“’Cause you my baby.”
“Hey, y’all.” Mrs. Bradley sat down in a chair across, making a huffing noise.
“Good afternoon.” The sisters spoke in tandem.
Lydia gestured politely with the fork. “Have some, Mrs. Bradley?”
“No thank you, darling. The doctor say I’m not supposed to eat no beef. Say it run my pressure up.”
“You sure?”
“You go on ’head and eat that.”
Mr. Harris came through the door. “Look at this! I need to take a picture! My brother’s girls. Man, I miss Geoff.” He began to talk about the old days, when he and the sisters’ father had worn dashikis. He clapped his hands in mirth. “Geoff tried everything to get his hair nappy! One time, he washed his hair with Ajax and it turned green. He had to shave it down to the scalp.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Ailey said.
“I remember that man,” Mrs. Bradley said. “I thought he was white, but then I seen him with your mama. When did he pass?”
“Last winter,” Mr. Harris said. “It was sudden. He didn’t suffer. Your sister called me and told me about the funeral. I didn’t know until then.”
“Coco called you?” Ailey asked.
“Yeah, but it was too late,” he said. “I hate I—we—missed the service.”
Ailey listed the attendees at the homegoing, saying the service had been lovely. The family from Chicasetta. Some folks from Red Mound. Her old playmates, Boukie Crawford and David James.
Nana wasn’t there, though. She informed Lydia that their grandmother had had a stroke and couldn’t travel long distances. Lydia didn’t say anything.
“But it was a real nice service,” Ailey said. “And there was a barbecue for the repast.”
“Ooh, girl!” Lydia said. “Daddy would have loved that!”
“Yes, my brother was hung up on that swine,” Mr. Harris said. “And it’s just not good for you.” He began quoting from a medical journal he’d borrowed from their father when he’d still been alive. Daddy had told Mr. Harris he was in excellent health, probably because he’d become a vegetarian.
Mrs. Bradley snorted. “You probably gone die early from all that lettuce. And ain’t nothing wrong with pork. You just got to drain the fat, that’s all.”
Whenever the two elders debated, the sisters would lean back, exchanging discreet pokes, and back at Lydia’s apartment, they marveled, older Black folks were the same everywhere you went, weren’t they?
It had taken months for Lydia to let Ailey into her apartment, to the two rooms, the kitchenette, and bathroom. The thrift-store odds and ends. An old TV with an antenna. There was no cable for the television, but there was a bookcase filled with books. The antique sewing machine in its cabinet, covered by a length of blue satin, and Ailey asking, where had she found it? It looked just like Dear Pearl’s.
“I know, right?” Lydia said. “I couldn’t believe it when I found those at the thrift shop! White folks throw out the nicest things.” She didn’t want to tattle on their father, even though he was dead. That he’d sneaked out the sewing machine from their house and brought it to Lydia.
“Girl, this is cute!” Ailey said. “It’s all, like, arty and stuff.”
She could have anything in the refrigerator that she found, Lydia told her. There wasn’t much, but she always kept water because she liked it cold. The same as Miss Rose, in a quart mason jar with a piece of plastic wrap over the top.
The bedroom was off-limits, unless Ailey had to pee. The first time she’d walked toward the closed door, Lydia had jumped from the couch and asked, where was she going?
When Ailey came out of the bathroom, Lydia was standing next to the bed. She knew that her sister had checked the medicine cabinet, that she’d lied about her bladder, and then flushed the toilet and ran the water while she did a quick search. Wasn’t she a Garfield woman? But there was nothing in there but off-brand tampons up top, and some bleach and washing powder in the lower cabinet, along with a hot water bag and sanitary napkins the same brand as the tampons.
Lydia saw her sister scanning the living room and the kitchenette. She was wondering, where could the drugs be? But Ailey couldn’t turn the apartment upside down, not right in front of her big sister. She didn’t know that Lydia’s hiding place was behind the armoire.
*
Some evenings, Lydia tried to teach Ailey to sew. If she learned a skill, it was hers forever. She’d never need to buy clothes again.