“I didn’t know Lovey was still driving.”
“Oh, yeah. She drive better than me.”
I hear someone coming down the steps. It’s a grungy-looking black guy in his mid- to late thirties. “What up?” he says to me, like I know him. He turns his Kangol cap around apparently so I can see his face.
His teeth are all the wrong color, at least the ones that are there. Joy doesn’t seem to notice. He pulls her against his chest and squeezes her harder than necessary. His fingernails are filthy. He kisses her on the lips and says, “See you later, baby,” and out the front door he goes.
I feel like throwing up for both of us. “And who in the world was that?”
“That’s my friend, Ray Earl.”
“Is he a neighbor?”
“No. What would make you ask that?”
“Because I didn’t see a car out front.”
“Ray Earl takes the bus,” she says with a sick kind of pride.
“Do your kids see these guys coming and going?”
“It ain’t like I have that many.”
“You are making me mad, Joy. Really, really, mad. Are you using drugs?”
“Only when I can afford to. I’m just depressed. Can’t you tell?”
“Everybody’s depressed. Haven’t you noticed? Where’s the vacuum?”
“In the closet over there.”
“Then why don’t you get it and turn it on. I’ll pick up these cups and let’s get this place cleaned up.”
I check Lovey’s plastic plants for moisture, but, thank God, they’re dry. When Joy fires up a cigarette, I snatch it out of her mouth. “Not in here you don’t.”
“I only do it when ain’t nobody home.”
“Well, I’m here and I’m allergic to smoke.”
“Since when?”
I want to say since six weeks ago. But Lord knows what she would do with this information. I just give her a “look” and during the next hour she must make at least five trips out to the backyard. She seems to smoke more for pleasure than worry, but I’m getting worried. “Does Lovey usually stay gone for this long without calling?”
“What’s the big deal, Marilyn? Damn. She lives in this town. She probably took the kids to the park or something. Chill out.”
The kitchen is disgusting. One- and two-quart boilers are on the stove. One is half full of dried pork-’n’-beans. The other with remnants of oatmeal. There are two dead sausage links lying in state in a half inch of cold white grease. The sink is full of dishes, and what on earth could Lovey’s hot comb and bumper curling iron be doing on that dish towel? The table has a stack of mail that’s higher than the empty cereal bowl it’s next to. I flip through the envelopes and notice that at least nine or ten of them are from the bank. They haven’t been opened. Which is strange. Even stranger is the fact that they’re all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Herman Dupree. If my daddy has come back to life in Fresno, I guess this should clear it up. I open one envelope.
Inside is a returned check, made payable to Farmer’s Insurance Company for $52.31, and stamped across the face of it are the words:
ACCOUNT CLOSED
. The remaining envelopes all appear to have been written against this same account and in Lovey’s handwriting. Looks like she was paying bills, but why would she do this? Something’s not right around here, and I don’t want to ask Joy.
I’m eating Top Ramen and trying to find a channel on the TV that works without cable when a car finally pulls up. The kids come running in through the front door before it sounds like Lovey has turned off the engine.
“Hi, Aunt Marilyn. Guess what? Lovey got us lost!” LaTiece shouts.
And then right behind her, five-year-old LL. “Her did, her did!”
“Stop yelling,” Joy yells. “Where have y’all been?”
“All over,” LaTiece says, waving her arms to show the range they covered. She sounds seventeen instead of seven. “It took us forever to get to the store.”
“What store?” Joy asks.
Here comes Lovey sashaying through the door like she just learned a new dance step. I don’t know how she walked out of this house in that getup. She’s wearing a black sequined after-five dress that’s too tight, over which she has a gray zip-up sweatshirt. To finish this look, she’s got on knee-high stockings that are a shade too light. Her sneakers look brand new. This is hard to swallow, but I just take the plastic bag she’s handing me, realizing that she still looks a bit confused, despite that smirk on her face. “Well, hello there, Daughter! What in God’s name are you doing sneaking up on us like this?”
Maybe she’s kidding. But by the look in her eyes, I can tell that she’s not. I walk over and give her a kiss on her cheek. Her skin is still smooth and the color of an old copper penny. It is the one thing on her that is not aging as fast as the rest of her. “Lovey, don’t you remember me calling the other day and telling you I was coming down?”
“Nope.”
“Seriously?”
“If I did, I’d tell you, now wouldn’t I? Here, take this bag for me, would you? My feet feel like they’re swelling up.”
“What store did you guys go to?” I ask.
“Seven-Eleven,” LaTiece says. She is eating a bag of nachos and has a bag of some kind of candy clutched tightly in her other hand.
“What did y’all eat for lunch?” Joy asks her.
LaTiece holds her bags up. LL has disappeared.
“That ain’t enough. Where else did y’all go?”
“Nowhere. I told you Lovey got lost and I had to show her how to get us home.”
“Hold up,” Joy says. “You mean the Seven-Eleven five blocks from here that we always go to?”
LaTiece is shaking her head up and down.
“Well, where the hell did you go, Lovey?”
“If I knew that I would tell you. I thought I just made a wrong turn is all.”
“We was on the freeway, Mama!”
“The freeway!”
This feels like a bad sitcom, one that’s so bizarre it’s not funny. Something is wrong with my mother.
“Can I fix you something to eat, Marilyn? You hungry?” she asks, heading for the kitchen.
“No thanks, Lovey.”
“I’m glad to hear you say no ’cause you look like you need to say it more often. You bigger than when I saw you last time.”
“Don’t remind me. Why don’t you go sit down and take it easy.”
“I’m fine. Joy, did you water the plants like I asked you to, girl?”
“Yes I did, Lovey.”
I walk in the kitchen after my mother and LaTiece follows us. “Wait out there until we come back out,” I say to her.
“Why?”
“Because I said so, that’s why.”
“But you ain’t my mama.”
I was one second away from snatching that bag out of her hand but all I said was, “I know I’m not your mama, but I’m your auntie which is almost the same thing. Now I’m only going to say this one more time. Go on back in there and leave me and your grandmother alone for a few minutes.”
“You spending the night?”
“Yes!”
“Where you gon’ sleep?”
“I don’t know, now go!”
She strolls down the short hallway and disappears. Lovey is standing at the stove, turning on all of the eyes.
“Lovey, how are you feeling these days?”
“I feel fine. Sometimes I admit I have a little trouble remembering things, but other than that, I feel just dandy.”
I hold up the envelopes. “Do you remember writing these checks?”
She looks at them like she doesn’t.
“When was the last time you had a physical, Lovey?”
“I don’t know.”
“Joy?!”
“What?!”
“Come in here for a minute, would you?”
LaTiece beats her here. “Did I call you?”
She shakes her little head, as if to say, “Too bad, I’m here anyway.”
“Joy, when was the last time Lovey had a physical?”
“Whew, let me think.”
“Well, when was the last time she went to the doctor?”
Lovey is looking at us both, waiting for the answer.
“Has it been over a year?”
“Probably,” Joy says.
“She needs to go,” I say. “Because something’s not right. And I want her to get checked out.”
“You can take her then, since you here.”
“But I’ve gotta go home tomorrow.”
“Well, ain’t that just too bad. You the one who opened your big mouth.”
“You know what I want to do?” Lovey says.
“No, what do you want to do?” I ask.
“I would like to move out of this dump and someplace where somebody can help me do things that’s getting hard for me to do. I don’t want to cook another meal or mop another floor. I want to live where I can make some friends my own age who might have health problems but can still walk and talk, anything to get me away from these brats and this trifling daughter who got the wrong name—Joy, my foot—as soon as humanly possible.”
It is hard for me to believe that this is my mother talking. In fact, she used to say she should charge extra to all the women who sat in her kitchen chair while she pressed and curled their hair just complaining away about their husbands and gossiping to no end about this person and the next, and Lovey would just say the same thing over and over: “I know what you mean, sugar,” and for some reason they always felt consoled. She never repeated a word they said because she said then she would be part of the mess and “if you don’t start no
mess,
won’t be no
mess.
” This was one reason why she never lost a customer. “Do you realize what you just said here, Lovey?”
“Oh, she knows, all right,” Joy says. “I told you she can be herself and then turn on you like a pit bull. You didn’t believe me, but here’s the proof,” she says, and storms on up the stairs.
“You need to shut up, girl! I know exactly what I’m saying and it don’t matter if I forget this, because I got it all wrote down,” Lovey says.
“What do you have written down?” I ask Lovey.
“What to do if I ever get too sick and can’t think for myself.”
“And where is this written down?”
“On that piece of paper with little lines on it. I filled it out a long time ago when Joy took me to the hospital.”
“When did Joy take you to the hospital?”
“A long time ago.”
“For what? What was wrong with you?”
“I don’t remember but I didn’t die in the ambulance so it couldn’ta been all that bad.”
“Ambulance? Why didn’t…oh, never mind. Do you remember where you put that piece of paper, Lovey?”
“It’s somewhere safe. That’s all I know. Go find it.”
“I will,” I say, without knowing whether she’s telling the truth or not.
I sleep in a twin bed with LaTiece. She apparently rocks in her sleep, too. I slide my arms around her waist and she snuggles even closer to me, as if no one ever hugs her like this.
When I hear somebody walking around I get up. It’s coming from Joy’s room. I hope it’s not a man. I walk down there. Her door is cracked. I tap it open and there’s Lovey standing next to Joy’s bed. I hear her snoring. I open the door and go in. “Lovey,” I whisper, “what are you doing in here?”
She doesn’t answer me but is staring down at Joy. “We should just take a pillow and hold it over her face,” she says.
I tap her on her shoulder. “Come on, Lovey, let’s go back to sleep.”
She turns to leave without being ushered. I walk her back downstairs to her room. She gets in bed and I pull the covers under her chin. “Good night,” she says, and closes her eyes. I wipe the perspiration mixed with tears from mine.
In the morning I’m shocked when I don’t throw up. Even after I smell LaTiece’s bubblegum toothpaste and bacon coming up the stairs. I must be over the hump. And although Lovey’s been going to the same doctor for the past four or five years, she doesn’t remember his name. It takes me almost an hour to find it. I’m put on hold for what feels like another hour but when the doctor finally gets on the line, I explain who I am and the reason why I’m calling instead of Lovey. He suggests that she have a complete blood workup before coming in for her physical. I tell him how far I have to drive. He says she can have it done on the same day but the results won’t be back for a few days. He’ll call me to discuss what he finds. He gives me back to the receptionist to schedule them both.
At breakfast, I tell Lovey that I’ll be back down to take her. She seems happy. “Joy, why did you have to take Lovey to the emergency room?”
“What in the world are you talking about, Marilyn? I ain’t never had to take Lovey to no hospital and definitely not in no ambulance.”
“But that’s what she said last night, didn’t you, Lovey?”
“I don’t know, girl.”
“I told you, didn’t I?” Joy says like she’s pleased.
“Regardless if it’s true or not, please, do not under any circumstances let her get behind the wheel of that car. Promise me that?”
“Yeah. Well…”
“I don’t want that huzzie driving my car! She’s too reckless and she drinks too much!”
“Lovey, why don’t you shut the hell up!” Joy says.
“Who in the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
LL walks over and hits Lovey on her butt and I grab him by his SpongeBob pajama top. “Have you lost your mind, boy?”
“Her being mean to my mama again and I don’t like it!”
“I don’t care what you don’t
LIKE
, that’s your grandmother and you do not for any reason
EVER
put your hands on her like that, do you understand me?”
He crosses his bony arms like he’s got nothing to say.
“Do you understand me?”
Not a word.
“Joy, you better get this boy. And tell him something before I snatch a knot in his little behind, I’m not playing.”
“LL don’t hit your grandma.”
He cuts his eyes at me and uncrosses his arms.
“I ain’t never hit Lovey,” LaTiece says. “Even when she’s mean to me.”
“I ain’t never mean to you and you know it.”
“Okay, let’s just stop this children’s version of the
Jerry Springer Show
,” I say.
“What she talking about?” LL asks.
“Jerry Springer, LL. You know, when they throw chairs at each other and fight on TV?” LaTiece says with entirely too much authority.
He just nods.
“Joy.”
“What now?”
“If you have an ounce of sense, just promise me that you will not drive that car under the influence of anything stronger than Coca-Cola.”