What They Found (2 page)

Well, that was all Mama could say. She started crying and I thought that it was going to end right there with everybody quiet and whispering to each other the way they do at funerals. But then Curtis Mason asked, “Can I say something?” He was wearing his army uniform. Curtis had hit on me once or twice but nothing serious. He was his own person and I didn’t know that much about him.

“Certainly, Curtis,” Mama said.

He went up to the front just as Reverend Glover came in. Sister Lucas, in an old-timey hat with a veil on the side of her head, was with him.

“Did you want to say a few words, Reverend Glover?” I asked.

“No, I just stopped in to say hello,” he said.

“Go on, Curtis,” Mama said.

“Folks, I knew Brother Evans from when he coached
me in Little League,” Curtis said. “He was always part of this community in important ways. All the youngbloods knew that if they needed some advice in a hurry they could always come to him and he would steer them straight. We knew he loved his family. One day I hope to be like him. I’m going back to Afghanistan and I don’t know if I’m going to be all right or not.”

“God will be with you, son,” John Carroll said.

“But I know my block, my Hundred and Forty-fifth Street, will be keeping me in their hearts as well,” Curtis said. “That’s important to me, because if I get in the way of danger, I want to know that there’s something I’m there for. Brother Evans was part of that. This business is part of that, too. I would personally like to thank you all for being here for Brother Evans because, in a way, I feel you’re here for me, too. Thank you.”

They gave Curtis a big hand and Reverend Glover went up and shook his hand. Sister Lucas got a smile on her face somehow. It halfway looked like she had a gas pain, but it was technically a smile. Micheline started the fashion show and soon everybody was eating and talking to each other and saying how good it was that a new business was opening. It spilled outside a bit and some winos came in looking for something to eat. John Carroll let them each take a plate.

When it was all over and me and Noee had cleaned up, Mama came over and gave us both a big hug.

“Abeni, Noee, your father is something else,” Mama said. “I always knew he was smarter than me.”

“Mama, how did you fix your mouth to get those words to come out?” I asked. “You know there’s nobody smarter than the Evans ladies.”

“Well, that’s true,” she said. The tears were coming again. Me and Noee were going to miss our father a lot. But not like Mama would. Somewhere in heaven he knew it, too. So he had set us up with a momentum that didn’t allow too much looking back. He was okay, that man.

“Y
ou going to have a whole row of hot guys on the wall?” Cheryl McKinney turned her head sideways as Mama Evans straightened the photograph she was hanging. “You want me to bring in some pictures?”

“Cheryl, these are all neighborhood boys, and some girls, who are in the military,” Mama Evans said. “I’m trying to get some of the church women to write to them and send them care packages.”

“I know two of them,” Cheryl said. “That’s Randy, who used to work downtown at the blouse factory, and that’s Curtis, who got that little dimple in the side of his face. He is some kind of cute.”

“I just hope they all make it home safe,” Mama Evans said. “This war is working my one good nerve down to a nub.”

“You know what I was thinking of doing?” Cheryl put her face as close as she could to the big mirror. “If you look real close you can see I have a few freckles.”

“Well, a lot of light-skinned people with reddish hair have freckles, honey,” Mama Evans said.

“You think I should have them colored? Maybe with some henna like I saw an Indian lady do on television?”

“Henna’s a stain, but it comes off eventually, so if you really need to enhance those freckles—how many do you have? Six, maybe seven. It could work.”

“Nine, but one might be a beauty mark,” Cheryl said.

“Oh, I see.” Mama Evans lifted Cheryl’s hair and looked at the ends. “You haven’t been pressing your hair with that strawberry gel you were using, have you? Because it looks a mess.”

“No, ma’am, just touching up the ends,” Cheryl said, settling in the chair.

“And what’s this I hear about you and Evelyn not speaking to each other?” Mama Evans asked. “You girls have been friends for years.”

“You remember that time we were in here and she was wearing that orange jumpsuit and had her tennis racket?” Cheryl asked.

“Yeah, I remember,” Mama Evans said, brushing Cheryl’s hair up from her neck. “That was the time you were going to change your entire style, and get back to your roots.”

“Uh-huh, that’s right,” Cheryl said.

“I remember you said you were going to get some African braids, too—”

“On a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, so they would be authentic, too,” Cheryl said. “You can get your hair done cheaper in Brooklyn but I don’t think Brooklyn is really keeping it real. You know what I mean?”

“I guess so,” Mama Evans answered, “but then you were going to have your braids dyed blond?”

“Uh-huh. I think those white girls in my school look so cute with their little blond African braids.”

“Right.”

“Then remember we were talking about her boyfriend, Martin?”

“Don’t tell me you said something bad about her boyfriend?”

“I didn’t say nothing bad about him even though he is a troublemaker. I even like his name,” Cheryl said. “He’s cute. Ain’t no two ways about it, the boy is cute.”

“He’s an attractive young man,” Mama Evans said. “How old is he?”

“Eighteen,” Cheryl said.

“Then you and Evelyn left together,” Mama Evans said. “I thought you and her were getting along just fine.”

“We were. She was going to tennis practice,” Cheryl said. “But I had just had my nails done over at the Korean place so I wasn’t playing no tennis. I didn’t spend all that money to get my nails broke playing tennis.”

“Girl, you are really into your roots,” Mama Evans
said. “African braiding and Korean nails. Go on with your bad self!”

“Anyway, we were walking up to the park and we started talking about Martin again. I said they looked like the perfect couple,” Cheryl said. “She said that sometimes she wondered because when they walked down the street people turned around and checked him out before they checked her out because he was so fine. You know, Evelyn is sweet but she ain’t no Foxy Brown.”

“Okay.”

“I said she didn’t have to wonder about nothing,” Cheryl said. “Love is love.”

“Sounds good so far,” Mama Evans said. “But how do you get from there to the idea of Martin being a troublemaker?”

“Well, she’s still going on about how she’s not too sure because he’s so good-looking and whatnot,” Cheryl said, looking at herself in the mirror. “You know what I was thinking, too? I’m thinking I should get some highlights around my face to emphasize my eyes. What do you think?”

“That might look nice,” Mama Evans said.

“So then I said to Evelyn, ‘Hey when he’s making love to you and looking deep in your eyes, he must know he found himself something good.’ And then she said that they don’t be making love and looking into each other’s eyes.”

“Cheryl, that’s kind of personal,” Mama Evans said.

“No, it’s okay,” Cheryl said. “We’re girlfriends.”

“Still …”

“So if they weren’t looking into each other’s eyes I thought maybe he was into some freaky stuff,” Cheryl said. “Which is all right with me because what people do behind closed doors is their business. But then she told me they didn’t have sex at all. Nothing. Nada. No way.”

“You know she’s religious,” Mama Evans said.

“That’s what she started running down,” Cheryl said. “But then I asked her what did she do when he started asking for some. She said they had an agreement that they would wait until they got married. She said that’s what Jesus would do under the circumstances.”

“Nothing wrong with that, Cheryl,” Mama Evans said. “There was a time when people thought that waiting until you got married was what you were supposed to do. And many people still do.”

“Those were the olden days, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “This is today. You don’t know what Jesus would be doing today. When you see a brother that pretty and he can get any girl he wants, and he’s saying he don’t want nothing even though he’s in love, you got to start thinking about what could be wrong. Am I right?”

“I hope I don’t see where this is headed,” Mama Evans said. “You know you’re letting your scalp get too dry. You can’t just take care of the ends and keep your hair nice.”

“A friend of mine puts green tea on her scalp. It’s got antioxidants or something like that,” Cheryl said.

“So I had to ask Evelyn did she ever think that maybe the brother is on the down low? Sneaking around and seeing men and stuff like that? She said that she didn’t think it and she didn’t believe it, and I could see she was getting into a huff.”

“I wonder why!”

“I was wondering myself, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “I’m just thinking about her. I know she didn’t want to spend five years waiting for this dude and then see him running off with a man.”

“Cheryl, people have their own lives and they have to deal with them as they can,” Mama Evans said. “That girl was raised in a Christian home and she’s trying to live what she’s been taught.”

“I know she’s good people, Mama Evans, but how I know what he’s up to?” Cheryl said. “I told Evelyn she needed to rub up on him a little and see how excited he gets. Then she could back off at the last minute if she wanted to, but at least she would know how interested the brother was.”

“Or she could just take his word for it, Cheryl,” Mama Evans said. “Relationships are built on trust.”

“Uh-huh. But I heard about a guy who was married twenty-two years and had four children and then one day he woke up and realized he was a stone homosexual,”
Cheryl said. “He kissed his wife goodbye, left ten dollars on the refrigerator, and ran off with his mailman’s cousin.”

“Who must have woke up that morning and realized he was a homosexual, too,” Mama Evans said. “Cheryl, I don’t blame Evelyn for being upset with you. It’s one thing to bring up issues and it’s another thing trying to solve them when they’re not really your business.”

“She wasn’t that mad with me, Mama Evans,” Cheryl said. “She didn’t get really mad until the next week.”

“Sometimes it takes a while to think about a conversation,” Mama Evans said.

“No, it was the troublemaker that got her mad,” Cheryl said. “And he was the one that didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I was not going to let my homegirl get her feelings hurt if this guy was not going to show correct,” Cheryl said. “I knew I had to do something and do it quick!”

“Oh, Lord.”

“I knew that if Evelyn was afraid to check the brother out I had to do it.”

“You had no choice?”

“Right. So I thought that I would talk to him and just push up on him enough to check him out. So I got his number from Wayne who lives over that Egyptian store
where they sell the loose cigarettes. I called Martin and told him I had to see him about something very important concerning Evelyn,” Cheryl said. “I told him I was worried about her so don’t say anything.”

“Cheryl, please don’t tell me anything I don’t want to hear,” Mama Evans pleaded.

“So he said he would meet me and I told him to come over to my apartment on Thursday morning at ten o’clock. He said he had to be in school at that time and I said—”

“Didn’t
you
have to be in school at that time?”

“Yes, ma’am, but this was for my homegirl so I made the sacrifice,” Cheryl said. “Anyway, I told him to come over if he really loved her. He said he would be there.

“He came over and I asked him if he really loved Evelyn and he said yes. Meanwhile, I had on my housedress and I was letting it fly open a little to see where his eyes went. They stayed right on my face and I wondered about that because most brothers, if they alone with a girl, will let their eyes wander all over the place.

“He asked me what was wrong with Evelyn and I kept stalling and telling him I didn’t know how to tell him. He said he was going to leave and go ask her. I said if he asked and she told him they would probably have to break up. He kind of calmed down. Then I asked him to hold me because I was so upset.”

“I know you washed your hair just before you came here because I can still smell the soap, but you didn’t
rinse it enough.” Mama Evans took Cheryl over to the sink. “Did he go for you needing to be held?”

“No, and that made me wonder even more.”

“Cheryl, some men are just wonderful and pure and trying their best to do the right thing,” Mama Evans said. “You have to understand that.”

“He said that he didn’t understand how him holding me was going to help Evelyn,” Cheryl said. “I asked him why he was just relying on his brain and what he was thinking. I told him that Evelyn was my friend a long time before she was his. So he broke down and let me sit on his lap. When I did I let my housecoat just fall open so he could take a good look.”

“And he knew exactly what you were doing, Cheryl,” Mama Evans said. “He’s not a fool.”

“I could see that,” Cheryl said. “Which is why I went to plan B.”

“Which was?”

“I told him the problem wasn’t with Evelyn, it was with me,” Cheryl said.

“Cheryl, please don’t tell me you were going after that girl’s man?”

“No way! How I look trying to steal somebody’s boyfriend? As good-looking as I am I don’t have to be taking no hand-me-downs!” Cheryl turned her head to one side and put her hand on her hip. “I have never been desperate for no man. But I needed to find out if this man was
messing over my best friend. So I said it was about me and all I needed was to have him one time and I would be satisfied.”

“I need some aspirins,” Mama Evans said. “Sit under the dryer for a while, baby.” Mama Evans dried her hands, switched on the dryer, and went for the aspirins.

The phone rang. It was Abeni asking if her boyfriend, Harrison Boyd, had called. Mama Evans said that he hadn’t. As she hung up she looked at the photograph of her husband, Troy, on the wall near the shop’s license. She wondered if he had ever experienced anything like the encounter with Cheryl.