Girls Like Us

by Randi Pink

  Izella glared at Ola with all the evil she could find inside her. “Don’t you touch me ever again, you!” She’d unintentionally stolen Mrs. Mac’s you, and it shook Ola to the deep core.

  “Why you mad, Babygal?” Ola asked, stunned. “What I do to you?”

  Izella got up from her seat and headed to the way back of the bus.

  “Where y’all going?” Evangelist asked. “We ain’t got but a couple hours left to ride.”

  Instead of answering, Izella motioned Ola to join her in the back.

  “We’ll be right back, Evangelist,” Ola told her mother. “Just going to talk a minute.”

  Izella plopped down in the window seat and crossed her arms as she glared hatred onto her sister. Ola cautiously sat next to her, watching Izella’s hands like she might get smacked. Finally, Izella thought. Stupid girl paying attention to something other than her own prissy tail.

  “You look lightning-hot mad, Babygal.”

  “I told you, stupid girl! Don’t call me Babygal!” Izella accidentally screamed it.

  “What on earth is happening back there, girls?” Evangelist hollered over the seats. “Don’t make me come back there and get y’all.”

  Izella bit blood from her tongue again while Ola apologized for the outburst. It felt backward, older sister apologizing for younger sister.

  “I’m sorry, Izella. Tell me what’s what, because I ain’t never seen you look this mad ever. You smoking.”

  Izella released her bloody tongue from her teeth. She thought of the black racer snake. This is what he must feel like all the time—forking teeth through tongue like he does. She wondered had he ever bitten his by mistake. Then, slowly and deliberately, she lifted the sock from the side pocket of her bag and shoved it into Ola’s hands.

  It was a flood of knowing, washing the stupid off Ola. Sparks clicked in her eyes, and it all began to make sense the same way it had the day before when Izella found the full bottle. Now everyone knew where everyone stood. It should’ve been a freeing moment, a clarifying moment, but it was worse than not knowing anything. The simplicity of sister/sister had passed, and now an ocean of mean, shark-filled water stood between them. There was no going back after that. No sorry strong enough to cross that large a body of water.

  Tears filled Ola’s big eyes. She looked like a cherub in a picture. “I couldn’t,” Ola said before sobbing quietly into her own hands. “A girl? I couldn’t. I named her Madeline. Isn’t that beautiful?”

  Izella felt her top lip twitch with disgust. Tears were no match for the shit her sister had put her through over the last few months. “Madeline?” She laughed a cackle very much like Mrs. Mac’s. “He is not a girl. Mrs. Mac told me yesterday. You having a greedy little boy to eat you out of house and home. No! Eat Evangelist out of house and home, because you ain’t got nowhere else to go, stupid!”

  Ola looked up at Izella, still in tears but no longer sad ones. Now they were angry, dangerous tears. “What do you mean? Not a girl. I always knew she was a girl, always. When she talks to me, she’s a girl. A dainty one to boot.”

  “She lied to you, stupid!”

  “Stop. Calling. Me. Stupid. Right. Now.”

  “What are you going to do?” Izella balled her fists, almost wanting to fight some of her aggression out. A good swing over the head would probably make her feel a whole lot better. She hated her stupid sister. True, pure, untouched hatred without a doubt. “You’d never really do anything to me, you stupid girl.”

  Ola reeled back like a slingshot and smacked Izella clean across her face. It was a slap placed perfectly on the fleshiest part of the cheek. And even though Izella half expected it, she was utterly shocked by it. Maybe even a bit proud of her sister for not being such a pastel prissy princess. If she had guessed, she’d have thought Ola’s slap would be a puny dud that stung a little like a switch. But it damn well hurt. When Izella regained her bearings, she pounced like a cheetah.

  First, they rolled onto the rubbery tread of the bus aisle. Izella got in a punch here and there, but she couldn’t get a square enough shot at Ola’s stomach. That’s where she really wanted to clobber her one. Right on that hungry little monster boy’s head. When Ola realized where she was trying to hit, she went for Izella’s throat.

  Izella had never been squeezed around the neck before. Her legs went limp, and her hands floated to Ola’s forearms. Her entire body began to panic like it was underwater. She tried to speak, but she could only whisper. Ola’s thumbs were crushing something at the front of her neck near the Adam’s apple. Her sister was squeezing the life from her.

  She saw her mother standing over Ola. She was fuzzy at the edges, like a ghost, and there was distress all over her face. A few strange people surrounded Ola and pulled on her. They were all fuzzy, too, and only getting fuzzier. Pulling and pulling, but there was no use. Ola’s eyes were black and fixed on Izella’s. She shouldn’t have tried to punch her in the stomach, Izella thought. She’d gone too far. And maybe she shouldn’t have tried to make her get rid of her baby, too. She was selfish. Selfish and maybe a little bit stupid herself. The bus driver jerked the bus to the right, and Ola lost her grip. And then everything went black.

  * * *

  Izella opened her eyes, and the people were no longer fuzzy. She no longer felt angry. She only felt sorry. Ola had squeezed the devil out of her.

  “Oh, thank God,” said Evangelist. “Babygal, I thought I’d lost you. What’s wrong with you, Ola? The devil got a hold to you.”

  Izella looked back at Ola, sitting in the last row of the bus with her head in her hands. “You okay, Ola?” Izella asked through her squeezed-up throat.

  Ola looked back at her sister and smiled the smallest possible smile. “I’m good. You?”

  “I think somebody tried to choke me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ola said with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Izella whispered through her dry throat. “I came over you.”

  “You ain’t got a thing to be sorry for, Babygal,” Evangelist said, glaring at Ola. “Your older sister is the one need to be sorry.”

  Izella touched her mother’s face. “Mama,” she said, shocking Evangelist by calling her that. “Trust me when I say I deserved it.”

  Evangelist’s eyes twitched with confusion. “Y’all girls trying to kill me. I swear it.”

  Izella sat up straight with the help of strangers. Someone handed her a thermos of water with ice, and she drank it all the way empty. “How far are we from Tuskegee?”

  The bus driver yelled out, “Two exits away now.”

  Izella rose to her feet and sat down in the nearest empty seat. “My mama’s about to get proposed to. You ready, Evangelist?”

  Evangelist laid her heavy head in her youngest daughter’s lap.

  “If you ain’t, you better get ready.”

  The bus rolled on for about fifteen more minutes and then came to a halt in its terminal. “We all made it alive, thank the Lord,” said the driver as everyone shuffled toward the door. “Late, but alive. Good night to you all.”

  Evangelist was the third to last off the bus, and Izella watched as she handed the driver a four-pack of muffins from her bag as a thank-you. Izella followed closely behind and nodded to him as she stepped down. Ola was last off. By the time she finally made her way down the three steps, the terminal had cleared of all but Izella and Evangelist. They waited on the warm concrete. It was late, damp, and dark out with hundreds of large, batty bugs fighting for the fluorescent light.

  In the light, Ola looked heaps worse than Izella felt. Like three-times-rolled-over hell. Her hair had fallen and frizzed from her flood of tears, and her lipstick had smeared into a swipe across the bottom half of her face. Her nose-blown dress had wrinkled from being used multiple times as a tissue. Ola was an altogether mess.

  Izella looked to Evangelist, expecting a lecture from her about strangling and nearly killing her little sister, but if
Evangelist felt judgment for her oldest, she didn’t show it. Instead, she raked her fingers through Ola’s hair.

  “What are we going to do with you, child?” she said before holding out her arm for a half hug and holding out the other one for Izella. “Y’all really trying to kill me, I swear it.”

  “Who’s that trio of beautiful ladies over there?” Mr. Melvin’s slow, kind voice hollered from an old-model blue truck in the lot. “A man would be mighty lucky to hold time with those lovely ladies.”

  Izella and Evangelist grinned, while Ola looked like she might tilt over. The three of them gathered their things and headed for the truck. Evangelist stopped halfway there. She seemed nervous and hesitant to close the space between her and Mr. Melvin.

  “Just one moment, Mr. Melvin,” she told him through an unfamiliar shaky voice. She turned around to face both of her daughters. “Is this right? Me and Mr. Melvin? Y’all would tell me if I’m wrong. I need y’all girls to be all right. Are y’all all right with this? If not, I swear I’ll get right back on the next bus blazing.”

  “Evangelist,” Ola started with the authority of a firstborn child. No stupid at all. Wisdom, strength, and knowing. “Do you love him?”

  “What?”

  Ola grabbed Evangelist by the shoulders and steadied her gaze. “Look at me. Do you love him?”

  “I do.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “He does.”

  “Well, good,” Ola said as she released her mother’s shoulders. “You deserve joy more than anybody I know, except maybe Izella. You give up everything for everybody. Go get your joy, Mama.” Ola pointed to Mr. Melvin, who’d made his way out of the truck and to the concrete, where he knelt on one knee. “Joy’s waiting for you right over there.”

  Mr. Melvin smiled and said, “Hurry on up, girls. I doubt I’ll make it up off this ground if you don’t come on here.”

  * * *

  Mr. Melvin lived in a sweet little green house that smelled like jowl bacon. A fresh pitcher of sweet tea sat sweating on the kitchen table, and the flowery tablecloth still had price tags on it. It was creased into squares like it had just been taken out of its packaging. He’d recently bought it, probably for them. Izella smiled at his effort, while Ola didn’t notice it at all.

  He had a hard time getting through the door on his own legs. Izella knew many men like that back in Valdosta. Refusing, likely out of pride, to put in a wheelchair ramp. She didn’t like those kinds of men, too proud to acknowledge obvious shortcomings. But Mr. Melvin did it with a determined smile, like a child trying to prove he could walk without help from his mother. Mr. Melvin was adorable, Izella thought. And she’d never known a man that old to be adorable.

  “I made too-sweet sweet tea.” He lowered himself down to the table like he’d just run for miles and miles. “Y’all gone have to pour your own, though. My body’s about done for the evening.”

  Evangelist waited in the doorway, watching her future husband sitting, out of breath and tired. She would have to help him every day, Izella realized. In and out of the tub, to the bathroom sink—she may even have to wipe his tail. For any other woman, this would’ve been a horrible realization. But for Evangelist, it was pure bliss. She was a woman who needed to be needed, and if she wasn’t, she’d rock herself to death in her rocking chair.

  “What’s your last name, Mr. Melvin?” Izella asked. It had suddenly occurred to her that her mother would have to change her name to something she didn’t know. “You’ll be Evangelist Flossie something else soon.”

  “I’m Melvin Lesley Brooks the Third.” He bowed. “Pleased to officially meet you ladies.”

  “Do you have siblings?” Izella took the empty seat next to him.

  Mr. Melvin laughed. “Oh, I’d almost forgotten. You’re a curious one.” Evangelist tried to interrupt, but he held his hand up. “The curious ones touch all spots of the world. When you want to know things, sooner or later, you stumble on something special, and that special thing leads you to a full and happy life. Come sit on this side of me, Mrs. Flossie Brooks, and hold my hand while I tell this curious child who I am. You too, child.” He motioned to Ola.

  Ola leaned in the corner, looking especially green and tired. Izella herself should be looking like that. She was the one who’d been strangled, after all. Ola sat across from them at the table. Izella noticed tiny beads of sweat creeping down the back of her neck and wondered. Her sister looked like the walking dead.

  “My daddy’s daddy was the first Mr. Melvin Lesley Brooks in the world,” he started. “I can’t remember much about him. I tell you one thing, though. He did not play.” He laughed and leaned back into his memory. “He was a preacher on Sundays and a farmer every other day. His sweet corn grew taller than a five-year-old boy. And his sermons spread so far and wide that, after a while, he didn’t have sitting room in his little church.

  “He preached about wisdom a whole lot. No matter who you are or where you come from, you want to know how to get more wisdom, and he held the keys in his hands. Wisdom is a muscle in the body, he used to say. Work it? And it grows like a pecan tree branch toward the Alabama sun. Neglect it? It’ll die like a daffodil in the Arizona desert.

  “Another thing about Melvin Senior!” He laughed again. “He was a tall glass of too-sweet sweet tea! Ladies used to come from far and wide to catch a look at him. When I was a boy, some of them pretty ladies would ask me about my grandmama. Bold, huh?” He chuckled again and shook his head.

  “She didn’t go to church with y’all?” Izella asked.

  Mr. Melvin sighed and frowned for the first time since she’d known him. “Grandmama’s sugars were always out of sorts. Sweet woman. The sweetest I ever met to this day. God dealt her health a bad hand.” He forced his chin up and went on. “Let me tell you about my daddy!

  “Daddy took after his mama. His kindness, phew … never knew a man so kind and patient with young’uns. I dare any man that claims to be as good as my daddy was good. But my mama, Lord, smarter than a whip. Reminds me a little of you, child,” he said to Izella. “She was curious, too. Always wanting to know about everything. She was smart before it was accepted for a woman like her to be that.”

  Just then, Ola’s heavy head slumped onto the kitchen table, and she slid out of her chair and onto the floor.

  “Ola?” Izella said, wanting to believe she was just tired from the ride. When she saw a bubbly white foam in the corner of her mouth, she leaped from her seat. “Ola!”

  Izella held her sister’s head in her lap, and Evangelist squatted down next to them. Izella heard Mr. Melvin calling 911 somewhere off in the distance. The stench of jowl bacon was growing and growing. It must’ve been in the oven, crackling up and browning for later. It smelled wild. Like the boar had been shot when he was tense. Skilled hunters snuck up from the rear so as not to scare the poor animal before it was shot. Those boars weren’t stupid. They knew what the barrel of a shotgun meant. Certain death and stripping down into pieces of ham and tails and jowl. If the hunted caught sight of the hunter, their very last defense was to make themselves tough on the plate. Nature’s last-ditch effort at a middle finger.

  Ola’s whites were showing, and her lashes were fluttering. Little spit bubbles formed and burst at the bow of her lips. The bubbles were tinted purple like Mrs. Mac’s elixir.

  “Open your eyes, baby,” Evangelist said in the saddest voice Izella had ever heard come from anyone. “Let mama see those pretty eyes.”

  Ola forced her eyes open and looked at Evangelist. “I love you, Mama,” she said in a mutter. “Please don’t hate me.”

  Evangelist kissed the back of her hand and said, “Never that.”

  “Ambulance will be here any minute now,” said Mr. Melvin from somewhere in the kitchen. “Hold on there, child.”

  Ola locked eyes with Izella. “I love you most, Babygal,” she said. “Oh, sorry. I’m not supposed to—” She coughed out purple. “I drank it all up. I did it.”

 
; Evangelist looked from Ola to Izella, and her sadness turned to anger. “Drank what up, Izella? What is happening to my girl?”

  The small kitchen lit up with bright red and blue turning lights. “Where is the patient?” asked a stern male. “Take me to her!”

  The whole house smelled like tense bacon and bedlam.

  “What is going on?” yelled Evangelist.

  A slow sizzle in the background began to grow. That bacon was popping into the bottom of the oven.

  “What did you drink?” Evangelist asked Ola, but her eyes had already gone back to white.

  Dangerous for that grease and fat to pop all over an open flame in the oven, Izella thought.

  “Ma’am,” asked the medic frantically. “Did you say this young lady drank something? What did she drink exactly?”

  “I’m trying to find out! Can’t you see that!”

  Pop, pop, pop!

  “I’ve got a faint pulse,” said a different medic. “One, two, three, lift!”

  They whisked Ola away so fast. Everyone followed alongside except Izella. She stayed on her knees in the kitchen and closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, she saw herself and Ola on their knees in their own clean kitchen. Peeking at each other while Evangelist prayed too long. Ola really did have beautiful eyes—big as an owl’s with dark, naturally lined lashes made for fluttering. The red and blue lights shrunk and shrunk, and the chaos was over. Izella’s whole world had just blown to bits, and she was left on the floor. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t. It wasn’t her way.

  Pop, pop, pop!

  She jumped to her feet and went to turn off the stove. Just as she’d guessed it, jowl bacon was burning to a crisp and popping up smoke. With her bare hands, she lifted the pan from the oven. Her palms and fingers hissed and blistered, but she welcomed the pain of it. She deserved it, after all.

  MISSIPPI