Single Mom (48 page)

I said, “You know, Camellia, I have never pressed you into talking about what went down, because I was there for a little bit of it, but it just seems like you’re running away from a lot of things in your head, while claiming to be helping others. I mean, what about helping
you
for a change?”

“Help me to do what, Denise? Find a man?” she snapped. “I mean, I’m happy for you and Brock, but we already know that it’s just not going to happen for all of us.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “Okay, but does that mean that you just cut off the sensations in that part of your body? I mean,” I leaned over the table to whisper, “don’t you ever feel like you need one, or you
want
one?
Ever?
”

Camellia leaned back and started laughing. “Girl, you crazy!”

“Answer the question,” I told her. It wasn’t funny to me. I couldn’t imagine not even
thinking
about sex, no matter
how
busy you were.

“Okay, of course I do. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I want to hear the truth,” I said. I took a wild-ass guess and said, “Do you feel like no man is going to want you because of your kids and your weight?”

Camellia started eating her salad. Her silence was answer enough.

“You shouldn’t feel that way,” I told her.

She stopped and looked at me. “Denise, I can get a man into
bed
if I wanted to, but I just think that a relationship should be more than that.”

“Well, you still have to seek them out to see. I mean, you’re not going to attract anyone by closing yourself off.”

“Denise, when the Lord feels the time is right, it’ll happen. Okay? In the meantime, I have a sixteen-year-old daughter, who
doesn’t
need to be there, no matter
who
it is that’s there waiting for her.”

That was it. Camellia had rediscovered her train of thought.

I thought fast and said, “If this were the nineteen forties or fifties, you’d be jumping for joy, saying that Monica was marrying a good man.”

“But this is the nineties and I’m
not
jumping for joy.”

“So whatever happened to getting married right away when you found out you loved someone?”

“It got old like the convertible Cadillac,” Camellia answered without skipping a beat.

We fell out laughing.

I said, “Some people are still in love with those cars. Have you seen any of these California videos lately?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen those wannabe Mack Daddies a thousand times.”

“You ever have those dreams where you saw yourself in a big family, and the lady of the house?” I asked her.

“Yeah, when I was eight. Every little girl has that dream,” she told me with a chuckle. At least I got her away from talking about her daughter again, and I wanted to keep it going in that direction,
away
from Monica. Not that she didn’t need to be discussed, but like I said, Camellia needed to talk about
Camellia
.

“You think that these young girls growing up in the nineties have those dreams?”

She stopped and thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we need to ask some of them. Black History Month is right around the corner. Maybe we could go to a few schools this year and ask the little girls what they think about love.”

Shit!
I snapped to myself. If I knew Camellia, she was ready to brainstorm for the rest of our lunch hour concerning asking little black girls about love.

I said, “What do
you
think about love?” I was trying to see if my magic could work again.

“I think that love has become too easily given, and therefore, it’s too easily taken away. And that’s exactly what I need to tell my daughter. Because that high school sweetheart stuff doesn’t happen anymore.”

“It doesn’t?” I questioned. “That’s funny, because I hear a high school sweetheart story every day.”

“And those people are exceptions, that’s why we even talk about them. In the forties and fifties, as you’ve already said, it wouldn’t have been anything special. But now we tend to celebrate the high school sweetheart stories, because we realize that it’s hard to come by nowadays.”

“We’re still having
babies
by our high school sweethearts,” I said with a laugh. It was sad but true.

“Yeah, and these guys are a lot less likely to have jobs, or houses, family support, or any of the strong foundations that we
used
to have.”

“So what happened to those strong foundations?” I asked.

Camellia frowned at me and snapped, “Do I look like I know the answer to that? They stopped going to church. They stopped trying to get ahead. They stopped looking out for each other in the streets. And then they started watching these videos, and listening to this crazy music, and watching these hoochie mamas, and now they all want to go to Hollywood to be pimps and gangsters or play basketball or football to sign these hundred-million-dollar contracts with sneaker deals and everything else. And most of them don’t understand that they
can’t
all be millionaires,
especially
when
half
of them don’t have any valuable skills for employment and many of them can barely read or write. So now they’re walking around feeling sorry for themselves and don’t want to commit to anything that takes any hard work, and then every time their little
pee-pees
get
hard
, they
expect
to be able to stick it somewhere warm and wet, and then jump up, pull up their little pants, and leave, whether there’s a baby coming out or not, and then get
attitudes
about it as if that’s
supposed
to be normal behavior!”

When Camellia finished with all of that, we looked at each other and laughed.

I said, “I guess you
do
know the answer then.”

Camellia caught her breath and sipped her glass of water. “Well, we
all
know the answer as to
why
. The hard thing, though, is figuring out
what
we can do to change things for the better.

“I mean, we
all
know the numbers,” she said. “More than
half
of the children being raised in the black community today are born to single-parent households. And that’s just plain
treacherous!
”

All I could do was finish my food. Camellia had a lot more on her mind than I could have imagined. I felt that asking about her weight was petty after that. Her weight didn’t mean a damn thing! This woman’s
mind
was powerful, and if brothers were unattracted to that, then to hell with them!

After a while, though, I did come up with another question. “What kind of man do you think Levonne is going to be?” My sons had always been able to have at least a limited presence with their fathers. Levonne, however, wasn’t that fortunate.

Camellia sighed. “You know, the whole sickle cell thing made me a bit overprotective with him. He’s just now starting to assert himself more and come out of his shell, and Brock made a good suggestion about him
being involved in sports. I think I might have to take him up on that. I never allowed him to play many sports because I was always so afraid of him getting hurt or something. But I’m going to have to get over that.”

I said, “You know, this whole sports thing for boys is just really overrated.
Walter
even started talking about running track because his father talked to him about it.”

“So, are you going to let him go out?”

“If he can keep his grades up. Yeah.”

Camellia smiled at me. I knew exactly what she was thinking before she opened her mouth.

“They are
two
different boys,” I told her. “Jimmy would fall apart if I took basketball from him. I mean, he gets his entire personality through his ability to play that game. And if he stopped playing, I don’t know
what
would happen. I mean, yeah, it’s sad, but it’s the truth.”

“So, with that attitude, you’re actually adding to the cycle,” Camellia argued.

I disagreed. “Not necessarily. Look at it this way,” I said. “Let’s say Jimmy gets a scholarship to college to play basketball. We can’t assume what type of changes he’ll go through. He’s going through changes right now. Believe it or not,
his
father is starting to ask him about his grades, and Jimmy is actually paying attention. He’s doing the best in his schoolwork right now that he’s
ever
done. And I was really concerned about how he would do at this school because the pace is a little faster than most schools in Chicago, and Jimmy wasn’t doing too well
there
.”

Camellia smiled. She said, “I thought sports was overrated. It doesn’t sound like it to me.”

I smiled back. I guess I had gotten so tired of sports talk with my basketball phenom of a son that I was turned off by the entire fanatic atmosphere of it all. Nevertheless, I realized that sports were a vital part of my son’s life and a source of motivation for young black boys whether we liked it or not.

I said, “On second thought, maybe you
should
let Levonne go out for a team. You just make sure you tell him that academics comes first.”

Camellia grimaced. “Who do you think you’re talking to, an amateur over here? No grades means no play. And I don’t care
how
good he is. But my son is not good at anything yet, so I don’t have to even worry about that. He’ll just be playing for the fun of it.”

I nodded and grinned. “Right up until he scores that first touchdown.
And after that, you’ll have five and six girls calling your house a night: ‘Can I speak to Levonne?’”

We laughed. Then Camellia asked me how many phone calls Jimmy received from girls.

“You know what, I don’t think he’s giving his number out, because I have
yet
to answer a phone call from a girl. Isn’t that weird? I’m going to have to ask him about that. But you know what? I bet his father knows. And that shit eats me up! I do all the work for all these years, and he’ll still go and tell his father things that he won’t tell me.”

“Boys will be boys,” Camellia said with a smile.

I just wondered who was going to be a
man
for
her
boy. I had to admit, I was getting a much-needed hand from both of my sons’ fathers, and from Brock. Despite all that I could do, and had done for my sons as a mother, there was just no substitute for the attention of a man.

Before heading to another SMO meeting at the library that night, I stopped by my mother’s to see if I could talk Nikita into going again. I felt like I just couldn’t afford to give up on her. However, when I got there, my mother told me that Nikita had a new job. I was skeptical to say the least. She hadn’t said anything to me about it, but she had never told me much anyway.

“So she has you here watching Cheron again?” I asked my mother rhetorically.

“I don’t mind. Cheron is good company.”

My niece smiled up at me and said, “Hi.” She was sitting in between my mother’s legs, getting her hair greased and combed. She was very calm, too. I hated getting my hair greased and combed when I was young, and I’m talking about a lot older than three.

“Well, hi to you,” I told her.

My mother would often read to my niece and even do her hair when she was in an active mood. I guess it was one of those nights.

I said, “Well, you fly to Florida next week, Mom. Are you looking forward to it?”

“I wanted to ask you about that,” she said. “Are you going to be able to watch Cheron while I’m away?”

I felt offended. I don’t know why. I didn’t mind watching my niece, but my mother made it sound as if Cheron was
her
responsibility.

“I’ll have to work that out with Nikita, since she has this new job and
all,” I answered sarcastically. I couldn’t believe my mother was falling for it. Nikita was one lie after the other. Not just the men were acting up in the nineties, some of the women were losing their marbles, too. My little sister was living proof of that.

Since I had the extra time on my hands, I said, “Mom, when you’re finished with Cheron’s hair, we need to talk.” Then I went and called my boys from the kitchen phone. “Jimmy didn’t get home yet?” I asked Walter. It was close to six o’clock. Jimmy usually got home from basketball practice at five-thirty.

“Here he comes now,” Walter answered.

“Put him on the phone.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey. How are things going?”

“As far as what?”

“As far as school, homework, your life, anything. How is it going?”

“Oh. Fine.”

I shook my head. “What’s wrong, you can’t talk to your mother anymore?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did. You say it every time you give me those one- and two-word answers.”

“My fault. My life is doing fine, Mom. I love my life, and I love you, too.”

“Watch yourself, boy,” I warned him. “I know when I’m being buttered up, but it’s still good to hear it,” I told him with a smile. I wish they thought of telling me they loved me more often. I said, “I love you, too. And order some pizza with the money I left on my dresser. Okay?”

“All right.”

“Okay, put Walter back on the phone.”

“Walter!” Jimmy called. “Mom wants you.”

“Yes,” Walter answered.

“I’ve decided to let you run track this year, but only if you keep your grades up.”

“When have my grades been down?” he asked me.

“You watch who you’re talking to, boy,” I warned him. I could see that both of them still needed my strong tongue-lashing every once in a while. I couldn’t ever afford to let my sons slip away from my authority, whether their fathers were back in the picture or not. You respect your mother
first
, and then everything else will fall in line.

By the time I hung up the phone with my sons, my mother was finished with Cheron’s hair.

“Are you ready to talk now?” I asked her.

She looked at me and grimaced as if I was bothering her. Cheron climbed onto the sofa to watch television. Mom stretched and stood up.

“Would you like some herbal tea?” she asked me, heading for the kitchen.