Memphis: A Novel(25)

“That feels good.”

The woman underneath August brought her back to reality. August smiled. She knew her shop was a blessing. The women of North Memphis knew this, too, and came to the shop in droves. August’s only day off was Sunday. She’d enter the kitchen on a Saturday night, far past midnight, sink into the plush kitchen bench, and fall asleep there. Not even make it down the hall to her bedroom.

But August could not help but think about what she’d given up. Her dreams of going to college, perhaps even following and furthering her mother’s dream of having a doctor in the family. Sure, she had gotten pregnant, and early. Most girls in Memphis did. But she knew, just knew she could have done it. Gone to Rhodes, finished. Gotten her degree. Lived. Provided for her son.

Her son—who, years before, had put an abrupt stop to August’s college plans. The very night of Joan’s rape, Children’s Protective Services had shown up to the house on Locust, and an officer had pried Derek from August’s arms while she frantically bit at him. Her son. Whom she’d lost twice now—first, for a month after Joan’s rape, and again, two years later, when he’d broken a classmate’s arm. He’d been returned after only six months that time, because August had quit Rhodes and proven to CPS that, with her hair salon, she’d be home full-time to watch him.

“What you want, baby, I got it!” Mya bellowed.

August was suddenly aware that Mya, all seven years of her, had straddled the jukebox in her shop like it was one of those penny mechanical horses in front of Piggly Wiggly and was singing along to Aretha. Comb in her hand to mimic a microphone.

“Joa-nie!” August called out over Aretha’s voice. “Get your sister!”

“Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit,” Mya chanted, her face transformed with passion.

They may have been poor—the lights may have been turned off in the middle of a dinner of turnip greens and pigs’ feet; Miriam’s two girls sent to hunt for candles, crawling like cockroaches in the darkness—but they were North women. They laughed long and loud whenever they could. They laughed often. They let their hair down in August’s shop.

Miriam and her girls, running from a broken man who beat Miriam in order to feel whole. Yes, August was relieved her sister had finally left before Jax killed her. But what now? After that first dinner, Joan refused to speak to Derek at all, wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence most times. It made for awkward, sometimes silent family dinners. But then Mya would blurt out something funny—“sis-boom-bah! The sound a sheep makes when it explodes!”—and even Joan would put a hand up to her face or her stomach to stop herself from giggling. At least that: the laughter. At least that, August thought.

August salved conditioner into the woman’s hair, wrapped her head expertly in a towel, and told her to go sit out on the porch under a dryer for twenty minutes.

“My head’s a hornet’s nest, dear chile, help it.”

Wiping her hands on a towel, August heard Miss Dawn before she saw her. The music, now James Brown’s “Please Please Please,” must have muted the small bell over the door.

Miss Dawn was August’s favorite customer. She lived just down the street, in a home Joan and Mya had christened “Jumanji.” A huge willow grew right inside it, sprouting from the foundation itself.

Miss Dawn would come in early every Friday afternoon promptly at one o’clock, before the masses of Black women descended upon the shop. She’d sit for her standard twist and leave the shop with her locs done up in an elegant sweep, calling out to Miriam’s girls, “Y’all best have boyfriends next time I see y’all,” which would send blushing Joan and Mya into uncontrollable shrieks of joy.

“Why, Miss Dawn,” August said, her arms outstretched to embrace the elderly woman, “you early today.”

“I was bored, chile, up in that house, bored to death,” Miss Dawn said, kissing August lightly on the cheek.

“Might as well come here see what y’all up to…” Miss Dawn paused.

Mya, somehow now off the jukebox, was using a broom to simulate James Brown convulsing onstage at the Apollo, belting out his beloved blockbuster hit. Joan played backup and mimicked fanning her sister.

“…and them girls,” Miss Dawn continued with a raised eyebrow.

August shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “Life,” she said.

“Life,” Miss Dawn agreed.

Joan was suddenly in front of them, her eager brown eyes beaming up at Miss Dawn’s ancient ones. Mya was still acting out James Brown moves to the delight of the other women in the shop, Miss Jade fanning her with an old church program.

“I would so very much like to show you my latest sketches,” Joan said. Then she curtsied.

“Girl, you think Miss Dawn a queen or something?” August said, taken aback but not unamused.

“Yes,” Joan said seriously, no hint of shame or embarrassment in her voice. “Yes, I do, Auntie.”

Miss Dawn’s arms were like the branches of the tree that grew up the middle of her home—strong and sinewy, ancient and elegant, long and brown. She laid one long one across Joan’s shoulder, pulled her close, and leaned down so that their foreheads were touching in a quiet, private embrace.

“Well, hell,” August said. “I’ve known you my whole life, and that ain’t how we say our good mornings.”