At the end of our street, in the opposite direction of Stanley’s, where it dead-ended into blackberry bush, there was an old pink house. It was the largest on the street, bigger even than our home in Camp Lejeune, but the oldest by far. The crumbling Southern plantation leaned heavy on its foundation, like a Black woman exhausted from a day of picking cotton. It was pink—or it had been when the house had been built, likely hundreds of years ago. Now the pink had faded to a dull mauve, cracking and bubbling at the base of every column on a porch that wrapped around the house. Originally painted white, the porch, too, was peeling and faded. A hawk’s nest was perched on an upstairs windowsill.
Mya whistled in wonder as we approached. I felt like I was in some ancient Southern tableau and that, at any moment, a ghostly Confederate general would appear on the porch steps, smoking a cigar and declaring that the damned nigger-loving Yankees would be licked by Christmas.
Instead, a woman the color of the muddy Mississippi River’s banks sat on the porch steps. Her long locs were piled atop her head and wrapped in an intricate kente cloth. She wore a flowing blue dress as faded as her house. Twin wicker baskets rested on a lower step in front of the woman. As we walked closer, I could see the baskets were full of greens. The woman took long-stemmed legumes, snapped the ends off in a quick motion, and threw the pieces into their respective baskets.
As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to sketch her hands. They were exquisite. Her long, dark-brown fingers captivated me, entwined as they were in a fluid dance with the green beans. I couldn’t tell her age—she looked both young and ancient at the same time—but it was obvious, from her dark skin reflecting the morning light, that she was beautiful. Maybe Memphis won’t be so bad after all, I thought. All these dark-skinned women around me. So much to sketch. So many colors to paint.
We stopped near the bottom of the steps, and Wolf sat down, almost as tall as Mya, even when sitting. Hands are the hardest thing to draw. But this woman’s hands, with their ancient veins and hardened knuckles—I knew her hands would be my Mona Lisa, Cezanne’s Oranges, Monet’s Water Lilies, if I could get them just right.
“You two Miriam’s girls?” Her voice was pure Memphis. It sounded like the gunshot we heard the night before—sharp and yet slow, echoing far into the darkness of that night.
“How do you know who we are?” Mya asked.
The woman seemed surprised. “Y’all Norths all look the same. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that before?”
“I’ll give you this here pie if you let me come and draw you,” I said without thinking.
“Joanie!” Mya exclaimed. She pulled my arm, and I about near dropped the lemon meringue.
“Hush,” I whispered.
The woman chuckled and tossed another broken bean into her basket. “No need for all that. Why don’t you pick some blackberries ’round back and bring me back a cobbler? Draw me all you want if I get some.”
“Them your blackberry bushes?” I asked. I motioned with my head toward the left of her house, where the street dead-ended.
“I reckon so,” she said, “and yours now if you bring me some of your mama’s cobbler.” She paused, threw a bean in a basket, and said, “Why you want to draw me anyway?”
“I like your hands.”
“My hands?” The woman gestured with her right, holding a long green bean. “These things? Well now, I suppose they are rather magical.”
“When you snap, can you make my toys dance?” Mya asked.
“What now, honey?”
“Mary Poppins can. And she’s real magic,” Mya said.
I pinched Mya’s arm. “Don’t be rude,” I said, twisting her skin.
“No, your sister is right. Gotta prove it. My magic,” she said.
“Can you make a magic carpet so we can fly? Or can you make it nighttime right now?” Mya shrugged off my pinch, jumping up and down in anticipation of the magic she was about to witness.
The woman rose from her seat on her porch steps. She brushed off the remaining beans that stuck to the front of her dress.
Mya and I, and even Wolf, stepped back a bit. I imagined the woman would fling wide her arms, throw back her head, and chant some nonsense that would turn the sky instantly black. Instead, she stood there on her front steps and stared at me for a long time. It felt like I was looking at a solar eclipse—I knew I shouldn’t face it head-on, but I wanted to see the phenomenon through.
“Bury something of that boy’s,” she said.
My stomach lurched. There was no question she meant Derek. But how, what, did she know?
“Hair works best. A comb. Bury it deep in red earth. Do this at midnight. Tell no one.”
“And then?” I asked, trying to sound brave. “What happens then?”
The old woman smiled. “Then you’ll know Miss Dawn real magic.”
Two years after I stole Derek’s black comb from our one shared bathroom and buried it deep in the backyard while Mya stood over me holding the flashlight and chanting Hail Marys, two years to the day after my hands were caked in fertile Memphis clay, that boy was in jail.
CHAPTER 11
August
1995
August’s shop was full that Friday. In the far back of the split-level house, off the kitchen, there was a door that opened onto a sunken basement that, with three small steps down, led into August’s beauty salon. August had taken old record covers and decorated the walls with the faces of Diana Ross, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire. Lined against the west wall was a large basin sink for the shampooing and, in front of it, four black leather chairs with reclining backs. These seats were always, always full. Miriam could bake, but August could style. Cut, curl, condition, cornrow—she had a gift. Could make the most tore-up, ashy woman in North Memphis come out looking like Miss Diana Ross in the flesh.
A screened-in back patio attached to the basement also served as the shop’s waiting room. A few seats were stationed there as well for the women sitting underneath gigantic astronaut helmet hair dryers, waiting for their sets to dry. The back screen door served as the shop’s entrance, so the women wouldn’t have to come through the main house to get to it. A sign above the screen door, lettered in a frank black font, read, AUGUST’S, and underneath, NO CHILDREN, NO MEN, & WE EAT WHITE FOLK HERE.
Damn, August thought as her fingers softly kneaded a customer’s damp hair. Should I change the sign? Mya flitted in and out the corner of August’s eye. It had been two weeks since they arrived, but the girl had figured out how to work the jukebox in the corner the first time she entered the shop. August heard the unmistakable opening chords of Aretha’s “Respect.”
Well, at least the girl’s got taste, she thought. How the hell we survive off my shop money is anybody’s guess. Mya eats like a man. Shit, I hope Meer comes up with something, and quick.
She had two women waiting underneath dryers; the one she was shampooing that moment; Jade and her regular press ’n’ curl waiting for her on the settee; and she knew Miss Dawn would be in any moment. August did okay for herself and Derek with the shop money, but there had been months when bills had been paid late or the lights turned off. She qualified but had refused to go on food stamps. Pride. She almost laughed out loud now. Counting Wolf, her household had grown by three humans and one canine in a single morning.