Celeste's Harlem Renaissance (15 page)

One end of the
L
was where we were in her front room, with enough space for a couple straight-back chairs, a divan, and small tables covered with pretty crocheted doilies. The middle part of the
L
held her sink, an icebox, a stove, and cupboards. The bottom part of the
L
was where her bed, closet, and dresser were located. She even had a tiny lavatory space where she kept her chamber pot and a bowl and table for washing up.

Well, here I was in somebody else’s place. Just call me Leap Frog, hopping from one lily pad to another. Would I ever return to my own lily pad back home?

Chapter
Eleven

F
uzz, lint, dust balls — Gertie, did you roll your head around on that dirty floor under your momma’s bed again? My goodness!” Miss D had locked Gertie between her knees. Gertie squirmed worse than a worm impaled on a hook. “See how pretty Cece’s hair is, and how nice and quiet she sits, like a lady? Cece, your hair’s growing good now, enty.”

I wanted to tell Miss D I’d rather be back in our room. Instead, I said, “Yes, ma’am. Aunti uses Madam Walker products on it, and I brush it every day.”

“Why’d your Aunti cut her hair?” Gertie asked between twists. “She got head mange or ringworm? Or lice?”

“None of ’em, Gertie,” I said patiently. This was going to be a long three or four days for me with ole nosy Gertie here.

“She had to cut it, to stay in the show,” Miss D told her. “She took the path of least resistance.”

I stiffened a little. “I pray I don’t sound sassy, but what does
that
mean?”

“Rather than stand her ground and fight for what she believes in, she just changes her tune to satisfy the other fella.”

“Did she do something wrong?”

“No, she did right. Her boss said she had to cut it, so. And to have you stay with me while she’s on the road was right, though you may not think so. The road’s rough enough for grown women, let alone young girls like you, still wet behind the ears.”

My ears are quite dry, thank you. You think I’m still a baby.
But I kept all that to myself.

Miss D glared down at Gertie. “Girl, I’m warning you! Jerk away from me one more time and I’ll pull every strand of hair out your hard little head!” I held my hand over my mouth and coughed, but actually I was hiding my smile while Gertie and her grandmother tangled. After a while Gertie quieted down a little and that ended the show.

“Miss D, do you go to church on Mother’s Day?”

“Oh, I used to go every Mother’s Day, every Easter, every Watch Night, Women’s and Men’s days all the time in South Carolina. I work some Sundays now, you know, but I go when I can. My son down in Carolina sends me a Mother’s Day card sometimes. But back to Val — except for a wedding or a funeral, she’s not been inside a church up here once, and I’ve known her for over fifteen years.”

“She went with us to St. Paul,” I said softly. That was while Momma was still alive. We hadn’t been to church since I’d been here with Aunti. She was always too tired come Sunday.

Miss D leaned toward me a little. I thought I saw sympathy in her eyes. “One thing I think she did do wrong, though, was to tell you she’d be back in three or four days. She won’t be back that quick, not in time for Mother’s Day.”

“Oh. But she said she would.” I stopped. Maybe Miss D knew something that I didn’t. “So was she telling another falsity?”

“No, she means to be back, but she just won’t be.” She shrugged. “I’ve waited on her time and time over the years to follow through on one thing or another, but half the time she don’t. She means to, but she don’t.” Her mouth pulled down. “I hate to be telling you these things, but I want you to know the truth. It’ll work out, honey. But now tell me how I can get this child’s teeth to grow. Short of taking her to a doctor or a dentist. I ain’t got that kind of money.”

“Drinking milk and eating green vegetables are always good,” I said, still chewing over what she’d said about Aunti.

“No! Milk is nasty and’ll give you tapeworms,” Gertie said with her face squinched up.

“There she goes again with that tapeworm stuff. Cece, her momma loves to tease her with such tales.”

“Down home, folks get tapeworm, hookworm, and such when they don’t wash their hands after using the outhouse, or when they walk barefoot around outhouses and pig poop,” I told Gertie. When Miss D nodded, I went on. “Gertie might like milk more if you put something in it to sweeten it up. Or maybe it’s the cow milk. Folks would tell Mr. Hodges and Poppa all the time how cow milk hurt their stomachs.”

“That’s true.” Miss D waved her comb at me. “I never drunk cow milk when I was a child. We always drunk goat milk. Folks don’t drink goat milk much anymore. Everybody wants bottled milk from a cow. Except this child. Well, tomorrow I’ll carry us over to Marley’s grocery. That’s a Jamaican store. You’ll like Marley’s. It’s got herbs and spices for most anything that ails you and for cooking, and food like goat milk, and —”

“I ain’t drinking no billy goat milk!” Gertie shouted.

“But you got to grow teeth! Thank you, Cece. I clean forgot about sweetening the milk. You’ll make a good root worker.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m gonna be a doctor, not a root worker. Momma said ‘root worker’ sounded too much like we used voodoo.”

Miss D waved her hand at me. “Root worker, voodoo doctor, hoodoo doctor, doctor — whatever works is fine with me. ’Cause I’m a Baptist, anyway. Where can a Colored girl get doctor training down in Carolina?”

“Maybe I could go to medical school up here in New York,” I replied.

Gertie broke free of Miss D’s knees and, jumping up and down, swung her little hips. “Lemme see that doll do some hoochie coochie!”

Miss D dropped the comb into her lap and blew out her breath. “I need a break. Cece, would you please get out that doll?”

I assembled Miss Pinetar and began singing. We had Gertie bouncing up a storm with Miss Pinetar until she got so tired she had to take a nap. While she slept, Miss D finished braiding her hair, and wrapped string around each braid to make it harder for Gertie to pick apart.

That night after I’d brushed my hair and said my prayers, I lay on one side of Miss D in her big lumpy bed, thinking. Gertie lay on the other. Had Aunti reached Washington yet? Was she drinking champagne and eating caviar or octopus at a party? Was she rehearsing? I knew one thing she
wasn’t
doing: she wasn’t scrubbing floors, and praise the Lord neither was I. I grinned in the dark.

One thought caused my smile to fade. Why would Aunti be so nonchalant about Mother’s Day? She didn’t understand that this was an important day to me. When Momma was living, I’d give her flowers, and draw Mother’s Day cards to give her. Momma, Poppa, and I would get spruced up and go to church. We’d eat a big dinner at church afterward or at home, and sometimes have the Smithfields over. Then Momma and I’d take dinners to the sick and shut-ins.

After Momma passed, Poppa, Aunt Society, and I went to church on Mother’s Day, but it was terribly wrenching. Poppa and I cried and cried, and even Aunt Society sniffled. Then we laid our cards and sprigs of white azaleas from our bushes on Momma’s grave and cried again. Last Mother’s Day, Poppa felt too sad and sick to go anywhere, but Aunt Society and I did. After church I put our cards and flowers on her grave. I spent the rest of the day lying on the couch with Poppa and listening to the Westrand. For once Aunt Society didn’t complain about using too much electricity. But now, so far away from Momma’s grave, what could I do in her memory? I decided to think warm thoughts about her and keep her memory strong in my mind and in my heart. I’d give thanks to the Lord that I had had such a kind, sweet Momma.

Nobody teased me back home for being motherless; Evalina and Angel Mae would have beat them up. Thinking about my momma and my friends, I cried in the dark without making a sound.

The next morning as soon as we left the boardinghouse for Marley’s grocery store, Gertie fell down on her back in the street and rolled around. “Oh Lordamercy not today,” Miss D moaned. “Gertie, stand up and walk like you got good sense.”

Gertie screamed. Her white sailor suit was brown with dirt. I bent over her writhing about like she was having a spasm. “Is she having a fit?”

“No, but I’m gonna give her one,” Miss D growled. She grabbed Gertie under both arms, lifted her to her feet, and shook her a little. “Gal, you better straighten up and fly right before I smack your braids loose. Why you got to act so silly? I declare!”

As Miss D dragged Gertie up the street, she told me that when Gertie was a toddler, Gertie’s mother had carried her whenever she got even a little bit tired. “Gertie learned early that if she fell out, her momma would pick her up. So she did and still does. And her momma still does! Her momma’s about as smart as a sack of rocks. Cece, some children get raised up, some get hauled up. Gertie gets hauled. I wish I could keep my darling grandbaby with me all the time. I’d straighten her out.”

We all three knew Miss D wouldn’t hit Gertie, no matter what she did. Right off, her darling set off such a pitiful whimpering and whining that Miss D half carried, half dragged her the rest of the way. Aunt Society would have left Gertie on the ground to get run over by a motor car. I would have, too.

When we reached the store, Gertie stood up straight as a lamppost and started talking like she had good sense. “Grammaw, buy me some chocolate cookies and some peppermint balls, please.”

“You’ll not get a thing, acting like a fool,” Miss D snapped. At that Gertie screeched like she’d truly been smacked upside the jaw — which was what I yearned to do. People edged away from us while Gertie bawled. Like Miss D said, the store shelves were stocked full with bags and strings and bottles of herbs, but I didn’t get a chance to look around much with that gal’s mouth going off like a fire alarm.

I hurried around the store to buy my little bag of red licorice, and in one herbs and spices section I grabbed up a bunch of fresh lambs’-quarter leaves to make a spring tonic. Miss D and I quickly paid for our purchases and left. Gertie was madder than a wet cat now because she didn’t get any treats. She screamed and snotted, fell out, and picked her braids, with Miss D yanking her along by the arm and fussing. But as soon as we entered our boardinghouse, Gertie shut up and walked normally again.

“She’s scared her little narrow behind’s gonna get smacked now,” Miss D told me in the lobby, “now that she’s home, enty.”

“I love you, Grammaw,” Gertie whimpered, blinking her big brown eyes at Mrs. Tartleton, who ran the boardinghouse, while hugging her grandmother around the waist.

“Oh, Gertie, aren’t you a sweet little thing?” said Mrs. Tartleton. I spoke to Mrs. Tartleton, but grunted when Miss D melted. Gertie was a better actress than Aunti sometimes.

Upstairs in her room Miss D poured out a cup of goat milk, handed it to Gertie, and began putting the other food away. She told me to get some milk, too. I’d drunk goat milk before. As long as I didn’t smell it, the taste was tolerable. I hadn’t drunk any kind of milk since I’d left Raleigh — Aunti Val never bought it — so even goat milk was a treat.

I watched Gertie suck up a mouthful of milk and let it dribble from the corners of her mouth. Miss D turned to see Gertie blow bubbles in the cup, which made her sneeze. Goat milk splashed all over her face. “Stop that!” her grandmother hissed. She took away the cup and wiped Gertie’s face.

“You drink that stuff you’ll get a tapeworm in your gut,” Gertie told me. I examined the milk to see if anything moved in the cup. “My momma said tapeworms in the milk make my stomach hurt.” She picked at a braid.

“Not in New York,” her grandmother said. “Leave that braid alone and drink that milk, Gertie!”

Gertie’s momma isn’t very bright,
I thought,
to tell her child such falsities.
Aunti had said that Gertie’s poppa wasn’t too bright, either. No wonder Gertie was so goofy. I swirled a stick of licorice around in my milk and sipped some through the candy.

“Why’d you do that?” said Gertie, eyeballing my licorice.

“To make it taste sweet. You gonna drink your milk?”

“Through the licorice,” she said with her hand out. When her grandmother said she had to drink more milk first, Gertie took a sip, then drank almost all of it. I gave her a small piece. She popped it into her mouth, sucked on it, and waggled her head back and forth, smiling.

“Praise be to the Glory,” Miss D exclaimed. “We spent all morning getting one cup of milk down this child. Now I got to go clean Mrs. Manowitz’s house. You want to go with us, Cece, or you want to stay?”

“Stay,” I said. I didn’t want her to be tempted to have me scrub Mrs. Manowitz’s floors for her.

“Then Gertie can stay here with you.”

“Oh please, no, Miss D. I can’t handle Gertie. And — and I need to go back over to Aunti’s so I can, uh, wash out my clothes and dust the furniture, you know, and —”

“Miz Manowitz’s got a dog from Mexico that looks like a rat. Gertie’s scared to death of it. I hate to take her. But I know my grandbaby’s a handful. C’mon, Gertie, put on your clean waist so we can go. Here’s my house key, Cece. We’ll be back before night.”

She had a million precautions for me to follow — keep the doors locked, don’t turn on her stove or Aunti’s hot plate, don’t wander around outside, and so on and so on. I just “yes, ma’amed” her. She must have forgotten that I had stayed by myself many times when Aunti was gone. As soon as they left, I returned to Aunti’s room and sang, “Aunti’s comin’ with loads of dough, she’ll be a star, we’ll go to Raleigh, don’t you know!”

As I filled the sink with hot water to wash my stockings and other garments, I daydreamed about us returning to Raleigh draped in furs and throwing money into the air. How would Aunt Society get along with her now? Probably like an old cat whose space got invaded by a young one. I laughed. But why wouldn’t Aunt Society write to me? I frowned and slapped my sudsy skirt on the washboard. I was tired of getting upset because I hadn’t heard from her. I paused. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she’d contracted tuberculosis, too. I shook my head and scrubbed harder. Aunt Society never got sick. Even cold germs were too scared to cross her path. Old bat.