Tea At Mama’s
By Utahna Faith.
Tea’s dreads are shorter in the back than the front, creating a super-chic slant forward towards his beautiful face. He says they just grew in that way, that he didn’t shape or trim them. His eyes are innocent and caramel while he says it and I almost believe him.
His so-called living space is only slightly bigger than his bed. The bathroom walls don’t go all the way up to the ceiling, and there is no hot water. He showers at his mama’s, and splash-bathes in his sink in between. I’ve never seen him dirty. I bet he showers at girls’ houses many mornings too, but he doesn’t tell me that.
His mama’s out of town and he has to feed the cats. We go there; he wants to make me dinner. I’ve put him on friends-only status ever since he lied to me about my cousin and that hotel room. He tries with me and I laugh. Other times, and again tonight.
But there’s something about the mama’s house, the flashback naughtiness of it. He has me on the kitchen counter with my skirt around my waist, sliding his tongue around and pressing mango slices between my lips. Neither of us hears the key in the lock, but we both hear the scream. Just then she’s the palest black woman I’ve ever seen, and she’s not high Creole. Juice is all over Tea’s lips and chin, all over his face. I’m jumping down and pulling my skirt back where it was before we went insane, and the mama’s hyperventilating and yelling something about slutty white girls and the purity of the race. I call her a racist and throw the mango seed. It glances off her forearm and she stares at the sticky spot. I know she’s wondering where that fruit has been.
Tea turns to me and yells, “Hey, that’s my mama.”
“Your mama rude,” I yell back.
“Don’t talk ghetto, bitch,” says the mama.
“Don’t talk nasty, Mama,” says Tea.
I lift my head in some last attempt at dignity, and the mama is grabbing one of my arms and one of Tea’s and hustling us both down the hall. The door slams and the lock clicks and it’s quiet and Tea and I are standing there in the light of the fullest, brightest, yellowest Southern blue moon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Utahna Faith likes to make up stories and play with words. She lives with her husband and baby son, in Austin, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, August 26th, 2007.
