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Why Cookie gotta laugh like that? And to think: Today was gonna be recipe day.

  Cookie moved closer to Gayle. “You know how some women just take to mothering?” Cookie rattled on. “They can care for a houseload of children? Not Mama. Mama likes thinking too much to have kids running around every which way.”

  “So what she be thinking about?” Gayle asked sarcastically.

  “Mama teaches history at Columbus College,” Cookie said, not catching on to Gayle’s sarcasm. “She’s writing a book on oral history for her doctoral dissertation. The only thing missing is what Great’s got to give.”

  Even if Gayle had known half of them words Cookie had sputtered out, she refused to be impressed. “I don’t see why Auntie got to do all that when she got a big old house, a husband, nice clothes, and a car. I bet she got some kind of mink coat hanging in the closet. That be the uniform for preachers’ wives. If I had all that I wouldn’t work a lick except to keep my house clean. If Auntie was smart she’d try to have a baby boy so yawl can call him Luther—seeing yawl big on naming everything Luther.”

  “But Mama can’t have no more babies,” Cookie insisted in heavy whispers.

  Gayle sucked her teeth. “You just glad you the only child, spoiled rotten. Bet Uncle Luther calls you Puddin-head or Princess or some spoiled pet name ’sides Cookie.”

  “You don’t have to be so nasty, Cousin. What did I do to you?”

  “With all those peaches hanging in them trees it’s a wonder you ain’t called Peaches.”

  Cookie shot Gayle a hard look then tossed her head.

  Gayle tossed her head mockingly. “Is that how yawl do it? You’d never survive where I’m from.”

  Cookie brought the basket into the pantry. Gayle watched the screen door to see if she would come back. Didn’t Cookie understand? She was in a talking bitch mood. Dog. The homegirls would understand that. They’d snap and cut up on one another till someone’s feelings got hurt good and someone else felt better.

  Cookie came back with the last load. Gayle decided she’d let her off easy.

  “What do you do for fun besides going to church? Where your friends? Phone ain’t rang once for you since I been here. Don’t some nigger come honking his car for you?”

  “Cousin, your mouth! Why you throw that word around like that?”

  Gayle couldn’t figure out which word she meant. But this always happened with Cookie. They’d start out having a conversation, but they’d lose each other.

  Cookie said her friends and her fun were mainly in church. She said she didn’t have a boyfriend, although she dated occasionally.

  “Sure you do.” Gayle laughed, picturing a church son driving his daddy’s wood-paneled station wagon with HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS on the bumper.

  “Or sometimes I pick up my girlfriends and we go to the movies.”

  “Your Mama let you drive her car?” Gayle asked. Up until now her queries were spiked with meanness. Now she was interested.

  “No, that little car over there is mine,” Cookie said with pride. “Mama drives the sedan.”

  “Well, check you out,” Gayle said. “I wouldn’t mind going for a ride.”

  “No one is to drive it but me,” Cookie said right away.

  “Did I say anything like that?” Gayle snapped.

  Next thing Gayle knew, Cookie was falling all over her big ox self with apologies. This was going to be too easy, Gayle thought.

  “I only mentioned it ’cause I’m running low on diapers,” Gayle said. “And I can’t be washing those cloth diapers Auntie gave me. Not the way José lets loose.”

  “Oh, Cousin, I’d be glad to take you to town.”

  Gayle already seemed to know that.

  9

  Dear Troy,

  By now you shud no Mama gone mad and sin me an the baby down sowf. I dont got no monnie an no way back. Sin me some monnie so I can hop a bus home. Give it to Terri to give to me. Ther is nothing here to rit about. They work me hard.

  I member the last time we did it. It so good. Too bad your Mama come home an I had to leve out the window. That was funny. I am not missing around with no one.

  2 Fly

  2 Be

  4 Got

  Gayle

  P.S. Mama took me for the aborshun. No swet. We can make another baby win I get home.

  Gayle folded and taped the letter, then wrote on the outside GIVE TO TROY, pressing down so hard the pen ate through the paper. She had five minutes to write another letter, then run downstairs before Cookie could weasel out of giving her a ride into town.

  Girlfriend,

  We got to talk. For real. Yal must break me out of here. No TV no music no hanging no boys. Serious prisin. Can you and Lynda git up some monnie to sin me? I got to git out of here.

  Keep an eye on Troy make sure he dont talk to no one wile I’m gone. Tell Vanita you will hurt her face if she look at him. For real.

  Do Big Jose ask about me and his son? Tell him I met a fine dud with monnie and we married. Let him suffer.

  Tell Joycee hi. If you see Mama dont tell her sqwat doo doo. You can tell Junie hi if he aint dead yet. Sike! I’ll be back in time for dubble dutch jump off. See if they still got my lay-away at the mall. Put a dolar on it for me.

  Peace

  Gayle

  P.S. The baby gots a toof!

  Gayle trotted downstairs and out the door with her letters, her bag, her baby in the baby carrier, and the last of her money. Enduring José’s weight seemed a small price to pay for some freedom. Finally! She and José were getting out of the big house, away from the crosses and headstones, out from under Uncle Luther and Miss Auntie.

  “Can’t wait till you walking,” she told her son.

  He reached for her earrings.

  Gayle opened the door to Cookie’s car and sat up front with the baby strapped to her. She rocked back and forth, saying, “Go, go, go,” until Cookie emerged from the house just as slow as she tra-la-la pleased.

  Cookie shook her head. “Cousin Gayle, you have to sit in the back.”

  “Why?”

  “No car seat for the baby.”

  “He’s strapped to me in this carrier. I gots on a seat belt. Double protection. See?” Gayle said. “Let’s roll.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cookie said.

  “Ain’t nothing gon’ happen,” Gayle snapped. “Now let’s go before they holler for me to come in and polish the silverware, the floors, and all fifty doorknobs.”

  Cookie smiled and with some reluctance started the car. As they drove off, Gayle noted the route into town. The road went on without so much as a bus stop, let alone a gypsy van or subway station. This was hardly South Jamaica, Queens, where all you needed to get around was change in your pocket.

  “Don’t this car got a radio?” Gayle asked, randomly mashing buttons below the dashboard. Cookie didn’t answer, so Gayle kept pushing buttons with one hand until out jumped an AM prophet proclaiming HIS HOLY NAME in her ear. Gayle wrapped herself around the baby, smothering his face with her own. Cookie couldn’t help laughing.

  “That ain’t funny,” Gayle cried, uncurling herself from her baby.

  Cookie stopped horse-laughing long enough to soften the volume on the radio. “Forgive me, Cousin, but you know it was. Praise God for seat belts. You was headed through the roof.”

  “Haw, haw.” Gayle reached over and clicked on the FM button, then rolled the tuner searching for a familiar beat. To her relief she found it and began singing the lead vocals, the background, and the instrumentals.

  “Cousin Gayle, what do you call that noise?”

  “Sang—ing” she replied in time with the music.

  “You got Gates blood. How come you can’t sing?”

  “Oh?” came Gayle’s attitude. “You sing better?”

  “Cousin, you’re not bad. You just don’t sound any better than this girl on the radio. You know how they all sing. Thin. Nasal. Trying to make up for not having any tone or pitch.”
r />   “’Scuse me, Whitney Houston.”

  Cookie wasn’t answering. In fact she looked intense, like she was praying or fighting off an impulse. Gayle took her silence as “shut-up” time and continued to sing.

  “How could you not like this group? They fly.”

  “They’re all right,” Cookie said. “I just wouldn’t want to make my living singing like them.”

  “You wish you could.”

  They parked in a minimall. Gayle mailed her letters, then bought a pack of cigarettes, a sweetcake for later, eight jars of baby food, and some diapers. Terri, Lynda, and Troy had to come through with more money. She had already spent the last of what Mama had given her.

  “Let’s grab some lunch,” Cookie said. “My treat.”

  “Bet.”

  Cookie directed them to a snack shop. “No, not here,” she said as Gayle prepared to sit. “Over here. We can see better.” It made no difference to Gayle, who thought Cookie was strange. They sat down at a table and ordered a burger and a tuna melt.

  When the waitress set their plates down, Gayle wrinkled her nose at the coleslaw swimming in too much mayonnaise. “Did I ask for that? Looks nasty.”

  The waitress was caught off guard by Gayle’s remark and picked up the dish of coleslaw on Gayle’s plate, examining it closely. “Freshly made, baby.”

  “Ma’am, it’s just fine,” Cookie assured the waitress. “Just fine.” When the waitress went back to the kitchen, Cookie scolded Gayle. “Cousin, you can’t go around being ugly just ’cause it suits you.”

  Gayle shrugged, sliding the coleslaw away from her plate. Even José didn’t like its milky looks.

  The waitress came back with a high chair for the baby. “Baby, let that big boy sit, so you can enjoy your food.”

  Gayle began to unharness José, but the waitress did most of it and put the baby in the high chair as well. “That’s better,” she said and went back to the kitchen.

  “Now don’t you feel ashamed?” Cookie asked.

  Gayle’s expression said “not really.” She mashed some of her hamburger for José and fed little bits to him. He was more interested in gumming her fingers.

  “Hope they got a drugstore in here. I need something for these pains,” Gayle said. “You sure Great’s recipe fake? Great said it cured her for miscarriages and was good for cramps and all kinds of pains. Wouldn’t hurt to cook up a pint.”

  Cookie stared out the window. Gayle knew she had lost her cousin.

  “What’s got you so stupid?”

  Cookie’s eyes were unfocused. She smiled a little.

  “Cookie! Cookie!” Gayle turned to see for herself. All she saw was a store—the Sneaker King—and some ox hauling cardboard boxes to the recycling pit. “Cookie, what’s with you?”

  Cookie’s face flushed. “What? I’m sorry, Cousin. You were saying?”

  “I was saying I’m hurting and I want to go home. Get with my nigger. Know how long it’s been since I had some sex? That’s probably why I hurt so bad.”

  Cookie shushed her cousin. How could she talk like that out loud, in public. Shooting off one word like it was a proper name. Shooting off the other like it was a proper act.

  Gayle kept right on talking, feeling free. She was out of the house and unstrapped from her baby.

  “Cookie, look me dead in the eye and tell me you don’t get hot in the box.”

  “Gayle, your problem is you’re too concerned with”—she wouldn’t say it—“that.”

  “Girlfriend, your problem is you need to think more about that,” Gayle said. “What’s the most you ever done?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not even a kiss? Come on, Cookie. You nice looking. Sort of. You must be turning someone on.”

  “Cousin, don’t talk so loud!” Cookie said.

  “Well?” Gayle whisper-shouted just to be funny.

  “You can’t tell Daddy.”

  “Oh, yeah. Me and Uncle Luther tight like sardines.”

  “I used to date a tenor in the choir. Fred,” Cookie said. “Well, one night just out of nowhere, we were talking and he put his mouth on mine and forced his tongue in me. It was disgusting.”

  “Then what happened?” Gayle pounced.

  “Nothing. I pulled away,” Cookie said.

  “That’s it? You serious? He didn’t try to suck your titties?”

  “No!”

  “Or put his fingers down your panties?”

  “Gayle, no!”

  “Okay. When you go to a dance and a boy ask you to slow jam and the music be good and he presses you up on his rod, don’t you press hard ’cause it feel good?”

  “Cousin Gayle, of course not.”

  “You know, Cook, you wastin’ away. Don’t even know what you missing. But find a boy who knows all the moves, all the talk, and forget it. You be dropping your drawers before you know it. That’s how José’s daddy got me.”

  The baby started to cry.

  “He’s teething. Come here, li’l man.” She pushed the high chair closer and put her finger in José’s mouth. “Once you get that juicy feeling you won’t be saying it’s disgusting. Old people be saying it’s disgusting and wicked ’cause they dried up. But we young, Cookie. We s’posed to have that feeling.”

  Gayle pushed her plate aside and took out a pack of gum, offering a stick to Cookie, who declined. She stuck one in her mouth and started chewing and popping, a habit from being bored in school.

  “Let me tell you what happened. José and his brothers had a bug-spraying business. Don’t be thinking my mama keep a bug house, now. So anyway, he’d come by first of the month to do spraying. You should see this guy. He’s not all that fine but he got style. He’s young. Like twenty. We got to talking ’bout his problems and things just clicked. May sound corny but I’m a sucker for talk and we talked for hours. He’d come first of the month and on nights that Mama worked. He bought me some earrings ’cept they turned. I shoulda known. I’m more mad ’bout those earrings than anything else.

  “When I told him about the baby he was all happy, treated me real good. Then he stopped coming. So I sent my girls to find out what’s what and they said they saw him at the supermarket with this woman and she fulla belly. So I figure that’s his wife. I understood that.

  “Last time I saw him was in the hospital. Junie and his friends told him they was gonna hurt him good if he didn’t visit me. Junie crazy! Anyway, he showed. Came talking about adoption. Yeah, right. After I tote this sucker in my belly, miss all the dirt going on in school, I’m supposed to give up my baby. Didn’t I tell him what to do with his adoption?”

  “José’s father was your first?”

  “I ain’t been hoeing around if that’s what you mean,” Gayle snapped. “’Sides. I didn’t go looking for him. He came to me. He was mines.”

  “But he was married.”

  “On paper.”

  “And he gave you those earrings.”

  “Don’t think I forgot.”

  Cookie stared over at the Sneaker King, where the guy was tearing those cardboard boxes with his hands. After some silence, Cookie asked, “Did it . . . hurt?”

  “What? Getting busted? Yeah, it hurt. It did! I won’t lie. He didn’t waste no time getting me ready. He just stuck me like that. It hurted. But that goes away. I didn’t bleed much, and it felt good after the second and third go-round. Cookie, how old you? Sixteen? Might as well get it over with—get busted.”

  “Busted? Cousin, do you hear yourself?” Cookie scolded. “All I know is I’m not doing anything until I’m married. And it won’t be about getting busted.”

  “The more you wait, the more you’ll dry up. It’ll really hurt then. I’m telling you, Cuz. Do it now while you’re young and juicy.”

  Pop! Gayle’s spit on Cookie’s arm felt like hot fire. Cookie wiped it away.

  At that moment José let out a wail, having been strapped into the high chair long enough. He banged his fat little hands on the tray and pitched from sid
e to side, kicking his legs.

  Gayle stamped her feet, unbuckled the high chair straps, and yanked José out, plopping him onto her lap.

  “Damn. Can’t have a minute of freedom.”

  Cookie gazed out of the window, over to the Sneaker King. The guy was gone, along with her appetite.

  10

  GAYLE DIDN’T SEE WHAT the fuss was about. It took all of ten minutes to take three peaches, cut them up, and throw the pits in a mason jar along with the fruit and some water. Tear off a strip of Mahalia’s bark, add a bit of black licorice, then cover it with one of Uncle Luther’s handkerchiefs.

  “There. Recipe. Even if it don’t heal the woman pains, one sip’ll make Great happy. Live that long, you deserve to be happy.”

  She secured José to her hip and wrapped the mason jar in a towel, which she placed in Great’s washbasin. She had to be careful. Uncle Luther had been at Great’s bedside since morning.

  She entered the room. Her uncle’s trunk leaned toward Great, tree to sun, waiting for death to happen. Great lay stiffly, eyes at rest, as if to oblige her grandson.

  Startled, he glanced up. His face, dark and square, lengthened with his displeasure in her presence. When he rose to full tower Gayle felt the risk she invited upon herself, sneaking the recipe into Great’s room. She pictured Uncle Luther smashing and damning the mason jar, then making her clean the whole mess.

  “Hey! Whattup?” Gayle trumpeted loud and fresh in spite of herself. She held onto José tightly and beamed straight at Uncle Luther to keep from looking down at the lumpy towel.

  “Child, this is a home, not some street. Leave that street talk where you found it.”

  “Dog. What I do? All I said was hey.”

  He advanced toward her, his footsteps monster heavy. “And I said watch your mouth.”

  Gayle came close to sucking her teeth but resisted. No telling what teeth sucking would draw from Uncle Luther.

  “Awright.” Her version of “Yes sir.”

  “Your great-grandmother will want to be read to from the Book of Ruth when she awakens. You can read, can’t you?”

  Kiss my ass, Uncle. You want me to step wrong. You looking to knock my teeth out. But you ain’t slick, and I ain’t stupid.