Chapter 1
𝙽𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟷𝟿𝟼𝟹
The trees moved listlessly. They were like dancing maidens, each to her own rhythm, tresses lugged by the southern wind. As I kept walking, I could hear them behind me. Jerry and Terry both trouble—rode on their bikes and yelled all types of stuff.
“Hey! Wyetta!” Terry rode alongside me.
“Look!”
And then he squeezed a canister. Mustard spurted all over my face.
“Oh! My goodness!” My hands went to my face. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the burn before I searched for my books that had fallen.
And just like that, they rode off laughing and spurted mustard on the mailboxes. It was just another day in the colored neighborhood. It’s not like we bothered anybody. They would go around in the colored communities and pick trouble. Men and children alike. The women had their part in the grocery store when they’d push and shove our carts.
“You’re a pretty girl, Wyetta! But then you aren’t my type! ” Jerry, the freckled face one, laughed.
“I hate N------s!”
“Nobody asked,” I muttered, bending to pick up my books that had fallen.
With my jacket in hand, I wiped my face to help the sting of the mustard from my eyes. If I told you that I hated to walk from school would just be an understatement. Relieved when they disappeared, my mind went back to the conversation my cousin Rhonda and I had about Sam Cooke coming here to Florida. He was supposed to perform at the Harlem Square Club in Miami.
***
“Wyetta, baby?” Moma called out to me as I stepped into the foyer.
“Yes, it’s me.”
Moma had a local furniture store that was not far from us. She sold at reasonable prices, and the middle class loved it.
As an only child, loneliness had its times. But then I had peace and quiet.
When I got home from school in the evenings, the first thing I did was to get a shower. And I did just that, that same evening. Thankfully, the mustard swilled out of my hair with only one rinse. Moma sat at the kitchen table as she fumbled with some sort of paper.
“Your food is on the stove,” she said over her shoulder.
“How was your day?”
“Twas fine sweetheart, your father and I are going to Miami later on in the day.” She tilted her head, reading one of the many papers she had scattered on the table.
“Oh, really? can I come?”
“Child. Now you know I don’t like you on these streets now. Dem people don’t ever control their children. And lord knows I don’t have it in me to get arrested today.”
“True, true,” I smothered a giggle.
“I don’t want you to open any of these doors to anybody that comes knocking. You lock these doors, you hear me?” With a hand that shook, she tied an apron around her and went to the sink.
“You know I do, Moma...”
“I think Rhonda will be coming over today,” I sat down with my food and began to eat.
She muttered something under her breath.
“Moma, Cousin Rhonda isn’t so bad...”
“That child is something else, I tell you...” she frowned as she counted the stacks of envelopes.
Beneath them laid: Newspapers and a ‘Seventeen Magazine.’
My first instinct was to reach for it.
“Not one colored folk up in there.”
“Of course not,” I responded with a mouthful of rice.
“But I’ll be one of the first to appear on a cover, just you watch,” I whispered so Moma couldn’t hear, glancing over the page.
Moma got up and walked over to the sink, drying whatever dishes were left.
“Dem girls needs to eat is what.”
“They’re models, Moma, and that’s how models are supposed to look.” I looked at the delicate features of the models that graced the front page.
“Mhm, whatever pays the bills,” she murmured.
“Have you thought about what you ought to be doing after you leave school?”
“Well... yes, but I haven’t made a decision yet,” I told her.
She looked at me for a moment. But she was silent.
“Moma?”
“We need to get out of this neighborhood. Overtown ain’t nothin’ but oppression and depression. I’m sure you see it. You ought to have your mind made up by now Wyetta,” she glanced up at me through narrowed eyes.
“Don’t waste your life cookin’ and cleanin’ for the white man.”
“Cook and clean for your own house,” she continued and smoothing down the apron that was tied around her.
She went and gathered the papers on the table to take with her.
“You get where I’m going? Wash your plate!” She said and disappeared into her room.
