The Interruption of Everything

by Terry McMillan

  “It’s no problem,” I say and get up.

  “Wait. Never mind. They can walk. They already late, so what’s five more minutes. Hurry up, Ray Ray, or you gon’ get left.” And out comes Ray Ray. He must be six or seven. Rather pudgy and clearly on his way to being big like his mother. “He ain’t mine. He my sister’s. Go!”

  “I’ll call the school in a minute. Have a good day and don’t talk to nobody you don’t know. Understood?”

  They both nod like they hear this every day. Through the front door I hear Brittany telling the dogs to shut up. Although it was more like “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Blue say her be out in a minute.” This is the little boy who was at the front door. But now he is dressed to the nines. His T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers all bear a designer label. His face is shiny from too much Nivea lotion. I wonder where he’s going so early. Preschool, probably.

  “Go get my cigarettes, Lexus. Sit,” she says to me, pointing to a chair that’s got crushed cereal flakes in it. I wipe them off into my palm and start looking for the trash.

  “Don’t even worry about that. Throw it right down there on the floor. It’s getting mopped later.”

  I follow her instructions. “I’m allergic to smoke.”

  She looks at me like I might be making this up. “Then we got a problem. What happen, you can’t breathe or something?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Five years ago you could smoke anywhere and wasn’t nobody complaining, but now all of a sudden everybody’s allergic and worrying about secondhand smoke. But I’ll open the window and blow it in that direction. Can you handle that?”

  “I guess.”

  “Look, I ain’t no chain-smoker. So don’t freak. You drink coffee?”

  “Just decaf.”

  “What’s the point in drinking it?”

  “I just like the taste. And plus I’m perimenopausal and caffeine brings on hot flashes.”

  “Peri-who?”

  “Perimenopausal. It’s the year or two or five before your actual period stops when you have a bunch of unpleasant symptoms.”

  “That’s about the nicest fucking way I’ve ever heard anybody put it. My grandmama and all my aunties all said the same thing: for about three or four years they thought they was losing their goddamn minds, they sweated like pigs, couldn’t remember shit, couldn’t sleep through the damn night, their hands and feet was always ice cold and the straw that broke the camel’s back as they say was when they had to start using K-Y jelly. How old are you?”

  “Forty-four. I’ll be forty-five the end of October.”

  “You look damn good for your age. I’da never put you past thirty-eight. That’s how old my mama is. Blue, get your ass out here!”

  Orange goes over to a closet and pulls out about ten long cellophane packages of synthetic hair that looks real. “You wanna keep your same dull brownish-black or you want me to pump it up a little bit?”

  “Like how much pumping?”

  “How long you want it?”

  “Maybe to my shoulders.”

  She rips open one of the bags and the hair is a reddish-brown. It’s pretty. “This ain’t too much for you, is it? I hope not, ’cause you look like you could stand a new look. No offense.”

  “None taken. It’s fine.”

  “You said you wanted microbraids on the phone, didn’t you?”

  “Whatever’s the fastest.”

  “Why, you gotta be somewhere at a certain time?”

  “At six.”

  “Girl, we’ll have you outta here by two o’clock, three at the latest, if Blue would ever get her lazy ass out here.”

  “Are both of you going to do my hair?”

  “Yeah. We work faster that way.”

  “How much more will it cost for two people?”

  “Didn’t Paulette tell you how much we charged her?”

  “No. She just said you were reasonable.”

  “Reasonable. Try cheap. For all these braids it ain’t gon’ be but one-twenty, plus twenty for the hair. Is that a problem for you?”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  “You got cash, I hope.”

  “I do.”

  “Good. Anyway, let me get a cup of coffee and you make yourself comfortable.”

  I hear the baby whimpering.

  “Lexus, bring Baby Benny in here so Miss Marilyn can hold him.” She turns to me. “Do you mind? He a good baby.”

  “No, not at all.”

  I hear the house shaking again. I already know who it is. These two could be twins. “Hi, I’m Blue.”

  “This is Marilyn,” Orange says. “And she ain’t got all day. Now get them dishes cleaned up and if you wanna get paid today you best to step on it.”

  “What time is the phone company supposed to be here?” she asks. She’s taller, not quite as heavy as her sister, and wearing baggy jeans and a big white T-shirt. Her hair is jet black and bone straight. It stops at her shoulder blades. She also sounds like she may have spent some time in class when she was at school.

  “Between whatever and whatever. You can’t change your day around for them motherfuckers,” Orange says.

  “I tried calling you and the recording did say your phone was out of service.”

  “It was cut off. It wasn’t out of service. But it’ll be back on later today. When did you last wash your hair?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blue, put some hot water in a clean cup and put it in the microwave for a minute and a half and then put two teaspoons of Folger’s crystals in it with three teaspoons of sugar and then hand me the milk, I’ll pour it in myself. How many kids?”

  “Three.”

  “Wait a minute. Blue, go unlock your damn phone and call the school and tell ’em Brittany and Ray Ray is on their way.”

  Blue obeys.

  “How old?” she says to me.

  “My daughter’s twenty-two and the twin boys nineteen.”

  “They live with you?”

  “Nope. The boys are in college in Atlanta and my daughter goes to U.C. Berkeley and lives with her boyfriend.”

  “That’s so nice. You musta done something right to have all your kids end up in college.”

  “I just tried to love them.”

  “It takes more than some damn love, and you know it. What do your husband do for a living?”

  “He’s an engineer.”

  “What do he do being a engineer?”

  “He makes sure buildings don’t fall and crumble during an earthquake.”

  “Shit, what do he do between earthquakes?”

  “Good question. I’m trying to figure that out myself.”

  “This must mean you about ready to say fuck it then, huh? I can see it all over your face. Ain’t but a few of ’em worth a damn and I ain’t met one of them yet. They stupid. Selfish. And most of ’em is thugs. Don’t get me started, girl. So this is why you need a new do, ain’t it?” She’s laughing. And so is Blue, who’s now back and working at the sink.

  “How many of these do we get a month, Blue?”

  “A lot. Get a brand-new hairstyle and trade your old husband in for a new model. They go together.”

  “Are either of you married?”

  “Nope,” Orange says, wrapping a towel around my shoulders and then a black nylon cape on top of that. “I’m waiting for somebody in particular to ask me. And not my kids’ daddy. I hate his ass.”

  Lexus is walking the struggling baby boy in my direction and gives me his hand. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you, Lexus. Is this your little brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Both of you are quite handsome.”

  He blushes.

  “How old are you?”

  He holds up four fingers. “This many.”

  “Are you on your way to school?”

  “Yep.”

  “You ain’t. So stop lying, Lexus. You get to go
in September to be in kindergarten.”

  “In September I get to go,” he says to me.

  “Well, he sure looks nice not to be going to school.”

  “He don’t like to be dirty. He’d take two or three baths a day if I let him. And he likes to look good at all times. He got it from his daddy. But he ain’t going nowhere.”

  Orange eats three doughnuts with sprinkles from a Krispy Kreme box and washes them down with her white coffee. Lexus watches cartoons on TV. The baby stares at me for about an hour and my arm feels like it’s about to fall off. When he gets a serious look on his face and begins to grunt, I smell what he’s doing. I mention this to Orange and she tells me she’ll deal with him in a minute. That minute lasts an hour, and then she just gives him a bottle and sets him on the floor. He crawls over to the wall and holding on, stumbles over to his brother and lays his head on his back.

  At noon, they’re not even close to being half finished but Orange has to run to the grocery store. I remind her that the baby’s diaper needs to be changed. She tells Blue to change it. Blue continues to braid but not as fast as she talks on the phone. Orange walks in the door close to an hour later and I help her bring in six grocery bags and watch her put them away in slow motion.

  “The baby still needs to be changed,” I say.

  “Blue, why come you didn’t change him like I told you?” But Blue spreads her fingers and pushes her hand against an invisible wall.

  At one o’clock, Blue stops to make the kids a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She eats two herself. She’s not as talkative as I thought she was, not until she walks outside to get some fresh air and comes back fifteen minutes later with an entirely different disposition. “Is your mama dead or alive?”

  “Alive.”

  “We just found out that our mama is a dyke. Can you believe that shit?”

  “I can believe it.”

  “You got a big mouth, you know that, Blue. Don’t nobody care what our mama is or ain’t.”

  “She don’t think we know it, but we do. She been living with her girlfriend and her husband for going on five years—right after she put me and Orange out—but her girlfriend’s husband sleep in his own room. I finally got to thinking and I said to myself, ‘Hey, what’s that shit about?’ So last week I just came on out and asked her. I said, ‘Mama, you’re a dyke, ain’t you?’ and she said, ‘That ain’t none of your goddamn business now, is it?’

  “Which was a yes. I’ve been trying to figure out how Orange and me even got here. Mama never would tell us who our daddies were and we just assumed they were the same man since we look so much alike. But one day we look up and our mama done started dressing like a man. Talking like a man. Walking like a man. And I think she believe she is a man. I thought Orange told you?”

  “I just met the woman a few hours ago. Why I wanna tell her some shit like that?”

  “I think somebody should change that baby,” I say.

  “Orange, he your baby. Anyway, I still love her. Or him. She changed her name from Lurlene to Lawrence. That’s some deep shit. Do you love your mama?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “That’s good. Was she a good mother?”

  “Yes, she was. Still is.”

  “Some of ’em need lessons. Myself included. But at least I try.”

  At three, Blue has to make a run. Orange has to go to the bank to get a money order. I babysit. I ask Lexus to find me a Pamper and I take the baby in the bathroom. His diaper is full and soggy but that doesn’t bother me half as much as knowing he’s been sitting in this mess for five fucking hours. I wash his little behind and then I change him.

  By four, my hair is just barely half done. “What time do you think you guys might finish?”

  “Two more hours. Maybe less.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Blue says. “I ain’t got nothing else to do but your hair.”

  “Cassius is coming over here about five and I promised him I’d fry him some chicken. Blue, go turn the eye on low under that grease and get that bag of chicken wings out the refrigerator. Good thang I seasoned ’em last night.”

  “Would you mind if I make a quick phone call?”

  “The phone still ain’t working unless the phone company came and didn’t tell us.” She picks up the wall phone and places it back in the cradle. “They ain’t been here yet.”

  “You can use mine,” Blue says. “I just need to unlock it.”

  “It’s okay. I have mine. Thanks.”

  “And what is it you do for a living?” Orange says.

  “Not much.”

  “And do you get paid a lot for doing not much?”

  “I make stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like chandeliers and pillows and I redo old hats and furniture and occasionally make a piece of jewelry.”

  “No shit. Why didn’t you bring us something? You can see we could use a pillow or something around the crib. Ain’t this some of the ugliest shit you done seen in a long time?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Yeah, right. Find a page in Metropolitan Home that look like this, okay? Anyway, we do the best we can with what we got. So you make creative shit then, huh?”

  “I suppose.”

  “You sell it?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So you ain’t got no real job?”

  “I work part-time at an arts and crafts store.”

  “You sound like you could be a rich white woman.”

  “Blue, shut up and turn on Oprah would you.”

  And she does. When I go outside to call Arthurine, the kids are coming down the driveway back from school. Her new husband answers. “Hi, Prezelle. This is Marilyn.”

  “I know who this is.”

  “I wanted to know if it would be a problem if I’m an hour late because I’m getting my hair braided and they’re running a little behind.”

  “Take your time, baby. We’ll wait. Oh, and by the way, we got your wedding gift. We love it!”

  “Good. See you in a bit.”

  “Hold on a minute! Arthurine wants me to tell you that she heard from Leon!”

  “What? When? You mean he called her over there?”

  “No. She was at the house getting the last of her things and her private line in her bedroom was ringing so she answered it and it was Leon calling to see how she was doing.”

  “Oh, really.” That motherfucker.

  “She’ll tell you all about it when you get here,” he says.

  “Did she tell him you guys got married?”

  “No, not to my knowledge. She’s saving that for when he gets home.”

  I go back and sit down and close my eyes until I hear one of the sisters say, “We hope you like it.”

  I get up to go look in the bathroom mirror. The kitchen smells like fried chicken and burned grease. The man Orange was expecting is sitting in the living room eating and watching BET. He looks like a thug. He’s bigger than her. I say hello to him and he just nods. I step in front of the mirror and stare. I don’t look like me. I look like the “me” I was about five or ten years ago. I like it.

  “You work out?” Orange says when I come back.

  “What would make you ask that?”

  “You look like you do something.”

  “I just started.”

  “I been saying I was gon’ start exercising for about two or three years now but I just ain’t never got around to it.”

  “It makes you feel good.”

  “You do look good,” Blue says, dropping the last of the wings into the smoking grease.

  “What exactly do you do?”

  “Walk on the treadmill and do weights. And I just started doing yoga.” I’m prepared to be laughed at or made fun of, but I don’t care.

  “I heard that shit can do wonders for you. Where you go? Anywhere near a bus stop?” Blue asks.

  “Right off Shattuck in Berkeley.”

  “We might look
into that. I need to get up off my big ass and do something.”

  The guy in the living room who wasn’t listening says, “Then you should start today.”

  Orange just rolls her eyes in his direction.

  “Me, too,” Blue says. “’Cause if I can look like you when I’m your age, I won’t mind getting old half as much.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. But girls, forty-anything is far from old. I’m just getting my second wind.” They don’t get it and I don’t feel like explaining it. I go through my wallet and count out two hundred dollars and hand it to Orange, who is obviously the cashier.

  She counts it. Smiles. “This is too much.”

  “There’s a tip in there.”

  “A tip? We don’t usually get no tips.”

  “Keep it. You earned it. And I really do love this. Thanks a lot.”

  “We sorry for making you a little late for your appointment, but sometimes it’s hard to guess right when it come to these micros and your head is bigger than it seems.”

  I look at my watch. It’s a little past eight o’clock! Shit! I mean, shoot! “It’s okay. You did a great job.”

  “Cool. So you should come back for a touch-up in three or four weeks. We won’t charge you nothing. And tell Paulette hi and tell all your friends.”

  “Do you guys have a business card?”

  “Just give ’em our name and number. I promise the phone won’t be cut off and this house will be spotless when you come back. And please bring us a pillow. We don’t care what color it is.”

  “I’ll do that. Promise. Tell Brittany and Ray Ray I said good-bye. Bye, Lexus.”

  “Bye-bye,” he says, walking outside with me. “Can I go home with you?”

  “Maybe another time,” I say.

  “Get your little butt back in here,” Orange says. “That lady don’t want nobody’s little kids when she done been there and done that. I pray the years go by fast. Blow Miss Marilyn a kiss, Lexus,” and he does exactly what she tells him to, including slamming the hell out of that front door.

  Chapter 24

  I call Arthurine and Prezelle as soon as I get away from these barking dogs and this dark-ass driveway.

  “Arthurine, look. I’m sorry for calling you so late, but they just finished braiding my hair. It took forever and they totally underestimated the time. Can I please get a rain check?”