“Whatever,” Cecily said. “Ain’t nobody tryna get with Malcolm Garfield. Ain’t his mama a white lady?”
The next day, when I entered the cafeteria, she waved me over to her table, and the next days after that, too. She and her friends were popular. I could see that from the way the other freshmen in the cafeteria looked in their direction, but Cecily and her friends never looked back, unless it was to point someone out for ridicule. She began joining me on the steps after school as I waited for Aunt Diane to pick up my cousin and me. I was glad Mama was on bus duty at the school where she taught, so that it was my aunt’s glossy Volvo instead of my mother’s old brown station wagon that pulled up daily.
My cousin sat with Cecily and me on the steps, but in the car after, I told him my friend and I had things to talk about. I lowered my voice: beside me, my baby cousin Veronica was napping in her car seat.
“Like, girl things,” I said. “Like really private things we’d be embarrassed to talk about in front of boys.”
“Are you talking about menstruation?” my aunt asked. “There’s no need to be shy about that. It’s a natural part of any young girl’s life, and he already knows—”
“Naw, naw, I get it.” Malcolm’s face was pink, as he fumbled with the seat belt. “It’s cool, killer. I’ll wait somewhere else. Do your thing.”
*
I’d never had a girlfriend before, except for Lydia, and a sister had to love you. That was the blood contract, and I supposed that’s why I had my father’s mother as a friend, too. Nana Claire wasn’t very nice, but she was family.
I was her favorite; or rather, I was the only grandchild she tolerated. My sisters weren’t to Nana’s liking, and the feeling was mutual: they made fun of her behind her back. Nor did she want to spend time with Malcolm. Boys were savages, she told me. She’d only tolerated her own sons as a mother’s cross to bear. And Veronica was going on five and thus too taxing on the nerves.
Nana was unlike any woman in my mother’s family. She wore coral lipstick to match her nail polish and powdered her nose and cheeks daily, even if she never left the house. Nana did not cook like my Chicasetta granny. The only recipe she knew by heart was for her Creole cookies, which she only baked on holidays. She employed a maid because she didn’t do housework. A lady had to worry about her hands, and Nana wore white cotton gloves to bed every night, slathering her hands with petroleum jelly before the gloves went on. She never went outside without a hat, and she warned me that if I wasn’t careful to protect my skin, I’d have the complexion of an old fishwife when I turned thirty. Nana never seemed to sweat, either. No matter how high the temperature, her brow remained fresh, and she was lovely smelling. Her aroma took you to a better place in the world, where there was no hunger or war or southern relatives who ate repasts of pig offal and covered their living room furniture in plastic.
Nana and I would take our Saturday field trips. I’d spend the night, and the next morning, we would dress in church clothes and take a taxi to Worthie’s, the department store downtown. I would sit outside the dressing room waiting for her. When she emerged wearing one of the conservative yet expensive outfits she’d tried on, I’d clap for her, as if she were a fashion model.
When we returned from shopping, we would sit in the anteroom outside her bedroom’s inner chamber. Nana in her wing chair, while I sat on the floor. She’d turn the pages of one of her photo albums. She had hundreds of pictures, some in albums, others in special binders. There were pictures covering the red-painted walls of the anteroom, too, in silver frames, and more in the bedroom. Pictures of my grandfather Zachary, whom his grandchildren had called “Gandee.” My father and Uncle Lawrence as small children dressed up for Easter. My sisters and me in matching, fancy dresses. My cousin Malcolm standing behind Aunt Diane, a hand on her shoulder as she held a bald baby Veronica.
She pointed to an older photo in the album. Tucked into four corner holders.
“This was taken at the Vineyard. 1938, I believe. Or ’39. It was before the war, though.”
“World War Two, Nana?”
“Yes, Ailey. How old do you think I am? That was almost fifty years ago, so I suppose I am close to my dotage. But don’t tell anybody that.”
Nana handed me another photo. “This is Mrs. Richardson and me when we were young girls.”
“I think I remember that lady. She died, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Poor thing. Breast cancer. Can you believe I was ever that young? That’s me, on the right. I’m the blonde.”