by Tayari Jones
I thought of Cynthia but didn’t argue with him. “Please smile,” I said. “I need you to be happy.”
He did smile for me, a pained expression. Lawrence once told me that it takes forty-two muscles to smile. Watching Dwayne, I could see the strain in every single one of them.
Finally he turned off the light and lay back on his oily pillowcase. “Come here, girl,” he said, pulling me up on his chest. “Let me show you why they call it making love.”
I left the next morning after Dwayne had left for the gym to play basketball with Cheese and some other friends. I envisioned him on the court, telling everyone he saw, accepting claps on the back, claiming me and the baby both. He probably wouldn’t play very well, missing easy layups, because he’d be distracted by thoughts of the long run. I knew the kind of man Dwayne was. He would spend the next seven months or so figuring the best way to save for a college education. He’d wonder what sort of grandfather he’d be.
I, on the other hand, was consumed by my visions of the short run. There was no way we could plan an elaborate ceremony like Rochelle’s; we hadn’t the time or the money. And even if we had been from well-off families, we would need to save to support the baby. I looked forward to declining social invitations, pleading poverty. I had to do that often enough now. Just last week Rochelle invited me to do a spa day with her and her mother. I didn’t have the money to go; I’d been honest about it and it was a little embarrassing. But now, when I explained that my priorities had changed, it would give my lack of discretionary income a sort of moral clout.
Hopefully we could have the ceremony as soon as possible. I didn’t want to run over to the justice of the peace, but I wanted to be Mrs. Upshaw long before my body changed. It was vanity, mostly. I was a grown woman—certainly no one thought I was a virgin—but there was something shameful about being pregnant out of wedlock, no matter how times have changed. I know that there are women out there who are single moms by choice, who never considered living as part of a family of three; I have read about these women in magazines. But personally I have never met a single mother who wouldn’t rather have a partner.
I made it home, ran into the living room with the soles of my sandals smacking on the wood floors, calling Rochelle’s name with my left hand held in front of me. She’d be happy for me. Hadn’t I been happy for her when she announced her engagement in February? It was my turn for hugs, kisses, and oh-my-Gods. She’d be a good sport about me beating her to the altar. We weren’t in a competition, and even if we were, she’d win hands down. I might be getting married first, but she was the one with the crepe lisse, the reception at the Egyptian Ball Room, and the five-hundred-person guest list.
Only Kitten was home to greet me. On the oak table was the evidence of Rochelle’s breakfast, chunks of milk-soaked granola and grapefruit skins. Disappointed, I poured kibble into Kitten’s ceramic bowl and replaced the batteries in his water filter. I ate an overripe banana and watched the cat chew a few mouthfuls. When he was done, I scratched him between his pointy ears. Good news and nobody to tell it to was more frustrating than all dressed up and no place to go.
I scooped Kitten onto my shoulder, stroking him like a baby. Dwayne doesn’t like cats, so we wouldn’t have a kitty of our own once we got married. Giving up Kitten was such a paltry sacrifice in exchange for the life I would be leading, I didn’t know why I even thought about it. And besides, Kitten belonged to Rochelle, like everything around here worth having.
The telephone rang, startling me and Kitten too. Following the sound of the electronic ring, I found myself standing in the middle of Rochelle’s disorderly bedroom.
Rochelle’s room was larger than mine by two or three paces in each direction, but it seemed smaller because of all the stuff she had strewn around. Standing in front of her dresser, waiting for the phone to ring again, I smelled the gardenia and soap scent of the dozen sachets she had made for herself last winter. The ringing seemed to be coming from her upper left dresser drawer. I let it ring once again before easing my hand into the open drawer, telling myself that this was not really an invasion of privacy. If I were to slide open one of the drawers of the vanity just for the sake of looking, that would be beyond the pale. But this was simply a practical matter. This drawer was stuffed with soft and pretty things, most with the price tags still on. The phone rang again, from somewhere nearby. I moved my hand in order to look someplace else, behind the dresser maybe, but the machine picked up. “Breathe,” said the outgoing message, “and you will know peace.” Breathing, I held a sage- colored chemise, silk, against my chest. It would look better than the lace and nylon teddies that Dwayne favored. I put the nightie back in the drawer, stifling my urge to fold it carefully or even wrap it in tissue. Next I pulled out the satin gloves, which Rochelle thought were “too much” but her mother believed were “exactly right, perfect!”
I imagined myself following in the footsteps of our housebreaker. It was hard to believe that less than a month had passed since then. I slid the glove over my right hand and up my arm nearly to the shoulder. I did the same on the left except I took my ring off and pushed it back on over the white satin. When I held my hand far from my face, the cluster of diamonds looked like a dime-sized solitaire. Dwayne would have to open a thousand locks to buy me something like that.
I admired my arms for a few moments more before sitting on Rochelle’s unmade bed. For some reason her sheets smelled of purple lollipops. Lying back on her pillows, looking at the mosquito netting draped from the ceiling, I rubbed my satin-covered fingers together and almost cried. If I had time to plan, time to save, I could be a really beautiful bride. If I had more time, I could have done things right. Sent my picture to Jet magazine, invited people. I wouldn’t complain if my mother made me wear pretty gloves.
Kitten crawled over me, kneading my stomach with his paws. I rubbed his black and white head until he purred like a lawn mower. I hugged him close, enjoying the warmth of his body and the softness of his fur. Even if I wasn’t getting married, Kitten wouldn’t be in my life forever. Even if Rochelle wasn’t taking him as part of her trousseau. People live longer than cats. Relationships are temporary, Hermione liked to say. Even if love lasts forever, it’s just a matter of time before one person dies on the other one.
I stretched in order to clear my head. This was not a time to be thinking about people dying or pets dying. This was the happiest day of my life. And I was happy. I felt a swirl of emotions that day, the pleasant feelings flavored with sadness. It was probably just the side effects of some sort of hormonal brew. I was happy. This I knew.
I got up and stood in front of Rochelle’s gaping closet door. Under the weight of the many dresses, coats, jackets, and blouses, the wooden rod curved like a bow. In between her suede jacket and gray tweed suit peeked a fold of white silk studded with seed pearls. I mashed the clothes to one side and pulled it free. I felt like a magician, pulling endless scarves from my sleeve. The dress was enormous and light at the same time. Yards of creamy fabric that seemed to weigh nothing.
I knew the gown would fit me. I’d known this since the first time I helped Rochelle zip herself into it. Once, when we were in this room together, drinking wine and looking at color swatches, I almost asked her if I could try it on. The words were in my mouth, trapped behind my teeth. I think she would have said yes; my best friend is a generous person. I shook my head and clucked my tongue; she never even bothered storing it properly. She just shoved this magnificent dress into her tight dark closet. A gown like this has to breathe. All the bride’s magazines tell you that. Don’t smother your silks.
I would be a beautiful bride if I could just have a chance.
It’s said that you can feel a stare before you even know that someone is looking at you, but I don’t know how long Rochelle stood in the doorway of her bedroom watching me wearing her satin gloves, admiring her wedding gown. I do know that I didn’t feel a thing. I looked toward the doorway only because the beauty of the dress was
suffocating. I’d lifted my head only for air.
“Why are you in my room?” she said, leaning against the doorjamb. Hand on left hip.
Her tone was not exactly hostile, but it was more suspicious than curious. I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. She’d caught me unmasked, displaying the full extent of my desire. I focused my attention on my upper arms where the gloves pinched the skin. “I just wanted to look at your dress.”
“Aria,” Rochelle said, “are you all right?”
“I’m pregnant,” I said. “I’m having a baby.”
She grew silent. “What did you say?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Oh shit, Aria.” Rochelle touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. “Are you freaked out? Don’t get freaked out. This can be handled. I’ll be there for you just like you were there for me.”
“No,” I said. “This is a good thing. I’m keeping it. I’m going to marry Dwayne.” I held out my hand to her. The ring looked big and gaudy atop the slick white glove. I worked it off and tossed it to Rochelle.
She caught it easily and walked over, sitting beside me on the unmade bed. “So you told him about the baby?”
I nodded.
“And he proposed?”
“Basically.”
Rochelle scrutinized the ring on her palm like it was an interesting insect. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t like how she sounded like a schoolteacher who has only your own good in mind. “There’s nothing wrong with Dwayne.”
“No,” Rochelle said. “I don’t mean anything like that. I was just thinking about timing, that’s all.”
“He’s got a better job than we do.”
“This isn’t about money,” Rochelle said. “You should know me better than that.”
“It’s all about money,” I said, wriggling out of the satin gloves. I shouldn’t have tossed my engagement ring across the room. I should have invited her to look at it on my hand. Let her squint at it from the doorway; from that distance the clustered diamond chips looked like a three-carat solitaire. I wiggled my fingers, already missing the weight of the ring below my knuckle.
Rochelle held it between her thumb and forefinger, her own diamonds winking like flashbulbs. “Was this his mother’s ring or something?”
“It’s been in his family,” I said.
“How long?” She raised her brows. “Since the eighties?” Rochelle laughed but stopped when I didn’t join her. “It’s a joke.”
I knew it was a joke and last week it would have been all right. Rochelle teased me about Dwayne all the time. She laughed at his leather pants, at his cousin’s nickname. But now none of it was funny.
“So when is the big day?” she said.
“In a few weeks, I think. Soon. I don’t want to waddle down the aisle.”
“Well,” she said, “this is good, if it’s what you want.” Her voice seemed strained, her good humor forced. “So why did you come in here in the first place?”
“I just wanted to look close at your dress. I didn’t go through your drawers or anything like that. I don’t know how I am going to find a dress and everything in time.” I touched the clean white fabric and looked up at her.
“You don’t want to wear my dress, do you? I can’t get married in a used gown.”
“Never mind,” I said. “I don’t want to wear your dress.”
“What exactly is it that you want?” Rochelle looped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me toward her. I squirmed out of her embrace.
“I want exactly what I have.”
“And what is that?” Rochelle said.
I’d never been in a fight before. I’d never struck another human being, but I wanted to slap Rochelle hard and sharp across her cheek, surprise spreading across her face like blood. It would end our relationship completely, I knew this, but maybe it would be worth it to rub that satisfied expression from her face.
“I want what everybody wants. I’m not so different from you.” I pointed to the cardboard boxes lining the wall and the bridal magazines heaped in the corner. “Your wedding will last for just one day and after that you won’t have anything more than what I have. It will be you and your husband sitting in a room, just like it will be me and Dwayne. And you want to be happy and that’s all that I want.”
“Penny,” she said, “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She reached for my hand, the one I was preparing to send into her face. She took it, kissing the palm. “I really am happy for you.”
I pulled my hand back, smearing her lipstick from her mouth to her chin.
Chapter Six
I had planned for Dwayne to meet my family way back in December. We had been dating for about three months, long enough for me to be sure that this was more than an extended one-night stand. My mother had invited me to the house for dinner on the first Sunday of the month. I’d accepted her invitation and told her that I’d be bringing a friend.
“A young man?” she wanted to know.
I was relieved to say yes.
The weather had been cool enough for me to wear my leather jacket. I liked to wear heavy clothes when I saw my mother; the jacket completely concealed my body and made me look slim. A supple suit of armor. Dwayne had worn leather too: black pants and a bright yellow sweater. I wished he had worn khaki or even tweed. A blazer maybe.
I had known that it was only right that I warn him, prepare him in some way for the scene at 739 Willow Street. But what should I have told him? I’d been dodging my mother’s uppercut personality for most of my life, yet I was never really prepared. And besides, this could have been a good day. Mama might have welcomed him with a firm embrace and peck on the cheek. With my mother you never knew what you were going to get.
“Dwayne,” I said, “if my mother is a little weird, don’t take it the wrong way.”
He said, “Weird how?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Well, give me an example. Is she weird like she might ask me to help bathe the dog, or weird like she might try to kill me?”
“Put your blinker on,” I said. “Your turn is coming up.”
“Don’t ignore my question,” Dwayne said over the click of the turn signal. “Crazy like what? Like a fox? Like Son of Sam?”
Using my teeth, I scraped flavored gloss off my lower lip while I let Dwayne pass my mother’s house. I needed to tell him something, disclose the shape of my mother’s madness, if not its magnitude.
“She does weird stuff when she’s angry.” I shrugged. “She’s not a psychopath.”
“For example?”
“Like one time she baked BBs into the corn bread when I was in high school.”
“Because?”
“Because she was pissed. Me and my best friend went to a college party at Morehouse and stayed out until seven in the morning. I spent two whole weeks waiting for her to punish me somehow. I came home every day expecting her to have smeared butter on my prom dress or something like that. Then one day I sat down for dinner and chomped down on hard metal. Tears came to my eyes and she was satisfied.”
“That’s deep,” Dwayne said. “And we’re about to go over there for dinner.”
“No, no, no,” I said. “It’s not like that all the time.” I felt hot shame spread from my chest to my face. “I mean, what I told you was true, but I don’t think she’s going to do anything freaky with the food.”
Dwayne took one hand off the steering wheel and covered mine. “Did she do stuff like that to you a lot? When you were small?”
“Not when I was small; only after my father passed. We were fine before then.”
This was an oversimplification, I knew. Hermione has told me a thousand times that things were not fine before the accident. They had not been as toxic as they became after Daddy and Genevieve died, but even before, our mother was not like other mothers. She’d had her quirks, insisting once that we drive all the way home from Callaway Gardens, more than fifty mil
es south, because she had forgotten to turn on the dishwasher. I have only fuzzy memories of these incidents, but Hermione tells me that before Daddy died, Mama was embarrassed by her personality, apologizing all the way back up I-85.
Daddy was annoyed. “Eloise, it doesn’t matter if the dishes are dirty when we get home. Don’t spoil the kids’ holiday.”
“But there could be bugs,” she said. “Lincoln, please just let me go back to turn on the machine.”
And I had to agree with Hermione that this wasn’t normal. But I also felt the need to point out that things were different before. Before, Mama may have been a little bit crazy, but she was never mean. I was never afraid of her.
Dwayne turned into the parking lot of a CME church, gravel popping under the wheels of the Crown Victoria, a retired police car that he’d bought at an auction. It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, but the parking lot was crowded. He eased the Crown between two black SUVs. He put in my favorite of his CDs, Wynton Marsalis and his daddy playing all the songs from the Snoopy cartoons, the sound track of a happy childhood. Pressing buttons on his armrest, he reclined our seats. Then he took my hand again and stroked my palm with the smooth skin of his thumb.
I told him about my dog, Vido. He was part Shar-Pei, but we didn’t know that’s what he was. We just called him a “wrinkle dog.” I’d found him at Piedmont Park when I was twelve. Mama sent him to the pound when I was gone to Bluebird Camp.
Hermione had broken the news. She held me and rubbed my back as I cried. “I told her not to do it,” she had said in a quiet voice.
Dwayne listened and warmed my hands between the two of his. I hadn’t run out of things to say, but I stopped talking and squeezed Dwayne’s fingers until my nails went white. “But I’m okay. I don’t want you to think that I’m scarred for life or anything like that.”
Dwayne didn’t speak; he looked into my face with worried eyes while rubbing my hand in time with the cheerful jazz pouring from his speakers. I was unaccustomed to this sort of kindness.
