Just then, Daddy came into the shop, with Uncle Raleigh close behind carrying a bucket of chicken.
“W-what’s going on here,” he said, reaching for me. He had to pul me away because I refused to unhook my arms. “L-let her go.” He yanked so hard that I started to cry.
Mama was embarrassed. “There’s nothing wrong,” she said. “She was just helping me out because my stitches are hurting me.”
“Good-bye, Laverne,” Mary said. “Don’t let this trouble you none. I’l be seeing you again.”
When the door clapped shut behind her, my daddy leaned to kiss my face, but pul ed back as a shock hurt his lip.
They fought over it, my parents did. Mama complained at the dinner table, trying to eat the chicken Daddy and Uncle Raleigh had brought. “You just don’t want me to have a friend,” Mama said. “Why did you treat her like that?”
“You didn’t see her face,” Daddy said. “There was something wild in her face.”
Mama wiped her eyes with the cheap paper napkin from the chicken place. “I need to take a pil . I don’t feel wel .”
Uncle Raleigh got up to find her a glass of water. Daddy said, “You can’t take codeine on an empty stomach. Eat your dinner.”
“The doctor said no fried foods. I told you that.”
“I’m sorry, Verne,” Daddy said. “Do you want me to fix you a sandwich?”
“I just hate the way you treated her,” Mama said. “How often do I get to have a friend?”
ABOUT THREE WEEKS LATER, Daddy came home early on a Wednesday. He walked into the shop while my mama was trying to do three heads at once. Somebody was holding me, but Daddy didn’t pay it any mind.
“Laverne, can I talk to you for a second?” he said.
My mama wasn’t in the middle of any chemical procedures, so she went outside and sat with Daddy on the porch. “What is it? Is Miss Bunny okay? Raleigh?”
“Nothing like that,” he said. “I was just wondering. That woman that came in late that night, the one in the pink?”
“Mary,” Mama said. “Mary was her name.”
“I saw her picture in Jet, ” Daddy said, handing my mother the folded-back page. “She was the one that threw hot grits on Al Green. I told you she was crazy.”
Mama looked at the article, tracing the words, moving her lips as she read what happened in Memphis just one night after Mary left our shop.
“What did he do to her?” Mama said.
“What did he do to her? She threw a pot of hot grits on the man when he was getting out of the bathtub and you want to know what he did to her?”
“Oh, Mary,” Mama said.
“Black women,” Daddy said. “Y’al know y’al is crazy when you don’t get your way.”
“Oh, Mary,” Mama said again. “Oh, girl.”
This is not a story my mama tel s often. To her, it’s not just gossip, it’s something closer to gospel. One late night Mama was fixing up a girl who was half bald on the left side from snatching at her own head. She opened her mouth to show Mama where she clamped her jaw so tight that she busted one of her molars. While Mama rubbed Magical Grow in the bald places until her naked scalp shone like it was wet, she shared the story of Mary.
“You listening, baby?” Mama said. “When you love a man that much, it’s time to let him go.”
19
UP A NOTCH
AFTER RUTH NICOLE ELIZABETH’S Sweet Sixteen, my father and Raleigh became obsessed with the idea of a party for my mama. Speaking across the radio waves, Lincoln to Lincoln, they used words like soiree and salon. On Saturday morning they got themselves al gussied up in their three-piece suits and headed to the Hilton to find out how much it would cost to rent the Magnolia Room for the evening of June 17. After they’d gone my mother asked me, “Where are those two headed looking like a couple of undertakers?” They told the events manager at the Hilton that they wanted whatever Harold Grant had ordered for his daughter, only “up a notch,” which translated into premium catering — miniature crab cakes, a roast-beef station, and four hours of open bar. Waiting at the airport for fares, my father flipped through bridal magazines, pul ing out pages that he liked, tucking them into the inside pocket of his uniform coat.
The invitation, they decided, would say “semi-formal.” Yes, “after-five attire” sounded classier, but they didn’t want anyone to be confused. “And,”
Daddy said, “irregardless of what we tel other people to wear, me and Raleigh are going to have on tuxedos with morning coats.”
I flipped through the sheaf of pictures he had cul ed from Modern Bride. The dresses were al part princess, part Renaissance hooker — deep necklines, pinched waists, and very dramatic skirts flaring over stiff crinolines.
I went through the stack twice, searching for something that looked like a dress somebody’s mother could wear. I didn’t even comment on the stock photo of Lady Diana Spencer. “You have to let her pick her own dress.”
“You’re right,” Daddy said. “She’s going to need to try it on, or what have you. We’l show her these photos as a suggestion, just to let her know the sky is the limit.”
DANA CAME TWO Wednesdays after Ruth Nicole Elizabeth’s party, ready at last for her wash-and-set. I lowered her into the shampoo bowl, careful to cushion her neck with a folded-over towel. This close, I could smel her perfume. Today she smel ed like my mother, White Shoulders.
“Your father and your uncle are throwing a birthday party for the Pink Fox?” she said.
“No,” I said. “For my mother. The anniversary is just the occasion.”
“Why?”
“For al the hard work she does.”
Dana sat up from the shampoo bowl and watched my mother as she eased ammonia onto a customer’s roots.
“My mother works hard,” Dana said, “but she never had a party or anything close to it. Do you know that?”
“Lean back if you want this shampoo,” I said, smothering the urge to defend my father’s crazy idea. “And keep your voice down; it’s sort of a surprise.” She leaned back and I turned the water on and squeezed the sprayer. “How does that feel?”
“Good,” she said, but the cords of her neck were stil stretched tight.
“Relax,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”
I squirted shampoo into my palm and rubbed it into her thick hair, using my nails on her scalp until she moaned.
“Feel good?”
Relaxers are good for business, there’s no doubt about that. Back when everybody got a press-and-curl, they would come to the shop only when they had money. Everybody had a hot comb tucked in the kitchen drawer, and in a pinch you could iron out your own naps. But the relaxer needed to be done by a professional to get the hair bone-straight without processing it right off your scalp. Even my mama was unable to handle the back of her own head. I worked it in for her, forcing the crinkles flat with my gloved fingers. Stil , we both missed the days of the press-and-curl, just for the transformation factor. Used to be when you washed a woman’s hair, it went back to its natural state, the way it was even before she was born. She sat up in your chair with plaits in her head, showing you the way she was when she was smal and used to sit between her mother’s knees. There was magic in taking them from where they were, to where they wanted to be. It was a miracle every time.