She didn’t look any easier. I could see her frowning brows right clear.
Then I got to wondering if Tootsie was getting Momma’s address or calling the police. My heart got to gallopin’ and I backed up from the door and made myself ready to run, just in case.
In just a bit I saw Miss Tootsie go back behind the bar. I was ready to call to her when I saw someone shovin’ through the crowd, coming fast toward the door. She had on a checkered blouse and black slacks like Laura Petrie wears at home on Dick Van Dyke—but this lady was out in public. Good thing Mamie wasn’t here, she’d have a conniption fit.
The lady’s hair was so . . . big. And it was so blond it hardly had any color at all. She looked like her head had been wrapped in white cotton candy.
Disappointment started to get on me, and right then I realized I’d been hoping Momma was actually here. But then I thought, maybe this lady knows where Momma lives, that’s why Miss Tootsie went to get her.
My stomach flipped like it did on the Bullet.
The lady stepped out the door and onto the sidewalk. She leaned right down in my face, bringing the smell of cigarettes and perfume. “Where in the hell have you been for the past two weeks?”
I was so surprised I couldn’t get any words out.
“And what did you do to your hair?”
How could somebody this mean be friends with my momma? My hair might be black, but I still had red rage inside. I leaned right back at her. “I just wanna know where my momma is.”
“For God’s sake, Starla, I am your momma.”
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blinked, trying to look past the crazy hair and raccoon makeup and see my momma. I hadn’t seen her since I was three, sure, but this lady didn’t look nothin’ like what I remembered, or the old picture of her. Nuh-uh. This was just a trick to make me stay here long enough for the police to come.
“Liar. My momma has red hair. And she’d never talk that mean to me!” The lady put her hands on her hips, took a big breath, and looked like she was getting ahold of her temper. “How’d I know your name if I’m not your momma?” She tried to put her hands on my shoulders, but I jerked away and started to run.
“Starla! Wait!”
I kept going. Eula was grabbing her grip off the sidewalk watching me come.
The lady yelled, “I gave you Mr. Wiggles.”
I froze.
“I sent you a buckeye for good luck.”
I looked over my shoulder. That lady could not be my momma.
Coldness fell over me like rain. I turned around real slow.
“Come back here.” Her voice cut deep, way deep.
Right then, I felt Eula standing right behind me. “You all right?” she whispered.
I swallowed. “That’s . . .” I couldn’t make myself say it.
“Your momma.” Eula didn’t sound near as surprised as she should have.
I couldn’t make my feet walk back to that lady, so she come to us.
“Now who’s this?” she put one hand on her hip and pointed at Eula with the other.
“Eula,” I said, trying to find some of my starch. “She brought me here. Made sure I was safe.”
“Well, it would’ve been nice to know! Everybody’s been crazy with worry. Your daddy had to come in off the rig—missed two weeks’work.” Momma looked hard at Eula.“It took two weeks? And you didn’t think of callin’ and tellin’ anyone she was safe?”
Soft as a mouse, Eula said, “I’m sorry—”The Eula I’d seen with the church ladies was gone.
“It ain’t Eula’s fault!” My hackles come up. “How was we supposed to call you when you ain’t in the telephone book?”
Momma’s mouth got tight. Something about that look hit me as real familiar. My stomach got a cold spot in it. I took a step backward and bumped into Eula.
People were looking at us real curious as they passed.
Momma grabbed for my arm, but Eula wrapped her arm across my shoulders from behind me and pressed me close. Eula said real quiet and polite, “If you don’t mind me sayin’, ma’am—”
“I do mind.” That tightness come back to Momma’s mouth. “I got no idea why you brought her here when you shoulda taken her back home. But you can get on your way now.” She flicked her hand like she was shooing a stray cat. Then, like the words were hard coming, she said, “Thank you for bringin’ her.”
“Don’t you treat her like that!” I said, leaning toward Momma.
“No you listen to me, missy, you watch your mouth.” Momma put a finger in my face. “You won’t be talkin’ to me like that over some negra woman.”
“But Eula—”
“Enough! I gotta call your daddy and get back to work.”
“But—”
The smack come before I even saw her hand moving. It wasn’t hard, but took me by surprise. I sucked in a breath and it stuck in my chest. I bit my lip to keep from crying. Everything was moving so fast, and not in the direction I’d been expectin’. Eula’s arm stayed locked around me and I felt some steadier. But she was just a colored woman. If Momma wanted to drag me down the street by my hair, Eula couldn’t do nothin’ about it. And right then, the look in Momma’s eyes said she might do just that. Something fluttered in my memory for a second, but skittered back into the dark, a roach under the refrigerator.
Baby James started to cry. We’d fed him already and he’d been sleeping fine. He knew something was wrong.
I was afraid Eula’d let go of me to comfort him, but she held tight.
“I don’t have time to stand out here foolin’ around, Starla.” Momma said. “Thank the woman and come on.”
She reached for my arm, but I jerked away, bumping Eula a little and making James holler louder.
If I just left Eula standing out here with James a’squallin’, she was sure to get into trouble. We had to get James to his family. Momma had to help. And Wallace . . . I still hadn’t got Eula convinced not to turn herself in to the law. All the sudden that big, dead body was just about all I could think of.
“I can’t leave her. There’s—things you need to know about. Things you gotta know.” Once I got it all explained, Momma would help her. “She saved me.”
Momma had said everybody had been worried, which meant even if she was surprised to see me, she’d be grateful Eula’d saved my life. But I sure couldn’t just blabber right out here on the street that Eula’d killed her husband.
Now people weren’t just staring, they were stopping.
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere without Eula.” I made my legs so stiff my knees were knots.
Momma’s raccoon eyes got so narrow I couldn’t see any of the green anymore. Then she huffed. “Fine. Y’all come on.” She turned around and pushed past a lady with hair as big as Momma’s, but it was coal black; they coulda been salt and pepper shakers.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Momma said, and gave the lady the stink eye and marched down the street without looking to see if we followed behind.
When I unlocked my legs, my knees got so wobbly I almost fell down—from standing stiff, not ’cause I was scared of my own momma.
Eula nodded for me to start moving. “We here now. Got no choice but to get on and tell the truth.”
“You just let me do the tellin’.” I had a “truth” all worked out in my head. I sure hoped it went better than my ideas about findin’ Momma.
Eula picked up her grip. We followed Momma. James screamed louder.
We didn’t go far, just to an upstairs apartment in a building a few doors down from Tootsies. It was one big room with a little kitchen folded in one corner and not much more than a lumpy couch and the foot of a bed peeking from behind a yellow, flowered curtain. Through an open door, I could see a bathroom sink with a rusty streak under the faucet and a dull mirror that was spotted black.
I wished we was back at Mt. Zion Baptist with the banjo music and the smell of cookies in the basement.
“You live here?” I asked.
I felt a little dizzy.
James still didn’t like the way things were going. The high ceilings and wood floors made him sound like he was crying in a barrel. The noise seemed to make Momma more jittery. Again, I got a feeling that I’d seen Momma like this before, and it didn’t turn out good.
Eula gave James his sassy and he quieted some.
Momma stayed jittery. “Sit down.” Momma pointed to the table with two chairs. She still didn’t look like Momma at all—except for the nervous hands. She grabbed a pack of Winston cigarettes off the table. She pulled a matchbook from where it was tucked in the cellophane wrapper and lit up. She sucked until the tip glowed bright orange, then blew out the flame with her smoky breath and tossed the match into the kitchen sink. It sizzled as it landed in a pile of dirty dishes. “I got to call your daddy.”
“Not yet! You can’t call Daddy till I tell you what happened. We need to make a plan.”
I reckoned since he’d come off the rig, he could move up here right away and get a new job. With all of us up here, it’d be easier to keep Eula from the police. I hoped he didn’t get all worked up about me taking my just desserts. I’d hate to have come all this way and end up in reform school anyway. At least he and Momma would be here waiting when I got out. And I’d still be able to save Eula. But I had to get the story out to Momma first, so she could make sure Daddy understood before he come . . . or spilled the beans to the law in Cayuga Springs.
“I need to get back to work,” Momma said. “It’s busy and Tootsie can’t take care of the crowd by herself. And I can’t afford to lose the tips.”
“You singin’ there?” I asked, knowing I was getting distracted, but I was real curious about Momma’s life. The singin’ was the only part of her I recognized.
“I’m workin’. How you think I get the money to send Mamie to take care of you.”
Now that rubbed me the wrong way. “Daddy sends Mamie the money to keep me.”
She rolled her eyes and gave a laugh that sounded like a dog’s bark. “Well, I’m not surprised the old bitch kept it to herself, much as she hates me.” Momma stopped herself. “For your information, I send money for you almost every month.”
If she did that, she must love me. Right?
She reached for the phone sitting on a table made of bricks and boards at the end of the couch.
I shot up off the chair and put my hand around her wrist to keep her from picking it up. “No!”
“The sooner I get your daddy called, the sooner he’ll get here to take you home and he can get back to work. We ain’t made of money, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I ain’t goin’ home. I’m livin’ with you now.”
She looked like I’d said a swear word and let go of the phone.
I let go of her wrist. “I just need to explain—”
“You can’t live here, Starla.”
I blinked, feeling like she’d slapped me again. “Why not? You’re my momma.”
“For one thing, there’s nobody to take care of you.”
That was the silliest thing I’d ever heard. “I’m almost ten, I don’t need takin’ care of during the day. Even when Eula gets a job, she’ll be here at night when you’re singin’ someplace.”
Momma sighed real hard and touched my hair. “You belong in Cayuga Springs. Besides, there’s no room for you and a colored woman and her baby in this apartment. There’s barely room for me and Earl.”
“The baby ain’t stayin’—Wait a minute.” I looked around. “Who’s Earl?”
“My husband.”
“Daddy’s your husband. His name’s Porter, not Earl.”
Momma’s face got so soft I almost recognized her. “Dear Lord, they never told you.”
“Told me what?” I almost covered my ears.
“Your daddy and I are divorced—have been for almost six years. Earl’s my husband now.”
“No!” The whole room was spinning. Everything in Nashville was wrong, wrong, wrong.
She tried to put her arms around me, but I jerked away. “It ain’t true.”
“It is. I’m sorry nobody told you. Your daddy should have.”
A hiccup surprised me. I blinked to keep from crying. “Well, I still can’t go back to Cayuga Springs.”
“Of course you can. Mamie’ll be mad for a while for you runnin’ away, but she’ll get over it—”
“No!” Things was getting blurry. “No!” I stomped my foot. “If I go back, they’ll send me to reform school. And Eula and baby James . . .” I made myself tall, like I did when I was trying to stand my ground with Wallace. “We ain’t goin’ back!”
Momma grabbed my arm. Her fingers dug in worse than Mamie’s. “You listen here.” The words kinda hissed out. “You’ve caused everybody enough worry. I don’t know what trouble you got yourself into, but you can’t just run off and make life what you want it to be.”
“Why not? You run off and made life what you wanted it to be!”
The slap came fast and hard. My head jerked to the side and my cheek caught fire.
Eula had me then, wrapped up in her arms and spun away from Momma. James was caterwaulin’ across the room.
“I’m calling your—God! Somebody shut that kid up!”Momma gave a frustrated look toward James and stopped with her hand halfway to the phone. “That baby’s white.”
It finally got in my head that if Eula had me wrapped up in her arms, baby James was left alone over by the table. He’d kicked the blanket off and was more cherry red than white, but nobody would mistake him for colored.
I pulled away from Eula. “That’s what I need to tell you.” I swiped my nose with the back of my hand. “Eula’s husband kidnapped me and baby James both.” I heard Eula gasp, but kept talking. “She had to kill—”
Momma held up a hand and turned away. “Stop right there! I don’t want to hear any more. Not another word.” She leaned close. “Not another blessed word!” She picked up the phone. “You both go over there and sit back down. And do somethin’ about that baby!”
Eula hurried to comfort James.
“But, Momma—”
She swooped back in my face. “Enough!” She gritted her teeth and flung her hand toward the table and chairs. “Get. Over. There.”
I drug myself back to the table on feet too heavy to lift off the floor. This was worse than the nightmares I had when I was sick at Miss Cyrena’s. Oh, I wish we’d just stayed there and kept baking. I’d rather spend the whole rest of my life hid in the dark from the Jenkins boys and the law than go back to Cayuga Springs. Then my worst, most awful wish come, and my throat hurt like I was being strangled. I wish I’d never found Momma in Nashville.
Eula plugged a bottle into James’s mouth and he got quiet.
All I could hear was my pounding heart and the snick-shhhhh, snickshhhh of Momma dialing the phone.
“Porter, she’s here.” She listened for a minute. “Yes, she’s fine.” She listened again. “Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t know and I don’t want to know. You’re supposed to be taking care of her, so you get your ass up here and take this mess off my hands before Earl gets back tomorrow night.” Her face started to get red. “No, he still doesn’t know, and that’s none of your damn business. You get up here by noon or I’m puttin’ her on a bus.” She slammed down the phone.
The sharp bang shattered my heart like a bottle hitting the sidewalk.
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didn’t look at Momma again. I shut off my memories, too. They was as unreal now as Lulu, the lady she’d turned into. I sat there in that chair with the sharp pieces of my heart falling down and cutting my gut, my ears ringing, and my body turning to stone. Beyond the ringing I heard Lulu bossing Eula. There’s food in the fridge . . . use the bologna not the bacon . . . I do
n’t want to see any mess when I get back . . . keep that baby quiet . . . do not answer the phone . . . make Starla take a bath . . . she can sleep with me . . . you know not to use the tub, but I don’t mind if you take a sponge bath . . . be sure and leave your towel separate . . . she’d better be asleep when I get home . . . make sure y’all are packed to leave first thing. Every order made me slide farther away, made the ringing get louder.
Then she left for Tootsies.
I hated her.
After I heard the door close behind her, I got up off the chair and
headed toward the bathroom. As I passed Eula, she tried to talk to me but I shook my head and kept going.
She respected me not wanting to talk, but her face looked sad and I heard her sigh.
Just before I closed the bathroom door, I turned around and said, “You can use the bathtub.”
I locked the door and turned on the water to fill the tub.
I made it so hot that I had to get in real slow. I wanted it to hurt; wanted my outside to feel as bad as my inside. I sat there for a long time watching my skin turn redder and redder. I thought about all of the nights I’d dreamed of the day I’d see Momma again. I thought about how stupid I’d been to think I could be happy and living with my family glued back together in a big house with laughin’ and horses and a dog and a good Christmas like the one on the Andy Williams Show.
Finally my insides was as fiery as my skin. I liked the burn and hoped it took everything I’d been wishing for and turned it to ashes.
Then it come to me. Maybe Momma was just surprised. Maybe she’d been so worried about me that she was wound up tight inside and was just letting off steam. It had to be a shock, me showing up safe and sound after over two weeks. Yeah. That had to be it. She’d come home from work after a while and we’d sit down and have a nice talk. She’d say she was sorry. She’d listen to my story about James and Eula and she’d fix everything so Eula was safe.
I remembered the way her nails dug into me . . . and I remembered how it sparked a memory I pushed away. Had I made her this mad before? Back when I was really little?
Whistling Past the Graveyard Page 24