Then the girl got up and replaced the empty tray in the slot in the door. She padded back to her bed, lay on her side, picked up her book, and began to read again.
23.
Hairy Situation
“Here,” said Sienna, handing Tamara the blue plastic-bristled brush. “I need help brushing out the back of my hair.”
Tamara was surprised by her request but had little time to comment before the girl had sat on the floor in front of her, scooting her body into the narrow space between the couch and the cocktail table. Tamara’s body stiffened involuntarily as Sienna took one arm and placed it on each of her legs, then shimmied her small body backward until she seemed quite comfortable.
Well, this was quite an icebreaker, Tamara thought, astounded by the teen’s overtly friendly behavior. Since the school conference the other week, and her clumsy attempt to talk it out with the girl during their movie night, there had been a chill between them, and their conversation had been limited, to say the least. To address the problems at school, Tamara had set strict consequences for any misconduct from Sienna, and surprisingly, Sienna had accepted them without argument.
“What you waiting for?” the girl asked impatiently. “Don’t you know how to brush hair? C’mon, Tamara, all you do is take some hair from the bottom and then, starting at the top, brush out the naps slowly. Don’t worry, I ain’t tender-headed or nothin’.”
Tamara took a good look at the girl’s reddish-brown hair, noticing how it sprang up in wavy tendrils all over her head. She had not seen it loose and free like this for weeks, since usually Sienna’s hair was in stylish braids, which she tightly bound by herself or with the help of a friend.
“C’mon, Tamara,” the girl repeated. “Just brush okay?”
Gingerly she parted the girl’s hair, her brown fingers in stark contrast to the paleness of the girl’s light pink scalp. Then, even more tentatively, she gathered a small amount of the soft hair into her hand and slowly began to pull the brush through the curly strands ever so lightly.
Sienna was obviously still not pleased with her hair-grooming method and commented loudly, “Tamara! I said I ain’t tender-headed! You can brush harder than that!”
Pulling the brush a bit harder through the hair then, bit by bit she continued to take small pieces of the coiled locks and repeat the process, brushing each section carefully until it lay smooth and soft on the girl’s small back.
“Dang, Tamara, you never brushed a girl’s hair before? You sho’ act like you ain’t.”
“No, I have not ever brushed anyone’s hair before.”
Growing up, Tamara had never spent time clustered with other girls, laughing and sharing secrets with one another. Sometimes she’d watch them curiously from the corner of her eye from where she sat alone, noticing how they combed and brushed one another’s hair while giggling and talking conspiratorially.
“Why not?” asked Sienna. “Don’t you know no other girls? Shoot, I got a lotta friends: Janetha, Marilyn, Sabrina, Tory, and Terry . . . We fix each other’s hair all the time, ’cept Terry don’t fix no hair though, ’cause he is a boy. Do you think Sabrina could spend the night one day, or can I stay at her house?”
“Sabrina?”
“Sabrina! Tamara, you know her foster mom is Mrs. Jackson, yo’ friend. C’mon, Tamara, don’t tell me you didn’t know that. She yo’ friend. You should know her kids’ names. Terry is her son; he my age, too . . . He been living with her forever.”
“Terry? I didn’t know about him, either.” She’s right, I should know Mrs. Jackson’s children’s names, Tamara thought. But, unwilling to admit her ineptness to the girl, she instead replied, “I guess I’ve never had a lot of friends, so maybe I’m still learning about it. I suppose I’m sort of a loner.”
“What you mean, a loner?”
“A loner is a person who does not have lots of friends. That’s because loners enjoy spending time alone.”
Sienna clicked her tongue almost imperceptibly and said, “Hmmph, ain’t no ‘sorta’ to it! If that’s what it means, than believe me, you are a loner.”
“Why do you say it like that?” she asked with a quaver in her voice, while pulling the brush a little too hard through the girl’s hair this time.
Sienna flinched, “Tamara, I ain’t tender-headed, but you ain’t gotta try to kill me, now. I say that ’cause it ain’t like you the most popular person in town. Your phone don’t ring that much, and you don’t never go out on a date or nothin’.”
“Sienna, please don’t use ‘ain’t.’ It’s improper English . . . No, I guess I don’t get a lot of phone calls, and I really don’t date.”
The girl wiggled her little body noticeably and said, “Shoot, if I was pretty like you and had all them nice clothes and stuff, I’d be goin’ out all the time. I’d have so many boyfriends, payin’ my bills and buyin’ me cars and all that!”
Tamara smiled, flattered by Sienna’s almost concealed compliment, and replied, “Oh, you would, huh? Do you actually think there are men who buy women cars routinely?”
“Shoot, I know so! Anyway, that’s what Destiny Child say—you know, the song. ‘Can you pay my bills, bills . . . ?’”
“Well,” Tamara laughed, “I suppose, to date a man, I would need to have something in common with him, and I definitely do not have the expectation that he would pay my bills, bills, bills,” she said with a small laugh.
The girl continued to sing the song to herself as she popped her fingers and danced to her own beat.
Hmmph! Her singing voice is not half bad, Tamara thought, brushing the last section of Sienna’s hair flat. Then, gathering the entire mane of hair, she gently brushed it upward and then down her back again. The reddish-sandy hair was shiny and full of waves when she finished.
Not bad for my first time, she thought, and satisfied with her work, she handed Sienna the brush and said, “All done.”
The girl turned around then and looked her squarely in the eye. “Tell the truth: why don’t you have a boyfriend? Is it because of me?”
Tamara was taken aback by the unexpected question and quickly shifted her eyes away from the young girl’s probing view. “I—I—I don’t know why I don’t have a boyfriend, Sienna; it isn’t because of you, though. I suppose I don’t want a boyfriend. And even if I did, I guess I don’t know that many guys, and I really don’t know where to meet any.”
“You could go out to a club or something. That’s what one of my foster mamas and her friends used to do.” She closed her eyes and swayed from side to side as she mimicked their adult voices and said, “Par-ty—that’s what they liked to do.” For a moment she looked sad when she said, “It was okay there, but sometimes they came home drunk, or high or something, and sometimes she didn’t come home at all, and I’d be scared.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Tamara.
This time the girl avoided Tamara’s gaze. She shrugged her small shoulders, “It’s no big thang, you know. Really, she was an okay foster mama and everything. I liked her and stuff; I just don’t want to live with her.”
“I understand,” said Tamara quietly, thinking of the young girl, scared and home alone, waiting expectantly for the adults to arrive from their late-night partying.
Then, from out of the blue, while slyly glancing at Tamara from the corner of her eyes, Sienna said, “Mr. Perry, he think you look good.”
Tamara stiffened at this undesired shift in the conversation and asked, “What are you talking about?”
“You know, Mr. Perry—my teacher at school. He’s not married, either, and like I said before, I know he think you look good.”
She had not forgotten who Isaiah Perry was. His generous smile and calm, positive demeanor had been the only thing that had helped her survive Sienna’s school conference the other week.
Hoping to sound nonchalant, she asked, “And how would you know that, Sienna?”
“’Cause he keep asking me questions ’bout you.”
“Well,
my goodness! Just what kind of questions would he ask you about me?” she asked. Her cheeks were growing warm as she repeated, “What could he possibly want to know about me?”
She could tell that Sienna seemed to think her obvious discomfort with this conversation was amusing, since the girl was smiling widely now. “He want to know stuff like if you married, or if you dating somebody, and how old you are. You know, that kind of stuff.”
Tamara felt her cheeks burning now, and she averted her face, hoping that Sienna would not notice.
Sienna gave no indication that she was aware of this new escalation of Tamara’s uneasiness, and instead asked, “How old are you anyway? I don’t think you too old, are you?”
With a smile, Tamara quipped, “That depends on what you think ‘too old’ is. I am thirty-two years old.”
“Whew,” said the girl. “That is kinda old! But Mr. Perry, he older than you! He’s thirty-four—I know ’cause I asked him.”
Tamara was surprised to hear herself emit an involuntary giggle, and she replied good-humoredly, “Okay, okay, Sienna, no more questions!”
“All right . . . But you really ought to start thinkin’ ’bout havin’ a boyfriend. You not gettin’ no younger, you know,” said the girl earnestly as she jumped up from the floor with the brush still in her hand.
Tamara had little time to reply to the girl’s sardonic warning before she was gently pushed to the floor and Sienna was now seated behind her, brush in hand.
With firm strokes she began to run the stiff bristles through her short, dark hair. “I’ll do you now,” she said without giving Tamara time to protest.
Tamara tensed, unused to the strange sensation of having Sienna’s small hands in her hair. But within moments, the gentle, rhythmic brushing unexpectedly induced a calming effect on her. Slowly Tamara’s stiff shoulders began to loosen, and then her entire body began to slacken, leaving her more relaxed at that moment than she remembered feeling in quite a long time.
24.
Singing Praises
Tamara glanced over at Sienna, who was gazing around the Temple of Hope Church openly with interest. To her surprise, the teen had not objected at all to attending early service this Sunday morning. Instead, last night Sienna eagerly prepared herself, spending over an hour styling her hair in a new way just for today.
On the other hand, Tamara was trying hard to quell her own nervousness, which had begun in earnest yesterday morning, well before she’d informed Sienna of her decision. Once she’d told Sienna, the two of them made a trip to the mall in the afternoon, where the teen chose several dressy outfits suitable to wear to church. Back at home, Tamara’s free-floating anxiety continued to build even while she shook her head in numb approval of each outfit the excited teenager modeled for her.
Sienna really did look beautiful in all of them, but she finally decided on a long black and fuchsia print skirt and a matching pink stretch button-front cotton shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves. The chunky, black Mary-Jane platforms added enough inches to Sienna’s height to put her at eye level with Tamara.
Staring straight ahead, Tamara tried hard to ignore the knot in her stomach and not allow her discomfort to make her second-guess her decision to bring Sienna today. Right now, though, she felt edgy and uncomfortable and found herself wishing to make a hasty escape from the small, crowded room.
Tamara began to read and reread the announcement booklet the usher handed her when she came in, and even though she was anxious, she still listened curiously to the chattering voices around her. Every now and then she glanced around, surreptitiously watching the people in the congregation as they chatted or hugged one another in greeting.
Just then Denise Jackson’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Tamara, is that you?”
As soon as Tamara heard the familiar voice, she stood up, wearing a smile of relief and happiness.
“Hi, Mrs. Jackson . . . w-w-we made it . . . ,” Tamara said shyly.
The woman was smiling widely. “Yes, you did! And, little girl, I’m so glad to see you at church! And you know what? God’s glad, too, ’cause He loves it when we praise Him,” she said in Tamara’s ear as she hugged her hard.
Tamara was actually overjoyed to see Mrs. Jackson’s face today and, as usual, enjoyed the warm feeling the woman’s encouraging comments gave her. Strangely, Tamara felt almost childlike when Mrs. Jackson called her “little girl,” as she just had, and even weirder was that she deeply enjoyed that momentary sensation of youthfulness.
“Oh, Lord!” exclaimed the woman after a quick glance at her watch. “I’m running late as usual, and I still got to go get my robe on. But I thought I saw you when I came in, and I just couldn’t believe it was you, and I had to come see for myself!” she added with her throaty chuckle.
Sienna had stopped looking around the church and was now watching the two of them curiously, so Tamara introduced her. “Mrs. Jackson, this is Sienna Larson.”
Denise Jackson gave the girl a long, approving look while asking, “Is this the Ms. Sienna that I’ve heard so much about? Not just from Tamara but from my Terry and Sabrina, too. C’mon, girl, you come give me a hug, too.”
Tamara suppressed a smile when she saw Sienna’s small body almost disappear in the woman’s substantial bulk as Mrs. Jackson hugged her tightly, but it didn’t seem to bother the teen at all. When she sat back down, smelling now like Denise Jackson’s Elizabeth Arden Red Door perfume, she was wearing a wide, satisfied grin that she made no attempt to hide.
When Denise stood back, she stared at Sienna smilingly for another moment and then added, “Stand back up now, baby; let me look at you! Now, don’t you look as cute as a little bug in a rug in that outfit?” Then, with another quick glance at her watch, Denise Jackson said, “Oooh, I gotta go before I really am late!” and then hurried off.
Tamara smiled, happy that Mrs. Jackson’s exuberant greeting had calmed her jumpy stomach. Her calm was short-lived, however, because when she glanced over toward the sanctuary entranceway, to her astonishment she saw Sienna’s teacher, Mr. Perry, step inside—dressed in a choir robe! Totally thrown off guard at the unexpected sight of the handsome man, Tamara quickly turned away from the door with her heart pounding hard and fast.
Sienna began to call her name excitedly then, using her small, bony elbow to poke her as she clamored to gain her attention. “Tamara, Tamara!”
Tamara was irritated now. Before, it had been Isaiah Perry’s name that turned up at an unlikely time, and now he was here in the flesh! “What?” she asked in a tight voice.
Sienna was breathless with excitement by now and grinning from ear to ear. “I just saw Mr. Perry, and I think he goes to this church! He had a choir robe on!”
Without letting on to Sienna that she had spied him first, Tamara again pretended to read her announcement booklet. Trying to sound nonchalant, she said, “Oh, he does . . . how nice.”
Tamara’s outer calm was a facade, though, because in her head she was now chiding herself animatedly. This was not a good idea, she thought angrily. Now I’m here . . . trapped; I can’t leave, and I can only hope that Isaiah Perry did not see me over here!
Not even one full minute had passed, though, before Tamara immediately recognized the man’s husky tone beside her. “Hello, Ms. Britton . . . nice to see you here.”
Nervously smiling, Tamara spun around quickly to face him, hastily nodded at him without even speaking, and then hurriedly averted her gaze. She sensed his silent presence there for a few long moments and then, from the corner of her eye, saw him turn and walk away.
Sienna glared at her disappointedly. “Tamara, why didn’t you say something? I told you he likes you!”
Frowning, she glared back at the girl. Ignoring her comment, she placed a finger to her lips and whispered, “Shhhhh!”
Sienna shot her a disgusted look while mumbling under her breath, “Shoot, I can see why you ain’t got no boyfriend . . . and you always talkin’ ’bout me being rude and stuff
.”
Tamara silently listened to the girl’s ramblings, and in her heart she knew, this time Sienna was right. She had no legitimate excuse for her reluctance to talk with Isaiah Perry. There was just something about his quick, wide smile and dancing dark eyes that made it difficult for her to think clearly, and that was just not a feeling she enjoyed at all!
In fact, with only one glance from him, Tamara’s tongue seemed to thicken, and it was as though her brain stopped functioning. With a long, quiet sigh, she reasoned, I am obviously incapable of having a decent conversation with the man; therefore, it’s in my best interest to avoid any conversation at all!
Tamara’s meandering thoughts were interrupted by music from the front of the sanctuary, and her attention was immediately drawn to the large choir now assembled there, wearing colorful blue and white robes. The soloist stepped to the front and, in a clear voice, sang the opening lyrics to the song. Then, at the chorus, the choir joined in, thunderously loud and harmoniously pleasing to hear. Shyly Tamara began to sway slowly to the song with the rest of the congregation.
Sienna was singing next to her in a voice loud enough for her to hear clearly:
“When I think of what the Lord has done for me . . .
I can only praise Him joyfully!
My God has loved me like no other . . .
Stayed closer to me than a sister or brother!”
Tamara stopped to listen then and was stunned at the quality of the child’s voice; she turned and stared openmouthed at Sienna, whose own eyes were closed as she sang.
“And I want to thank You, Jesus!
I just want to praise Your name!
Because of Your loving kindness,
My life won’t ever be the same!”
While she’d heard Sienna sing at home, this was the first time she realized that the girl might be truly talented. For one so small in stature, the teen’s voice was surprisingly full. Rising and falling in all the right places, her tone was impeccable. And to Tamara’s amazement, Sienna knew all the words to the song!
Plenty Good Room Page 13