by Lisa Patton
“The girls will love it. You’ll sleep right here in my bed.”
Now that I’ve said yes, doubt creeps in. I’m quite sure there’s a faraway look about me, but Mama Carla doesn’t seem to notice.
“And don’t hesitate to reprimand Kadeesha if she needs it. I’m not so sure about her anyway.”
I’d been wondering when this would come up. “Better tell her that. Matter of fact, please tell that to everyone on staff. I don’t want any of them saying I think I’m better than they are.”
“The only one with more seniority than you is Ophelia, and you and I both know she’ll be happy you’re subbing for me.”
“All right then,” I say, feeling better about my decision. “I guess I have myself a job.” I relax into the wingback chair, feeling the soft cushion against my head.
“You’ll be fantastic, Pearl,” Mama Carla says reassuringly. The last time I had a compliment like this is hard to remember, but I know one thing: Mama Carla trusts me more than I thought.
She lays her head back, too, and stares up at the ceiling. She’s thinking hard on something, so we sit in silence until she says, “I miss my daughter and grandchildren. As much as I like this job, it’s hard to be so far away. Especially when they need me like they do now.” She sighs. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing this.”
Hearing her say the words out loud doesn’t necessarily surprise me. She’s alluded to it in the past. “I understand. Family comes first.” With the exception of my cousins, all my family is right here in Oxford.
We talk a little longer, then I move over to the door, put my hand on the knob. After a pause I turn back around. “You sure about this?”
With a stiff spine and her chin held high, she looks at me confidently. “Of course I’m sure.”
“You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission?”
“No, Pearl. I don’t have to ask anyone for permission. I can ask anyone I want to substitute, as long as they’re qualified. You know as much as I do about this job. You are qualified.”
I draw in a deep breath then release it slowly. Every time we’ve had a substitute the lady has been white. There isn’t a black housemother on the entire campus. In either sororities or fraternities. Never has been.
Projections of how the alums and parents may react are swirling in and out of my mind already. I can’t help picturing their faces when they see me. Will I be welcomed into the fold or treated like a black sheep? It’s one thing for a black lady to cook or clean in this milky-white House. It’s another thing altogether for a woman of color to be the one in charge.
SIXTEEN
CALI
“She would do that?” I ask Ellie when she offers to have her mother write me an Alpha Delt rec. I’d gotten into the habit of coming over to her room when Jasmine and Carl start their last phone call of the night, and I am sitting on the end of her bed. It’s late, midnight, but no one in Martin goes to bed early.
Most of the girls on our floor get their homework done in the library during the day and reserve nighttime for socializing. And partying. And tons of laughing. Though we only met two weeks ago, it feels like Ellie and I have known each other two years. Friendships come fast and easy when you’re living on the same floor of the dorm.
Ellie and I are sitting together on her bed with our backs up against her headboard. She reaches over and pats me on the arm. “Of course. My mom would be happy to do that for you.”
“That would be sweet,” I say.
“Email me your rec packet.” She writes out her email on a notepad by her bed and hands it to me. “I’ll call her in the morning.”
After speaking with a girl in the Panhellenic office last fall about how to join a sorority, I started putting my rec packet together. She said I needed a résumé stressing community service, leadership, and academics. Fortunately, I am strong in all three areas.
Mamaw has a friend in Memphis who has a friend who was a Kappa Kappa Gamma and she was willing to write me a rec. After she saw my résumé, that same lady offered to find more friends who could write recs. She seemed to think I would be a great candidate for a sorority, and that I shouldn’t have any problems. But I do.
After not having a pedigree, the next problem is: I don’t have recs for all thirteen sororities on campus. And the third problem is: I don’t think I have enough money. From what I learned in that same phone call to Panhellenic, I might need as much as five thousand dollars my first year and I’ve only managed to save three.
It wouldn’t hurt, I learned, to have several additional letters of reference from other alumnae. The girl I spoke with in the Panhellenic office told me to ask my mother’s friends for the letters. She said I’d be surprised to learn how many of them had been in sororities. I told her thank you very much for the information and hung up the phone. What I didn’t tell her was that my mother has no friends.
Annie Laurie looks up from the Spanish textbook she’s been reading with a cool smile. Her face always confuses me. Is she genuine or … is she fake? She doesn’t offer to have her mother write a letter of reference: not that it matters all that much, but I still wonder why. I shrug it off and hop down from the bed. “I’ll go do that now and let y’all get ready for bed.”
“Is Jasmine asleep?” Annie Laurie asks, before I get to the door.
I glance over my shoulder. “Not yet. She and Carl are having their final lovey-dovey convo of the day. Those two are on the phone, like, constantly,” I say, with a giggle.
“Black people are always on the phone.”
What an odd remark. “Really? I haven’t noticed.”
“Next time you’re walking to class, pay attention. You’ll see what I mean.” She’s talking, but her eyes don’t leave her Spanish book.
That’s good because my eyes are on the pill bottle on her vanity, right next to her makeup mirror. Annie Laurie Whitmore. Adderall 10 mg. Take 2x day. Not that I care, but it does strike me as curious why she takes it. She doesn’t seem like she has ADHD.
My hand is on the doorknob when she adds, “Cali? Why didn’t your parents move you into your room?”
Everything inside of me tightens. My head feels light and my body grows warm. How long has she been dying to know the answer to this? “I live with my grandparents,” I say, without turning around.
“How come?” I can feel her eyes burning into the back of my head.
Slowly, I turn around to face her. “Because my parents are dead.” Annie Laurie’s forehead shoots up and she flies a hand to her mouth. By the look on her face, I can practically hear the questions coursing through her mind. My heart is pounding loud enough for the whole dorm to hear.
“That sucks,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
I zip the cross hanging around my neck back and forth on the chain, something I do when I’m anxious. “It’s okay.”
“Cali. That’s horrible,” Ellie says crawling to the edge of her bed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. But it’s all good. My grandparents are better than parents.”
“How—” Annie Laurie opens her mouth to ask, I’m certain, another of the nosy questions she stores in her arsenal—about how they died or when they died—but Ellie blurts, “I’m not trying to be rude, y’all, but I have to go to sleep. I have a test in the morning and I don’t do well without sleep.”
“I’m off,” I say. “Have a good night’s rest.”
As I shut their door I hear Ellie’s voice. “Night, Cali. See you tomorrow.”
Before walking inside, I stop in front of my room to steady myself. All the blood has disappeared from my head. I feel like I might faint. Ellie saved me. Was it on purpose? Or on accident?
Now I feel like vomiting. Because I’ve lied. Majorly lied about my past. Having them discover that I’ve lied scares me to death, but I’m even more afraid of them learning the truth. Ever since I’ve been here I’ve been careful. Trying my best to be inconspicuous. I hadn’t anticipated someone like Annie Laurie would
be my next-door neighbor, incessantly pressing me for information.
I slip quickly inside our door. Jasmine is on her bed rubbing cocoa butter on her legs. Her cell phone is charging on the bedside table, but she’s wearing the Bluetooth device that’s usually attached to her ear when she talks to Carl. When I walk in she waves. We’ve only lived together two weeks and I already know her Carl voice. It’s sultry. Dragged-out words. Lower tones.
First I grab my PJs from the chest under my bed, then move over to my closet for my robe and shower caddy. I’m not comfortable changing in our room. Jasmine, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. She strips down to nothing in front of me. The first time she did it I couldn’t help noticing the heart shape of her pubic hair. I know you aren’t supposed to stare, but the first time I saw it I was so caught off guard all I could do was stare.
With my shower caddy, robe, and PJs in hand, I head down the hall to the bathroom. As I’m brushing my teeth, I look in the mirror and imagine myself as a sorority girl. I’ve literally been dreaming about it since I was twelve years old. Miss Mississippi made a special stop in Blue Mountain to visit our school. I remember her saying that she was in a sorority at Ole Miss and that she wanted to be governor one day. I can recall sitting in the gym, listening to her talk, and wanting to be just like her.
With the addition of Mrs. Woodcock’s I’ll have recs to seven out of the thirteen sororities. If I make it, I vow right here and now to be the best pledge in the sorority. I’ll become president. Then I’ll become a lawyer. And after that, just like many of our former state leaders who became Greek, I’ll be governor of the great state of Mississippi. The first lady governor, unless someone beats me to it, and then I’ll be the second.
Once back in my room, I grab my laptop out of my backpack and climb up onto my bed. Ellie’s email address is on my desk so I hop back down, grab the note, and do it all over again. Jasmine looks at me with confusion, and I point to the note in my hand. “Ellie’s email.”
After emailing her my rec packet, I type my mother’s name and info, “Jennifer Suellen Watkins Mississippi California,” into the search bar. Once I hit return, Google brings thousands of websites into view. I scroll down to the bottom of the first page, and do it again on the next ten pages before closing the window. There’s everything from obituaries to homicides to missing persons and adoption records for Suellens and Jennifers, but nothing on Jennifer Suellen Watkins in Mississippi or in California.
Satisfied, I close my laptop and put it in the drawer on my nightstand. After tucking my prayer stone inside my palm, I scoot underneath my covers and face the wall, rubbing my worries into the stone. Its cold texture matches the temperature of my heart as I picture my mom: long brown dreadlocks. Glazed blue eyes. Dark circles. Gross clothes.
I hear Jasmine tell Carl she has to go. And that she loves him. It makes me long for a boyfriend. I’d love to be hearing sweet words from the man of my dreams. But thoughts of my elusive prince are replaced with my new life at Ole Miss, thousands of miles away from my biological mother.
SEVENTEEN
WILDA
Somewhere far off I think I hear my phone ringing. When I slowly open my eyes, there’s a low light in the bedroom, and all I want to do is fall right back to sleep. But then a loud thunderclap jolts me out of grogginess. My cell phone is ringing. When I see seven on the clock I bolt up, lean over, and pick up my phone charging on the nightstand. Ellie.
“Heart,” I say, with a scratchy voice. “Is everything okay?” She’s never up this early. And her first class is not till nine.
“Of course it is. Why?”
“You don’t have class till nine and you love your sleep. Why in the world are you up?”
“I’ve been up.” She sighs deeply. “Annie Laurie wakes up at six. To do her hair and makeup.” A small, sarcastic giggle follows. She’s not pleased.
“Maybe she’s got a cute boy in her first class.”
“Whatever. I wake up to the sound of her annoying blow dryer every morning.”
“How’s it going otherwise? Did you get all your homework done last night?” As soon as I hear my words I want to take them back. I’m trying not to hover. We had talked yesterday afternoon. And the day before that. I can’t keep myself from dialing her number once a day.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s easy here compared to high school.”
Ellie’s prep school education is actually paying off, I think. As it should. “That’s a relief.” From the angle of my bed, I can see the condensation on the panes through the crack in the curtains. Moist, opaque. The heat must be intolerable already.
“Hey, I need you to do something,” Ellie says.
I sit up, prop the pillow behind me. “Anything.” She’s been gone two weeks now, and the emptiness feels like I’ve been starving myself. To be needed feels like savoring a five-course dinner at Antoine’s.
“Remember Cali? Our next-door neighbor?”
“The one with the black roommate?”
“Mom.”
“Sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I meant it as a qualifier. Not a description. Yes, I remember Cali.”
“You have to be more careful when you say stuff, Mom.”
“I’m scared to say anything these days. Next thing I know you’ll be telling me I can’t say Oriental rug.”
Ellie emits a loud irritated noise into the phone. “Whatever. So will you please write Cali an Alpha Delt rec?”
I pause before answering. Lilith’s face has popped into my mind. Remembering what she said at the Rush meeting about the cutoff. I don’t know Cali or anything about her family and the rec specifically asks that question. But the truth is Ellie’s recommendation is good enough. “I’d be happy to do that.” Thrusting my legs over the side of the bed, I jump up and head into the bathroom.
“Good, because she’s incredible and doesn’t have a rec from Alpha Delt yet. Plus no one in her family has ever been Greek.”
“No problem, honey.”
“I feel really sorry for her, Mom. Her parents are dead and she was raised by her grandparents in a little town close to Oxford called Blue Mountain.”
“How awful. Bless her heart.” Just hearing this news makes me excited to write her a rec. Alpha Delt could change her whole life.
“Ew. Are you peeing?”
“I just woke up. You pee and talk all the time.”
“But I cover the phone. That’s gross, Mom.”
“Sorry. Gosh. I can’t do anything right this morning.”
“Do you think it’s too late?” she asks, ignoring my comment.
“Is what too late?”
“To write Cali a rec?”
“I think September fifth is the deadline, so we’re good.”
Ellie sighs again, but this time from relief. “Thank God. Will you do it today? I want to make sure she has a chance. We’re already good friends.” No mention of Annie Laurie as a good friend. I’d like to press her about it, but I know better.
“Yes, I’ll do it today.” I move into the kitchen with Daisy at my heels, and rinse out my coffeepot from yesterday.
“Good. I’ve already emailed you her rec packet.”
“That was fast.”
“I knew you’d do it.”
“You were right,” I say. “Hey, who did you decide to invite to the game this weekend? Annie Laurie?”
“No, I invited Cali.”
I pause. “Does that make things weird between you and Annie Laurie?” I’m trying my best to temper my voice. She’ll bust me, big-time, if I don’t.
“Not at all. She’s already going with her parents.”
“Well that worked out perfectly.”
“Yep, sure did,” she says. “Okay, better go. It’s gonna take me a while to put my hair in a ponytail.”
“You’re a mess, Ellie Woodcock.”
“Bye, Mom,” she says with laughter in her voice.
Daisy needs to do her business so I let her out the patio door. She jus
t stands there looking back at me with the rain drenching her body. “Go on, girl. Hurry up, Daisy. It’s okay,” I yell from the door. She’s doesn’t want to do it, but she prances over to the closest patch of grass and squats anyway. Then she races back inside like she’s been caught in a hailstorm. After a shakeout, she lays her face sideways on the rug and scoots around in a desperate attempt to dry her mustache.
That Cali certainly is a sweet girl. It makes me feel good to be able to help her. And it’s tragic about her parents. What’s her story? I wonder. I’ll find out soon enough when I get her résumé.
EIGHTEEN
WILDA
I’m supposed to meet Mama for lunch. Truth is, I’m making myself meet Mama for lunch. I love my mother, I do, but she’s a thespian from the grandest of Shakespearian repertories, the ilk of which defies duplication. Yesterday she called to tell me my baby sister Mary, who lives with her family in Dallas, was dying, “literally dying,” she said, of heatstroke. Naturally it scared me to death when she said that and after almost dying from a stroke myself I finally recovered enough to ask what the heck had happened.
“The tempatuah in Dallas has hovered over the hundred-degree mark for twenty-foah days straight,” she said, in her thick Mississippi drawl. “Their entiah family will be dead by the end of the week.” That, in a nutshell, is Mama.
When I walk into The Cupboard, one of our better-than-average restaurants, Mama is seated at a table holding her cell phone. She’s already ordered water and tea for both of us, and there’s a basket of two rolls on her side of the table. I give her a hug, notice she’s looking at Facebook, and take my place. When I sip my tea, I can tell it’s unsweetened. I’m glancing around the restaurant, packed with diners, when Mama asks what I’m doing.
“The waitress made a mistake. This is unsweet tea.”
Mama pats my hand, which is still wrapped around the glass. “She made no mistake, Wilda. You really need to stop ordering sweet tea. Your hips don’t get any smallah the oldah you get.”
