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Chapter 1
"Mama, are you a virgin?"
I was practicing the question in my head as I set the plates with the faded roosters down on the shiny yellow table.
When Mama came back into the kitchen to stir the rice or turn the fish sticks or check on the greens, I would ask
her.
The afternoon at school a boy named Michael had passed a note with "Stevie" written on it; inside it
had asked if I was a virgin.
My name is Jean Stevenson but the kids at school all call me Stevie counta there's been this other Jean in my class
since the first grade. Now I am eleven and a half and in the sixth grade.
So, anyhow, I was really surprised to get a note from a boy like Michael Dunn, who's tall with muscles and has
gray eyes, curly hair, skin the color of taffy apples, and wears Converse All-Stars even though they cost $10 a
pair.
I'm not saying I look like homemade sin or anything. It's just that I'm taller than most of the other girls in
my class and half of the boys. Mama says I'm at that awkward age, and that soon I won't just be arms and legs;
I'll need a bra and a girdle. I can't picture myself needing a bra, as flat-chested as I am now. And to tell you
the truth, I'm not too hot on having my behind all hitched up in a girdle. I have to help Mama into hers on Sunday
mornings, and I fell sorry for her, all squeezed in so tight you wonder how she can even breathe.
I stirred a pitcher of cherry-flavored Kool-Aid. I loved Daylight Saving Time; it was after six o'clock and still
light outside. The sunshine pouring in through the ruffled curtains made the flowers on the wallpaper look alive.
I studied my reflection in the pitcher of Kool-Aid. It wasn't like I wasn't cute. I had dimples and my features
seemed right for my face. My straightened hair was long enough to make a ponytail. My skin color was the color
of Cracker Jacks. But most Negroes didn't get excited over folks who were darker than a paper bag.
"Jean, turn off the oven!" Mama shouted from her bedroom.
"Okay,"
I stared out the kitchen window at the row of gray back porches and dirt backyards. We had been in the middle of
Social Studies when I had gotten Michael's note. I had lifted the lid of my wooden desk and felt behind the bag
of old, wet sucked-on sunflower-seed shells and pulled out my hardcover dictionary. I'd snuck a peek inside and
looked up the word "virgin." I'd seen the words "pure" and "spotless" and "like
the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus." I thought I was a good person for the most part. I didn't steal and I tried
my best not to lie. I went to Sunday school, and when I stayed for church, I always put my dime in the collection
plate. But I wasn't about to put myself up there with Jesus' mother. It seemed like Michael was asking me if I
was a goody-two-shoes or something.
So I'd had no choice but to answer the note with words "Not exactly" and pass it back to him. I wondered
what Michael thought of my answer, I hadn't seen him after school. I hoped he would say something to me on Monday.
I knew it wasn't my place as a girl to say anything to him. I would just have to wait and see what happened, I
told myself.
Mama returned to the kitchen. She looked glad to out of her girdle and work clothes. She was wearing her oldest
print housedress, and the extra pounds showing around her waist didn't make her look fat, they just made her look
like somebody's mother. Mama had tried a scarf around her hair so she wouldn't sweat it out, and she was wearing
Daddy's old house slippers. It struck me how different Mama looked from June Cleaver or Donna Reed on TV, not just
because of her pecan-colored skin but because they practically did their housework in pearls!
I turned facing Mama, and folded my arms across my chest. I watched her take the pan of fish sticks out of the
oven and set them on a plate.
I cleared my throat. "Mama, are you a virgin?" ...
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