GRADUATION DAY Just look at me they got me out here wearing a dress heels makeup hope Mama's proud she sure does look like it looking at me and squealing like proud mamas do when their baby looks something like she came from them her squeals bounce from every wall of this hotel lobby her screams shake from her fragile body exploding like she's shocked by her own joy unsteady heels click against the tile toward the person she can say was the best thing she ever did with her life Here's the scene: I'm seventeen and graduating from high school and this weekend I learn to juggle my father and his new wife are on their way to the Home of the Chicago Doves decked out, like they're about to glide down the church's red carpet him in his crispiest suit, her bulging from a flowered dress my baby brother dressed as Dad's mini identical twin belted in the back seat of my father's golden Toyota Camry is giddy knowing nothing about what day it is or how his big sister will survive it after picking up her own mommy keeping her seated somewhere she can fidget far from his side of the family Mama fidgets in my passenger seat more on edge than me maybe cause it's been like five years since we've seen each other but she is here scoffs under her breath thinking, just like her this hoopty is proof of yet another thing I don't need shrugs away small thoughts not knowing Dad demanded I save and buy my first Camry myself sits and tugs at her lopsided wig pulls down the mirror reapplies bloodred lipstick smudges some on her cheeks with her fingers and I thank god knowing without this I may not recognize her We pull into my high school's parking lot for the last day I will ever have to smile at these people like I ever belonged here / for the ten minutes it takes Mama and me to get to the stands along the football field, a place she has never seen / I imagine the sounds of our heels to be / like a song we are for once dancing to together / today / I'm not angry / at her slurred speech / I'm not angry / at her missing teeth / I'm not angry / at her fuss / I'm not angry / that she looks nothing like / the last time I saw her / or that / I don't know when the next time will be / for the ten minutes it takes Mama and me to get to the stands along the football field / I'm just happy we're both here / alive My name is Ad a but not really it's what my father's side calls me cause I was born first and on this day I'm only three months from leaving this place behind they tell me there's a big world out there and they tell me there's so much I can do and I know nothing but this city but my father but these schools where I've always been one of few specks of dingy brown in a sea of perfect white but I know the bible and I know how to do the right things so how hard could college really be How hard could it be to 1. Find a dress that both Mama and Dad would like. 2. Make sure the dress was loose enough to hide all my heavy. 3. Put on heels I could stand for more than three hours. 4. Pick Mama up in my own car. 5. Get Mama to my soon-to-be old school. 6. Sit Mama somewhere I could see her. 7. Run back and forth between Mama and Dad. 8. Smile for every camera. 9. Smile with Mama. 10. Smile when Mama insists that she be the first, after it's over, to have dinner with me. Dad smiles for his final picture with me loosening the awkward grip tightly held on the outside of my right arm his sharp signature cologne left to linger across my shoulders a scent just as strong as the bass in the shifting tone of his voice proud of you, Kid you did good he says as if I'd done my entire high school bid just now, all in one day thanks, Dad I smile back, bashful warm under the way he looks at me on the days I do right standing back I look at the softness peeking through thick folds of my father's face watch yet another attempt to pull his belted suit pants over the bottom of his round belly now at the end of a long day under the football field sun with beads of sweat faithfully dabbed across his widow's peak by an old white cloth always tucked in his back pocket basking in the praise of his job well done After the pictures are done caught back and forth on opposite sides of the crowded field buzzing with families proud of children they don't really know we pull into the driveway as the sky surrounding Dad's house is deepening toward black from gray Mama glances toward his front door and back toward the road behind us scared I think to place a hand on her trembling shoulder but settle for telling her it's okay, Mom tell her we'll be a minute tell her I just need to change tell her they're not home yet but Dad's house is my house too Mama looks back at me wanting too much to see where I live but too proud to admit she needs my permission stares into the side of my face hungry for any scrap I might drop for her to catch reaches for my hand as I lift it just in time from the gear stick for her to miss shifting my foot from the brake pedal checking my phone for the time I tell Mama we've got thirty minutes before my father and that woman come home Some kids grew up coming home to the smell of mustard greens special recipe mac and cheese cornbread from scratch and cookies baking in the oven to the sound of their mama screamin at somebody on the tv getting on her nerves for the tenth time while she watches the same shows announcing to the whole house that this will be the last time I trip over a child's raggedy school shoes or telling them you better clean up that funky alleyway that you like to call your bedroom some kids grew up being asked about why their grades ain't better than that and fussin over homework they need to do but my mama was different my mama just wasn't reallythe type To keep tabs on me like that wasn't really my mama's style I learned years ago when she started asking me my age I'd look back at her and wonder how she could forget when she had me how she could push out a whole person and just forget Mama and I both forget about time the minute I turn the key unlocking the front door to Dad's house suddenly it's like we're surrounded by a museum of forbidden family knowing she can look but not touch Mama is everywhere her feet take her wanting to see what we've been up to while she's away the walls covered with me at every age that she struggles to remember Mama getting lost in all the picture frames my fancy life of birthday parties and school plays my first dance recital on a park stage dressed in colorful West African cloth like the other girls a buzz from my phone reminds me to get her upstairs so I can change my clothes From upstairs I can hear Dad's car door slam and I know they are home already Mama's fidgets come back again and I'm angry when just seconds ago her soft hands were gliding across my pictures my clothes my animals stuffed with love and a pillow with her picture stuck inside its plastic cover frame freshly painted red fingernails touching just about everything happy to be in the room where her child sleeps happy to be inside and here she is now filled with fear filled with how they will see her a stranger squatting in her own daughter's bedroom I run from my room closing the door behind me / down the stairs / I run / so I can smile and twirl / real sweet once more / for Dad / and his new wife to dance / in their still-fresh pride of the new high school graduate where is she , Dad asks I tell him she is upstairs tell him we'll only be a few minutes tell him this is my house too his new wife looks and sucks her teeth upstairs, one of the first, down here the last my baby brother off playing and oblivious and suddenly I know somewhere it's written, somewhere it says my mama shouldn't be here Mama shouldn't be here so we're gone quick and quiet five minutes later to eat anywhere but here and Mama is cussin but I smile and turn on the radio, blast the ac cause it's just her and me I ask her where she wants to go and she tells me anywhere girl I'm with my baby I knew we shouldn't have gone in there! chile, did you see how she was lookin I pretend it's all nothing and drive us to my favorite restaurant thumping my fingers on my lap to the beat, leave Mama to keep talking and talking to the tune of herself She already answered this herself when I come back to the motel for her the next day a question she asks in the car on the way to my graduation party and it sounds like some kind of silly joke where she's playing or must have forgotten the party where we are headed is for me I don't really feel like bein bothered with all them people all them people I don't know and they just gon be lookin at me and I'm just gon be sittin by myself and I just ain't in the mood to be bothered, you know I ask her what she wants to do instead but tell her I'm going to my party, after all it was thrown for me, it's either she comes or she gets on the next train back, cause today is supposed to be about me oh I don't know but I don't feel like bein bothered I really ain't tryna go to no party she says Away from the party on this drive to the train station it's only silent for a few minutes before I'm called every name I'm sure I'm not supposed to be called by my mama but I know this is how she says she's angry this is how she says this is her day too this is how she says she's sorry in her own way, as a mother for breaking all the rules The first thing I do after everyone is gone is shut the door close the blinds sometimes being dramatic is my thing but this really was the first time I've seen this much cash ever the room I'd slept in for the past seven years painted a Pepto-Bismol pink was now marked an old green at the center I'd opened each graduation card alone skipped Hallmark notes telling me Good Job! and Great Things Ahead! skipped every Congrats on your big day! in search of what mattered most told Dad I didn't feel like being mushy in front of all those people but truth is I just wanted to count my money in peace Excerpted from Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.