“No ma’am, the baby. My mama died having me.”
Evelyn’s heart was beating fast, and she was feeling powerful emotions she didn’t know how to read. It wasn’t what he was saying, but the way he was parceling out his story, like a mother would cut meat for a child, that made Evelyn’s heart feel fragile. She moved forward a little and hoped Ruby wouldn’t see her do it.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“Amelia Street, Twelfth Ward, two blocks from Flint-Goodrich Hospital.”
Evelyn was surprised to hear that. Though she knew he wasn’t one of them, she didn’t think he was that far off. She looked down at his books again, large hardbacks, biology and organic chemistry. She’d been right; he would have had to be premed to be studying subjects like those, but there weren’t any well-off Negro people uptown. She considered his hem again. She never cared about status the way Mother and Ruby did; it was more how unaccustomed she was to being wrong.
“Where do you live?” he asked. His stammer was back this time on the first word, where.
Evelyn smiled again. She told him, and he raised his eyebrows. The Seventh Ward—it was a mostly Creole area of rich and poor and everything in between, but he looked at her as if he could envision her massive bungalow, as if he knew her daddy had birthed every one of the babies on the block except the white family’s across the street.
Ruby and her man seemed to be finishing up their talk. The uneven man looked over at them, then back to Evelyn.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“All that talking, and you still don’t have the name?” Ruby cut in.
Evelyn wanted to shush her, but that wouldn’t be polite. She smiled even wider. “Evelyn,” she said, addressing the uneven man as if her sister had said nothing.
“I’m Renard,” he said. “Renard August Williams.” He turned away as soon as he said that.
Evelyn wanted to reach out, spin him around, and get him to commit to something further as soon as could be, but she stayed in her spot and mouthed the word good-bye. His friend followed him off, glancing at Ruby over his shoulder.
Evelyn’s cigarette had dwindled to a stump and almost burned her fingers. She startled and threw it down, stamping her foot on it harder than necessary.
“You’re excited, huh, girl?” Ruby asked. She started walking toward home, and Evelyn followed her. Ruby didn’t wait for her to answer.
“Those damn near-white boys are all the same, think they’re too cute to ask you on a proper date.”
“He didn’t ask you out either?”
“Are you crazy? He did, but I could tell he didn’t think he had to. I had to lead him over to it.”
“Oh.” Evelyn paused. “When is it?”
“This weekend. He wants to take me to Dufon’s, says he knows the owner. That’s another thing about them. They always have to boast, but Mama says, if you have, you have, and you don’t have to talk too much about it. Not that I think he doesn’t have. His daddy helped found Valena C. Jones Elementary.”
“Yes, chairman of the library committee,” Evelyn mumbled.
Ruby didn’t seem to hear her. “And Daddy says his daddy’s real active in the Seventh Ward Civic League,” she went on. “I may play it cool before I let him know I’m the one he’s been looking for.” She paused as if she suddenly realized she wasn’t onstage. “What about you, Evelyn? When is he taking you? Maybe we can go together, for the first part at least.”
“We’re not,” Evelyn said. She couldn’t bring her head up, but she didn’t let it drag either. It was more level than anything. She looked ahead. Ruby wasn’t as pretty as Evelyn, not as smart either, and Evelyn had tried to muffle herself her whole life to even them out. Here they were though, Evelyn pushing twenty-two and Ruby only twenty, and it was Evelyn who hadn’t gotten a number.
“What, Evelyn? You didn’t even get him to ask you on a date? Haven’t I learned you anything?” Ruby studied the air in front of her own face, as if the key to Evelyn’s incompetence might spring out of it. Then clarity came on her hard and fast. “You’re too nice to these boys, that’s what I’ve been telling you. They’re only good for two things, marriage and babies, and you’re trying to make friends with them. I’m your friend, you only need one. Next time you see him, make him work for it, and watch.” Then she laughed, tipped her head back as she turned, skipping beneath the sprawling oaks. Her pleated silk skirt waved behind her in the wind. Evelyn’s was the same material and color, but Ruby had asked their mother to take her hem in higher. Now Evelyn walked faster to keep up with her sister even as she felt the straps of her cork-soled shoes pressing into her ankles. When they neared their house, the grandest on the block, Ruby stopped, leveled her expression, reverted to her normal pace. Even still, she might not eat a single bean this evening, no matter how long the pickled meat had been soaking in the pot.
That Friday night, Evelyn lay down in bed listening to Ruby get ready, plowing through the hallways, turning the bathroom faucet to its highest setting. As big as the house appeared on the outside, it was compact inside. Evelyn and Ruby shared a room, and their baby brother’s bedroom was so adjacent to theirs, they could hear his bedsprings creak when he shifted at night. There was the parlor, but Mother didn’t like them to sit there; it was where she met each week with the Ladies of Equal Justice and the Seventh Ward Educational League. There were guest rooms upstairs next to their parents’ bedroom, but that was where Mother stored her summer drapes, her winter rugs, and, more than that, where she rested when the weight of the world hunched her shoulders.
So, Evelyn had long since learned she was stuck. Ruby had scared most of her friends off by elementary school, and the ones who lingered were gone by the end of Evelyn’s freshman year at McDonogh 35. She would never forget the time Ruby told Evelyn’s school friend in front of company that Ruby had heard the girl’s mama had run off to pass in Mississippi. That had been the one friend Evelyn still thought of sometimes. She couldn’t remember a single thing the girl said, but she did remember that they’d practice elocution and debating in the Hi Smile print shop; that during breaks they’d walk up and down South Rampart Street, peer through the windows at the shoe and jewelry stores. Sometimes they’d stop at Peter’s Famous Creole Kitchen for an oyster sandwich and watch the neighborhood folk walking by. There was a feeling Evelyn could access then that she hadn’t had since that girl ran off; it was a different kind of comfort than she had with her sister. It wasn’t as deep, but Evelyn felt it more deeply because to her it seemed earned. That girl hadn’t had to love her; she could have been in anyone’s company, but she chose Evelyn’s, and Evelyn missed that.
Ruby bounced into the room then.
“Are you just going to sit up here all night with Brother?” she asked, nodding at the only boy, the baby of the family who stood in their doorway.
“I ain’t staying in this house.” Brother dashed through their room just then for the front door.
“Am not staying, Brother,” Evelyn corrected, “and where are you going?”
“Ain’t none of your concern.” Just as he spoke, they heard the neighborhood boys outside screaming for him to hurry before the bakery closed and they missed the brokers, scraps of cookies and cakes the owner distributed after dark. Brother screamed back.
Their mother’s voice rang out close behind.
“Don’t you raise your voice like that, Nelson Jr. You better act like you’re from the Seventh Ward.”
Ruby smirked. “And you better be back before Mama turns that parlor light out,” she added.
Evelyn started to chime in with another admonition, but Ruby stopped her.
“And what about you? You’re all worried