Oretha

Black shank nearly took the tobacco crops that summer, and then a plague of grasshoppers swooped down to take the garden. I was spraying vinegar on the tomato plants to stave off the bugs while Gloria was out by the side of the house pulling weeds. We had the cd player lugged out onto the porch so John Lee Hooker could cool our insides, and we guessed later that the music was up so high that we didn’t hear no kind of warning about Oretha’s return.

I heard her belt out, “Hello!” and I knew it was Oretha even before I stood up and turned around to take a look. She was real close up on me with her hands on her hips. Ten years done passed and she still wore her clothes too tight for her own good, and her hair, straight as a board now, hung down past her neck. She wore bright yellow and orange against her dark shoulders. I couldn’t lie. She was still fine.

“Girl, how you been?” I said and hugged her with one arm—all open and half-hearted for good measure, even after all these years.

“Look at y’all living out here in the boonies. Dana told me y’all was out here.” Oretha was the only woman who’d ever called my mother by her first name. Dana. She said it like Mama was just one of her friends. All the rest of my friends, and especially girlfriends, called her Mrs. Green or Ms. Dana.

That morning ten years back, I thought I was in love with Oretha. We woke up in my bed at my mama’s house to a flock of starlings roaring in the tree in the backyard. Mama was hollering from the bottom of the steps that breakfast was ready. It was a Sunday morning and I was holding Oretha in my arms, circling my fingers on her bare shoulder, and Prince was playing on the stereo. The early light was shining in the window, and I wanted to scream down to the entire world that Oretha belonged to me. Her hair was a big mess of an Afro then and she laid there looking up at me like she loved me too. And it didn’t matter that we hadn’t even dated and that the night before had been the first time she had lain underneath me moaning so loud that I had to hold my hand over her mouth so my mother wouldn’t hear. The birds, the way the light hit the window, even Mama calling me down to breakfast—and Oretha there in my arms like the truth—I saw it all as some kind of sign. I went down for breakfast but snuck Oretha up cold eggs, two biscuits, and a glass of orange juice. She was still naked in my bed but had her back turned to me and was sitting up watching Mama head out to church. Out the window the birds were still rustling in the trees, making them look like one black swarm. From my room we could see clean on past Mama’s property line up the hill and the top of Silas Smith’s barn. I slipped behind Oretha and pulled her back on the bed just when a magical breeze eased through the window and mixed with the sounds of the birds and Prince singing about Sexy Dancer. I would have sworn then that honeysuckle rode on the wind into the room that morning, but I’m not sure now. I do remember that when the second round of lovemaking was done and we were lying in each other’s arms that I asked her to be my girlfriend. Oretha looked me dead in the eye and laughed, apologizing with every giggle when she could see that my feelings were hurt, and though I didn’t know it until later that next week, by that very Sunday afternoon she had hitched a ride to God- only- knows- where and become a city woman. Just like that. Gone. I wasn’t...