I open the car door and he backs away to make room. "What's that on your finger?"

s.h.i.t. I didn't want him to see this. I'll take it back. Tomorrow. Didn't need it. Got enough diamonds. "Nothing."

"Let me see." He takes my hand but I don't want him to see the splotches. It's too late. Now I feel stupid for spending all this money on a ring I didn't need, not to mention this hat. Which apparently he ain't noticed. "It's pretty."

"What?" He must not be able to see in this light. Good.

"So-was this a revenge ring?"

"Kinda. But I can take it back."

"Why?"

" 'Cause I don't need it."

"We got a house full of stuff we don't need, don't we, Charlotte?"

"Yep."

"So you still don't trust the old man?"

"I want to, Al."

"You should. You really should."

I get out the truck, and since the windows are tinted he don't even see the bags in the back seat and I don't bother to get 'em. When we get inside, the kids have left the pizza boxes on the kitchen counter and a few dried-up slices for me, I guess. But I don't eat n.o.body's pizza.

"Come on," I say to Al, and lead him upstairs to our room.

"Don't get no ideas," he says.

"I'm full of ideas," I say.

When we get to our room, I go in the bathroom to find the calamine lotion, and decide to take a shower. Al gets in the bed. "I called Mama," I yell.

"And how she doing?"

"I didn't get to talk to her. But I left a message."

"That's good. I'm glad to hear it, Charlotte. Now, didn't it feel good?"

"Yep," I say, and stand in front of the mirror b.u.t.t naked. I hold out my hands and arms and they're completely smooth. No welts. No redness. No b.u.mps. Just a i8o-pound dark-brown body. After lathering all over, I'm wondering if I'm feeling good because I made the call or because I know my husband ain't cheating on me. I don't really care right now. I feel so good I decide not only to wash my hair, but shave my legs and underarms, too. I splash St. Ives Apricot Splash all over my body, then sprinkle a litde talcu m p owder between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the inside of my thighs and slip on my light-pink gown hanging behind the door. When I prance out to the bedroom to give my husband the best part of me, he's sleep. But it's all right. I ease on in the bed and slide under the covers next to him. I kiss his warm hands and am staring at him when the phone rings. I know I should trust him. He's a good man. The phone rings again. I'm wondering why n.o.body's getting it. I look over at the clock. It's ten to ten. The kids are already in bed, and, besides, they don't have a phone in their rooms. I kiss Al's thick eyebrows and then pick up the phone.

"Yeah," I say, in a voice that will make the person feel like they woke me up.

"Is Al there?" Loretha asks.

This b.i.t.c.h was his first wife. It's been seventy-two whole hours since she last called. She must be trying to break her own record. "He's sleep, Loretha."

"It's important."

"Isn't it always?"

"Look, Charlotte. It's late. I don't wanna go through this tonight. Just tell him Birdie's tuidon for summer school is still due next week, and for him not to forget it."

"I thought she was graduating from that beauty school?"

"She is, after this summer. She needs a few more courses."

"I bet. Didn't she go last summer?"

"Don't you remember when she took sick and couldn't finish?"

"No, I don't."

"Look, Charlotte, Birdie is Al's daughter, too, just like Tiffany and Monique, okay? Except she got here first, so don't hold it against her."

"I ain't got no problems with Birdie, so don't try to twist this s.h.i.t around, Loretha. It's you that irk the h.e.l.l out of me."

"Well, get over it. We been going through this too long, and we only got one more year left to tolerate each other. You sure Al is sleep?"

"I won't dignify that with a answer, and for your information, I don't need you to remind me when and for how long Birdie been Al's daughter.

I'm very much aware of it. All I'm saying is that I ain't never seen n.o.body go to a two-year program and it takes three. You shoulda never let her drop outta high school in the first place."

"That really ain't none of your business, now, is it?"

"I'm making it my business. Al's money is my money."

"Since when?"

"How much is the deposit, Loretha?"

"Three hundred and sixty-two."

"Dollars?"

"That's what I just said. Please make sure he gets this message, would you?"

"I guess child support don't cover tuition, then, huh?"

"Don't seem like it, do it?"

"I'm hanging up now, Loretha."

"Good night, Charlotte. Sleep tight."

I hang up. I hate that b.i.t.c.h. It never f.u.c.king fails: as soon as I start feeling good, can't ten seconds go by without some bulls.h.i.t popping up. Why can't she just disappear? Birdie! Birdie is getting on my last nerve, too. I prayed for the day to come when that girl graduated from high school, turned eighteen, and them child support payments would finally stop. Loretha been nickel-and-diming Al to death, and it seem like Birdie been seventeen for the last three years. Loretha didn't get pregnant till she found out Al was divorcing her. Loretha always was a sneaky wh.o.r.e, everybody knew it except Al, and once he found out she'd been sleeping with his so-called friend Scratch, he cut him loose, and to this day Al still don't know for sure if Birdie is even his. She didn't use to look nothing like him, but he been paying for her so long that she done finally started to favor him.

My head falls into the middle of my pillow. It's cool when I turn my face toward Al. A few minutes ago, I wanted to wrap my arms around him so tight until wasn't no s.p.a.ce between his body and mine, but now all I wanna do is go to sleep.

In the morning I make him some cheese grits, hard-fried eggs, bacon, and biscuits. When he walks in the kitchen, I'm just finishing up the gravy. He comes over and gives me a wet kiss. "Good morning, baby," he says.

"Good morning yourself, sweetheart," I say.

"Who was that you was talking to on the phone so late?" he asks, dipping his finger in the hot grits.

"It was just Janelle," I hear myself say.

"Well, is everything all right?"

"Yeah, same old, same old."

"Then why she call so late if everything is all right?"

"Shanice and George is at it again."

"Yeah? I don't trust that old guy," he says, pouring me and him a cup of coffee. "Something's missing in him. I can't put my finger on it, but the few times we been around him, he seem like he two different people: the one he want us to see, and the one he don't. You know what I mean?"

"No, I don't. But it ain't our business and it ain't our problem: it's Janelle's. Now, come on and sit your b.u.t.t down and let's eat."

"I'm coming, I'm coming. And since you ain't mad with me no more, what do I get for dessert on Sunday?"

"Me with a raspberry glaze."

"Oh yeah? Well, I guess it don't never hurt to try something new," he say. And we leave it at that.

Chapter 9.

Hot Links Links "What W0ulda happened if she'da died?" Brenda asks me.

"What you mean, 'What woulda happened'?" I'm b.u.t.tering six slices of white bread. The kids like white bread with b.u.t.ter on it, even though this is margarine. They don't know the difference and they eat it every single day. Sometimes Miss Q even put salt on hers.

Brenda's fiying some hot links in a big skillet with no handle. They was half-price, 'cause the expiration date to sell 'em was today. She done already cussed me out for taking too long to get back. She said the kids was so hungry they was having conniptions waiting for me and the Sloppy Joe meat, which was why she left 'em in here for ten quick minutes to run to the corner and get something on credit. I told Brenda I didn't thank it was such a good idea leaving them kids in here by theyself. For no amount of time. She just said Quantiana got good sense. But Miss Q ain't but five years old. How much sense could she have? I told Brenda that this is how kids end up on the six o'clock news, but she swore up and down that this was the first and last time she ever done it. All it take is one time, don't it?

They all huddled in the living room, waiting. That room must be at least three or four colors: one wall is lime green, another look like a very ripe tangerine, and I guess she got tired and just made the last two black. The ceiling ain't no shade of blue I ever seen in my life. It'a hold your interest, that's for sure. Miss Q and Hakeem is sitting on the floor with their heads sideways on the c.o.c.ktail table. The baby-Sunshine-is underneath it on that dirty rug, sucking her thumb. They watching TV. But that's all they do is watch TV.

"Who would get the house?" she's asking me, while she take another sip off her beer, which she also niusta got 011 credit, 'cause wasn't none in the icebox when I left. When I put the ketchup and hamburger meat inside it there was three more loose bottles making a circle around a empty Kool- Aid jug. 1 guess these is her dinner. But I don't say nothing.

Hot grease is popping everywhere, even on the front of her light-blue top, but it don't seem like Brenda's fazed by it. In a saucepan right next to the hot links is some cream-styled corn, bubbling. "That house ain't worth nothing," I say. "You should turn the fire down on that corn before it stick, baby."

"It's a house. Better than this," she says, turning the dial on the stove from five to two. "This" is the projects, but if Brenda was to go back forty or fifty years to the backwoods of Texas and see what and where me and my eleven sisters and brothers was brought up, she wouldn't be complaining. She got running water. A bathroom with a toilet that flush. A phone that work since I been here. And two whole bedrooms for three little kids. That's all we had, too. She ain't got to worry about no rats. Nothing but a few straggly roaches every now and then. So. "This" ain't so bad, is what I'm thinking as I look around. It all depends on your frame of reference.

We had to take turns working on the farm, so some of us went to school and some of us didn't. After two of my other brothers got killed fooling around with a forklift, Daddy sent me up to Chicago to live with his brother. I was only in the tenth grade. He wanted me to graduate. I liked school. Wanted to finish. Did, too. When I left Texas, I already knew how most things worked. I'd watched my daddy operate machinery and run the farm. I knew how to cook. Knew how to put two and two together. Even figured out how to make a living without a good education. Sometimes it was hard. Sometimes it was easy. I still thank college woulda been the best way to go. If I had my druthers. But. It's almost April. It's 1994. I'm on the other side of middle age. Supposed to be retired. And here I am. Starting over.

"The IRS got a lien against the house," I say. "So you could say I don't even own it."

"What's a hen?" Brenda asks, setting some paper plates on the table with clean plastic spoons she gets out the silverware drawer. She got two or three real forks and case knives in there too, which me and her usually eat with. I been meaning to stop in Target and buy two sets. They ain't but $19.99 each, and the handles come in different colors.

"A lien is when the IRS get mad 'cause you didn't pay your taxes and they let everybody in the world know it. You can't get no credit nowhere, and you can't sell the house till you pay them first. If you don't pay nothing for a long time, they charge you so much interest and then penalties on top of the interest, that it add up to ten times more than you owed in the first place. If you can't keep up the payments, they do not feel sorry for you at all. They can and will take everything you own to get their money, even if it mean taking your house, your car, your wedding ring, anything you got that's worth something. This is what happened to Redd Foxx."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"But what you supposed to do if they take your house and car and stuff?"

"What you mean, 'what you supposed to do'?"

"Well, it wouldn't make no sense to me to pay for something you ain't even got no more."

"It don't work like that, Brenda. It means I couldn't never buy another house until I paid the government they money."

"Then you better go on and pay them folks. Cecil, would you make some Kool-Aid for the kids right quick?"

"Sure, where's the pitcher?" But then I remembered.

"Where it always is. In the refrigerator. Why didn't you pay your taxes, Cecil?"

"That's a dumb question, Brenda."

"What's so dumb about it?" she asks, getting a real fork out the drawer and jabbing it deep into them crunchy hot links two at a time. Grease is dripping all over the stove, and dark-brown drops fall right on top of that yellow corn. I can't eat this mess.

"What's usually the reason why people don't pay their bills on time, Brenda?"

" 'Cause they ain't got the money, I guess." "All right, then."

"But you had them barbecue places."

"Had, is right."

"QUANTIANA! Y'all come on in here and eat! Well, what happened to 'em?"

"You been listening to me, gal?"

"Yeah," she says, "but you ain't told me nothing, really."

Here come the kids. One by one. Like little soldiers. Miss Q is beautiful. Her hair is wild and curly. Her skin is the color of a brand-new copper penny. I thank her and Hakeem's daddy is, or I should say was, Mexican. I can't be sure. They mixed with something. Hakeem is a handsome little dude. Already got the face of a grown man. You can see what he gon' look like twenty years from now. Small for his age, seem like to me. He three, but ain't much bigger than Sunshine, and she won't be two till Labor Day. Now, this child is 100 percent black. Ain't no guessing game necessary here. Her daddy like to throw dice, but his luck was always low when he come up against me. I won that gold cap in his mouth once, but I couldn't take the man's tooth. And if memory serves me correctly, he still owes me the value of one gold crown.

Brenda leans against the sink while the kids sit down at the table. Ain't but three chairs, so even if we all wanted to eat at the same time, we couldn't.

"Mama, Hakeem is in my chair."