She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother Read Online Free Page A

of adoring eyes. With a small dollop of cheese grits dripping from my chin and with a big inhale of the fresh balmy morning air, I sighed deeply and said, “Oralea, I just can’t wait, this is the most important day of my life.”
    She suddenly burst into peals of hearty laughter, with a cackle that would have silenced a hen house.
    “Ooh baby, I declare, what mess have they got you thinking?”
    She stopped for a moment, then smiled just long enough to show a glimpse of her big teeth, nestled down next to me in the breakfast room banquette, gently placed her forehead to mine, and whispered, “Listen to Miss Oralea, you live your life right, and almost every day can be the most important day of your life, you hear me, and you can take that advice downtown on the streetcar and deposit it at the Whitney Bank, for true.”
    She always had sage life advice that frequently blew right through my ears, but I loved some of her sayings. If someone wasn’t too bright, she’d say, “That child is dumber than a bucket of hair.” If someone would try to pull a fast one on her, she’d say, “Don’t sneeze on my cupcake and tell me it’s frosting.” Or if something struck her as odd or bizarre, she’d say, “’Tain’t natural, it’s like a chicken dating a dog.” Sometimes, though, I just didn’t get it. For instance, if she felt tired, she’d say, “Put tired on top of tired, and get your dancin’ shoes on.”
    “Now let’s get cookin’ with gas, Little Lord Fauntleroy,eat them eggs ’cause we got to get you all hosed down and dressed, then your mama’s taking you with her to the Hair-etage Beauty Salon to get all slicked up for tonight, and take those elbows off the table … Now where did your mama put them little pink roses for her hair?”
    With a flash, the room was filled with an asphyxiating blast of Lanvin’s signature fragrance, Arpege, as my frilly-robed mother swirled in. Restraint was not her forte, especially in the use of perfume; more was more, as was also true of my father with Dior’s Eau Savage cologne. It must have been the last remnant of French ancestry in their blood. In the car, the excess of aroma could prove lethal; we had to have my brother’s window rolled down, his round face to the wind like a pup, despite the raging heat or the gas-guzzling Cadillac air-conditioning system, in order to prevent an asthma attack.
    She had clearly interrupted her makeup ritual, because I could literally see only one eye and one brow painted on the blank canvas of her bisque-toned base. In one of her manicured hands she held a switch of black hair that matched her own color perfectly, and in the other a pair of white-ruffled pantaloons.
    “Lea!” the one-eyed woman exclaimed. “Where did we put the hoop skirt? I thought it was under the bed, but now it’s nowhere to be found, Bryan needs a bath, I look like a Cyclops, and our appointment with Philippe is in less than a half an hour, please Jesus don’t let it rain tonight.”
    Panic had obviously set in.
    “Now don’t get your liver in a quiver, keep your bees in your basket, and the dogs won’t bite.”
    “What?”
    “Keep your girdle on, missy. Go and finish up your pretty little face, I’ll bathe the boy and find that hoop before you can eat a biscuit, and as for Philippe, let prissy-man wait. It ain’t like he got any more important hair to do all up today but yours.”
    “Dawlin, you’re an angel on earth, I Sewanee you are.” She blew kisses and whisked herself away.
    After my quick rinse, as Oralea went out back to the carport to sleuth the missing hoop, and while Mother was affixing eyelashes, a procedure that demanded the utmost concentration, I slyly retrieved the hoop skirt from underneath my bed. It’s strange, I had absolutely no inhibitions or insecurities about playing with the contraption, or wearing it, whether as a skirt or a giant mushroom-like costume. It was a fascinatingly fun new thing that, although linked to