to his bed and a wheelchair. He still had his poker parties, but he couldn’t drive anymore, and when he left the house it was in a specially made van driven by a chauffeur. He needed round-the-clock care. Another woman and a driver had been brought in to help Muh’Dear. In a way I was glad. Not glad about the judge’s failing health, but glad because Muh’Dear didn’t have to spend so much time at his house. In addition to all that, Muh’Dear got involved in two things. One, the most important of the two in my opinion, night school! “You the first and only one in my family to graduate from high school. I want to be the second one,” she told me shyly one evening. I had encouraged her and even helped her select the appropriate courses and school.
“I’m so glad you got that telephone-operator job. I can finally cut back on my hours even more,” Muh’Dear told me.
Since the judge was not in the picture as much as he had been, the other thing Muh’Dear involved herself with was another man. I think of my mother as some kind of a magnet. Like Mr. Boatwright, he just showed up at our house one day out of nowhere. I had never seen him around town before even though Muh’Dear told me he had lived in Ohio longer than anybody else she knew.
The whole business just about scared me to death, but I didn’t tell her how I felt. All I wanted was for her to be happy.
“This here is Mr. King,” Muh’Dear introduced him that Sunday night. “He owns the Buttercup restaurant.”
I was amazed at how much emphasis she put on the word own. Her face lit up like a lamp as she talked. I had just returned from performing three tricks in an alley across town, with almost two hundred dollars inside my bra.
I recalled the day I came home from school when I was six and found out that Muh’Dear had moved Mr. Boatwright in with us. At first, I figured that this Mr. King was going to move in with us, too, and it pissed me off. If that was the case, I’d have to work overtime so I could move out even quicker. There was no way I was going to risk going through another episode like the one with Mr. Boatwright with another man Muh’Dear had moved in with us to help out.
“Where you been all day, girl?” Muh’Dear asked me.
“I was visiting some friends from work,” I lied. I had not bathed yet and could still feel the men’s sweat on my body. I hated it, but my need for money kept me from stopping. I had two more men lined up for the next day. “Is he moving in with us?” I said quickly.
The man gasped.
Mama rolled her eyes at me.
“Naw, he ain’t movin’ in with us. Mr. King got him a big old house all to hisself right next door to his restaurant.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I mumbled uneasily.
“My girl here is a phone operator,” Muh’Dear told the man. “I’m so glad she such a good girl. Oh now she’s strayed off the track a mite. When she was a young’n, got herself in the family way by mistake. The Lord saw fit to make her miscarry and praise Him, she been on the straight and narrow ever since.”
“Give thanks,” the man nodded. “My girl got herself in the same fix when she was fourteen. Now she twenty-five, married to a serviceman, and I got me two grandbabies runnin’ around somewhere out there on that island of Hawaii.” The man and Muh’Dear groaned at the same time. He was her age, tall and tan and rather handsome. He still had most of his hair and a nice set of pearly white teeth. His thick black mustache was streaked with gray.
“I ate at your restaurant one time, Mr. King,” I said shyly.
“Well I do hope you enjoyed the food and the service!” he told me with great excitement, standing to shake my hand. My hand felt too dirty for anybody to be shaking it. My whole body felt dirty. No matter how many baths I took, I could never wash away the nastiness that went along with being a prostitute.
Muh’Dear’s new friend started babbling on about something, but I wasn’t listening. My mind was on too many other things. Like the men I had spent the last few hours with. I could