Ebony wouldn’t use any of this shit. I slide bottles here and there until I see several different types of Jamaican curry powder. I race back to the laptop and type:
seven different types of Jamaican curry powder. Name another woman who has seven different types of Jamaican curry powder in her pantry. I blow people away at
Now where will she work this time? Ebony was Toni Million, an aspiring dancer working at a fancy restaurant in Ashy, and Bonita Milton, an unknown artist working at a daycare center in The Devil to Pay. It has to be a job where the reader will have some instant sympathy. I smile. She’s going to be what I used to be: a teacher.
Cherry Grove Middle School, where I teach history to seventh graders and sometimes actually do some of that damn paperwork. Whenever we have a faculty food day, other teachers ask, “What do you call it?” I tell them it’s my lunch. They always want the recipe, but I tell them that there isn’t one, it’s just something I whipped up. They look at me strangely after that, but they eat it and ask for seconds. I’m always taking home empty containers. There’s always some chicken, pork, or beef soaking in
What the hell’s that kind of sauce Edie was always abusing? Something Oriental, sweet, and brown. I check Henry’s fridge and find it. Edie and Henry share the same tastes?
Yaschida sauce and fresh veggies and salad fixings in my fridge, just in case The One makes a surprise visit. But there isn’t any alcohol in my fridge. None. No soul mate of mine is going to get drunk on beer or wine.
He’s going to get drunk on me.
I never could get enough of a buzz from Edie alone. She didn’t take my breath away, just what little money I had. So whiskey sours made her somewhat sweeter, and even when they didn’t, they at least made me numb. Ebony, though—the girl made me high. Drunk. Intoxicated. Shit-faced. Not exactly a romantic thing to say, but it was true. The girl made me shit-faced drunk with happiness. Ebony was and probably still is the most beautiful person that I have ever met, only she never seemed to notice it. She was—and I’m sure that she still is—a natural beauty. We’ll just have to make this version of Ebony a natural beauty who doesn’t think she’s beautiful.
The One can’t mind if I’m not beautiful. I’m what you might call naturally rugged-looking, like I been in a few fights. I’m not homely or anything—I have some sexy-ass eyes and thighs, now—but I just haven’t been blessed by what White America wants in its caramel-covered black beauties. I’m thick. I’m intimidating. I’m The Commodores’ “Brick House.” I have long fingers and toes, long skinny feet, tiny ears, dark brown eyes, and the darkest skin allowed by law in the state of Pennsylvania.
I once got pulled over so a cop could check my tinted windows, then he says, “No, everything is okay.” Asshole. If I tinted my windows any more than they already are, no cop would ever see me.
I’m not sepia, café au lait, ginger, mocha, coconut, or any other tropical flavor. I’m black, and I’m beautiful, only my hair doesn’t seem to know it. My hair looks good the day it’s done, then flies away little by little until the next time I have it styled. My students can tell what day of the week it is just by looking at my hair—and my clothes. I generally start out nice and professional and end up wrinkled and tacky. Rack Room supplies me with comfortable shoes, and when I’ve done all the laundry, I sometimes find outfits that match like they’re supposed to. It’s not easy, though, because I know that washer of mine has something against me. Dark clothes go in dark and come out gray, lights and whites go in white and come out gray, and grays go in gray and get grayer. If you take me in from a distance, I look like I play for the Oakland Raiders in their silver and black uniforms.
What else, what else, what else? How does she get around? And does she like to get around? If she’s driving around Pittsburgh, the pothole capital of America, she’ll have to hate driving with a passion.
My soul mate can’t mind if I don’t drive. I own an SUV, a Suzuki Sidekick, but I don’t like to drive. Too much stress, too many decisions, too many street signs to read, and too many potholes to avoid while someone’s on my ass honking and flipping me off because I actually drive the speed limit in this town.
Oh, and the accidents. The first one wasn’t my fault. A sneaky light pole in a parking lot jumped out behind me one night. Blew out my back window and flattened my spare. And the second accident, well, let’s just say that one-way streets in downtown Pittsburgh should be outlawed. The cab I hit wasn’t damaged too badly, but the cabbie showed up in traffic court practically in traction, a neck brace turning his face beet red. My monthly car insurance payment is almost as high as the mortgage payment on my condo. I really should sell the Sidekick, but I might need it one day…probably to pick up The One who has never found the damn time to get his own damn license.
Hobbies? Ebony had so many, but one she stuck with was reading. And what she read and shared with me opened my eyes in so many ways…
My Boo has to be someone who likes to read, who consistently finds time to read, who makes time to read, who even schedules time to read. In other words, he has to be anal as hell about reading.
On my lunch breaks, I cross four lanes of traffic to a park, where I walk by any man who is reading something other than a newspaper or magazine. Then I check him out and what he’s reading—in that order. If he’s old and stank, I keep on walking. And if he’s younger and doesn’t smell too bad, I slow down. If I’ve already read the book he’s reading, I try to start a conversation. “That’s a wonderful book, isn’t it?” I ask. I’ve noticed that the word “wonderful” is used a lot on the back covers of paperbacks. Most times I get nods, a smile, an occasional grunt. One time, though, a white man, who looked Italian with his twisted nose and hairy eyebrows, actually said a complete sentence. “I know,” he said in such a way as to tell me: “Get lost, wench.” If I haven’t read the book, I search it out, blow off all my grading, and read it that very night. Only the next day, the man has gone on to another book or isn’t reading that day. If I can’t finish it by the next day, I sometimes sit where the man had been reading the day before hoping he’ll come by. That hasn’t happened…yet.
I’m not crazy, so why do I do this? Just in case The One has read it. Then we’ll have something more in common. Online book clubs have helped me a lot in this area. I’d never join a book club, though I really enjoy discussing books. Book clubs are just too communist for me. “Everyone this month will read this book,” they say. Well, what if I don’t want to? What if I’d rather read several books simultaneously? Just last week I
What would Ebony be reading now? She always loved the ocean and the beach, and in Pittsburgh, it’s all about rivers—the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the Monongahela. I hook the laptop to Henry’s phone, and after stressing over all the access-number choices, I get on America Online and run a few book searches with “river” in the title at Amazon.com. Once I have a collection, I continue to type:
was on a river kick and read The River, Cane River, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Mississippi Solo, Mystic River, and even cracked Huckleberry Finn for the climactic river scene. I even looked up whitewater rafting and paddleboat trips on the Internet.
Since I believe the number seven is magic, I once read
Seven, Ebony’s magic number. I wore that number in Little League, in CYO basketball at St. Pat’s, in Pop Warner football, and even taped it to my T-shirt whenever I played street hockey for the P-Street Rangers. “I