Louisiana Lament

couldn’t handle it today. She’d already had the guardian from hell, and tonight she was getting Raisa. She just couldn’t sandwich in her brand-new sister.
    She’d gotten only half a block when she started cursing herself for a coward. She started lecturing herself like she thought she was Miz Clara:
Get a grip, girl. You think putting it off’s gonna make it any easier?
    She circled the block, and then did it again, first noticing how badly her palms were sweating, then counting down, breathing deep, anything to calm down. She parked, marched up to the door, and rang the bell. To her chagrin, she heard footsteps. Her palms started in again.
    A woman Miz Clara’s age answered the door, a slender, nice-looking woman with gorgeous silky dreads, wearing an Indonesian dress. She didn’t look healthy, exactly; in fact, she was a little gaunt. It was a particular kind of thinness, though—Talba would have bet a pile she was a vegetarian, the sort who went in for supplements. She probably drank barley green for breakfast. This Talba liked; people like that were often intellectuals.
    “Is this the Brown residence?” she asked.
    “Yes. Can I help you?” The woman looked puzzled.
    No help for it,
Talba thought, and she blurted, “I’m looking for Janessa.”
    “Janessa?”
    “Yes. A friend of Coreen’s?”
    The woman gave her head a little absentminded shake. “Sorry. You surprised me—I just didn’t recognize you. Are you a friend of Janessa’s?”
    “I’m hoping to be. I got your address from her aunt.”
    “Oh.” Now the woman was really puzzled; Talba was impatient and nervous, a nasty combination.
    “I wonder if she’s home,” she said firmly, and apparently she’d finally spoken with enough authority to jar loose some information.
    “I’m afraid she’s at work.”
    “Can I call her there? Or go see her?”
    “Can I ask why you need her?”
    Talba made a quick decision. “I’m her sister,” she said. “We’ve never met and I don’t know if she even knows about me.”
    “Oh. Oh my God.”
    “Can you tell me where she works?”
    “Uh… sure. Eve’s Weaves. It has some other name, but I don’t know what it is. Everybody calls it by its nickname.”
    “Beauty salon?”
    “Yes. Janessa does the manicures.”
    “Do you know where it is?” This was like pulling teeth, but it was working; the woman was too surprised not to answer.
    “I’ve been there, but I couldn’t tell you exactly. It’s in the phone book though.”
    “But not under Eve’s Weaves?”
    “It’s Eve’s
something."
    Talba figured that was good enough. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
    And she left before the woman could ask her name.
    Her heart was hammering and her hands wet, but she’d done it. After that, Raisa ought to be a piece of cake.
    Raisa had to be one of the most beautiful children on the face of the earth. Her outstanding feature was crinkly, fine golden hair, not really blond, just gold. Talba had never seen anything like it on any child, black or white.
    She was a child anyone would love if only she’d let them. Instead, she was single-mindedly dedicated to the proposition that whatever Raisa wanted, Raisa got. Spoiled, some might say, but Talba didn’t think so. More the opposite. Deprived; though of what, Talba couldn’t have said. Some material things, possibly. Her mother had very little money and Darryl couldn’t contribute a lot. But Raisa had plenty of food and clothing, just maybe not all the television-hyped gizmos a child craved these days.
    Bigger things were missing. First, there was her dad. Darryl and Kim had never married, indeed had barely dated when Kim became pregnant—and didn’t really like each other. So Raisa was raised—for all intents and purposes—without a dad.
    There was something else, though. Some withholding, some failure of love, perhaps merely a sense of promises broken that had shaped this child. When Kim had a boyfriend, she frequently dumped the kid on Darryl; when she didn’t, she clung to her possessively. She had recently married, and Talba wondered where that would lead. So far, things had gotten worse.
    The plan was for Talba to get to know her gradually. Tonight they were going to dinner and a movie—or rather, McDonald’s and a movie; it was the kid’s choice. Then Talba was going to drive chastely home.
    Raisa met her at the door and burst into tears almost the moment she flung it open. “Daddy, it’s that girl I hate! What’s she