Next comes the pre-church small talk.
“So, how was the week?” Ma, who always immediately turns off the car radio (Momly only listens to talk talk talk anyway), asks Momly as we back out of the driveway. This, of course, is a real false start, a fake beginning to a conversation, only because Ma and Momly speak like six thousand times a week. But this was Ma’s way of opening up a discussion in a behind-the-back kind of way, to say whatever she wanted to say to me and Maddy. That way, it don’t seem like Momly’s a snitch. Even though I know Momly be snitching. I mean, she’s our aunt. And our adopted mother. Blabbing just comes with the territory.
“Nothing crazy to report. Maddy brought home all fours in school.” That was Momly’s lead-in this week.
“Fours, huh? Is that like an A?” Ma asked this all the time, and I couldn’t tell if she really had a hard time keeping up with the grading system of our charter school or if she was just being shady. She always called the grading system new wave, and said things like, Charter don’t mean smarter.
Ma cracked the window to let some air in. Momly’s car always smelled like a freshly scrubbed bathtub. Like . . . clean, but poisonous. Cleanliness was next to godliness, huh? So next to godliness that you might die from it. Maddy and me were used to it, but it irritated Ma every single time she was in the car.
“Yes, Ma. That’s an A, remember?” Maddy piped up from the backseat. Ma didn’t turn around. Just nodded.
“And Patty, well, she’s really doing great on the new track team. Patty, did you bring the ribbon?” I caught Momly’s eye in the rearview mirror. She knew I ain’t bring no ribbon. What I look like bringing a ribbon to church? I knew what she was doing. But if there was one thing I didn’t want to talk about this Sunday, it was running. Like I said, I’m a sore loser. And petty, too. And now, instantly annoyed.
“I forgot,” I said, flat.
“Well, let me tell you, Bev, she came in second in—”
“But what about grades? Is she gettin’ fours or fives or whatever?” My mother cut Momly off mid-brag. Ugh. If there was a second thing I didn’t want to talk about this Sunday, it was school.
“We’re getting there. She’s still getting used to it. Still adjusting.”
The “it” they were talking about was my new school. Up until this year, I was at Barnaby Elementary, then Barnaby Middle, which are both public schools in my old neighborhood. Ma thought it would be best if I “transitioned smoothly” out of living with her by keeping me at my regular school where all my friends go. Brianna, Deena, and especially my day-one, Ashley, who everybody calls Cotton. Me and Cotton been friends since kindergarten, back when Lu Richardson’s mother was our babysitter and she used to help us make up dance routines to nineties R & B. Dance routines we still know but I don’t do no more. But Cotton still does. And without me at school with her, who was gonna tape her bathroom dance-offs? Better yet, who was gonna blame her stinky farts on the boys? Who was gonna tell her that her hair is gonna be cute as soon as the curls fall? Maybe Brianna and Deena would, but that wasn’t their job. It was mine. But I couldn’t do it like I needed to because now I was in a different part of the city, somewhat settled into life with Uncle Tony and Momly, and going to this corny new school they picked—because it was a much shorter drive—over in Sunny Lancaster’s neighborhood (he’s another newbie on the track team). Which means, from Barnaby Terrace to Bougie Terrace. Well, the school was really called Chester Academy, which was a dead giveaway it was bougie. I mean, the cornballs who named the place thought it was too good to even be called a school. An academy? Whatever. Anyway, being at Chester was . . . different. Like, real different. First of all, we had to wear uniforms. Pleated skirts and stiff button-ups. And it was all girls, and let’s just say, not too many of them had real nicknames. Not too many of them had mothers that smelled like hair grease. Hair gel? Yes. But hair grease? Nah.
“Well, I suggest she get used to it soon, or there won’t be no more running,” Ma said. Momly caught my eyes again in the mirror. Winked. She knew Ma was hard on me about school, but she also knew I had to run.
As Momly pulled up in front of the church, she said what she always said every week. “Y’all say a prayer for me and your uncle.”
And my mother said what she always said in response: “Lord knows y’all need it.”
Momly and Uncle Tony never went to church, but when my mother made the arrangements for me and Maddy to live with them, it was under the condition that we wouldn’t miss a service. A whole lot of talk about grace and faith and mercy and salvation, which, to me, all just equaled shouting, clapping, and singing in a building built to be a sweatbox. A constant reminder that all that hair combing I did before coming was a waste of time, as it was a guarantee that I’d be leaving with my curls shriveled up into a frizzy lopsided cloud.
Because of my mother’s wheelchair, she had to sit in the aisle, while me and Maddy sat in a pew. And throughout the whole beginning of the service, Ma would peer down the pew to make sure we were behaving, which was hard because we always sat in the row with the stinky Thomases. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas been smelling like they just puked up mothballs for as long as I’ve known them. They always took the back pew, which is where we sat, so, yeah, most of the time I was sitting real still praying to God not to let me suffocate. Lord, please bless them with some soap. Some perfume. Anything. Make a miracle happen, or, What have I done to deserve this? Father, why hath thou forsaken me?