Leaving Atlanta

by Tayari Jones

“They went on with my cousin after you was taking so long.” He waited for me to say where I had been.

  I walked straight as possible. “I had to stay after for Mrs. Grier to help me with my word problems.”

  “Why you always going down to the second-grade room for? You too old for that.”

  I looked at his whole face to see did he mean I was too old after what happened today or just too old anyway.

  “What you got in that sack?” he asked, all nosy.

  People said boys had ESP about girls and their periods. Demetria said they could take one look and one sniff and tell who had their cycle. But if he could tell already, then why was he asking me so many stupid questions? I knew he didn’t want me to come out and say what was in my bag. All the boys start freaking out if they just hear the word Kotex.

  “Mrs. Grier gave me some extra workbooks to practice.”

  “Well she need to give them to you at lunchtime or something,” he said, kicking a pebble down the sidewalk. It got stuck in a crack. “Had me sitting out here half the afternoon waiting on you.”

  “Didn’t nobody tell you to wait.” This was true, but I was so glad to see him leaning on that pole with snowflakes in his hair.

  “My mama made me wait on you. And then you went and took so long that I’m going to miss Happy Days.” He tried to kick the rock but ended up ramming his toe on a piece of broken sidewalk sticking out. “Man!”

  I didn’t say nothing. I just kept walking in little baby steps. I was worried about losing my Kotex. I didn’t trust that sticky stuff to hold it on. Next time I was going to use safety pins.

  Delvis was in a evil mood. “I don’t know why she wanted me to wait for you.”

  I was surprised. “Because of—” I started but didn’t finish. I didn’t want to say child murders. Didn’t Delvis care that I made it home alive? “You know kids not supposed to be out walking alone,” I said.

  “That’s just boys that got to worry about getting snatched, stupid,” he said.

  “But what about them two girls?” I asked him. “Idiot,” I added, to make us even.

  “They the exception that proves the rule,” he said, like he was God up in heaven and know everything.

  “Says who?”

  “My barber,” Delvis said. He did have a fresh haircut, but that didn’t mean he was right. And anyway, his part was cut in crooked.

  We walked a little more without talking. The wind had picked up and it was too cold to be running our mouths. My socks were pulled all the way up to my knees but the air was turning my legs into chocolate Popsicles. It was getting to Delvis too because he started moving faster. I kept on with my baby steps.

  “Why you walking so slow?” Delvis asked. “It’s freezing out here, and Happy Days on too.”

  “What your barber said?” I asked him to get his mind off my turtle walking.

  “He say that it’s the boys they want. Because we going to get to be black men pretty soon and if it’s one thing the white man scared of it’s a black man.”

  His face looked mad but his voice sounded proud. Like girls wasn’t worth killing. The wind blew some more and a tree dumped brown leaves on us.

  “Well if they hate the men, how come they don’t just kill them direct?”

  “Cause they scared of the men.”

  I thought about the men that I knew. It was weird, but I didn’t know too many. There was Granddaddy. He was old and thin even before his stroke. He might have been bad back in the day, though. My own daddy wasn’t what you would call scary. Ray’s skinny as a teenager. Last I went to Uncle Kenny. He seemed mean to me now. When he called on the phone. But not before. Not before I was messing with his stuff.

  I carefully stepped up on a curb, trying not to gap my legs too wide.

  “See,” Delvis went on, “them boys—Jashante and them—not one of them had a daddy to run the white man off. And you see what happened.”

  “But what about you-know-who?” Rodney had a daddy that anybody could be scared of. Even Rodney himself.

  “Exception that proves the rule.”

  “But you said that about the girls.”

  “Different exception, different rule.”

  We were passing through a neighborhood folks called the Bottom. When I walk by myself I take the long way home to keep from passing through there. There was a liquor store every ten feet seemed like.

  “This is the thing with the girls,” Delvis said. “They just snatched a couple of them so people wouldn’t catch on that it’s really the boys that they after.”

  I walked in the street to get around a man laying on the sidewalk. Delvis stepped right over him.

  “Drunks are a disgrace to the race,” he said.

  We went along quietly for a while. The wind wasn’t playing around. I had to worry about my dress blowing up.

  Delvis bent down and picked up some magnolia cones in case we see a dog or something.

  “Sweet Pea, get you some cones too,” he said.

  There wasn’t no way I was bending down.

  “We almost home,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t want to be late.”

  “You wasn’t worried about being late all the rest of this time. I saw you over there trying to see how slow you could walk without stopping.” Delvis shook his head like I was just too stupid for him to believe.

  I tried to speed up a little.

  “Girls, y’all got it made in the shade,” Delvis said, tossing a cone at a small white dog that wasn’t even barking. I was glad he missed.

  Finally, we were in front of my building. “Run on in the house. Mama say I got to wait for you to get inside before I can leave.” He looked at his bare arm. Skin time, kids say. “I know I missed half of Happy Days by now.”

  I kept moving slow but steady.

  “Look at you taking your own sweet time,” he hollered up at me while I was climbing the steps. “You a trip.”

  “Back to you,” I hollered over my shoulder while I fitted my key in the door.

  When I opened the door, Mama and Miss Darlene were sitting at the kitchen table shelling the pecans we had picked the week before. They were off today so they had little glasses of gin and tonic next to their ashtrays. The gin bottle was bumpy like it was allergic to something.

  “Hey, baby,” Mama said to me.

  “Hey, Mama. Hey, Miss Darlene.”

  “Delvis walk you home?” Miss Darlene wanted to know. “I told him to come with you right to the door.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He came to the bottom of the stairs, but he watched till I got in.” Delvis might have been talking stupid, but I didn’t want to get him in trouble with his mama. Miss Darlene didn’t have nothing against beating kids.

  I started heading back to my room. I wanted to wait for Miss Darlene to go home before I told Mama my news. I hadn’t gone two steps before Mama looked up from the bowl of nuts.

  “Why you walking like that?” Mama’s voice was sterner than just for a regular question but it didn’t rise up like it did when she was mad.

  “Girl, what you been doing?” Miss Darlene asked. Then, she put her hand on her hip like she was fixing to give me a little piece of her mind. See, that’s why I wanted to wait for her to leave. Sometimes she act like she forget which children are hers.

  Mama got up from the table fast like lightning and put her hands on my shoulders. “Sweet Pea, what happened?”

  Miss Darlene made a sound like “Ump.” I don’t know what that was supposed to mean.

  Mama said, “Darlene, hush for a minute.” Then she look at me. “What is it, sugar?”

  “I got my maturity today, that’s all.”

  Her face went puzzled. “What?”

  “My maturity,” I said again.

  “Her period,” Miss Darlene said. “She just trying to talk proper.” She picked up a pecan and broke it with her back teeth.

  I nodded my head to the period part and ignored the proper part. Mrs. Grier said there is nothing wrong with speaking
correctly.

  Mama hugged me and kissed my face. “Already?” she asked.

  “I guess so.”

  She smiled quiet and kissed me again.

  “Don’t be spoiling her like that, Yvonne,” Miss Darlene said. “Now is the time to tighten up on her.” She took a deep drink from her glass. “Watch out for boys now,” she said to me. “They can tell you ready now. They can smell it.”

  “Darlene, you need to take that nasty mess on back home with you,” Mama said.

  Miss Darlene didn’t move. She smiled at Mama like she thought she was kidding. She took a swig off her drink and opened her big mouth again. “You can get pregnant now and the last thing your mama needs is another baby. Ain’t that right, Yvonne?”

  “Darlene, didn’t you hear me tell you to take that mess on across the way?”

  This time she could tell Mama was serious as a heart attack. “Well give me a paper cup to put my drink in before I go.” She pushed back from the table.

  The door shut hard behind Miss Darlene. Me and Mama looked at each other and started cracking up, but I didn’t know for sure what was so funny. Mama said, “Young girls got enough to worry about without people telling them lies.” Then she stopped laughing and shook her head from side to side like ain’t that a shame. “Go hop in the tub Sweet Pea.”

  “What?” I was whispering even though it was just the two of us in the house. “I don’t smell alright?”

  “No, baby. I want you to hop in the tub because me and you fixing to go out to dinner.”

  Our bathtub is white, like most bathtubs, I guess. But there is a spot on the right-hand wall of it where the white chipped off, showing black underneath. It looks almost like a scab. When I got in the tub, I covered the black part with my toe and pretended it wasn’t there. I was covered all over with sweet-smelling soap when Mama knocked on the door and opened it. What’s the point of knocking if you going to come right in anyway?

  She sat on the closed toilet seat like me bathing was a movie she wanted to see. I wished I had put some Palmolive in the water so I could be all hidden by bubbles the way ladies was on TV.

  “How you feel?” Mama said.

  “Okay.”

  “No cramps?”

  “What they feel like?” I asked. I did feel something in my stomach, but I thought that was just being hungry.

  “Oh, if you had them, you would know.” She smiled. “I want to talk to you.” She was looking right at my chest.

  “Now?” I said. She was my mama; everything I got, she had seen before. Still, I didn’t really want to be having a conversation without my clothes on.

  “Don’t listen to Darlene,” she started. Then she backed up. “Listen to her, but don’t really listen to her. You can get a baby now. But you know that from your book, right?”

  I nodded. I rubbed the soap between my hands. Maybe I could work up enough bubbles to cover my good parts.

  “Just be careful,” she said.

  I was really tired of people telling me to be careful. How much more careful could I get? I was already half scared to answer the phone. I couldn’t even look outside after the streetlights come on. I never was one to be talking to strangers, but now, I don’t even open doors for old ladies I don’t know. “I’m already careful.” My voice came out madder than I meant to show her. “You know, with everything going on,” I added softly.

  “Not that kind of careful,” Mama said. “I mean you right to be careful of strangers and all of that. But now I’m talking about being careful with the people that not strangers.”

  “Like who?” I spread lather over my chest.

  “Like boys. Like men.”

  “I don’t know no men.” I put another layer of soap on my chest but the little humps still showed.

  “Just listen to me, Sweet Pea.” Mama was so serious that her voice sank down low and husky. “I’m just saying to watch yourself around the fellas. Don’t talk to them unless you want to. And don’t let them touch you even if you do want to. Understand?”

  “Mama, you know I don’t be messing with boys like that.” I floated globs of soap in the water around my waist, hiding me like a little skirt.

  “I didn’t come in here to make you mad. I just came to tell you that. Now rinse so we can get ready to catch the five-fifteen bus.” She went toward the door and looked over her shoulder. “You might have to run the shower to get all that soap off.”

  Red Lobster is my favorite restaurant; it’s better than Piccadilly and Shoney’s put together. When we got there, the lady told us that we would have to wait fifteen minutes for a booth. Mama said that was fine, but we wouldn’t wait at the bar. We sat on a bench in the lobby in front of a big fish tank. There were lobsters in murky water with their hands taped together.

  “Mama, I feel sorry for the lobsters.” I looked into the bar where people drank colorful drinks.

  “You don’t need to,” she said. “Can’t nobody over here afford to eat them. Lobsters downtown got to watch out, but these here on Campbelton Road got it made in the shade.”

  I smelled my wrists with my eyes closed while we waited. Mama had sprayed Youth Dew right at the base of my hands. I wanted some on the backside of my knees like Mama, but she wouldn’t let me.

  We were the most dressed up of anybody in the whole Red Lobster. Folks were watching us as we followed the lady to our seats. I had on the best one of Nikky’s dresses— one so blue that it was black with white lace under my chin, tied behind with a shiny white bow. Mama didn’t wear her gray church dress. Instead, she put on the one for when her and Miss Darlene go to The Living Room Lounge, a black one with sparklies in the front and the back opened like a V below her shoulder blades. My mama is foxy.

  The lady gave me a regular menu and a kiddie one. Both of them had popcorn shrimp, but for the grown people it cost a lot more.

  “Mama?” I held up the two menus.

  “Order from the kids’ menu,” she said. “If you want more, I’ll give you some from my plate.”

  “May I take your order?” Our waiter was good-looking. Light-skinned with pretty eyes. His voice made me think of ice cream.

  I couldn’t hardly say popcorn shrimp for looking at his pretty dimples. He couldn’t hardly write it down for looking at Mama.

  I got the child’s portion but I made it last. First the shrimp, then the french fries, chewing each bite thirty-two times. When I got through, my plate was stone-cold empty except for the parsley. I would have ate that too to keep it from being over, but I didn’t want to act like I never been in a restaurant before, eating stuff that’s just for decoration.

  “Finished?” Mama said.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Finally.” She wiggled her finger at the waiter.

  He smiled and trotted over.

  “All finished, ma’am?” he said to me. Here I was, just reached my maturity that afternoon and already people calling me ma’am.

  All I could do was grin like a jack-o’-lantern.

  “He cute, ain’t he,” Mama said.

  “A little bit,” I said. “I didn’t really look at him.”

  Just then Mr. Cutie-Pie Waiter looked back like he heard me. He raised his eyebrows up at Mama and she held up one finger.

  “What did that mean?” I asked her.

  “What did what mean?”

  I couldn’t swallow another sip of my Shirley Temple. My mama is the kind of person that you had to watch. I had been to the bathroom twice to check on things. Who knew what she did when I was gone? No telling.

  Mr. Cutie came over to our booth with three other Red Lobster guys. Two of them were looking at me smiling so hard I could see their back teeth. The other one was smiling just as hard but he was checking Mama out.

  “We have a celebration today,” Mr. Cutie shouted to the entire Red Lobster.

  I looked at Mama but she had her eyes on Mr. Cutie. Why did she have to front on me like this? Some things not for everybody to know. I looked around and saw
that everybody in the whole Red Lobster was staring at our table. Did all of them know about my period? They all looked like they were just a giggle away from busting out laughing. And Mama was the worst one. Her hands were clamped together under her chin like she was so tickled she couldn’t take it another second.

  The fellas started clapping and Mama clapped right along with them. I kicked around under the table hoping to knock her knee and at least ruin her stocking. But it was a big booth and I couldn’t reach. I ended up banging my own knee and my eyes filled up with tears. Why did she have to go and ruin my special dinner? I knew Mama told lies, but never knew her to be mean. This was worse than school.

  People from other tables had put down their forks to watch us like a movie. I felt like I was in the school cafeteria. Cutie Pie opened his mouth and I put my hands over my eyes.

  “Happy, happy birthday!” he sang.

  I jammed my hands in my mouth, hurting my lip, to keep from hollering out with relief. To all those people staring I must have looked like a winner on The Price is Right.

  When they left, Mama whispered, “I told them it was your birthday so you could get a free cake.” She winked, flashing her soft green eye shadow.

  I blew out the candle on the little white cupcake with my eyes closed like I was making a wish. But for real, I couldn’t think of anything to ask for.

  Just as soon as Mama had got out the door good, the phone rang. Girls are supposed to love the telephone, but I hate the thing. It sits on the hall table with the cords curled up next to it like a tail. Just ringing. It’s scary how any fool with a dime can get right in your house with you. It could be some crazy like in that movie He Knows You’re Alone. I didn’t go see it, but the commercial by itself did things to my stomach.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Yes, may I speak to Yvonne please?”

  It was a black man on the phone. But it wasn’t Uncle Kenny. The only other men that be calling over here are bill collectors, and all of them is white.

  “She can’t come to the phone right now.” I wonder if people know that when a kid say that, it means they home alone. Maybe I should get a new lie.

  “Is this Octavia?”