It was a quarter past twelve and the Greyhound bus Porsha had been sitting on for half an hour, the only passenger was still idling at the terminal in Huntsville, the air conditioning not yet turned on. Her light green dress, smaller buttons now that she was sixteen-was wet at the collar and, and now she feared the bus would not get to Montgomery until after sundown. Her mother, Dee Dee, would be waiting there. So would her boyfriend Parker Coleman, a man Porsha could not stand in the least.
This summer at her grandmother’s house, she had been glad to be away from Parker’s silliness. Hands that had tossed the shot-put the farthest that any other boys at his high school, were not as forward as those of her mother’s last boyfriend . But that wasn’t saying much. On Sundays, each time he put a hand to her back, presenting her to the Reverend as if he were here real father, he pressed in a way she did not appreciate, and she suspected God wouldn’t either. Just once she wanted to tell Parker to pick up his size twelve shoes that lay about the living room after church or to turn down the music when she was trying to sleep. But if she said anything cross to Parker, her mother would bite her head off. “Parker’s a keeper,” Dee Dee said.
A plump, peanut-colored woman, her purse slipping from her shoulder, sat next to Porsha. “Looks like you and me made it in before the downpour,” she said. Her voice seemed too childlike to be coming out of a face with heavy eyebrow liner and rose-colored lipstick. Her yellow striped blouse and grey skirt with colorful sequins were both damp from the sudden downpour. “This bus aint stopping ‘til Tuscaloosa,” the woman said. She reached into the shopping bag between her legs and took out a paper bag that smelled of French Fries. “We got fish nuggets in case you and me get hungry.”
Two elderly women sat across the aisle and dropped their umbrellas at their feet. The bus filled up quickly and was soon out in traffic, “I’ll make sure your granddaughter don’t talk to no suspicious strangers,” the driver had told Porsha’s grandmother. Had the driver asked this woman in the odd outfit to sit beside her, she wondered. The possibility annoyed her. She was not a child anymore.
“My name’s Margaret,” the woman said. The charms on her bracelet clinked as she shook Porsha’s hand. “You’d see a lot of me if you get put up at Crenshaw Hospital.”
“I’m going to work soon,” Porsha said. “I wanna fly airplanes. Just to see new places.”
“All I ever wanted to be is what I became,” Margaret said. “. Raised three kids being a Medical Assistant. Course my husband helped, may God rest his hard-headed self in heaven.”
“I turned sixteen.”
“When was your birthday, child?”
“July 12th.”
Margaret tore off a corner of the paper bag and scribbled a note. “ Gimme two more numbers. Quick now”
Porsha laughed. “Eight. Seventy-eight, I guess.”
Margaret scribbled the numbers then dropped the paper into her purse, noticing Porsha staring at her outfit. “You gotta clash sometimes,” she said. “Intentional though. Folk can tell when it’s a mistake.”
While Margaret worked on a page in a circle-a-word magazine, Porsha watched the roadside, thinking of the time she put one of Parker white shirts into the washer with the colored clothes. Not once during the months she had been away from home had she felt sorry about that. That same evening she lay on the living room floor, looking at pages in the Atlas her mother found in the throw-away bin at the library, when Parker knelt beside her. When he started going on about all the places he’d visited in the Army, she slammed the atlas closed, and said, “You probably ain’t telling the truth. Now leave me alone.” Thank goodness Dee Dee was in the back yard getting her hair braided and had not heard.
She was eating a sandwich, pimento loaf with ketchup, her favorite, when she heard soft music coming from a few seats back. Must be the radio of the boy who had sat next to her in the terminal in Huntsville. She liked the fragrant smell of the oil on his fresh haircut, but with her grandparents close, she didn’t dare return the boy’s glances. Her grandmother had taught her to can peaches, make lemon T-cakes, and had even given her recipe for Chicken with Dressing. And her grandfather had let her fire his pistol. But she didn’t need either of their cautionary words about boys. Why had her high school classmate DeMonte Williams sneaked and kissed her one day before morning assembly, then pretended it had never happened? His joining in the teasing each time she passed the doors of the band room was why she’d given his sister, Patrice, the pinkie ring she’d won at the county fair to tell her secrets about him. “Aren’t you too old to be wetting the bed,” she’d said one day when he and the boys were teasing her. In the hallway the boys and girls laughed. That made her realize she could manage boy trouble.
***
“Lookie,” Margaret said. She showed Porsha a bracelet made of polished wood beads and imitation stones.
Passengers were leaving the bus which had pulled into the terminal in Tuscaloosa. “I like the colors,” Porsha said.
“My boyfriend has eyes like the stones,” Margaret said. “I call it burnt amber. The stones and the beads don’t cost much. Try it on.”
While Porsha slipped the bracelet on, Margaret leaned back in the seat. Her rose-colored lipstick was nearly rubbed off. “Keep it,” she said. “A late birthday thang. I got plenty more.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have nothing for you.”
“No need to give me a present, child. Just do a favor for somebody else.”
She was about to thank Margaret again, but Margaret was gathering her things. “You be good now,” Margaret said rising from her seat. “I’m depending on it.”
When the bus was back on the highway, Porsha stretched out her legs onto the empty seat. Small houses passed along the roadside along with the occasional convenience stores with boxy gas pumps standing out in front like matching salt and pepper shakers. An eighteen-wheel truck rumbled by the bus, its tire flaps waving. She inspected the bracelet again. What favors had she done this past summer aside from helping her grandmother select a green blouse-and-shorts set for Dee Dee and red sneakers for her brother for his first day of kindergarten? “No, Ma’am, I ain’t bringing no present home for Parker,” she had told her grandmother.
Maybe she should have brought something for Parker. She’d heard his voice on the line the afternoon her mother called the house in Huntsville the day after her birthday. Dee Dee spent most of the call talking about her new job at the cafeteria on the college campus and how she would finally catch up on the bills. Dee Dee was about to hang up when she said, “Oops, Happy Birthday, Porsha.” Porsha was certain she’d heard Parker’s voice reminding Dee Dee to wish her daughter a happy birthday. Though she would never like how Parker teased her about her changing body, at least he paid her some attention. With Parker around, Dee Dee acted like she hardly knew Porsha was in the house. Not once last spring did Dee Dee plait her daughter’s hair or fuss over what Porsha wore to church. Dee Dee told each boyfriend that if he touched her daughter the wrong way, she’d make sure he never saw another day. One day when Parker teased Porsha about how her hips filled out a shirt, she seethed for long while. Her body was changing much faster than she could keep up. Surely Dee Dee recognized that, but what did she do when Porsha complained at another of Parker’s comments–she laughed and said, “You’re practically grown, child. Tell Parker yourself to quit talking like that.”
The thought made Porsha angry at her mother. Her mother’s words were still on her mind later when the bus reached the terminal in Montgomery. She rose from the seat, imagining her life at home this coming fall. It would serve Dee Dee right if her daughter and Parker became friends.
***
In the living room Porsha sat on the green velvet side chair drinking a can of store-brand cola, while Dee Dee dusted figurines on the fireplace mantle, going on like she did when she was on the phone with one of her girlfriends from the cooking program at the community college. Porsha could hear Bernard outside trying to get the dog to come onto the front porch.
“Your grandmother said you had a good time this summer,” Dee Dee said, wiping off an apple from the bowl of plastic fruit. “How come I only got a few letters from you?”
“You said you was busy with your new job,” Porsha said. “I didn’t think you had time to read ‘em.”
“I don’t work in the evening.”
Before Porsha could respond, Parker came in carrying two large suitcases. He wore a fresh flat-top haircut. He looked different, more handsome. Porsha had been happy to see him at the bus station until he hugged her too roughly. He set the suitcases down, rushed over and flung his arms around Dee Dee’s waist. She pulled away, laughing and revealing the chipped front tooth. Parker sat down on the sofa, took his shoes off, and crossed his legs. His socks were thin at the toe. After Dee Dee handed him a beer, he pointed it at Porsha. “You’re grown, now. Want a sip?”
Porsha took a drink of soda. “I sure did miss you, Momma,” she said. “We all need to take a trip together. Just you and me and Bernard.”
Dee Dee seemed pleased by the suggestion, but after glancing at Parker, she shrugged and said, “Maybe. I’ll have to see how the money’s looking.”
“Just us three?”
“Well who else would go?”
Dee Dee sat on the sofa close to Parker, studied Porsha. She would not recognize the dress and shoes, but Porsha’s hair, pulled back in a bun, also seemed strange to her. “I’m gonna start borrowing your clothes,” Dee Dee said. “And where did you get the bracelet?”
“A lady on the bus gave it to me.”
“Girl, what I tell you ‘bout talking to strangers?”
“You never know what trouble folks are up to,” Parker added.
“I’m practically grown,” Porsha said. “Parker just said so.”
Dee Dee sat back on the sofa, gave a half smile. When she elbowed Parker, he downed half the beef then bounded from the sofa and picked up one of the suitcases. Porsha followed him out of the living room. In her bedroom the bureau, twin bed, and small desk cramped the space more than she remembered. Two boxes wrapped in shiny green Christmas paper sat on her bed. The writing on one envelope said, From Momma, and the other said From Parker. She hoped there would be money inside the envelopes. But there were only Happy Birthday words, all in her mother’s handwriting. The girls at school would be jealous of the gold-plated earrings from Dee Dee. But she was unsure about the gift from Parker, a belt of imitation alligator hide. Could she put together an outfit with the belt, earrings, and the bracelet? Would it all clash?
“Your momma didn’t stop talking about you,” Parker said, later as he brought in the other suitcase.
“What about you?” Porsha said.
“I kept my mouth shut,” he said. “Afraid you’d hear me up there in Huntsville and come down her and cuss me out.”
“I ain’t that bad.”
Her friendly tone surprised her. When Parker dragged the suitcases close to the bed, she felt soothing heat coming off his body. He had never been this far into the bedroom. As he looked around, she studied his eyes. On the bus, Margaret had said she liked the eyes of her boyfriend. Parker’s eyes looked inviting. Why had she never thought that before?
Seeing a bit of devilment return to Parker’s face, she directed him to place the suitcase on the bed. As he did, she walked over and stood by the door. Her body felt strong there. She heard her brother bouncing a ball against the living room floor. Her mother’s voice was out there too, sometimes asking, more often telling. She had felt ignored by her mother, confused about her changing body and her feelings when it came to Parker. Her feelings would sometime clash, what she liked, what she didn’t. That was O.K. “Thank you,” she said to Parker and pointed toward the open doorway.