Unbeweaveable (23 page)

“That's Clarice,” she said, pointing to a short woman in the photo. “Paul's second wife. She shorter than sin, but she was nice.”

“What happened to her?”

“They divorced.
What is Alaska!”
Gloria shouted to the TV. “Yeah, they only lasted about a year. He got a beautiful girl out of it. Here,” she said, turning the page to the picture of a drooling baby in Paul's lap. He was smiling, but his eyes looked tired.

“That's Misty. She about your age. She live close by. She married and got a three-year-old little boy of her own.”

“Are they close?” I asked, not seeing many pictures of her in the album.

“Oh, yeah. She over here all the time. I'm sure you'll get to meet her.”

“Does she know about me?”

“Yeah, of course she does. I haven't called her yet, I know she gonna want to monopolize all your time. That girl's mouth runs a mile a minute. No, I'll call her tomorrow. But she's gonna be thrilled to meet you. Her boy is something else. Bad as all get out. But I love him.”

I looked down at the picture of Paul and Clarice. It looked like they were on some kind of picnic. “Was he happy with her?”

“With who? Clarice? They were okay together, but no, I don't think he was happy with her.”

“What about with Bev—I mean, my mama?”

“Oh, yeah. He was happy. But one person being happy in a marriage ain't enough. It takes two. And your mama had high expectations. Too high. He couldn't be what she wanted him to be, so she left.
What is Abraham Lincoln!
Yes! I'm good, ain't I?”

“You are good.”

Man in the Mirror

“So when do you think Paul is coming home?” I asked Gloria, sitting down in a faded blue recliner.

“He'll be walking in that door in just a minute. He always comes home after the six o'clock news. I need to start cooking anyway. You girls staying the night, right?”

“We already have a room in a hotel. We wouldn't want to put you out…”

“Girl, it wouldn't be any trouble at all. You don't want to be staying in no hotel—no, ma'am, not the way they clean up. You know one time on
20
/
20
I saw them inspecting the sheets in this high class hotel with this special light—”

“Ultraviolet,” I said.

“Yeah, an ultraviolet light. So, anyway, they check the sheets and see all kinds of bed bugs, and sperm and even doo-doo. Can you believe that? Right there on the sheets. No ma'am, you girls are staying right here. Tomorrow I'm gonna call the rest of my family. I'm fixing a big dinner in a couple of days in honor of you, Mariah.”

“Oh, Gloria, you don't have to—”

“I know I don't have to. I want to. Yes, ma'am, it's not every day that a woman finds out she has another grandbaby. This is amazing.”

“Amazing,” Renee said, smiling.

I hit her thigh.

“You girls ready for dinner?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Gloria laughed. “You two do that a lot. Talking at the same time.”

I heard the lock in the door turn and in walked Paul. My father. I stood, not sure if I should hug him again or shake his hand…How do you act around the father you never had?

He made the decision for both of us by coming toward me and putting me in his arms. He smelled of Old Spice, and I inhaled him like a bag of towels out of the dryer. Which led me to do a long coughing hack like a smoker of fifteen years, with Paul hitting my back and Gloria rushing to the kitchen to retrieve water.

“You all right?” he asked, as I took the glass of water. I took a sip, then nodded.

“I'm fine,” I croaked. I cleared my throat, and answered again in my normal voice. “Really, I'm fine. Thanks.”

He motioned for us to sit down and I did. Gloria mentioned something about dinner and dragged Renee in to help her. She looked over her shoulder for me to protest, but I just mouthed, ‘You'll be okay.'

“So,” he said.

“So.”

“You're about thirty, right?”

“Almost. Twenty-nine.”

“Right, right. Wow.”

“Wow.”

“So I have another daughter. This is just too—”

“Surreal?”

“I was gonna say strange, but okay. That'll work, too.”

Looking at him felt like looking in a mirror. He looked like me.
Someone
looked like me
.

“So you know the whole story with me and your mother?”

“Gloria was filling me in on some of the details. How did you two meet?”

“I met your mother at one of my college football games. I played for Texas State. She wasn't even supposed to be there; she told her parents she was at a friend's house studying. There was a big party afterward, and we got introduced and then, well, we fell in love. My mama warned me not to go off to school and fall in love, but I did anyway. Her mother was dead, but her father hated my guts. Beverly was supposed to go to Alvin Ailey, you know, the dance school?”

I nodded.

“But we were so in love, we didn't want to wait. So we got married. Her father had a fit. He was so mad at her. Told her she was throwing her life away, all her dreams. He used to make her feel so guilty—he would tell her how her mother would flip in her grave if she knew about her decision to quit dancing. I didn't want her to quit, either. We called the school and they were willing to hold her slot until the spring semester. We figured that would give us enough time to work and save up money to move. I dropped out of college, temporarily I thought, and we both worked. She was a waitress, and I worked at my uncle's shoe repair.

“Anyway, things didn't go as planned. But that's life for you, huh?” He shook his head. “Nothing went the way we thought it would.”

“Gloria told me that my grandfather tried to pay you off?”

“She told you about that? Man, Mama got a big mouth. Yeah, a couple of weeks after we got married, her father came down and said he'd pay me five grand to annul the marriage. I told him no, and he kept raising the price—got all the way to $25,000. But I wouldn't take it. I loved your mother. And no amount of money was gonna buy me off. I thought that would be the end of him, but he was smart, I'll give him that.”

He blew out a long breath. “Anyway, the plan was for us to work for a couple of months, and then go to New York. I would go to junior college, and she would go to the Ailey school. But then she got pregnant.”

“And she knew she wouldn't be able to dance.”

He nodded. “We were careful, you know, but I guess we slipped up…Not that we didn't want you, no, we loved you, it's just that—”

“I was an accident.” I shrugged. “It's okay, it happens.”

He put his hand on my arm. “I'm sorry, baby girl, is this too hard for you?”

I shook my head. “It's okay. I just didn't want to be the reason…” I stopped and bit my lip. Mama was a beautiful dancer. Exceptional. And I was the reason she couldn't live her dream.

“Hey, now, we all make choices. She made hers by marrying me.”

“Was she happy with you?”

“I think at first she was, but she was scared. It was the first time she was doing something on her own, and without her father's approval. She had a lot of doubt, especially when she got pregnant. I thought her father would stop speaking to her when she told him, but he must have sensed how scared she was. He played on that, kept telling her that she couldn't be a mother, and that we didn't have enough money for a baby. ‘Come home and I'll help you. You won't have to work if you just come home.' She started getting resentful. She quit her job, stopped helping out around the house. I should have talked to her, but I was scared, too, I had a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders. We started arguing. A lot. She started blaming me for not being able to dance, and she started…”

“Blaming me,” I said.

“You have to understand how miserable she was. It didn't mean that she didn't love you. It's just that she never adjusted to this life. It's hard living like this when you've had money all your life. She finally had enough and left. I found out later her father picked her up at the bus station. At first I was angry. Then I thought about how much I loved her and I just couldn't let her go.”

“So you went after her.”

“Yeah. Found her house, but couldn't get in the gate. I traveled all that way, and couldn't figure out to get past the security at the gate. So I parked outside and waited for her to leave. She had to leave one day, right? I never saw her. So I jumped the gate and scrambled to the front door, but they had some kind of silent alarm or something, because a bunch of police cars showed up, and I got arrested.”

“Did she come outside?”

His jaw clenched. “No. I shouted her name as loud as I could, but she never came outside.” He looked down and rubbed his hands together. “I sat in jail for a day, and then my mama bailed me out. She wanted me to leave her alone, but I just couldn't. Our baby was about to be born soon, I didn't want to be shut out of that, too.”

He sighed. “I started writing letters, begging her to come back. They never got returned so I figured she was reading them. Then I got the divorce papers.”

“But you kept writing. Why?”

He shrugged. “I knew Beverly couldn't have been so cold as to not read them. I thought…I don't know what I thought. I made a lousy father on paper, so she got full custody and I was granted holidays.”

“But I never saw you—”

“I know. I tried those first couple of years, but I could never get in touch with anyone.” He shrugged. “I'm sorry, baby girl, but I just got tired of trying.” He looked at me, a single tear running down his face. “But I never stopped loving you. I want you to know that.”

I put my hand on top of his. “I do.”

* * *

“Dinner looks great,” I said as I looked down at a plate of fried chicken, fried corn on the cob and fried okra.

“I think I'm about to have a heart attack,” Renee whispered as we bowed our heads as Paul said the blessing. His prayer was short and eloquent. The food was seasoned well, but left enough grease on my lips to slick down my kinky hair. Renee was right, a few more days of this and we would all be in the hospital. I reminded Gloria of my ulcer and she heated up a can of chicken soup. That and a few saltines was all I ate.

“Ever since the doctor said I was a diabetical, I have to include vegetables in my diet,” Gloria said.

“Does it still count as a vegetable if it's battered and fried?” Renee asked.

“Renee…” I warned.

“What? I'm just asking…”

“Yes, ma'am. Corn is still corn, even if you fry it. You can't change what God made, baby. I don't turn vegetables into anything but what they are, vegetables,” she said, tearing into a large chicken leg. “To me the best part of fried chicken is the skin. I always wanted to open up my own restaurant—”

“Mama, don't start with that chicken skins restaurant—”

“Why not? It's a great idea.” She looked at us. “What do you think of eating at a chicken skins restaurant?”

We looked at each other. “You mean a restaurant that only sold chicken skins?”

Gloria nodded. “Fried, of course. You could get them by the pound. You know, a pound of fried chicken skins and a side of fries?” She licked her lips. “I can't think of anything better.”

“I keep telling you, Mama, that idea won't work. People don't want to eat just fried chicken skins. They want some meat, too. Besides, it's wasteful. What would you do with all the chicken that you didn't use? Throw it out?”

“Absolutely not. We wouldn't just have chicken skins. We would have a variety on our menu. But the focus would be on the skin. Even got the name picked out and everything—
Slide Me Some Skin
. Sounds great, huh?”

“Sounds pornographic,” Paul said, taking a bite out of his chicken. We laughed.

“Oh, hush,” Gloria said, smiling.

Several times I caught Paul stealing glances at me. After about the fourth time, I asked him if something was wrong.

“I'm sorry, was I staring?”

I nodded.

“It feels weird to sit here and eat with you. My daughter is here.” He shook his head. “I knew you would be beautiful, but I didn't think you would be this pretty.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you like her hair?” Renee asked.

“Renee…”

“No, I want to get his opinion. So what do you think?”

“I think it looks nice. It fits your face.”

“I love it,” Renee said.

“I do, too,” I added. “Well, now I do.”

“Would you believe that she used to wear a head full of weave?”

Paul laughed and Gloria shook her head.

“Don't go telling Misty. Ever since she started sportin' that natural, she thinks every woman that wears a weave is trying to be white. That's not what you were doing, was it?”

“No, ma'am, I just liked the look.” I threw Renee a glance, and she just shrugged.

“You can get away with any hairstyle you want, baby girl.”

“Thanks, Paul.”

“Why do you keep calling him Paul?” Gloria asked. “He's your daddy. You don't need to be calling him by his first name. Just like you shouldn't be calling your mama by her first name.”

“Mama, Mariah can call me whatever she feels comfortable with.” He turned and looked at me. “You don't have to call me Daddy. I know all this has to be hard on you.”

“No, it's okay. Actually, calling you Daddy sounds good.”

He smiled, long and wide.

“You sure you don't mind?”

“Not at all. Daddy.”

He smiled again.

“Looking at y'all makes me want to call Maury Povich. He had a show last week talking about finding baby daddies—”

“Mama, we would not fit in on Maury.”

“Yeah, now that I think about it, you're right. What about Oprah? Always did want to meet her friend Gayle. It looks like she wears a weave, too, don't it, Mariah?”

“I guess.”

“Yep, I think I'm gonna call the Oprah show and tell them I got the perfect show.
‘
Long-Lost Daughter Comes Home—A Family Reunites.' That's a good idea…”

“That is
not
a good idea, and you are not calling them.”

Gloria frowned. “Spoil sport.” After a few beats she asked, “What about a letter to that magazine of hers?”

“No,” we all said in unison. We looked at each other and broke into laughter.

“Yeah, you Paul's daughter, all right. Same attitude.” She sighed. “Y'all ready for dessert? I fried up some plantains and Snickers.”

“Yum-O,” I said.

“Kill me now,” Renee whispered.

* * *

“Well, who would have thought our day would have ended like this?” Renee asked as she pulled down the comforter on the bed.

After going back to the hotel and getting our things, we were both in Gloria's guest bedroom. The wood paneling was painted dark green and matched the worn carpet. I felt like I was lost in a forest.

“I still feel weird about all this,” I said as I changed into my pajamas. I stood in front of a gilded mirror on top of a wooden dresser and smoothed my short hair down and wrapped it with a scarf.

“Your father really has taken a liking to you.”

“I know! It's weird how comfortable I feel here.”