Mama and I wait forever for Grandma to answer the door. The porch light beams down on us as if announcing to the entire block that The lost ones are now found, praise the Lord.
“Who is it?” comes her voice at last.
“It’s me,” says Mama.
Two locks click, and the door cracks open. Grandma peeps from behind it. She has big eyes like Mama’s, but hers are even prettier. They’re gray. “Have mercy, Sharon. You have that child out here at this hour?” Mama waves Dad off; he toots the horn and drives away. “Where’s Emory going?” Grandma asks, sharp.
Mama stammers, “He’s . . . he’s—”
“Honestly, I don’t care to hear it.” Grandma motions us in, and we wrestle the trash bags past her. “Seems to me you should be tired of this foolishness by now.”
“It’s just for the night, Mama.”
“Hmph, and you’re fine with that?” Grandma gives me a side-hug. “Genesis, go on up to bed. Say your prayers first . . . on your knees, none of that praying in bed stuff, you hear? And, pull your shoulders up, stop slouching.”
I climb the stairs, already praying for God to bless Mama for having us stop at the drive-thru. Shoot, after the day we’ve had, being sent to bed without a meal would’ve been, like, torture.
Grandma has four bedrooms, but I always sleep in the same one. Mama’s. Her room still has the dated flower wallpaper and pink canopy bed from when she was a kid, as if it’s waiting for her to come back home. As I dig through one of the bags of clothes for something to sleep in, Grandma’s and Mama’s voices get louder and louder. I’m not one to eavesdrop, but technically I’m not eavesdropping when they’re talking loud enough to wake a bear knocked out by a tranquilizer.
“Sharon, please, don’t compare that man to your father.” Grandma is always getting on Ma about Dad, and sometimes she throws Grandpa in for extra guilt. Your father would die of another stroke if he knew. . . .
The teakettle whistles and a chair scrapes the floor. I move to the top of the steps.
Mama doesn’t reply.
“And, you wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d gone back to school, gotten a degree. But here you are wiping up after folks at that nursing home. For minimum wage. Nobody can live decently off that, and we both know that you simply cannot rely on that husband of yours.” Grandma’s voice now breaks exactly where it always does, then she adds like she always does, “I know I sound like a broken record. But nothing ever changes with that man!”
“And how am I supposed to do any of those things now? I have Genesis to consider,” Mama shoots back.
“Well,” Grandma says, softer, “you could come back and live here, for starters.”
Uh-uh. UH-UH! I can’t imagine living with Grandma every single day. Mama says Grandma can nitpick the wool off a lamb. I can’t even use the toothpaste without her instructing me how to properly squeeze the tube.
I don’t hear Mama’s response, so I scooch down a few steps.
Grandma has cleared her throat and is charging on. “And, I warned you that he wasn’t the type of man for you to marry, didn’t I?”
“Mama, please.” A teacup chinks against its saucer a little too hard. “Genesis is right upstairs,” Mama says, low.
I back up the steps in case Mama decides to check on me. Actually, I should be putting on my T-shirt, folding up my clothes, and getting into bed. But there’s a traffic jam of questions inside my head. Like really, what kind of man should Mama have married, and why isn’t Dad it? Is it his drinking? Or that his hours’d been cut and he’s been hitting the casinos? But, he wasn’t doing those things when they met, this I know. I quickly change and sneak back to the door.
“Sometimes I think you only married him to spite me—”
“I can’t do this right now.” A chair scrapes back.
“Go on, run away. You refuse to see the truth,” Grandma says. “Lord, my child is blind in one eye and can’t see out the other.”
Mama climbs the stairs fast. I leap into bed. The door opens. “Genesis?” I fake sleep. After a few minutes, Mama cuts off the light, climbs into bed, and cuddles real close. “I sure hope your Dad’ll come for us tomorrow,” she whispers.
Dad will come. He always does—not always the very next day, but who knows? Maybe he’ll not only come, but also run up Grandma’s walkway, pull me in his arms, and tell me he misses me. Maybe Grandma’ll talk nicely, no preaching. Maybe, just maybe.
But I doubt it.
When Grandma calls me to breakfast, I ask where’s Mama.
“Oh, she left for work about seven or so,” says Grandma. “Must’ve been tired, too, because she woke up late. Had to borrow my car to make it on time.”
Then it comes to me that I’ve got to face Regina and the girls at school today! “How am I getting to school?” I ask, but what I really want to know is, Do I have to go to school?
Grandma slides a bowl of oatmeal in front of me and spoons a little bit of brown sugar over the top. “Your mother said she couldn’t wait to drive you across town—she had to be in early today, because she left early yesterday—and by the time you catch a bus and transfer, you’ll have missed half the morning.”
What’s weird is that yesterday, for one moment, I was fly—yes, I know it wasn’t real—but still, my swag was smooth, my laugh was chill, and my snaps—my snaps had everybody rollin’. Then I think of our face-to-face standoff. Don’t let me catch you around, Eggplant. No Regina drama for me today; I ain’t mad about that.
I reach for the spoon and Grandma snaps, “Don’t pick up that spoon till you thanked the Lord.”
I put the spoon back down and clasp my hands together. “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Amen.”
“That’s it? Hasn’t Grandma taught you how to give a respectable grace?”
Only one hundred times. Even though I’m sure God won’t mind if I say a simple prayer every now and then, I clasp my hands together and say another grace for Grandma’s sake. “Dear Father God, thank you for this breakfast of fine oats and the water to boil them. Thank you for the sugar to sweeten them, the cows that made the milk, and the farmer that churns the milk to make the butter. And finally, bless Grandma for preparing it. Amen.”
She studies me, as if determining whether I was being disrespectful or not. Finally she says, “That’ll do,” and takes her seat across from me.
With Grandma eyeing me, I remember her and Mama’s conversation last night, but I’m afraid if I ask her about it, she’ll start lecturing me, too.
I take my bowl to the sink, and a big bag of lemons on the counter catches my eye. There must be twenty in there! “Why you have all those lemons?” I ask.
“A sweet girl from church dropped off a whole bag. Fresh lemon juice, nothing better! I’ll use some for lemonade . . . some for tea . . . my dark spots . . .” Grandma runs her fingers over her hands, hands pale like Mama’s. “And, my cough tonic. It helps with my bronchitis. You know, lemons are God’s healing food.”
“Dark spots?” Lemons help with dark spots? Immediately, my mind starts buzzing.
“For these marks. See here?” Grandma points to small light brown dots sprinkled across her hands, like freckles. “That doctor on the TV, now, what’s his name?” Grandma thinks for a second and then says, “Never mind. But he said that juice from lemons makes them fade.”
“It works?”
“Would I waste my time if it didn’t?” Grandma says, gathering up her dishes. “Now, go get yourself dressed, it’s already after nine,” she says, as if I actually have some place to be.
Back in my room, I get to thinking about lemons fading Grandma’s spots. I have a glimmer of an idea, and it’s making me feel happy. Then, while searching through the trash bag for some clothes, Regina’s stupid cracks pop in my ear. Y’all wanna see some of Char’s hand-me-downs? Charcoal. And right then, my little idea turns into a need-to-do.
I take two towels out of the linen closet and two lemons—that should be enough—from the kitchen. I almost forget the knife, and turn back for it before locking myself in the bathroom.
So that rolling around in milk thing was stupid. So was the baking soda experiment. And I’m embarrassed to confess that for three months straight, I’d sit with yogurt on my face for fifteen minutes every night—yogurt ’cause I read something about the acid being good for lightening skin—but nothing happened. Now, even though this lemon thing sounds a lot like the milk thing, Grandma trusts it, so maybe?
Once I’m out of the shower, I slice a lemon in half and smear it over my face, ears, neck, and shoulders. Little bits of pulp settle on my cheeks like acne. I take another half and rub it down my arms, elbows, and hands. I don’t stop rubbing till lemon juice is on every area of my body. I stick a rind over my gums, for good measure. I’m not even going to talk about the color of my gums! Then, I sit on the edge of the toilet and wait, hardly daring to feel hopeful, but yeah, in truth, I am. “Please, Lord, let this work,” I repeat over and over, like a chant, till Grandma tells me I’ve been in here long enough. The lemon dries, and at least it’s not sticky. So I get dressed, without washing it off. The used peels I wrap in tissue and bury at the bottom of the wastebasket; the rest I tuck in a washcloth for later.
Grandma sniffs at me when I enter the den. “You’ve been in my lotions?”
“No.” I sniff myself. Man, Grandma has the nose of a bloodhound.
“Hmph, you smell nice anyway.” She flicks her finger toward the preacher on TV and says, “Lord ah mercy, this man can hardly move due to his gout.”
Whaaa? But I know not to ask.
We watch Dr. Oz next, and I suspect he’s the guy who recommended the lemon idea. I sure would like to ask him when to expect a change, ’cause my arms are just as dark as they were an hour ago. This leads me to ask, “Grandma, how’re your hands doing?”
“Oh, this arthritis is something else.” Grandma rubs her knuckles as if they’ve been aching all day.
“What about the spots?”
“Spots?” Grandma inspects her hands. “Getting lighter, I suppose.”
“How long it takes?”
“How long does what take?”
“The lemons.”
“Not long, I expect.”
“You rub it on and that’s it?”
“What time is it?” She picks up the remote. “You’re going to make me miss my program.”
If there is one show Grandma absolutely cannot miss, it’s In the Heat of the Night. Why she loves this show, I have no idea. It’s so old all the action looks fake. Still, I check the clock in the kitchen. “Little after twelve thirty,” I say, then press on: “So, what else you do?”
“Nothing else.” Grandma’s changing the channel. “Except a little exfoliation.” She finds her show and rests the remote in her lap.
“Exfoliate?” We’ve seen this episode at least one hundred times already. Ugh. “Grandma, exfoliate?”
“Genesis, I can’t talk and watch this, too. You’re being worrisome, you know that? Why don’t you go vacuum or something, make yourself useful?”
That settles it. I take my worrisome self and make myself useful, all the while figuring out this exfoliating business.
When Mama comes home from work, she tells us that Dad’s “working on a surprise,” and we’ll find it out tomorrow. Of course, Grandma snorts, “A surprise? Hmph, we shall see.” Mama doesn’t defend Dad, and it was his fault we were called “bums,” so I won’t either. Like Grandma, I snort, “Yep, we’ll see.” A surprise, after all, ain’t always good.
But then I do get a good surprise! In one of Grandma’s bathroom cabinets, I find this stuff called apricot scrub, and on the tube is the word “exfoliate.” Score! So, right before bed I rub the scrub on my skin—which feels like tiny, ground-up walnut shells—and rinse it off, then I spread the lemon on again. Finally, I get back to bed feeling hopeful.