Carlos has gym his last hour. He must have showered in the cologne. I have to open the window halfway because the sweet fumes have my eyes watering.
“It ain’t all that strong as you putting on.” He sniffs the air and himself.
Mama is the one who insisted on getting him cologne for Christmas: “A fragrance is a good gift for a young man. It makes him conscious of his hygiene.” I don’t know which would be worse: his gym class funk or the overdone fragrance. Next year, he will be getting clothing from the Joyce family.
I decided to tell my mama the truth about the play since I couldn’t think up a believable lie. She surprised me and said I could go, but I have to find out exactly what time the play ends so she can pick me up afterward. Mama is not giving Samuel and me any time alone. She has never been this strict with boys before, but Samuel is not really a boy. He is a man, a very good-looking man.
Michelle’s curly wig really doesn’t look that bad. I would wear it if I wore wigs, but my hair, although thin, hangs halfway down my back. I shouldn’t have told Carlos about Michelle’s wigs. The boy should have been left ignorant and happy.
How did he have sex with her and not know she was wearing a wig? One of the first things guys do is play with my hair while we’re doing it. I guess Carlos doesn’t run his fingers through the girl’s hair when he gets sexually riled up.
Obviously, he didn’t run his fingers through Michelle’s, or maybe he did and her wigs were secured. Who knows and who cares? That’s between him and his wig-wearing girlfriend. I want to roll the car window up from the cold, but I still smell his cologne. Good thing I have on my mama’s fox.
To get a conversation started I ask, “Michelle, do you go to a lot of plays?”
I see she has rolled her window down too. If his Prada fumes are strong back here, she must be getting gassed. Poor baby, she got hit by my stink bomb first thing in the morning and now Carlos’s overdone cologne.
“Yes, I do. Most of my family are thespians. My father has been in theater for over thirty years. He is an active member of the Chicago Actors Guild. And he is costarring in this play along with two of my cousins. They all have leading roles. The family is so proud. I was going to wait until we got seated to spring it all on you, Carlos, but I can’t hold it in any longer. When you told me you had tickets to this performance, I could have burst with joy.
“I have actually performed at the theater in over five productions. It’s by far my favorite venue. My father and my cousins love it as well. We are in for a dynamic threat. Matinee or not, believe me, they will be putting their best foot forward. So, the short answer to your question is yes, I go to the theater often. And what about you, May?”
Oh, my God. I thought she only talked that way in front of teachers. Who is in the front seat, a girl from the South Side of Chicago or some proper prissy prep from the North Shore? Since I’m certain she is from the South Side, the wig-wearer must be pretending to be something she is not, and one good act deserves another.
So, I say, “Girl, I like da movies, but I’ll try anythang once,” with as much bass as possible in my voice. If she wants to play prissy girl, I’ll play thug girl.
“The movies is better dan TV, but wid da TV I can play my video games. I wish I could hook up my video games at the show, smoke some weed, and play Saint’s Row on a big-ass movie screen. Dat would be dope.” I slam my fist into the back of her seat for emphasis. “But wid dem plays at the theater, all ya do is sit and watch people act out stuff, right? I ain’t sho’ I’ma like it.”
She answers with, “Actually, there is a little more to it than that, May.” Her left hand is in the air with fingers twinkling. “Plays are human drama, and depending on the actor’s ability the drama should pull you in totally. And since the performance is live with real, breathing thespians, I think it will hold your interest more than any movie or video game.”
Michelle turns to face me. She’s looking as if I am a kid who ate a black jellybean and didn’t like it, and she is trying to convince me to try the yellow jellybean.
“I don’t know ’bout dat. Dem video games be real, especially if you smoke a blunt. I can sit all day in front of da tube and be into dem games. I be sweatin’ and everythang. A play will have to be real good to be better dan dat!” I have to bite the inside of my jaw to stay in character because I want to laugh out loud.
“May, stop!” Carlos interrupts my performance. “Michelle, she is messing with you. May has been in three plays at that theater, and when we were kids, her grandma had season tickets at two theaters downtown. She would take us to plays almost every Sunday: me, May, and this girl named Edith. We all loved going to the plays. That’s how we got into drama when we were kids. All three of us were in The Lion King.”
She looks from me to Carlos and says, “The Lion King? You two were in that performance? I tried so hard to get into that production, and they accepted you two?”
Oh, my God, what does she mean by “you two”? As if we couldn’t possibly have been good enough actors to get in The Lion King. What I should do is reach over this seat and snatch that curly mess of a wig off her thespian head and see how proper she really is. I haven’t seen a black woman yet who didn’t go straight hood when their hair was messed with.
“I think May’s grandma knew people, but I don’t know how it happened for sure. We were so young. It seems like another lifetime, don’t it, May?”
Carlos is trying to make eye contact with me in the rearview mirror. I look away because he should have let me run my little skit on Miss Prissy Pants.
“Yeah, it does, and that’s kind of sad. So, let’s go back to talking about this play. Who are your cousins, Michelle, and what’s your father’s name?” I don’t want to start thinking about or talking about the past or my grandma. That gets me down. And I’m not trying to be gloomy right now. I want to keep the artsy girl talking. If she says enough of the wrong things to me, snatching off her wig will be easy.
“Darnell and Dominique Knight are my cousins, and my father is Russell Pickens.”
I know both of her cousins and her dad. Her cousin Dominique and I got into some heavy petting in the director’s office when I was about eleven. He told me he loved me and brought me one of his mama’s diamond rings. He asked for it back a week later, but I told him it was lost. It got lost all right, right in my jewelry box next to the diamond earrings Papa gave me.
“I remember your dad: a tall, thin guy with intense black eyes. He ran the drama program with the park district. Carlos, Edith, and me used to go to his class at Foster Park. I stopped going about four years ago. The best play we did was West Side Story.”
“Yes, that’s him.”
I like her father, a lot. He took time with the kids and treated everyone the same. Her father gets her a pass today if she can shut up. I look out the window and notice that Carlos has gotten on the expressway and that we are driving by the paint factory.
“Hey, Carlos, do you remember the Christmas play we did in there?”
“Yep. They had commercials about it and everything.”
We were about eight. The company made a commercial out of part of the play. I wonder what happened to that money. It was a major commercial and played all over the country. The pay had to be substantial. My mama spent and spends money like there is no tomorrow. My grandma used to say money burns a hole in her pocket.
Acting was cool back then, but after my grandparents died everything just went sort of bland for me. Now that I’m thinking about it, this will be the first play I have gone to since they died.
“I got started acting in the park program too,” Michelle says, rolling up her window. “If it weren’t for the program, I doubt that I would have gotten into drama, but because there were so many kids doing it, I got involved. It was like going to a school that was all fun. You know, we probably met back then and just don’t remember it.”
Michelle turns around in her seat to face me. She has a large, warm smile and bright eyes, and I can fe
el that she is genuinely trying to be friendly, so I give her a smile and decide that I will try to be nice too.
“I am sure we met. We had to. It will come to us later, girl,” I say in my nice sister-girl voice.
“Well, y’all know we had to meet at the end-of-the-year play at city hall. That was when all the park classes got together and put on one performance, so we had to cross paths there,” Carlos offers.
“Oh, darn. I have to take this thing off. If my daddy sees me in a wig, he will trip, and he might be at the performance.” She pulls about five bobby pins from her head and removes the brown curly wig from her head, revealing cornrows that, once she lets down, hang well past her shoulders. Carlos takes his eyes from the road to give her natural hair a quick look. He’s grinning from ear to ear. And I am honestly happy for him because now I think he will at least give the girl a chance, which is what he wants to do.
“Why do you wear a wig?” he asks.
“It’s my parents. They are in business producing this natural hair growth grease, and the whole family has to use it, but the product works best when the hair is braided, so while we are in testing my hair has to stay in braids. I wear wigs for the different styles. But if my daddy saw me in a wig he would think I was damaging the study results. So, to stop all that, I sneak a wig on when I get to school. That way I can have a different style when I want one.”
“Does the grease work?” I ask. Not that I need it or that my mama would let me use anything but lanolin in my hair. Three generations of women with jet-black hair—my mama, my grandma, and me—and nothing stronger than lanolin and mild heat has been in our hair, but I do want to know if her daddy’s product grows hair. I roll my window up to hear her clearly.
“Yes, it’s been working in our family forever. The test is for the manufacturer. We get more money if the results show so much growth over a certain period of time. They actually cut my hair at the start to measure new growth. Over fifty percent of this is new growth.” She extends her braids. “And they have only been measuring a little over three months. So, it works. Which we already knew, but the people buying the formula didn’t know it.”
She is prissy. It’s not an act with her. No matter what she’s talking about she uses correct English and that snippy tone. Having never spent any time alone with her at school, I just assumed she was like all the rest of us Southsiders, but she really is a prissy, proper girl.
“Daddy says the sale money will pay for college for my brothers and me, and buy us acres of land in Alabama. His plan is to build a new house on the land so, when he retires, he and Mama can move down South with no worries.
“The deal is pretty much done with the last measurement of my hair, and my aunts’. The dollar amount of the deal I’m not privy to, but I believe it’s going to be enough to change the whole family’s life for the better. Daddy has already sold our home on Racine, and he said we will be moving to Longwood with or without the sale of the formula. But with the sale things are going to be all the better.”
Uh-oh. I don’t like the icky feeling stirring about in my stomach and the back of my head. I know exactly what it is. I labeled it last year when I found out about Carlos’s basketball scholarship.
“My mama says Daddy must be in a lucky cycle because of his promotion at work, his part in the play, and the company’s interest in purchasing the formula. She started calling him Midas.” Michelle giggles.
It’s a common feeling for me. I feel it every time one of the girls from school gets picked up by a parent in a Mercedes or BMW. I feel it when I hear them talking about going shopping or getting their hair done with their mamas. I feel it when they talk about their family life, which includes both mother and father. I feel it when I see boys who swore their love to me with other girls even if I don’t want them anymore, and I’m feeling it now listening to Michelle talking about her parents’ financial windfall.
“I must admit I love it all. Daddy bought a new car, and weekly allowances for my brothers and me have gone from fifty dollars to two hundred. I can actually go to a mall and shop for an outfit every weekend now. And I know it’s not all my daddy. My mama is a CPA, and her firm has just promoted her as well, but all eyes are on Daddy now, and I am happy for him. I can remember arguments between him and Mama about his acting not paying bills. It hasn’t always been good for him.”
I want all her hair to fall out, and her daddy to be kicked out of the actors guild, and her mama to contract a horrible disease that will leave her deaf, blind, and disfigured. I want her and her family broke and living in a homeless shelter. I want Carlos to get her pregnant so she will get an abortion that will cause her to bleed to death. I want her daddy’s hair formula to eat through her skin and give her bone cancer.
“You two have been letting me ramble on for most of the ride. Enough about me. One of you tell me about your parents.”
Okay. Let’s see. My mama dates older men for money and sells liquor after hours, and Carlos’s mama works at the hospital part time, gets social security, and hosts weekend crap games, and neither one of us knows a damn thing about our fathers. This is what I would say if it wouldn’t hurt Carlos. Talking about our unknown fathers always upsets him, so I say nothing.
What I want to do is say something to hurt Michelle. I want to say something very cruel to her, something that will fill her big brown eyes with tears. I want to hurt her. So much so that when Carlos pulls into the theater parking lot, I bolt from the Cadillac before he can stop and park the vehicle. I know me, and I know what my mouth is capable of.
I run through the glass theater doors, pretending I have an emergency, and I go straight into the ladies’ bathroom, which is to the side of the ticket window. Thank God, the small bathroom is empty. I run the cold water into the black marble face bowl and place my wrist under the flow and began to take deep breaths. I have to calm myself.
Carlos’s mama taught me this technique after I made a fool of myself at a party for him. When I found out Carlos didn’t lose his college basketball scholarship after he was expelled from Calumet, I got so angry that I cursed him and his mama. I didn’t know why I was angry with them, but I was livid. And it was at the party they threw because of the good news. They invited only me. I was the only person they shared the news with, and I couldn’t be happy with them. How I felt inside wouldn’t allow it, just like how I am feeling about Michelle now will not let me treat her nice.
If I had not gotten out of that car, I would have talked about her and her daddy something awful. The icky feeling would have gotten tight inside my head, and it wouldn’t have eased up until I hurt her feelings and made her cry. Once she was hurt, the icky feeling inside my head would have gone away. I don’t like being this way. It’s hard to make and keep friends like this. The running water is becoming icy cold, but I hold my wrist in place.
Man, this is a bright bathroom. It’s really weird how a bathroom could be so well lit when it’s got such a dark décor: black and gray tiled floors, and black marble tile on the walls, counters, and stall doors. The light is bright in this black and gray room.
My reflection is clear in the mirror. It must be a makeup mirror with slight magnification because my face looks a little larger than normal. I pull my wrist from the stream of cold water and think about splashing my face, but my face is made up to perfection, so rinsing it is out of the question.
Concentrating on the deep breaths will calm me. I won’t have to splash my face if I breathe the right way. Cutting the water off I begin taking the cleansing breaths Ms. Carol taught me how to take after I cursed her out at Carlos’s scholarship party.
We were sitting in their living room where she was holding me in her arms while I cursed her like a sailor. I called her every nasty name I could think of, and I said every hurtful thing that ran through my mind. I had lost it, and she knew it. She settled me down by getting me to breathe in deep through my nose and breathe out slow through my mouth.
I just couldn’t understand how C
arlos could be so lucky. How could he get expelled from school and still have his scholarship? It pissed me off because I have no substantial plans after high school, and Carlos does.
While I was in her embrace and breathing, she began to tell me about emotions and feelings, and how we must label them to deal with them. If we don’t know the emotion we are feeling, it can rule us. And as women, she said, it is all the more important to label our emotions because they run strong through us. She held me in her arms and began listing and explaining emotions that I might be feeling.
When she got to envy and explained it as me wishing I had what someone else had and becoming angry with the person for having what I wanted, all of that hot, icky feeling that was inside my head eased out with a breath. Hearing out loud what I was feeling inside helped to calm me. She labeled my emotion. She told me that although I had told everyone I didn’t want to go to college, I probably really did want to go and was mad with Carlos because he had a way to attend.
I cried like a baby in her arms. She sent Carlos out of the room and let me boohoo real good. I didn’t want to be envious of Carlos or anyone else, but the truth is I am a very envious person, and I have to check the emotion when it first appears because it will have me tripping.
Envy is what I am feeling toward Michelle, and I cannot allow it to get the best of me. I take another deep breath.
What am I envious of?
The money her father may get.
The money her father has.
The fact that she has both a father and a mama, and they both seem to care about her.
What can I do to lessen the envious feeling?
Be grateful for my mama.
Remember the love of Papa and Grandma.
And realize that Michelle will never be as fine as me. Oh, now that makes me feel much better.
With the envy subsiding, I notice that envy isn’t the only emotion stirring around inside of me. Being at a theater has me thinking of and missing my grandma. And I always try my best not to go down that sad road, but coming to the theater and thinking so much about her has me with “one foot on that road,” as she would say.
Mama's Girl Page 3
