“I think it’s Dynasty. Everybody wants to be Alexis.”
“Even black folks?” said Uncle Raleigh.
“Everybody,” I said. “Even Diahann Carrol herself.”
“What about Bil Cosby? You don’t think people want to be high on the hog like the Cosbys?”
“Bil Cosby makes you want to buy a hundred-dol ar sweater,” I said.
“Wel ,” said Uncle Raleigh. “I’l admit that I enjoy a nice cardigan, but in general, I am a simple man with simple taste.” He waved his arm to take in our environment, his cigarette making a ghostly trail.
We were at IHOP on North Avenue, kil ing time while Ruth Nicole Elizabeth Grant was having her Sweet Sixteen at the Hilton downtown. Her parents went al out, requesting the limo, the Town Car, and an attendant — which was me. Al I had to do was be on hand in case somebody needed a tissue or breath mints on the ride. Tucked in my canvas pack was a handy bottle of club soda in case someone spil ed something on their clothes and a barrel brush in case there was a Shirley Temple back there that needed twirling. I never had to dab a stain from a dress, although curls always could use a little tending to. For the most part, I was getting paid six dol ars an hour just to ride around. We were even on the clock sitting up in IHOP eating pigs in a blanket.
Uncle Raleigh and Daddy both wore their dress uniforms, but they left the jackets in the car. They horsed around like boys as they sucked down cup after cup of thin coffee, loosened up with cream and sugar. Sitting on opposite sides of the booth, they often looked up at one another and grinned. I always alternated my seat when I went out with the two of them. I don’t know that they ever noticed, but it wasn’t right that Uncle Raleigh should have to be alone al the time.
Women at the Pink Fox wondered aloud why Uncle Raleigh was stil available, and I knew at least three ladies who would be more than happy to do something about it. Uncle Raleigh didn’t come around the salon much, and neither did my daddy. (My mama says it’s just that they don’t want to see where pretty comes from.) Uncle Raleigh kept his visits short and sweet. When he entered the shop, delivering a package or something, the ladies who were already curled and looking pretty flirted outrageously while the ones who were wet and stil nappy hid behind their Ebony magazines, taking interested peeks over the tops of the glossy pages. Uncle Raleigh, knowing his role, complimented everyone, including Mama and me, before leaving with a tip of his hat.
Once he was gone, the speculation began in earnest. They ran through the respectable options first. Had he been hurt by a woman so now he was gun-shy? Was he married to the limo company? Lord have mercy, had he been to Vietnam? (At this point, the conversation could get pretty intense depending on the age of the women getting their hair done. It was always a brother-in-law that they talked about having been driven crazy by that war. It was never a husband or, thankyoujesus, a son.) The romantics wondered if maybe Uncle Raleigh had a woman but for some reason —
like maybe she was the mayor’s wife — he had to keep it secret.
Mama denied al these theories. “He’s set in his ways,” she’d say, or “He’s just waiting to meet the right person.” Sometimes one woman would be brave enough to ask the question that was on everyone’s mind. The asker was either the oldest or youngest person in the shop. “He’s not funny, is he, Verne?”
Mama said no, that wasn’t it at al .
The truth was that Uncle Raleigh wasn’t real y a bachelor. He had us.
Mama told me once, on a Monday, while she was working in my relaxer, that she had seen Uncle Raleigh with a woman before. The woman was dark-skinned, real y dark, like Cicely Tyson, but with hair for days. I had seen the woman, too, but I couldn’t say anything. It was just before Jamal graduated, before I figured out that you can be safe and sorry at the same time. Jamal and I were at Adams Park, in the middle of a school day. We didn’t have anywhere else to go — my mama operated a business out of my house and his mother (as she told anybody that would sit stil and listen) “didn’t have to work,” so she was home al day. So we were stuck with public places. He was eager to get back to the car, which he had parked in a discreet spot near a bank of pine trees. I said that I wanted to play on the swings for a while. It was a lie, I didn’t care anything about the swings, but I wanted him to coax me back to the car, for him to say how much he had missed me al day in school, for him to thril me by pressing my hand to the front of his jeans, for him to say that he worried that he was going to bust the zipper just by loving me so much. I was going to ride the swing, flashing him when the air flipped my skirt until he had to say, “Chaurisse, I am crazy about you.”
I had just settled my hips on the swing and used my tiptoes to push back a few paces when I saw my uncle and his lady friend. Uncle Raleigh and I looked right into each other’s faces. My hand floated up to my nose, the way it did when I was afraid. Uncle Raleigh cocked his head like dogs do when they’re confused. Jamal turned to see what I was looking at and Uncle Raleigh’s lady friend did the same. We were, al four of us, caught up in something, but at the time, I couldn’t say exactly what. Then Uncle Raleigh put his finger to his lips like a watchful librarian.
He never brought his girlfriend around to the house and I never asked. It was simple courtesy, real y, one of the rules of our house. We were a polite family back then. For example, on this Saturday night, no one asked me why I wasn’t invited to Ruth Nicole Elizabeth’s Sweet Sixteen, although we lived in the same neighborhood, had belonged to the same Brownie troop, and our mothers took the same dance class at the YWCA.
Not only that, but I’d been to Ruth Nicole Elizabeth’s parties in the past, and my mother always made sure I gave her a good gift. Just last year, I presented her with three fluted add-a-beads — fourteen karat. The previous parties had al been held in her big backyard or in their nice finished basement. Her Sweet Sixteen was to be an elaborate catered situation, which was different. Her parents had to pay a specific amount for each guest. If you were going, you had to RSVP, and rumor had it there was a wait list.
Uncle Raleigh struck a match and lit the cigarette dangling from his thin lips. “You want some of this, Jim-Bo?” he said, offering the burning stick to my dad, who leaned his cigarette into the flame.
I asked the waitress for a refil on my Diet Coke.
“Get a regular Coke,” Daddy said, looping his arm around my shoulder.
“Too many calories,” I said.
“Why you and your mama are so hung up on this weight thing? Don’t nobody but a dog want a bone.”
“And even he wants some meat on it,” Uncle Raleigh said.
They laughed and kept eating.
“What time is it?” I asked, with a flip of my hair.
My dad frowned. He didn’t care for my augmented look. He said it was because I didn’t need it.
“It’s only ten thirty. The event is scheduled to go until midnight,” Uncle Raleigh said.
“It’s a big deal, this party,” I said. “Mama did the hair. Ruth Nicole Elizabeth, her mama, her best friend. We worked on them al day.”
We did, and it had been a pretty miserable afternoon. To her credit, Ruth Nicole Elizabeth never said the word party while I basted her head. She didn’t even complain when I tugged too hard at a tangle behind her ears, removing the soft strands at the root. We final y got them out of the shop at 4:30 p.m. They went home to slip into their “after-five attire” and I went upstairs to put on my blue-and-white so I could go work with Daddy and Uncle Raleigh. For the record, I did own an afterfive dress. It was lavender, with asymmetric tiers and a sweetheart neck, junior size 13. My daddy brought it home late one night; he won it in a poker game.