Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(83)

Their laughter comes again, and it makes me feel a little lighter, but that fades with the next words I want to say.

“But I didn’t cry before until after sex,” I say. “And it’s an awful, lonely, feeling. I’m afraid it’ll happen with him and that‘ll somehow mean I’m not getting better, and I need to feel like I’m getting better. Things are so good for us. I don’t want to mess it up—to think I shouldn’t have tried. It’s like if I can’t find intimacy, satisfaction with him, who’s such a good man and everything I could have asked for, then maybe there’s no hope for me.”

“Don’t put so much pressure on it,” Marsha says. “I mean, it’s a big deal, yes, but if I’d given up with my husband the first time I had that same negative response I’d had in other situations, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Hell, we wouldn’t be anywhere. I would have run and assumed it would never get better.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “It does get better. It can take time, but it can get better.”

“Have you considered telling him what happened?” Sherrie, who’s been kind of quiet tonight, asks. “So he’s prepared for any negative response? So he can know what might be triggers or things he should avoid doing?”

“I’ve thought about telling him,” I say with ropes knotting in my belly. “But every time, I can’t imagine it. Only my family know what happened, and not even all of them. I’ve never told my story out loud. I don’t even know what it sounds like.”

“You could test it on us,” Marsha offers softly. “Or not. Whatever you feel like doing.”

I glance at my watch. They have to go, I’m sure, and soon, so do I.

“I know we’re almost at the end of our time,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t want to keep you from anything.”

Chole settles back and crosses her arms over her chest. “Frozen dinner is the only thing waiting for me at home.”

“My cat’ll be fine for a few extra minutes,” Kyla murmurs.

We all look at Sherrie, who’s typing on her phone. She glances up with a smile. “Telling my roommate to turn off the Crock Pot because I’ll be a little late.”

“See?” Marsha offers a triumphant smile that urges me to spill all my secrets. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”





30





Lotus (Twelve Years Old)





“Sit still, Lo! I’m almost done,” Mama says, impatience popping in her words. “Hold your ear.”

I obediently pull the top of my ear down so it won’t get burned while she runs the hot comb through my hair. Smoke rises from the heat and pressure that flatten the crooking coils that bother her so much. I can do it myself sometimes, but I end up with even more burns, and it takes a long time. And we’re already running late.

“See?” she says, a smile in her voice even though she stands behind me and I can’t see her face. I can’t see the glowing red eye of the stove that lends the comb its heat. “In a few minutes, your hair will be straight like Iris’s.”

I glance at my cousin Iris in the corner, reading the library’s copy of The Witch and the Wardrobe. Iris doesn’t need a pressing comb, and her hair isn’t exactly straight. It’s wavy, but as fine as the white girls’ hair at school. Her skin is almost as pale, too. Her mother’s complexion, my Aunt Priscilla, is a mixture of dark honey and the palest caramel, just like Mama’s. Both of them have silky hair hanging to their waists.

I’m the only one who needs the hot comb.

“All done,” my mother declares with satisfaction, dividing my hair into sections for ponytails.

“Can you leave some out?” I ask.

So it hangs down my back like Iris’s. Like yours and Aunt Priscilla’s.

I don’t say it aloud, but that’s what I want.

Mama’s hands pause, but then she parts my hair so a large section in the back is left free of the bands, pulling the rest into two ponytails.

“I’m leaving some out,” Mama says, a warning in her voice. “But you can’t run all over the place sweating. Your hair will go right back and not be straight anymore.”

“You done?” Aunt Priscilla asks, inspecting my hair. “We’ll see how long that lasts. I don’t know why you bother pressing it in the middle of the summer.”

“It’ll last today,” Mama says. She turns off the stove. “You ready?”

“I got potato salad and fried chicken,” Aunt Priscilla answers. “Check on those sweet potato pies. We need to go.”

“We gotta wait for Ron anyway.” Mama opens the oven to check the two pies.

“Well he better bring his broke ass on,” Aunt Priscilla mutters, not quite under her breath enough that we don’t all hear.

“Don’t talk about my man.” Over her shoulder, Mama gives Aunt Pris an irritated look.

“Honey, what you see in that trifling man I don’t know. He can’t pay your rent, and neither can you. Far as I can tell, they ain’t worth keeping if they can’t pay at least a bill or two. That’s a recipe for a new man if I ever saw one.”

“Ron’s different,” Mama says, her voice softer than usual. I’m used to hearing a sharp edge to Mama’s every other word, but not when she talks about Ron. She says Ron is different, but I say she is. I’ve never seen her act the way she does with him.