“I’m looking for my daughter. Jackie Morrow. She here?”
“Umm…” The woman with the feline name glanced over her shoulder, and I took that to mean a lie would be coming my way. She didn’t try to stop me as I brushed past her into the house.
“Jackie!” I took the stairs two at a time, throwing open doors left and right. “Jackie!” Don’t know why I thought to search the upstairs first. Call it mother’s intuition. “Jacqueline Belinda Morrow!”
“Mama!” The last door in the hall opened and out stepped my chile. Fully dressed to her credit. ‘Course that wasn’t saying much since she hardly ever fully dressed. “What you doing here?” she asked me more out of embarrassment than fear.
“What you doing in there? He hurt you?”
“What?”
“I come to take you home. Get your stuff.”
“I’m just visiting. I can’t visit people?”
“Jackie…”
“Visiting ain’t a crime.”
That’s when I put a face to the name. The first time I set eyes on the man, but I knew him. Knew him better than I wanted. The type of man that had no worries. Spent all his days making other folks worry.
“Get over here. Get away from him.”
“Mrs. Jenkins, pleasure to meet you. Darrel King.” He ain’t bother smiling or sticking out his hand or even coming from behind my baby. Just stood there, his eyes locked on mine. “I’ve heard so much about you,” he said.
His little mouse of a woman peeked around the corner behind me. I couldn’t eyeball her, but her feet shuffled against the carpet on the second-floor landing. In my head, her eyes grew big, and she clutched her bathrobe even tighter to her tiny chest.
Heziah crossed my mind. He’d probably have been real clear and firm, and he wouldn’t have lost control at all.
“I said get ova here!” Before I realized it, I latched on to Jackie’s arm and dragged her toward the stairs.
Ricky woulda beat the man to death with his bare hands. Then he’d have done the same to Jackie. She had to have caught that. Made out how lucky she was I came to get her and not somebody else. I only wanted to put some distance between them, but my chile didn’t see fit to cut me any slack.
“Mama! Quit! Quit it!” She tried to wrestle free. “I didn’t do anything! I swear!”
Waited until the last stair before turning to face her. As a child she’d never lied to me, but as a teenager most everything out her mouth was a lie, and in that moment, she was determined to prove it to me. Each word came faster than the last and none of ‘em held more than a morsel of truth. I couldn’t move. Not my feet, nor my lips. And when she finally paused to take a breath, it hit me like a load of bricks.
“What’s that? Is that…liquor? You been drinking?”
“No, I—”
“Did that man give you liquor?” She ain’t need to answer for me to reckon it was true.
“Oww, Mama…”
But my grip only tightened as we moved closer to the door. Some part of Jackie understood I was saving her because she stopped fighting me. Snatched up her jacket and clutched it to her chest without breaking stride. I took it as a sign I’d broken through. Glanced over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, but she avoided my eyes. Still, a mama knows.
Before we could reach the door, the stairs began to creak. The sound was low and heavy like a bear getting up from his slumber, but the bear ain’t waste no time getting his bearings, and before long, there he stood.
“Jackie!”
She turned, her eyes dancing gleefully in his direction.
“Was good seeing you.” He gave a small nod.
My heart sank. “You stay away from her! You hear me? You come near her again and I-I’ll…I’ll…”
“Mrs. Jenkins, I’m not sure what you think is going on but—”
“I’ll kill you! You stay away from my child! You hear me?”
As the eldest child of Pecan and Ricky Morrow, I’d picked up a few things such as the ability to foresee trouble. The twins were smart vivacious girls, but they would never have that ability. They twirled, pranced around the living room, and jumped up and down like they had caught the holy ghost while Natalie narrated their chosen outfits.
“Kee! Kee!”
My eyes were glued to the front door. Mama was missing. Jackie was missing and Mya was silent. She’d curled up in the window seat with a blanket and a book, alternating between ignoring us and keeping watch.
“Kee!” They called again.
“I’m watching. I am.”
They twirled in side-by-side circles, then dashed off to change into their next outfit. It was an unsaid rule: bad news was never spoken in their presence. Natalie and I exchanged nervous glances when they weren’t looking and pretended like it was normal for Mama to leave in the middle of the afternoon. I quietly reassured myself that it would’ve been only a matter of time before she found out. Even without my help.
“Think they’ll be back soon?” Natalie rocked side to side, pushing her feet together so the bottoms touched. “I’m getting hungry.”
I nodded but felt my attention drift to the window seat. With one definitive flick of her wrist, Mya turned a page in her book. Anger wasn’t normally one of my sister’s emotions, but she did irritated masterfully.
“Mama said she’ll be back soon, but I don’t know….You think everything’s okay?”
I nodded, smiling at Natalie as if she were one of the twins.
“I think Jackie’s gonna be in trouble,” she confessed, her brow wrinkled in concern. “I hope not, but Mama seemed pretty mad. What’d she do anyway? Just ‘cause she ain’t come home with Mya?”
This time we both glanced at the occupant of the window seat, but she didn’t move, sigh, or utter a sound. She simply read.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure everything’ll work itself out. If they’re not back soon, I’ll make dinner for everyone.”
Mama and Jackie walked through the door exactly forty-two minutes later. Jackie made an unsteady beeline for the stairs, and Mama lingered in the foyer, hanging her coat on the coatrack. It draped over its hook with such resignation that it reminded me of Mama herself—plain old worn-out.
“Everything okay?” I asked, wiping my hands on the apron tied around my waist.
“Fine,” was her answer although it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“Heziah called to say he’ll be late. I told him you were visiting some neighbors.”
Ironically, that was the lie I told Daddy if he called when Mama was with Heziah. She nodded as if she didn’t remember and went about putting on her apron. Lying was wrong, and I wasn’t a child anymore. And yet, I was still lying to cover up other people’s indiscretions.
“Where was she?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it, Nikki.”
“She was with him wasn’t she?”
Mama surveyed the kitchen and the dishes in various stages of preparedness. Smothered chicken, mashed potatoes, and okra. The chicken sat in the skillet on top of the stove. I was about to turn on the burner when they came in.
“What’d she say? I mean how did she explain everything? Were they alone?”
Mama grabbed both oven mitts and lifted the top off the pot to check on the okra. I waited patiently. Daddy liked his extra soft, but the reverend liked his okra with a little bite. I wasn’t sure how Heziah liked his.
“How long has she been sneaking off to see him?”
“Nikki! Leave it be!”
My fingers started to tremble as I untied the apron strings. Jackie had run off to do God knows what, and all I’d done was be helpful, yet she was yelling at me. No gratitude for fixing supper. Not even a brief acknowledgment I had been right about her favorite child.
“I…I gotta go before it gets late.”
Mama nodded, her attention already drifting.
The second week of April marked the beginning of folks looking at me like I was some kind
a new manifestation of myself. A group of guys I knew from English class horsed around in the hallway, and one of them accidentally bumped into me. He apologized profusely, then he and his friends practically ran in the other direction.
“Damn girl, what’d you do got them scared of you?”
I shrugged.
“They musta heard.” Jackie spun around to face me and arched one mischievous eyebrow as we approached our lockers. “Morrow girls don’t take no junk.”
Jackie and I adhered to two distinct views on what it meant to be a Morrow girl. Where she saw power and strength, I felt betrayal and grief. A difference we might never be able to reconcile.
“You got practice? After school?” Jackie’s locker slammed shut, and she squeezed her mathematics textbook to her chest.
Mama ordered us to walk to and from school together. Every day. No detours. No exceptions. Didn’t matter what I had going on in my life or what I felt about it.
“I got somewhere to be.”
“Where?” Jackie grinned.
“Somewhere.”
“Where?” She persisted, following me down the hall to my homeroom. Ramon stood at the door waiting patiently. “Mya,” she gasped with a knowing smile. “Oooo, I’m telling Mama.”
It would’ve been fair since I told on her, so I didn’t expect her to keep my secret.
“I’m kidding.” Jackie giggled. “Go on, have your little fun. Meet me after, and we’ll walk home together.”
I’d missed two practices in the last week because it was the only time I could get away. Last time Ramon and I rode a bus downtown and walked to Buckingham Fountain. We held hands. Not the fun Jackie was thinking about.
“Hey, girl.”
“Hey.”
Since becoming my boyfriend, Ramon hadn’t missed one day of school. I suspected he still skipped a few periods here and there, but at least he showed up. I was already a good influence on him.
“Let me see your math homework,” he said as we claimed our seats near the window.
“That would be cheating.”
“Aww, come on.”
Ramon typically got his way with folks. He gave orders on the street, and his friends followed them without question. Even our classmates and teachers tried to stay out of his way.
“I’m not a cheater.”
“You want me to fail? Come on, help me out.”
The bell rang at precisely eight o’clock to signal the morning announcements. I didn’t need the help, but it provided the perfect excuse to end our conversation. Ramon knew, like I did, what the assignment was, and he wasn’t stupid. Having a boyfriend was a new sensation. Sometimes it reminded me of having a pet. I’d never had a pet, but I could imagine what it would’ve been like—lots of worrying. Ramon didn’t have the best track record when it came to making decisions. He was involved in a lot of things that were bad for him, but as long as they made him money, he made peace with the risks.
“You mad at me?” he asked me after school.
I shook my head.
We’d taken to walking around the neighborhood. Ramon never crossed State Street, so we walked only so far east before turning in another direction.
“Then what’s wrong?” His cold fingers slipped into mine, squeezing our palms together.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit, Mya. What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Funny thing about nothing, sometimes it grew from something. See, something became nothing once you got used to it. And nothing and I knew each other well. It haunted my steps regardless of whether I was awake or asleep. It didn’t have a name or make a sound, but it was always there.
◼︎
“So…where’d you go? Whatcha do? Spill.” Jackie assumed I had something juicy to tell. She matched me stride for stride and playfully leaned into me. “I’d tell you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But if you did, I’d tell you.”
“All we did was walk around and talk.”
“Talked?” Jackie peered at me as if observing a fascinating creature she never knew existed.
“Where’d you go?”
I only asked to change the subject. The answer carried little importance to me, but I listened anyway. Jackie spent her last hours with Nash and his friends. She gave vivid descriptions of each boy, popping her bubblegum at the same time. The pink stretchy substance sloshed around her mouth, distracting me from her words.
“You smell funny.”
“I do?” Her eyes grew wide, and she spit the wad of gum into the grass before popping in a fresh piece. “How about now?”
“You’re okay now.”
“Good.”
Jackie continued her story all the way home. How she got along so well with Nash and his friends and how they all flirted with her. Between the four of them, they finished off two quarts of Captain Morgan.
“What’s it taste like?”
“Umm…it’s good when you mix it with stuff like orange juice or fruit punch. You wanna try it? Nash gave me some for later.” She pulled a half-empty bottle of Twister Fruit Punch from her backpack and swished the red liquid around the inside of the glass bottle.
“No, thanks.”
“You sure?”
I nodded. I could imagine Mama’s face when she found out. She paid more attention than usual, studying every inch of Jackie and me. I started to warn Jackie but figured she’d noticed all the extra attention like I had.
“We’re home,” Jackie called out as we hung up our coats.
Mama was in the kitchen with the twins scooping spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheet. First came the German chocolate cake, then chocolate chip cookies, and next would be some type of pie or cheesecake. Some people cleaned or talked incessantly when they were nervous. Mama baked.
“How was school?”
“Fine. I’m thinking about trying out for the talent show,” Jackie declared as she took a seat next to Jenna. “And when I win, we can go out to celebrate. It’ll be like a family event.”
Mama nodded absentmindedly and used her finger to push a chunk off her spoon.
“I’ll sing. Or maybe I’ll act….No, I’ll sing. Did you know I could sing, little Callie?”
Callie shook her head, sending her curly pigtails whooshing against the side of her face.
I was about to excuse myself to finish my homework when it happened. The sound of her backpack unzipping and a muffled clang as the Twister bottle landed on top of the kitchen table. My mouth fell open. Stupid my sister was not, and she couldn’t have been so thirsty she needed to have it right then and there. Jackie winked at me, and her fingers lightly grazed the cap as if considering when to open it.
“What should I sing, Mama?”
“Sing? Oh…umm…sing that song about dancing. I like that one.”
“What song about dancing? Lots of songs about dancing.”
“You know the one.” Mama sighed. “With the girl everybody keeps talking about. The skinny one.”
They laughed and Mama let herself relax enough to break a smile. “Y’all know who I’m talkin’ about! The girl! Houston somebody!”
I’d managed to not care what Jackie did, but I wasn’t gonna lie for her. Sitting across from her, watching one gulp after another without telling Mama what really filled the bottle would’ve been a lie.
“I got homework.”
“Oh, you’ll knock that out in no time. Come on, hang with us.” Jackie gave the cap a quick twist and raised the bottle to her lips. “Family is the most important thing. Right, Mama?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. That’s true. Mya, baby, don’t you want to spend some time with us? Instead of always locking yourself up in that room.” Mama’s face took on a wavering smile, trying to lighten the mood.
But the moments directly after that worked against her. Nobody said anything. They all just looked at me expectantly. Guess I was supposed to grin and lie. Say how much I was dying to have their company. How much fun it was to be
around them.
“I got homework.”
They could have their little moment of pretend without me.
The girl staring back at me wore my face, but she couldn’t have been me. Her blouse was buttoned wrong and hung on the outside of her skirt. Her hair matted and pressed against the back of her head. A run a mile long ran down the front of her stockings. But all of that came a distant second.
The bathroom tiles turned into ice-cold rocks under my stockinged feet and got worse once I stepped out of them. The knobs screeched as I turned the water on full blast and flinched as the sound pierced the quiet. Bad enough I’d gotten home late, but if the reverend had seen me…the idea shamed me to my core. I was not going to leave the bathroom until I’d washed the sin from my body.
The basin filled with water until my stockings floated calmly on top. Men didn’t have the self-control, we did. Men lived impressionable lives, pulled in arbitrary directions by their private parts. So, setting the tone fell in my lap, and clearly I failed. Worse yet, I compromised my future. Jean-Louis was so close to popping the question. The promise flashed in his eyes every time they moved in my direction. Now what would he think of me?
“Nikki? Is that you?” A soft knock came at the bathroom door. Darlene stood in the hall whispering in the darkness. “Everything all right?”
“Mmhmm.” I heard myself sniffle.
“You sure?”
I nodded even though the door stood between us and held my breath until she returned to her bedroom. In the morning, she would ask me how my date went over coffee and Danish, and I’d be a much better liar. I’d smile and recount how romantic the restaurant was and how special I felt. I’d leave out the part where he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
When morning came around, Darlene smiled at me across the kitchen table, and I wondered if she even remembered the night before.
“How’s your sister doing? How’s Mya?”
“Fine.”
“She still getting good grades? I tell everyone all the time how smart she is.”
When I first met Darlene, I took one look at her and thought of the Berenstain Bears. Something about my second mother reminded me of the mother bear with her round cheeks.
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