"Vegas ain't that big," he says.

"Look, Cecil, you gon' give me the present today or tomorrow? 'Cause I ain't got all day," I say, cracking the screen door open wide enough for him to hand me something through it.

"Here," he says, and hands me a plastic bag that looks like it's from Philmon's Hair Emporium, where I used to get my hair done till I decided to do it myself. But Philmon's is a bookstore, too. So, when I open up the bag, it's a book.

"Thank you, Cecil. It was very thoughtful of you."

"You're welcome. I guess we probably might need to be talking real soon about what we gon' do about this house."

"You can do anything you wanna do with it."

"What you mean by that, Vy?"

"It means that I'm moving soon."

"You moving with that man in there?"

"Lord, no. I wouldn't live with another man at my age if you paid me. You cured me of that, Cecil. No, I'm doing one better than that. Paris is buying me my very own condominium."

He actually gets a smile on his face. "Yeah," he says, rubbing what might be new growth 'cause I see little gray p.r.i.c.kly stubbles coming outta his face. "That's our girl."

"She certainly is."

"We did something right, didn't we, Vy?"

"I guess so. But, like I said, Cecil, I gotta go. And thanks again."

"You're welcome. Can I give you a litde sugar? Not on your mouth. On your cheek."

"That ain't really necessary, Cecil."

"I know. But I need to, Vy."

"Oh, all right," 1 say, and turn my face so my right cheek fits into the s.p.a.ce I left open in the screen. His lips is dry, hard, and crusty, like he ain't been kissing nothing. I almost feel sorry for him, but, then again, I don't.

"Happy birthday," he says, and turns and walks down the sidewalk and get in his red Lincoln, which, to my surprise, starts right up.

When I turn to look at Shanice, her mouth is covered with both hands, I guess from laughing so hard. She's easing out from beside the refrigerator, where I see she been hiding. "You're good, Granny."

"Sometimes you gotta lie. I just don't make it no habit. Now, let me go on and get ready and let's get the h.e.l.l outta here. To h.e.l.l with taking a nap!"

I go on back in my bedroom and I'm pulling my yellow bowling T-shirt over my head that's got "Lucky Strikes" in big red letters on the back when the phone rings.

"Shanice, I thought I told you to unplug the phone!"

"I did, Granny, but you didn't unplug yours!"

"s.h.i.t," I say, and answer it. It's Ess.e.x. "When you gon' get here, gal? We waiting on you!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Give me fifteen or twenty minutes, Ess.e.x."

"Okay, but hurry up." Ess.e.x been bugging me to get back down to the lanes ever since I got home from the hospital. I'm one of the few on our team that bowl 170, so they need me. They need me bad. LuEsther average 155 to 170, but she fluctuate from one week to the next, depending on how many hot flashes she having. Ess.e.x been bowling in the 180s for years. Me and him on a doubles team, but since I been out, he been forced to roll with Mr. Kentucky, who got a odor but don't n.o.body have the nerve to tell him. We just get out his path when he roll, 'cause he can bowl his a.s.s off.

On the way, we stop by the grocery store and Shanice runs in and gets the pie, some apples, and some vanilla ice cream. When we get inside the s...o...b..at, we walk down to the lanes, and when I look to the left, I don't see no familiar faces, so then I look to the right, and I still don't see n.o.body I know from our team in our usual lanes. I know I got this right. This is our "house." I start walking over to the bar area to ask Zen.o.bia if she would put this ice cream in the freezer and where the h.e.l.l everybody done disappeared to, and she just grins at me like a d.a.m.n fool-showing off them two gold teeth that long ago stopped shining-and that's when, from behind me, I hear a whole bunch of Negroes yelling at the top of their lungs: "SURPRISE! HAPPY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY, VIOLA! AND WELCOME HOME, HUZZY!"

I'm scared to turn around, 'cause I might have a heart attack, but that's a chance I'm gon' have to take. When I do, Ess.e.x and the whole crew is holding a giant sheet cake with my name written in pink letters right across the middle and big yellow-and-mint-green roses up in two corners that I know they got from Costco. I forgot to tell Shanice that I do like Costco's cakes, 'cause they don't stick to the roof of my mouth like the other ones do, but I figure, if I let her roll my ball a few times, I can sneak and eat a litde piece and maybe she won't even notice.

Chapter 22.

Burnt Toast I don't know why I'm not scared. I should be, in this neighborhood: South Central. Jimmy was killed out here in a drive-by shooting. That was in 1985, when the term wasn't part of our vocabulary yet. It doesn't seem like it was nine years ago. In fact, if I were to drive down two or three blocks and turn a few corners, I could be right in front of the house where it happened. But I don't want to see that porch or the steps leading to it. I don't want to see the red gra.s.s or the burgundy sidewalk; the broken gla.s.s shattered and scattered like a map of the world ripped apart until every country landed in the wrong place. I don't want to remember the screams that sounded like sirens and the sirens that sounded like screams. Or the crowd, too many people-even litde kids-rushing to form a thick circle so they could experience the thrill of seeing another dead body being carried off to the morgue: another casualty in their own neighborhood caused by someone from their own neighborhood.

Jimmy never hurt anybody. Even after he got his degree and became a high-school coach, he still spent his summers out here, volunteering, helping to train young track hopefuls for the Junior Olympics. His heart was big, and I'm glad I was lucky enough to feel it. He was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm sure if he were still here Shanice and I would be happy. He wouldn't have let anything happen to her or me. He was a protector, and the sad thing is, no one in his neighborhood even cared. I think it was Malcolm X who said that when we kill each other senselessly it's genocide, and the white man is smiling, watching us do a job he doesn't have to anymore. I'm sure this is why they never found out who killed my husband. They just never looked that hard.

I pa.s.s Norniandie Avenue and Western and Crenshaw Boulevard and realize how Rodney King made these streets famous. They still don't look too inviting.

I searched high and low for Arlene's number-she's George's ex-wife- and I found it in one of the very same Christmas cards she'd sent him four years in a row. On a separate piece of paper she always asked that he call her before the holidays and make sure he didn't forget to send her some money like he promised or she was going to have to get ugly. Each time George simply said, "b.i.t.c.h," and tossed them into the trash. I kept the first one and put it away. This morning I tried calling the number she'd written inside, but it belonged to someone else. I knew she was still in the same place- rent-free-because George owns the duplex. I guess this was a form of alimony, since, from what I gather, Arlene has never worked.

This place looks like it's one of the few houses on the whole block that have been maintained. It's old, but the paint is fresh. It's either a pale yellow, or almond, I'm not sure. There are several round flowerbeds surrounded by little mesh fences on the patch of gra.s.s that's posing as the lawn, which I can tell has recently been cut. Some kids are rollerblading at the end of the block, up what appears to be a jump that they made out of plywood planks. Two elderly black men are sitting on the sidewalk in kitchen chairs with their legs crossed, drinking Pepsis.

I park in front of a rusting blue Escort and walk up to the door and knock. I don't exactly know what I'm going to say to her if she's here. What if she slams the door in my face? What if she could care less that I've come? What if she doesn't care what has happened to my daughter?

"Yeah, who is it?" a husky voice says through the door.

"Is Arlene Porter at home?"

"Who's looking for her?"

"Janelle Porter."

"Say what?" And I'm surprised when a handsome woman who must be about fifty-three or -four opens the door. "What you doing way over here?" she asks. "Is George dead?"

"No. I'm afraid not."

"Then what can I do you for?" she asks, not moving. I can see over her shoulder that her litde place is clean and neat. That she has taken great care of what she does have. She seems to have taken good care of herself, too. Even though her roots are gray, I can tell her hair has recently been permed because of the way its lying flat against her head. Her skin is flawless-and such a beautiful shade of brown-with not a wrinkle in sight. She could be from one of those Caribbean islands or something. And her eyes. They look green or gray, but I can't really tell. What in the world did she see in George?

"I wondered if I could talk to you about something? It won't take long."

"You mean you wanna come in?"

"If you don't mind."

"I don't mind, but I was just about to walk out the door."

"Oh, I'm sorry if this is a bad time."

"Well, all I got is about a minute, 'cause I gotta get to Ross to pick up something I got on hold before they close, which is about fifteen minutes from now, so come on in but make it quick."

Once inside, she motions for me to sit down on the couch, which I do. Her taste is very seventies, but it's understandable. I see pictures of her daughters as they were growing up, all over the living room in old frames. Only one favors George. In what looks like high-school photos, it's easy to see that they grew up to become attractive girls. I don't know who's who, but one is playing basketball, and looks like she's dunking it. There's a Polaroid of one of them holding a baby. She looks to be about eighteen. Don't know which one it is or how long ago it was.

"How are your daughters doing?" I ask.

"They fine, why?" Like I've asked her about something I shouldn't have.

"I was just curious."

"You didn't drive all the way out here just 'cause you curious," she says, and reaches for and lights a cigarette from her purse. She takes a deep drag, and when she looks at me, her eyes tell me that she knows exacdy why I'm here.

"How old are they now?" "JaDonna's twenty-six and Yolanda's almost twenty-four. Why?"

"Do they live here in L. A., still?"

"Yeah. JaDonna stays here with me, and Yolanda's living somewhere around here in South Central. But I ain't seen her in going on two years."

"Why not?"

" 'Cause we don't speak."

"Why not?"

" 'Cause we ain't got nothing to talk about."

"Is JaDonna here right now?"

"Yeah, she back there in the bed."

"Is she sick?"

"I guess you could say that, but not really. She have her good days and she have her bad days."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She on medication."

"Medication for what?"

"Depression. They say she's manic-depressive. I don't know. Sometime I think she just lazy, but I can't throw her out on the street, you know. She's been through a lot and, plus, being my firstborn and all."

"Yes, I know."

"How you know? You on medication, too?"

"No."

"So, whatever it was you wanted to talk to me about, I think JaDonna can probably fill you in, 'cause she love to run her mouth and she'll give you a earful. She know everything that's gone on in this house, and, besides, the clock is ticking and I gotta get where I'm going."

"Mama, who's that out there?" a voice from down the short hallway asks.

"It's your daddy's fourth wife, Janelle!"

"Third," I say.

"Fourth," Arlene says, correcting me, and kind of chuckles. "I was second."

I feel a hole forming in my throat. Fourth? I take tiny sips of air in order to breathe. That's lie number one.

"Go on back there, it's the first door on the left. Ain't but two. You can't miss it. I won't be but twenty or thirty minutes, tops, but if you ain't here when I get back, I'll understand. Believe me."

"Okay, then."

I want to correct her English so badly I almost can't stand it. I can't believe George tolerated her speaking like this.

"Tell me something, Janelle: is there a wife number five on the horizon?"

"I don't know."

"He's getting too old for all this. I'm surprised you lasted this long. Where's my keys?JaDonna, you seen my keys?"

"Why are you so surprised, Arlene?"

"No, Mama! Try the top of the 'frigerator!"

Arlene puts her cigarette out and walks over to the tiny kitchen area, and, sure enough, her keys are up there. "Because he don't know how to treat a woman. First he spoil you to death by taking care of you, then he gets you to love his last year's drawers, and you trust him, grow to depend on him for everything, and then you find out he been cheating on you the whole time. Didn't you know that?"

"I'm finding out the hard way."

"It took me sixteen years to see the light, but it look like you and La Verne done seen it, too."

"La Verne?"

"Yeah, she was number three. She shot his a.s.s, but I guess that didn't stop him."

"Shot him? George said that wound was from a robbery gone bad."

"That's true, in a manner of speaking."

"Do you know where she is?"

"I heard she took her daughters and moved back to Dallas, but I don't know for sure. Ask George."

"I can't."