When Theresa Mendavey saw the expression on her mother’s face, Theresa smiled. Her mother’s terrified look made the long trip worthwhile.

The enormous Negro smiled too.

Later, while Andrew Jackson Brown—for that was the enormous black man’s name—was sitting in the living room draining a can of Coors Light, the heels of his black leather boots resting on an expensive and extremely fragile Louis Quatorze coffee table, Mrs. Mendavey led her daughter into the kitchen and whispered, “How could you do this to us?”

“To who?”

“To us. To your father and me.”

“Do what?”

“You know what.” Theresa’s mother motioned with her head toward the living room.

“You mean you and Father would rather I didn’t bring a nigger back to your houses so you both could be spared meeting the man I’m going to marry?”

“Going to what?” yelled Mrs. Mendavey. “Going to what?”

“Listen, Mother, you and Father never cared about anything, including each other. Why in the world would you two all of a sudden give two shits about me? If you did, Mother, it would be the first time you cared about anything other than yourself in your entire fucking life.”

“Language, Theresa, please. And that’s not true,” huffed Edna Mendavey, adding, “You did say marry, didn’t you?”

“Of course it’s true. And yes, I did say marry.”

“Oh, God, how could you do this to me? How could you marry a destitute colored man? I mean”—Mrs. Mendavey lowered her voice—“I mean I don’t mind a colored man. Really, I don’t. But couldn’t you have chosen a colored doctor or a colored lawyer? No. You had to pick a…a…colored motorcycle rider!”

Mrs. Mendavey heaved a monumental sigh.

“It’s too late for sighs, Mother,” said Theresa, and walked away.

As her daughter disappeared over the horizon holding on to Andrew Jackson Brown atop his huge black Harley, Edna Mendavey stood crying into her kitchen sink.

Why, she asked herself, was her only daughter always on the back of a shvartzer’s motorcycle, this one being the biggest, blackest shvartzer she’d ever seen in her entire life? And on the biggest, blackest motorcycle she’d ever seen in her entire life. Of course her daughter could go out with a colored man if she absolutely had to. She had explained all that to Theresa not a half hour ago. But pick a light-skinned, gentlemanly, rich colored man. They do exist, Theresa, she had said. Go out with someone like that, she had said. Or did she? Did she mention the part about the light-skinned colored man? She didn’t think so.

And…and…but that, that nigger! God forgive me, but there was no other word for a man that black. And Theresa holding on to him tight like she was when they rode off, her nose in his neck, smelling him. My God! I think I’m getting queasy just thinking about it.

When Edna Mendavey got herself together, she telephoned her ex-husband and sobbed, “Hector, you’ll never guess.”