The Wisdom of Hair by Kim Boykin

you think he knew?”
    “Maybe he did. I don’t know.”
    “If she was pregnant, why did she hide the rattle? Why didn’t she just give it to him?”
    “I don’t know, Sara Jane. Maybe she never got the chance. Maybe she did and that’s why he grieves so. Maybe he’s grieving for both of them.”
    Sara Jane and I loved to laugh. Even when we’d had a rotten day, thetwo of us could always find something to laugh about. But the whole idea of pregnant Emma and her grief-stricken husband squelched all the romantic fantasies Sara Jane and I had conjured up about Winston and me. And if the earth didn’t stop that night, I know the night sounds did. Everything good and sweet about a warm summer night seemed to wonder what in the world was wrong with us.
    I couldn’t take another minute of silence. “What did you want to ask me earlier?”
    “Oh, nothing. It’ll keep. You’ve had enough on you for one night.”
    “Come on.” I tried to smile. “You’re my best friend. What is it?”
    After a few minutes of me pretending like I wasn’t reeling from the thought of Emma carrying Winston’s baby, she decided to tell me.
    “Well, I was wondering, and you can say no if you want to…I wouldn’t be mad, I swear. Could me and Jimmy use your apartment?”
    “Sara Jane, have you already…?”
    “No, we haven’t yet, but we’re so close. You know he lives two doors down from that Doris Erickson, and she’s the biggest gossip in town. I hear she watches her neighbors with binoculars. If we got caught…well, I just don’t think Mama and Daddy are ready for Jimmy Alvarez just yet. And you know Daddy hates everybody, especially Mexicans. I just—”
    “You don’t have to say another word.” I was amazed at how the thought of Jimmy or making love with Jimmy had changed her. I doubt she had ever cared one bit about her parents’ opinion of the other boys she dated.
    “Thank you,” she whispered with a sly little smile.
    I never doubted whether Sara Jane cared for me, but I knew after she went home that night that she truly loved me. Before she left, she put away all the leftovers and the dishes, folded the wrapping paper neatly, and set the closed box back in the silverware drawer. I took it out but didn’t open it again. I put it back on the very same shelf where Emma had first hidden it. From then on, I kept my dinner plates someplace else.

11

When I was twelve, Bryda Kay Modean invited me to Bible School at the little Holiness Church down the road from our place. She never told me what to wear and was either too shy or too embarrassed to tell me to change out of my short-shorts and into something more acceptable when she met me halfway between her house and mine. But she did pray, whispering to God, as we walked down that long, dusty road toward the church. I didn’t know what she’d gotten me into; I just thought she was awfully religious for a twelve-year-old.
    Her long, cotton skirt blew about in the breeze the whole way there, brushing up against my legs, reminding them that they were naked. But I was a lot like Adam and Eve before the fall, and didn’t know I was nearly naked in the eyes of the Holiness Church until we got there. There was a whole slew of ankle-length cotton skirts and most every jaw was gaped open at me. Bryda Kay’s mama, who wasn’t theleast bit shy, wanted to send me home straightaway, but the preacher’s wife could see that I was about to burst out crying right there in front of everybody. She took me inside the little cinder block building they used for a fellowship hall and tied two long aprons around my waist so that I had a big droopy bow in the front and a big droopy one in the back. The aprons were so long, I couldn’t see the least little bit of leg, much less my feet.
    The only good parts about Bible School were making crafts and eating snacks. We made brightly colored pot holders on little metal looms to take home and keep. I was so proud of mine because it was the