Twenty-Four Seconds from Now…

Chapter 5 And Twenty-Four Days Before That…

I was on graveyard duty, because on Saturday mornings I’m always on graveyard duty. I wouldn’t have to be if Nat were ever home, but she’s not. Or if my folks ain’t sleep in, but Saturday mornings are when they rest, even though neither one of them is actually resting. They just… stay in their room, staying and… rooming, if you know what I mean.

So me and Gammy got out early.

Gammy dressed in a pink blouse and a darker pink skirt, put on a full face of makeup, a freshly primped wig, and her soft shoes. The walking ones. Then she hooked a leash to Denzel Jeremy Washington’s collar, luring him away from my parents’ door with a treat.

“Time for your walk,” Gammy always says to him.

“Time for your walk,” I always say to her, grabbing her jacket from the closet.

The cemetery is almost a mile from our house, and it takes about forty-five minutes to get there at Gammy’s pace, given her creaky hips, especially in the brisk April air, and the heavy purse hanging from her shoulder that she refuses to leave home. Most of that time for me was spent watching the dog, making sure he didn’t lasso Gammy’s legs or chew on something he wasn’t supposed to be chewing on, including me. And while I would be trying to stay both close and far from that tiny beast, Gammy would gab endlessly about my grandfather.

“Did I ever tell you why Grandy always liked his clothes to be just a little bit wrinkled?” Gammy asked, pausing for Denzel Jeremy Washington to cock his leg up and pee.

“Yes. A million times. But, please, tell me again,” I said.

Gammy, sensitive to sarcasm, reached over and popped my arm.

“Watch your tone,” she ordered, tugging the leash and inching on step-by-step down the block. “You’d be lucky to have a story like this to tell one day, grandson. Lucky.”

“Sorry,” I said, kissing her cheek. The scent of rose perfume and that crayon-y smell of blush danced in my nostrils for a moment. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Like I said, Gammy’s memory is slipping, which is why she runs down the same story all the time. It isn’t that she keeps forgetting she’s already told us; it’s that she doesn’t want to forget the story itself. It’s the one memory she’s clung to, and it’s triggered by the fact that I’m always a little wrinkled too.

“About Grandy. And the wrinkles.”

“Ah. Yeah, he loved to keep his clothes just a little bit wrinkled. You know, some whiskers in his shirts, some diagonal creases ’cross his trousers. I remember the first day I met him. He was young. Maybe twenty-one, twenty-two, and he came bopping into the laundromat I used to work at back then.” She turned to me. “You know where that old ice-cream shop is? The one up on Jefferson?”

“Of course. Me and Aria go there all the time. That was our first date. Well, part of it. They got this cookies-and—”

“We ain’t talkin’ ’bout no Aria, boy.” Gammy sliced right through my romantic memory. “She all you got on your mind? Aria, Aria, Aria. I bet if I opened up your head right now, all the little wrinkles in your brain would spell out that girl’s name.” She wiggled her finger in the air. “A-R-I-A.”

I just laughed. I was used to Gammy going off like this. Ain’t pay it no attention. Plus, the truth was, Aria was on my mind. I mean, she’s always on my mind, but she was on my mind different that morning, because the day before she’d gotten three emails from colleges she’d applied to, telling her she got in. With money. I was happy for her. In a real way, but also in a weird way, which is that way that made me sad for myself. But happy. For her.

“Yes, I know the place,” I said, bringing both me and Gammy back to the story. “What about it?”

“Before it was an ice-cream whatever, that place was the old laundromat I used to work at back then. I ain’t do much but sit around and break dollars and occasionally wash and fold somebody’s clothes. But in them days, people ain’t like you touching their garments because ain’t nobody want you to shrink their stuff up. Might be the only pair of pants they got, and don’t want ’em turned into shorts,” Gammy grumbled. “Anyway, your granddaddy came in one day. I’d never seen him before. I knew just about everybody who walked through that door, and I was certain his handsome self hadn’t stepped foot ’cross that threshold until the day he did. A pretty man. Skin just as dark and smooth. Sweet mouth. And had them eyelashes that be meant for girls but only boys get. Like you.”

We waited at the crosswalk on the corner of Silver Hill and Suitland Road, Gammy taking a pause in the story to catch her breath.

“Did you say something to him?” I prompted.

“Of course I did.”

“What you say?”

“I said hello.” Gammy popped her little hip out as if reliving the moment.

“That’s it? That’s all you said?” I was completely unimpressed by my grandmother’s game.

“Baby, it was a different time.” The light changed, and we stepped gingerly off the curb, my hand positioned on the back of her arm, ready for any stumble. “Back then a hello was all you needed. Like dropping a line in the water. Just gotta be patient and wait for the bite.”

“But what if he don’t bite?”

“Then that ain’t his bait. And he ain’t your fish,” she professed. “But like I said, that was forever ago. It’s different now. These days girls like your sister just jump in the water and grab her a fish. Or two.”

I laughed as Gammy rolled her eyes for the old school and at the new school.

“So clearly, Grandy was your fish.”

“Yeah, but he ain’t bite immediately. And honestly, after seeing him wash clothes for the first time, I almost wanted to snatch my line back. He came in there and dumped out all his filthy overalls and dingy dungarees and shirts and whatnot, everything covered in dirt and ash and who knows what else because he was apprenticing with his father at the time, learning how to make door knockers. He put everything in the washer, washed it all up, whole time not saying a thing to me, then threw everything in the dryer. I’m just sitting there watching him, and he’s just sitting there pretending to read the newspaper.”

“How you know he was pretending?”

“Because after we got together, I ain’t never seen that man pick up another newspaper a day in his life. Fool was just nervous. Or maybe he wasn’t sure I was his type. And once them clothes finished drying, I wasn’t sure he was mine either, because he took everything out and just threw it all back in his laundry bag. Ain’t fold a thing!”

“Nothing?”

“Not slack nor sleeve. Just balled it all up like trash.” Gammy sucked her teeth as if she still couldn’t believe the man she would eventually fall in love with and spend damn near the rest of her life with would commit such a crime. “It wasn’t until the third time he came in and did this that I finally asked him why.”

“You asked him why?”

“No. I didn’t really ask him why. I just offered him a… suggestion.”

“That sounds more like you.”

“I said, ‘You know, if you fold your clothes, they’ll be pretty much ready to go when it’s time to put them on.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘The funny thing about clothes is they always ready to be put on. Because they clothes, and that’s what they made for.’?”

“Oh, he got smart with you?” This didn’t surprise me. I knew how Grandy was.

“You know how he was.” We stopped for a moment to let Denzel Jeremy Washington circle a patch of grass in one of the flower beds built into the sidewalk. Gammy loved them. Thought they made spring in Paradise Hill the best time to live there. Thought these ankle-height, iron gates outlining splashes of greenery in the middle of concrete did wonders for prettying up the blocks, and perfuming them, too.

“Hmmm.” Gammy was suddenly distracted. “Flowers don’t look like they want to open up,” she said about the sad state of the flower bed. “Been checking every day.”

“Probaby confused by the weather.”

“Maybe.” Gammy nodded. “But they’ll get there. They’ll get there. Things always bloom when they ready.” She examined the closed bulbs for a moment more. “Anyway, what were we talking about?”

“Well, I wanted to know what you thought about that?”

“About what?”

“About Grandy being kinda sharp with you.”

“Ah, yes.” Gammy flashed a devilish smile. “Honestly, I kinda liked it. But I wasn’t ready to let him win the argument.”

“But it wasn’t really an argument, was it? To me, sounds like you were minding that man’s business.”

“No, it was an argument,” Gammy confirmed. “At least in my head. So I say, ‘Well, I guess that’s true, as long as you don’t mind walkin’ round looking like a road map.’ And he started laughing. Introduced himself. Earl Wednesday. I loved that his last name was Wednesday. Then I introduced myself. And he said, ‘Miss Sharletta, I happen to actually prefer wrinkles. See, if I put my clothes on perfectly ironed in the morning, I’d spend all day trying to keep ’em that way. That don’t seem like a fun way to wear clothes. But if I put them on and they’re already a little wrinkled, I can actually be myself in ’em. A little imperfection takes the edge off things.’?”

“Was he right?” I asked as Denzel Jeremy Washington finally popped a squat.

“About them clothes? Hell, no.”

“No, about imperfection taking the edge off?”

“Ah.” Gammy’s eyes shone. Tears that hadn’t dropped yet turning them to glitter. “That ain’t the point. The point is, he took the bait. Hello!”

To this I howled. “Gammy, it sounds to me like you took his!” Gammy handed me a plastic bag from her purse. I bent down, cleaned up the dog poop.

“That’s the way it’s supposed to sound to you. That’s what it felt like to him, too!”

After about ten more minutes we’d made it to the cemetery. Like most cemeteries, it can sometimes feel like the saddest fun house ever. Every turn the same as the last. Every landmark a headstone, which means there are no landmarks at all. But Gammy goes to the cemetery all the time. Almost every day, as long as one of us can escort her, making the trek through the maze of grass and stone to Grandy’s plot.

Grandy’s headstone reads HERE LIES EARL WEDNESDAY, DEVOTED HUSBAND, FATHER, AND GRANDFATHER. And built into the stone, right in the face of it, is a brass door knocker. It’s in the shape of a dove, the tail serving as the knocker.

I always stand back while Gammy has her moment, and despite my urge to, I’ve never recorded it. This time I just stood with her and was immediately transported to the funeral a couple years back, when we were all in this place saying goodbye to him. How strange that day was. How not so strange it is now. How grass has grown up through the fresh soil he’s buried under. How nature always wins.

After Gammy whispered a prayer, she reached into her bag, pulled out her rose perfume, and spritzed it all over the gray stone.

Then she said, “Knock, knock, Earl,” and instead of using the knocker, she used her palm and patted the granite. It was a different knock than the way she knocked on every door in our house. That Gammy-one-handed thump? No. For Grandy, she had a lover’s knock. A knock they both used for each other. A knock I’d heard forever and also heard about forever because Gammy always talked about it on the way home from the cemetery.

It was woven into the part of the story about how she knew she would eventually fall in love with Grandy even though he was a wrinkled mess.

“We’d been dating a few weeks. And I liked him, but it was still early. Maybe two or three dates. The first one I remember because we went to the movies. Saw something with Sidney Poitier in it when he was young and fine. You know, he was the Denzel before Denzel.”

“I know, Gammy.” Because she tells me all the time. She bats her eyelashes at me and fans her face with her hand, acting like she’s hot and bothered by Sidney or Denzel, or Sidney and Denzel.

“Young and fine,” she repeated. “Anyway, after that we split a tuna melt and fries, which I ordered because I wanted to have a good excuse not to kiss him, and there’s no better excuse than tuna breath. But this one night he came by the laundromat. It was late, and we were already closed, and I was in there sweeping and cleaning up dryer lint when there was a knock on the door.”

Gammy wiped a tear from her eye. She always cries for Grandy, especially after leaving his grave. I wiped a tear from my eye too, because of my cry-thing. We went on. She went on.

“But that knock wasn’t a regular knock. He used the palm of his hand and patted the glass, softly. Later I found out it’s because he never wanted to startle me. But at the time I thought it was kind of strange. When I opened the door, he presented me with a gift wrapped in tissue paper. And you know what it was?”

“Of course I do, Gammy. But tell—”

“It was a door knocker,” she barged on. “He’d made one for me. A circle and a triangle connected by a hinge, which, when he presented it, I had no idea what to say. Or what it was. I mean, just looked like random shapes to me. Of course, now I know that’s all he could make at the time. Remember, he was an apprentice and was still learning the craft. So he wasn’t that good yet, but I still loved it.”

“And that was it?”

“That was it. Wasn’t too long after that I found out he definitely did iron his boxer shorts. And that he washed his body much better than he washed his clothes.” Her grin the biggest wrinkle on her face.

Usually, when me and Gammy get home, Ma will be in the kitchen cooking breakfast, and Dad will be asleep. Forreal this time. And this Saturday morning was no different except for the fact that there was less breakfast than usual. Less eggs. Less grits. Less bacon. And Ma was fully dressed, which was also different. Usually, she makes all this happen in an old nightshirt and a bonnet. Slippers that slap with each step. But this morning she had on clothes. Jeans and a button-down. Had her hair unwrapped and was sitting in the living room, lipstick in hand.

“Hey, how was the walk?” she asked as we came in.

“A little chilly, but fine,” Gammy said, lifting Denzel Jeremy Washington and holding him against her chest. “Told my grandson here that he’d be lucky to have a love story like mine and your daddy’s.”

“Absolutely,” Ma said, now up and heading to the kitchen.

“But all he wanted to talk about was Aria,” Gammy snitched.

“That ain’t true!” I protested.

“Sounds true to me,” Ma replied, now coming back, her face holding a smirk, her hands holding plates.

I took my jacket off, tossed it over the armrest of the couch, then went and washed up in the kitchen sink, Gammy’s Aria, Aria, Aria following me every step of the way. After drying my hands on the hand towel hanging from the stove handle, I came back to the table for breakfast, when my mother, for once, took my side.

“But you better stop talking trash about that girl,” Ma said to Gammy, who was still stroking her pup’s head. “If it wasn’t for Aria, you wouldn’t have your little friend there.”

“I know, I know,” Gammy said. “I’m just messin’.” She unclipped the leash and set the dog on the floor. He shook off, then took off toward his food bowl. Gammy eased out of her jacket, handed it to me to hang in the hall closet, then headed for the sink.

Denzel Jeremy Washington was the newest member of our family, but he was a transplant, an adoptee, from the Wrights. He was originally Aria’s dog, a gift from her father on her fifteenth birthday. She named him Jeremy for no reason at all, and when he came to stay with us—dual custody—Gammy renamed him Denzel Jeremy Washington and made it clear that his whole name—the Denzel, the Jeremy, and the Washington—had to be said every single time, and that he should never be teased for his underbite because Gammy got fake teeth and has been caught, more than once, asleep on the couch with the bottom row halfway out her mouth.

Gammy returned from the sink.

“You know I love Aria,” she said, kissing me on the cheek before sitting down at the table.

“I bet. You took her dog!” I squawked.

“Wait a minute now. That’s not true. I ain’t take nothing,” Gammy corrected me.

“Well, regardless, she lost her dog.”

“No, no. She ain’t lose him either,” Gammy corrected me again. “She gave him to me. Her mother didn’t quite understand his form of communication.”

“You mean her mother couldn’t take all that barking.”

“Whatever. The point is, we share him,” Gammy said. This was technically true, but it wasn’t a fifty-fifty split. He’s more like ninety-nine percent Gammy’s dog, and one percent Aria’s whenever she’s over here petting him, which don’t last long because… I mean, I’m here to be petted too.

“If you say so,” I said, reaching for a plate only for my hand to be slapped away by my mother.

“That’s not for you. It’s Gammy’s,” Ma said.

“All this?” It was a plate of small piles. A pile of eggs. A pile of bacon. A pile of grits.

“And your dad’s, when he gets up. And your sister’s when she gets home, which should be any minute because you know she with… that boy.”

“What boy?” Gammy said, examining the food.

“The boy she’s always with on Saturday mornings. Her weekend boyfriend, Spank. And you know he can’t cook for nothing. Ain’t got no flavor in his personality, so I know he don’t have none in his kitchen.” She pointed at the food. “There’s some for him, too.”

“So, then…” I was confused.

“So, then, what?”

“I mean… what about… me? Like, what I’m gon’ eat?” I asked, both hungry and horrified. But Ma just hit me with the busy signal.

“Boop, boop, boop, boop…” She mocked me. “Spoiled to death.”

Gammy ignored us and forked the fried eggs.

“I’m not,” I said defensively. “I’m just saying it don’t make sense that you’d cook for everybody but me. I mean, did I do something—”

“Relax, boy. I ain’t cook for me neither.” Ma jacketed me with her arms from behind. “Me and you got a date.”

“A date?”

“Yep. A breakfast date. Just the two of us.” She smushed her face against mine.

“When?”

“The moment you stop whining and get up from this table.”

I stopped whining—even though I wasn’t whining—quick, and a few minutes later we were headed out. As we were leaving, Nat was coming in. Right on cue. Usually, Spank would be behind her, sniffing around for food. But this Saturday morning he wasn’t.

“Good morning, Natalie,” Ma said, a smidgen of look at you in her tone.

“Mornin’,” Nat said cheerfully.

Then Ma, checking to see if anyone had come in after her, added, “You… by yourself?”

“Yeah. My car’s been making a funny noise, so Spank went to get some stuff to try to fix it.”

“Ah, the boy’s a handyman in more ways than one. That’s nice,” Gammy joked from the dining room.

Nat shook off the burn. She never let any of it bother her, and sometimes would even lean into it by threatening to divulge details.

“Okay, well, breakfast is on the table,” Ma said to Nat. “But can you please wash up first? Your grandmother don’t need to smell that boy on you.”

“Ooh, judgy, judgy!” Nat said, giving me a hug. Ma was right. I could smell him on her neck. Cigarette saliva. Gross. “Where y’all going?”

“On a date,” I replied.

“Ain’t you too old for that?” Nat asked. Mother-son dates had been going on since I was a kid, but they were usually for dinner. Ma would surprise me by taking me down to my favorite restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint called Burger Joint, not too far from the cemetery. The type of place you knew was dirty, and figured all the deliciousness was because of the filth. It was a time for just the two of us. A way for her to teach me how to, well, date. How to be a gentleman. She’d even make me pay the bill, even though I was using her money to do so. So when she said we had a date, I wasn’t confused by the date part, just the time of day. We almost never had breakfast dates. But, sure enough, twenty minutes later we were pulling into the parking lot of the oldest diner in town—Bonnie’s.

My mother touched up her lipstick before getting out the car. Then waited for me to hold the door for her before entering the restaurant. We slid into a booth, the yellow vinyl farting with each scoot.

The waiter came over immediately and filled the plastic water cups that were positioned in front of us on the table. The kind that look like glass but ain’t.

“My name is Rochelle, and I’ll be your server this morning. Can I get y’all something to drink besides water? Tea? Coffee? Juice?”

“Coffee for me,” Ma said, taking a menu.

“For me too, please.”

“Cream and sugar?” Rochelle asked. My mother shook her head. I nodded.

“Got it.” Rochelle walked away, and even though my mother had the trifold menu flapped open, we both knew exactly what we were getting. Whenever we have breakfast anywhere outside the house, I always order pancakes, because even though Ma cooks pancakes at home sometimes, they never taste quite as good as pancakes outside. Other things are better inside. Like eggs. Something about eggs cooked at home makes them taste better than eggs out. Same with sausage. And definitely bacon. But pancakes? They shine when they come from a greasy griddle.

“So, Neon…,” Ma interrupted my pancake pondering, and dug around in her purse. I would’ve thought she was looking for hand sanitizer if she hadn’t called me Neon. She never calls me that. No one close to me besides Aria calls me that. It’s Nee. And the only time my mother adds the on is when it’s about to be on. And this was one of those times, because then she said, “I found this in your room.”

If this were a movie, these few frames would be in slow motion as my mother pulled a gun from her purse. Or a little zip of weed. Or a paper bag full of money. But none of those things were in my room.

Instead, Ma pulled out… a bra.

Brown and lace.

Slapped it on the table like a winning ace.

My mouth fell open. She put her hand up to stop whatever words may have potentially been coming, but there was no need. Because there were no words.

“Before you say anything, just know I’m not here to judge you. But I need you to tell me how one of my bras got under your bed.”

Just then the waitress returned to the table with coffee. She looked at the bra and somehow managed to set the coffee down.

“Oh… um…” Rochelle clearly wasn’t sure what to say next. And who could blame her?

“Pancakes, please. A short stack for me. A full stack for him, with an order of fries.” My mother put in our order without skipping a beat.

“Are breakfast potatoes okay?” Rochelle asked, eyes flicking back to the bra.

“Nah, he prefers French fries,” Ma said.

“Coming right up.” Rochelle damn near ran to the kitchen. And my mom ran the question right back toward me.

“So… exactly why was one of my bras in your room, son?”

“Why were you in my room, Ma?”

“Don’t do that. Also, me and your daddy’s names are on that deed. So your room is mine,” she said, pursing her lips for a second. “Now, why—”

I cut her off because I did not want to hear that question in public again! “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Ma seemed immediately disappointed. She forced an exhale. “I’ve always looked at us as having an open line of communication. We don’t lie to each other. At least, I thought we didn’t.”

I looked down. Couldn’t stomach her face.

“Are you wearing it?” she asked bluntly. “Because if you are, just say so.”

“No!”

“You sure? Listen, I have questions, but, like I said, no judgment. I promise.”

“Ma. I’m not wearing it.” Eyes still on my lap, the cause of all this.

“Nee, look at me,” she said. And I did. “So then, what’s going on?”

I glanced up to see some of the other servers stretching their necks to get a glimpse of the lacy cups on the table next to the plastic ones that looked like glass. Rochelle must’ve run her mouth. Again, who could blame her?

Noticing the eyes as well, my mother folded the bra up, tucked it back down into her bag.

“Neon,” she encouraged.

I took a deep breath, and if there had been a deeper breath available, I would’ve taken that one too. Three, two, one, exhale.

“Me and Aria…” That’s as far as I got. Our names. But I wasn’t sure where to take it next. How far.

“Yessss?”

“We… been talking about how our anniversary’s coming up. Two years. And… we, um… we think we’re ready to… you know?”

“I don’t,” she said. But she did. And I knew she did because of her smirk.

“Ma…”

“Okay, okay. You and Aria are thinking about having sex.” She just laid it out, just like that. I didn’t confirm or deny. I didn’t have to. “But what does that have to do with my bra?”

She took a sip of coffee.

“I wasn’t sure how to, um… how to work them. So I just thought it might be helpful to, uh, practice. The hooks are… tricky.”

She choked. Almost spat coffee in my face. Tried to get it together before responding.

“Sorry,” she said, dabbing her mouth. Took a sip of water. Dabbed her mouth again. “Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s true.” Then she looked at me as if I wasn’t seventeen. As if I’d shrunken right there in that booth. As if my face softened, rounded back into the dough it used to be. As if the patch of fuzz on my chin that was struggling to be a beard had retreated back into my face. As if I’d lost a tooth and the deep in my voice and had become her baby again. Little Nee Nee.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Ma said at last. “You ain’t Little Nee Nee no more.”

“You mad?” I asked.

“About you foolin’ around with my bra? Yes! You got no idea how much those things cost, and you in there hookin’ and unhookin’ like it’s some kinda toy.”

“No, I mean… you mad about me and Aria—”

“Wanting to have sex?”

“Yeah.”

“No.” She leaned forward, put her elbows on the table. “I’m not upset about that. But, Nee, there are some things I need you to know.”

The last time my mother told me there were some things she needed me to know, I was twelve, and for whatever reason, I’d gone through a strange period where I’d refuse to take a bath. Not sure why. It’s just one of those weird things boys do, I guess. I used to go in the bathroom, run the water in the tub, splash my hands in it, then drain it. Until one day my mother sat me down and said, “There are some things I need you to know,” which was followed by “You stink” and “I can see the dirt around your neck.” Which was followed by her taking cotton balls and alcohol and showing me the said dirt around my neck. And a follow-up conversation not with my father, which would’ve been easy, but with my grandfather, which wasn’t not easy but wasn’t nice.

I was hoping this didn’t go that way.

“The first thing,” Ma said, holding a finger up, “is about protection and consent, but we covered that a long time ago. Do you need a refresher?”

“No.”

“Means no.” She pointed at me, then continued. “The next thing I need you to know is that young ladies are human beings, not sofas for you to jump around on. Is that clear?”

I nodded.

“Number three.” Three fingers in the air. “Pay attention to her. If it looks like it hurts, it does.”

For some reason, that one embarrassed me. Maybe because of all the videos I’d seen where no one seems to be paying much attention to that at all.

“Which leads me to number four. All them movies you watch—”

“What movies?”

“Nee… you think I’m dumb? All those extra-long showers? With your phone?”

“Oh… I don’t take—”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with masturbating,” Ma said as Rochelle appeared with the pancakes. And now I wanted to run back to the graveyard I’d visited earlier with Gammy and make myself a new home there.

“Short… stack and a full stack,” Rochelle said, setting the plates in front of us, a weird smile across her face. “And an order of fries. Anything else?”

“We’re fine,” I said. And the moment Rochelle walked away, I said, “Ma, you think you can lower your voice?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Of course,” she whispered, but that was the only thing she whispered. After that she returned to her usual volume, which, in this case, was a few decibels too high. “But I’m serious, ain’t nothing wrong with masturbating, Nee. I just don’t want you to think them movies are accurate depictions of what sex is like. They’re movies. And you of all people know movies ain’t real. Not to mention, Aria ain’t those women. And you… ain’t those men.”

“What you mean?”

“Son… I gave birth to you. You know what I mean.” Ma poured syrup on her pancakes. “Also, you ever noticed in those things that they call Black men BBCs? As if all y’all are, are big black—”

“Ma, please. Don’t.” I was already struggling knowing my mother knew what I was doing, and struggling even more knowing she, apparently, had watched porn. What I didn’t need in this very busy diner was for her to say what BBC stood for. I’d honestly rather have had Denzel Jeremy Washington turn my toes into chew toys.

“I’m not gonna say it. I’m not gonna say it,” she chanted, wagging her head. “The point I’m trying to make is, you’re a whole person. Not just a penis.” She spread butter across the top of her short stack. “That being said, masturbation’s healthy. Ain’t no shame in it.”

“Healthy?” I had never heard it put that way. Ms. Rambleton just had us repeat the word and definition. And then we’d all cracked jokes and pretended none of us ever did it. Of course I know now that all of us were lying.

“Sure. Get to know yourself.” She cut a fluffy triangle from her stack of pancakes, folded it into her mouth. “Think about it. How you gon’ be able to tell someone else how to please you if you can’t please yourself?”

My stomach hurt. Appetite blown.

“Okay, is there anything else?” I leaned back, about to slide under the damn seat.

“Actually, yes. Two more things,” Ma said. Great, I thought. “First, put your finger in your ear.”

“Ma.”

“Put your finger in your ear.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

I did as I was told. Stuck my index finger in my ear.

“Now, wiggle it around,” she said.

I wiggled it around.

“Like this?” I asked.

“A little more.”

I wiggled more.

“Now, tell me, what feels better when you do that, your finger or your ear?” Ma asked. I thought for a moment, wiggled my finger in my ear even more.

“My ear feels better.”

“Exactly. Women are meant to feel pleasure too. Understand?”

I nodded, both mortified and mystified. “And… the last thing?”

“The last thing is, well, I bet you thought once this day came, I would say something to you about not doing it. And it ain’t like I’m rushing you to do it, because there’s nothing wrong with waiting. But I’m not surprised you want to. So I’m not going to try to talk you out of it because I think that would be silly on my part.”

Now, this surprised me.

“Silly?”

“Of course. Because what I know is that anyone who has ever had an orgasm will do anything to have another,” she said with a knowing nod. “So if y’all decide to go there, just take care of each other on every return visit. Got me?”

I just nodded and reached for the syrup.

* * *

The rest of breakfast and the car ride home were strangely normal. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but after Ma said all the uncomfortable stuff she needed to say and we pulled up in front of the house, she added, “You can always talk to me about this. Or anything.” And “I love you.”

“Love you too, but I’m not sure I want to talk about this ever again.”

Nat’s not-boyfriend Spank was outside, his body half under the hood of Nat’s car as if her old beater were a metal monster in the middle of eating him alive. Which my parents would’ve loved.

“Before we go in, let me ask you: Have you and your dad talked about any of this?”

“Not really,” I said, recalling a moment some months back where we sorta talked about it but sorta didn’t. “Not forreal forreal.”

“Do you want me to tell him?” Ma asked.

“If I tell you not to, you gon’ tell him anyway?”

“Yes. But you know your father. All he’s gonna say is ‘Don’t bring no babies in here unless they know how to count money.’?”

My dad has been saying that for as long as I can remember, mainly to my sister. When she was in high school, he’d practically preach it to her.

Don’t bring no babies in here unless they can count money. I don’t need no grandchild, I need an accountant to help with the bingo books.

Nat would always respond with “But y’all were teenagers when y’all had me, and look at how I turned out!”

And then Dad would say, “Yeah… look at how you turned out?” But he was always joking. The truth is, Nat can do no wrong. Not to him. Doesn’t matter what she has going on; she’s his baby girl, his pride and joy, and everything she knows about men, he taught her. How to listen for the lie. How to protect herself by using what he calls the Doorknob.

You grab and twist! he’d instruct, demonstrating the move.

“I just don’t know why Nat’s never given that boy the Doorknob,” Ma said, now confirming she could read my mind. We peered at Spank through the windshield.

“Maybe she has,” I said, opening the car door.

“Yeah, maybe she has,” my mom said unenthusiastically. Then, lowering her voice, she added, “And maybe he likes that kinda thing, and that’s why he can’t seem to get away from her.”

The thing about Spank is that the way my folks talk about him, you’d think he was the worst person ever. You’d think he was some cliché clown with scumbag tattooed across his neck and whatever else parents see as inappropriate or unsavory for their daughters to date and their sons to be. But the truth is, Spencer Hankinson, or Spank as everyone knows him, ain’t none of that. He’s a regular Ronnie. Rocked an old-man high fade, wore blue jeans that were the middle wash, not the dark or the light but that blue that looked both childish and fatherly, and white T-shirts out the pack, except for when he wore the black ones out the pack. And this time of year, a standard gray hoodie. He had a job as a bank teller, and smoked cigarettes, which might’ve been the one edgy thing about him if cigarettes weren’t so corny. What drove everyone up the wall about him—and by everyone I mean my folks—is that he wouldn’t walk away from Nat even though he was only her boyfriend/not-boyfriend on Fridays and Saturdays. The other days of the week were for… the other guys.

Mondays and Tuesdays, she was hanging out with Preston Creeks, Fred’s older brother, so definitely a church boy, but not a church boy at all according to Nat. And Fred. Wednesdays and Thursdays was for Charlie Last-Name-Unknown. We didn’t ask much about him. And she didn’t talk much about him. And Fridays and Saturdays were Spank’s days. The best of the bunch. The one who seemed to really care about Nat whether or not she cared about the fact that he cared. And she did. She just wasn’t interested in anything more from him or any of them.

“I’m just dating,” she would say. “What’s wrong with that?”

Most days that made sense to me, but on the days when Spank would be doing things like he was doing that Saturday, trying to fix her car, I have to admit, it confused me. But I never found the courage or the moment to ask him about it.

After getting out of my mom’s car, I said, “Wassup,” but he didn’t hear me, so I doubled up. “Wassup, wassup… Spank.”

Spank craned his neck from behind the raised hood.

“Wassup, Nee. Hi, Mrs. Benton.”

“Hi, Spank.” Ma paused, looked into the guts of the car, shook her head. “I see she got you out here working.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Spank wiped his hands on his jeans. “It’s nothing too serious. Just fixing the timing belt.”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say. Gotta make sure the timing belt is… on time,” Ma said, patting him on the shoulder. She had no clue what a timing belt was. Neither did I.

I didn’t go inside. My mother did, and I wanted to, but I also didn’t want to because it felt weird to go in knowing my dad was there and that my mom was definitely going to tell him about our conversation, and I just wasn’t ready for a family meeting about all this. So I stayed on the porch. Zipped my jacket to the top. Took a seat on the step. Pulled out my phone. Videos.

State your name.

Serena Clark.

And how would you describe high school in three words?

People are weird.

State your name.

Shuckey Mutton. I can say Shuckey, right? Or you need governments?

Nicknames are fine.

Cool.

How would you describe high school in three words?

Ball is life.

State your name.

State your name.

State your name.

State your name.

Savion Gunther.

How would you describe high school in three words?

Hmmm. I think for me it would be something like… Mind your business.

Word.

Why you looking at me like that?

I just wasn’t expecting that. Thought you’d say something about wrestling. Like, No holds barred or something like that.

That’s a good one, but nah. It’s definitely Mind your business.

State your name.

State your name.

State your—

“You good, man?” Spank asked. He was leaning against my sister’s car, taking a smoke break. Because of where I was sitting, the sun was blinding me, turning him into a silhouette, a voice, and a scent. Cigarettes really do smell terrible. Even outside.

“Yeah, just looking through these videos.”

“Videos for what?”

I put my hand up to my eyebrows to block the sun.

“Nat ain’t tell you? I’m on the yearbook staff at school. Me and my friends. But we making it digital. So I’m shooting short videos of the whole senior class, asking each student to describe high school in three words.”

“Three words?”

“Just three words,” I said, pressing play on Fred’s video, which I’d just scrolled back to. I held the phone up so Spank could hear it.

State your name.

Fred Creeks.

How would you describe high school in three words?

A good—

I stopped the video because it hit me like a cell phone upside the head that Fred’s older brother, Preston, is Nat’s Monday-and-Tuesday not-boyfriend. Yikes.

“What happened?” Spank asked.

“Oh… I just—”

“Play the rest.”

I wasn’t sure what was coming. Or what he would say. Or if he would say anything. Or if he even knew.

“It’s cool, man,” he assured me. “Play it.” And I knew he knew.

I did what he asked and started the video over.

State your name.

Fred Creeks.

How would you describe high school in three words?

A good time.

A good time? That’s it?

A blessed time.

Spank listened closely and puffed his cig. “I like that, I like that.” He nodded. That’s all. He ain’t say nothing about Preston, and seemed completely unconcerned. “What about yours?” he asked.

“I ain’t do mine yet. Haven’t found my three words.” I put my phone to sleep. “What you think yours would’ve been?”

Spank put the cigarette out on the bottom of his sneaker, then slid the half smoke back in the box of wholes.

“Oh, I know exactly what mine would’ve been,” he said, turning back toward the car. He peered down into the belly of it. Or maybe it was the brain. He grabbed his wrench and went on wrenching whatever he’d been wrenching. “Mine would’ve been about your sister. Something like Nat don’t care.”

“Nat don’t care?”

“Nat don’t care. Because back then she didn’t care. She wasn’t checking for me at all in high school,” he said, turning toward me. His face was all goofy. “You gotta remember, I’ve known Nat since ninth grade, and had a crush on her from day one. But I wasn’t… her type.”

“What was her type back then?” I asked, not really sure if my sister got much of a type now.

“Not me.” Spank shrugged. And tugged. “That’s all I know. But it’s cool now.”

“I guess,” I murmured, returning to the videos. I played Fred’s again. Laughed at the way he said blessed like he was on the pulpit. Like he was preaching. Then I skipped to Tuna’s.

Everything works out.

I wasn’t expecting that from Tuna, but when I looked at the video, at her face, I remembered what was going on with her. I’d recorded her a few months back, and at that point it had been a few months since she’d spoken to her father. Or a better way to say it is, it had been a few months since he’d spoken to her. Which was wild because he was her best friend. Taught her how to draw and paint. Taught her how to dress too. They were close like me and Nat. So much so that when Tuna came to the realization that she liked girls, she wanted her father to be the first to know. Only problem was, he didn’t want to know. Or believe. Or accept. Or even… talk.

Everything works out? I say on the recording.

I hope so, Tuna says.

“It does,” Spank testified from under the hood. He’d still been listening. “Not always how you expect it to, but it does. That’s for sure.” Then he said, “Come hold this.”

I slipped my phone in my pocket and came over to the car, held the wrench he’d been using in place while he dug down and tried to connect a piece of elastic that I guess was the timing belt to whatever it was supposed to be connected to.

“Okay, so how did it work out between you and my sister? This the way you imagined it?”

Spank wiped sweat from his forehead, oil streaking across it like painted-on wrinkles.

“That’s a good question,” he said, but he didn’t answer it. At least, not immediately. Instead, he asked a question of his own. “You know why I like Nat?”

Because you a duck? Because you ain’t got no game? Because you insecure? I was thinking all kinds of stuff but wouldn’t say a word. Just waited for him to answer it himself, hoping I would finally have a clue.

“Because she’s a good friend. We’re good friends. I mean, yes, we’re more than friends, but that don’t mean we belong to each other. I don’t own her. She don’t own me. And the only thing we owe each other is respect. Because… that’s what friends do.”

“That’s what weirdos do,” I said, half joking.

“It’s just called dating,” he said, echoing what Nat always says. “And if me and Nat ever agree to make it more, we will.”

“That’s just because y’all old. For my generation, there’s talking to, messing with, dealing with, and being with,” I explained.

“Okay, okay.” Spank grabbed the wrench from me. “And which of these is you and Aria?”

“We in the being with category. Obviously.” I said it with some bass.

“Fair enough.” Spank nodded. “But what about when y’all graduate? Last night Nat told me about the door knocker you asked her to make for Aria.”

“Yeah. I mean, I was just waiting for her to get accepted somewhere. And yesterday she got the first yeses, so…”

“So… what happens when she leaves?”

To that I had no answer, so I added all this to the list of things I wanted to talk to Aria about. Also on that list was (1) did she have bait? And did it work on me? And (2) my mother taking me on a breakfast date to talk about sex. And now I was adding a third: (3) does she believe in dating? More importantly, was she planning to date when she went away to school? But I wasn’t sure if I’d actually ask that part. Because we promised each other when she started applying that we wouldn’t talk about it until we had to. Plus, she’d just started getting her acceptance emails, and it didn’t seem right to make her moment all about me. We were still celebrating. Even though I was curious.

And by curious, I mean nervous.

And by nervous, I mean… kinda worried, just because deep down, I knew Aria loved to know things, so why wouldn’t she want to know other people? And I agreed with Spank that Aria was my friend first—she really, really was—but if I was being honest, I just didn’t know how I’d feel. And what about when she came home for summer break? Was I going to be like Spank? Coming over to fix her car? I don’t even know how to fix cars! But if I could, would I? I mean, I did help her paint her house before she ever even went out with me, so… I guess I would. But what did that mean? Was I shaping up to be her summertime link? Her hidden hometown hookup? Was I tripping? Yes. I was tripping. I know Aria, and she knows me. And we know… what we know. And that’s enough. Maybe. Definitely tripping. Which is why we don’t talk about it. Not to mention, there’s still months and so many movies to watch before she goes, so many other things to be concerned about, like what ice cream we’ll get after a film. Because that’s our thing: movies, then ice cream. On Sundays.

For movies, King Cinema is our place. It’s an old theater that only shows ancient films. Flicks from the sixties. Seventies. The reason we do it on Sundays is because I don’t have to work at the bingo hall, and the theater’s only a few blocks from the church my mother makes our family go to every week. Not because we’re religious—Gammy is—but because it’s the one thing Ma, Dad, Gammy, Nat, and me do together. My added incentive is the after-church date where I get to watch a movie with my girl. In dress clothes. Which she always likes. Says I look good like that. I always correct her and say I look gooder than she don’t know what. She always agrees.

We always get there early enough to catch the previews, which are also old, and to have time to talk before the lights go out, which is important because there’s no talking when the movie starts.

We use that pre-movie time to chat about almost everything. A list from the day before. Family stuff. Career goals. Our wild friends. Bingo-hall characters. The yearbook. A few months back we even chose our date to connect, to be together, sitting right there in those dusty burgundy seats. Or at least, an estimated date.

“Are you sure you want to? Because I’m sure,” Aria said.

“You sure, you sure?” I’d asked, to make sure.

“I think so.”

“So, you think you sure?”

“No, I know. I’m sure. But… when?”

“I’m not rushing you. Or this. But… how about right now?” I leaned in for a kiss. That was a joke, and thankfully, Aria laughed, mid-smooch, my lips grazing her teeth. And thankfully thankfully, she didn’t say okay, because I was not ready, despite what I was feeling.

Before saying anything else, Aria thought for a second. Thought and thought and thought. And then.

“Okay, so it’s January now. Maybe we… plan for sometime around our second anniversary.” Now she sounded even more sure.

“So… May?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Spring seems right.”

I nodded, happy the lights were dimming but scared my grin would show brighter. I turned away until the screen came on. Previews.

Then the feature presentation.

The best part is she always sneaks fries in for me.

The best best part is when she acts like she’s laying her head on my shoulder, but she’s really just trying to kiss on me.

The best best best part is when she lets me put my hand down her shirt.

The best best best best part is when she runs her hand up my leg.

And the worst part, every week, is when Mr. and Mrs. Stanfield come in. An old couple who always sits right next to us. It don’t matter where we’re sitting; they always come and take the seats beside us. They think we’re a film club, but we’re not.

We’re boyfriend and girlfriend, looking for a dark room to work everything out in. A place to have a blessed time.