“Mama, don’t leave,” they’d screamed. “Mama, please don’t go!”
The Definitions of Siddity
A week after the funeral of my great-grandmother, Mama and I packed the station wagon again and left my sisters behind in Chicasetta. Coco insisted on taking the bus back up to New Haven, and Lydia drove her little car the twenty-five miles over Highway 441 to her own college campus. I should have been excited: Finally, I was starting at Toomer High, but I didn’t have anybody to help me get ready. To make sure I looked like I was in high school.
When I was little, Lydia would unravel my four braids, oiling my edges with the blue grease from the medicine cabinet. She’d put ribbons in my hair, and tell me I was beautiful with my brown face and my brown eyes. It didn’t matter what Nana Claire said. She was just jealous of me, because she was pale as a corpse and you could see her creepy blue veins. And brown skin was the most beautiful, so I could sit in the sun as much as I wanted. Nana was mean, Lydia insisted. I shouldn’t pay any attention to her.
I wanted a teenaged hairstyle, instead of braids, for the first day of ninth grade. Lydia would have helped me to wash my hair and roll it, so I could sit under the dryer. But Lydia wasn’t there, and Mama told me nothing was wrong with my hair the way it was. She’d been saying that since middle school.
The morning of the first day of school, I gave myself a pep talk while looking in the bathroom mirror: You’re absolutely fine! It’s going to be okay! It’s a new school this year, and you’ll be really popular there!
A knock on the door. A rattling of the doorknob, but I was locked inside.
“Are you in there talking to yourself?” Mama asked.
“That’s my business,” I called. “But it’s an intelligent conversation.”
“Don’t you get smart with me, little girl.”
I looked at myself and then took down my braids. I pulled my hair back in a long ponytail, sprinkled some water on my edges, and brushed them down. There. That might do. And in my room, I dressed in my best jeans and name-brand, button-down oxford shirt. I put shiny pennies in my loafers and repeated my inner pep talk. But the kitchen felt bigger with only me at the table, as my mother clicked around in her schoolteacher’s outfit, her high heels and green dress. She forgot to tell me how pretty I was without Lydia there to remind her. There was a loud greeting at the front door as Aunt Diane let herself in with her key, followed by my cousins Malcolm and Veronica. Malcolm went to Toomer High, too, so we’d be riding together.
When the station wagon pulled up to the front of school, my mother stopped the car and unclicked her seat belt. I begged her, for the love of God, to please just drop off Malcolm and me. We already had our homeroom assignments and our class schedules. Please don’t embarrass me. Mama’s face was hurt as she fastened her seat belt again.
In the front hallway of the school, Malcolm hovered.
“You okay? I can walk you to your homeroom. That was mine, three years ago.”
“I’m fine, okay? This isn’t the first day of kindergarten. I’m not Veronica.”
He tapped my shoulder lightly. “All right, then, killer. Hold it down.”
By lunchtime, I was feeling hopeful. A girl in my English class had told me she liked my shirt and my penny loafers. She was adorable. Brown with deep dimples and curvy by fourteen-year-old standards. Her relaxed hair fell below her shoulders, there were gold hoops in her ears, and her brand-name oxford shirt was identical to mine, except it was pink while mine was lavender.
“You look dope, girl,” she said.
“Thanks!” I said. “You, too.”
Her name was Cecily Rester, and in the cafeteria she waved me over to the table, where she sat with four other stylishly dressed girls. I’d been walking beside Malcolm, but when she waved I put more distance between my cousin and me.
“Is it okay if I sit with those girls?” I asked.
“Do your thing, killer.”
He headed over to a table of guys, and I set my tray down at Cecily’s table.
“Is that your man?” she asked.
“Definitely not! He’s my cousin.”
“Ooh, girl! That’s good, because that dude’s a nerd.”
Everyone at the table laughed. If I laughed, I’d be disloyal to Malcolm, but I did anyway. I told her I couldn’t help who I was related to. They laughed again, and I looked over at my cousin.
One of the other girls said that he might be nerdy, but he was fine as hell, with those waves. He looked like El Debarge.