Ada's Rules

by Alice Randall

  “I miss seeing myself in your eyes. I remember sitting in your lap touching your breast and seeing myself reflected in your eyes and knowing I was the luckiest girl in the world and one day I would be a mama and my daughter would sit on my lap and know she was the luckiest girl too. What if that doesn’t happen for me?”

  “It will, darling.”

  Ada was walking toward that truth, wherever the walk took her.

  40

  SHOP FOR YOUR FUTURE SELF

  EVERY YEAR IN January, Bird and Temple would choose the days they would celebrate family birthdays and Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. Once the dates were picked, they were sacred and didn’t get changed. Originally the dates were picked according to Temple’s band’s schedule.

  The day had come they had chosen to celebrate Ada’s birthday out at the lake.

  The party started in the living room. For the occasion, Bird had arranged the sofa in a rectangle. And she placed a birthday cake she had made by molding store-bought ice cream into a Bundt pan on a plate atop a guitar case right in front of the couch. Next to it was a giant bowl of pasta puttanesca. So Ada didn’t have to do the cleaning up, Temple had bought paper plates and plastic forks.

  Every year Ada’s birthday celebration conversation started off the same way.

  “Ada Howard, all y’all a lot of work, but you the little bit of fluff we picked up from the summer fields.”

  “That’s what you said, and that’s when that crazy bass player said, ‘Let’s call her Cotton,’ and it stuck for a hot minute.”

  “Half a hot minute.”

  “Then it changed up to Honey.”

  “I had to buzz around a pretty flower to get you.”

  “You buzzed around a lot of pretty flowers to get Honey. Had to make her mama hot jealous. Not easy to get that woman to uncross her legs,” said Maceo.

  “That’s right. I had to buzz around a lot of pretty flowers to get you,” said her daddy.

  Her mama was busy sipping and eating and thinking about something, trying to remember something, then forgetting that she was trying to remember. Maybe it was that little tiny strokes kept her mind jumping the track, but for the time being, she skidded back onto the track almost as fast as she skidded off. Bird squeezed Ada’s hand. It was a birthday. She was making a special effort.

  “You my velvet-chain baby.”

  Ada didn’t know if that was a skid on, or off, the track. “What’s that, Mama?”

  If the mother had wanted to answer, she would have had to shout down the daddy.

  “Your mama tried to name you Velvet,” said her daddy, like it explained something.

  Her mother laughed, spewing soup. She patted her brown face with a starched and scorched white cotton napkin. She was wearing a holiday bright red kimono.

  “Your daddy was a hard dog to keep under the porch—till I ’tached him to it with a velvet chain. You my velvet chain.”

  “Porchlight babies, we used to call ’em, they lead a man home,” said Maceo, who was tapping the browned top of a square of macaroni and cheese tentatively, with his fork, like he wanted it to be a snare drum.

  “When did we start eating macaroni and cheese?” asked Temple.

  “The sixties,” said a new tenant, one of three brothers who called themselves the Chesterfields. This emboldened the two other new tenants, his brothers, to join in the conversation, but first Maceo joined in.

  “I don’t remember macaroni and cheese way back. I don’t ’member it before Pyrex casseroles. And I don’t know when the white folks up North got ’em, but white folks down South didn’t get Pyrex and CorningWare till after the war, and we didn’t get it till the sixties. Macaroni and cheese came in just about the same time as Jimi Hendrix. Caught on fast when it came. I like the way it looked cut out in a square, all brown and orange on top,” said Maceo.

  “About the time everybody said, Say cheese, when they stopped to take your photograph. Remember those old instant photographs you had to rub with a wax crayon stick?”

  “Kitchens don’t look the way they used to. Bedrooms look just the same.”

  “That’s something to think about.”

  “I’m still thinking about Velvet. I forgot we called Honey that for a hot minute. There was that new TV show and the girl looked just like Elizabeth Taylor, and I always thought Elizabeth Taylor looked just a little colored, and her name in that movie was Velvet Brown. Velvet Brown could be colored.”

  “Maceo, you is sho’nuff crazy.”

  “Not so crazy. I was the one who said we giving this child entirely too many names.”

  “There was no compromising, so we just added on.”

  “She wanted to name you Velvet so she could laugh at me and know you tied me down. I named you Honey, ’cause I buzzed around a lot of bees to get you.”

  “And then you didn’t buzz no more.”

  “I got snipped.”

  “Like a puppy.”

  “I was the first man I ever knew to do it.”

  “First one of us.”

  Ada wondered if by “one of us,” her father meant musician or black person. Or black musician. She assumed he probably meant all of the above—her father was a happily hyphenated man. Years of playing music, smoking reefer, talking to his dead daughters in his head, and texting his living grandchildren with his guitar-speeded fingers had sweetened him.

  “Thank you, baby,” said her mother.

  “Thank you, baby,” said her father.

  She couldn’t tell if they were thanking her for all the food and caretaking or for being the velvet chain. Lately she had fed her parents and their boarders collard greens and black-eyed-pea soup with sweet potato broth and lots of fresh thyme. And she had left them a few sweet potato pies made with just sweet potato and egg whites, to give it some protein. She smiled to see that her parents were shrinking a bit too.

  “You looking good, girl,” said her mother.

  “Real good, child,” said her father.

  “Don’t get too skinny,” said Maceo. “Whatever men say they want, or think they want, they like a little meat on the bone. I never let myself get too skinny.”

  It was a funny family. Her mother treated her more like a sibling than a child, her father treated her like an adoring fan. But she loved them.

  Sitting in the house her daughters would one day inherit, a house that looked like a junk shop and smelled like one too, dusty and musty, Ada shook her head against the blutter. Black clutter, a particular kind of too much and unsorted, the kind Ada hated and loved. She took another sip of the sweet and bubbly wine her daddy was pouring and savored the contradiction. For the very first time.

  Usually, on her birthday, they tried to do something to let her know, without telling, how sweet she was. You are the sugar in the plum. This year they almost told her out loud that she was their treasure. Then they didn’t.

  But Ada knew from the time Temple let her suck on his knuckle and she had let herself be quieted, from the very first weeks of her life, that he had allowed her more. Her sisters had had sugar tits made of handkerchiefs dipped in sugar water. Ada had her father’s knuckle. She was the first flower of their middle age. She was a passion flower.

  The first three daughters were noisy babies who did not let him sleep in the night when they did not sleep through the night.

  Ada was different. She sucked on his knuckle, lying in her little crib, then she slept through the night. After this baby was born, the mother liked sex more than before. After this baby was born, everything was better.

  The sisters pulled together to share in her care; they started visiting home again. He still went out on the road, but now the road was all singing and no kissing. His songs got better.

  Everything Temple had to give anybody who was not his woman or one of his four girls or his band brother, he gave on the stage.

  Some girl laid up for him in the men’s room of a club one night. Standing crouched in the shit stall, and when he came in
she pounced, and he told her, “You got my best already. I don’t want to see the disappointment in your eyes.” He never slept with another one of the girls who follow the boys in the band again.

  He owed Ada something more than what he had given. And it was her birthday. He didn’t like birthday presents. It had been too many years of not being able to afford to get good ones that did that to him. But he didn’t have to be that way. He had an old guitar he had picked up in a pawnshop in 1952. A guitar he had bought for twenty-five dollars, and it might bring Ada twenty-five thousand.

  Looking at Ada with her China chop, in her sweatpants and pearls, with her Burberry coat, the preacher’s wife and the R&B singer’s daughter, he knew a big part of why she was tired and broke was she lived in so many worlds, too many worlds. She lived in the music world of honor among thieves and the church world of thieves forgiven by Jesus. She worked and she mama’d and she wifed and she daughter-in-lawed and she preacher’s-wifed, and she, somewhere he knew, tried to be, and wanted to be, Lucius’s lover. Ada was Bird’s daughter. Temple was proud of his girl for juggling it all for so long.

  “So it came down to Rose, or Honey, or Cotton, after we threw out Velvet, and we couldn’t pick, and our last name was Smith, and so we just called you Honey Rose Cotton on top of the Jacqueline and Vicksburg and praised Jesus our last name was Smith, then we came to our senses and put Ada at the front of it.”

  “And we filled out the papers at the hospital before we had a chance to sober up, so there it was, turned into Uncle Sam. Ada Rose Honey Cotton Jacqueline Vicksburg Smith. Thank God you married a Howard and dropped the rest of that mess.”

  “Ada Howard is a good name,” said Temple.

  “If you like stripped-down,” said Ada.

  “It was Lord Byron’s daughter’s name,” said Bird.

  “And Bricktop’s,” said Temple.

  I will not underestimate my mother. Every year Ada had a birthday present for herself, something she would improve or change about herself, a secret improvement. Until this moment she had not known what this year’s would be. Now she did. I will not underestimate my mother.

  And she would focus on Preach. She would find out if he was cheating, and she would start calling him by his name, Lucius. And she needed to be doing some work she truly wanted to be doing now, which was writing Home Training or getting a degree in nutrition and a degree in counseling and teaching others how to do what she was doing for herself. It was time to change more of everything up!

  Ada was going to buy herself something gorgeous to wear, something her mother might have worn if she had been the preacher’s wife. I will not underestimate my mother. She would dress as the woman she wanted to be.

  Her father was tucking a bundle into the backseat of the car. A blanket wrapped around an old guitar.

  “I don’t play guitar, Daddy.”

  “Take it to Corner Music. Or down to Gruhn’s. They’ll know. You don’t take less than ten thousand dollars for it. Cash. You might get near to twenty-five thousand.”

  “What is it, Daddy?”

  “It was a lot of things. What it is … is a break for my baby.”

  “How fancy, Daddy?”

  “Ain’t fancy at all. It’s a poor boy’s guitar, dozens of ’em floatin’ round near like it. It’s a tool, an ax, it’s nothing. But that one belonged to somebody who knew how to do something with it had never been done. Genius touched that box. Corner or Gruhn’s will know.”

  “It’s your Indianola guitar. I can’t take that.”

  “Be my music walking, girl.”

  Before she pulled off, she put down her window to blow her father a kiss.

  “Go straight to the shop with that. Don’t get it stole. This is Nashville. Keep it in that ratty blanket. Too many folk ’round here will know what it is.”

  She went straight from Corner Music and bought herself a $49, size-10 stretchy black dress from Target.

  41

  TAKE ONE BITE OF ANYTHING AND NEVER MORE THAN TWO BITES OF ANYTHING DECADENT

  THE TWINS FLEW in for Ada’s actual birthday. With the help of their daddy, they pulled off a surprise fish fry in Sevier Park.

  Before rushing out to pick up Ruth and Naomi at the airport, Preach brought Ada a birthday breakfast in bed: a bowl of ripe plums.

  The gesture made Ada cry. In the bowl were four purple, perfectly imperfect, dark spheres. Ada reached for a plum with brown fingers. Her fingers touched the smooth, poreless, tightly encasing skin. She held the plum close to her nose. There was no scent and only the slightest sound when her teeth pierced the fruit, releasing the burst of flavor. First the dark and shiny smooth, almost slick, surface, then an acid layer, sharp but not bitter, then the sweet flesh, yielding, wet, dense. The flavors were ripe purple and acid green, then the acid green faded off, leaving only the sweet.

  Ada closed her eyes, and the plum melted onto her tongue. A taste of self-recognition. I am the sugar in the plum. The sweetness that lightens and abides.

  The things you taste become a part of you. I have tasted you. Ada took a woman’s plea sure in relishing her most intimate sense. She took a black woman’s pleasure in relishing the least assaulted sense. The swallow after a black beauty tastes is a precious swallow.

  She ate a second plum. She drank her milkless coffee. She awoke. She was grateful to Preach for his bruiseless gift that spoke a language they had almost forgotten. How many carbs were there in a plum? In a banana? In an apple? In a little sip of honey for her tea? In a tablespoon of mascarpone? Thank God there were none in a kiss. And the kisses of Preach’s dark mouth were sweet. She had to have them. That night she would tell him so. Happy Birthday. Happy 150 pounds.

  Ada reveled in an afternoon to bite with abandon into a fried fish sandwich dripping with hot sauce and mayonnaise smothered with melty yellow cheese all jammed between two square pillows of Wonder Bread. Ada loved a “hot fish sammich.” She loved the smell of sizzling oil, the salt and pepper and cornmeal goodness of the crunchy skin of whiting or catfish or red snapper.

  Wandering, in white cotton pants and white cotton shirt, along the bank of the little stream that wiggled through the park, watching many of their church friends and their KidPlay friends hula-hoop, and jump double-dutch, and chase, and hand-clap and dance to the music that was blaring from the hot fish truck speakers, Ada felt deeply easy.

  She felt light enough to make her way into the jump-rope lines. When it was her turn, the old rhythm found her and she was wheeling her feet, right, left, right, left, and she was inching them into a turn, right, left, right left, and she was getting short of breath and she knew the ropes would be falling on her shoulders soon—but not yet. Right, left, right left. Mamas from her school were handling the ropes, and they knew how to turn. She was jumping for all she was worth until she missed the beat and the rope got caught around her ankle and she was lying in the grass laughing and the twins were screaming, “Mama, are you crazy?” and the kids were screaming, “Look at Ms. Preach” and Queenie was hollering at the top of her lungs, “Lord, help me Jesus today! Lord, help me Jesus today!” and Preach was whispering on his knees beside her, “Ada, are you all right?” And he seemed to be talking about her good sense leaving her as much as he was talking about her knees and her face.

  She didn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard. She didn’t remember the last time she had grass stains on her knees and on her butt and on her side. The ropes got going again, and this time Inez jumped in. She jumped in and jumped six or seven times, then jumped out. Her suit stayed pretty. Then she put an arm around Ada and said, “I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t.” When it was Becca and Ada’s turn to turn, Delila jumped into the ropes.

  Eventually, it was time to eat. Seated at a picnic table, Ada brought the sandwich to her mouth and she took one great big bite. She closed her eyes and chewed. If there hadn’t been so many children everywhere about, she would have said right out loud, “A spicy hot fried fish sandwich mad
e right is as good as sex.” Only it wasn’t. She put the sandwich down.

  She had forgotten about the zing. Her zing wasn’t in the sandwich. Her zing was jumping in the ropes. Her zing was dancing. She got up, and she and Preach showed the young kids the Stroll, and showed the old folks they still could stroll. Somebody started handing out icy paletas. Ada got a hibiscus-flower one. It was purple and it made her lips look pretty, but it wasn’t a plum. There was no acid to set off the sweet.

  Bunny came up to her, rolling a hula hoop. Bunny wanted to try hooping with Ms. Preach. Bunny stood right close to Ada and let Ada’s hips do most of the work. As the plastic hoop spun round them, Ada realized Bunny was at least ten pounds lighter than she had been at the beginning of the year. Bunny was no longer in a pudge predicament. Ada was prouder than proud.

  When they had hooped till Ada was panting, Bunny dropped to a blanket and grabbed her supper, grilled halibut wrapped in lettuce. Ruth and Naomi had figured that recipe translation out. With hot sauce, of course. New hot fish sandwiches. When Bunny started delicately nibbling on hers, making sure not to get any sauce on her T-shirt, Keshawn called her Miss Priss. Bunny shook a strong fist at him, and Keshawn ran off, laughing.

  Ada grabbed her new hot fish sandwich and settled onto a blanket with the girls to eat it all with big bites. When the sauce dribbled onto her lips, she licked it back. She told her girls the recipe was the best birthday present they could have given her. Then she told them, “There’s not a thing in the world you can’t eat one bite of. And never eat more than two bites of anything decadent. But it’s nice to eat something you can let loose on!”

  She looked around the park, searching for the man she loved. Lucius. He saw her looking for him. Soon he made his way across the park to Ada. It was that kind of good day. When Lucius settled in beside her with the abandon that belongs to true feast days, with a plastic plate with two fish sammiches on it, Ada kissed him.

  “It time for the big dog to eat,” said Lucius.