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.