I'm Your Girl. J.J. Murray

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and I’ve only been in Roanoke for a year. I refuse, however, to use the phrases “might could” or “How you doin’?”

      Mama had growled. “Like I said then, and I’ll say it to you now. You should have danced by yourself before you danced with any white boy any time, any place.”

      And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve been dancing with myself. It isn’t so bad. I’m on my own, have my own place, my own car, my own bills, and my own savings and checking accounts. The only time it isn’t fun being independent is late at night, especially if there aren’t any C batteries in the house.

      And Mama will never know about any of that.

      Her Baptist heart couldn’t take it. The shame of that. She’d probably find out right before another Easter service or something, and Mrs. Imogene “Couldn’t-Hit-a-Note-if-You-Hit-Her-with-a-Hammer” Blakeney would be screeching it all over the sanctuary. I know Mama has only gotten her “pleasuring,” as she calls it, from Daddy, my uniquely handsome, skinny-faced, shovel-handed, wide-footed, gap-toothed Daddy. They make a cute couple, but I doubt Daddy would ever buy Mama C batteries for anything but a flashlight.

      “Now your sister…”

      As soon as Mama had mentioned Reesie, I had tuned her completely out. Reesie is my older, supposedly wiser, African sister, who has only made babies (three and counting) with African boys since she was fifteen. And Mama never had any shame about any of that. None at all. I danced vertically with a white boy once, and Mama was ashamed. Reesie has danced horizontally with three different black boys, and Mama’s proud as she can be.

      If that isn’t dysfunctional and worthy of an entire segment of Oprah, I don’t know what is.

      And Reesie, who I have no respect left for, once told me, “They found you by the side of the road, Nisi.” After Mama had straightened that lie out, Reesie told me, “They were gonna adopt a puppy, and they adopted you instead.” I have too much of Daddy in my face to be adopted, but sometimes I wonder if they switched my mama at birth or something.

      “Are you listening to me?”

      “Yes, Mama.” I had yawned. “I have to go.”

      “Go where?”

      “Out, Mama.” As in, out of the living room to the kitchen to get a slice of orange cake left over from the library Christmas party.

      She had sighed. “I still don’t know why you had to move so far away.”

      “Roanoke is where my job is, Mama.” And Indianapolis is many blissful hours away. Luckily, Roanoke isn’t connected nonstop by air to any city except Pittsburgh, Charlotte, and D.C.

      “And why did you have to have your own place, and a whole house at that, and not even in a black neighborhood?”

      “There are plenty of black people in my neighborhood. The family across the street and the neighbors to my right—”

      “They aren’t really black if they live where you live.”

      No, I had wanted to say, they’re just middle class enough to live here and just happened to be able to scrape up enough money for a down payment so they don’t have to live on top of other people in an apartment complex.

      “Child, you could still be living in your own room right here in this house, you wouldn’t have a mortgage, and that city library you said you liked working at the most is just around the corner.”

      That particular city library in Naptown was the first to turn me down for a full-time job after graduation, but I purposely screwed up the interview. I didn’t want to be working a stone’s throw from my mama! I might have picked up those stones and thrown them at her! It did, however, offer me part-time work at minimum wage; I accepted…and I endured three dreary years with Mama and Reesie’s three little monsters I collectively called “the Qwans”: J-Qwan, Ray-Qwan, and Qwanasia. If it weren’t for Daddy, I would have gone out of my mind.

      “Mama, they didn’t want me for the position I deserved four years ago.”

      “Well, there are plenty of other libraries around here, and maybe they have some openings now—”

      “Look,” I had interrupted, “I’m blooming where God planted me, okay?” Mention “God” to Mama, and she at least takes a breath. “Staying and working the stacks in Indian-no-place at minimum wage was a waste of my time, Mama, and—”

      “Excuse me?” she had interrupted. “Living with me and your daddy was a waste of time?”

      “That’s not what I said.”

      “It sounded like you said it to me.”

      My mama only hears what she wants to hear. “I said that the job was a waste of my time. It was a waste of my degree and all that money you and Daddy paid for me to go to college. Look, Mama, I’m tired. I’ll talk to you later.” Then I had waited for her to get the final word.

      And this time, Mama didn’t speak right away. That gave me time to walk down my hallway, clutching a cordless phone I paid way too much for, wearing an outfit I bought with my own money at regular price at a store Mama would never shop in, into my library. Yes, I have a library. What else do you do with a three-bedroom ranch (advertised as a “handyman special”) when you only need one bedroom? I know it’s redundant and stereotypical for a librarian to have her own library. But I’d much rather buy books and shelves than beds no one will ever sleep in. If Mama and Daddy threaten to visit someday, I may have to buy a sleeper sofa or something. I’ll probably end up just sleeping on that sofa since I’m leaving the other bedroom “fallow.” It’s my storage room now.

      But I don’t want to think about that. Not the buying of the sofa—the visit from Mama and all her criticisms. She’ll look at my house as her house and spend the entire visit “fixing” everything I’ve done wrong.

      “You make sure to be in church on Sunday,” Mama had said eventually. “Maybe you’ll meet somebody.”

      Just once, I’d like to go to church only to meet Jesus. “Good night, Mama.”

      “And go to a black church this time, Dee-Dee, okay?”

      Click.

      Oops. I had hung up on my mama. I had only been thinking about hanging up on her, and my finger had hit the button before I could stop it. The phone had rung a second later. “Sorry about that, Mama. My finger slipped and I—”

      “Are you coming up for a visit or not? At least come up for New Year’s.”

      I had taken a deep breath and closed my eyes. “No, Mama. As I’ve told you before, I have—”

      “Your own life now. I know, I know.” Silence.

      “And I only have one day of vacation left this year.” More silence. “I promise to come home for Thanksgiving.”

      “Thanksgiving? That’s in…eleven months!”

      “Bye, Mama.”

      Click.

      I had waited a few minutes, and СКАЧАТЬ