Sellout (14 page)

Tilly gave him her best “you bet I don’t” look and slapped him on the arm. We all laughed.

“Thank you, baby,” Tilly told him, batting her eyelids like a little girl. “I was just trying to convince Rex here the same thing, but what does he know?”

Rex had been sitting quietly, rearranging plastic bags on his cart. He turned around and looked Tilly up and down and said, “When you’ve lost it, you’ve lost it.”

“Oh, shut up, you old fool,” Tilly said, pretending to throw something at him. Rex and Tilly laughed together.

A car backfired on the street and we all jumped. It sounded like a bomb. Black smoke rose in a steady stream from the back of the car, but it kept speeding down the block. Tilly sucked her teeth. “That’s a shame, all that noise.”

“At least it wasn’t a gunshot,” Khalik said quietly. I wondered if his heart had just skipped three whole beats like mine had.

“You’re right, Khalik,” she said. “But never mind that. Tash, you been gone so long, girl, I thought you’d caught a bus back to the suburbs.”

Tilly cracked herself up then. She obviously didn’t remember being the one who sent me out so early. Her head and shoulders shook while she laughed. She almost looked like a bobble head. I loved watching her laugh. It always made me laugh, too.

“From what I hear, she had a really good time,” Khalik said. He rubbed his chin and turned toward me. Tilly turned to me, too. Rex even leaned in. I rolled my eyes at Khalik but he just smiled and seemed to enjoy watching me squirm. “Come on, Tash, tell us all about it.”

I wanted his basketball right at that moment so I could send it sailing right into his chest again, but it was too far out of my reach.

“I went up to the park and took a nice, long walk and then came home,” I said. Khalik gave me a look. Either he was gonna spill it or I should. “Oh, and I saw Amir while I was there, so we hung out for a little bit.”

Khalik grinned like he’d just won some championship.

Tilly’s eyebrows went sky-high and she grinned, the kind of grin she makes when she knows there’s more to the story. Rex finished folding and refolding his bags and packed up to leave.

“Catch you all later,” he called and waved good-bye. I should have run and jumped on the cart to escape.

“Alright, Rex,” Khalik said. Tilly and I waved.

On any other day Khalik would have been running up and down the court with his boys. Now that I had news for Tilly’s ears only, his friends were nowhere to be found.

“Boy, why are you here hanging on this stoop?” Tilly asked Khalik, reading my mind. “Your friends go off and leave you or something? Or did you find someone you were more interested in today?”

She looked at me when she said it. Khalik rolled his eyes.

“No, Ms. Tilly,” he said, “it ain’t even like that. I just felt like laying low for a minute. I’ll probably get up with them later on. Here they go calling right now. I’ll catch you later, Ms. Tilly. NaTasha.”

He flipped open his cell and went into the building. Thank God. Enough humiliation for one day.

“Alright, girl, now come on with the gossip,” Tilly said.

TILLY WAS STILL asking me questions about Amir while we got ready for church the next morning. She wanted to know all the details. And she had a whole first date meal planned by the time I was done telling her.

“You’re so embarrassing, Tilly,” I said. Once she made up her mind about something, her plan was final. We walked out the door with only a few minutes to spare.

“Girl, we’ll be lucky if we get a seat,” she said, walking to church as fast as she could go. She had on a blue and yellow flowered dress and held the matching blue feathered hat under one arm.

“Tilly, do that many people even go to church anymore?” I asked, trying to catch my breath from running after her. Back home, my parents and I hadn’t been in years. “There can’t possibly be a full house already.”

Tilly just grunted and kept walking. We turned the corner a few blocks from her apartment and ran into a line of people, women in church hats, men in three-piece suits, and little kids in their Sunday best. Ushers in black suits and white
gloves were keeping order on the street. A tour bus even pulled up out front and began letting the passengers off for service. Tilly passed by the end of the line and walked up the stairs into Hope Baptist Church.

“Tilly, why are so many people waiting to get inside?” I asked her, as we took seats in the first row of the church. “And how in the world did we get seats in row one?”

“Girl, the Lord is going to show up, so people want to be here to receive Him,” she said. “And they always sit the elders up front. Thank the Lord because my sight is going anyway.”

Tilly’s sight was 20/20. I made a face to let her know she was full of it. She pretended not to see me and raised her hands like she was praying. I left her alone and watched more believers flow into the church. A young mother set her baby’s car seat into place on the pew next to her. A heavyset older man and his much thinner and younger wife, both dressed in black suits, took bulletins from the usher and began to fan themselves. It was warm in the sanctuary.

A dark-skinned woman dressed in all white, from her large hat with a feather down to her pantyhose, stood at attention near the front pulpit and looked like she was waiting for someone. People filed in from the back doors and filled the pews quickly. All the people waiting outside weren’t going to have seats. The place was packed.

The pastor walked in and raised both his arms and the crowd stood.

“Good morning, church,” he bellowed from the pulpit. A
team of large men in black gym suits, who looked like bodyguards, surrounded the pastor as he led us all in prayer. I bowed my head. “Let the church say, ‘amen.’”

“Amen.”

“Church, God is good,” the pastor asked. He dropped his arms and motioned for us to sit.

“All the time,” the congregation answered in unison.

“He’s so good all the time and I’m here to tell you about it,” he preached. “Do you want to hear about it?”

“Yes, tell it, pastor,” the people responded.

“God is so good. He woke me up this morning to see this beautiful sun and to feel this summer heat. He gave us power, joy, and sound minds this morning, church.”

“Yes, amen,” Tilly said, almost rising to her feet. She waved a paper fan adorned with a funeral home advertisement on the back, and blew air toward me. I unbuttoned two buttons on my shirt and wiped some sweat from around my collar.

“He has blessed us with a wonderful church family and has brought each of us a mighty long way,” he said.

The bodyguards looked around nervously as the pastor paced across the stage.

“Yes, He has,” the young mother behind us said. Her baby woke up and began to cry softly. She set him in her lap and continued to listen. I couldn’t help noticing she had on a pair of jeans and a large sweatshirt.

Tilly always said the Lord didn’t care what we had on for church, but we should dress our best just in case this was the day He came to take us to our new home in Heaven. She said
she didn’t want to be caught dead in an old dress when she met her maker.

The music began to play and the people stood to their feet. I swayed and clapped along while choir members in long maroon-and-white robes began to file around the pulpit. They rocked the building from their dancing and their boisterous voices. It was beautiful. I looked at Tilly. She had her eyes closed and her hands lifted in the air.

The choir sang three more songs.

“Amen, church, you can be seated,” the pastor said when they ended.

We all sat and opened our Bibles. The pastor read from the books of Ecclesiastes and Luke.

“Church, we are beginning a new season in the Lord and we need to live as leaders and examples for those who do not yet know Him,” he told us.

I followed along and nodded when Tilly nodded. The pastor was right. This was a new time in my life. Some changes would have to be made in order for me to be okay: new friendships, new relationships, and a new attitude.

“Amen,” I said along with everyone else.

After the service, Tilly moved down the main aisle like a celebrity. She waved to folks in the balcony and shook hands with people like she was the one who had given the sermon. More people came to talk with her than the pastor, who waited patiently on the pulpit for anyone wanting prayer.

“Hey, Ms. Rose,” Tilly said, hugging a small woman wearing a large church hat. The lady only stood as tall as Tilly’s shoulder but her voice made up for it. I swear they heard her
voice all the way in the next church. I wondered if she had a hearing aid in her ear. She held on to Tilly as they talked. “Are you cookin’ tonight, Ms. Tilly?”

“You know I’m cooking, girl,” Tilly said, smiling proudly. Everyone knew about Tilly’s food. “I’ll be ready for you about five. My granddaughter here is going to help me get ready.”

I smiled and shot Tilly a look. How could she be standing here telling tales in church? She knew all I could do was boil water.

“It’s nice to meet you, dear,” Ms. Rose yelled at me. “You remind me of my own granddaughter. Maybe I’ll bring her with me tonight.”

“Alright, Ms. Rose.” Tilly pulled me out of the sanctuary. We made our way through the rest of the crowd and stepped out onto the street.

We walked slowly back to her apartment, with Tilly holding on to me and humming the whole way. We passed her place and headed into the bodega. Her smile widened with every step. I prayed for empty aisles and bad tunes, so maybe Tilly wouldn’t dance through the store and embarrass me this time.

“Hey, Amir,” Tilly sang, “hook me up with some meat, baby.”

“You got it, Ms. Tilly,” he said, slicing a turkey for her. He winked at me while he weighed the meat on his scale. My cheeks were hotter here than out in the sun. I stood in one spot so I wouldn’t bang into anything and watched Amir’s
strong arm muscles flex while he cut into more meat. “Did NaTasha tell you about Monday?”

She pretended not to know and smiled like she was about to find out some juicy gossip about me.

“Not everything, my dear, so why don’t you fill me in,” she said, leaning onto the glass in between us. Amir looked at me to make sure it was okay. He looked nervous. It was cute.
Very
cute.

“Well, I was going to take NaTasha to see a movie,” he stammered. “I mean, if that’s okay with you, Ms. Tilly.”

He just scored major points with her and probably didn’t even know it. She beamed like he’d just proposed marriage. She glanced over at me and nodded her head.

“Of course it’s okay,” she said, taking the meat he handed her. “I was wondering what was taking you so long to ask her.”

“Oh, Ms. Tilly,” he said. “See you both on Wednesday.”

I made an exaggeratedly slow three-point turn toward the door and could hear Amir laughing behind me. I pumped my hips with every step just for effect. I wasn’t going to be remembered for the spilled beans forever if I could help it.

We got back to the apartment and Tilly put on an apron right away. I wrapped one of her aprons on, too, just to make her laugh. She saw how big it was on me and shook her head.

“You finally ready to learn how to cook, huh?” she asked, swinging a dish towel at me. I laughed and shook my head no. I started collecting dishes to set the table. Sundays after
church were always a busy time around Tilly’s apartment. “Girl, take that off, you look silly.”

Tilly started humming one of the hymns we had just heard during service. I watched her measure sugar levels with her finger, choose the right turkey legs to cook, and adjust the stove temperatures. She was really at home in the kitchen, and I admired her for that. She’d found something she loved.

With the exception of cooking, I was just like her, from our round hips, to our attitude, to our coarse hair. For the first time I could remember, I was okay with all of it. I wanted to be just like Tilly.

“I love you, Tilly,” I said. She turned and looked at me.

“You know I love you, too, baby,” she said, flinging some sticky flour at me. I pulled some of it out of my hair. She nodded at my head. “You want me to fix your hair for you later?”

The last time Tilly braided my hair, I came away with small bumps around the edges of my scalp and tears in my eyes. She had sworn she wouldn’t pull or twist too tight, but she lied. Those braids stayed in for a good two weeks and so did the pounding headache. They looked beautiful on my ovalshaped head, but I was like show and tell at school. The kids pointed and touched and stared like they’d never seen anything like it before. I had a feeling I wouldn’t have that same problem here. All of a sudden, I missed having my hair done, pressed or braided.

“Sure, Tilly, if you don’t mind,” I said, placing all the forks on the right side of the plates. I lit the apple-scented candle in
the center of her table and pulled the matching knives and spoons from the silverware drawer.

“Course I don’t mind, honey,” she said, smiling. She added another layer of butter flavoring to the turkey legs and slid the tray onto the center rack in the oven.

Soon the cooked turkey legs were cooling on the stovetop, green beans were boiling, black beans and rice were on a slow boil in their pots, too, and I was kneeling in between Tilly’s legs getting my hair braided. Tilly hummed a fast hymn and parted my hair with enthusiasm. She had a comb in one hand, holding the hair in separate sections, and grease in the other hand, moisturizing my scalp.

“You know what design you want?” she asked just as the doorbell rang. I didn’t know. I thought about the elaborate hairstyles I’d seen at Amber’s Place and around Tilly’s neighborhood over the past few weeks. I knew what I didn’t want, but I was okay with Tilly choosing a style for me. The twists she wore looked elegant. I told her something simple and cute, and got up to answer the door.

“Ooh wee, girl, look at that head,” Ms. Rose yelled to me. “Your stuff was flying in church, but, girl, ooh wee. You want me to fix you up real quick before we eat?”

Did everyone in Harlem know how to do hair except for me? I invited Ms. Rose inside and she hugged me tightly, so tight I almost missed seeing Shaunda slip past me. Ms. Rose let me go fast.

“You two girls know each other, right?” Ms. Rose asked, grabbing Tilly up next.

Of course we knew each other and I was slightly relieved it was her, and not one of the other girls. I just hadn’t expected Shaunda, who hugged Tilly and grabbed a seat on the couch across from all the hair products.

“Um, yeah, we met at Amber’s Place,” I answered her, smiling at Shaunda.

She returned my smile but didn’t say anything. I took a seat back in front of Tilly and she started to braid.

I tried to keep my eyes on Ms. Rose and Shaunda, but Tilly had my head gripped hard like a football tucked in her arms. It was painful but I knew Tilly wasn’t trying to hurt me. I closed my eyes and listened to Ms. Rose and Tilly talk about the church building fund and the women’s missionary board, both of which Ms. Rose was in charge. Most of the conversation was gossip about nosy women volunteers, missing money, and slack members.

Shaunda and I were quiet the whole time.

“I told you not to get so involved, Rose,” Tilly told her, laughing about the ten-year-long building fund project with no construction work in sight. “You and I both know they ain’t building nothing in there but a new tour route for the visitors.”

They both laughed. I heard Shaunda giggle, too, and shuffle through one of Tilly’s magazines. I wondered what she was really thinking about. Had she been in Tilly’s house before? Was she collecting stories about Tilly and me to share with the other girls? Had any of the other girls been in Tilly’s apartment before? All the questions started a panic deep in my chest and
a headache worse than the pain from the tight plaits Tilly was folding on my head. I was so deep in thought I didn’t even hear Ms. Rose talking to me. Tilly flicked the comb against my forehead and they all laughed at me.

“Huh? What? I mean yes?” I stammered, holding my hand against my forehead. They continued laughing. I caught Shaunda looking around at the paintings on the walls and the books I’d stacked into Tilly’s bookcases over the years. She wouldn’t have done that if she’d been there before. I took a deep breath until my heartbeat slowed to a normal pace again.

“I was just asking how things have been going for you at Amber’s Place,” Ms. Rose repeated herself. The sides of her lips quivered when she spoke. “Shaunda here has told me all about you, I feel like I know you already.”

I looked over at Shaunda to search her eyes, to no avail.

My heartbeat sped up again. I wanted to know exactly what she told her grandmother. My volleyball skills probably got left out, but the fighting and the teasing? I pulled away from Tilly for a second to take a break. I hadn’t even told Tilly the full story yet, and now her friends already knew.

“Don’t worry, only the good stuff,” Ms. Rose said with the quivering lips. “I couldn’t bribe the juicy stuff out of her. She’s a good girl this one, now anyway.”

Ms. Rose patted her granddaughter’s knee like you would a puppy dog. Shaunda ignored her and kept flipping through the Jet magazine she had been reading. I couldn’t picture her as the self-destructive, troubled teen that Shaunda referred to. But she was in there somewhere.