“Wow, you sound sooo mature.” We laugh again.
“Stop, May. I’m being serious. I’m waiting on the Lord.”
We get to her house, and we stop walking. “Call me after you read the play,” she says and walks up the stairs.
“Okay, I will.”
It’s hard to believe Edith is the same girl. She changed so fast. All we used to talk about were boys. Edith was boy crazy. She was doing it when we were freshmen. Once, she had sex three times in one week with three different boys, and she had no problem telling me about each time. And, now, she is waiting on the Lord for a boyfriend. Wow.
Chapter Eight
As soon as I open the back door and walk into the kitchen, Mama says, “That girl is pregnant. Carol has been over here ten times if she’s been over here once looking for Carlos. Worrying me silly. And why doesn’t she cut that ponytail? The woman is too old to have hair down to her butt. And she has forgotten that we ain’t friends. She’s been over here just a-talking, sitting down here with me and Doug drinking coffee with us like she’s been doing it for years. Did the boy go home?”
I make it all the way into the kitchen, close the door on the cold wind behind me, and answer, “Yes, Mama, he’s there now.”
Seeing Uncle Doug still here is a surprise. His party clothes are even brighter in the daytime. He’s usually gone after breakfast.
“Good, ’cause I was all out of neighborly conversation.”
Mama is still in her housecoat. That is different for her. Once she gets up, she gets dressed. Standing at the table, I decide against sitting down. I want to get back to my room and unpack my stuff and stretch out for a minute.
“How you feeling, May?” Uncle Doug says, smiling, which is always the case with him. I can count the times on one hand when Uncle Doug wasn’t smiling. One was last night when Mooky tried to hit Mama. Nope, he wasn’t smiling then. Mama told me she likes his smiling. She says he smiles every time she enters the room.
“Everything is good, Uncle Doug.”
“Did you find what you was looking for up there at the Plaza?” He takes a sip from the coffee mug. I made the mug for him at summer camp five years ago. It has UNCLE DUG A BUG WITH A HUG carved into it. Since I gave it to him, he hasn’t used another cup.
“’Cause if you didn’t, me and your mama going out to Ford City in a minute, and you welcome to ride with us.”
He must be loaded with cash. He gave me eighty dollars this morning, and now he’s taking my mama shopping and offering to take me. If my plan weren’t to meet Samuel, I would be going with them. Uncle Doug is generous, and shopping with him is always fun. He likes to laugh and tell silly jokes and riddles that he makes up like, “Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he saw a Popeye’s on his side.” Sometimes they’re funny, but most times I laugh because he laughs.
“Thanks for offering, Uncle Doug, but I did get everything. Mama, I got something for you too. Come back to my room and I’ll show you.” I walk past them with my bags in tow.
“You ain’t got nothin’ fo’ me?”
Dang, I forgot to get him a little something. “Next time, Uncle Doug. I got you next time.”
“All right. I’ma hold you to it.”
And he will. He doesn’t break a promise, and he fusses to high heaven if Mama or I break one to him. He doesn’t care if it’s as simple as frying him some chicken wings. If we say we gonna do it, he’s expecting it.
When I get to my room, I drop face first to my bed. Dang, Michelle is pregnant. Poor Carlos. No matter how positive I tried to sound with him, the truth is his life might be screwed. His mama and mine claim that the biggest mistake they made was getting pregnant in high school. Yeah, they both say we proved to be blessings in the long run, but a person has to get to the long run.
Pulling out the underwear sets, I decide to keep the yellow set, two of the white sets, and definitely this black one. I’m sliding the black one under the bed because Mama will have something to say about the nipple area being cut out of the bra. I barely get it hidden before she enters my room and sits on the bed next to me.
“So, what did you get me?” she asks, resting her head on my shoulder. Her head is covered with a black silk scarf. She smells like the rose water she adds to her bath. Mama likes it when I buy things for her. I hand her the other white set, a pink one, and two deep red ones. She likes red.
“Girl, you must have been in my drawers and seen the sad state of my panties and bras. Oh, I love these red lace sets. They are almost too sexy for me. Almost.” She places the sets in her lap and her arm around my shoulder. “So, what do you think about the situation between Carlos and his girlfriend?”
Some Saturday afternoons are like this with us, we two sitting on my bed talking, but it’s usually after she helps me clean my room the way she wants it cleaned, and we are both too pooped to pop.
“I was hoping she wouldn’t be pregnant. They barely know each other, and now Carlos says he’s in love. He was talking about going to the Army.”
“Oh, no.”
“But he found out he wasn’t qualified. Now he’s thinking he and she can both go down to Ohio State to school.”
“They let kids do that?”
I shrug my shoulders because I don’t really know. “I guess so. He is going to check into it.”
Mama moves her head from side to side. “Umph, umph. None of this had to be the case. Kids acting grown can only lead to trouble. Don’t you let that Samuel rush you into anything, him or Walter. Do you understand me?”
I nod my head yes.
“I’m here for you if you want to talk, or if you have any questions. I might not have all the answers your grandma had, but I got some, so don’t play me cheap. I didn’t make it this far being a complete fool. I know a little something, but I’m nowhere near as wise your grandma.
“I miss her too, May. Don’t think I don’t miss her and Papa every day just like you. She was the mama of this house, raising us both. I sure would have loved to see you and her going at it about boys. You think I’m strict with you about them? Baby, bye. Your grandma didn’t play. She had one rule about boys: no boys. No calls, no coming by, no going over to their houses. After I turned seventeen, the rule would have changed to ‘sometimes,’ but I never made to the sometimes part. I had you when I was fifteen, and once you got here, I thought I was grown. I wasn’t, but I wasn’t a little girl anymore, either. She did let me date, hoping I would find a husband. I did find husbands, but they had wives attached. Seems like all I met were married men. Of course, I didn’t tell your grandma they were married, but who knows what that woman knew? Being my age now and after living some, it’s clear that she wasn’t too strict. I was just too fast.”
I have heard and overheard this confession from Mama before. The first time, she was drunk and talking to Uncle Doug. She told him if she would have listened to her mama she’d have a college degree and be a professional woman working and living on the East Coast instead of living in her mama’s house as a single parent with no profession and no education. “My mama knew best,” she cried into her drink.
The second time I heard the confession was last year after I got kicked out of Calumet High School. She was putting me on a summer-long punishment, and she told me if she would have only listened to and followed the plan her mama had for her life, things for all of us would have been better. Then she took away my computer privileges and grounded me for the whole summer, which she enforced for only three weeks.
“May, I was so proud when Mr. Pickens started talking about what a good actress you were, but you always make me proud, baby.” She hugs me tighter and kisses me on the cheek. “I wish I would have gotten the kind of grades you get in high school. My baby is always on the A- B honor roll.”
“Not always, Mama.”
“Well, most times. And, watch, when you graduate they are gonna have all types of scholarships for you. And if they don’t, don’t worry, your grandparents left money for school i
n trust. And I can’t touch it. They taking care of us even from the grave. Her and Papa made sure all our basic needs are covered. Our wants are on us.
“Baby, I want you to go to college, and so did they. Please, don’t let a stupid man get in the way of you making a better life for yourself, which is what school will do for you. Men will be here. You will have plenty of time for them once you get something started for yourself.
“I got called up to your school Friday, and your counselor told me you have only been to see her once about colleges despite her many requests. Why, baby?”
Dang, I should have known old nappy-headed, afro-wearing Ms. Stockton was going to call her up there. That woman has been bugging me since I got to the alternative school about filling out college applications, especially after my ACT test scores came back. If I could think of something to ask her or even talk about with her, I would have gone to see her. My ACT scores didn’t excite me the way they excited her.
“I don’t have a clue as to what I want to be, Mama. The first question Ms. Stockton asks is, ‘What do you want to study?’ and I don’t have an answer. My math scores were high enough to get the attention of a couple of engineering schools but, Mama, I hate math. And, after taking the computer classes, I don’t think programming is for me either. I can do it, but I don’t like it. If I go to school, I want to do something I like. I like acting, sort of, and one school in New York sent something about their drama program, but Ms. Stockton said that really wasn’t a true academic focus, and with my math and science scores I should be looking at more traditional programs. But none of that stuff makes me happy. Acting might make me happy.”
It really used to. Pretending to be someone else gave me a break from being me. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with being me. It was just cool to be someone else at times. Once I got into character, it would take me hours to get out of character, and that would irritate Carlos to the max because when rehearsal was over, he was back to himself, but I couldn’t make the transformation that quick. And since Mr. Pickens told me that my staying in character was a good thing, I didn’t try to change it. When I played Travis, the boy in A Raisin in the Sun, I stayed in character hours after the performance. It wasn’t until I had to pee did I break character.
“So, if we found a school with a good acting program you would go to college?”
“I guess so.”
“Okay, then, you and I are going to find one.”
“But, if I go, I want an arts school, Mama, where my major will be acting, not a school that merely has a drama program.”
“I understand, child. Your mama ain’t stupid. Uneducated? Yes. Stupid? No.”
I have never thought of Mama as stupid. She has done some dumb, selfish things, but she is not stupid. That’s why I don’t understand her not going back to high school. If she went back to school and got her diploma, she could get a job and not be bothered with her men friends, but I don’t think Mama wants a regular job. She likes her men friends giving her money.
“What about you, Mama?”
“What do you mean, what about me?”
“What about you getting your GED?”
“Girl, I GED every time your Uncle Doug comes by.”
“Huh?”
“Get excellent dick.”
“Mama!”
“Well, child, you asked.”
And this is what she does every time I bring up school and her going back. She laughs it off and stops talking about it despite the promise she made to me when I was a freshman. She swore she would graduate from high school before me.
She stands from my bed with her thin-lipped grin all over her face. “Your Uncle Doug is taking me to Ford City then out to dinner, so you will be here most of the day by yourself. Tonight, Paul is picking me up to spend the night out at the Sybaris, so I have to get rid of Doug before ten. I should be home Sunday afternoon. Paul has an afternoon flight out to Denver. He is picking me up from here, so I’ll see you before going out to the Sybaris. Are you sure you don’t want to come out to Ford City with us?”
“I’m sure, Mama.”
The Sybaris is a romantic getaway spot with fancy hot tubs. It must be expensive because Paul is the only one of her men who takes her out there. He is the richest of all her male friends. He bought her the white fox jacket I wore yesterday. Uncle Doug paid the down payment on her Mustang, but Paul paid it off.
He seldom comes in the house and hangs out with us like Uncle Doug. Paul pulls up in his blue Cadillac, honks his horn, and Mama leaves. He looks just like Samuel L. Jackson to Carlos and me. Mama says she doesn’t see it, but that’s who he looks like. Carlos says he’s the policy man. I thought that meant he sold insurance until Ms. Carol explained policy as black people’s private lottery.
All of my mama’s men look different. Uncle Doug is light and kind of chubby, and he was a deacon in a church down South before he moved up here, and he sounds real country sometimes. And there is the flight attendant, Peter, who is dark and thin and always taking her on weekend trips. And then there is Larry, who looks like Harold Washington, the only mayor of Chicago my mama and my grandma loved. Larry is a real estate investor and has a lot property on the west side of the city, according to Mama.
Uncle Doug has been her friend the longest. He came around when Papa and Grandma were still alive. I was a little girl around six or seven when he and Mama started going out. She’s been going out with Paul for almost three years, and Larry for over five. She has had other friends, but none have stayed around as long as Uncle Doug. He is her first boyfriend I remember.
Sometimes, I wish me and Mama could really talk. She says we can talk about anything, but we can’t. She will talk to me about her men, but if I try to talk to her about boys the conversation always ends with, “You ain’t ready for all that yet,” or “Stay a child for as long as you can because men make you old,” or “Get to college before you worry about all that. There are better men to pick from at college.”
I would like to really talk to her about sex, boys, and men. Grown men are different from boys, and I do have questions. If my mama is aware that I’m having sex, she acts like she isn’t. But, honestly, I don’t know what my mama knows about me. She has never asked if I am a virgin. I got the birth control pills without her consent by using one of the fake IDs Carlos was selling. I went down to the health center by myself and gave them the identification that said I was twenty-one and that was that. I got the pills and did it with Walter.
I think she would have been proud of how I handled the whole situation since I made the decision with my head and not my heart. She is always calling women stupid who think and make decisions based on how they feel instead of what’s obviously best for them. She says that making decisions with emotions is thinking with your heart. When you decide based on what’s best for you, then you are thinking with your head.
If we could talk, really talk, I would ask her why I think more about a man than I do boys. I actually fantasize about being with Samuel. I never daydreamed about having sex with a boy, but I do fantasize about Samuel, and I don’t even love him. I just think about him and me doing it, a lot. And I want to ask her why I think about that so much. If we really talked, I could ask her that.
And I would like to ask her, if I have sex as much as I am thinking about having it with Samuel, would my pussycat get stretched out of shape because his ding-a-ling is so big? And, I would ask her, why do boys pop off before the sex really gets started? One popped off while I was helping him put on a condom. I never did it as long as Samuel and me did it yesterday, but I knew doing it with him was going to be different. I just knew it. And, I would like to ask her why is it different, and why I think about having sex with him so much.
“Mama, what’s the difference between boys and men?”
“Men have money. Men can afford to take care of themselves and you. Boys you have to help.”
“Oh. Is that the same with having sex with them? I mean, do you have to hel
p boys have sex, but men can take care of themselves and the woman?”
She obviously finds my questions funny because she sits back down on the bed and she falls back in laughter. “You know, baby, I never thought about it like that, but you might be on to something.” She sits up and hugs me again. “Wait just a little while longer before you get curious about all that. Men and boys are the same for you right now: obstacles that can get in your way. But you are doing the right thing. Study them and watch for the differences. Because the last thing you want is a boy doing a man’s job.”
She thinks I am only curious about boys and men. The “pussycat stretching” question might give her more information about where I am in my sexuality than I really want her to know. I’ll just go online and search for vagina maintenance or something. Some things I need to hide from her. Yes, talking to her without hiding things would be nice, but that’s not how it is.
Grandma and me used to talk like that. I had no secrets from her, but I was just a kid. My biggest secret was eating her Ex-Lax for candy. I doubt that I would have told Grandma about doing it with Walter; however, I could have told her what I was thinking about with regard to him. And, who knows? I might not have done it with him or any of the others had she been alive to talk to. But, Mama had me when Grandma was alive, so who knows?
“Mama, Saturday night is a busy store night. Can I open if Walter and Carlos come over?” The store is my allowance money. No store, no allowance. And, even with the money Samuel gave me in the bank, and the new job, I still want my allowance next week.
“Girl, Carol is not going to let Carlos over here after that robbery attempt last night, especially with me not here, and I don’t want you and Walter in this house alone. I’ve been hearing his quiet begging. You might say yes if I’m not here.” She says with a wink, “No store tonight. Hey, are you okay being here alone after last night?” She puts her arm back around me. “I can push Paul back to next week if you want me to stay with you.”
Mama's Girl Page 9
