“Dana!” I hated the hopeful lilt in my voice.
“Hey, girlie,” she said, strol ing toward me. “Have you seen a security guard around here?”
I shook my head.
“You sure?” she said. “He’s cute, like a DeBarge, but he was hassling us.” Dana looked behind her. At the wave of her hand, another girl appeared. This girl was even less silver than me. Her haircut had a kind of homemade look, like she had trimmed it with paper scissors; her ears were scabbed from amateur attempts with the curling iron. Like Dana, she wore a purple keyhole top and stretch Gloria Vanderbilts. They even wore the same shoes — purple dyed-to-match pumps, the kind other girls wear with prom dresses.
“This is Ronalda,” Dana said.
“We’re best friends,” Ronalda said, as if I didn’t catch the matching outfits.
“Nice to meet you.” I sighed.
Dana and Ronalda sat together on a leather love seat across from me. Ronalda dug into her bag and produced a tube of lotion. She squeezed a little on the tips of her fingers and dabbed the teardrop of skin inside the keyhole of her shirt.
“You so crazy,” Dana said, taking the lotion and doing the same thing. “You want some?”
“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“So,” Dana said to me. “Where does your mother think you are?” She nudged Ronalda with her shoulder. “We are supposed to be in a lock-in at my church.”
Dana put her hand in her hair and then stopped. She felt her ear. “I lost my earring,” she said.
Ronalda said, “Nobody move,” like she was looking for a lost contact. Dana’s voice climbed in pitch. “I hope I didn’t lose it on the MARTA.
They’re my mother’s and her mother gave them to her. Oh my God.”
Ronalda was on her hands and knees, looking under the love seat. Dana muttered and walked herself in little shaky circles. I got up and ran my hand in the crevices of the sofa. “We’l find it.” I took the cushion off the love seat, even though the ladies working the front desk were looking at us cross-eyed.
“I don’t see it,” Ronalda said, standing up.
“Hold on,” I said to Dana. I stepped toward her, lifting her hair from her neck. There, snagged at her neckline, was the hoop earring. I twisted it free and handed it to her. It was antique-looking, like something Grandma Bunny used to wear. The gold was etched with a careful pattern of leaves.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” She threaded it though the hole in her ear while Ronalda put the furniture back together.
I sat back on the little couch, and this time Dana sat by me.
“You saved my life,” she said.
I was pleased enough to break into song, but I waved it away.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“So how come you’re here?” Ronalda said.
“How come y’al are?” I shot back.
“We tried to get into the party upstairs,” Dana said. “But we got turned away.”
“Just because we weren’t invited,” Ronalda snorted.
“I went inside. It wasn’t al that great.”
“Who was there?”
“I don’t know. People. Ruth Nicole Elizabeth, her boyfriend Marcus.”
Ronalda sucked her teeth and Dana tapped her fingers against her cheek.
Dana said, “So you and Ruth Nicole Elizabeth are friends?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I been knowing her since kindergarten and she didn’t even invite me.”
“She lives down the street from me,” Ronalda said.
“She sits next to me in calculus,” Dana said.
“So,” Ronalda said. “If you’re not here for the party, then how come you’re here?”
“I’m working,” I said. “My dad has a limo company. We’re handling transport for Ruth Nicole Elizabeth and her family.”
“You can drive a limousine?” Ronalda asked.
“I can, but I’m not. I’m an attendant.” I spoke to her slowly, like she didn’t speak English.
“Your dad is here?” This was from Dana.
“Yeah,” I said. “You two want to go outside and see the cars?”
Ronalda spoke up. “No, we are not into al of that.” She stood and held out her hand. Dana took it and pul ed herself up from the sofa. “We got to go.”
“Wait,” I said, scrambling up. “Dana, you never did make your appointment for your wash-and-set. You want to come in on Tuesday?”
“No,” she said, doing a quick look-around to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything. “I can only come on a Wednesday.”
“Bye,” I cal ed as Ronalda pul ed my silver girl away. It was like a Shakespeare play; they just sort of vanished into the wings, with Dana watching me over her shoulder.
I got back in the elevator and rode down to the parking garage. Uncle Raleigh and Daddy were leaning against the hood of the Town Car, passing a single cigarette back and forth like a joint.
“Is that party almost done with? Me and Raleigh are running out of smokes.”
“They’l be out soon,” I said.
Something in my voice made my daddy turn his attention from the shared cigarette to me. “What’s the matter, Buttercup?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Oh, it’s something,” Uncle Raleigh said.
“I just don’t have any friends,” I said. “I know people or whatever, but who’s my best friend? Who’s going to invite me to their Sweet Sixteen and let me ride in the limo with them?” I covered my face with my cake-sticky hands. My father and Uncle Raleigh looked at one another. It would have been funny to an onlooker. Their confusion had a sitcom quality, like two men who are forced to see to a woman that’s going into labor.
“F-f-forget about them,” my daddy said. “Our party is going to be ten times bigger than this. And we won’t invite Ruth, Nicole, or Elizabeth.”
“And we are going to charge them time and a half for al this extra time they got us sitting out here,” Uncle Raleigh said.
Daddy said, “Goddamn right.”
18
LOVE AND HAPPINESS
ON OCTOBER 18, 1974, when a real y pissed-off black woman flung a pot of hot grits on Al Green, her hair was freshly pressed and curled by none other than my mama. As a result of our little brush with Negro history, nobody made Al Green jokes in our house, or even in the Pink Fox, where you can imagine a lot of women fantasized about taking revenge on a lying man. I think the women liked the story not just because of the drama of it, but because grits were the weapon of choice. The boiling cereal reminded them of being stuck in a hot kitchen, poor and barefoot in the days before they had even heard of waffles or hol andaise sauce. That girl, whatever her name was, took the entire state of Mississippi and used it to kick somebody’s ass. Al you had to do was say “Al Green” and “grits” in the same conversation and the titter of laughing started, but my mama cut it off with a quiet “That’s not funny.” You couldn’t hear it in her voice, but if you looked at her face, at the way she closed her eyes and tucked her head down like she was in prayer, you knew that she was serious.
The woman who did it was named Mary. The Atlanta Journal said her family name was Sanford while Jet magazine cal ed her Woodson. She told my mother she was visiting Atlanta for a few days in order to attend an AME Usher Board convention. Even before she noticed Mary’s cross pendant — simple, the jewelry equivalent of two sticks tied together — Mama knew that the woman was saved. Even after what happened next, Mama said she never doubted that Mary had come to Jesus. The truly saved don’t have to go around talking about it. They just have this quietness about them like they know exactly where they’re going.
Mary walked in on a Tuesday evening, opening the door at seven thirty, after Mama had finished her last customer of the night. As a matter of fact, Mama was untying her apron and switching off the gas under the irons when Mary crossed the threshold, looking like a kindergarten teacher at the end of a long day. She wore a pink pantsuit, stylish, but the topstitching on the pockets gave away that it was homemade. Mama said she wil never forget that face, smooth as a brown egg, no lines or crinkles, like she had never laughed or cried in her whole entire life.