The Dear One

by Woodson, Jacqueline

  “Time tells, Feni. And if you don’t, that’s okay too.”

  “Would you still love me if I grew up to be gay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you still love me if I came home pregnant like Rebecca?”

  “Of course, but that doesn’t have to happen. When you think you’re ready for sex, we can talk about safer sex and birth control. I’ll even take you to the clinic. But I hope you’ll wait a few years before you fall in love that way. I want you to go to college, Feni, and do well. You’ll have so much time for babies.”

  “But would you still love me?”

  “Yes, I would still love you.”

  “What if I came home with a baby and a girlfriend!”

  “Feni . . . !”

  “Just checking, Ma!”

  “Just let’s talk before any kind of sex happens, okay?”

  I climbed farther under the covers and smiled. “Okay.”

  Ma closed her eyes.

  “Is she fat or skinny?”

  “I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “You think she’s taller than me?”

  “I doubt it. You’re pretty tall.”

  “Her eyes were gray. I remember that. Remember, Grandma said gray-eyed people were evil.”

  “Your grandma was full of ideas about people.”

  “She was the greatest.”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Ma?”

  “Hmmm . . . ?”

  “You think Grandma would have liked Rebecca staying here?”

  “She would have thought it was different.”

  I laughed. “Grandma would be mad. She’d say”—I lowered my voice and spoke slowly—“ ‘Now Catherine, ’taint right! Just ’taint right, you raisin’ my Feni around girls in trouble.’ Isn’t that what she would’ve said?”

  “You have her down, all right.”

  “She was the greatest.”

  The house creaked in the silence. Ma’s breath became steady against my arm.

  “Ma . . . ?”

  “Fey, do you know what time it is?” Ma asked sleepily.

  “Time to say I love you.” I turned on my side. “Good night.”

  Ma laughed sleepily, pulled me closer to her, and sighed.

  Seven

  ON SUNDAY, MA LEFT EARLY TO MEET REBECCA AT THE airport, and I stayed behind to shovel the slush out of the driveway.

  As I shoveled the last of the snow into a small gray pile, the sun came out. Shielding my eyes, I looked out over the street. Seton is a small black Pennsylvanian suburb surrounded by mountains. The Victorian houses stand far apart from each other, and the people who live in them are doctors and lawyers and bankers. A lot of families have kids who get sent away to private schools in the fall. Looking out over the quiet street made me sad all of a sudden. I wondered how many Rebeccas had been sent from here while the rest of us, the “nice kids,” were being sent to Jack and Jill, White Gloves and Manners, and dance school—all the places nice kids go to meet other “nice kids.”

  Upstairs in my room, I touched the clean blue sheets we had put on Rebecca’s bed. For a moment I felt like we were cheating her, her small roll-away cot looking dwarfed beside my double bed. The thin mattress smelled like the attic. But there was no way I was going to let her or anyone else stay in Grandma’s room. Even if it meant sharing my bedroom with a pregnant girl.

  Although the house was spotless, I decided to vacuum the living room. The center of our living room sinks down into a small carpeted area with a fireplace opposite the large fish tank.

  By the time I’d finished, Ma’s car was pulling up. Ma had left a roast in the microwave, and I pressed it for ten on my way to the door.

  “Hi, honey. Get the other bag out of the car, please,” Ma said, bustling in with a bag of groceries. “We stopped at the store. Rebecca doesn’t eat meat.”

  I held the door for her, then went to the trunk. I couldn’t see anyone on the passenger side until the girl lifted her head from the backseat.

  She groaned as she got out of the car. The first thing I saw was her stomach beneath a too-small coat. I was peeking from around the trunk and she turned and caught me.

  “You never seen a pregnant girl before?” She pulled her lips into a thin line and the dimples on the side of her face deepened. There were pimples dotting her forehead, and above them, curly hair cut short like a boy’s. I glanced away quickly.

  “Well, have you?” She came around to the back of the car and watched as I lifted the groceries out. “Man, this sure is the country,” she said, taking a look around. “Nobody told me I was going to the country.”

  I held the bag of groceries in one hand and slammed the trunk door with the other.

  Rebecca pulled a small suitcase from the backseat, then followed me inside.

  “Wow!” she said, looking around the living room. “This is like a mansion or something.” I must have frowned a little. “You people are rich. I didn’t know rich black people existed except on television.” She put her bag down and walked over to the fish tank. She was a little clumsy because she leaned forward slightly to hide her stomach. “Look at this!” she said. “Look at all those fishes.”

  “Fish.”

  She straightened up and turned to me. “Look. Just ’cause I’m in your ritzy little house,” she hissed, “doesn’t mean you gonna teach me how to talk and tell me what to do. I don’t want to be in this mansion in the boring country nohow! You think you special or something, but I know all about you, Feni Harris. Your mama says you don’t talk to nobody and you don’t have any friends. So you better consider yourself lucky that I’m here, whether I’m here saying fishes, fish, or fried fish!” She put her hands on her hips and stared at me.

  “The word’s still fish,” I said, taking the groceries into the kitchen.

  “I guess we should try to refreeze this,” Ma said, standing at the microwave holding the roast in her hands. “Rebecca’s a vegetarian, so we won’t be eating it for a while.”

  I began putting the groceries away. “I still eat meat. Just because she doesn’t, does that mean everybody’s diet has to change?”

  Ma looked at me. “I still eat meat too. We’ll work around that.” She put the meat in the refrigerator, then came over to me and looked out the window above my head. “I wonder where Marion is. I’m sure she didn’t forget about today,” she said. “Rebecca seems like a sweet girl, doesn’t she?”

  I was about to say something, but Rebecca came into the kitchen. “Ms. Harris, this is a great house!” She sat down heavily and rubbed her stomach. “It must have cost you a million dollars. That couch is real leather, isn’t it? I saw a couch like that once in Seaman’s. It cost two thousand dollars. I told my boyfriend that’s the couch I want when we get married. Only, the one I’m getting is beige, not brown. But I like your brown one a lot. Is that where I’m going to be sleeping? I need a nap.”

  “No,” Ma said, smiling. “We moved an extra bed into Feni’s room. I thought it would be nice if you two were together.” A frown crossed Rebecca’s face, but then she smiled quickly. “Why don’t you take a nap while we get dinner ready? You say all I have to do is steam this tofu awhile and pour some barbecue sauce over it?”

  Rebecca nodded and I looked at the cheesy-looking white lump Ma was holding. “What’s that?”

  “It’s tofu.” Rebecca smirked. “Really good protein. You gonna show me to my room?” She got up slowly and exhaled. “I never thought getting up would be so hard.”

  I looked at Ma, but she was reading the back of the tofu package and frowning.

  Eight

  “LOOK AT ALL THESE DOLLS!” REBECCA SQUEALED, darting clumsily to the shelves beside my bed. “There must be a hundred of them!”

  “Seventy-four,” I mumbled. The dolls were lined up in size order on three shelves.

  “I used to have dolls like this,” Rebecca said. “I used to have a hundred dolls. They were from all over the world, every color, every size. I ha
d more dolls than any girl in the world.” She reached for one, then stopped. “Can I touch them? Or are you selfish?”

  “No, you cannot,” I said.

  But she pulled a brown baby doll wrapped in a blue blanket from the shelf anyway. “Oh, he’s beautiful,” she said, cuddling the doll to her chest. “Bless him.” Her voice changed and she turned to me. “I had a doll like him too. I had all kinds of dolls!”

  “What happened to them?” I was sitting on the side of my bed, and it was hard to take my eyes off her stomach.

  “I don’t know. They all got gone. Some went here. Some went there. I gave a lot of them to charity. I’m generous by nature. Least that what people tell me.” She took the doll over to the cot. “This is my bed, right?” There was a whisper of disappointment in her voice as she laid the doll down and opened her bag.

  “I didn’t bring my best stuff . . . ,” she said, looking up at me. “I always pack lightly when I go on trips. I’ve been all kinds of places.”

  I stared at the pitiful bundle of clothes she took from the suitcase. There were two or three dingy-looking pairs of underwear, a white sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans that had been cut out in the front and restitched with elastic. There was a light blue pair of stretch-material pants like the old lady kind my grandmother hated and a flowered bathrobe with a frayed ribbon where a belt should be.

  “I think I forgot my pajamas, but I can sleep in a T-shirt or something.”

  She looked at me for what seemed like a long time until I finally got embarrassed and looked away. “Do you always stare like that? Because if you do, you’re rude,” she said.

  I played with the edge of my bedspread and said nothing. I hated Rebecca.

  “Anyway, what goes on in your mind when you sit there staring like you want something from me? You got all this stuff. What more do you want?”

  “What do you mean, what more do I want?” I said, tightening my hands into fists. “I don’t want anything from anybody. Least of all you. What can you give me? You don’t have anything.”

  “Oh, don’t go losing your mind. You’re a brat. That’s what you are. You sure could use a kick in the butt.”

  “You sure aren’t going to give it to me,” I said weakly. What right did she have, coming into my house and thinking she could take over?

  “I wouldn’t waste my time, selfish-head. You got all these dolls and still you want more stuff.”

  “I don’t play with those dolls anymore. I’m too big for them.”

  Rebecca held the shirt she was folding in midair. “Get outta here. You’re what? Eleven? Twelve?”

  “I’m too old,” I said again.

  “That’s too bad. I played with my dolls until I was fourteen. And I’m completely in love with him,” she said, gesturing toward the doll again. “I don’t care what people say. When I played with my dolls, I forgot everything. Nothing mattered. Nothing. Nothing was real except the stuff I made up with my dolls. I talked to them and everything. They talked back to me too.”

  “I had talking dolls once.”

  “Mines wasn’t no talking dolls. Mines was the kind like those. They didn’t really talk. Only, they talked to me sometime.”

  You’re a little bit crazy, I wanted to say. But Rebecca’s eyes were clouded over and her voice had dropped to a whisper. So I leaned a little closer to hear.

  “They used to tell me the way things was. My moms, she’s not so well, you know. She acts strange sometimes still. I would go in the room and me and my dolls would find a place and just talk about it. I have all these brothers and sisters, and they drive me crazy. The house is always full of screaming and fighting and everything. So me and my dolls would find a quiet place like in the closet or somewhere and we’d just talk.”

  “What’d your dolls say?” I asked, inching toward the door.

  Rebecca’s voice became normal again. “What do you think they said?”

  I shrugged and she moved her suitcase and lay back on the bed.

  “What’d your dolls say when you stopped playing with them? Did they say, ‘Feni, you not playing with us no more ’cause your daddy went away’? Is that what they said?”

  “I don’t care about my father going away,” I said, realizing I had not touched a doll since my dad left.

  “Well, I stopped playing with those dolls when I got me a boyfriend, and that’s when the dolls stopped talking.” Rebecca took the baby doll in her arms and closed her eyes. “They just shut up and didn’t say no more. It was something. It was like they never spoke,” she said sleepily.

  I stood in the doorway staring at her. She curled up with the doll, sighed, and turned away from me. When I heard the soft sound of her snoring, I stepped out of the room and slammed the door.

  Nine

  MARION CAME OVER IN TIME FOR DINNER, HER ARMS full of department-store bags. Rebecca and I were sitting silently across from each other at the kitchen table. We had not spoken since before her nap.

  When Marion came into the kitchen, Rebecca’s eyes slid across to me.

  “She’s a butch, right?” Rebecca whispered.

  I wanted to slap her. “No, stupid! She’s a lesbian.”

  “Same thing,” she hissed. I balled my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms. I had never punched a pregnant girl before. Actually, I had never punched anyone.

  “Some lesbians don’t like to be called butch. Just like some pregnant people don’t like to be called pregos. Make any sense?”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes at me but then flicked a look at Marion that showed my point had been made.

  Marion was all smiles as she set bags in front of Rebecca. She kissed Rebecca on the forehead and Rebecca pulled away a little. “You grew up to be just beautiful, didn’t you. Looks like Clair spit you right out of her mouth! Isn’t she something, Catherine?” Ma was standing behind Marion now, smiling. No one said anything. Rebecca blushed and stared down at the floor.

  “Now, don’t go getting jealous,” Marion said to me as she tore into a bag. “I just bought a few things for Rebecca because I know she didn’t have much time to shop before she left.”

  “That’s where you’ve been all afternoon,” Ma said, lifting the bags onto the table.

  “You know,” Marion said, “I haven’t seen you since you were Feni’s age. Maybe even a little younger. You probably don’t even remember me.”

  “I remember you,” Rebecca said. “Ma told me about you.”

  The kitchen grew silent.

  “Did she?” Marion asked uneasily. “Well, what did she say?”

  I was sitting opposite Rebecca with my chin in my hands. She didn’t dare look anywhere but at the floor when she spoke. “She said you all were close at Spelman. Real close. How close were you to my ma?” She looked up then, and my eyes followed hers to Marion. We all waited.

  “We were as tight as a braid,” Marion said slowly. “All wound around each other like there was no beginning or end to us. Wasn’t one of us any closer to the other than the next.”

  “But you’re a dite, aren’t you?”

  “A what?” Marion asked, laughter in her eyes.

  “A dite. That’s what Ma says.”

  The laughter spilled over and Ma joined in. My eyes met Rebecca’s, and for a moment we were connected by our mutual confusion.

  “The word is dyke,” Marion said, wiping her eyes.

  “Whatever the word is, that’s what Ma says you are.”

  “What else does your mama say?” Marion asked. She was looking proudly down at Rebecca and didn’t seem angry.

  “Oh, she says all kinds of stuff. Ma’s crazy sometimes. But when she talks about you all, mostly she talks about Spelman.” Rebecca looked at Marion. “How come you’re gay?” she asked out of the blue.

  “That’s rude,” I said, and Rebecca cut her eyes at me.

  “Nobody’s talking to you!”

  “Well, you two have certainly hit it off.” Marion took a sweater from one of the bags and held it
to Rebecca’s shoulders.

  “You think this’ll fit?”

  Rebecca’s mouth dropped open when she looked at the sweater. “It’s beautiful!” She stood slowly and held the sweater to her. “It’s so soft.” Part of the sweater sat on her stomach. “All these bags are stuff for me?”

  “Nobody bought me anything,” I mumbled, ripping up a piece of tissue.

  “Help me set the table, Feni,” Ma said.

  In the dining room I could hear Rebecca oohing and aahing with each rip of paper. “That sure was rude of her to ask Marion about being gay,” I whispered.

  “That’s the way you learn, isn’t it? By asking?”

  “If that was me, I would be on punishment for a week!”

  “I don’t know, Feni. Marion doesn’t mind you asking questions.”

  “You mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You used to before. Before you stopped drinking.”

  Ma put a salad fork down and looked at me. “My life is split in half, Feni—when I drank and when I stopped drinking. Everything I did when I drank, I’m sorry for. . . .”

  “Whenever I think about that, I get mad.”

  “You should.”

  “Are you sorry for saying Rebecca could stay with us? I am.”

  “No, I’m not sorry, and I don’t see why you are.”

  “She’s rude, Ma. And she acts like she’s not used to having nice stuff.”

  “She’s not, Feni.”

  “Well, her family should get some nice stuff, then. At least that way, everybody could get used to it and not embarrass themselves when they come to somebody’s house who has nice things!”

  “They don’t have the money, Feni.”

  “Then they should get some money.”

  “From where?” Ma asked too patiently.

  “From wherever. . . .”

  When Marion came out of the kitchen with Rebecca, Rebecca was wearing the sweater and a different pair of pants. It was not until Rebecca looked up at Ma to smile a thank-you that I realized: We were Rebecca’s “wherever.”

  Ten