by Tayari Jones
“I want to go to the party,” she said. “So I asked my mom to come and get me and take me there.”
“I thought you said she doesn’t have a car.”
“My aunt Wil ie Mae does. They’re coming together.”
“Anyway,” I said, “let’s just wait in the Lincoln.”
The clock on the dashboard shone nine fifteen. If we hadn’t had the blowout, we would be walking into the party by now, in our matching tube tops, looking like two girls who went to parties al the time, two girls with beautiful hair. Marcus would be mixing some purple punch, offering it to al the girls except Ruth Nicole Elizabeth; she would sip on a Cherry Coke the whole time. It would be the very same scene as at his Christmas party last year but without the blinking blue lights. Jamal would be sitting in the corner like he didn’t want to be there, drinking from a plastic tumbler like it was a cup of coffee. He would say hel o to me, tip the tumbler in my direction, and tel somebody that I was like a little sister to him. Right now I should be smiling a patient smile at him, saying “No thank you” to the punch, waiting while he drank, studying his face, and watching for his eyes to droop just a little.
At Christmas, Ruth Nicole Elizabeth’s father sat outside in his Volvo for exactly forty-five minutes before blowing his horn in three foreign-car toots. Marcus walked her out as al the party girls watched from the windows. Her herringbone bracelet twinkled on her wrist as Marcus opened the door for her, shook her father’s hand, went back inside, and got the party started. Inside, Jamal drank eggnog until I didn’t seem like his sister anymore. “You stil on the Pil ?” Yes, yes, yes.
An hour is a long time to sit in a car, even if it is the good Lincoln. I switched on the heater to knock the chil off the air, but then we were too warm.
I opened the window and hard-bodied insects invaded the car, crawling over our bare shoulders.
“This is terrible,” Dana said. “This is a disaster.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “Next year you’l be in Massachusetts going to real col ege parties and I’l be stuck here, living at home, washing hair.”
“Can you please cal your father and tel him not to come?” Dana said. “My mama is already on her way. We could both ride with her.”
I shook my head. “My dad is going to want to see about the Lincoln.”
She opened the door, stepping onto the asphalt parking lot. It was late now, nearly ten. The clerk with the home perm was busy tidying up the store and glancing at her watch. “Come on, Daddy,” I said under my breath. “Come on, Raleigh.”
Dana entered the convenience store again, speaking to the clerk, moving her hands too much. Maybe she was on drugs or something. She was like a pinbal machine — al energy, lights, and percussion. She zigzagged out of the store holding a silver key bolted to a wooden block. I watched her zip over to the pay phone, pick it up, and then place the receiver back, like she had changed her mind.
She Morse-coded the window with her fist. “I’m going to the ladies’. If your dad shows up, just go on home without me. My mama is on the way.”
“My dad won’t be here for another fifteen, twenty minutes,” I told her. “You’ve got time.”
“Okay. But just in case my mama gets here first, tel her where I am.”
“How wil I know her?”
“You can’t miss her.”
ACCORDING TO THE clock on the car radio, Dana had been in the bathroom twenty-two minutes when Daddy and Raleigh rol ed up in the limousine. They had been out in the yard pruning hedges. Wearing sweat-stained T-shirts and baggy gym shorts, they smel ed like cigarettes and green stems.
“Madame,” Uncle Raleigh said, opening my car door. I eased out, glancing over at my father, who was inspecting the damaged rim like he was deciding whether or not to give it CPR. “Chaurisse, James said you were out here with a girlfriend? Where is she?”
“She started freaking out, Uncle Raleigh. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“What’s her name again, your friend?”
“Dana,” I said.
Raleigh made a little O with his lips and squinted. “What does she look like?”
Now that everything is al said and done, what’s obvious is obvious. But at the moment, it was only a little bit peculiar. “Brown-skinned, long hair.
She’s locked in the bathroom and she won’t come out.”
“Let me go help James with that tire,” Uncle Raleigh said.
He and Daddy squatted by the fender and whispered together like mobsters. While they crouched there, dressed like boys, I went to the bathroom door.
“Dana,” I said. “Dana, you okay?”
“Is my mama here?”
“No,” I said, “But my dad and my uncle are here. Come on out.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“Just leave, al right. My mama is on her way. Please, Chaurisse, just get James and Raleigh to go.” I could hear her crying though the door, bel y sobs like my mama did at Grandma Bunny’s funeral. She had laid out in the pew, kicking so hard, she lost her shoe. Raleigh and I searched on our hands and knees, but we never found it. Mama stood on the black ground in just her stockings while we put Grandma Bunny down.
I jogged back over to the car, where Daddy and Uncle Raleigh leaned against the hood of the hobbled Lincoln, smoking Kools. “W-w-what’s the s-s-situation in there?”
“Daddy, something is seriously wrong. She’s crying. Talking crazy.”
“T-talking crazy? How crazy is crazy? What did she say?”
“Easy, Jim-Bo,” Raleigh said.
“She said we should leave without her. That her mother is on the way. She wants to wait in the bathroom.”
“Her mama?” Daddy said. “She said she cal ed her mama?”
“Easy, Jim-Bo,” Raleigh said.
The clerk stuck her head out of the door and I waved at her.
• • •
MY FATHER WALKED across the lot and knocked on the bathroom door with a delicate rap of knuckles, a habit he picked up after he’d walked in on me in the tub when I was about twelve. For weeks after, he’d knocked on every doorlike surface. I once caught him tapping on the cupboard door before reaching in for a bottle of tonic water.
“Dana,” he said. “This is James Witherspoon, Chaurisse’s dad. Are you okay, young lady?”
“Yes, sir.” Her voice was subdued as a whipped child’s.
“Chaurisse says you’re waiting for your m-mother. Is that correct?”
There was no response from the bathroom.
“Dana,” Daddy said. “You mother is on the way? Confirm or deny.”
There was stil no response from the bathroom. This time Daddy gave a police knock.
“Dana, is your mother on her way? Confirm or deny.” When she wouldn’t, he pounded on the door harder. “Confirm or deny, Dana. Confirm or deny.” He beat on the door with his tight fist.
“James. Don’t do her like that,” Uncle Raleigh said.
Daddy hit the door one more time.
I said, “Daddy, quit before the white people cal the police.” Meanwhile, the bathroom was quiet as a grave.
“Dana,” I said. “You want me to wait with you until your mother comes?”
Uncle Raleigh said, “Chaurisse, you have to come with us.” He took me gently by the arm.
“We can’t leave her. She could be sick. She could be dead in there.”
“She’s not dead,” Uncle Raleigh said. “She’s just scared.”
“I can’t believe you are siding with Daddy on this.”
“We’ve got to hurry, Chaurisse,” Uncle Raleigh said.
Daddy said, “You have to go.” He walked toward the limo without looking to see if we were fol owing.
Slipping Raleigh’s careful grip, I stuck my face in the seam where the door met the jamb; I detected traces of bathroom smel s, piss, and disinfectant cakes. “What’s going on? Please come out.”
“She’s al right,” Unc
le Raleigh gripped me harder this time. “She’s just upset.”
As he led me toward the limousine, I let myself go limp, not even holding my head upright on my neck.
“Please don’t make me drag you. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.” As he tugged me to the car, the asphalt scored the rubber toes of my spangled sneakers. My father was already instal ed in the driver’s seat; the limo started with the music of a wel -tuned engine.
Raleigh opened the door. “Just get in, Chaurisse. Just get in.”
“No,” I said. “We can’t leave her.”
“Her mother is coming; just trust me.” Raleigh, stil poised by the open door like a chauffeur, said, “Please.”
My father opened the driver’s door. “Move out the way, Raleigh.” He stepped in front of me. “Chaurisse, get in the goddamn car right now. I don’t have time to play with you. Get in.” He put one hand on my shoulder and his other hand on the top of my head as he guided me into the backseat.
“Don’t question me.”
My father has never laid on hand on me in anger. Although al he did was literal y lay his hand, rage traveled from his skin to mine. I folded myself onto the backseat, compliant as a dog.
“Don’t cry,” Raleigh said. “We love you. We al three love you. Me, your daddy, Laverne, we love you more than anybody in the world.”
“Raleigh,” Daddy said. “Get in the fucking car.”
Uncle Raleigh hurried around the back of the limo to take his place beside my father.
DADDY GENTLY PRESSED the accelerator. Limousines are supposed to seem to float; luxury is never even noticing that the car is moving. I hooked my fingers in the door handle and leaned my weight against it. There must have been only seconds between the click as the door opened under my wayward hand and my tumble to the pavement, but in that moment, I felt a zing of regret. As my body connected with the blacktop, I knew I was ridiculous. The rough surface scrubbed a patch of skin from my bare shoulder. My fal was at most a foot, maybe eighteen inches, but it felt like a free fal from the Chattahoochee Bridge. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but the events of the past couple hours passed like a ticker tape moving too fast for me to read it, though my desperate eyes scanned it anyway, longing to understand.
22
SKIN PAIN
WHEN WE GOT HOME, my mother was waiting in the doorway, fil ing the space with her broadness. With her blue robe tied hard across her middle, she stretched her arms like “suffer the little children.”
“What happened?” she asked my father. “What happened to her shoulder?”
“She fel out of the car,” my daddy said. “She was l-leaning on the door and fel out. Flesh wound, that’s al . Just a little skin pain.”
“Baby,” my mother said to me. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
I was about two or three inches tal er than Mama, and this was made worse since she was barefoot and I stood in thick-soled sneakers. She hugged me, but I had to crouch to make myself short enough to fit her embrace. My mother smel ed of relaxed hair and peaches. She tightened her arms around me, pressing hard on the sore places.
What had happened? On a bare-bones level, I fel out of the car and scraped the skin from my shoulder. Daddy stepped on the brake, Raleigh jumped out of the car, but Daddy didn’t cut the engine. He sat stil behind the wheel as Uncle Raleigh knelt beside me on the asphalt.
But before bare bones is skin, muscle, and blood. I pushed out of the car, clawed my way free. I landed on the pavement altered and confused. I left blood on that parking lot, and some skin, too, although it was probably invisible against the dark asphalt.
Uncle Raleigh said, “Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
I said no and touched my shoulder; my hand came away damp. My father stil did not kil the engine. He did not get out of the car.
“Why do you want to leave Dana?” I asked my uncle.
Raleigh said, “We’re not leaving her. She said her mother’s on the way.”
“Something’s happening,” I said.
“Chaurisse.”
“Confirm or deny, Raleigh.”
I lay down on the asphalt, flat on my back. My scraped shoulder smarted against the rough pavement, but this seemed like the only thing to do. I lay on that dirty pavement, putting my body in between knowing and not.
Uncle Raleigh was getting old. His face was a little bit baggy and his stubborn beard that had to be shaved twice a day was coming in white along his jaw. “What’s going on?” I asked him.
“Nothing that has to do with you.”
“How come you never had any kids? How come you never had your own wife? Just tel me. I won’t get mad. I just need to know.”
“Come on, Chaurisse,” Uncle Raleigh said. “Get up. Let’s get you on home so we can take care of that shoulder. Your mama is going to have to pick the gravel out with tweezers.”
My dad honked the horn, twice.
Raleigh muttered under his breath, “Don’t do her like this, Jim-Bo.” Then he said, “Come on, Dana.”
“I’m Chaurisse,” I said. “Dana is my friend locked up in the bathroom, who you and Daddy are trying to leave out here. Please, Uncle Raleigh.
Just tel me what’s going on.”
Uncle Raleigh stood himself up and pul ed me into a standing position. Raleigh said, “Chaurisse, we have al given up so much for you. I would think you would have a little bit more faith in us. Can’t you just walk out on it a little bit?”
He sounded so patient, Uncle Raleigh did. His voice was calm, as though he were asking me to hand him a flat-head screwdriver, but his face was creased and tight, as though he were negotiating for a hostage. My dad honked the horn again and Raleigh beat on the trunk with his fist. He turned his face to me, offering his hand, and it seemed only fair that I would get in the car. It was true. Uncle Raleigh had never asked me for anything.
I looked up into his gentle, patient face. “Okay.”
Uncle Raleigh said, “We love you, Chaurisse. You are the reason for everything.”
Raleigh smel ed like sweat and something I would later think of as fear. “Please don’t fight your daddy and me, okay?”
Daddy lay on the horn. “Raleigh,” he cal ed, “we got to get going.”
“Take it easy, Jim-Bo,” he said.
Opening the door, he helped me in like he would a high-paying customer. He shut the door, and tested it to make sure.
“Daddy,” I said.
“I don’t want to talk out here,” he said. “I’l talk to you when we get home. Let me concentrate on the road.”
BEFORE HE COULD pul away, a compact car, Ford Escort, manual transmission, made a sharp turn into the parking lot. The driver turned directly into our path. A woman jumped out; she was dark, smooth black like Cicely Tyson with long hair, held back with a rhinestone headband.
“God damn it,” my father said.
“Easy,” Raleigh said.
The woman strode to my father’s window. “Where is she?”
“She’s locked in the bathroom,” said Raleigh.
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” Raleigh said. “She was locked in the bathroom when we got here.”
“I wasn’t talking to you; I was speaking to Mr. Witherspoon. Tel me you were not going to just leave her out here.” The lady bent so she could look into the smal slit where my father had opened the window. “You were! You were going to just leave my child stranded out here in the middle of nowhere.” She moved her hand like she was going to slap my father, but the window wasn’t open far enough.
“Calm down,” my father said. “She told us that she had cal ed her mother, and we assumed you were on the way.”
“Did you even check to make sure she was okay?” She peered in the window. “You in on this, too, Raleigh? I would have figured that you were better than this.”
She looked, final y, into the backseat
at me. This was the woman I had seen Raleigh with at the park that time. She looked different now, her face was wild and creased. But she smiled at me, and it was a cold smile, more chain-gang than the man on the chain gang’s. “My name is Gwendolyn,”
she said. “I’m Dana’s mother. Wil you please tel me what the hel happened? Wil you please tel me what you have done to my child?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Why are you wearing her top?”
“She gave this to me.”
“Gwen, stop talking to her. Leave my daughter out of this.”
“Oh, that’s funny,” Gwendolyn said. “That’s real y funny.”
My father blew the horn. “Go take care of your child, Gwen. Tel Wil ie Mae to move her car so I can get by.”
She hit the glass beside my father’s face with the heel of her hand, leaving an oily spot. Raleigh opened his car door and my father and Gwen spoke at once: “Sit down, Raleigh.”
When Gwendolyn moved down the length of the Lincoln, my father pressed the lever to make sure the doors and the windows were locked. She tapped on my window with a dainty click of fingernails. In the front seat, my father turned on the stereo, flooding the car with Beethoven, turned up so high that the symphony was like the screech of dying rabbits. Gwendolyn’s lipsticked mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear her over the music. She kicked the door before heading to the bathroom.
MY FATHER BLEW the horn at the Escort, but the lady in the driver’s seat didn’t budge. I couldn’t real y see her face, but she wore a blue bandanna tied around her head. Daddy blew and she blew back. For a little car, it had a lot of horn on it.
At the bathroom door, Gwen spoke, but we were too far away to hear what she said. The door opened a crack, and then wider. Gwen disappeared into the smal room. I could imagine how close they must be, jammed into such a cramped space. What were they saying to each other?
By now, my father was out of the car, arguing with the woman driving the Escort. Raleigh was stiff in his seat. He reached over and turned off the Beethoven.
“Uncle Raleigh,” I said, “that lady is your girlfriend, isn’t she?”