She snatched the sheets from me and looked at one and then the other.
“I don’t like these birds,” she said, and handed that sheet back to me. “But I do like these mountains and fields and clouds and that rainbow. Thank you. I’ll try to figure out if I have anything else to say or something I read that’s worth sending.”
“I appreciate everything you have to say and the meaningful and funny clippings, too,” I said.
“That’s good. But not everything is as important as we think it is, and some things aren’t worth remembering.”
This woman never ceased to amaze me.
“Are you feeling okay, Ma? You sound kind of blue.”
“No. I’ve just been a little lonely. When you live in a place like this, it’s not smart to get too close to folks. You don’t see someone at breakfast or dinner and you ask where they are and you find out they passed the day before. I’ve lost four friends since I’ve been here, so I’ve just decided to stop making them.”
“I’m sorry, Ma.”
“Me, too. But anyway, how’ve you been?”
I did not want to tell her more about Korynthia’s son or Poochie’s mother. I wanted to try to lift her spirits.
“I’m good. Spent my birthday in Las Vegas with my girlfriends and we had a blast.”
“That’s good to hear. Do you think you ever might want to entertain the company of the male sex again?”
That caught me completely off guard.
“What would make you ask me that, Ma?”
“Don’t you get lonely?”
“Of course I do.”
“What do you do about it?”
“I wait until it passes.”
“Carl died. You didn’t. And after a year of mourning, I think you might want to think about doing something besides spending time with your old-ass girlfriends. Do any of them have a love interest?”
“Well, Korynthia has been on a dating site.”
“That sounds like fun. Do you just click on a fella and, if you don’t like him, just send his butt back? Has she met anybody nice?”
“Not yet.”
“You should try it. At least go have some coffee with someone. Just to get out of the house and away from B. B. King. Wait, he’s still alive, right?”
“Yes, he is, Ma. In fact, B.B. is in love.”
“See there. Even old B.B.’s hormones still work! Anyway, Carl wouldn’t want you sitting around watching TV all night, I’m sure of it. You can’t grieve forever.”
“So, Ma, do you think one day I can pick you up and take you somewhere?”
“How many times are you going to ask me? No. I’m fine right here. Odessa still wants to move into my house, but I think I changed my mind. I don’t think she needs to live in that big house by herself. She claims she’s getting some kind of lawsuit money. Always waiting on a settlement, that one. And already spending the money.”
“What do you mean?”
“She went and bought herself a new car.”
“What kind of car?”
“I don’t know. Not a Kia.”
“I’ve been thinking about giving the house to Cinnamon and Jonas and their twins.”
“Well, that’ll surely piss her off, but I think that would be a very nice thing to do. Anyway, I will keep my mouth shut when and if Odessa mentions it.”
I stood up.
Ma had her knitting needles in her hands again and was trying to mimic a picture on the table that illustrated how to hold them.
“I don’t think I’m going to be knitting you any socks,” she said. “Now bend down here and give me a kiss.”
And I did.
And she squeezed my hand.
And I squeezed hers back.
* * *
—
I was starving and decided I was overdue for a cheeseburger and fries. I had been good. I could count how many I’d had since I got back from Las Vegas, which was almost two months ago: five. I could also count how many times I went to Carol’s and had their French toast with bacon: three. I had not been in Roscoe’s at all. Lucky was finally scheduled to have her gastric bypass surgery and once she had it, she would have to pretend fried chicken and candied yams and honey cornbread would kill her. I thought that was a little dramatic, but it wouldn’t hurt me to think that way, too, and it was the first time I had ever known Lucky to say no to herself.
“What can I get for you today?” the voice coming out of the speaker said. I was thinking B.B. might want a hot dog to celebrate his birthday—he was now ten in human years, so I ordered him one with nothing on it and I would not let him eat the bun.
“Ma’am, will there be anything else besides the hot dog?”
“Yes, I would like to have a double cheeseburger with a purple onion and a small order of fries.”
“What kind of cheese would you like on that burger?” the voice said.
“Cheddar. Oh, and can you also put pickles on it?”
“You got it. Any of our delicious desserts strike your eye? Our apple pie is killer and our ice cream sundaes are made with the best chocolate syrup. And there’s a new flavor of ice cream to choose: strawberry cheesecake.”
I thought about that, but then heard myself say, “I’ll pass on the dessert, but thank you for asking.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. So that’ll be fourteen dollars and nine cents. Just pull up to the drive-through window. My name’s Casper.”
Like the friendly ghost?
Casper was a sexy twenty-year-old kid with the most perfectly white teeth I’d ever seen. His eyes were shiny black and his lips…
“Your food will be right up.”
I handed him a twenty.
“Keep the change, young man.”
He looked down at the twenty.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Absolutely. You’ve been very polite and patient with me.”
“Thank you so much, ma’am. I’ll be right back with your food.”
And he was. I put the big bag on the passenger seat and just when I was about to put the car in Drive, I heard Casper say, “Wait a second, ma’am.”
And he handed me what I could see through the clear round top was a gigantic strawberry cheesecake sundae.
“For being so generous. You have no idea what this means to me today. Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome, young man.” I set the sundae in the cup holder, and because no one was watching me drive, I kept sticking my index finger inside the little opening and pushing it into the cheesecake ice cream and strawberry jelly, so by the time I got home there was nothing left of it.
I pulled into the driveway and I hit the brakes too hard when I saw Kwame’s name pop up on my cellphone. The empty sundae fell out of the cup holder onto the carpet, and I felt grateful. The reward I get for not practicing self-restraint.
“Mama-Lo, are you there?”
He sounded so upbeat.
“Yes, I am, Kwame! How are you? How’s your mama doing?”
“Moms is doing much better. She’s walking, with a cane, but she can move her arms and turn her head and she’s talking great! How are you doing, Mama-Lo? I miss you! And B. B. King!”
“I’m so glad to hear that. Your four-legged friend and I are doing fine. We miss you, too.”
“Well, I’m moving back to Pasadena. And I’m bringing my moms with me.”
“That is just wonderful, Kwame. Will she need any kind of medical attention, though?”
“She’s been going to the rehabilitation facility here, but the house she lives in is being torn down to make room for some condos and I don’t want to leave her here, so she’s coming. We’ll find her a place to continue her therapy. She’s got Medicare and social security, even though it’s not much.”
�
�Well, I’m going to have a vacancy in the building—it’s a one-bedroom, and not for another two months, but it’s something. Were you trying to come sooner than that?”
“I’m not sure. Don’t you worry about any of this. I just wanted you to know I was heading back. Is my car still in the garage?”
“It is and I start it up whenever I remember. B. B. King always barks when I do because he wants to know where you’ve been and when you are coming back.”
He laughed.
“It sure is good to hear your voice, Mama-Lo. And you’ve been doing okay, right?”
“I have.”
“How about your diabetes?”
“Under control.”
“For real, Mama-Lo?”
“I wouldn’t lie about something this serious.”
“I know. But I’m just checking.”
I thought about the sundae I had just devoured and my insides churned at my lie.
“And is Jalecia back on track?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Don’t give up on her, Mama-Lo. She’ll thank you one day.”
“I’m trying my hardest but when you hold out a branch to someone and they don’t grab it, it makes you wonder if they really want help at all.”
“You have to get on her nerves. And piss her off—that’s really how she’ll know you love her. Well, look, I have Moms calling me, so look to hear from me in the next few weeks or so. By then our plans will be firm. Oh! Please tell Cinnamon and Jonas and the little ones I’m looking forward to seeing them and that as soon as I get my moms settled, I’ll be available to babysit free of charge! Love you.”
And I love him.
I signed up for SilverSneakers.
Which was a baby step.
But I didn’t tell anyone in case things didn’t work out.
I also didn’t want to start at the gym Ko teaches at. I wanted to get into shape a little bit so I wouldn’t look like I hadn’t worked out in years. I don’t like to sweat. The only time I really work up a sweat is in the summer when I walk B. B. King to the dog park and, even then, I carry my little battery-operated fan.
I decided to start out easy by taking a Zumba Gold class. It was a modified version for old folks. This way I could have a little fun and just get some of my unused muscles moving.
I bought a new workout outfit. It was black because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I also had every intention of standing in the back. But it turned out there was no “back” because there were only ten or twelve of us in the small studio with mirrored walls and blond wooden floors. The instructor was old, fit, sexy, and gorgeous. She had on a tight purple sleeveless top and her stomach was so flat it looked like she had had liposuction. But I knew she had earned it. I couldn’t tell what nationality she was, until she started showing us how to move our hips. Brazilian. After she told me not to feel intimidated, as a first-timer, by how smoothly other people moved because most of them had been in her class for over a year, she said, “Just watch me, but slow it down to thirty-three-and-a-third or forty-five rpms if I’m moving at seventy-eight.” I was happy as hell to hear her say “rpms” because it was from a time when we listened to music on vinyl and called them records and they came in three speeds.
But when she pressed a button on her iPad and the salsa music came blasting out, it scared the hell out of me. She started out by taking a slow step to the left and a slow step to the right and when she moved forward she swirled her hips so smoothly, as if they had a brain of their own, and then she did the same thing when she stepped backward. When I tried to imitate her, my stomach got in the way, and then she had us shake our booties and mine just kept jiggling, and finally she had us speed up all these moves. When it felt like I was going to pass out, I just stopped, caught my breath, waved thank-you and goodbye to her, and left.
I was never going to be Shakira.
I decided I should go with a boring aerobics class, but I would come back to Zumba one day and shake my booty as smoothly as the rest of those silver-haired huzzies and the two fine gay men who moved like Ricky Martin.
I did not mention any of this to Ko, of course, because I knew for a fact that she now taught a hip-hop class. I decided when I felt I was in good enough shape not to pass out in the first ten minutes, I would walk into her class and strut my stuff.
* * *
—
Poochie finally moved back to Pasadena.
Her new local orthopedist suggested she have both knees replaced, but wait on the hip. She had lost a lot of weight since we saw her in Vegas—too much, we all agreed—except in her stomach, which was still bloated probably because she couldn’t really exercise for the past five or six years since caring for her mother had been her whole life.
“When will you do the hip?” I asked.
“Next year.”
“But how will you walk if your hip’s still bad, Poochie?”
“The way I’ve been walking. With a walker.”
“What about the cruise?”
“It’s still three months from now. I should be good to go by then. Even if I have to use a wheelchair.”
* * *
—
We were all surprised that she hadn’t gotten herself a fancy apartment. Poochie had always lived large. Instead, she was living at a senior facility a lot like Ma’s, except hers was newer.
She was also bored, so when she asked if she could see where the new House was going to be, I happily agreed to meet her there.
“So, this is going to be the spot, huh?” she asked as she pushed her walker with the tennis balls on the front through the space.
“This is it,” I said. “Lots of renovation to be done. But I finally signed all the paperwork, and thanks to my husband, the bank won’t have to be my friend.”
Poochie smiled as if she was remembering Carl.
“I can see the potential, although it seems too big just to sell beauty products.”
“I’ve got plans, Poochie, but let’s go across the street and have a coffee because the dust in here is getting to me. It’s not bothering you?”
“No. I don’t smell it, but I do need to use the bathroom. I can’t stay long anyway because I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”
“It feels like we’re always going to the doctor these days, huh?”
“Yes, it does.”
“To be honest, Poochie, you look a little weird. How much weight have you lost?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “About fifteen or twenty pounds since you were in Vegas. It’s the grief, but it’ll help with my recovery after the surgery.”
It looked more like twenty-five. Poor Poochie. As she rolled her walker toward the room on the left, it hit me that her real name is Pearlene. She never liked it. Her grandmother always called her Poochie. It stuck. In high school, some of us didn’t know what her real name was.
I always wondered why black folks liked to nickname their kids. Although I admit, I never liked Loretha either. It sounded like a name for an old lady, which of course suited me now. I don’t mind being called Lo, although sometimes it does get on my nerves, especially when people used to say, “How low can you go, Lo?” I never thought it was funny, which was why I never laughed. When my second husband’s sister, who I didn’t like, said that to me at a barbecue, I said, “Let’s see how low you can go, ho.” And I pushed her onto the table where the hot dog buns were and they flew all over the grass and into the pool like little submarines. There were other reasons I couldn’t stand her, of course. She once accused me of being high-and-mighty because I went to college and got one of those things called “a bachelor’s degree.”
“College don’t make you better than everybody who didn’t go,” she said at a family reunion, right after I’d had Jackson.
“Not better,” I said, cutting my eyes at her. �
��Just smarter.” And I stormed off, wondering how I had managed to marry into this family of misfits. But then I banished that thought because it would prove her right.
“Poochie,” I said, as I watched her push her walker across the concrete floor, leaving her size-eleven footprints in the dust, “what’s really on your mind?”
“I’m scared,” she said.
“Oh, come on now. A lot of folks have knee replacements, and as long as you do what the doctor tells you to, you’ll have a good recovery.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Well, at least it’s not something life-threatening, Poochie.”
“I know. But just pick a joint or body part and it feels like I have to replace it.”
“Do you really think it’s smart to have both knees replaced at the same time?”
“The jury is out on it. My doctor says yes, kill two birds with one procedure. I can’t stand this arthritis pain.”
“Everybody has arthritis,” I said just to make her feel better.
“Where’s yours? I’ve never heard you complain.”
“In my ankle. I twisted it getting off that van when we came back from Vegas and it feels like it’s taking forever to heal.”
This was a lie. And I prayed I wasn’t jinxing myself.
“Have you gone to Korynthia’s hip-hop class yet?”
“Well, I wanted to start, but the doctor told me to take some yoga classes first, which would help me stretch better.”
Of course, this was another lie.
“Wow! And that doesn’t hurt?”
I shook my head no. I didn’t know why I was lying. But once you tell one…
“Is yoga hard?”
“Not really.”
“What kind of yoga is it?”
Why does she have to be so damn nosy?
“Siddhartha.”
“I heard that one’s really rough. But good for you, Lo!”
“So when is your surgery?”
“Two weeks from tomorrow.”
“Well, we’ll make sure to be there to cheer when they push you out of recovery.”
It's Not All Downhill From Here Page 21
