Daddy shook his head. “Since you thirty now and still ain’t got no husband—or even a boyfriend—it don’t look like you having much luck finding somebody on your own, girl.”
“Mac is right, Joyce. It’s high time for you to start socializing again. It’s a shame the way you letting life pass you by,” Mama threw in. They were both looking at me so hard, it made me more uncomfortable than I already was. I squirmed in my seat and cleared my throat.
“Anyway, he said he can’t wait to meet you. He is so worldly and sharp, he’ll be a good person for you to conversate with.”
“I hope you didn’t say ‘conversate’ in front of this new guy. That’s a word somebody made up,” I scolded. “The correct word is converse.”
Daddy gave me a pensive look and scratched his neck. “Hmmm. Well, somebody ‘made up’ all the words in every language, eh?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“What difference do it make which one I used as long as he knew what I meant?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I’ll say conversate if I want to, and you can say converse. It’s still English, and this is the only language I know— and it’s too complicated for me to be trying to speak it correct this late in the game. Shoot.” My Daddy. He was a real piece of work. He winked at me before he bit off a huge chunk of cornbread and started chewing so hard his ears wiggled. He swallowed and started talking again with his eyes narrowed. “I got a notion to invite him to eat supper with us one evening. He is a strapping man, so he’d appreciate a good home-cooked meal. I even told him how good you can cook, Joyce. . . .”
My parents had become obsessed with helping me find a husband. My love life—or lack of a love life—was a frequent subject in our house. One night I dreamed that they’d lined up men in our front yard and made me parade back and forth in front of them so they could inspect me. But even in a dream nobody wanted to marry me.
“What’s wrong with this one? Other than him being just a stock boy?” I mumbled as I rolled my eyes.
“Why come you think something is wrong with him?” Daddy laughed but so far, nobody had said something funny enough to make me laugh. If anything, I wanted to cry.
“Because he wants to meet me,” I said with my voice cracking. My self-esteem had sunk so low, and I felt so unworthy, I didn’t know if I’d want a man who would settle for me. “He’s probably homelier and sicklier than Buddy Armstrong.” I did laugh this time.
“I met him and I sure didn’t see nothing wrong with him,” Mama piped in. She drank some lemonade and let out a mild burp before she continued. “He ain’t nowhere near homely.”
“Or sickly,” Daddy added with a snort.
“And he’s right sporty and handsome!” Mama sounded like a giddy schoolgirl. I was surprised to see such a hopeful look on her face. Despite all the wrinkles, liver spots, and about fifty pounds of extra weight, she was still attractive. She had big brown eyes and a smile that made her moon face look years younger. Unlike Daddy, who had only half of his teeth left, she still had all of hers. They were so nice and white, people often asked if they were real. She was the same pecan shade of brown as me and Daddy. But I had his small, sad black eyes and narrow face. He’d been completely bald since he was fifty and last week on my thirtieth birthday he’d predicted that if I had any hair left by the time I turned forty, it would probably all be gray. I’d found my first few strands of gray hair the next morning. “I know you’ll like this one,” Mama assured me with a wink. She reared back in her wobbly chair and raked her thick fingers through her thin gray hair. “You ain’t getting no younger, so you ain’t got much time left,” she reminded.
“So you keep telling me,” I snapped.
Mama sucked on her teeth and gave me a dismissive wave. “He got slaphappy when we told him about you. I bet he been beating the women off with a stick all his life.”
Mama’s taste in potential husbands for me was just as pathetic as Daddy’s. But her last comment really got my attention because it sounded like a contradiction. “Why would a ‘sporty and handsome’ man get ‘slaphappy’ about meeting a new woman—especially if he’s already beating them off with a stick?” I wanted to know.
Daddy gave me an annoyed look. “Don’t worry about a little detail like that. And don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You ain’t been out on a date since last year, and I know that must be painful. Shoot. When I was young, and before I married your mama, I never went longer than a week without courting somebody. At the rate you going, you ain’t never going to get married.”
I’d celebrated my thirtieth birthday eight days ago, but I felt more like a woman three times my age. Most of the adult females I knew were already married. My twenty-five-year-old cousin Louise had been married and divorced twice and was already engaged again. “I guess marriage wasn’t meant for me,” I whined. I suddenly lost my appetite, so I pushed my plate to the side.
“You ain’t even touched them pinto beans on your plate, and you ate only half of your supper yesterday,” Mama complained. “How do you expect to get a man if you ain’t got enough meat on your bones? You already look like a lamppost, and you know colored men like thick women. Besides, a gal six feet tall like you need to eat twice as much as a shorter woman so there’s enough food to fill
