by Raqiyah Mays
“That’s scary,” Aunt Connie said, like she always did. “That’s why I don’t want a man. Too much drama.”
“I don’t believe that crap,” Mom answered. “I believe in God. And God answers prayers.”
“I believe in God, too. God punished. Anna Belle sinned. And now we’re paying for it.”
“Shut up, Connie.”
“Why I gotta shut up? It’s the truth.”
“No, it’s your truth.”
“Yours, too. When’s the last time you had a man?”
“I don’t need a man, I got God.”
“Don’t you want to get married?”
“Yes, Connie.”
“Well, don’t you need a man for that?”
“Why are you asking questions you know the answer to? You sound stupid as usual.”
“You know what? I’m sick of you church people acting like God is all you need,” Connie said as she got up, grabbing her purse. “Y’all get on my nerves with that. When you know you want a man, but you spend all day in church praying on some man, when you need to be out getting a man. But you can’t get one, because you’re cursed. All of you. I’m so sick of talking about it.”
She tripped over the foot of a chair, grabbed her car keys, and rumbled off.
When Mom and Aunt Connie spoke, they typically argued about everything. Mom would talk down to her, and Aunt Connie would get pissed, hang up, or walk out. They were polar opposites. Mom was a yellow-skinned, 700-credit-score, size-six valedictorian who’d gotten a full ride to NYU. She’d recently accepted a new position as VP of human resources at Quest Diagnostics. Aunt Connie was a chocolate-complexioned size twenty. Deep in debt, she’d barely graduated high school and spent most days off complaining about her hourly pay as a nightclub bouncer. Her favorite pastime was curling up in bed with a bag of cookies, watching The Price Is Right. Aunt Connie ending a conversation with an angry, sudden exit was a familiar scene from past family occasions. So was the way this man-curse argument usually ended. Besides the snarky remarks, such as “There she goes again,” the episode would close in a silence filled with throbbing tension.
I suddenly remembered the first time I’d felt this type of man-curse discomfort. I had to have been about ten, at a family reunion. I remember the weird feeling, like a woozy butterfly fluttering in my stomach before dropping dead, a heavy lump in the gut. I quickly ran upstairs to my room. Filled with plush stuffed animals, my space was permeated with the color pink, like a woman’s scent that lingers after she’s left the room. Shelves atop my window seat showcased a lopsided Barbie leaning against Ken inside their white classic convertible. Nancy Drew and dusty Ramona novels by Beverly Cleary were nestled between two glass jars filled with pennies. An old Cabbage Patch Kid wearing brown pigtails and a plaid red dress smiled, holding a birth certificate that read “Katherine Fagin.” And a Ghostbusters movie poster hung next to a blown-up Return of the Jedi photo featuring Luke Skywalker and Princess Leah.
I plopped down by the window, watching two squirrels chase each other around an oak tree trunk, scurrying a path up to its top leafy branches. Holding up my left hand, I jutted out the ring finger and twisted a trash-bag tie below my wedding knuckle. I didn’t believe in that curse. It couldn’t be real, because I was getting married. I’d already picked out my dress in an old Ebony Fashion Fair magazine I found at the library. And I’d planned the ceremony: it would be on a sandy beach, and we’d be barefoot, with waves crashing to the sounds of a sweet flute blowing whimsical bridal tunes, floating above the sea. I was different than my relatives. And one day I’d show them all. One day I’d save the ladies in my family from depressive doubt and expected loneliness. I’d be married and break the man curse. It became one of my biggest goals in life.
“Meena, go put out some new trash bags in the backyard,” Mom snapped, bringing me back to the present. “And tie up the bags that are full. The flies are hovering. It looks nasty.” I motioned to Meredith to follow me outside.
In the backyard, the Mitchell family reunion was on display. A biannual event, it brought together cousins I loved, along with aunts and uncles I had to flip through the mental Rolodex to recollect. My aunt Deon had volunteered to host this year’s event at her Jersey home, a four-bedroom ranch on a suburban, countrylike street without sidewalks. The acre-long backyard sprawled like a state park.
A wide-lensed glimpse at family reminded me that breaking the curse would be a hefty task. Heavy on estrogen, light on testosterone, the predominantly female crowd of cousins highlighted missing male elements in my family’s misguided man-map. Spotted with holes and confusing paths, the way to Mr. Right was a marathon walk of tripping over trials and falling in error. It was understandable. I’d never had a consistent adult male figure to guide me with wisdom. I didn’t grow up with examples of unconditional fatherly love. I hadn’t gotten any testosterone-laden advice on boys and ways to manage their moves. I’d never had a grandfather. There were no older brothers to scare guys I dated into treating me like a porcelain doll. My mother had never known her father. Aunt Connie knew where her sperm donor was but had never met him. And my grandmother rarely, if ever, talked to us about her relationships to either of their dads.
Under a tent the elders of the family sat in a circle next to my grandmother, her brothers, and her sisters. Aunt Bernice and Aunt Gayle wore large, colorful hats and flowery dresses. Their handbags were oversize Gucci classics. They held their heads high when walking, sitting as the proud heads of the sixty-and-over table. The lone elderly men of the group, Uncle Johnny and Uncle Clay, sat holding their canes as they talked about “the man,” the movement, and the problems with black people.
“They still trying to kill all us off.” Uncle Johnny snorted. “Always shooting us.”
“Or locking us up,” Uncle Clay answered. “It’s slavery. The prison system is slavery.”
More family members had trickled in since Meredith and I had gone to the store. From Philadelphia came my favorite boy cousins, Bernard and Bishop—the superstar athlete twins. They threw a football back and forth next to their mother, Cece, and her sister, Gladys. The family from Brooklyn featured my cousins Trey, Dedra, Deja, and their mother, Denise. I always knew when they arrived because they spoke in a volume that boomed above everyone else. My cousin Tommy, from the Bronx, came tripping toward me. A year older than I was, he was always drunk or high. He arrived with a tipsy wobble, dropped his paper bag, and a bubbly yellow substance began oozing out.
“What up, cuz!” he yelled, pulling out a can of Old English from the damp bag. As he reached over to hug me, I held my breath so I wouldn’t get asphyxiated from the bar fumes. “You want a sip?”
His twelve-year-old sister, Sereena, blasted music from her headphones. I could hear Lil’ Kim, “I used to be scared of the dick / Now I throw lips to the shit / Handle it like a real bitch.” She combed her hair and popped gum, rapping lyrics out loud for the entire yard to hear. They’d arrived with their mother, Aunt Nancy, who was bound to begin boozing as soon as the clock passed noon. Her rough, raspy voice evoked thoughts of those who’d lived a concrete life, in jungles crowded with drugs, liquor stores, and welfare checks. She’d married into the family after meeting my uncle Lewis. Relatives blamed Vietnam for his death. A valedictorian and decorated army vet, upon returning from the war he found himself unable to be hired in the country he’d loyally protected. Lewis drank day and night, until his organs drowned in brown, toxic fluid.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around, and saw my cousin Winnie smiling. Named after the wife of the South African president Nelson Mandela, Winnie did not look like much of an activist. She wore a long, stringy weave down to her butt, with streaks of blond running through the strands. She stood at five foot five, with handles and chunks, and her thick arms were tattooed with artistic displays of hearts wrapped in the names of her boyfriend and children. At eighteen, Winnie had alrea
dy given birth to twin girls. As she stood in front of me, hands on hips, round and plump, it was hard to imagine she’d skipped the ninth grade to become student government president and valedictorian of her high school. I looked down at Winnie’s shirt to see a huge stomach bulge.
“Please tell me you gained weight,” I said. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
“If you returned calls, then you’d have known about this weeks ago,” she said, rubbing her belly. “But it’s a boy! I’m so happy. I’m done with having little girls.”
I kept staring at her tummy, reaching out to touch it before yanking my hand back.
“I hear pregnancy is contagious, so I’m good,” I said, turning up my lip. “I’d die if I had a baby right now. How many months are you?”
“Five,” she said, smiling. “And I know you got career plans, but when you have a baby, you’ll want another right away. I love being a mom. Ooh, and look who I brought.”
She stepped to the side and pointed at Philip. He’d been Winnie’s boyfriend since the eighth grade. For some reason, he always had specks of dry paint on his shoes and pants from work he’d done as a contract painter. His baby face made him look like a teenager instead of a twenty-one-year-old man.
“Daddy finally let him move in with us.”
“Whaaat?!” I said. “They’re cool with that?”
“Yeah, until the baby is born and we can afford to get our own place.”
“Where does he sleep?”
“Where do you think?” she said, sucking her teeth. “In my room, duh!”
Winnie’s parents had always been more liberal than anyone I’d ever known or understood. Her father, Uncle Neddy, was my mother’s first cousin. But he seemed to be from a different family, born in another universe. His lackadaisical rules and laid-back demeanor were the polar opposite of my mother’s uptight parental discipline.
Winnie’s mommy-to-be bulge cuddled up against her man made me think about Dexter. We were happy like that in the beginning, caught up in the newness of early-relationship euphoria. Caught up in a cloud of foggy sight that makes it hard to see past fake representatives. The ones who present their best selves, hiding their flaws, faking it just to pull you in and trap you, before their real selves appear when the relationship is tested. Dexter tricked me. And to break this curse, I had to get rid of him and make sure I’d never be fooled again.
Chapter 4
The arguments between Dexter and me had grown so intense, our love affair was as steady as a raft floating amid the seas in an always-brewing storm. It didn’t help that I’d let him invite himself to come live with me, raising a puppy together, playing make-believe mommy and daddy. I felt as if I had no room to breathe. No place to escape. But he had no place to go. It was a codependent addiction of resentment, distrust, and lust.
The day before I left Baltimore for the family reunion, we continued to play out our dysfunctional norm.
“Whose dress is this?” I asked casually. It hung in the back of his closet as he stuffed plastic bags that were headed for my apartment. Short, green, dotted with sunflowers like yellow spots in a grassy field, it slid off one side of the hanger, in need of a body to fill it.
“I dunno,” Dexter answered, dumb and stupid. He was milling around the room, grabbing his garden of fake plants and stuffing them into a second garbage bag.
I hated those answers. The kind that knocked inside the belly, alerting me to a piece of lying shit coming from his ass.
“You don’t know? How do you not know about a dress in your closet?”
“Maybe it’s my brother’s girlfriend’s.”
“Why would her dress be in your room in your closet?” I was in full investigative mode by now. The more he lied, the more I pried. “I thought you liked to keep your door locked.”
“Yeah . . . um. I don’t know,” he said nervously. “I don’t know whose this is. You want it?”
“No, I don’t want this ugly, cheap-looking dress,” I yelled. “What the fuck, Dex? Did you have some girl here?”
“No . . .”
“Dex. Did you have some girl here?”
“No.”
I wasn’t moving until he answered with truth. My face was perfectly blank except the seething red anger in my pupils.
“Is it that ex of yours?”
“I mean, maybe. Maybe she left it. I don’t care about that bitch anymore.”
“Bitches leave things behind so they can come back.” I let the sentence linger in the air like a haunting poltergeist. Then I grabbed his car keys off the bed. “Take me to her house.”
“For what?”
“So I can see you tell her that you two are done.”
“What?”
“Take. Me. To. Her. House.” I was slow, deliberate. “That’s unless you’re lying.”
“No! Meena. What the fuck? Why don’t you just believe me?”
“Because you’re lying. And if you are, you’re not moving in with me. Fuck you.”
“So where am I supposed to go? My brother moved in with his girl. We didn’t re-sign the lease. I have nowhere to go.”
“Oh, well.” I shrugged my shoulders, a tiny smirk on my face.
Dexter grabbed the keys from my hand and headed out the door as I followed in tow. Starting the car, pulling out of the lot, he turned up the radio, blasting a Funkmaster Flex mix tape. I turned down the volume.
“Why are you touching my radio, Meena?”
“Because you’re a liar.”
“I’m taking you to her house.”
“So. You still lied about that dress. Why did you lie?”
He was quiet.
“Why did you lie?”
More silence.
So I screamed, “Why did you lie? I hate liars!”
Next thing I knew, Dexter had hit the accelerator. We were speeding down an empty side street. Trees, vinyl siding, everything in a blur.
“Fuck this, yo!” he hollered. “I’ma fuckin’ die! You see this, Meena? You driving me to kill myself! Fuck!”
I screamed. Yet that only helped his foot add weight to the accelerator.
“Dexter! Slow down! Please?”
He swerved and let the car do a 360-degree doughnut, landing on the opposite side of the road. Tears streamed down my face, my cheeks drenched. He began to drive normally, simmering down. Pulling into an empty warehouse lot, he leaned over and kissed me in a way that led to foggy-windows sex in the backseat.
A week later, fresh from the family reunion, Dexter promptly picked me up from the train station in his shiny green Hyundai. The backseat was filled with balloons, a bouquet of roses, and an oversize teddy bear. He stepped out of the car, hip-hop blasting, smile wide, and planted a kiss on me as he picked my body up off the ground.
“I missed you,” he said, laughing. “What’s up, babe? You smell so good. I miss that smell.”
We whizzed off to the park, soundtracked to the bass of Jay Z vibrating through the streets. Chrome rims sparkled amid the gorgeous summertime sun. Reflections of Dex’s herringbone necklace glistened with every cheesy grin he gave with those glistening white teeth. Back at the apartment, he’d cleaned each room to pristine perfection. Dusted. Mopped. Vacuumed. The place smelled Pine Sol fresh. Laundry washed, folded, and packed away. There was no way I could break up with him that day.
The next morning he dropped me at work and headed to his job, selling insurance door-to-door, persuading families to invest in their futures. The moment break time hit, he came searching for me. Popping up at the mall. Randomly surveying racks at my store, looking for something new to buy. Lurking.
“Why is he always here?” my store manager, Paul, asked with a furrowed brow. “Does he work?”
“Yeah, but when he gets off, he comes here.”
“Well, why? You’re at work and
him being here is a distraction. I mean, don’t you think so?”
“Well, I can still do my job. Do you want me to tell him to leave?”
“I understand he’s buying things. But it’s just strange how he’s always here. It’s like he’s watching you.”
“He just loves me, Paul. But I appreciate your concern. Thank you.”
“Just looking out for you, kiddo. Stay focused. And take your break now. I need you ready for the lunchtime rush.”
I grabbed my purse and motioned for Dexter to follow me. He grabbed my hand as we headed out of the store.
“So what do you want to eat today, pretty lady?”
“Sushi, I guess.”
“Cool, I had a taste for spring rolls and a little fish,” he said, grabbing my skirt. “Maybe we can head to the car for a quickie and—”
“Dexter,” I said, cutting him off, “you gotta stop coming to my store so much. My manager talked to me about it today.”
“Why? I buy stuff, I’m not hurting anybody. It’s not like there’s anybody in there. They need to be happy they have a regular customer.” He tried to grab my waist. I nudged back. My look hadn’t changed. “What did he say?”
“He just wondered why you were always at the store. He said it seems like you’re watching me.”
“So, maybe I am. You’re beautiful. And so what, it’s none of his fucking business. I’ll tell him.”
“You’ll tell him what?” I said, alarmed. “And get me fired?”
“You don’t need that bullshit job. I got you, Meena.”
“Maybe I like that bullshit job. If it wasn’t for that bullshit job, I wouldn’t have met you.”
