by Mia Mckenzie
A question remains, though, and it must be asked: “How bad was the sex?”
Faye thinks about it for a second. “It depends on what you value in a sexual encounter.”
LOOOOOOOOOL. “Wow. That bad?”
She laughs. “It wasn’t bad, really. I mean, yes, his technique left quite a bit to be desired—”
“I bet it did!”
“—but he was actually very sweet. He was tender. Loving. That’s what I needed the most right then.”
“Okay,” I say. “I get that. You probably wouldn’t have turned down an orgasm, though, would you?”
“I would have welcomed an orgasm with open arms and a cold glass of lemonade,” she says, and we both laugh until actual tears roll down our faces.
We stay in the vegetable patch for a while, planting tomatoes—then weeding, then watering—and talking. A few times, my mind wanders again to images of myself here, belonging with Vicky and Faye. Each time it does, I feel the same stabbing pain in my chest. And I push the thoughts away as fast as I can.
23
The following Saturday, there’s a cookout at Reverend Seymour’s and Vicky asks me to go.
“Is Nick gonna—”
“Maybe,” she says, rolling her eyes. “But who cares? Geez. You’re so weird about him.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Anyway, there’s probably going to be a ton of people there. It’s not like you have to hang with him if you don’t want to.”
The cookout is in the reverend’s backyard. There’s a big folding table with a spread of standard cookout foods: potato salad; macaroni salad; a green salad that’s just lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber placed next to a couple of bottles of ranch dressing; corn on the cob; baked beans; and meats of all sorts, with accompanying buns. There’s a smoking grill, one of those old charcoal jawns, and it’s being tended by a very tall man who looks a lot like Reverend Seymour. There’s a Bluetooth speaker wafting the sounds of contemporary gospel through the air. Vicky was right: There are lots of people here, including many of their neighbors, and people I’ve seen going into the reverend’s basement for church on Wednesdays and Sundays. Brother Philip Michael Nguyen is sitting with Miss Vena near the folding table, eating a gigantic plate of potato salad. I haven’t seen him outside since we ate bánh bò.
“Hey, lil’ Vicky! Hey, chocolate lady!” Mr. Mitch says, walking by us on his way to the food.
“Skye. My name is Skye.”
He’s already out of earshot.
Vicky spots the reverend’s granddaughter, Keisha, and runs off before I can stop her. Now I’m standing here alone, looking friendless, probably. Awesome.
“Sister Skye!” Reverend Seymour calls, heading toward me.
I smile at her, relieved.
“You’re still in Philadelphia,” she says. “I’m so glad. I guess you want to spend as much time as you can with your daughter?”
Wayment. “My…what?”
“Oh,” she says, sounding uncertain. “I thought…well…Faye mentioned…”
“Did she?” I ask, surprised.
“Well, she didn’t use the word ‘daughter,’ ” the reverend says, “now that I think about it. That’s my word. I’m old, so I’m not up on all the lingo. Is there lingo? For that?”
“Donor kid, I guess? Although, our relationship is less donor-offspring and more like an older cousin–younger cousin type of vibe.”
The reverend nods. “Oh. Alright.”
“I see Brother Nguyen has broken free of the attic.”
“Well, don’t make it sound like I had him chained to the radiator up there.”
I laugh. “Sorry. What did your kids say about it?”
“Nothing yet,” she replies. “I still haven’t mentioned he’s staying here. But I knew Phil could only tolerate being up there for so long. He’s lived on the streets for years now; he’s not used to being cooped up anymore. Besides, nobody wants to feel they have to hide, do they? Everyone wants to feel welcome, wherever they are. Everyone wants to feel they belong.”
I guess.
“I don’t get why it’s such a big secret,” I tell the reverend.
“Because I don’t know yet how my family, or my congregation, will handle it,” she says. “With Phil’s time on the street, our ages, his Asian-ness. It’s a complicated situation to manage.”
“So, why are you doing it?”
She looks at me curiously, almost amused. “Because I’m not so old that I don’t want love in my life, Sister Skye. That kind of love. Romance. Companionship. Even sex. I want it all, the same as you.”
“I’m not sure I do want it,” I say.
“I find that hard to believe,” she replies, “at your age.”
“I want sex, sure. But the rest…” I shrug.
“Oh,” the reverend says, nodding, like she gets it now. “You mean, you don’t want to get attached.”
“Yes.”
“Because people don’t really care as much as they pretend to?”
“That’s right.”
She laughs.
“Wow, Reverend. Wow.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, grabbing my hand and holding it. “I’m not laughing at you.”
“You definitely are, though.”
“I’m more laughing at the parts of my younger self I see in you. When I think of all the time I spent keeping folks at a distance, trying to avoid being let down…” She sighs, shakes her head. “It was a waste of the precious time the Lord gave me. People let us down. We let them down. Letdown is inevitable, Sister Skye.”
Which doesn’t make me feel better.
“But, you know what else is inevitable? If you allow yourself to close that distance? Connection. Joy.”
“Maybe.”
She laughs again, louder this time.
When she heads to the grill to check on the ribs, I look around for Vicky. She and Keisha have disappeared. I could hunt for the kid. Or I could start eating. When Faye’s friend Angie and her husband, Giancarlo, wave to me from the food table, I decide Jesus wants me to have a hot dog first.
I’ve chatted with Angie and Giancarlo a few times now, and although they’ve never said anything about the egg donation thing, I know they know. Because even though they’re always super friendly and seriously chatty, asking me a thousand questions about my travels, neither of them has ever asked who the hell I am. A few times, I’ve caught Angie staring, and when our eyes met, she smiled.
“We brought the potato salad,” Angie says to me now. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe. We eat it every day in the summer, don’t we, hon?”
Giancarlo nods. “I eat it twice a day sometimes.”
“It’s good!” Mr. Mitch calls out to me from the spot he, Brother Nguyen, and Miss Vena have staked out at the end of the table.
I put some on my plate.
“Are you off again soon?” Angie asks, offering me mustard for a hot dog I’m about to scarf down.
“Not soon,” I tell her. “I’m here for six more weeks.”
“Oh, good,” she says, sounding relieved. “I know Vicky loves having you around.”
When she’s not disappearing on me, sure.
“Do you know she got suspended three times this past winter? Faye was at her wit’s end. These last…what’s it been since she met you, a month or so?”
“Five weeks, six days.” Not that I’m counting.
“Well, all that school trouble has stopped completely,” she says.
“I’m not sure I can take credit for that.”
“You can. And you should.”
Two hot dogs and some pretty good potato salad later, I go looking for Vicky. I find her alone by the side of the house, tucked next to a bush, holding her phone up in front of her.
&n
bsp; “What are you doing?”
She jumps, startled, and I know she’s up to something. When I peek out on the other side of the bush, there’s the reverend’s troublesome white neighbor, Ethan. He’s on his porch, a few houses down, fixing a bike. He’s crouched, and his ass crack is peeking out of his shorts.
“What’s going on?” I ask Vicky.
“I’m keeping an eye on him,” she says.
“He’s…not doing anything?”
“Yet.”
Ethan looks around, like he heard something, then scratches his ass crack and goes back to bike-fixing.
“I’m not sure this is a great idea, Vick. Especially since Faye told you not to do it.”
“She told me not to video the police.”
“I doubt that’s a technicality she’ll appreciate.”
“Well, she’s wrong,” the kid says. “I don’t think I should have to listen to someone when they’re wrong just because they’re an adult. That’s, like, ageism.”
“I’m one hundred percent sure that’s not what ageism is.”
She groans, super dramatically. “I have to do this.”
“Why?”
“Because!”
“Not a reason.”
“It just makes me feel better,” she says.
“About what?”
“Everything! All the bad stuff that happens that you can’t do anything about!”
Wait. Is this about Cynthia somehow? Because if it is: SHIT. I’m not prepared for this.
Ethan stands, pulls up his sagging shorts, and peers in our direction. We’re at ground level, below him, three houses away and pretty well tucked behind this bush, but I’m still worried he’ll see Vicky pointing a camera at him and go white people crazy. Which is like regular people crazy but with help from the cops. So, I take Vicky’s arm and slowly pull her away from the bush, until we’re in the backyard once again.
“Hey, you two.”
We both jump this time. It’s Faye.
“Why are you skulking?” she asks.
“We’re not,” Vicky says.
“You are,” Faye insists.
Vicky looks at me. I know she’s waiting to see if I’m gonna narc on her.
“I came over here to…fart,” I tell Faye. “I didn’t want to do it around the food.”
She’s speechless, as you might imagine.
“Yeah,” Vicky says, nodding. “It was super stinky.”
Okay, let’s not go nuts.
Faye looks from Vicky to me and back again. “Did you come to smell the fart? Or to add your own to the mix?” she asks, in a tone that suggests she may not be completely convinced of our story.
“Where’s Nick?” I ask, to throw her off our super stinky scent.
“I don’t keep track of Nick’s every move.”
Mkay. You probably should, though.
“I’m gonna get a burger,” Vicky says, and hurries off.
“Sorry,” Faye says after a moment. “I didn’t mean to be snippy just then.” She rubs her right temple.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. I’m just hangry probably.”
We follow Vicky to the food.
Despite the fact that I just ate, I decide to eat more. It’s a cookout, so overeating is pretty much expected, right? I’m eyeing the burgers when Faye asks me if I’ll be around next Friday.
“I’m having surgery,” she says.
“For what?”
“I’m getting new tits.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool,” I say, like that’s totes run-of-the-mill and shit. “Um, just out of curiosity—and please feel free to tell me to mind my own beeswax—is there…something wrong with the tits you have now?” BECAUSE THEY LOOK GREAT TO ME.
“They’re wearing out,” Vicky says through a mouthful of corn on the cob.
Faye frowns at her.
“What? They are.”
“But you don’t have to put it like that.”
I look from Vicky to Faye, and back. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”
Faye hands me a paper plate. “I had a double mastectomy. And breast reconstruction. About fourteen years ago.”
“Holy shit,” I say. “Cancer?”
She nods. “There were two lumps, one in each breast. Given my family history and high risk of re-occurrence with lumpectomy, I opted to—”
“Chop ’em off,” Vicky says, making a hacking motion with her left hand.
We both frown at her.
“She’s right, though,” Faye tells me. “I opted to chop them off.”
“Wow.”
“It was actually a relief,” she says. “I mean, eventually it was. After worrying my whole life about when—not if—I’d get breast cancer.”
I load food onto my paper plate and think about Cynthia dying of cancer at thirty-seven. It’s an intense, depressing thought. Then I remember that Vicky has my genes, not Cynthia’s or Faye’s, and I feel a little guilty for feeling extremely glad about that.
“So those are…” I gesture vaguely toward Faye’s rack.
“Implants,” she says, nodding. “Which only last ten to twenty years. These are fourteen now and the silicone is starting to show signs of wear, so…”
“So, you’re getting new tits,” I say, nodding.
“Recovery won’t be bad. I just have to take it easy for a few days. Angie can keep an eye on Vicky, too, but her mother’s been ill, so a lot of her time is taken up with that.”
“I’ll help any way I can.”
She reaches out and touches my arm, squeezes it.
We hang in Reverend Seymour’s backyard all day. We eat. Faye brought deviled eggs and they’re the best I’ve ever had. We listen to gospel music. When Keisha cues up the Electric Slide, we dance—we all know the steps, even Vicky—before it’s back to gospel again. Miss Vena brought watermelon and cantaloupe, so we eat more. When it’s near-dusky, and the air begins to cool, we say our goodbyes and start making our way up the block.
The sun is setting and the sky is lavender and orange, dramatic and striking. It does what sunsets always do: instills a sense of wonder at the natural world. Which can be particularly poignant when walking down an inner-city street. I’ve watched the sun set from so many places around the world that I can’t even name them all. What I remember right now, though, is that when I was young, I made sure to watch every summer sunset over Philly. Usually posted up on Tasha’s porch after a long, hot day of not doing shit. I remember the color of the sky, just like it is now, the orange-saturated clouds and purple-tinted edges, the consistency and familiarity of it, day after day after day.
Vicky is walking close beside me and she reaches out and puts both her arms around my waist, so she’s encircling me. She’s never done this before, never physically attached herself to me. I like it, even though it makes it really hard to walk. I drape my arm around her shoulders, where I feel like maybe it belongs.
24
On Sunday, my mother calls to ask if I can take her to church in one of those “cabs that aren’t cabs.” I start to ask why Slade can’t take her in his girlfriend’s car but then I don’t. I just tell her yes. I know that the main reason my mother never makes it to church—even when she really wants to go—is that she simply can’t remember to get ready, so I tell her I’ll come early to help.
When I get there, Slade is on the couch eating Pop-Tarts right out of the box. He smiles at me with crumbs and blue goo in his teeth. The house looks somewhat cleaner today, most of the dirty cups and plates gone from the living room.
My mother is upstairs in her bedroom, staring at the small TV on her dresser, which isn’t even turned on. When she sees me, she looks like she forgot I was coming.
“I’m here to help you get ready for church.”
“I remember,” she says. She’s still in her pajamas and her hair is in plaits that look several days old.
“Do you know what you want to wear?” I ask her.
“I have some dress clothes in that closet,” she says, pointing.
I open the closet. There are a bunch of churchy outfits: a blue dress; a beige suit; a lavender skirt with a matching floral blouse. The suit looks too small to accommodate the weight my mother has put on since her fall, so I leave it there and pull out some of the other options, holding them up for my mother’s review.
She points to the dress. “That one.”
I lay it on the bed beside her.
She fingers the material. “This reminds me of a dress I used to have.”
“You wear pantyhose with this?” I ask.
She nods, points to the dresser.
I open the top, right-side drawer, where there are pantyhose and socks.
“Your father bought it for me,” she says.
I look at her. “What?”
“The dress I used to have. Your father bought it for me. A long time ago. When we were first married.”
I take a pair of pantyhose out of the drawer, hold them up to the light to check for runs.
“It was the same color as this one and the same fabric,” my mother continues, still fingering the material. “But it was a young woman’s dress. You know what I mean? I used to wear it out dancing.”
I hold the pantyhose out to her.
She takes them. “Your father loved to take me out dancing on Saturday nights,” she says, and her eyes are bright with the memory.
I make a face at her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “I just don’t get what you ever saw in him.”
“Well, he could dance, for one—”
“I’m not asking,” I interrupt. “I don’t actually want to know.”
“He was handsome, too,” she says as if she didn’t even hear me. “He had good taste in music. His record collection was exceptional. And he had good dick.”
