Boaz Brown (7 page)

 
“Ain’t
 
nobody
 
fixin’ to call your momma.” Momma shook her head.

“My momma told me about you light-skinned women,” he teased her. “Y’all worked in the kitchen. Don’t know anything about
 
real
 
cookin’ for black folks.” Daddy sauntered back toward the living room to watch more of his game. “But you turned out all right, gal; you grew on me after a while.”

“Jon, please. Your momma said I was the best thing that ever happened to you. According to her, I rescued you.” She turned from her cooking and looked at him above the rim of her glasses. “And I thank God every day I never had to work in another woman’s kitchen.”

“Well, you can thank God
 
and
 
me. Somebody had to work around here.” Daddy headed toward the living room.

“I worked right here in this house! Matter of fact, I’m still
 
workin’. They ain’t come up with a retirement plan for full-time mothers yet,” she fussed. “And anyways,
 
your
 
mother didn’t work.”

“My momma knew how to make money stretch, though.” Daddy stopped in his tracks and pivoted to address any concerns Momma had about Grandmomma
 
Smith.
 

Please don’t get this man started on his momma.

“Watch out, now. We don’t want to talk about mommas,” Momma tempted him.

Daddy marched back into the kitchen. “I’ll call my momma up right now. I
 
betcha
 
she’ll hop out of that wheelchair and whip
 
anybody
 
try to jump bad with her.”

“So what are you saying, Daddy? You want us to use some Vaseline for the rolls?” I tried to bring the stand-off to an end.

Daddy waved his index finger at me. “Be careful, girl. You never know what you might have to do in a bad situation. You see how these white folks fixed that election back in two thousand? They never intended to let Al Gore become president. Had all those people in Florida
 
countin’ ballots like they were little elves or somethin’. If the blacks don’t get off their butts, we’re
 
gonna
 
be back on the boat!”

“Momma, is he still
 
talkin’ ‘bout that election?” I asked her.

“Just like it was yesterday,” she sighed.

I set the table while the rolls browned. We used Momma’s best dishes every Sunday. The main platters had roses in full bloom splattered around the edges, while the plates and saucers had tiny buds sparsely placed near the rim. The silverware was engraved with the letter S. Momma said that we used them every Sunday because we never knew when it would be our last.

She put the food in serving dishes, and Daddy went back to his lounge chair in the living room, looking over his shoulder every few minutes to see if we were ready yet.

In the natural process of bending over to get the rolls out of the oven, I must have given my mother an eyeful of my thighs and behind.

“You ain’t got
 
no
 
slip on under that dress?” she asked me, squinting to find a trace of silk or lace.

Why is she watching my behind?
 
“No, Momma, I’m not wearing a slip.”

“You got on a girdle?”

“Momma, people wear shapers and control-top pantyhose. Most women don’t wear those heavy-duty girdles anymore.”

“I don’t know who told you that!” She turned her back as she finished preparing the table, and talked to me over her shoulder. “In my day we didn’t like all our stuff
 
showin’ and
 
jigglin’.”

“I’m
 
jigglin’, Momma?” I managed to laugh through what I considered an outright insult, the kind that only your mother can get away with.

She sensed my dismay and compassionately explained her position.
 
“It ain’t
 
nothin’ wrong with you,
 
Shondra.
 
You’re a woman. You got the curves and lumps God gave his most beautiful creation on earth. But that ain’t for everybody to see. Shouldn’t nobody but you and your husband know the shape of your thighs, chile.”

“This dress is denim, Momma. I don’t need a slip under it. Nobody can see my lumps through this.”

“You’re supposed to wear a slip under
 
every
 
dress,” she fussed, taking hard breaths and willing her blood pressure to stay low. “I hope you ain’t
 
goin’ ‘round the saints at your church like that,
 
shakin’ your goodies and
 
provokin’ the men. They
 
gonna
 
think I didn’t teach you any better. They haven’t pulled you to the side and talked to you about it?”

“No, Momma. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone being taken to the side,” I said. “Are they still putting handkerchiefs over people’s knees at Gethsemane?”

“Any time we need to.” Her chin shook as she declared her church’s stance. The bun at the base of her head took on a life of its own, bobbing up and down as she continued her lecture. “Only reason your church ain’t
 
doin’ it no more is because y’all got that new pastor. That church ain’t been right since your old pastor died. Now,
 
that
 
man knew the way.”

“Leave her alone,” Daddy called from his favorite seat. “Your church’s got more devils
 
runnin’ around in long skirts than anything.”

“How would you know?” Momma called back to him, rising up from her slump over the stove and putting her hands on her hips.

“They’ve always been a bunch of fakers and shakers,” he teased.

“You be careful what you say about the saints.” She resumed the task of scooping macaroni and cheese out of the pot and into a quart-sized serving bowl.

It took me a while to figure out that the petty disagreements my parents had on a daily basis were actually how they communicated with each other. Despite the outward appearance of constant dissension, I don’t think either of them would have had it any other way.

At times like those, I wished that Jonathan were home. He was the only other human being who’d grown up at 700
 
Dembo
 
Street. He understood the atmosphere, the aura, the smells, and the memories there. He knew why the fourth canister was missing. He remembered the day I messed up the ceiling fan when my balloon flew up too high. We’d gotten whippings together with “the brown belt.” He knew that sometimes you had to turn the doorknob backward to open the front bathroom door. Jonathan also knew that no matter how much Momma and Daddy fussed, they had done the best they could to give us what they thought we needed.

Since we were kids, I’d envied Jonathan. It seemed he could get away with murder. As young adults, he seemed light years ahead of me spiritually. But since the Lord had begun working with me, I’d found Jonathan to be one of the most prudent people to talk to. I valued his insight, and I admired his wisdom at such a young age. I told him that once, and he told me, quite frankly, that he’d received it from God and there was more than enough to go around. With anyone else I would have been offended, but my little brother loved me. I appreciated Jonathan, and I missed him dearly. The house wasn’t the same without him.

Momma said a prayer over dinner, and we began eating. I enjoyed my parents’ company, for the most part. Though our time together sometimes reminded me of a roast, it was routine. Momma, on my left, could be hard to get along with, but she had good intentions. Across from me, a man who had worked hard all his life to provide for Jonathan, Momma, and me—and complained the whole time, although he wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d overheard him tell one of our neighbors, he had a good thing at home.

However, sitting there with them Sunday after Sunday made me all the more curious about my future.
 
Who will I eat Sunday dinner with when
 
I’m
 
sixty?
If it was nothing more than a few girlfriends, I wanted to eat with somebody.
 
Maybe by that time I might know how to make a decent pan of corn bread.

“Have you been seeing anybody?” Daddy asked me. He had a knack for starting in on me without warning. Daddy planted his elbows on the stained oak table, awaiting my answer.

“No, Daddy, I’m not seeing anybody.” I endured his line of questioning.

“What’s the holdup, gal? You’re not getting any younger. What are you now—thirty-five?”

“You know I’ll be thirty-one, Daddy. Where did you get thirty-five?”

“You’re
 
gonna
 
fool around and be an old maid,” he said. “Better quit being so choosy.”

“You leave her alone.” Momma jumped to my defense. “She needs to be choosy. We don’t want her with just anybody. Besides, women these days have other things on their minds. They’ve got a whole lot more opportunities than I had in our day, Jon.”

“Okay, am I not sitting right here?” I asked as they literally talked around me.

“Maybe she’s looking in the wrong places.” Daddy took a bite of his chicken, letting the grease run a moment before grabbing his napkin and wiping the trail.

“We need more choosy women with some kind of sense,” Momma laughed, getting up from her seat to get more ice. “Some of these girls today just don’t have any kind of standards about themselves. Just hop in the bed with anybody.”

My stomach leaped and I kept my head down low, chomping away at my food. I’d done a good job of keeping my business off the streets and out of the COGIC. Aside from the time Momma accosted me about the spread of my hips when I was a senior in college, there had been no other discussion about sex and me.

Momma went on, “And these Negroes today are just sorry! I don’t know how you do it,
 
LaShondra. From what I see on this TV, there ain’t hardly any good men left. But don’t worry, baby. God’s got somebody for everybody.”

“Somebody like me, for example,” Daddy added. His humorous side, my favorite persona, came forward. “I’m telling you,
 
Shondra, there are a lot of good black men up at the Postal Service. Who’s your postman?”

“I know you don’t think I’ve been sitting outside waiting to find out who delivers my mail. What am I supposed to do—take him a glass of lemonade?” I sassed.

“That’s how your momma lucked up on a good man like me,” he bragged.

Momma let
 
out
 
a sneaky laugh at the freezer door.
 
“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.”