Daddy lay on the horn. “Raleigh,” he cal ed, “we got to get going.”

“Take it easy, Jim-Bo,” he said.

Opening the door, he helped me in like he would a high-paying customer. He shut the door, and tested it to make sure.

“Daddy,” I said.

“I don’t want to talk out here,” he said. “I’l talk to you when we get home. Let me concentrate on the road.”

BEFORE HE COULD pul away, a compact car, Ford Escort, manual transmission, made a sharp turn into the parking lot. The driver turned directly into our path. A woman jumped out; she was dark, smooth black like Cicely Tyson with long hair, held back with a rhinestone headband.

“God damn it,” my father said.

“Easy,” Raleigh said.

The woman strode to my father’s window. “Where is she?”

“She’s locked in the bathroom,” said Raleigh.

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” Raleigh said. “She was locked in the bathroom when we got here.”

“I wasn’t talking to you; I was speaking to Mr. Witherspoon. Tel me you were not going to just leave her out here.” The lady bent so she could look into the smal slit where my father had opened the window. “You were! You were going to just leave my child stranded out here in the middle of nowhere.” She moved her hand like she was going to slap my father, but the window wasn’t open far enough.

“Calm down,” my father said. “She told us that she had cal ed her mother, and we assumed you were on the way.”

“Did you even check to make sure she was okay?” She peered in the window. “You in on this, too, Raleigh? I would have figured that you were better than this.”

She looked, final y, into the backseat at me. This was the woman I had seen Raleigh with at the park that time. She looked different now, her face was wild and creased. But she smiled at me, and it was a cold smile, more chain-gang than the man on the chain gang’s. “My name is Gwendolyn,”

she said. “I’m Dana’s mother. Wil you please tel me what the hel happened? Wil you please tel me what you have done to my child?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“Why are you wearing her top?”

“She gave this to me.”

“Gwen, stop talking to her. Leave my daughter out of this.”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Gwendolyn said. “That’s real y funny.”

My father blew the horn. “Go take care of your child, Gwen. Tel Wil ie Mae to move her car so I can get by.”

She hit the glass beside my father’s face with the heel of her hand, leaving an oily spot. Raleigh opened his car door and my father and Gwen spoke at once: “Sit down, Raleigh.”

When Gwendolyn moved down the length of the Lincoln, my father pressed the lever to make sure the doors and the windows were locked. She tapped on my window with a dainty click of fingernails. In the front seat, my father turned on the stereo, flooding the car with Beethoven, turned up so high that the symphony was like the screech of dying rabbits. Gwendolyn’s lipsticked mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear her over the music. She kicked the door before heading to the bathroom.

MY FATHER BLEW the horn at the Escort, but the lady in the driver’s seat didn’t budge. I couldn’t real y see her face, but she wore a blue bandanna tied around her head. Daddy blew and she blew back. For a little car, it had a lot of horn on it.

At the bathroom door, Gwen spoke, but we were too far away to hear what she said. The door opened a crack, and then wider. Gwen disappeared into the smal room. I could imagine how close they must be, jammed into such a cramped space. What were they saying to each other?

By now, my father was out of the car, arguing with the woman driving the Escort. Raleigh was stiff in his seat. He reached over and turned off the Beethoven.

“Uncle Raleigh,” I said, “that lady is your girlfriend, isn’t she?”

“She is dear to me, Dana. I’l say that much.”

“Stop cal ing me Dana,” I said. “I’m Chaurisse.”

“Sorry, Chaurisse,” he said. “I have a lot to keep an eye on here.”

His voice sounded thick and I wondered if he was going to cry. “This is terrible.”

The bathroom door final y opened. Dana leaned her weight on her mother like she was an earthquake victim being tugged from the wreckage.

She turned and looked at my father and said the strangest thing. She looked at his short pants and said, “I’ve never seen your legs before.”

23

TARA

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