“We got money?” I asked, eyes scanning back and forth. There was all kinds of good stuff behind the glass, like chocolate bars and potato chips, and even a toothbrush.
“We don’t need none,” replied Nia matter-of-factly.
“It’s gon’ give us stuff for free?” My mouth got real dry thinking bout all the chocolate I could eat—one of them things we don’t get a lot, but still one of my favorites.
“Nah.” Nia put both hands up on the glass. “Unless you know the secret trick.” She pushed her hands against the window, banging against it til down fell a bag of chips and two packs of gum. “Ta-da!” Nia stuck her hands down in the bottom and pulled out her stolen treasure, stuffing everything in her pockets before Momma could see.
“How you know that? You been to a motel before?” I tried to reach into Nia’s pocket, but she swatted my hand away.
“No, KB, motels ain’t the only places with vending machines.” Nia dug in her pocket and snuck out two sticks of gum, passing one to me and popping the other in her mouth. “You ain’t ever seen nobody do that before?” I shook my head, but Nia was already walking away.
Turns out, tricking that vending machine wasn’t the only new thing I learned at the motel. They also had hair dryers that stayed stuck to the wall, and people in uniforms that would come clean your room every day. After the first time I let them in, Momma came home from work at the Chrysler plant yelling and said we can’t ever let housekeeping do chores in our apartment. She likes calling it that better than the motel—we learned that the hard way—and even though I thought chores were over when we lost our house, still I did as I was told.
“Almost there, girls,” Momma yells from the front seat. As we push the car, I dig my worn shoes in the dirt. Cept it’s more like mud now, even though there ain’t been no rain today. I look back to see my own small footprints beside Nia’s bigger ones. The ground looks like it’s decorated with big and small polka dots as my shoulder shoves into hot metal. It’s a good feeling to help Momma, but every time I look over at Nia, she frowns.
“That’s it, girls!” Momma sings as we finally reach the bottom of the hill. The car makes a loud pop! And then it’s working again. Momma pulls on her braids as she waits for us to climb back inside. Nia’s first, quick. I take my time, so I can catch Momma’s eye in the side mirror. And there she is, just like I knew. First, one wink. Then, she blows two kisses. I catch the first and kiss it, catch the second and blow it back into the wind. Our special thing, just me and Momma. I buckle my seat belt beside Nia and try Momma’s smile on her, but all it gets back is another frown.
Momma’s watching us through the rearview mirror before she pulls off, and I wonder how we look to her, two daughters, one who smiles just like her, one who frowns just like Daddy. Either way, she smiles at us both the same before driving again, even slower now.
* * *
?“Nia?” I tap her shoulder light at first, then harder. “Nia!”
“What do you want?” Nia rolls her freshly opened eyes.
“We there.”
This is my first time visiting Lansing, Nia’s second. Her first was before I was born. We have lots of family in Lansing, but we’re here to visit Momma’s daddy, who I guess we s’posed to call Granddaddy. Momma said we all gon’ stay here for the rest of the summer, before school starts back. My eleventh birthday is bout a month away, and Nia gon’ turn fifteen the week after. When I pointed that out, that these would be our first birthdays away from home, away from Daddy—Momma’s smile disappeared, just for a second, but then it was back, pasted in place like somebody glued it there crooked.
Momma pulls into the driveway and Carol Anne groans, either from exhaustion or from the bump-bump-bump of the gravelly road. As she parks, I try to remember the last time I seen my granddaddy. It was years ago, probably when I was bout seven, back when I used to wear my thick hair in two ponytails parted right down the middle with Blue Magic hair grease making it shine and Pink lotion laying down my edges. It was Nia’s favorite style, so it was my favorite style. Then Nia started wearing her hair in two different ponytails, one on top and one on the bottom like a unicorn. Back then, Granddaddy came to visit us once in Detroit, when there was a funeral for somebody on Momma’s side of the family. I chew my thumb and try to remember the dead person in that casket. The dead arm laying on the dead chest that I could only see when standing on tiptoes. That picture fades now into the image of dead Daddy, but this was long before that. Back when I still thought dead people in caskets ain’t belong to nobody. They were always just dead people, not nobody’s kid or friend or daddy.
“Okay, okay, I’m up.” Nia stretches and yawns. But I’m still stuck remembering the itchy lace dress I wore to that funeral, the dress that Momma loved, and eating the last piece of sweet potato pie before Nia could. I peek out my finger-smudged window at the little house squatting at the end of a long driveway. The biggest thing I remember from that other funeral was meeting my granddaddy. He wasn’t bad, but he never smiled, and he never talked that whole day long. I decided he couldn’t speak, like maybe he lost his voice in an accident. I imagined all the possibilities, til he finally grumbled hello in a voice low and deep as thunder.
“Come on, girls, let’s get out!” Momma is cheerful, but Nia moans. Granddaddy’s house will make the third place we’ve lived in the six months since Daddy died. The more we move around, the more I forget stuff. Like the pattern of my wallpaper in the old house on the dead-end street. I’m starting to forget what it feels like to have a home at all.
I swallow and fight back tears as I climb out the car, slow. Momma don’t like it when I cry so much. And Nia teases me, calling me Crybaby KB when I do. The K is for Kenyatta and the B for my middle name, Bernice, which was the name of my daddy’s grandma. Nia started calling me KB when I was a baby. I have other nicknames like Kenya and TaTa that I like better, but KB is the one that stuck.
Gravel crunches under my shoes and something rustles in the bush ahead. I search for the noise as we march up to the tree-shadowed house like soldiers, but don’t see nothin’。 Just before we reach the wooden porch, wrapped around the house and sloping in the dirt, Granddaddy comes outside to meet us. His skin is dark as a moonless night with hair brushed in black and gray patterns, and a heavy limp that dips and jumps and dips again.
“Why he so bent over and wobbly?” I whisper to Momma. She swipes me on the bottom and flashes me The Look. I been gettin’ The Look from Momma all my life—not nearly as much as Nia, but enough for me to know exactly what it’s s’posed to mean.
“Hush your mouth,” she hisses. I wonder why it’s a bad question but know better than to ask. These days, asking too many questions is just as bad as crying.
“I bet he need a cane to walk, cause he so old.” Nia is suddenly beside me and trying not to let Momma hear her giggle. I giggle, too, happy to get an answer, and happy it’s from Nia.
Just like I remember, Granddaddy don’t speak, only opens his arms to say, Come on in. Nia drags her feet as she walks, so I drag my feet, too. But Momma walks quick with her very best smile stretched cross her face. She is first up the steps, and is fixin’ to hug Granddaddy, but he seems nervous and moves out the way. So she stands next to him instead, with that other smile for when she’s mad but has to act happy cause we at church.