by Tayari Jones
“He said I was a secret.”
My mother pul ed me into a close hug, crisscrossing her arms across my back and letting her hair hang around me like a magic curtain. I wil never forget the smel of her hugs.
“That motherfucker,” she said. “I love him, but I might have to kil him one day.”
The next morning, my mother told me to put on the green and yel ow dress that I’d worn for my school picture six weeks earlier, before the teeth were lost. She styled my long hair with slippery ribbons and strapped my feet into stiff shiny shoes. Then we climbed into my godmother’s old Buick, on loan for the day.
“Where are we going?”
Mother turned off Gordon Road. “I am taking you to see something.”
I waited for more information, poking my tongue into the slick space where my nice teeth had once been. She didn’t say anything else about our destination, but she asked me to recite my -at words.
“H-a-t is hat; b-a-t is bat. ” I didn’t stop until I got to “M-a-t is mat. ” By then, we’d pul ed up in front of a smal pink school building trimmed with green. Down the road was John A. White Park. We sat in the car a long time while I performed for her. I was glad to do it. I recited my numbers from one to one hundred and then I sang “Frère Jacques.”
When a group of children spil ed out into the yard of the smal school, my mother held up a finger to stop my singing. “Rol down your window and look out,” she said. “You see that chubby little girl in the blue jeans and red shirt? That’s Chaurisse.”
I found the girl my mother described standing in line with a group of other little kids. Chaurisse was utterly ordinary back then. Her hair was divided into two short puffs in the front and the shorter hair in the back was held down in a series of tight braids. “Look at her,” my mother said. “She hardly has any hair. She is going to be fat when she grows up, just like her mammy. She doesn’t know her - at words, and she can’t sing a song in French.”
I said, “She has her teeth.”
“For now. She’s your same age, so they are probably loose. But here’s something you can’t see. She was born too early so she has problems.
The doctor had to stick plastic tubes down her ears to keep them from getting infected.”
“But James loves her. She’s not a secret.”
“James has an obligation to her mammy and that’s my problem, not yours. Okay? James loves you equal to Chaurisse. If he had any sense, he’d love you best. You’re smarter, more mannerable, and you’ve got better hair. But what you have is equal love, and that is good enough.”
I nodded as relief spread al over my body. I felt al my muscles relax. Even my feet let go and settled themselves limp in my pretty shoes.
“Am I a secret?” I asked my mother.
“No,” she said. “You are an unknown. That little girl there doesn’t even know she has a sister. You know everything.”
“God knows everything,” I said. “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”
“That’s true,” my mother said. “And so do we.”
2
A SORT OF CREEPING LOVE
IT WAS NOT LOVE at first sight, at least not on my mother’s part. She didn’t meet my father and feel a shift in her personal chemistry or a change in the rhythm that connected her heart to the rest of her body. It was love, mind you, but not the lightning-bolt kind. She had that sort of love in her first marriage, which had lasted only nineteen months. What she had with my father was a sort of creeping love, the kind that sinks in before you know it and makes a family of you. She says that love like what she has with my father occurs on the God level, not of the world and not bound by the laws of the state of Georgia.
You can’t help but respect something like that.
GIFT-WRAP GIRL WASN’T the job she dreamed of, as she never real y dreamed of jobs. My mother had dreamed only about marriage, and her brief acquaintance with it had left her disappointed. Coming up with another dream was more than a notion, and she had no idea where to start.
For most of her early life, she wasted her wishes on her mother. Flora, my grandmother, ran off when my mother was just three months old. For six days Flora wrapped her breasts in cabbage leaves to dry up the milk and then just up and left one Sunday before church with nothing but the clothes on her back and the money she got when her numbers hit. “No note, no nothing. Just gone.” The tone of her voice when she told this story made me wish my mother had named me after my grandmother, the wild woman. Instead, she cal ed me Dana Lynn, a sly wink at her own name.
Gwendolyn.
By the time James walked into Davison’s, my mother wasn’t just motherless but fatherless as wel . My grandfather had disowned her for leaving her husband, Clarence Yarboro. It wasn’t just because her father worked for his and could certainly lose his job but because this proved that my mother was just like Flora. She tel s me that when she looks back on it, the reasons she left Clarence were not good enough reasons to leave a marriage, but she doesn’t think that she ever had a good enough reason to marry him in the first place. Mother says she married him because he was good-looking and rich — the youngest in a family of pretty undertakers — and because he had asked her to the eighth-grade dance. Five years later, she was his wife. Seven years later, she was divorced, living in a rooming house, and fal ing in love with a married man. Eight years later, I was born.
WHEN MY PARENTS MET, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was only one month dead, and there was a sort of grayness over everything. Mother had gone to see Dr. King lying in state over at Spelman Col ege, but the line had been so long, and she didn’t know what was to be gained from standing there, so she left. Back at the gift-wrap counter, Mother felt cheated somehow, that he was assassinated before she could settle her life down enough to participate in the miracle that the man had been. But whom could she blame but herself? She felt a little guilty, enjoying this good job up in gift wrap, the very first colored woman to hold that post. And even the year before, when she was working in ladies’ hats, did she not place a lovely pil box directly on the head of a colored woman? So yes, she knew how much things had changed, and she was grateful for it, Lord knew that she was thankful for these new opportunities. Stil , she hadn’t fought for them, and now the man was dead. It would have been difficult to explain her shame even if she had anyone to explain herself to. Her father wasn’t speaking to her, and her husband was on the verge of remarrying, less than a year since she had moved into the rooming house on Ashby Street. Mother worked each day, looking her best in one of the three good dresses she’d bought with her discount and a smal advance on her pay.
James approached the counter on an afternoon on which she was feeling particularly remorseful, not so much for throwing away her marriage but for having gotten married in the first place.
“May I help you, sir?” she said. He was wearing his chauffeur uniform with the hat clutched under his arm like an army officer. She cal ed him sir because that is what they cal ed al the male customers, and she went out of her way to let the colored patrons hear that word of respect there in Davison’s. Was this not what Dr. King died for?
Mother was pretty; she knew this. Not Dorothy Dandridge or Lena Horne beautiful but lovely enough that people noticed. She had what she considered to be an ordinary Negro girl’s face, the kind of medium-dark skin tone that no one cal ed anything but “brownskin.” Her eyelashes, in her opinion, were her best feature; she gestured with them, the way other people talked with their hands. Everyone else, she knew, would say that the key to her looks was her head of hair, long and thick, that reached past her shoulder blades. It was the only useful thing her mother left her. Wil ie Mae, the girl who roomed next door to her in the boardinghouse, made good money every two weeks pul ing it straight with a hot comb and twirling it with irons. At that time of her life, Mother liked to think of herself as an honest person and told anyone who asked that her hair wasn’t natural y good.
When James slid the electric carving knife across th
e counter, Mother noticed the flash of his wedding band and thought of Wil ie Mae, who had no problem spending time with men who were married — as long as they swore they were not happy. As my mother asked my father what sort of wrapping he wanted for the carving knife, she decided that he wouldn’t do for Wil ie Mae, as she was a sucker for pretty men — bright-complected, with light eyes and wavy hair.
“You would have been crazy for my ex-husband,” Gwen told her once, as Wil ie Mae pul ed the straightening comb, sizzling with grease.
“Is he stil available?”
Mother chuckled and took a drag from her cigarette, catching the smoke with a damp towel. “He was available the whole time I was married to him.”
“Girl,” Wil ie Mae said, “I am not tel ing you how to live your life, but you must be one high-minded lady to leave a perfectly good man just for chasing a little tail.”
“It wasn’t just that,” my mother said. “And who’s a lady? Not me. Just ask my daddy. According to him, I stopped being a lady the day I walked out on my husband.”
“At least you had a husband to leave,” Wil ie Mae said.
THE MAN BEFORE my mother with the carving knife said, “Can you wrap it in anniversary paper?”
Mother said, “Wedding anniversary?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She had to smile at the “ma’am.” “Who’s it for?”
“My wife.”
Mother laughed and regretted it immediately. The man in front of her looked embarrassed, and there were white people in the line behind him.
“W-what?”
“Forgive me, sir,” she said, and she real y was sorry. “It’s just that most men buy their wives something a little bit more romantic. Like perfume.”
He looked at the carving knife. “This is a g-good present. It cost twenty-three dol ars.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Let me wrap it for you. We have a nice floral paper that just came in.”
“Wait.” He took the knife back. “I ch-changed my mind.” He headed toward the escalator, with his hat stil clamped under his arm.
The next customer in line was a white woman who had purchased a set of baby’s pajamas for her pregnant sister.
“Men,” the customer said. “Who can understand the way their minds work?”
Mother knew what the white lady was talking about, but she couldn’t laugh at a black man with her, even though she was only laughing at him for being a man.
James returned more than two hours later as the store was closing and my mother was tidying up the gift-wrap counter, throwing away bits of string, lining up the tape dispensers, and counting the shirt boxes. He handed her the carving knife again.
“It’s a good knife,” my mother said, tearing a rectangle of floral paper from the rol . “I didn’t mean any harm.”
He didn’t speak, but she noticed his neck bulging as she squared the corners and rol ed the tape to make it sticky on both sides.
Mother handed him the box, so pretty now with a double bow, wondering if she hadn’t overdone it. She imagined his wife undoing the ribbons, assuming the contents were as lush as the wrapping, but she decided that it was not her concern.
“And this,” he said in a rush of air, handing her a smal box containing a compact of solid perfume.
“Your wife wil like this,” Mother said. “She’l love pul ing it out of her purse in front of her friends.” She felt like she was speaking too much, but this odd man was staring at her, and she felt that someone should do the talking. She wrapped the compact in a saucy red wrapper and used a simple gold tie. “Look at that. It’s got a little cha-cha.”
She slid it across the table to him and he shoved it back.
“I-i-i-t’s . . .” He paused and tried again. “Th-th-th . . .” He stopped.
“Is there something wrong? Do you want me to put them both in the same paper?”
His shoulder jerked in a little spasm, and he said, “It’s for you.”
Mother glanced at her left hand, where she wore her own wedding ring, although her husband, Clarence, was a year behind her and already engaged. She wore the ring to say that she believed in certain things.
My mother read Life magazine every week, so she knew that the rest of the country was enjoying free love and unkempt hair, but she didn’t admire the young people who let themselves go. She pictured herself more like Mrs. Parks or El a Baker. Dignified and proper, like a strand of pearls.
“Take it please,” he said, nudging the red-wrapped present her way again.
And she did accept it, not only because it was a lovely gift; she’d admired the golden compact several times, sneaking her finger in for a sample to dab at her temples. Mother says she appreciated his effort, that he had won a fight with his stammer to give her this present. “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t cal me sir. My name is James Witherspoon. You don’t have to be scared of me. I just wanted to give you something.”
My mother spent the next week and a half expecting James Witherspoon to emerge at the top of the escalator. She agreed with Wil ie Mae, who pointed out that men do nothing without a reason. That compact was more expensive than the carving knife. If he spent more money on her than on his wife, he’d be back.
“Some men,” said Wil ie Mae, “would be back if al they bought you was a Peppermint Pattie. Money is for buying company, and they know it.”
(Lovely Wil ie Mae, whom I cal ed Auntie, stood up for my mother at her il egal wedding to my father, four months after I was born. She was my godmother, sweet to me when I was just a little girl. She died right after everything happened, shot to death by her boyfriend, a pretty man named Wil iam. I miss her very much.)
But Mother didn’t feel that James Witherspoon was trying to buy her. She thought that, for some reason, he just liked her. It was a nice idea, being liked. There was no harm in being liked by a married man. There was no harm in liking one back if al you did was like.
By the time a month had passed and he hadn’t returned, Mother regretted not having been more encouraging when he handed her the compact with its cha-cha wrapping, colored to look like a French bordel o. She was sorry for staring so long at his wedding ring, a simple gold band, etched with vines, and she felt sil y for wearing her own ring — just the band, as her ex-husband had taken back the stone; it belonged to his mother, and she couldn’t expect to take it with her. And she wondered, now, why she kept on wearing it.
She also wondered why she wasn’t able to care more about the important things happening in the world. There was the Vietnam War. She knew boys who had died, and there was always Dr. King, cold in the ground. Even though Wil ie Mae hadn’t been bitten by a dog, she had been in Birmingham when the German shepherds were let loose. And where had Mother been when al of this was going on? She was busy learning to be a wife.
AT THE END of the summer, she was at work, just where James had left her three months ago, when he final y came back for her. “I came to say hel o.”
“You did?” My mother felt ashamed to be grateful for such a smal gesture.
“Would you like to have coffee with me?”
She nodded.
“I’m m-married,” he said. “I’m m-m-married. Al I’m asking for is c-coffee. It’s a long story. My life is a long story.”
“Mine is, too.”
She agreed to meet him at the end of her workday. She petted the hair at her temples, which had kinked up with sweat. It was time for Wil ie Mae to see about her, so Mother bound her hair into an oily bun at the nape of her neck. She would spend the evening saying to him, “Please excuse the way I look.” And he would assure her that she looked fine. She liked that he said that she looked only fine and didn’t pretend that she was beautiful on this day. She liked the truth of that, and the truth came without insult. She was fine; she would do; it was enough.
My mother stood on the curb at Peachtree Street, where five roads came together, near the plastic shed where she was accustomed to catching the b
us. Wil ie Mae, who typed for an insurance company, would already be onboard, sitting right behind the driver, because she was from Alabama and had walked to work al that year to support Mrs. Parks.
Mother didn’t recognize the limousine as her ride when it pul ed up to the curb beside her. She stood there, her eyes trained over the roof of the double-doored Cadil ac, looking for James. She wondered if maybe she shouldn’t cross the street, so he could more easily find her. She glanced at her watch as he emerged from the driver’s seat and tipped his hat.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” She laughed. “I didn’t think—”
By now he had reached the backseat door and opened it. He smiled, but didn’t speak. Mother touched her dirty hair, smoothing the edges again.
She glanced up the road, looking to see her bus coming around the corner with Wil ie Mae perched on the first seat, but there was only the ordinary traffic of Studebakers, Packards, and other buses. She took a dainty step toward the open car door; the interior was velvet-looking, a warm tan, the color of peanut butter. She sat careful y on the seat and tugged at her skirt so that it lay smooth over her hips. “Thank you,” she said.
“Madame,” he said. Then he got into the driver’s seat and pul ed away.
My mother studied the back of his head, his orderly hairline made straight in a barber’s chair. Classical music crackled out of the speakers, the zip of the violins making her feel anxious.
“Would you like to go to Paschal’s?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. “I can’t go there. If it’s okay, I don’t want to go there.”
“It’s up to you,” he said.
The car was heavy with the scent of the solid perfume he had given her; if he recognized it, he didn’t say.
“Tel me about yourself,” he said.
“I don’t know,” Mother said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You can say whatever you want.”
It was strangely comforting to talk to the back of his head like this. It was what she imagined talking to a priest would be like. Wil ie Mae went into the confessional every week. Mother was tempted to join her, but she didn’t want to have to pretend to be Catholic. She didn’t like to lie.