I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’l graduate, regardless.”
“You want me to turn on the air conditioner?”
Overhead I could hear the high-pitched noise of airplanes cutting through the sky. Just under it, there was the smooth crooning of Al Green, talking about he was tired of being alone.
“Daddy couldn’t have done it without you,” I said.
“I figured you would get around to that,” Raleigh said.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t ask me a question. What is it that you want to know?”
I was stumped. What did I want to know? I was already aware of more than I wanted to be.
“Daddy is real y married to that lady?”
Raleigh nodded. “He did stand up in front of a judge.”
“And you were there?”
Raleigh nodded.
“You signed the paper. I saw your name.”
“This I did do.”
“Why did you help him?”
My uncle shifted in his seat so I could see his face. “I cal ed myself helping Gwen.” Raleigh’s face burned red when he talked, like he was on fire.
He said, “You can’t know Gwen until you see her in a photo. In person, al that pretty is a parlor trick, a distraction, real y. But when I get her in a photograph, you can see her entire life just in the way she holds her jaw. Even if the rol isn’t finished, I develop it right then. I don’t care.”
“What about us?” I asked him. “You take our picture al the time.”
“With you, Chaurisse, what you see is what you get. When you were a little girl, you were just that, a little girl. Even Laverne, for what she has been through, she is exactly who she is, al the time. It’s good. That’s where your beauty comes from.”
I knew he was trying to compliment me, but it felt like an insult. The way people tel a fat girl that she has “a pretty face.” I reached for the door to let myself out, but Raleigh asked me to wait.
“Gwen didn’t do any of this on purpose. You have to take my word on it. I’m tel ing you because I don’t want you to think that your daddy would do this for some two-dol ar whore, because that’s not what Gwen is. In her way, she’s a lady.”
I made a pil ow of my hands and leaned on the dashboard. Every day this situation got crazier and crazier. “What is wrong with you people?” I asked. “Daddy got kids with this lady, you’re talking like you’re in love with her. What is it about them? Me and mama can be complicated. We can be interesting.”
“It’s not a competition,” Raleigh said.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
Uncle Raleigh reminded me a lot of Jamal, the way those nice guys break your heart but manage to make you feel like they’re the ones who have been done wrong. I got out of the car, walked around and stuck my face into the crack where Uncle Raleigh had his window open.
“One more question,” I said. “What’s their apartment number?”
CONTINENTAL COLONY WAS set up to look like something from Europe, maybe a ski lodge or something — cream-colored buildings with black shutters. The town homes were shaped sort of like stop signs on the top. Their building, 2412, was in the middle of a row of identical houses. I stopped in front, checked my purse to make sure that I stil had the postcard. The edges were buckled from potato juice. I checked my look in the rearview. Mama was in no condition to tighten up my augmentation, so I’d made a headband from a purple scarf to hide the rough edges. I licked my fingers, pushed back a few kinky strands and opened the car door.
The pathway to their home was warped by grass pushing through the concrete. I took some pleasure from this. Our yard was neat and orderly.
The azaleas were in bloom and Daddy had recently painted our mailbox with a fresh coat of white. I stood before the door with my hand on the knocker, trying to decide what I was going to say. I wanted to know why Dana had elbowed her way into our lives. Did she want to know me, or did she want to hurt me? Was it al done under her mother’s orders? What did they want from us? I had no idea how I could extract this information. If there was anything the last few weeks had taught me, it was that people only told you what they wanted you to know. Asking a straight question didn’t necessarily get you a straight answer.
I’d taken my hand down from the knocker and turned toward the car, when the door swept open. Standing there was Gwendolyn wearing a white nurse’s uniform. “Yes?” She looked like Dana’s Ghost of Christmas Future. She wasn’t al glammed up the way she had been when she invaded the Pink Fox. Her pretty hair was bound behind her head and her face was creased around her mouth. “Are you looking for me?”
“I’m looking for Dana,” I said.
Gwen smiled. “Dana is at school. And, if I may be so bold, what are you doing here in the middle of the day? Don’t they have truant officers anymore?”
Her manner was hard to read. It was as though she was amused, like I was a little kid who had done something grown, like order lobster at a restaurant.
“I’m taking care of my mother,” I said.
“Don’t you think your mother has enough people to take care of her?” She kept that tickled-adult tone and invited me in.
