Oh, no. Samuel is coming over an hour after she walks out that door. “No, Ma. I just wanted the money from opening the store. I’m not scared at all.”
“That’s my girl.” She stands again, this time with her new underwear sets. “Well, I’m going to take a bath and dress up real pretty for your uncle Doug. I might even wear my new bloomers. Thanks again, baby.”
She closes my bedroom door behind her. She must be planning on Uncle Doug helping her with the bath.
Us being more like sisters is cool sometimes and, she is right, I do miss my grandma every day. I will go to college if it is an arts school. I need to talk to Ms. Carol about the possibility. She wants me to go to college too. Papa told me years ago that my college was paid for. I guess that’s why I never really worried about going, because in the back of my mind I knew I could go if I wanted to. I wonder how many colleges have acting programs. That would be so cool, to go to school and study nothing but acting. No math, no science, no English, just acting. That sounds too good to be real.
I pull out my phone to call Ms. Carol, but I remember she has other things on her mind right now. Today wouldn’t be a good day to talk with her about me going to school. I push in Edith’s cell number and text her.
Hey.
Hey there, yourself.
I didn’t tell my mama about the job.
Why not?
Don’t know, just didn’t. The school called her up there and told her I have not done any college paperwork. Have you done any?
I haven’t done any of it because my mama hasn’t filled out her financial part yet. I been bugging her to do it but she hasn’t. But what I did do last year was join the career program, and when I graduate I will get a certified nurse’s aide certificate, so when I finish school I will be a CNA and I will be able to get a job and get out of her house. A couple of places have been up to the school to interview me already, so girl, God is good. Got to go. I am doing sick and shut-in calls with Elder Wright. Bye.
And she stops texting just like that. No information there. On Monday, I’ll go see Ms. Stockton again. She should know something. Maybe I’ll go away to school with Carlos and Michelle. Nope. I think they need to be on their own. If I were truly a concerned friend, I would go over there and be part of everything that’s going on with him and her and the pregnancy. That’s what a real friend would do, but I don’t want to hear all the arguing, and I don’t want to see Ms. Carol upset and disappointed.
She has been warning Carlos and me for years about the problems of sex. He should have made sure Michelle was taking the pill, but it is the girl who has to carry the baby. She should have protected herself.
I reach under the bed and pull up the black panties set with the nipples cut out. Now, this is sexy. Samuel is going to love seeing me in this. The phone vibrates in my hand. It’s Samuel texting me.
How is my woman doing today?
I like him calling me “his woman.”
Just fine, now.
What time am I going to see you today, baby?
Maybe in a couple of hours.
Really?
Yep. I was going to call and invite you over as soon as my mother left.
Really, you and I alone again.
He’s surprised. He was asking to see me but not expecting to see me, especially not alone.
I went shopping this morning for unmentionables.
That was what my grandma called her undergarments around Papa.
For what, baby?
Panties and stuff.
Okay.
I was thinking about you while shopping. I might wear something special when you come over.
I will be parked around the corner, waiting.
He is a horny boy in a man’s body.
Chapter Nine
It took Mama and Uncle Doug another two hours to leave after Mama took her bath. And they were acting so strange when they left that I waited fifteen minutes before calling Samuel and giving him the all clear to come over.
They were behaving like Carlos said he and Michelle act, not being able to keep their hands off of each other. My mama and Uncle Doug were just a-kissing and petting on each other and giggling like sixth graders playing “hide and go get it.” It got all kiddie sweet and darling up in here. I thought they were going to cancel shopping and spend the day in Mama’s room, but then I remembered Mama was meeting with Paul, and she seldom cancels one friend for another.
I thought Samuel would have gotten tired of waiting and left the neighborhood, but he says he will be here in a second. I wouldn’t have waited that long to see anyone. The question now is where to entertain him. If I take him downstairs and Mama comes back, I won’t hear her enter until it’s too late, and the same with my room.
Matter of fact, there really is no safe place in the house to sneak in company. If Mama comes home, I’m busted plain and simple, so I might as well be comfortable and have him in my room. The chance of Mama coming back in the next two hours is very slim. She will shop for at least two hours, and then they are going to dinner, but things do happen, and they could come back home.
I showered while waiting for Mama and Uncle Doug to leave, and I tried on the new black panty set with the nipples out, but I didn’t like how it looked at all. It was too nasty looking. The set made me look like a slut for real. It just looked so unladylike and revealing. A school T-shirt and sweatpants will have to do. Yeah, I was going to give him a little show in the bra and panty set, but it’s not in me today. Michelle’s pregnancy is on my mind along with what Mama said about Grandma’s “no boys” rule.
The door chimes are sounding. Peeping out the front blinds I see his little red car parked right in front of the house. He should have left it parked around the corner and walked over. Dang, don’t he know how to sneak?
“Hey, baby,” I say opening the front door for him. The decision to entertain him in my bedroom leaves my mind immediately. The smile on his face runs it clear out of my head. He is grinning big time and looking like he knows he’s about to get his way and that I don’t like.
He comes in and hugs me tight and picks me up in his arms. I am about to tell him to put me down but, oh, this is a good kiss. He has a watermelon-wine candy in his mouth, and he is moving his tongue just right and dancing the wine candy from his mouth to mine. And this is the first time I have been swept off my feet and cradled in a man’s arms and kissed. And I have to say this is the bomb.
The tips of my ears and my toes are tingling. He must have closed the door with his foot because I hear it slam. When did my eyes close? He’s carrying me to the living room couch, and he sits with me in his lap, and the kiss hasn’t stopped. I feel his hand go under my T-shirt and his thumb is playing with my nipple following the same circle pattern as his tongue. His hand slides down from my breast to the waistband of my sweatpants, and before I can breathe a protest, he has my sweatpants off, and the same thumb that was circling my nipple is now flipping ever so lightly across my tender tip.
I can barely touch my tender tip myself without squirming, but his light little flicks feel just right. He leaves the watermelon-wine candy in my mouth and takes his tongue to the nipple he was flipping with his thumb, and he spins his tongue around the nipple, and my knees start knocking, and I shudder from the inside out.
“Let’s go to your bedroom,” he says.
“Okay.” No, no, no, it’s not okay. “No, we can’t.” I get up out of his lap and off the couch and retrieve my sweatpants from the arm of the couch and slide back into them. “I don’t know when my mama is coming back. I think we should just visit.”
Samuel does something to me. I get real stupid in his company, and that has to be figured out. He took my pants off, not me. He was in control, and I don’t like that, not at all.
“I don’t understand. You said you had some underwear to show me. And what am I supposed to do with this?”
He has unbuttoned his black leather trench and unzipped his jeans. In his lap is his hard ding-
a-ling, and it’s bobbing around with one eye like it’s looking for something.
He says, “I got to put it somewhere.”
The grown man is acting like a high school boy, but I’m not mad at him. He did just make me feel real good. I sit back down and grab a hold of the protrusion with both hands and stroke my fingers up and down it real light. Then I tighten my left-hand strokes but rub the bulb of it very softly with my right hand. I pump fast with the tightened left hand and continue to softly rub the bulb. I got the technique from a video this girl had when we were freshman. I used it a lot when I was a virgin, and it always works.
I lean toward his lips and lick the remains of the wine candy off of them then I slide my tongue into his mouth and give him back the candy. While my tongue dances in his mouth, he jerks in his seat and a glob sputters out of the bulb and, now, Samuel’s knees are knocking. I move my hands before any of the white stuff can drip down on my fingers, but I keep kissing him.
When I stop kissing him says, “That wasn’t fair. I been thinking about making love to you since yesterday, and when we finally get together, you use your hands to get me off. That’s not right.” He’s complaining, but he is sitting here with his eyes closed, and a satisfied smile rests on his face.
I ask, “Do you want me to bring you a wet towel?”
I have heard that complaint from boys before. It’s not valid. How they get off only seems important after they have gotten off. If I would have stopped rubbing his one-eyed protrusion, and sent him on his way without a release, then his complaint would not have been accompanied by a satisfied smile.
“Please, that’s the least you can do since you have me spouting out life juices on your mama’s sofa.”
Better than in me, is my thought. I go to the bathroom and wet with warm, soapy water the same wash towel Uncle Doug used, and I take it up to him. I do the laundry. No sense in making extra work for myself.
He stands, wipes himself off, and pops it back into his pants. I ask him if he wants a beer.
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
Having him just visit is a good idea if I do say so myself. If Ms. Carol or anyone else stops by, they will see him sitting in the front watching television with me. Mama will not like the idea of him being here when she’s not, but if we get caught in the living room as opposed to my bedroom or downstairs in the recreation room the chances of her going ballistic are less.
And for some reason, Grandma and her rule about “boys sometimes” after seventeen is strong in my mind. I am still sort of following her rule, and I like that.
* * *
I fell asleep on the couch while Samuel gave me what he called a full-body massage. It was his excuse to feel on me, but I liked it anyway. He left about an hour ago. I have been sleeping all afternoon while he’s been gone, until I hear Mama and Uncle Doug in the kitchen.
When I walk in on them, they are lip-locked. “Excuse me,” I say acting offended.
Mama turns around, but Uncle Doug still has her in a hug. She holds up her left hand and on her ring finger is a huge diamond, and she is crying. “Your Uncle Doug is trying to be your daddy, baby!”
The rock is big, and she and he both are grinning, so I grin and scream, “Yes!” and I am happy. We all three embrace. I can smell the liquor coming from both of them, so I free myself from the group hug. I don’t like liquor breath.
“Hey, I thought you were already married,” I say to Uncle Doug with the smile still on my face.
“Not anymore,” Mama answers. “That’s why he was gone so long. He went back to Alabama, found his wife, and divorced her. He wants to be with us, May, if we will have him.”
If we will have him. She says this like it’s a question, but it’s a rhetorical question, one asked merely to be asked, because they both have made up their minds. My answer is meaningless. They are looking at me like grinning idiots waiting for my answer as if it’s important.
“Yes, yes, yes, please marry my mama.”
I hope when they both sober up this is real because Mama needs to marry him whether she knows it or not. She is so much happier when Uncle Doug is in the house.
“I was trying to get you to go with us so you could see me pop the big question. It means a lot to me that you are happy with all of this, May. I love your mama, and I’ma do right by y’all. I promise to God.”
She turns to face him, and they kiss again.
“Get a room,” I say in passing.
In my room sitting on the bed, it’s apparent that I can’t stop smiling, so I must be genuinely happy. This could be big for my mama. Wait, does this mean my last name changes, too? I am going to have to check on that because I like being May Diane Joyce.
Mama pushes my bedroom door open and walks in. She sits next to me on the bed. She’s not as drunk as she smells.
“He surprised me. You could have knocked me over with one square sheet of toilet paper when he walked in the jewelry store and told me to pick out a wedding ring. That’s how he asked me, by telling me to pick out a ring. ‘Might as well get hitched. I’m legally divorced now and ain’t nobody on God’s good earth I’d want to be with more than you. Love you, Gloria.’ You know, I try not to show too much emotion in public, but when the other women in the store got all weepy-eyed, I did too. He has always cared about us, and he has always talked about getting a divorce, but I didn’t think the man would get serious. I want to ask him to move in, May. And let me tell you why.”
She stops talking, grabs both my hands with both of hers and looks me straight in the eye. “If Doug moves in with us, that will make it harder for me to see my other male friends. I am not sure I can stop seeing them as quickly as I should. I want to do right by Doug, and him being here will help me do that. Understand?”
My mama is scared of her own “having her cake and eating it too” ways. But it’s a justified fear because what she just suggested has never happened in my life. She has never dated just one man, let alone live with one. This is going to be a challenge for her.
“I understand, Mama, and I think it’s a good idea, and I’ll try to help too.” I hug her tight because I want her to feel that we are in this together. “If you want to be a good wife, like Grandma, I’m going to do my best to help.” I hug her tighter.
“Child, sometimes you are wise beyond your years. Let me see your cell phone so I can cancel with Paul.” She breaks the embrace.
“All you’re going to do is cancel? You are not going to break up with him?”
Mama looks down at her new ring and smiles. “I think canceling for tonight is enough. Let’s see how the first week goes with Doug living here.”
That doesn’t make any sense to me, so I object with, “But if you love Uncle Doug—and I hope you didn’t accept his proposal if you don’t love him—why not go for it and cut loose from all the others?”
Mama looks up from the ring, exhales heavily, assaulting me further with her liquor breath, and says, “Because child, good decisions are not made with your heart but with your head. Now suppose Doug and me have a major falling out, or suppose for some reason he drops dead, what am I left with? No, child, things are not solid enough between Doug and me to be breaking up with Paul. I am merely going to cancel tonight’s date.”
Minutes ago, she was wrapped in Uncle Doug’s arms, overjoyed with his proposal of marriage. Now, things aren’t “solid enough” between them. We all hugged, and I was happy thinking she was in love. But, I should have known better. My mama doesn’t deal in love. What was I thinking? It was the huge ring that brought out her joy, not the marriage proposal.
I hand her the phone because I have no argument. “Mama, I’m going over to Carlos’s.”
What she said makes good sense to my head, but not to my heart. I get my coat from the closet and leave her making a secret call in her own house.
Uncle Doug is struggling through the kitchen door with a green duffel bag and a suitcase. I hold the door for him and grab the top of the duffel. We get b
oth bags and him inside the house. He stumbles to a chair. He is as drunk as he smells. “Thanks. There’s more stuff in them bags than I thought.”
“See you later, Uncle Doug,” I say going down the back steps.
I pull the door closed. Nighttime has come to the city. When I get to the front gate, I see a green Ford Taurus stopping in front of our house. A woman gets out with what looks like a gallon of paint in her hand. She slings the paint over the hood of Mama’s car.
“Hey!” I scream.
“Girl, if your name ain’t Gloria, and you ain’t screwing my husband, Larry, this ain’t got a thing to do with you, and if you know the whore tell her the car is just the start. If I hear about her being with my old man again, I’ma burn her damn house down.”
If I had a gun, I would shoot this crazy woman right now, but all I have is Papa’s pearl-handle straight razor. Mama gave it to me a day after his funeral. I thumb it open in case she comes my way. She gets back into her Taurus and burns rubber pulling off.
“Thank you, Jesus.”
I walk to Mama’s car, and in the dark, the pink paint has a glow about it. She splattered it all across the hood of Mama’s black Mustang. This is going to piss Mama off.
“Damn it!”
It’s Mama. I don’t even have to turn to see.
“Doug!” she yells.
Carlos is coming down his steps and looking toward the car. He’s walking like he just ran extra laps at practice. Something has got his shoulders slumped. He gets to the car before Uncle Doug.
“Who would do that?” he asks.
“You didn’t see her crazy self just drive off? It was dude’s wife. The one we said looks like Harold Washington, Mama’s friend, Larry. His wife did this.”
“Man, y’all gonna have to get to a hand carwash before it dries.”
There is no “y’all” in this situation. This is my mama’s problem. “Not me. I was on my way over to your house to watch a movie or something.”
Mama's Girl Page 10
