bodice.
Tammy answered Joy with, ‘Freddie fell asleep after the first hour’s wait and I was very happy to have someone to talk to that looked decent and spoke like he had some education.’ I hoped she wasn’t referring to my husband being one of them who didn’t look nor talk right and she could see I was taking it wrong, ’cause she was careful to add, ‘Of course that emergency ward was as full of riffraff and alcoholics as you predicted it would be, Baby, and I’m glad we won’t have to go back there again, because that young doctor said that any qualified MD can take out Anndora’s stitches as the cut was not serious.’ She lit up a cigarette and without drawing a breath she said, smiling down at Anndora, ‘Can you believe that when John Dagwood asked Anndora her name, she told him and even took the chicklets he offered her. I’ve never seen her take to anyone like that, and I had to mention it to John Dagwood in as much as Anndora wouldn’t even allow Freddie B to touch her. ‘‘You must really have a way with children, because my daughter refuses to talk to just any ol’ body. She obviously likes you. You must have kids of your own,’’ I said to him, and was surprised to hear he’s not even married.’
As soon as Tammy said that, I could see the writing on the wall, ’cause while she was quick to claim that she wasn’t interested in meeting none of them nice young Christian men from First Tabernacle when I offered to set up some introductions, the glisten in her eyes every time she said John Dagwood’s name told the tale of a woman ripe and ready for romance.
‘Sounds like you already sweet on Mr John Dagwood,’ I said. No sooner than I heard myself say it, I knew I was spilling too much of what was in my mind. But Tammy was feeling gay and looking girlish, and didn’t take offense, ’cause she was so relaxed setting there in a pair of black toreador pants with a grey and black striped short sleeved blouse to match. She looked like the kind of girl any stranger new to a big city like Oakland would have been happy to be bumping into his first night in town, and I told her, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that fella thought he was pretty lucky to meet the likes of you.’
She blushed and soon as she did Joy turned to me and whispered ‘Mama’s got a boyfriend, Mama’s got a boyfriend,’ in a sing songy voice but not loud enough for Tammy to hear who was off in a daydream anyway, till I reminded her that them little girls of her’n was gonna be needing something to eat ’fore they went to bed, ’cause I hadn’t give ’em nothing but grape jelly sandwiches.
‘Oh gosh,’ Tammy yawned and sighed, ‘I guess I’d better get up and take Anndora to bed.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Joy said like she couldn’t offer fast enough. ‘Do you want me to put on her pajamas like she likes me to, Mama?’ Ain’t many children as willing to help as Joy was, but Tammy took her for granted.
‘Thank you, Joy,’ she said like she was talking to hired help. And Joy straight away slid off my lap to collect Anndora off her mother’s.
Didn’t nobody think that Anndora had been listening to what we was talking about, but soon as Joy rustled her up in her arms Anndora said she wanted to go hear the choir at my church next time Joy and Brenda went.
I didn’t have a minute to be pleased, ’cause Tammy harped up, ‘We won’t be having anymore church visits in here. And Brenda,’ she called loud enough to be heard over the Lassie episode that Brenda was watching like it was her life in danger up there on the screen instead of Lassie’s master, Tommy, ‘Brenda! Turn that doggone TV off and go take that good dress off before you ruin it. I don’t know what on earth possessed you to put on something like that anyway.’ Neither Joy nor Brenda was tattle-tale enough to say I was the one that picked them dresses out the closet for going to church in.
At ten years old Brenda could sulk better than any child in the world and she kicked the leg of the coffee table on purpose just to let us all know that while she was about to take off her dress like she’d been told, she wasn’t happy about having to do it in the middle of Lassie and if a commercial hadn’t come on when her mama told her to get up, I don’t reckon she’d of done it no way.
Tammy still didn’t get up herself to make a effort to fix nothing for them girls, so I offered to let them come over to my place for a snack. ‘I’m willing to rustle up some roast pork sandwiches, if anybody’s interested,’ I said, and quite honestly would have emptied my fridge I was so happy just to be setting with Tammy and the children and talking like normal neighbors.
Tammy stretched. ‘Oh would you, Baby? You’ve done so much already today, but it would be wonderful if you’d fix something for Joy and Brenda.’ They was likely only to get a can of Heinz hot dogs and baked beans off her anyway, ’cause Tammy wasn’t much for fooling around in the kitchen. On the one hand I could understand it, ’cause she worked all day. But on the other, there was a lot of women holding down jobs way harder than Tammy’s in a office and had more kids to feed when they got in than she did, and they still managed to put a proper cooked meal on their table every night. What surprised me was that she would make the effort too, once she had that John Dagwood to fool with. But I wasn’t to know that then. At the time, I lifted myself up from the hard wooden upright chair I’d been sitting on for that hour and called into the bedroom for Brenda and Joy to follow me over to my place for a bit of something to eat.
‘Y’all ready to tuck into some of my chocolate cake with butter cream icing?’ I called.
They come tumbling out of that bedroom lickety-split and as we walked out the front door, Tammy’s phone rung.
I hadn’t never heard Tammy talking on the telephone in the three months that she’d been renting that apartment and I figured that what Joy had whispered to me about ‘Mama having a boyfriend’ was exactly right.
‘I bet that’s that John Dagwood,’ Joy told me as her, me and Brenda took the three steps across the hall into my place.
I was singing that night in my kitchen while I dished up two plates of supper for the girls, and was about as happy as I recalled being the morning in ’45 when Freddie come back to me in New Orleans from overseas after the war. Both times my feet wasn’t touching the ground, and both times Freddie B noticed.
‘Happy as a sandboy, ain’t ch’you, wife?’ he said slapping me on my behind, and Joy blushed as she caught him doing it, ’cause she had just walked in the kitchen. ‘You wasn’t s’posed to see that,’ he said swooping her off her feet and lifting her on his shoulders. ‘Baby Palatine –’ Freddie talked like Joy, who had taken off her party dress when Brenda did and was in her flannelet pajamas, wasn’t there.
He practically had her head touching the ceiling ’cause she was so high up perched on my husband’s shoulders – ‘you reckon Dorothy Dandridge looked like Joy Bang when she was little? I bet Dorothy wasn’t as pretty,’ he said and reached his long arm up to tickle Joy under her armpits ’cause that’s where he knew she was the most ticklish.
She got to giggling and struggling so, I feared she was gonna fall, and said, ‘Y’all get out of my kitchen with that foolishness, ’cause next thing you know there’ll be a accident and Tammy’ll want to tan my hide.’
And the whole truth was that I didn’t want to never do nothing again that could upset Tammy, ’cause I saw how easy it was for her to turn her children against me.
After that breakup we’d had, I vowed to watch my mouth, hold my tongue and never ask too many questions or say nothing that would make Tammy force Joy to stop being friends with me again. So I didn’t dare breathe another word about Joy not having baby pictures, though it was still puzzling why her daddy didn’t take none, and I wasn’t goofy enough to mention Sherman’s name, even if Tammy brought him up, ’cause she made
