“Auntie?”
“Child, you better be telling me how sorry you are for making me wait and that’s it.”
I loved her. I knew where Mya had gotten her sass. It was genetic, apparently. Passed down through the generations.
“Auntie, I don’t want to be a doctor.”
She kept her eyes on the road, the streetlights flickering on in the darkening November evening, but she also reached out a hand to turn down Anita’s voice on the car radio.
I took that as my cue. “Listen, I’ve been talking to Professor Mason. And he says, he says there’s still enough time for me to apply. I’ve got ’til Christmas; that’s when the application is due. And Professor Mason says there’s a fellowship—just one—that they dole out once a year to an outstanding American application. A fellowship! That means a full ride, Auntie. Same as Rhodes. But this way, this way, I get to be an artist. They need a portfolio—that’s a series of paintings in all different mediums—sorry, I’m going on and on, but Auntie, will you sit for me? I have an idea for my portfolio. All the women in the neighborhood. Well, not all. But you, Miss Dawn, My, the beauty shop, Mama. Lord, I don’t know how I’m going to sketch Mama without her knowing.”
“Joan—”
“Maybe I can use old photographs for Mama…”
I couldn’t stop now that I had started. I could see my plan laid out before me like cobblestones I simply had to tread.
“Joan!” Auntie August shouted.
“Yes, ma’am?” I had forgotten myself, my place. My elder was Auntie August. I knew I was not honoring her by not listening. I held my peace, though it hurt to do so.
“Where?”
“Ma’am?” I asked, deferential in tone.
“Where, child? What school is this? What on earth are you talking about? I’m listening, I am. But I just have no idea what you’re saying, niece. Explain yourself.”
I did. The entirety of that car ride home.
By the time I finished, we had pulled up to our driveway and Auntie August had turned off the ignition of the Cadillac and reached into the car’s console for her pack of Kools. She took her time rolling down the old Caddy’s window, took her time lighting one. I knew from the way she exhaled her cigarette smoke that she was serious, deep in her thoughts.
“I can sing,” she said, exhaling a plume of cigarette smoke, then taking another puff. “You’ve heard me before. Don’t do it that often. Folk pass out. Honest. Once, years back, at your mama’s wedding, man fainted in a back pew. Had to be carried out. Hadn’t even noticed. Just went on singing Aretha in a way I do doubt Aretha could do it. But I never did anything with it. My voice. Not sure I wanted to, how folk went on and on whenever I let out a note. And well, I knew Who gave me this voice. But I did love piano. Wanted to play jazz. Loved Gershwin.”
She sat smoking in silence for a few moments before she continued.
“I will help you, niece. And I’ll work on your mama. Win her over. Guess I must. Because you have a gift. I think it’s high time somebody in this damn family with a gift use it.”
Auntie August finished her cigarette and, with a quick flick of her wrist, tossed the butt onto the driveway’s asphalt.
I began to gather my things, starting to think over what she’d said, but that’s when I felt Auntie August’s palm on my head. She began brushing back my stray hairs. My box braids, which she had done the month before, needed a bit of tightening in the front.
“I just may start praying after all. Because, Jesus Christ, who the hell going do your hair all the way over there in London, child?” she asked, as concerned as I’d ever heard her as she smoothed back my edges.