This chick standing by that navy blue minibus parked at the side of the road seem okay to Darlene—better than okay. Firstly the woman had on a clean blouse, in a multicolored African triangle pattern, almost like a stained-glass window. Only a couple holes in that shirt—same with them acid-wash jeans and them skippies on her feet. The minibus seem sorta new, mostly. Wasn’t no scratches or dents you could see under the white light in front the Party Fool, the next lot over from the one where Darlene just lost three teeth. The minibus tires was all waxy shiny, the hubcaps too. The sliding door slid open smooth, and you could smell the plasticky new-car odor inside even from a couple feet away. Them windows be shining, them seats look like they could actually bounce, and when Darlene leant sideways round the woman and peeked inside, she could tell the brothers in the back was comfortable.
The lady—said her name Jackie—done started in like some direct-marketing TV huckster, talking fast ’bout this place and this job that sounded real good, and that Darlene and I should go with her. A wet Jheri curl went sproing on her head, then it gone partway down the back of her neck, with the hairpins pushing the sides above her ears for that business-casual look. Darlene ain’t concentrated on nothing Jackie said, though, ’cause she said more than need be, the way people do when they already decided that you gonna turn down they pitch.
While we listening, Darlene had to plant her feet to keep from shouting with joy, even with all that dried blood caked up in her nose and gums and them scratched-up knees. Sound like this lady had a job they wanna give her, without no interview or nothing, hard work but good work, no more tryna sell her body and getting stabbed or having to watch no shame-loving Cajun get busy with no melon.
Jackie said, The company’s associates do agricultural work, harvesting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and legumes. She actually said them actual phrases, like it’s out a book she ain’t never finished reading herself.
Darlene grown up doing that shit in the first place, so she got lonely for her childhood. On this job she gon be picking fruits and vegetables, like she a innocent little girl again. Jackie also made the farm sound like the kinda place where Darlene and I could go together and wouldn’t nobody stop us from hanging out and doing our thing, and that seemed so perfect that we wondered if we mighta made it up ourself.
A image come up in Darlene mind, of a bodacious-ass horn of plenty that had all kinda green and red peppers and shit spilling out, and bananas and carrots and grapes and whatnot, and everything be cold, crispy, fresh, and wet with morning dew on account a being just picked. In her head, somebody snapped a carrot and it sprayed a li’l bit of mist up into the air.
Darlene said to me, See, Scotty. The book works. I put positivity and love out on my antenna and the universe sent it back to bless me.
Jackie said, Three-star accommodations. She said, Olympic-size swimming pool. Said, Recreation activities. Competitive salary. Vacation. Then she showed Darlene a picture of some condo-type complex with a motherfucking kidney-shaped pool smack-dab in the center. Then Jackie top it off with benefits, health care. We got a dentist that could help out with any problems you might have, Jackie said, looking at Darlene mouth, as well as day care. To be honest, she said, the pay ain’t super-high, but we offer our workers a salary above minimum wage, the competitive rate in the field.
Darlene appreciated the honesty. Even better than getting a high salary was the feeling that you working with people you could respect, who told your ass the truth, motherfuckers you could communicate with. This here felt like the first luck Darlene had touched in the whole six years since she lost Nat. Above minimum wage? She thought she could reach up to that luck and stroke it and the luck would go purr.
Now Jackie talked a long stream, you couldn’t dip in your damn toe. Girl had heart-shaped lips with brick-color lip gloss slathered on em, and the edges was shining. Sexy red plums. Her tongue always going somewheres when she talked. Sometimes she licked the corner of her mouth to keep it from getting dried out from all that talking.
Jackie. Jackie? Jackie, Darlene said every so often, trying to butt in, to let her know how much on board with it she already was.
Jackie eyes still ain’t said nothing—they could only say The deal, the great deal, the wonderfulness of the deal. She acting jittery—and I knew why. I recognized her as a old friend. Finally I had to introduce the two of em. Jackie stopped the hard sell for a hot minute.
May I call my son? Darlene asked.
Sometime Eddie say that Darlene didn’t never care about him, especially when it come to the particular moment we talking ’bout now, but she ain’t never stopped tryna make sure she could get in touch. Eddie probably thought his mom loved his dad more than him, and that mighta been true, but she thought ’bout Eddie all the time. Love’s a mother to start with, so when sonofabitches start fighting over who love who more, and tryna say that this action you done today gotta line up with that verbal statement from yesterday ’bout how much you loved somebody, and they pull out they love-o-meters and start measuring shit out to infinity, I get pissed. Me, I think people could love me, or somebody like me, and still show they obligations to the other people in they life as number 2 and 3 and 4 and so on down the line and it ain’t no thang.