What They Found

  “Right.”

  “Then remember we were talking about her boyfriend, Martin?”

  “Don’t tell me you said something bad about her boyfriend?”

  “I didn’t say nothing bad about him even though he is a troublemaker. I even like his name,” Cheryl said. “He’s cute. Ain’t no two ways about it, the boy is cute.”

  “He’s an attractive young man,” Mama Evans said. “How old is he?”

  “Eighteen,” Cheryl said.

  “Then you and Evelyn left together,” Mama Evans said. “I thought you and her were getting along just fine.”

  “We were. She was going to tennis practice,” Cheryl said. “But I had just had my nails done over at the Korean place so I wasn’t playing no tennis. I didn’t spend all that money to get my nails broke playing tennis.”

  “Girl, you are really into your roots,” Mama Evans said. “African braiding and Korean nails. Go on with your bad self!”

  “Anyway, we were walking up to the park and we started talking about Martin again. I said they looked like the perfect couple,” Cheryl said. “She said that sometimes she wondered because when they walked down the street people turned around and checked him out before they checked her out because he was so fine. You know, Evelyn is sweet but she ain’t no Foxy Brown.”

  “Okay.”

  “I said she didn’t have to wonder about nothing,” Cheryl said. “Love is love.”

  “Sounds good so far,” Mama Evans said. “But how do you get from there to the idea of Martin being a troublemaker?”

  “Well, she’s still going on about how she’s not too sure because he’s so good-looking and whatnot,” Cheryl said, looking at herself in the mirror. “You know what I was thinking, too? I’m thinking I should get some highlights around my face to emphasize my eyes. What do you think?”

  “That might look nice,” Mama Evans said.

  “So then I said to Evelyn, ‘Hey when he’s making love to you and looking deep in your eyes, he must know he found himself something good.’ And then she said that they don’t be making love and looking into each other’s eyes.”

  “Cheryl, that’s kind of personal,” Mama Evans said.

  “No, it’s okay,” Cheryl said. “We’re girlfriends.”

  “Still …”

  “So if they weren’t looking into each other’s eyes I thought maybe he was into some freaky stuff,” Cheryl said. “Which is all right with me because what people do behind closed doors is their business. But then she told me they didn’t have sex at all. Nothing. Nada. No way.”

  “You know she’s religious,” Mama Evans said.

  “That’s what she started running down,” Cheryl said. “But then I asked her what did she do when he started asking for some. She said they had an agreement that they would wait until they got married. She said that’s what Jesus would do under the circumstances.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, Cheryl,” Mama Evans said. “There was a time when people thought that waiting until you got married was what you were supposed to do. And many people still do.”

  “Those were the olden days, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “This is today. You don’t know what Jesus would be doing today. When you see a brother that pretty and he can get any girl he wants, and he’s saying he don’t want nothing even though he’s in love, you got to start thinking about what could be wrong. Am I right?”

  “I hope I don’t see where this is headed,” Mama Evans said. “You know you’re letting your scalp get too dry. You can’t just take care of the ends and keep your hair nice.”

  “A friend of mine puts green tea on her scalp. It’s got antioxidants or something like that,” Cheryl said.

  “So I had to ask Evelyn did she ever think that maybe the brother is on the down low? Sneaking around and seeing men and stuff like that? She said that she didn’t think it and she didn’t believe it, and I could see she was getting into a huff.”

  “I wonder why!”

  “I was wondering myself, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “I’m just thinking about her. I know she didn’t want to spend five years waiting for this dude and then see him running off with a man.”

  “Cheryl, people have their own lives and they have to deal with them as they can,” Mama Evans said. “That girl was raised in a Christian home and she’s trying to live what she’s been taught.”

  “I know she’s good people, Mama Evans, but how I know what he’s up to?” Cheryl said. “I told Evelyn she needed to rub up on him a little and see how excited he gets. Then she could back off at the last minute if she wanted to, but at least she would know how interested the brother was.”

  “Or she could just take his word for it, Cheryl,” Mama Evans said. “Relationships are built on trust.”

  “Uh-huh. But I heard about a guy who was married twenty-two years and had four children and then one day he woke up and realized he was a stone homosexual,” Cheryl said. “He kissed his wife goodbye, left ten dollars on the refrigerator, and ran off with his mailman’s cousin.”

  “Who must have woke up that morning and realized he was a homosexual, too,” Mama Evans said. “Cheryl, I don’t blame Evelyn for being upset with you. It’s one thing to bring up issues and it’s another thing trying to solve them when they’re not really your business.”

  “She wasn’t that mad with me, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “She didn’t get really mad until the next week.”

  “Sometimes it takes a while to think about a conversation,” Mama Evans said.

  “No, it was the troublemaker that got her mad,” Cheryl said. “And he was the one that didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I was not going to let my homegirl get her feelings hurt if this guy was not going to show correct,” Cheryl said. “I knew I had to do something and do it quick!”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “I knew that if Evelyn was afraid to check the brother out I had to do it.”

  “You had no choice?”

  “Right. So I thought that I would talk to him and just push up on him enough to check him out. So I got his number from Wayne who lives over that Egyptian store where they sell the loose cigarettes. I called Martin and told him I had to see him about something very important concerning Evelyn,” Cheryl said. “I told him I was worried about her so don’t say anything.”

  “Cheryl, please don’t tell me anything I don’t want to hear,” Mama Evans pleaded.

  “So he said he would meet me and I told him to come over to my apartment on Thursday morning at ten o’clock. He said he had to be in school at that time and I said—”

  “Didn’t you have to be in school at that time?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but this was for my homegirl so I made the sacrifice,” Cheryl said. “Anyway, I told him to come over if he really loved her. He said he would be there.

  “He came over and I asked him if he really loved Evelyn and he said yes. Meanwhile, I had on my housedress and I was letting it fly open a little to see where his eyes went. They stayed right on my face and I wondered about that because most brothers, if they alone with a girl, will let their eyes wander all over the place.

  “He asked me what was wrong with Evelyn and I kept stalling and telling him I didn’t know how to tell him. He said he was going to leave and go ask her. I said if he asked and she told him they would probably have to break up. He kind of calmed down. Then I asked him to hold me because I was so upset.”

  “I know you washed your hair just before you came here because I can still smell the soap, but you didn’t rinse it enough.” Mama Evans took Cheryl over to the sink. “Did he go for you needing to be held?”

  “No, and that made me wonder even more.”

  “Cheryl, some men are just wonderful and pure and trying their best to do the right thing,” Mama Evans said. “You have to understand that.”

  “He said that he didn’t understand how him holding me was going to help Evelyn,” Cheryl said. “I
asked him why he was just relying on his brain and what he was thinking. I told him that Evelyn was my friend a long time before she was his. So he broke down and let me sit on his lap. When I did I let my housecoat just fall open so he could take a good look.”

  “And he knew exactly what you were doing, Cheryl,” Mama Evans said. “He’s not a fool.”

  “I could see that,” Cheryl said. “Which is why I went to plan B.”

  “Which was?”

  “I told him the problem wasn’t with Evelyn, it was with me,” Cheryl said.

  “Cheryl, please don’t tell me you were going after that girl’s man?”

  “No way! How I look trying to steal somebody’s boyfriend? As good-looking as I am I don’t have to be taking no hand-me-downs!” Cheryl turned her head to one side and put her hand on her hip. “I have never been desperate for no man. But I needed to find out if this man was messing over my best friend. So I said it was about me and all I needed was to have him one time and I would be satisfied.”

  “I need some aspirins,” Mama Evans said. “Sit under the dryer for a while, baby.” Mama Evans dried her hands, switched on the dryer, and went for the aspirins.

  The phone rang. It was Abeni asking if her boyfriend, Harrison Boyd, had called. Mama Evans said that he hadn’t. As she hung up she looked at the photograph of her husband, Troy, on the wall near the shop’s license. She wondered if he had ever experienced anything like the encounter with Cheryl.

  “Okay, sweetheart, there you are gaming on your best friend’s man.” Mama Evans sat next to Cheryl and turned off the dryer. “Go on.”

  “So I took off my housecoat and my slip and asked him what he was going to do.”

  “What did you have on then?”

  “Mama Evans, I was running out of ideas!”

  “Yes, dear, but what did you have on?”

  “I didn’t have nothing on, and I did realize that it was too late to turn back. He looked me up and down and then he told me to sit down. I sat on the edge of the bed. Then he asked me what I was doing. Only, Mama Evans, he leaned forward and he looked so sincere that I told him everything that had gone on before. I told him about me and Evelyn being in here having our hair done. I told him about how Evelyn said she was in love with him and how I was wondering if he was, you know, the kind of man that liked other men.

  “He took my hands in his and said it was a kind thing that I was doing. I told him to sit down because I didn’t like having to look up to him and he sat right next to me. He started talking about how he didn’t think I was the kind of girl that just messed around with anybody, and he was happy to know I really meant to keep him and Evelyn together.

  “I told him that I knew I was sacrificing my body and everything, but since it was for a good cause it was all right and that he shouldn’t feel bad about anything he did to me. He said I was one of the noblest women he had ever met. ‘You are willing to make a great personal sacrifice to make the world a better place. Not many people are willing to do that. Most people just want to talk a good game but they don’t want to get involved.’

  “By this time I was feeling a little bad because he knew what the whole story was and going on about how wonderful I was and all the time I’m sitting there buck naked trying to keep my thoughts pure and it wasn’t easy. You know when you’re naked and talking to some boy you don’t know that good, it’s hard to concentrate.”

  “If you say so,” Mama Evans said.

  “So then he said I should put my clothes on and we could go out for a soda. I said okay and got dressed and then we went downstairs and over to the coffee shop and he bought me a double latte. He made me feel really good about myself, which most boys don’t do, and I was even feeling good when he left. I thought it was over. He was sweet and he did love Evelyn, so I could see how he could control himself. That’s when I found out he was a troublemaker.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He went and blabbed to Evelyn,” Cheryl said. “She came right over that night and yelled at me! I’m the noble one and sacrificing and everything and she getting all hincty. He had already told her that we didn’t do anything … you know … intimate, but she was mad because he had seen me naked and hadn’t seen her naked. I said, ‘Well, you can solve that real easy. All you have to do is—’ ”

  “Cheryl, what is wrong with you?” Mama Evans shook her head from side to side. “The girl doesn’t want to have sex with the boy until they’re married, and she doesn’t want to go around parading in front of him naked, either.”

  “He was the one that started the trouble,” Cheryl said. “He could have just kept his mouth shut.”

  “And what would Evelyn have thought if you were the one to tell her that you had offered to solve her problem behind her back, and was sitting up naked on your bed with her man?”

  “She’d be okay if she didn’t jump to no conclusions, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “And that’s in the Bible. It says right there in … Judges or some place like that … it says don’t be judging people and don’t be condemning people. That’s in the Bible. Really, it is. So she shouldn’t even be mad.”

  “Cheryl, I definitely think you need some highlights around your face,” Mama Evans said. “You need as much light as you can get, darling.”

  “That’s just what I thought, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “Ain’t it funny the way we understand each other?”

  mama

  The alarm clock rang at seven and I turned it off quick. I knew Mama had been up mostly all night. Mikey didn’t move so I went over and pushed him in the back.

  “Get up and pee,” I said. “You got to get ready for school.”

  I waited while Mikey sat up for a minute and then fell back down on the bed like he always do. When I pushed him again he swung at me and missed. Then he got this mean look on his face as he slid out of bed. I don’t know how a four-year-old boy can learn to look so mean.

  Mama hadn’t opened out the couch. I looked at her face and it was a little puffy but not too bad. Her arm was scratched up so I knew her rash was messing with her again. I could hear her get up in the night but I didn’t hear her crying. That was good. I got the medicine from the jar in the refrigerator. She had enough for two more days. Then she had to go downtown to the clinic.

  “Mama?”

  She didn’t move. I pushed her shoulder a little, not too hard, and she made a little noise.

  “You got to take your medicine,” I said.

  “We got any juice?” she asked.

  I said no, and she said she didn’t feel too good. She had to take her medicine twice a day. It was already seven minutes past eight. Back in the room, Mikey was on the bed again.

  “Get up,” I said. “You got to go to school early. Mama’s sick.”

  “I ain’t going to school early,” he said.

  “You got to go early!”

  “You can’t make me go.”

  “Didn’t Reverend Glover say we had to take care of Mama when she was sick?”

  “He didn’t say I had to go to school early.”

  “I’ll give you seven cents if you go to school early.”

  “I don’t want your old seven cents.”

  “What you want?”

  “You make macaroni and cheese for supper?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “I want eggs for breakfast.”

  “We don’t have any eggs,” I said. “When we move to the big house we’re going to have one whole room with nothing in it but eggs and bread and pickles in jars.”

  “I don’t want no stupid pickles.”

  Mikey got dressed as slow as he could and I didn’t say nothing, because I knew if I did he would just sit down and start running his mouth. When he first started preschool he liked it just fine, but for some reason he didn’t like it anymore.

  I put on my white blouse, the one with the red and brown birds on the collar that I liked, and my dark blue skirt and then white socks I had just found and washed. They were dry so
I put them on and sat on the chair and looked in the mirror. They looked good and made me feel good. My knees were just a little ashy and I was going to put some Vaseline on them, but then I saw there was hardly any left in the jar. Sometimes Mama used it for her rash, even though it didn’t help much.

  Mama’s eyes were closed when she threw a kiss in the air.

  “You want to take your medicine before I leave?” I asked her.

  “I’ll take it later, honey.”

  Sometimes the medicine wasn’t easy for her to take. It gave her a rash on her arms and her back and sometimes on her chest. My friend Jamal’s mother, Mrs. Reed, said that the medicine also messed with the stuff Mama was taking to keep her off drugs.

  “You get six parts of this and six parts of that,” Mrs. Reed said. “And then you got to mix them all up and hope they keep your butt alive.”

  Mama was doing okay. She had stopped losing weight and stopped falling asleep when you were talking to her, but she wasn’t doing perfect. Not yet.

  I checked the calendar and saw the little red dot over the number. I had put the dots on the calendar to remind myself when there would be money in the Families’ account. Mama said they were “party days.” I hoped I wasn’t wrong. Mikey walked down the stairs slow on purpose, just hoping I would push him or try to hurry him up so he could mess with me. No way. I went with him all the way to school and didn’t talk to him at all. And I gave him some looks that let him know I meant business.

  The thing was, I didn’t want to have to spank Mikey. When Ronald, Mama’s old boyfriend, was living with us he gave Mikey a beating that made marks on his legs where he had hit him with the ironing cord. I hated Ronald. I still do.

  There were two teachers and a crossing guard standing in front of the school when we got there.

  “You people are sure early,” one of the teachers, a black woman, said. “How are you today, Miss Cummings?”

  “Fine, thank you,” I said.

  Mikey said, “I’m not going to stay unless you stay with me.”

  “Then I won’t make macaroni and cheese and I’ll tell Mama not to buy you anything for Christmas.”