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Girl of Wisdom
- University of Georgia Press
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girl of wisdom Fifteen and too shy to do anything on her own, Melanie waits for Chandra to come down. Waits at the large, wide window—the thin curtains Bernice has hung do not cover the width of it—for just a glimpse of Chandra, because Bernice will not let her come over. Will never let her come over. And so she and Chandra must meet here outside on the stoop, in full view of the wide window and the neighborhood, where Bernice can, as she is fond of saying, “keep an eye on things.” Bernice is in the kitchen baking, though it is much too hot for that and Melanie hardly ever eats anything. Bernice has the radio going in the kitchen. The music, which Melanie tries to ignore, has her mother moving in time as though she were still young and still slim. It is the Isley Brothers. Or the Whispers. Or some such quartet or quintet of men with outdated hairdos. Chandra emerges from their building, sunglasses perched on her head, holding a small brown bag and a section of newspaper. “I’m going outside!” Melanie calls, as she steps into her shoes, glad 106 | Girl of Wisdom to be away from her mother, who she always calls Bernice, even to her face, just to show that she feels no closeness. They spread the newspapers out on the hot concrete steps and sit down. Chandra passes the bag of sunflower seeds and Melanie grabs a handful, cracking them open between her teeth and spitting the shells onto the stoop. Chandra waves at a boy across the street, motioning him over. “Watch this,” she says. “You know him?” “I’m about to,” Chandra says. She calls out, “Hey boy! Give me a dollar, and I’ll give you something in return!” Once he gets closer, she wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Phee-eew! Your breath stink so bad I can smell it from across the street!” The two girls laugh at the boy’s retreating back. As they sit, Chandra makes a game of it, teasing the boys, selecting them at random, rewarding some and ridiculing others on a whim. After a while, she turns to Melanie and says, “You next.” “Not me.” “Scared?” “I just don’t like young boys,” Melanie says. “They immature.” The boys are the same age as Chandra and Melanie. Melanie is tired of these kinds of boys. Boys that dress in oversized but expensive fashions, boys without a dollar to their names, or as Bernice says, boys “without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.” Music blares from an opened window on the third floor of their building and down into the street. The two girls listen to it and idly watch the traffic slow to a stop at the light. Chandra pushes Melanie, pointing to an old black Oldsmobile three cars behind the light. “That’s what you need.” “That old man?” “You said boys too immature.” “If I give him some, he probably have a heart attack.” [54.166.234.171] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 03:58 GMT) Girl of Wisdom | 107 “Let’s see.” Chandra calls out to him, “Hey Pops! My friend says she likes you.” “Stop,” Melanie whispers. The man looks at them, shaking his head in annoyance. “For real!” Chandra cries. “Then let her say it herself,” the man says, his voice carrying. Chandra turns to Melanie, waiting. “I got something you might like,” Melanie says, not knowing she is going to say it until it comes out. “And what’s that?” he asks. The light changes and he lets the cars behind him go around. “I can’t show it to you here,” she says. “It’s private.” “You young girls playing games with me?” he asks. “Age ain’t nothing but a number,” Melanie says. “That’s right, you tell him,” Chandra encourages. He parks in front of the hydrant. When he starts to get out of the car, Melanie shrinks back and retreats up her steps. “You better go get you some Viagra first before you think you can handle me, grandpa!” One week later, Melanie is outside on the stoop, enjoying the early fall weather that still feels like summer, still thinking of the afternoon when she’d teased the old man. Feeling a thrilling rush of pleasure at the thought of him. Days after she had humiliated the man, she found herself thinking of...