I had enjoyed meeting and chatting with Jesse Ray Thurman, but I didn’t give him another thought after I left the flea market that day. I spent the rest of that Saturday afternoon with Miss Odessa. I had to laugh when I thought about how I’d gone from hanging out with some of the coolest kids in town to hanging out with a woman old enough to be my grandmother.
Unlike a lot of old people I knew, Miss Odessa wasn’t nosy and meddlesome. She’d asked me only a few questions about my folks, like where they worked and what they did in their spare time. The basic information was all she seemed interested in. And, each time I attempted to tell her what my folks were really like, she changed the subject. I guess in her own way, she already knew by the way I’d latched on to her.
I spent so much time at Miss Odessa’s apartment that when some of my street friends came looking for me, they came straight to her door. Jesse Ray Thurman was the last boy on the planet that I expected to pay me an uninvited visit.
I felt so comfortable and at home at Miss Odessa’s that I answered her door when he knocked a few days after I’d seen him at the flea market.
“Hi, Christine. Your mama told me you were at your godmother’s apartment,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
“How did you know where I lived?” I asked, my mouth hanging open after I stopped talking.
“I asked around,” he admitted, cocking his head to one side. He was so much taller than me that I had to look up at him. When he looked down on me, his eyelids slid halfway down his eyes, like shades, giving him that “hooded eye” look that made some men seem so mysterious.
“Uh … that’s right. My, uh, godmother,” I said, with pride I didn’t know I had. I was surprised that somebody as out of touch as my mother would refer to Miss Odessa as my godmother. From that day on, that was what I considered Miss Odessa to be. It had a better ring to it than “friend” did when I told my friends who Miss Odessa was.
The sight of Jesse Ray standing there in that dimly lit apartment hallway had really taken me by surprise. I stood there, reared back on my heels, with my head tilted back, squinting my eyes so that I could see him better. He was better looking than I’d thought. I didn’t know how to deal with a boy that I didn’t know who was going around asking questions about me.
“I guess you came for the money I owe you for the lemonade.” I grinned, patting the pockets on my jeans, my head still tilted back. My neck had already started to ache, but I didn’t care.
“Oh, you can forget about that. I already did. I, uh, thought you might want to go see a movie.” I didn’t know any shy boys, but the way that Jesse Ray was blinking his eyes and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he was acting like one.
“With who?” I asked.
He shrugged. “With me. Your mama let you go out on dates yet?”
“Not really,” I admitted. Neither of my parents had ever discussed my social life with me. “I’m just fifteen.”
“Oops!” Jesse Ray looked like he was going to faint. “I’m sorry. I just thought … I thought you were at least sixteen!”
I shook my head.
“Listen, I’ll catch up with you some other time.” He laughed, backing away, with his hands up in the air, like I’d just pulled a gun on him. “I just thought … Well, I’ve seen you out with some of the kids from the university, so I thought you were older. And, you do look at least sixteen. I don’t want your daddy cracking me upside my head.” He laughed some more, wiping sweat off his face. He didn’t seem shy now, just nervous.
“You still want me to forget about paying for the lemonade?” I asked, following him down the hall, toward the exit.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, walking away even faster.
“Who was that at the door? Was it one of my kids?” Miss Odessa asked as soon as I returned to her living room. The biggest problem with having such an old person for a best friend was the fact that she had health problems on top of health problems. Today her arthritis was bothering her so bad, it was a struggle for her to get up once she’d sat down. She was wobbling like a spinning top now, trying to get up from her sofa. I padded across the floor and grabbed her by the arm to keep her from falling. “I asked who that was at my door,” she said, flopping back down on her seat so hard, she took me with her.
“Nobody,” I replied, with a shrug. “Just some boy knocking on the wrong door.”