Frieda nodded. "She's ministratin'. We was just helping." Mama released Pecola and stood looking at her. Then she pulled both of them toward her, their heads against her stomach. Her eyes were sorry. "All right, all right. Now, stop crying. I didn't know. Come on, now. Get on in the house. Go on home, Rosemary. The show is over." We trooped in, Frieda sobbing quietly, Pecola carrying a white tail, me carrying the little-girl-gone-to-woman pants. Mama led us to the bathroom. She prodded Pecola inside, and taking the underwear from me, told us to stay out. We could hear water running into the bathtub. "You think she's going to drown her?"

"Oh, Claudia. You so dumb. She's just going to wash her clothes and all."

"Should we beat up Rosemary?"

"No. Leave her alone."

The water gushed, and over its gushing we could hear the music of my mother's laughter.

That night, in bed, the three of us lay still. We were full of awe and respect for Pecola. Lying next to a real person who was really ministratin' was somehow sacred. She was different from us now-grown-up-like. She, herself, felt the distance, but refused to lord it over us. After a long while she spoke very softly. "Is it true that I can have a baby now?"

"Sure," said Frieda drowsily. "Sure you can."

"But… how?" Her voice was hollow with wonder. "Oh," said Frieda, "somebody has to love you."

"Oh."

There was a long pause in which Pecola and I thought this over.

It would involve, I supposed, "my man," who, before leaving me, would love me. But there weren't any babies in the songs my mother sang. Maybe that's why the women were sad: the men left before they could make a baby. Then Pecola asked a question that had never entered my mind. "How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love you?" But Frieda was asleep. And I didn't know.

HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWHITEITHASAREDDO ORITISVERYPRETTYITISVERYPRETTYPRETTYPRETTYP There is an abandoned store on the southeast corner of Broadway and Thirty-fifth Street in Lorain, Ohio.