttercup?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Oh, it’s something,” Uncle Raleigh said.
“I just don’t have any friends,” I said. “I know people or whatever, but who’s my best friend? Who’s going to invite me to their Sweet Sixteen and let me ride in the limo with them?” I covered my face with my cake-sticky hands. My father and Uncle Raleigh looked at one another. It would have been funny to an onlooker. Their confusion had a sitcom quality, like two men who are forced to see to a woman that’s going into labor.
“F-f-forget about them,” my daddy said. “Our party is going to be ten times bigger than this. And we won’t invite Ruth, Nicole, or Elizabeth.”
“And we are going to charge them time and a half for al this extra time they got us sitting out here,” Uncle Raleigh said.
Daddy said, “Goddamn right.”
18
LOVE AND HAPPINESS
ON OCTOBER 18, 1974, when a real y pissed-off black woman flung a pot of hot grits on Al Green, her hair was freshly pressed and curled by none other than my mama. As a result of our little brush with Negro history, nobody made Al Green jokes in our house, or even in the Pink Fox, where you can imagine a lot of women fantasized about taking revenge on a lying man. I think the women liked the story not just because of the drama of it, but because grits were the weapon of choice. The boiling cereal reminded them of being stuck in a hot kitchen, poor and barefoot in the days before they had even heard of waffles or hol andaise sauce. That girl, whatever her name was, took the entire state of Mississippi and used it to kick somebody’s ass. Al you had to do was say “Al Green” and “grits” in the same conversation and the titter of laughing started, but my mama cut it off with a quiet “That’s not funny.” You couldn’t hear it in her voice, but if you looked at her face, at the way she closed her eyes and tucked her head down like she was in prayer, you knew that she was serious.
The woman who did it was named Mary. The
Atlanta Journal
said her family name was Sanford while
Jet
magazine cal ed her Woodson. She told my mother she was visiting Atlanta for a few days in order to attend an AME Usher Board convention. Even before she noticed Mary’s cross pendant — simple, the jewelry equivalent of two sticks tied together — Mama knew that the woman was saved. Even after what happened next, Mama said she never doubted that Mary had come to Jesus. The truly saved don’t have to go around talking about it. They just have this quietness about them like they know exactly where they’re going.
Mary walked in on a Tuesday evening, opening the door at seven thirty, after Mama had finished her last customer of the night. As a matter of fact, Mama was untying her apron and switching off the gas under the irons when Mary crossed the threshold, looking like a kindergarten teacher at the end of a long day. She wore a pink pantsuit, stylish, but the topstitching on the pockets gave away that it was homemade. Mama said she wil never forget that face, smooth as a brown egg, no lines or crinkles, like she had never laughed or cried in her whole entire life.
THIS WAS NOT a good night for a late customer. My mama wasn’t al that steady on her feet, as this was her first ful week of work after her gal bladder operation. These days they can do the whole thing with lasers and make only a little hole in your bel y button, but in 1974 the doctors had to cut you open, straight down the middle, gut you like a fish. Mama was laid up for two weeks, and during that time Grandma Bunny came down to see about her. When Mary came into the shop, Grandma Bunny was only two days gone back to Ackland. To make matters worse, I had come down with a cold and a touch of fever. In the corner of the shop, I dozed fitful y on a pal et, coughing and whimpering in my sleep. Besides, it was time for Mama to change the bandage on her wound.
“Do you take walk-ins?” Mary asked. “I know you are likely closing up, but maybe you can find it in your heart to help me?”
Although it was only a couple weeks into October, something put my mother in the mind of Christmas. Maybe it was just as simple as the name Mary, but Mama felt that God would want her to take this stranger in. “I’m not wel , but I might could help you,” my mother said. “Depending on what you need.”
“I’l tip you good,” Mary said, sitting in the chair like my mother had already said yes. She pul ed half a dozen bobby pins out of her scrawny bun and unwrapped a red rubber band that came away clotted with hair. “Thank you. And God bless you.”
Mama got Mary into the shampoo bowl, and half her hair lay down straight and docile under the faucet. That’s what happens when you have been getting hard presses for more than twenty years. Some of the kink just gets lost.
“Can I talk to you?” Mary asked my mother.
“Of course,” Mama said. “Nobody in here but us.”
“I’m leaving my husband,” she said. “We’re not equal y yoked.” Mary, like my mother, had married young. Mama didn’t say anything one way or another. She just combed through Mary’s half-nappy hair, sectioning it off and plaiting it up to dry.
“The Bible says your mate got to be your equal. Y’al have to both love the Lord in the same way.” Mary’s voice was calm and steady.
It was warm for October, so Mama had the door propped open to let the breeze in. She could smel burning leaves. “You have children?”
Mary said she had three, but they would be al right with their father. The Lord, she said, had cal ed her to another man. They were going to the minister together. This new man was going to take some working on, some praying over, but the Lord was inside him. She could feel it burning through his skin. This boyfriend, Mary said, was chosen. “You ever touch the hand of a preacher that is truly righteous? That has healing in his hands? You know how it’s like he empties out your body and just fil s you up with spirit?”
Mama nodded her head, because she had met a preacher like that years ago, when she was stil a girl in Ackland. This was just after the baby boy died and she was wandering around looking for somewhere to go. This preacher that touched my mother was a child, a little girl, black as a cast-iron skil et, with a nurse’s cap pinned over her short hair. My mother was walking by, struggling with a basket of laundry, when this girl preacher grabbed her by the arm; Mama felt herself hol owed out and fil ed with light. The little-girl preacher held a white leather Bible in her dark hand. “Wil you pray with me, sister?” My mama said she didn’t have time, although she was warm from the child’s touch. “Are white people’s dirty drawers more important than your soul, sister? Come to me,” the little girl said. “Get on your knees with me.” My mother looked over her shoulder. They were standing in front of the colored high school, where Raleigh and James were in class. Mama could imagine the home ec teacher looking at her out of the window and seeing her kneeling in the street with this pickaninny preacher and the basket of laundry beside her. “I can’t,” Mama said. “I just can’t.” The little girl said, “That’s pride. Give me your hand, sister. Your vanity is your burden. Lay it down. Let me touch your soul.” My mama extended her hand, greedy for another dose of that touch. The child squeezed my mother’s hand. “You don’t have to get on your knees. He can touch your heart while you are on your own two feet.” My mama says her legs just gave out under her and she was on her knees in the road and that little girl stroked Mama’s face and talked to Jesus while my mama sobbed. “Ask the Lord to take care of my baby,” Mama begged the girl. “He’l take care of you, too,” the girl said, and with every caress of her tiny hands my mother felt her spirit mend.