Memphis(22)

I kicked her, not too hard, underneath the covers. “Go to sleep,” I shushed her.

“You look like Daddy, but I look like Mom, so I’m the pretty one.” My brow arched and I laughed. “Is that right?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s fine by me. I’m the smart one.”

Mya twisted in the covers, taking most of the blankets with her. “Sometimes.” She paused. “You are kind of smart.” She took her sweet time saying “kind of.”

“God, I want a brother.”

“You think we’ll see him again?”

“Who?” I asked.

“I thought you were the smart one!” Mya’s voice was singsongy, mocking.

I didn’t want to think about Daddy. Daddy: the violent villain. And yet, I missed him like a limb. Missed even the smell of his hands. Shoe polish for his military boots he’d polish every night, and cigarettes. Those Kools.

“We should go exploring tomorrow,” I said, changing the subject.

A sudden boom shocked us all. Wolf was up on all fours in less than a second, hairs raised from the back of her neck to her tail. She growled low.

Mya grabbed my arm, dug in with her nails and shook it. “What was that?” she hissed. She had always been afraid of storms. Howls of wind would send her running to Mama’s lap or Wolf’s mane.

Mama and Auntie August’s voices stopped for a moment, then resumed.

“Shh, it’s not a storm,” I said to Wolf.

“I don’t like it here no more,” Mya said. “I changed my mind.” Then: “What the boy do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“I won’t.”

“You will.” A pause. Wolf settled back down next to us. “I’ll kill him if you want.”

“My!” I said.

“I can. Sneak into his room when he’s sleeping. Whack him in the head with a pot.”

I laughed. Mya giggled. Elbowed me hard in the ribs. I pushed her back, gently.

We lay there for a moment, quiet. Turning toward her, I said, “Don’t you ever go in that boy’s room. Do you understand me? Not for anything.” I tried to sound as stern, as serious, as possible. Mya had to know that she could never, for any reason, ever, be alone with that boy.

Mya’s eyes reminded me of the deer we saw back at that rest stop: wide and wondering.

“Do you hear me?” I asked. “My. This is important.”

“Yes,” she said, echoing back my serious tone.

“Good. Now scoot over. I can’t sleep with you sweating all over me.”

“Well, I can’t sleep with your forehead being so shiny and bright,” Mya teased. “It’s like the moon.”

“Just think of it like that darn nightlight you’re so obsessed with,” I said. “Really, you should be thanking me.”



* * *



—

In the morning, the kitchen smelled like home—like flour and butter and bacon frying. Mya and I watched our mom and our aunt getting breakfast ready. It was eerie; they moved the same. The motions of their hands, their hips—they even flicked their wrists the same way when tossing a tomato slice into batter. Auntie August was just the taller, darker version of Mama. It was all a bit bewildering.

I had always been the dark one. Mya was an exact clone of Mama. Skin the same shade as butter pecan ice cream. They were bright. Their hair obeyed under flat iron or pressing comb or hair dryer. Mine did not. My hair was a thick forest of unruly curls. It did not listen to comb, nor to my prayers to God. Both Mya and Mama were small, petite slips of women. I was taller than Mya because I was three years older, but I likely would always be taller. Everything about my body was long: my legs, my arms. When Mya was mad at me, she’d call me the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. And my dark skin—Mama never treated me different from Mya because of it, bless God. But she didn’t have to. The neighbors did. My teachers. Girls, Black and white, on base. The people who worked at the grocery store. The parents handing me slightly smaller handfuls of Halloween candy. All those confused double takes, the outright stares. The pity behind their prolonged looks came next. Then the disgust.

And now it came with such clarity, watching my Auntie August drop green tomatoes into sizzling hot grease, that I took after my aunt. And she was a vision. Her skin was the color of late evening. I imagined drawing her. I wanted to get the length of her limbs just right, the curve of a high cheekbone. I wanted to put her on paper. Have her live there. Proof of dark beauty. I wanted the world to see and to be ashamed.

She started humming over the hot stove. Her voice, even softly humming a tune, sounded like a church bell ringing. My mom didn’t know, but Mya and I had stayed up late one night watching The Color Purple. If Auntie August wasn’t Shug Avery herself…

I didn’t know where Derek was, and I didn’t ask. Likely, still sleeping.

As we ate, Mama said, “Y’all girls take this pie down to Stanley’s when you’re done. It’s just down the street; you can’t miss it.” She wore an apron over her housedress, and her hair was still piled high in rollers. She was covered in flour. She set a lemon meringue pie down in front of us. It took everything in me not to stick a finger deep in its center and bring its sweetness up to my mouth.