*
By February, I’d told Chris I’d forgiven him, after his longing looks in school, and several contrite phone calls. I consented to meet him behind the school again, and he brought me presents. A pair of sterling silver earrings in a blue box. A mixtape he’d recorded for me of his favorite R & B slow jams. Chocolate chip cookies that his mother had made. He declared that he loved me, and I let him grind against me, outside my clothes.
In March, I promised Chris that we’d go all the way after my sixteenth birthday up on the Vineyard. I made him think it was only his idea, but it wasn’t. I was tired of being a virgin and trying to be everybody’s good girl. I only wanted to be myself.
In April, I told Mama that New England had great libraries, perfect for an avid reader. I praised the weather. On the Vineyard, the breezes chased away heat. No need for air-conditioning.
In May, I mentioned that Miss Delores spent the summers on the Vineyard. She did all the housework and cooking. I wouldn’t be a burden if I spent the summer with Nana, instead of down south in Chicasetta.
Mama and I were in the basement, sorting laundry. She liked to gear up early for our trip.
“Ailey, you do know your grandmother passes for white on the Vineyard?”
“Oak Bluffs is in the Negro section of the Vineyard.”
“I thought we hadn’t been Negro for some time—”
“But Uncle Root says Negro, too—”
“And Miss Delores is traveling with her now? Doing what? Miss Claire lives in that cottage all by herself. How dirty can it get? And a Black woman who can’t make biscuits or scrub her own damned toilet? I have never heard of such. I don’t get it. Kunta Kinte and them got snatched from Africa so they could clean somebody’s house, and now your grandmother does it to somebody else?”
“Nobody’s forcing Miss Delores to clean up. She’s not, like, a slave. She gets a salary.”
My mother put a towel to her nose, sniffed, then handed the towel to me.
“Does this smell funky to you?”
“No, it’s fine.”
She threw it in the dirty laundry pile. “I’ll wash it anyway. Look, God knows I’ve tried with Miss Claire. But the fact of the matter is something’s off with that lady. She doesn’t even associate with anybody who can’t pass. Besides us, that is.”
“That’s not true,” I lied.
She made a farting noise with her mouth. “Miss Claire gets on my last nerve, the way she celebrates her color. It’s sick and strange, that’s what it is. And I’m not sending my last child up there for her to make you sick and strange, too.”
“I want to go to the Vineyard. Please.”
“No, baby. Something might happen.”
“Like what? I might get hooked on crack? My name is Ailey, not Lydia.” As her face crumpled, I smirked.
Mama began counting out loud. When she reached ten, she sighed. “Ailey, why are you being so mean? I don’t deserve this. I gave up being a teacher to look after my girls—”
“I am so fucking tired of hearing this story—”
“Have you lost your goddamned mind?” She raised her voice to shriek. Took a breath, and then stepped back several paces. “Ailey Pearl, I’m the adult here, and I’m supposed to have some sense. So I’m going to ignore this tantrum, because you’re upset about your big sister. I am, too. But know this. You fix your mouth to cuss at me one more time and I’ma get real crazy on you. Now take your little disrespectful ass to your room. Go on, before I forget you’re my only planned child.”
That evening, Mama ignored my sulks at dinner. There were the two of us, and she had fried chicken and made biscuits. She put greens on the table but didn’t chide me to eat them. She’d made my favorite dessert, too, sweet potato pie, and let me drink coffee with her with no admonition that it would stunt my growth.
We sat together with no words, and after my second cup of coffee, I apologized to her, looking down at the table. I told her there was no excuse for my behavior and I hoped she would forgive me. Then she squeezed my hand and said she was sorry, too. She cut me another slice of pie but told me I needed to start packing in a week or so for Chicasetta. We were going to have a real nice summer down home.
*
On past nights before the Chicasetta journey, I’d set the alarm clock early. I liked to be in the kitchen with my mother, just the two of us, to have her to myself. That morning I woke early as usual, but in the kitchen, Aunt Diane was there, setting out her blueberry muffins. She told me that my father had a heart attack during his shift at the emergency room. Mama was with him now at the hospital.