If I Were Your Boyfriend (4 page)

  "Wait a minute, you were fighting while in church?" I asked for clarification.

  "Yes, and my father had a fit. He marched into the choir stand and broke up our fight and tanned my hind parts for fighting in the house of the Lord."

  "I can't imagine you in a fight," I said.

  "Well, I've had my fair share of them."

  "So, what happened after that?" I asked.

  "My father made me apologize not only to Willie Mae but to her mother, Lonnie. It wasn't until I apologized to Miss Lonnie that I realized she had a speech impediment. She couldn't articulate or enunciate a single word. Miss Lonnie got through life by mumbling her words. It was the strangest thing. I'd met Miss Lonnie plenty of times, but as I thought about it, I realized that whenever I ran into her she was always with someone who spoke for her and the most she'd ever said was 'okay' or 'that's right.'

  "Later that evening during dinner my father explained that Miss Lonnie and her family were from a small Island off of the coast of South Carolina. Miss Lonnie was a Gullah woman and spoke the Geechee language."

  "The gee what?" I asked.

  "The Geechee language," she restated.

  "Come on. That sounds made up. You're pulling my leg." I laughed.

  "No, it's not made up, Keysha. Hang on a minute, your grandfather has books about the Gullah people in his library."

  Grandmother Katie got up and told me to follow her. We walked into another part of the house that was filled with shelves of books. It was one big library. Grandmother Katie began searching the shelves until she found what she was looking for. She opened the book and flipped to a page featuring several enslaved blacks.

  "See?" Grandmother Katie pointed and began reading the passage below the photo. "It says, 'The Gullah are blacks who live in the Low Country region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Historically, the Gullah region once extended north to the Cape Fear area on the coast of North Carolina and south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on the coast of Florida; but today the Gullah area is confined to the South Carolina and Georgia Low Country. The Gullah people are also called Geechee, especially in Georgia. The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other black community in the United States. They speak an English-based Creole language containing many African loan words and significant influences from African languages in grammar and sentence structure.' It wasn't until my father explained the culture that I understood why Willie Mae resented me for constantly correcting her."

  "Oh, wow. So she was doing the best that she could with what she'd learned from her mother," I said.

  "Yes, and on top of that she was speaking a language that had survived slavery. However, when you're young, these sorts of things seem strange, especially if you perceive them as something abnormal. So in my mind at the time, Willie Mae suffered from the same speech problems as Miss Lonnie although it wasn't as severe as her mother's."

  "So Willie Mae was jealous of you because of how you could articulate."

  "Yes, and she was also angry about people making her feel bad about being Gullah."

  "Well, I don't know why Liz would be jealous of me," I said. "We haven't even known each other that long and I haven't done anything to her." Grandmother Katie was about to put the book back on the shelf.

  "Can I read that?" I asked.

  "Sure," she said. She handed me the book and we went back into the kitchen.

  "Liz could have a beef with you for any number of reasons," Grandmother Katie said as she checked the stove. "The eggs are ready now," she added as she drained the water off of them. I sat back down at the table and searched my mind trying to identify any warning signs I may have missed with Liz, but I couldn't locate any.

  "So, how do you know if your friend is really your friend?" I asked, because I was puzzled as to what a true friendship looked and felt like.

  "Your friends should reflect who you are. They should feel like a part of you. Good friends always have your best interest at heart and will tell you the truth even when you don't want to hear it. Good friends don't put you down or call you stupid or dumb in an effort to make you feel as if you're beneath them. A good friend will not try to convince you to do something that you know in your heart is not right or good for you. Good friends are never, ever, fake," she said.

  "But how can you tell if your friend is fake?" I asked.

  "You'll feel it," she said. "Something inside you will guide you. Most people call it intuition."

  "Oh," I said. "I had a friend named Toya who I knew in my heart really wasn't a good friend and I knew that she didn't have my best interest, as you put it, at heart. She was the type of girl who liked getting into trouble. She had a way of making me feel bad whenever I didn't want to do all of the crazy things she wanted to do. But I wanted her to be my friend, so I went along with whatever she wanted to do." I paused. "One thing is for sure. I knew that our friendship was over when she split open my hand with a straight razor."

  "A straight razor?" Grandmother Katie screeched.

  "It's a long story. But all I'm tying to say is that I should have listened to my intuition because Toya was and probably still is rotten to her core."

  "Here's a bit a' knowledge I want you to keep with you always. When someone isn't good for you, leave them because you can do bad all by yourself. As you mature, you will find it a little more difficult to separate yourself from people who are no good for you. You may discover that your worst enemies are the people who are the closest to you. A husband, a child, a coworker—"

  "A crazy mother," I interrupted. She had a slightly baffled look on her face when I said that, but then she made the connection as to what I meant.

  "You see, that is why you're so smart. You've learned some of life's most important lessons on your own and that is one of the things that makes you very special, Keysha."

  When Grandmother Katie told me that I felt validated. I felt as if I wasn't crazy and I also felt something inside me change. I felt love for her. I felt as if I could be myself, open up and talk to her about anything, and I'd never really felt that way before about any of the adults in my life.

  "Okay, this salad is just about ready," she said.

  "After we eat can we read some of this book together? I want to know more about these Geechee people," I said.

  "Absolutely," Grandmother Katie said as she smiled at me.