Groove

Geneva Holliday In my bed that April night, my mind everywhere but where it should have been, which was on my ex-husband's tongue as it slid across my stomach and down my side. Instead, my mind was on how hard my life was. How hard it was in so many different ways. Hard like a stone when you're black, female, and a single mother holding a GED instead of a high school diploma. I wasn't thinking about how good it felt when he pushed his fingers through my hair and moved his tongue in circles around my navel. No, my mind was on the fact that I had missed three weeks of Calorie Counters meetings and how in that time I had stopped counting points, calories, carbs, and everything else. Now my size-sixteen skirts and pants were giving my size-eighteen hips hell! Every morning it was an out-and-out fight. And I was steadily losing. Not the weight, of course. And on top of it, my Calorie Counters sponsor, Nadine Crawford--a former soda-guzzling, pound cake-eating accountant and mother of three, who'd joined the program three years earlier, had shed half her body weight and was now a size six and Calorie Counters' biggest cheerleader--was now calling my house every other day like a goddamn bill collector, talking about "When are you coming back, Geneva?" and "I'm here for you" and "Let's get together for an eight-point lunch and talk about it." I know I should have followed my first mind and joined Weight Watchers! My mind was everywhere but in that bedroom where it should have been. It was on my two-decade-old secondhand Cold Spot refrigerator that was humming so loud, it sounded as if any moment it would hack up something green, cough, and drop dead. If that was to happen, it would take Housing a whole month to get me another crappy refrigerator in this apartment, and then how would I keep the milk cold for my sixteen-year-old son's morning cereal? And he was another problem--my son, Eric Jr., who we all lovingly refer to as "Little Eric." Little Eric hasn't been little since he was ten years old, and now he's a sophomore in high school, towering over me at a staggering six feet, and that boy still has years of growth ahead of him. Just trying to keep him in sneakers is going to send me to the poorhouse. He was a good kid, even though I knew he was sampling weed. I mean, do these kids think we weren't kids once too? Do they think we were all born big? The other day he strolled into the house, smelling like he'd been rolling in a field of reefer. I snatched him by his collar and dragged him through the living room and into the kitchen where the light is better and looked him in his eyes and asked him if he'd been smoking. Of course he lied and blinked those big brown eyes at me and said, "Look at my eyes, Ma--they ain't even red or nothing. I was just hanging out with these guys that was smoking it, but I didn't." I said, "Fool, I know Visine gets the red out, but it don't take the scent out of your clothes or off your breath!" And with that I popped him upside his head and sent him on his way. I told him that if he came back in my house smelling like a pothead, I was going to call the police on him my damn self! Ohhhhhhhh," I moan, just so Eric can feel like he's doing all of the right things even though my mind has skipped over to my best friend, Crystal. Not only is she my best friend, but she has been on many occasions a godsend as well. I've had some rough times, and Crystal has always been there. Like the time when I was still on welfare and I had just collected my money and food stamps for the month and was on my way downtown to buy Eric, who was just about four years old then, a new pair of shoes. I hadn't even stepped off the bus good when two young boys rushed toward me, ripped my pocketbook from my hands, and then took off across Union Square.Holliday, Geneva is the author of 'Groove', published 2005 under ISBN 9780767921145 and ISBN 0767921143.