Sonoma Community College
Swipe left.
TJ
Architect, 55
University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1984
“TJ’s not bad looking and he might be kinda interesting. And trustworthy since he’s a Midwestern boy.” Lola’s squinting at him two inches from the screen like she’s examining his pores. “Swipe right?” she asks tentatively, unsure of TJ’s qualifications to date her best friend.
“Swipe left, he’s fifty-five. I’m looking for a boyfriend, not a father. Can you change my age range to just below when a person qualifies for AARP?” A girl has to have standards.
Lola and I get a feel for the swiping thing pretty quickly and also for the hidden language of online dating. “Self-employed” means “Unemployed.” “Entrepreneur” means “three failed start-ups and no one wants to hire me,” and “looking for a casual relationship” means “booty call.” A picture that looks like it has been torn in half means the wife is on the discarded side. Sunglasses in all the pictures means serial killer. And then we land on one that takes my breath away.
“Oh shit, Jo.” Lola grabs my hand. I’m busy reading and not blinking.
Michael, 45
Environmental Lobbyist
Howard University, 1994
He’s as beautiful as I remember. Close-shaved head and beard, sleepy eyes, teeth so bright his smile is blinding. And in one of the pictures he’s wearing the Battistoni Roma tie I bought him on our trip to L.A. I had to come home and quit my gym membership for the year to pay it down, but seeing him wear it always made me smile and then rip it off him.
Looking at Michael makes my heart hitch. The only man I allowed to become part of Etta’s life, breaking myno men around my babyrule. I had been so certain he was “the one.” With a career on the upswing, money in the bank to put a down payment on a house, flawless manners with all the women in my life, and only eyes for me in the bedroom, he could do no wrong. I was ready to have eighteen more babies with that man, I was so sure he was going nowhere anytime soon.
I can’t stop staring at his picture and Lola knows better than to say a word. She simply grabs my phone, deletes the app, and holds my hand.
“Two whiskeys, neat,” Lola tells the waitress as she walks by. “Champagne’s not going to cut it today.”
SIXTEEN
I know people judge me and think I’m a bad niece because I don’t drive Aunt Viv to school. Truth is, she’s never wanted me to. Morning is her time. Don’t ask her what she’s doing, who she’s with, or where she’s going, just leave her be. Aunt Viv rises long before Etta and I even know the sun’s thinking about coming up. Our alarm clock is Aunt Viv slamming the front door. For the thirteen years Etta and I have lived with Aunt Viv, her routine has never changed.
Monday–Friday out the door at 6:15 a.m.
Saturday cards start at noon, rotating location
Sunday out the door at 8:00 a.m. to be at Glide Memorial Church early (Etta and I slide in the pew next to Aunt Viv on average five minutes late)
One morning a few years ago, curiosity got the best of me and I followed Aunt Viv out the front door at 6:15 a.m. into the dark ofOuter Richmond. Aunt Viv walked a brisk six blocks past our favorite burrito shop, an Irish pub that closes at 2:00 a.m. but reopens at 6:00 a.m. for those who need a pint before work, and the You Like Beauty hair-care store. I don’t know how the Kwon family that owns the store does it, but they carry the best black girl hair-smoothing products in the city. I’ve been buying all the products I need for my crown from Mr. and Mrs. Kwon for as long as I can remember. Years of following me around the store as a teen and then a dozen credit card approvals as an adult finally convinced the Kwons I was no shea butter thief. Now, before any opening night performance Etta stops by You Like Beauty to show Mrs. Kwon her perfectly smoothed and shellacked bun.
Aunt Viv took a left at Starbucks, the first in Richmond back when I was in high school, walked three more blocks, and then a right at Clement Street. On Clement, about eight blocks after the rush of traffic on Park Presidio, Aunt Viv, chef extraordinaire, marched right into Allstar Donuts. All of Allstar Donuts greeted her with a “Morning, V! Got your seat right here.” Still hidden by the winter morning darkness I spied from the sidewalk and witnessed a whole community I never knew Aunt Viv had. Clearly she didn’t want me to know since she’d never mentioned word one about her Allstar Donuts posse.
A group of about ten men and women—Asian, black, and white, as far as I could tell—gathered around two pushed-together Formica tables welcoming the day with warm embraces and conversation. I saw one man in a trucker baseball hat with gray curls escaping the sides put an arm around Aunt Viv’s chair. He seemed to have an easy laugh at anything said at the table, and I could have sworn I saw Aunt Viv put a hand on his knee. Did Aunt Viv have a secret lover? A friend? A closet husband? It was hard to tell because at that point I had fogged up my small peeping corner of the window.
At exactly 7:30 Aunt Viv said her good-byes to the coffee klatchand headed out as economically as she had arrived. I hid in the bushes of the bodega next door and watched her hop a 7:45 bus to Fairchild, which was no more than a mile away. The next several days I had to fight my instinct to probe Aunt Viv about Gentleman Trucker Hat, but I never did. Aunt Viv had escaped New Orleans for San Francisco to start fresh and lead her own quiet life. That all came to an abrupt halt when I showed up roughly a decade later and altered Aunt Viv’s life plans, whatever they may have been. If Aunt Viv needed something to be all hers, well, I gotta let her have it. She’s never once complained about raising children she didn’t birth, never once mentioned a life she wished she could have led. If she needed to have her own private world from 6:15–7:45 a.m. Monday through Friday, who am I to take away that hour and a half of life that belongs only to her.
•••
School’s back in session after the holidays and Etta and I both held up our end of the bargain, though I wouldn’t say this was the jolliest of holiday seasons. Etta wrote an amazing essay on how the difference between a good dancer and a great one is caring about the tiny imperfections that no one else may notice, but as a dancer you do. What sets her apart from her peers is, though all humans are flawed, she enjoys the journey of working on her imperfections to try to become a better version of herself. She doesn’t do it for her teachers, for her family, or for her friends; she does it for herself because it is on stage that she comes alive as the best version of herself. Etta definitely stepped it up from the Husky the fat hamster essay. I tried to compliment her on her recent efforts when she stopped to give me the time of day, which was never long enough for me to finish my sentence. Merry Christmas to me.
I held up my end of the bargain, too, by helping Etta get her application and prescreening content done and submitted to Juilliardby December 20. I was happy to learn that as a junior and senior Etta could take liberal arts credits at Columbia and Barnard. In fact, she could potentially become well-educated in addition to becoming an accomplished dancer. But, no matter how many classes she may take at Columbia that degree will still say Juilliard, not Columbia. I’m willing to bet not many tech start-ups or investment banking training programs are hiring Juilliard graduates.
I also learned that if Etta passes the prescreening process, I will have to send her to New York for a live audition and interview. Add a plane ticket to New York City and a hotel room to the loss column of the ongoing Bordelon profit and loss, loss, and more loss statement. Note to self: Don’t even think about hitting the post-Christmas sales at Neiman’s or Bloomingdale’s. I text Lola and tell her it’s her job to not let me travel south of Pine Street to Union Square for the next several months.
FROM:Nan Gooding
