Aunt Mattie’s eyes got big, and she rolled her neck so hard, I was surprised it didn’t break in two. “W-what? Well, I never! Look, black boy, you ain’t got to ask me to do nothing. I’m already gone!”
I’d finally taken her down a few pegs, and it felt good.
* * *
Mac put up the money for me and Joyce to spend a few days in a motel near Mobile. We bought every one of our meals to go from one of the nearby restaurants and we made love for hours at a time. Between sessions, we talked about our future.
“I hope I get pregnant again right after I have this baby,” Joyce told me as she lay in my arms. The mattress on the bed sagged and the springs creaked, but that didn’t bother us. The cheap motel’s walls was so thin we could hear the people snoring in the rooms on both sides of ours, so I knew they’d heard us making love. But we didn’t care about that, either. I was feeling so good, you would have thought that we was lounging in the presidential suite at the most expensive white folks only hotel in the state.
“I’ll do my best to make sure that happens,” I told her, giggling as I squeezed one of her breasts.
“And I hope we stay this happy for the rest of our lives.”
“We will,” I said as I recalled that crazy shit Aunt Mattie had told to me about the “bad feeling” she’d had about me and Joyce. “I’m going to make sure of that.” I meant what I said, and I hoped it was true. Even with her ordinary face, big feet, and long, strapping body—which now resembled a gigantic sausage because of her pregnancy—she actually looked beautiful to me.
As much as I cared about Joyce, I never thought I’d end up with a woman that looked like her. I had always been more attracted to petite, fair-skinned women with good hair. If it was long, that was a bonus. A redbone was the kind I had wanted to marry and raise children with. But every time I seen one I liked, some other man had got to her first. I didn’t marry no beauty queen, but I was going to pretend like she was one. I frowned at the thought of that because there was nothing in the world that could change the facts. My thoughts was bouncing around in my head like rubber balls. I was glad when Joyce brung me back to her attention.
“Baby, are you all right?” She sat up and looked at me with a worried expression on her face. Even with her makeup smeared, she still looked good to me. I knew that if I told myself this often enough, I would forget all about the pint-sized redbones I used to fantasize about.
“I’m fine, sugar pie.” I gave Joyce a quick peck on her forehead and tickled her chin.
“Then why is that strange look on your face all of a sudden?”
“I was just thinking about the wedding,” I muttered. “We had a roomful of guests, but I can’t get over the fact that we didn’t get nary a gift.”
Joyce laughed. “Since we didn’t send out invitations and people just showed up, I’m not surprised. We did everything so fast, they probably didn’t have time to go out and buy us something.”
“Another thing I can’t get over is that so many people came.”
“That was probably because they couldn’t believe a man like you was marrying a woman like me,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“Baby, how many more times do I have to tell you that you are the only woman I want? I don’t know why you are so hard on yourself.”
I felt Joyce’s body stiffen. “Odell, I know I’m ugly—”
“You hush up!” I cut her off so fast, she shuddered and geared up like she was going to jump off the bed and fly out the window. “Don’t you never let me hear you say something like that about yourself again!”
“Well, maybe I’m not that ugly,” she mumbled.
“Come with me!” I yelled. I grabbed Joyce by her arm and pulled her up off the bed and ushered her into the bathroom. I put my hands on her shoulders and held her in place in front of the mirror. “Look at yourself. There ain’t nobody in the world that thinks your face is ugly except you. Did you stay stupid shit like that to your other men friends?”
“Well . . .”
“Well nothing. If you did, no wonder they didn’t hang around with you for too long. The shit you say would make most men begin to think the same thing if you keep putting that idea in their heads. You been your own worst enemy and that’s why you been by yourself so long.”
“Odell, I couldn’t hold on to a man even when I didn’t put myself down in front of them!” Joyce griped. “I just wasn’t the woman they wanted to be with too long.”
“Well, I’m going to be with you until the day I die and I’m getting sick of trying to convince you of that. If you was half as ugly and undesirable as you seem to think, I wouldn’t have asked you out in the first place. Now promise me you will stop all that crazy talk about the way you look. The last thing our child need to grow up listening to is his or her mama putting herself down so much.”
“You don’t have to be
