A Day Late and a Dollar Short (33 page)

"That's nice," she says like she don't really mean it.

"Wait. I ain't finished."

"You mean there's more?"

"Oh, yeah, baby. I'm getting some new dentures-the best money can buy-and tomorrow I'm going to start looking at some brand-new condominiums!"

"Paris is buying you a condo?"

"Yes indeedy."

"What else did you get for your birthday?"

"Shanice made me a cup in her art class, and Dingus sent me a pair of gold hoop earrings."

"Real gold?"

"I don't think so, but what difference do it make? It's the thought that count. Anyway, my good friend Loretta-the one I might be going on a cruise with-she crocheted me a pretty gold, purple, and hunter-green throw to go over my old couch."

"Ain't she white?"

"Yeah, so?"

"1 just asked."

"And that's about it."

"Janelle and Lewis didn't get you nothing?"

"Janelle gives me the same thing every year. A gift certificate to Nordstrom's."

"What kinda store is Nordstrom's?"

"A very high-class department store. It ain't quite Neiman Marcus, but close enough for my taste. Anyway, I ain't heard from Lewis, which means he probably in jail, 'cause he don't forget my birthday."

"Well, you did it again, Mama."

"Did what?"

"Threw dirt in my face."

"What the hell are you talking about, Charlotte?"

"You just had to brag about what everybody else did for your birthday except for me and my kids. Can't you see it?"

"You asked me what I got, so I told you!"

"Yeah, but look at how you had to tell me!"

"What you want me to do, whisper it? Tell you like I'm disappointed 'cause my other daughters think enough of me to do something for me on my birthday and you don't? I still ain't figured that one out. Is it something I done to you that's making you treat me like a stepmother, or are you just plain nasty?"

"No I am not, and you should think about a lotta things you've done to hurt me that you don't seem to ever fucking remember!"

"You better come down ofF that high horse you on and watch the way you talking to me. You always coming up with a reason to bring the problems back to Charlotte, don't you? Don't make no difference what's going on, it always comes down to poor Charlotte. You always the innocent little v ictim. Well, I ain't never done nothing deliberately to cause you harm, and I swear on my mama's grave that's true."

"Yeah yeah yeah."

"I can't help it if you and my damn grandkids didn't send me nothing for my birthday."

"They just told you they got you something!"

"Then where the hell is it? My presents to them always get there on time. And you? You always so busy-too busy to . . ."

"Look, I don't need you to try to make me feel guilty."

"You don't sound like you feeling no kinda guilt, so who you fooling?"

"You right, Mama! I don't feel guilty. And from now on, I ain't gon' feel guilty about a damn thing I do or don't do! I'm sick to death doing what everybody thinks I should be doing. Sick of living my life to please everybody but me. So, yeah, I'm tired of feeling guilty 'cause my own mama likes to make one daughter feel bad by throwing dirt in her face about what her other kids is doing!"

"That is not what I'm doing, Charlotte, and you know it."

"Oh, yeah! That's what it feel like to me. So you enjoy your birthday in your new car and make sure you wear your new earrings and drink something hot in your new cup and rest your head on your blue-and-orange throw, and when you move in your new condo, don't bother picking up the phone to call me till you can learn how to talk to somebody, because it's gon' be a cold day in hell before I call you back!" Click.

Here we go again. And on my birthday! This little wench done hung up the phone in my face one too many times. Al musta done something really low, 'cause she's tripping hard.

"Dag," Shanice says. "She tripping real hard."

"You still on this phone, girl?"

"Yep. This is better than the soaps, Granny. What's up with Aunt Charlotte? She was totally out of line."

"Do this. Don't mention her name in this house until I tell you to, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now get your mama on the phone and be quick about it."

"Okay." I hear her dialing the number from in here, but when 1 pick up the phone, its Suzie Mae. How'd this happen? "Vy? You there?" "Yeah, Suzie, I'm here."

"1 just was calling to say happy birthday. At first 1 couldn't remember whose birthday it was, and then it hit me. It's yours and Charlotte's. Both on tax day."

"Thanks for calling, Suzie, but can I call you back later?" "Sho'. I wasn't planning on talking but a minute no way. Rates is sky- high this time a day. You feeling all right?" "Feeling fine."

"You got your papers in order?" "What papers?"

"You know, in case you die or something."

"Ain't nobody doing no dying around here no time soon, Suzie Mae." "You never know. Better to be safe than sorry."

I don't know how she got to be my sister, I swear I don't. "Anyway, my papers is in order."

"You don't want the kids fighting over all your personal belongings, now, do you?"

"Not like yours will, huh, Suzie?" "I ain't got no kids."

"You also ain't got no personal belongings." "I heard Cecil's gone."

"So you do watch the six o'clock news, huh?"

"It's about time," she says. "He wasn't worth all them years, but you didn't hear it from me." "Bye, Suzie."

"Bye, Vy. I'll call you again on Sunday, when the rates is low. Wait a minute! You heard from our sister?"

"Don't mention that dizzy bitch's name to me right now, okay? I'm sick of stupid women, and I don't know who's on the top of my list right now." "Long as it ain't me. Bye."

I chuckle, and then dial Janelle s number myself.

"Happy birthday, Mama." She sound groggy and tired.

"What's wrong with you, Janelle?"

"I'm just having cramps."

"Since when did you start having cramps?"

"I get them from time to time, depending on the season."

"And what season is this?"

"Spring, Mama. It's spring. Where's Shanice?"

"She's in the kitchen. We going bowling in a little while, if I can ever get my nap in."

"I want her to come home."

"That's nice, but she ain't ready to come home yet."

"But I need her to."

"Look, Janelle. You done already put the girl through a whole lot of unnecessary bullshit. Now, she ain't been here but a few weeks and she doing good in school, she on the track team, and we done signed her up for a week at sleepover camp with some girls. She met at Victory Bapdst that she hit it off with, and it just so happen it's the same week as my cruise. Now. School'll be out the first week of June, and I ain't taking her out. You just gon' have to wait till we both get back. How that sound?"

"Okay okay. I'll be job hundng, anyway."

"What else is new?"

"Ma, not today. So-I guess you've heard about Lewis."

"What about him?"

"Paris didn't call you this morning?"

"She called last night."

"And she didn't say anything about him?"

"Get to the damn point, would you, girl?"

"He's in jail. But this time he's going to be in there for a while. Maybe even as much as a year. It depends. His case might end up going to trial."

"What? For what?"

"He struck Donnetta's husband with a sponge mop."

"What you mean, struck?"

"He hit him with the wooden handle of a mop." "I know you lying." "I wish I was."

"1 don't even wanna know the details. This day been chock-full of some of everything, I know that much. He done hit... I swear to God, I don't know where that boy was when they was passing out common sense." "I might go see him next week." "You knock yourself right on out. Where's George?" "He's not living here anymore. I told you that."

"We'll see," I say. "But let me say this: if he stay gone, I'll give you a whole lotta credit."

"I'm trying, Ma. I'm trying. Kiss Shanice for me. I took a pill that's made me sleepy and I need to close my eyes."

"Then don't let me stop you. Talk to you later. And thanks for my birthday present. As soon as I lose ten or fifteen pounds, I'm going straight to the Savvy Department. Thank you, baby." I make a kissing sound into the phone and then hang up. "Shanice!" I yell. "Unplug that phone from the wall, would you? I don't wanna talk to another soul."

"Okay, Granny. But what about the door? I think Grandpa Cecil just pulled up."

"Shit! It's my birthday and I wanna take a nap!" I say, and crawl over the edge of the bed and go straight to the front door and open it. "What can I do for you, Cecil?" He still wearing that Sammy Davis shirt and them James Brown pants. Some things just don't change.

"I told you I wanted to bring you a little something for your birthday." "What is it?" I ask, talking to him through the screen door. I ain't opening it until I feel like it, and he ain't coming in here, I don't care what he got for me.

"Whose car is that in the driveway?" "My friend's." "What friend is that?"

"That would be none of your business, Cecil. Now, what you got? 'Cause I'm supposed to be getting dressed." "Where you going?"

I take a deep breath. And then, just to satisfy his curiosity, I say: "We going bowling."

"Yeah," he says. "Do I know this fella?"

"I doubt it. I just met him myself, how you gon* know him, too?"

"Vegas ain't that big," he says.

"Look, Cecil, you gon' give me the present today or tomorrow? 'Cause I ain't got all day," I say, cracking the screen door open wide enough for him to hand me something through it.

"Here," he says, and hands me a plastic bag that looks like it's from Philmon's Hair Emporium, where I used to get my hair done till I decided to do it myself. But Philmon's is a bookstore, too. So, when I open up the bag, it's a book.

"Thank you, Cecil. It was very thoughtful of you."

"You're welcome. I guess we probably might need to be talking real soon about what we gon' do about this house."

"You can do anything you wanna do with it."

"What you mean by that, Vy?"

"It means that I'm moving soon."

"You moving with that man in there?"

"Lord, no. I wouldn't live with another man at my age if you paid me. You cured me of that, Cecil. No, I'm doing one better than that. Paris is buying me my very own condominium."

He actually gets a smile on his face. "Yeah," he says, rubbing what might be new growth 'cause I see little gray prickly stubbles coming outta his face. "That's our girl."

"She certainly is."

"We did something right, didn't we, Vy?"

"I guess so. But, like I said, Cecil, I gotta go. And thanks again."

"You're welcome. Can I give you a litde sugar? Not on your mouth. On your cheek."

"That ain't really necessary, Cecil."

"I know. But I need to, Vy."

"Oh, all right," 1 say, and turn my face so my right cheek fits into the space I left open in the screen. His lips is dry, hard, and crusty, like he ain't been kissing nothing. I almost feel sorry for him, but, then again, I don't.

"Happy birthday," he says, and turns and walks down the sidewalk and get in his red Lincoln, which, to my surprise, starts right up.

When I turn to look at Shanice, her mouth is covered with both hands, I guess from laughing so hard. She's easing out from beside the refrigerator, where I see she been hiding. "You're good, Granny."

"Sometimes you gotta lie. I just don't make it no habit. Now, let me go on and get ready and let's get the hell outta here. To hell with taking a nap!"

I go on back in my bedroom and I'm pulling my yellow bowling T-shirt over my head that's got "Lucky Strikes" in big red letters on the back when the phone rings.

"Shanice, I thought I told you to unplug the phone!"

"I did, Granny, but you didn't unplug yours!"

"Shit," I say, and answer it. It's Essex. "When you gon' get here, gal? We waiting on you!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Give me fifteen or twenty minutes, Essex."

"Okay, but hurry up." Essex been bugging me to get back down to the lanes ever since I got home from the hospital. I'm one of the few on our team that bowl 170, so they need me. They need me bad. LuEsther average 155 to 170, but she fluctuate from one week to the next, depending on how many hot flashes she having. Essex been bowling in the 180s for years. Me and him on a doubles team, but since I been out, he been forced to roll with Mr. Kentucky, who got a odor but don't nobody have the nerve to tell him. We just get out his path when he roll, 'cause he can bowl his ass off.

On the way, we stop by the grocery store and Shanice runs in and gets the pie, some apples, and some vanilla ice cream. When we get inside the Showboat, we walk down to the lanes, and when I look to the left, I don't see no familiar faces, so then I look to the right, and I still don't see nobody I know from our team in our usual lanes. I know I got this right. This is our "house." I start walking over to the bar area to ask Zenobia if she would put this ice cream in the freezer and where the hell everybody done disappeared to, and she just grins at me like a damn fool-showing off them two gold teeth that long ago stopped shining-and that's when, from behind me, I hear a whole bunch of Negroes yelling at the top of their lungs: "SURPRISE! HAPPY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY, VIOLA! AND WELCOME HOME, HUZZY!"

I'm scared to turn around, 'cause I might have a heart attack, but that's a chance I'm gon' have to take. When I do, Essex and the whole crew is holding a giant sheet cake with my name written in pink letters right across the middle and big yellow-and-mint-green roses up in two corners that I know they got from Costco. I forgot to tell Shanice that I do like Costco's cakes, 'cause they don't stick to the roof of my mouth like the other ones do, but I figure, if I let her roll my ball a few times, I can sneak and eat a litde piece and maybe she won't even notice.

Chapter 22

Burnt Toast

I don't know why I'm not scared. I should be, in this neighborhood: South Central. Jimmy was killed out here in a drive-by shooting. That was in 1985, when the term wasn't part of our vocabulary yet. It doesn't seem like it was nine years ago. In fact, if I were to drive down two or three blocks and turn a few corners, I could be right in front of the house where it happened. But I don't want to see that porch or the steps leading to it. I don't want to see the red grass or the burgundy sidewalk; the broken glass shattered and scattered like a map of the world ripped apart until every country landed in the wrong place. I don't want to remember the screams that sounded like sirens and the sirens that sounded like screams. Or the crowd, too many people-even litde kids-rushing to form a thick circle so they could experience the thrill of seeing another dead body being carried off to the morgue: another casualty in their own neighborhood caused by someone from their own neighborhood.