My mother said she knew.
What was Ronalda supposed to do? Leave Nkrumah by himself in the house? So, Ronalda didn’t have any choice but to carry him with her. “They used her like a maid, you know what I’m saying? You never saw her without that little boy on her hip.”
Ronalda loved this boyfriend and was having some problems and she couldn’t just ignore him. “He was in need!”
According to Dana, the parents claimed that they didn’t like the boyfriend because he was twenty-four and in the army, saying that he was too old to be going out with a high-school girl, but the truth was that he didn’t have enough education for them. And besides, the boyfriend was having serious, serious trouble and he needed a friend and fifty dol ars. Nobody could accuse Ronalda of being fair-weather.
She went to Fairburn Townhouses to deliver the money — which she earned from watching that bad little boy and everything went fine until Ronalda went inside to say good-bye to her boyfriend’s mother. While Ronalda was just trying to be polite, the little boy ran out into the parking lot and got hit by a car.
Her stepmother got there and started freaking out because Nkrumah had this tiny cut on his eyebrow. You would have thought he had been shot or something.
“You can understand that,” my mama said.
Yes, Dana could understand her being upset, but there was no cause for her to act out how she did. Being talked to like that was worse than being spit on. And now Ronalda had to go back to Indiana.
My mama said, “That’s a shame, for everybody. I’l pray for al of them.”
“No,” Dana said. “Pray for Ronalda. She’s the one who needs it most.”
My mother looked up from her work. “I got prayers enough for everybody.”
Dana picked up the edge of her cape and dabbed at her nose. “I am going to miss her so much. And it’s not her fault. She can’t help who her mother is.”
My mother put four or five clips in the Jheri curl and joined me at chair no. 2 and took over the blow-drying. She murmured to Dana the way you would talk to a crying baby that needs help fal ing asleep. As my mother brushed her hair forward, Dana closed her eyes before it covered her face like a shroud.
I finished Dana’s hair wel before the five-thirty rush, but she stayed on, talking to my mother. Her mood had mysteriously brightened as she asked questions like she was a friendly reporter. What did my mother like to eat? Did she think it made so much of a difference where a person went to go to col ege? Could she give her some advice? My mother opened like a flower, laughing at Dana’s jokes and swatting away her compliments. Only one question seemed to hit the wrong note. “Mrs. Witherspoon, would you say you’re a happy person?”
Mama set the curling iron on a wet towel, frowning as it sizzled. She licked her finger and touched it to the hot metal, stil frowning. “I don’t know,”
she said.
“And whose fault do you think it is? Who do you blame?”
Mama looked a little dizzy. To her customer, she said, “Kids these days. They are more sophisticated than we were.”
The customer said, “Nobody is truly happy.”
“But could you be?” Dana said with her eyes on Mama.
“I’m happy,” I offered.
“I’m not,” said Dana. “I think I’m lonely.”
“Oh, honey,” Mama said, and invited her to stay for dinner.
We both looked a little melancholy when Dana said, “Thank you, but I have to go.”
She also refused a ride, so I walked her down Lynhurst to the bus stop.
“Do you get lonely?” she said.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“It’s because you’re special. It’s hard for people to understand you.”
I shrugged because I was as ordinary as scrambled eggs, but I appreciated the compliment. “Is being special how come you’re lonely?”
“No,” she said. “I’m lonely for al the regular reasons.”
We got to the bus stop, which was marked by a concrete pole lumpy with several layers of white paint. “You don’t have to wait with me,” she said.
“I don’t mind. Make sure you tie your hair up at night. Sleeping directly on the pil owcase gives you split ends.”
She said she would try to remember. “What’s the real reason your dad is giving your mom this party?”
Her face was kind, but I felt a chil of fear work its way from my hands up to my elbow. “I guess because he loves her.”
Maybe my face showed her something that I didn’t mean to display, because she reached out and touched me on the arm. “Everybody loves you the most, al your life, and you probably don’t even know it.”
I gave a tense laugh. “I need more than just my parents to love me.”
