“I can. Sneak into his room when he’s sleeping. Whack him in the head with a pot.”
I laughed. Mya giggled. Elbowed me hard in the ribs. I pushed her back, gently.
We lay there for a moment, quiet. Turning toward her, I said, “Don’t you ever go in that boy’s room. Do you understand me? Not for anything.” I tried to sound as stern, as serious, as possible. Mya had to know that she could never, for any reason, ever, be alone with that boy.
Mya’s eyes reminded me of the deer we saw back at that rest stop: wide and wondering.
“Do you hear me?” I asked. “My. This is important.”
“Yes,” she said, echoing back my serious tone.
“Good. Now scoot over. I can’t sleep with you sweating all over me.”
“Well, I can’t sleep with your forehead being so shiny and bright,” Mya teased. “It’s like the moon.”
“Just think of it like that darn nightlight you’re so obsessed with,” I said. “Really, you should be thanking me.”
* * *
—
In the morning, the kitchen smelled like home—like flour and butter and bacon frying. Mya and I watched our mom and our aunt getting breakfast ready. It was eerie; they moved the same. The motions of their hands, their hips—they even flicked their wrists the same way when tossing a tomato slice into batter. Auntie August was just the taller, darker version of Mama. It was all a bit bewildering.
I had always been the dark one. Mya was an exact clone of Mama. Skin the same shade as butter pecan ice cream. They were bright. Their hair obeyed under flat iron or pressing comb or hair dryer. Mine did not. My hair was a thick forest of unruly curls. It did not listen to comb, nor to my prayers to God. Both Mya and Mama were small, petite slips of women. I was taller than Mya because I was three years older, but I likely would always be taller. Everything about my body was long: my legs, my arms. When Mya was mad at me, she’d call me the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. And my dark skin—Mama never treated me different from Mya because of it, bless God. But she didn’t have to. The neighbors did. My teachers. Girls, Black and white, on base. The people who worked at the grocery store. The parents handing me slightly smaller handfuls of Halloween candy. All those confused double takes, the outright stares. The pity behind their prolonged looks came next. Then the disgust.
And now it came with such clarity, watching my Auntie August drop green tomatoes into sizzling hot grease, that I took after my aunt. And she was a vision. Her skin was the color of late evening. I imagined drawing her. I wanted to get the length of her limbs just right, the curve of a high cheekbone. I wanted to put her on paper. Have her live there. Proof of dark beauty. I wanted the world to see and to be ashamed.
She started humming over the hot stove. Her voice, even softly humming a tune, sounded like a church bell ringing. My mom didn’t know, but Mya and I had stayed up late one night watching The Color Purple. If Auntie August wasn’t Shug Avery herself…
I didn’t know where Derek was, and I didn’t ask. Likely, still sleeping.
As we ate, Mama said, “Y’all girls take this pie down to Stanley’s when you’re done. It’s just down the street; you can’t miss it.” She wore an apron over her housedress, and her hair was still piled high in rollers. She was covered in flour. She set a lemon meringue pie down in front of us. It took everything in me not to stick a finger deep in its center and bring its sweetness up to my mouth.
“Take Wolf with you,” she went on. “She needs a good walk. And you tell Mr. Koplo it’s from me.”
“Girl, Stanley done died,” Auntie August said. My aunt stood over the stove, tossing the last of the fried green tomatoes back and forth in bacon grease, not taking her eyes off the pan.
“No!” Mama crossed herself, then pressed the cross at the end of her gold rosary to her lips.
“Same month as Mama,” Auntie August said. “Ain’t that something? But his son run it now. Good stock. Look just like him.” She flipped a green tomato over in the skillet.
“Why didn’t you tell me!” Mama shouted.
“Girl, you was eight months pregnant. Mama had just died. Wasn’t that enough hell?”
Mama sighed, turned to us. “Well, take it down to Stanley’s anyway and say it from the North family, and hopefully, his son will know why,” she said.
“I want to eat it,” Mya said.
August laughed.
“I made us our own pie,” Mama said.
Mama’s pies had been famous back on base. She’d pass them out as Christmas gifts to all the neighbors, our teachers, the mailman. During the holidays or any one of mine or Mya’s birthdays, our kitchen counter became caked with flour and meringue and branches of blackberries for the cobblers.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why she’d make us a pie? Are you crazy? They’re delicious,” Mya said, hitting me on the shoulder.
“No,” I said. “Why we got to deliver a pie?”
Mama sighed. I could tell she wanted us out of that kitchen.
“Because that family done your mama’s daddy a good deed back in the day,” August said.
“What do you mean ‘your mama’s daddy’？” I asked.
“If y’all don’t get out of this kitchen,” Mama said.
Mya slid out from the booth and attempted to balance the pie on the top of her head.
“August, get my children before I do.”
My aunt turned from the stove to see Mya’s balancing act. “Well, at least the oldest got some sense,” she said, and returned to cooking.
“Mya, if you drop that pie I spent all morning on…” Mama warned, ushering us out of the kitchen. I could hear in her voice that she was trying to conceal a smile. Wolf was already by the door, tail thumping against the Persian rug.
“Mother, hush. You raised us right,” Mya said in a strikingly accurate British accent, pie still balanced atop her head.
Mama opened the front door for us, shaking her head.
Wolf bolted out toward the two calico cats perched on the porch steps.
“Don’t burn my city down,” Mama called out when we reached the sidewalk.
“It’s our city now!” Mya shouted back in that same British accent.
“Where the hell did you learn that?” I whispered, then made the sign of the cross. I was convinced that if I crossed myself whenever I cursed, it would cancel out any sin.
Mya turned sharply, almost dropping the pie. “Mary Poppins! How can you—？ Don’t you remem— You sat right next to me and watched it, child!”
I rolled my eyes. My mom had been right; we could see the butcher’s shop from the sidewalk in front of the house, on the corner of the next intersection. If we turned to our right, we’d be there in a few minutes and back. But if we turned to our left…
Mya and I exchanged knowing looks.
“Right then, old chap, hold this,” Mya said as she handed me the pie. She whistled—something I’d never learned to do—and Wolf left the cats she had chased up a pecan tree and came to us.
“We still got to deliver it,” I said.
“Yes, yes, hush hush, old sport,” Mya said and attached the leash to Wolf’s collar.