“Just wait until I get a good job. You won’t have to work so much. You can spend as much time in the Bahamas as you want, stretched out on a beach with somebody fanning you for a change.” Mama smiled and hugged me so hard it hurt.
CHAPTER 5
After two years, I still didn’t like Ohio, but I liked Franklin Elementary School. There were a lot of other kids in my first grade class who had come from down South. Because of our Southern accents, almost every time one of us spoke, the Ohio kids made fun of us. My accent was not nearly as thick as some of the other kids because right after moving north, I had started imitating the way the Northern kids pronounced certain words.
I had a nice teacher, who encouraged me to learn as much as I could. “Education is the key to success,” Miss Nipp told me. Mama worked for her three days a week, so Miss Nipp was nicer to me than to the other kids. Sometimes she gave me a ride home in her shiny blue Buick.
We were living in a gloomy, three-bedroom house on Mahoning Street in a run-down part of Richland, the neighborhood where most of the people on welfare and the criminals lived, when Mr. Boatwright moved in. Right across from us was the city dump. Day and night you could smell fried food and marijuana fumes coming from the houses and foul odors from the dump.
One evening when Miss Nipp drove me home, she stopped at a hot dog stand and bought me a foot-long hot dog. “I hope you have a pleasant evening, Annette,” she said when the car stopped in front of our house. The people in our neighborhood were not used to seeing fancy cars driven by white women on our street. I frowned at the nosy faces staring out of the windows in the house next door.
“I will, Miss Nipp,” I said, smacking on the last piece of the hot dog. She was a small gray-haired woman so dainty, the smell of my neighborhood overwhelmed her. She patted my forehead and coughed. “It doesn’t smell bad around here all the time,” I lied, opening the car door.
“I’m sure it doesn’t, Annette. Now you be sure and tell your mother I said hello and that I appreciate her handling my dinner party last night.” Miss Nipp smiled. She had given Mama the day off, which meant Mama had some unexpected time to spend with me.
I hated coming home to an empty house and having to wait so late to eat dinner. Knowing that Mama was home and dinner was ready or close to it, I ran up on our porch with eager anticipation until I entered our living room and saw that strange old man unpacking his things.
I didn’t sleep much that first night with Mr. Boatwright in our house. When I woke up the next morning I thought I had dreamed him. But within seconds I knew he was real. Before I could get my clothes on, I heard his voice downstairs. “Sister Goode, what kind of greens you want me to cook today, collards, mustards, or turnips?” he asked. I cussed out loud to myself, so I didn’t even hear Mama’s response.
By the time I got downstairs to the kitchen, Mama had her coat on and was about to leave for work. “Annette, you come straight home from school to start gettin’ acquainted with Brother Boatwright.” She smiled, smoothing my hair down.
I glared at him. “Yes…Ma’am,” I mumbled, hardly moving my lips.
“And you better mind him,” Mama added.
“Oh, me and Annette gwine to get along real good in no time,” he said, hands on his hips, smile on his face. He had on a gray-flannel housecoat that touched the floor.
I didn’t even eat breakfast that morning. I just sat at the kitchen table staring from one wall to the other while he sat in the living room watching TV. I left to go to school without saying a word to him.
Miss Nipp knew something was wrong the minute I entered the classroom ten minutes ahead of all the other kids. “Annette, are you all right? You look rather down this morning. Is there a problem?”
I had to take a deep breath before I could speak. “This old man moved in with us yesterday, and I don’t like him,” I admitted.
“A Mr. Boatwright? Your mother mentioned him to me the other day. And why