Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [60]
As he was thinking this, she stuck her head in the doorway.
Want coffee? she asked.
Did he want coffee? He sure did.
No, thank you, he said.
At breakfast he asked for hot water, into which he squeezed a lemon.
That looks healthy, she said. For breakfast she was having hash-brown potatoes, rice, sausage, ham, eggs, toast and jam, and a big cup of Folgers with whipped cream.
You were gone almost all night, she said, offering her best James Dean squint through cigarette smoke that briefly obliterated her face. What was Aunty Pearlua up to?
Yolo laughed. She’s something, he said. Is Pearlua her real name? he asked.
I doubt it, said Alma, waiting.
The surprise guest was none other than your namesake, he said, taking a slice of mango from a platter Alma ignored. Many Hawaiians disliked mangoes, he’d been told. They’d eaten too many as children, when times were tight.
Alma took a forkful of eggs and sausage. You mean you were not the surprise guest?
Everybody was a surprise, really, he said.
I didn’t even know my namesake was still alive, she said.
Very much so, said Yolo.
What’s she doing with herself?
What was she doing with herself the last time you checked in? he asked.
Some kind of diet thing, I think, said Alma, taking a bite of butter-slathered toast.
Did you know Aunty Pearlua and Aunty Alma are related? asked Yolo.
Everybody around here is related, said Alma. That’s what it means to be on islands thousands of miles from anybody else.
So Yolo began to tell her about his evening.
One of these days I hope you meet Kate, he began. The experience I had last night is the only kind she’s interested in. I never dreamed it could happen to me.
Alma raised an eyebrow while lighting a cigarette.
Being with the people of the world in a certain way, he elaborated, noting her look. A way that erases all boundaries and bullshit.
He told her how Jerry had invited him, because he’d sat beside the body of her son Marshall on the beach.
Well, said Alma, he didn’t invite me. There was bitterness in the smoke she blew across the table at him.
Yolo shrugged. We were all men, he said, until Aunty Alma came.
Aunty Pearlua and them would be highly insulted by that remark, said Alma.
Oops, said Yolo. You know what I mean.
Yes, I do know, said Alma, inhaling and slowly letting it out. She brought the yoni.
Exactly, said Yolo, laughing.
They had sat in the circle talking for hours, as the moon rose higher in the sky. During breaks some of them dashed across the highway and jumped in the ocean for a swim in the moonlight.
Aunty Pearlua was of the opinion that it was time for men to take another hard-to-keep vow in favor of children. She thought they should resign from participation in any addiction whatsoever, even from drinking coffee and black tea. She thought the example for the youth had to be clean, as she put it, and extreme. No drugs, no alcohol, no “recreational” sex, no caffeine, and no tobacco. She asked the men in the gathering to make this vow.
It shocked them, Yolo could see from the look on their faces. It was a look that said: Oh-oh, it has finally come to this. It wasn’t a look that doubted the wisdom of what Aunty Pearlua was saying.
I don’t think that can be done, said the blond man from Australia who had confessed an addiction to coffee. He looked stricken.
Behind every man’s place in the circle were his “things.” Car keys, wallet, package of “smokes,” and an unfinished bottle of beer.
How can we do this? was the question that arose for everyone and led quickly to a depression of spirits.
But Aunty Pearlua was serene. She waved her fan around the circle.
Do you think it’s been easy for Mahus to conduct their lives as women, all this time? she asked. Don’t you think from time to time we’ve wanted to cut off our hair and let our toenails grow long? She laughed. Ah, anyone can be a man, that is the problem. It takes much more to be a woman. But we have managed it. And why? Because we could