and happy, and now, so was I. I had tried several diets, including a liquid diet, a rice diet, a grapefruit diet, and a few others, but none had worked. “Girl, God didn’t mean for every woman to be a size four. If he did, you wouldn’t have so much trouble stickin’ to them diets. Pass me the potato salad,” Viola told me one day over a barbecued chicken dinner at her house. It wasn’t that I couldn’t stick to a diet. I did follow them, and still didn’t lose weight. Once on a liquid-protein diet, one so extreme I experienced fainting and dizziness, I lost eighteen pounds in three weeks. As soon as I went off the diet and started eating my beloved fried chicken again, I gained the eighteen pounds back plus five more. I told Viola, “You’re right. If God meant for me to be a big woman, no diet in the world is going to work for me.” I gave up dieting and continued to eat like I always had.
That particular Easter, Viola and most of the congregation were going home to eat ham with all the fixings. She had invited me to her house, but I’d declined. I was still uncomfortable socializing with people and their complete families. Viola’s holiday dinners included her four children, her three grandchildren, her parents, and a few other assorted relatives. With each passing year, having only Muh’Dear and Aunt Berneice concerned me tremendously. Knowing that once they passed on I would have absolutely no blood family left saddened me to a point where I fantasized about finding a man and deliberately getting pregnant. I didn’t want to grow old alone and end up hopeless, helpless, and dependent on strangers, like Mr. Boatwright. Odd as it seemed, even to me, more than once I regretted aborting Mr. Boatwright’s baby. As close as Viola and I had become, I could not tell her about the sexual abuse I had endured. The main reason was whenever rape entered our conversation, unless the victim was a female infant, an invalid, or a nun, she usually said something like, “She probably brought it on herself.” We had a few things in common, but in many ways Viola and I were as different as night and day. We liked the same movies and TV programs, but the only things she read, other than her Bible and the daily newspaper, were Black publications like Jet and Ebony. I read everything from the classics to the current best-sellers to the Enquirer. Viola, wearing a voluminous, floor-length cotton dress with so many flowers she looked like a parade float, was standing next to me listening and looking at Levi like he was talking to her.
“Viola and I go to the Blue Note all the time,” I told him. We were standing outside in front of the church along with about a hundred other members of the congregation all dressed for the occasion. Typically, most of the women had on loud outfits similiar to Viola’s and garish hats that included feathers and more flowers. The men were dressed more conservatively in dark, neutral suits.
It was a warm, sunny day, but foul fumes coming from the nearby factories made it hard to breathe. There was a lot of coughing going on, and people were wiping smoke from their eyes. Kids of all ages were running amok. Viola’s plump stepfather, Reverend Jackson, was still roaming throughout the crowd shaking hands and hugging babies. Viola had ordered her husband, Willie, to go get the car, which was parked a block away. Viola hated walking more than a few yards at a time and did it only when she had to. When we went shopping, she had to sit down to rest, catch her breath, and fan every few minutes. I thought about Mr. Boatwright almost every day of my life anyway and how some of his habits had annoyed me. Viola’s problem with walking was so much like his, I thought about him even more.
“I been meanin’ to ask you, you wanna slide through the Blue Note one evenin’ for a beer and listen to the band?” Levi continued.
“Well.” I bowed my head for a moment and glanced at my feet, frowning at the grass stains and dust on my new beige pumps. Since my passion-filled night with Pee Wee, I had been with several other men I’d met while out with Viola in bars, restaurants, and parties. One Monday morning when