Read Online The Return of Buddy Bush by Shelia P. Moses - Free Book Online Page B

she went to Newport News to stay with her Aunt Lillian for the summer. When she got back they were already healed with her birthstone in them. Miss Blanche made her take her $2.00 earrings out and her holes closed right back up again. I’m not even going to tell BarJean about Marniece, because I want my holes in my ears. Iwill just have to take a chance on Ma killing me when I get back to Rehobeth Road.
    â€œHave a seat right here, little lady,” the girl in the jewelry store says after BarJean pays $1.00 for my ear piercing. “Now, hold still.”
    She rubs some alcohol on both my ears and then she taking out her own needle and thread. I can’t believe it. I thought she was going to use one of them machines that Uncle Buddy told me his women folks got their ears pierced with. But she ain’t. I’m all the way in Harlem getting my ears pierced with a needle and thread. I could have done this right on Rehobeth Road!
    It hurts a little, but not too much.
    I am just looking at myself in the mirror. My ears look good. Wait till Chick-A-Boo see me.
    â€œYour ears look nice, little sister,” BarJean says as I am still looking in the mirror.
    â€œThank you, sister. Are we going home now?”
    â€œNo, we still got to get your hair fixed. We suppose to be at Miss Van’s Beauty Shop in twenty minutes.”
    BarJean and me run down the streets with allmy bags, just laughing like old times. Times before they took my uncle and grandpa from us.
    Miss Van is a piece of work. She got fake hair, fake eyelashes, and clothes like the dancers I saw on the sign with Mr. Ellington at the Apollo Theater. I’m not going to ask if she owns this place because the sign outside says VAN’S BEAUTY PARLOR .
    I ain’t never seen so many women getting their hair fixed in one day before in my life. Those women are something else. I do not need a mason jar in here. They just talking their heads off.
    Miss Van is not heating a straighten comb, so I do not know what she is going to do to my hair. I sho’ hope she ain’t going to braid it up.
    A jar of perm! As she is pulling that jar of perm from under her counter, I feel faint again. Piece by piece she put perm in my hair after she covers my newly pressed ears. Miss Van laughs and says I do not need as much perm as BarJean because my hair ain’t as nappy as hers.
    When she finish my hair, she don’t even put rubber bands on it. Miss Van is pulling my hairback with a piece of white ribbon to make a headband and my hair just fall on my shoulders like a real teenager. Like a real city girl.
    Now we can go home.
    Wait till Uncle Buddy see my pierced ears and my new hairdo.

10
Back South
    I t’s Monday morning and BarJean gone back to work. I don’t care what Uncle Buddy said. I have to talk him into coming home with me.
    I am sleepy because we were up all night making my new clothes. BarJean is good with that sewing machine. She let me cut out all the patterns and she did the sewing. When she finished, I put the buttons on the clothes. I am going to be as clean as Willie Gatling when I get back to Rich Square. That’s what folks at home say when you real dressed up. They donot say you dressed up. They say, “You clean as Willie Gatling.” You see, can’t nobody get cleaner than Uncle Buddy’s friend Willie Gatling. He is always dressed fine from head to toe. He gets cleaner than Uncle Buddy. I ain’t never seen him without a suit. He works at the sawmill too and Uncle Buddy says he don’t wear a tie to work, but he is always in a jacket.
    I can’t wear my new stuff today. I got walking to do. Back to the shoeshine stand I go.
    Mr. Tom mad because I am back down here. But I tell him I’m going to keep coming until he tells Uncle Buddy to come back.
    On the third day he said, “Come back tomorrow, child.” I finally wore him down.
    â€œI will be back early, okay?”
    He don’t even