“I have to use the bathroom, Mrs. Tompkins.” Sharalynn chewed her lower lip. The scratch on her cheek was now a pink welt.
“They had some trouble on their way home from school, but they’re alright.” said Mrs. Metrey.
“Let’s go inside. Mrs. Metrey, will you come in, too? Thanks for bringing my girls home.”
The five of them went up the steps and into the house where Leslie was directed to show Sharalynn to the bathroom and Melvina introduced Mrs. Metrey to Edna and Aunt Mip.
“I’m so pleased to meet you.” Aunt Mip brightened when she saw Mrs. Metrey who she guessed was closer to her age than the two younger women, and it was with dawning recognition that Aunt Mip realized that since her first two weeks in Detroit, she hadn’t had much contact with any seasoned adults since Ella and Rufus had returned to Selma. For nearly a month, it had only been young folks and young folks, plus, young folks and younger folks, which was fine because, well, young folks made Aunt Mip feel alive.
“Aunt Mip is here from Selma, Alabama,” Melvina was saying. “And this is Edna, my sister-in-law. She lives here, in Detroit.”
Mrs. Metrey smiled from one woman to the other, nodding her head. “I have kinfolks in Alabama.” she said.
“Here we go!” Edna laughed, suspecting rightly that soon the women would be sharing Alabama stories and behaving as if Alabama was a small village instead of a state full of cities and towns and all sorts of people.
“You know I would love to stay and visit but I told the little white girl I would walk her home.” Mrs. Metrey mouthed the word “white.” It was one of those things some black people of a certain age did: when they wanted to talk about white people they whispered the word and when they talked about black people they drew a line on the browner side of their hand.
Sukie was absorbing the way her mother and Aunt Edna laughed and gave each other some skin after Aunt Edna said “here we go!” and thought she might want to “go”, too.
“I want to help you take Sharalynn home.” she offered to Mrs. Metrey, which made Auntie Mip gasp. “Little girls don’t belong in grown women’s conversations.” she said, giving a warning look that made Sukie’s feelings want to say “ouch”. Thinking of the time, Melvina said “Maybe we should call Sharalynn’s mother on the telephone.”
“Shara-lynn---that’s right. I should have called her by her right name.” Mrs. Metrey apologized as Melvina turned her daughter’s palms upward. “How’d your hands get so dirty? Go wash your hands, girl!” Sukie ran off. “And stop running! Send Leslie and Sharalynn down here.”
Leslie and Sharalynn were in the back bedroom looking at themselves dancing in front of an old french-styled dressing table with triple-plated mirrors that belonged to Leslie’s grandmother. If they positioned themselves just so, they looked like a two-toned singing group consisting of between five and six pint-sized performers.
“Let’s do the temptation walk.”
“Okay!” They pressed their toes down twice on the right and twice on the left while pumping their elbows in the sideways swinging motion made popular by Melvin Franklin, Otis Williams, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, and David Ruffin. In the mirror Leslie and Sharalynn grinned at each other, admiring how good they looked wearing similar hair styles and having just about the same 1/8th of an inch’s worth of white front teeth breaking through their gums.
Sharalynn’s blond bangs lay smooth against her forehead, gently parting like a neat curtain, while Leslie’s dark brown bangs curled under at the tips and glowed with a sheen of bergamot hair grease. They each wore the equivalent of two pigtails with Leslie’s having puffed-up like two cinnamon buns risen in the oven, and Sharalynn’s straighter tresses lying on her shoulders like dripping paint.
“Let’s sing Don’t Mess With Bill.”
“Yeah!”
