The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor Page B

distant memory.
    As she watched her mother’s head disappear into the building, Kiswana gave silent thanks that the elevator was broken. That would give her at least five minutes’ grace to straighten up the apartment. She rushed to the sofa bed and hastily closed it without smoothing the rumpled sheets and blanket or removing her nightgown. She felt that somehow the tangled bedcovers would give away the fact that she had not slept alone last night. She silently apologized to Abshu’s memory as she heartlessly crushed his spirit between the steel springs of the couch. Lord, that man was sweet. Her toes curled involuntarily at the passing thought of his full lips moving slowly over her instep. Abshu was a foot man, and he always started his lovemaking from the bottom up. For that reason Kiswana changed the color of the polish on her toenails every week. During the course of their relationship she had gone from shades of red to brown and was now into the purples. I’m gonna have to start mixing them soon, she thought aloud as she turned from the couch and raced into the bathroom to remove any traces of Abshu from there. She took up his shaving cream and razor and threw them into the bottom drawer of her dresser beside her diaphragm. Mama wouldn’t dare pry into my drawers right in front of me, she thought as she slammed the drawer shut. Well, at least not the
bottom
drawer. She may come up with some sham excuse for opening the top drawer, but never the bottom one.
    When she heard the first two short raps on the door, her eyes took a final flight over the small apartment, desperately seeking out any slight misdemeanor that might have to be defended. Well, there was nothing she could do about the crack in the wall over that table. She had been after thelandlord to fix it for two months now. And there had been no time to sweep the rug, and everyone knew that off-gray always looked dirtier than it really was. And it was just too damn bad about the kitchen. How was she expected to be out job-hunting every day and still have time to keep a kitched that looked like her mother’s, who didn’t even work and still had someone come in twice a month for general cleaning. And besides…
    Her imaginary argument was abruptly interrupted by a second series of knocks, accompanied by a penetrating, “Melanie, Melanie, are you there?”
    Kiswana strode toward the door. She’s starting before she even gets in here. She knows that’s not my name anymore.
    She swung the door open to face her slightly flushed mother. “Oh, hi, Mama. You know, I thought I heard a knock, but I figured it was for the people next door, since no one hardly ever calls me Melanie.” Score one for me, she thought.
    “Well, it’s awfully strange you can forget a name you answered to for twenty-three years,” Mrs. Browne said, as she moved past Kiswana into the apartment. “My, that was a long climb. How long has your elevator been out? Honey, how do you manage with your laundry and groceries up all those steps? But I guess you’re young, and it wouldn’t bother you as much as it does me.” This long string of questions told Kiswana that her mother had no intentions of beginning her visit with another argument about her new African name.
    “You know I would have called before I came, but you don’t have a phone yet. I didn’t want you to feel that I was snooping. As a matter of fact, I didn’t expect to find you home at all. I thought you’d be out looking for a job.” Mrs. Browne had mentally covered the entire apartment while she was talking and taking off her coat.
    “Well, I got up late this morning. I thought I’d buy the afternoon paper and start early tomorrow.”
    “That sounds like a good idea.” Her mother moved toward the window and picked up the discarded paper and glancedover the hurriedly circled ads. “Since when do you have experience as a fork-lift operator?”
    Kiswana caught her breath and silently cursed herself for her