The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [4]
“Don't you have any friends? People you can trust?”
She jerked her body toward me. “Of course I have friends. Good friends. A person who don't have friends might as well be dead.” She had relaxed, but my question put her abruptly on the defense again. I was wondering how to put her at ease. I heard Guy's footsteps on the stairs.
“My son is coming home.”
“Oh. Shit. How old you say he is?”
“He's twelve and a very nice person.”
Guy bounded into the room, radiating energy.
“Hey, Momhowareya? Whatwereyoudoing? What'sfordinner? CanIgoovertoTony's? CanIgoovertoTony'saftermyhomework?”
“Guy, I have a guest. This is Miss Billie Holiday.” He turned and saw Billie, but was accelerating too fast to read the distaste on her face.
“Billie Holiday? Oh. Yes. I know about you. Good afternoon, Miss Holiday.” He walked over and stuck out his hand. “I'm happy to know you. I read about you in a magazine. They said the police had been giving you a hard time. And that you've had a very hard life. Is that true? What did they do to you? Is there anything you can do back? I mean, sue them or anything?”
Billie was too stunned at the barrage of words to speak.
Guy reached down and took her hand and shook it. The words never stopped tumbling out of his mouth.
“Maybe they expect too much from you. I know something about that. When I come from school the first thing I have to do, after I change school clothes, of course, is go out and water the lawn. Have you not noticed we live on the side of a mountain, and when I water, if there is any wind, the water gets blown back in your face. But if I come in wet, my mother thinks I was playing with the hose. I can't control the wind, you know. Will you come out and talk to me, when I've changed? I'd really like to know everything about you.” He dropped her hand and ran out of the room, shouting, “I'll be back in a minute.”
Billie's face was a map of astonishment. After a moment, she looked at me. “Damn. He's something, ain't he? Smart. What's he want to be?”
“Sometimes a doctor, and sometimes a fireman. It depends on the day you ask him.”
“Good. Don't let him go into show business. Black men in show business is bad news. When they can't get as far as they deserve, they start taking it out on their women. What you say his name is?”
“Guy, Guy Johnson.”
“Your name is Angelou. His name is Johnson? You don't look old enough to have married twice.”
Guy was born to me when I was an unmarried teenager, so I had given him my father's name. I didn't want Billie to know that much about our history.
I said, “Well, that's life, isn't it?”
She nodded and mumbled, “Yeah, life's a bitch, a bitch on wheels.”
Guy burst into the room again, wearing old jeans and a torn T-shirt. “Ready, Miss Holiday? You want to do anything? Come on. I won't let you get wet.”
Billie rose slowly, with obvious effort.
I decided it was time for me to step in. “Guy, Miss Holiday is here to talk to me. Go out and do your chores and later you can talk to her.”
Billie was erect. “Naw, I'm going out with him. But how the hell can you let him wear raggedy clothes like that? You living in a white district. Everybody be having their eyes on him. Guy, tomorrow, if you mamma will take me, I'm going to the store and buy you some nice things. You don't have to look like you going to pick cotton just 'cause you doing a little work. Come on, let's go.”
Guy held the door for her as she picked her way across the room and to the steps. A minute later, I watched from the window as my son directed the hose toward the rose garden and Billie maintained her balance, although the heels of her baby-doll pumps were sinking into the soft earth.
She stayed for dinner, saying that I could drop her off on my way to work. She talked to Guy while I cooked. Surprisingly, he sat quiet, listening as she spoke of Southern towns, police, agents, good musicians and mean