Fay could see tears in the other woman’s eyes and felt like she was hearing words Naomi had said to no one else. “It is hard, I am sure,” Fay said, “that is why I am happy I never had any kids. I think I would be a terrible mother, since I never really grew up myself.”
“Oh, you grow up fast when you have that little baby laying in your arms. You realize that it needs to be fed and have a safe place to live and stay warm in the winter. It gets you to thinking about how your mama warned you against men who use you and then disappear and how she will not have anything to do with you if you disgrace yourself.”
“How old were you when Marcus came?”
Naomi smiled a rueful smile. “I was two weeks before my eighteenth birthday the day he was born, all by myself but for a nice nurse who stayed after her shift to hold my hand.”
“Where is Marcus’ daddy?”
Naomi flapped her hand. “As soon as that man knew I was in the family way, he took off for parts unknown. I never heard from him again and never saw a dime either.”
“Did you try to find him to get some support?”
“Naw, he was not the kind of man who filled out job applications or paid into Social Security. He was a slick con artist, I see that now, preying on innocent, well, not so innocent, but angry, young women looking for a little excitement away from their mama’s rules. I was stupid. I had a good B average in school and was thinking of going to college to learn to be a nurse when I got pregnant. I finished high school, but I looked like I was ready to pop in my gown. Mama did not come to the ceremony. She said she was too ashamed, but I was not going to do all that work and not get my diploma.” She turned to look at Fay. “Can you imagine how I felt to see all my friends with their families gathered around them, praising them, and know that my own mama was sitting at home, angry at how her daughter had turned out?” She slapped the bench between them. “No, you can not because you did not do that to your mama, did you? People do not do that to their mamas.”
It was Fay’s turn to look at the other woman. “Are you nuts? Young women get knocked up and disowned by their parents for being gullible and stupid all the time. At least you graduated high school. I cut out just after Christmas of my senior year to follow a loser to Florida who spun tales of how he was going to make a killing in the post-hurricane roofing game. Huh. He dumped me like a rotten tomato soon after we got to Miami because I would not turn tricks to keep him in drugs while he ‘scoped out the competition.’ His words, not mine. I was too broke to go home and too chicken to call collect for a bus ticket, so I got a job waitressing in a strip club out by the airport. The manager wanted me to dance, saying I would make a lot more money in tips if I was a dancer, but I could no more face dancing around with my titties flapping in the breeze than I could take off my clothes and have sex with someone for fifty bucks. I mean, I have some standards. They might be low in some people’s eyes but they are all I have got.”
By that time Fay and Naomi had turned toward each other and were leaning closer together as if they could get to know each other better that way. Each of them saw something of themselves in the other, and something to admire. Naomi admired Fay’s snappy talk and the way she flaunted her independence; Fay liked Naomi’s determination to raise her son the way she wanted him raised despite the squalor and loose morals of their surroundings.
Checking the time and finding it was barely seven o’clock, they went back to their apartments to get their purses and met again at Naomi’s car.
1 comment:
Oh no. I hope you get that problem with your computer and camera figured out. Miss those shots of your backyard. But I have a mental image of Fay and Naomi there on the bench pouring out their life stories. Words can make pictures too.
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