The scar cream returned to the shelf. Skin care products all in a row. Acne cream. Keisha would be asking for that soon. Keisha was Marcus's little girl who was quickly becoming not so little. Soon she'd be at the age where she'd need a mother most. She couldn't talk to her daddy about woman things. Maybe then Charlene could be the mama that her body wouldn't let her become. She put a box of salicylic soap into the basket. It would be good to have on hand.
The end of the aisle was the somewhat condescendingly named "ethnic" section. Except it was better now that "ethnic" wasn't just a well-intentioned euphemism for "Black". Now it had Latino products, imported from faraway lands. Charlene liked to look at their exotic and sometimes sinister-looking labels. Boxes and bottles of mysterious soaps, colognes, and weight-loss teas. A jar of skin-bleaching cream. Charlene hadn't seen one in years. She picked it up and studied it.
Keisha wouldn't need that. Her mother was produced by two idealistic flower children and intended to be an ambassador of Black and White harmony. Keisha was what Charlene's own mother would call "high yellow". At first, it didn't make sense to Charlene. Yellow was what Nicole Ling was sometimes called at school, and even that wasn't accurate. The high yellow Black women that Charlene's mother pointed out to her were somewhere between Nicole Ling's color and Charlene's own. None of the crayons she had at school were dark enough to be Charlene-colored.
She used to imagine having a perfect baby, with warm golden skin, green eyes, and silky hair. And she almost had her, too. The baby's true father wasn't Solomon, but an angel who placed his hand over Charlene's belly and took all of the Solomon out of the growing fetus and replaced it with goodness and light. The angel father would watch over the baby when her mother was busy enduring Solomon's hands. The angel would sing the baby to sleep. She would named Angela in his honor. Charlene almost had Angela, but Solomon was angry that. There was no way she and Solomon could have create anything like that, not his dull darkness. She might have with Marcus. His skin reminded her of caramels. But by then, she knew it was impossible.
The end of the aisle was the somewhat condescendingly named "ethnic" section. Except it was better now that "ethnic" wasn't just a well-intentioned euphemism for "Black". Now it had Latino products, imported from faraway lands. Charlene liked to look at their exotic and sometimes sinister-looking labels. Boxes and bottles of mysterious soaps, colognes, and weight-loss teas. A jar of skin-bleaching cream. Charlene hadn't seen one in years. She picked it up and studied it.
Keisha wouldn't need that. Her mother was produced by two idealistic flower children and intended to be an ambassador of Black and White harmony. Keisha was what Charlene's own mother would call "high yellow". At first, it didn't make sense to Charlene. Yellow was what Nicole Ling was sometimes called at school, and even that wasn't accurate. The high yellow Black women that Charlene's mother pointed out to her were somewhere between Nicole Ling's color and Charlene's own. None of the crayons she had at school were dark enough to be Charlene-colored.
She used to imagine having a perfect baby, with warm golden skin, green eyes, and silky hair. And she almost had her, too. The baby's true father wasn't Solomon, but an angel who placed his hand over Charlene's belly and took all of the Solomon out of the growing fetus and replaced it with goodness and light. The angel father would watch over the baby when her mother was busy enduring Solomon's hands. The angel would sing the baby to sleep. She would named Angela in his honor. Charlene almost had Angela, but Solomon was angry that. There was no way she and Solomon could have create anything like that, not his dull darkness. She might have with Marcus. His skin reminded her of caramels. But by then, she knew it was impossible.
