“Boy, watch your mouth! And I don’t know why you acting like this. My brother ain’t never been nothing but good to you. You loved him when you was little.”
Uncle Warren wandered over, an unlit cigar in hand, asking what the problem was. And Lydia looked at him, assessing him like she would a dress. How to take this man apart and put him back together in the way she wanted.
She put a hand on Dante’s arm. “You know what, baby? Everybody’s going to Restaurant Beautiful later, and didn’t Tim say the best man should pick up the tab? And then we’re picking up that cake I ordered and some liquor, too, right? If your uncle wants to pay for all that, why don’t we let him?”
Uncle Warren backed away. He told them that was all right. He didn’t have to be no witness, but he’d come to the after-party. At Restaurant Beautiful, he piled up his plate, and when he passed the cashier, he pointed at Tim to pay. When he sat, he smirked at the head of the large table the women had made by pushing several together. He called to the other end.
“Nephew, you sure you can handle a fine redbone like that? That girl look too much for you.”
Tim whispered, “This nigger here.” Dante kept his eyes on his short ribs, but his uncle kept on.
“I’on’t know if you man enough. You always had a little sugar in your tank.”
Uncle Warren gestured with his cigar, and his sisters laughed: he played too much. But Lydia called back, her husband was more than enough for her, and she could handle whatever he was putting down. She channeled her granny and the church sisters at Red Mound. The ridicule they heaped on men, when they moved into a whispering circle. How they talked underneath men’s clothes.
“Talk about soft,” Lydia said. “How many years you got on you, Uncle Warren? ’Cause ain’t nothing softer than an old man. Now, me? I like me a young, hard man with a young, hard back. And that’s why I got me a real strong bed at home.”
Lydia stroked Dante’s shoulder and he gave her a long, deep kiss. He said he couldn’t wait for the honeymoon, but he might have to buy a new bed. ’Cause the way he was feeling, he was gone break that box spring tonight.
When Uncle Warren headed outside to smoke his cigar, his wife followed. The two did not return.
*
When Lydia’s mother had attended Routledge College in the 1960s, it had been against the rules for a female student to be married. A male could have a wife back home, along with children, and he was applauded for wanting to make something of himself, to push his family forward. But a young woman was admonished that her place was in the home. She needed to be there for her husband, to tend to his needs. Mama had scoffed at such male chauvinist nonsense. Women worked harder than men, she said. Most women could do anything they set their minds to, and for the rare woman who couldn’t, that fact was for her to find out. It wasn’t for a bunch of male administrators at the college to decide.
Yet the week after Lydia married Dante, she didn’t want to go back to campus. It wasn’t right for her, walking on the yard, headed to one building and then the next. Attending sorority meetings and deciding who would make it onto the new Beta line. Sitting in the refectory, eating the food that other hands had prepared for her while Dante was at home eating a hamburger and fries that probably had sat under a heat lamp because Lydia wasn’t there to cook.
She felt guilty for not being with Dante and guilty for not caring one bit about how Niecy was getting pushed around by the Betas, though she was already a member. Niecy was her friend, but Lydia wasn’t concerned about her fight to include more girls with high grade point averages on the new line, how Niecy had gone to Dr. Oludara to complain about how the Betas were too color-struck. Dr. Oludara was the oldest sorority sister on campus, and she didn’t believe in excluding young women from membership based upon the length of their hair, their weight, or their skin shade. But the problem was, Dr. Oludara hadn’t paid her sorority dues since the seventies. Her word didn’t carry much weight with Beta.
“I think I’m going to write a letter to the national chapter,” Niecy said. “I’m tired of this shit.”
Lydia flipped through a sociology textbook. She was behind in her lessons, but she couldn’t concentrate. The letters skipped around.
“What do you think about that, soror?”
“About what, Niecy?”
“My writing nationals about the Beta line.”
“That sounds good.”
“Will you sign the letter, Lydia?”