Girls Like Us (4 page)

She come back in with a pink flower.

“You got a vase?”

Miss Lizzy smiled. I don’t think I ever saw an old lady smile before. She pointed to a cabinet. I looked over where she pointed. The cabinet had a glass front. A little vase that had designs cut in it was in front.

“That one?” I asked.

Miss Lizzy nodded.

I got it out and wiped it with the dishrag. Filled it up with water, then hand it to Quincy.

Quincy stuck her flower in the glass vase. She put it on the table. “That plate don’t quite go with that place mat, but I’m gonna call it good for now.”

Miss Lizzy said Quincy was a wonder and we should drink tea while she sampled the salad.

We shook our heads no. Quincy chewed on her bottom lip. Like she was worried as me to see if Miss Lizzy liked her food. I tug the buttons on my coat.

Miss Lizzy got her fork and smiled. Then dip it lady-style in the chicken. We watched her nibble. We watched while she put her fork in the tomato. She got her a big forkful. She ate more. We watched when she closed her eyes, like to say “Amen.”

“Quincy, do I taste blue cheese in here?”

Quincy nodded.

I didn’t see nothing blue.

“And basil?” Miss Lizzy asked.

Quincy nodded again.

Miss Lizzy said Quincy was “a find,” and whoever taught her cooking should be “claimed a saint.”

I didn’t understand. I could see Quincy didn’t either.

“This is the best, most original chicken salad I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.”

That’s ’zactly what Miss Lizzy said.

I thought that fool had done it for sure. Gonna get us flung right out that ’partment by telling she couldn’t cook. But my chicken salad done won the day. Don’t know why I got edgy ’bout it.

“Did someone teach you to cook?”

I nod at the ole lady. “In the foster home before last. My foster father did sumpin’ with computers. He stay home and did housework and cooking. He taught me.” I took a pause. “I’m mixed race, in case you wonderin’, but I live with white peoples before. You ain’t the only one.” I said it like a dare. Like she shouldn’t expect me to be treat her special.

She nod and use her knife to cut up the tomato.

Ole lady didn’t take my dare, and I easy myself down a little. “My foster father taught me all the words in recipes and show me what herbs to use when. He even made up his own recipes. This one of ’em.”

“Tell me more,” she say.

“Not much more,” I said. “My foster mama got a big job in Washington, DC, and they move. I went to another home. Mr. Hallis made me a cookbook of his recipes. I did all the cooking in my last house too. Neither one of them foster parents could cook a lick.”

The ole lady finish her lunch and lay her knife ’crosst the edge of her plate. “If you girls are happy with the arrangement, I’m glad to have Quincy cook instead of Biddy.” She crook up the corners of her mouth. “I think I’d like to avoid ptomaine.” She pet Biddy’s hand, so I guess she was funning with her. “Please feel free to use the garden for yourselves, as I’ve offered before, and, Quincy, please use whatever you need in the kitchen.”

I didn’t like the idea of being in that ole woman’s house, but the idea of cooking in that kitchen sure was fine.

“I ain’t calling you Miss Lizzy,” I say, the dare back on my tongue.

“Ah,” she says. “Makes you feel subservient?”

I don’t know what that mean for nothing.

“Slaves called their owners Miss, did they not?” she say.

That ole lady smart.

“I think you could call me Liz. My friends do.”

I make my eyes slitty.

She smile, almost sad-like. “Oh, I see. Well, then, would Elizabeth do?”

I nod. She nod back. I guess we done us a deal.

I always pondered ’bout Quincy. What color she was. She got real light skin and green eyes. She told Miss Lizzy she was mix-up race.

We get things straight with Lizabeth and tromp on upstairs to eat our lunch. Biddy tuck into that chicken salad stuff tomato like a backhoe. She polish it off in about five bites. I don’t think that girl ever had good food in her life.

She mop her face up with the napkin, then scrunch her eyebrows together like she was studying on sumpin’. “Which one of your folks was mix-up?” she say, staring at me like I was whole tree full of owls. I was ’bout to reach ’crosst that table and snatch her bald-headed when I saw that the fool wasn’t trying to be mean. She just that dumb. I let me out a big ole sigh and tuck my mad down in my pocket.

“My grandma was white and my grandpa black. My mama has pretty light skin. My daddy was white and Mexican and he had green eyes.”

Biddy scrunch her eyebrows up a little tighter. “Don’t that make you mostly white?”

I hee-hawed then. “Girlfriend, in this part of Texas, if you a little bit black, you all black.”

She look like she understand. “I’ll clean up our kitchen. I like it sparkledy.”

I had tole her a little bit of a lie. When you as light skin as me and usually live with at least one white person, blacks don’t want no part of you either. And when you “challenged” and ugly, it pretty much makes no never mind what else you are. You ain’t much of nothing.

Girlfriend. Quincy called me friend.

It be strange. I started making journal tapes for a reading assignment. But here I am, graduated, and I still do it. Some of it because Biddy started doing it and I was wadded-in-a-knot mad — I wanted to make sure mine was better. More tapes and such. But now I like it. It’s like I cain’t go to sleep until I say my words out loud on the tape. It helps me sort out my head, get things in they right place. I think Biddy feels some such when she clean them cabinets.

I’m feeling strange about Biddy. She ain’t like I thought she’d be. Like I said before, she seem like a new-laid egg, but at school, all the boys say they done her. Say she go with anybody. The girls all call her ho. Everybody know she had a baby. I don’t want men troubles comin’ in our direction. Her and me gonna have a “Come to Jesus” meeting tomorrow.

I can hear Quincy talking into her tape. In her bedroom. I do it too. She don’t know why, though. This little tape is something I tell secrets to. Secrets like, today I’m so happy I could bust. I don’t have to cook, but I’m gonna be eating real good. I get to do for a old lady that’s clean, and she don’t holler and call me names. Sometimes she smiles. I never did know old people was like that.

I got somebody call me a friend. Nobody ever called me friend. All kind of new stuff happened to me in one day. More good than ever happened to me ever. And even more good — I don’t got to go in the world, see other folks. I cross a little yard. The only peoples I see are . . . safe. Ain’t no boys to trick me and say things. Ain’t nobody calling me ho.

I was sleepin’ like a lamb in soft straw when I heard the most gosh-awful screamin’. Sound like sumpin’ bein’ killed in the next room. I haul out my bed and slap on my light.

The screamin’ was comin’ from Biddy’s room.

Had somebody got in our little ’partment?

I grab a big knife in the kitchen and kick open her door.

“I got a knife!”

Biddy was thrashin’ and twistin’ on her bed, but when I yell out, she scream again and sit up.

I turnt on her overhead light and look around. Weren’t nothing in that little bit of a room but a bed and a fat, scared white girl.