Four Women and a Rainbow

Four Women and a Rainbow
By: Angelique Dyer
“…and this is for colored girls who have considered suicide/but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.”—Ntozake Shange

Woman in Red
Brandi is obsessed with red lipstick, the kind that stains the collars of cheating boyfriends and the rim of wine glasses. Red lipstick leaves a trace only Brandi could create. Her obsession with red lipstick started with a Lifetime movie about a woman who wore red lipstick to her mastectomy-because only confident women wear red lipstick. Brandi is still trying to find her perfect shade. Her large lips need the right shade to make sure they didn’t look clownish, because then I would have to put an end to this obsession. She is a Delta, so red flowed in her heart and in her blood. Every morning, before leaving for class or work, she throws her red sorority bag on her shoulder and prances out the door, a regular “Judy Attitudie” ready to prance on anyone who gets in the way of her and her red lipstick.
I first met Brandi when we were freshman in high school and we kept looking at each other strangely.
“I know you from somewhere,” Brandi said to me as I struggled to open my locker on the first day.
“You do look familiar,” I replied and this started a seven-year game of “Guess Where We Met.” It wasn’t until this past summer that we remembered we went to the same summer camp.
Brandi and I have this friendship that is marked with laughter—if I’m not making her laugh with my impersonations of a transvestite, she’s making my abs burn in pain from laughing at her random jokes about just about anything. This friendship is also marked with tears because no matter what I say or what facial expressions I make, she always knows when I’m on the brink of tears. All she has to say is, “You’re lying” and the floodgates open. She’s that friend who is ready with a bottle of wine to hear you whine, but is also ready to come up with a plan to make it all better.

Woman in Purple
Whitney cut all of her hair off April of 2010 and we couldn’t believe it. She was the only one of us with that “good hair” cascading down her back. Then she does the big chop and lets her curls dance freely on her head. She altered her crowning glory her way and we had no choice but to understand. I’m sure if she could, she would die her head purple to match her purple sweaters, sundresses and violets she wears when she slides into her professional wear to handle her business. She’s a pre-med student, and business to her, never ends. She wears crowns of different shapes and sizes—sorority president, medical school applicant, student, volunteer, human dictionary, comedian, best friend, sister, daughter, woman. Sometimes, she wears too many crowns for her head to hold. Yet, the pain and weariness never shows on her yellow face-just compassion and laughter filling the insides of her hazel eyes.
“Girl, you know, we’re really like sisters. We share like sisters,” Whitney said to me one day as I let her take a sip of my daiquiri. After fourteen years of baby fat, puberty, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, karaoke, deaths, births, failures and triumphs, Whitney is still saving my life. It all started at the K&B drugstore in New Orleans East and my mom and I were shopping for school supplies. I was rattling off to her all the new kids at school and how my teacher looked like the skinny aunt from “James and the Giant Peach.” On the same aisle, Whitney and her mom were also shopping for school supplies and we caught each other’s eye. Something about Whitney told me that I needed on my side to combat the bullies that seemed to make up the cleverest short jokes. I think it was the fact that she was taller than me. It had to be God that pushed me towards her and made me whisper, “Hey, you’re in my class. Wanna be my friend?” I don’t remember questioning if this statement was a good thing to do or not, and I don’t remember even having fear about what her answer could be. “Sure!” Her green eyes lit up with her answer and so did my heart.
They told us that being college roommates was friendship suicide but once again, we overcome common expectations and are better friends because of it. I’ve changed since those days in elementary school—larger bra sizes, bigger dreams, less patience—but Whitney has stayed completely the same. She still sings Negro spirituals in the shower, names all the bones, organs, muscles and cells in the human body, and comes to me to apply her eye shadow because she is just “not as girly as Angie.”

Woman in Orange
Tanya is a force to be reckoned with. We bought her a dress form mannequin for her 20th birthday and her surprised scream echoed through New Orleans, creating pot holes in streets that were once untouched. Tanya designed clothes, jewelry, brooches, scarves, and hats—anything that can be worn. Shopping with her is a battle due to her repeating chorus of “Girl, don’t buy that. I can make that.” She can make a dollar out of 15 cents, a cocktail out of brown, white and pink liquor, and a smile from even the most comatose mouths. It’s as if she swallowed the sun and through her skin and soul, orange seeps out slowly with every word from her mouth. She’s her own little sun in our world, causing heat to surround and blind us with her hodgepodge of colorful outfits and large curly hair. She sings the melodies of Nina Simone and Madonna simultaneously at moments of idleness and behind the glamour and sequins, Tanya is still a little girl who plays with Barbie dolls, and designs clothes for her.
Tanya walked out of her dorm building on a sticky September evening and posed in front of the door. I almost peed on myself laughing at her outfit—tights, a blue t-shirt and a red onesie, the kind Jane Fonda wore in her workout tapes. We couldn’t believe she walked out her room and proudly into the student center to shock even more people.
Sophomore year, Tanya was the one who taught me about thrift stores, Yellow Tail wine and how to “suck that shit up and keep it pushing.” She taught me, without actually speaking, that the past shouldn’t be used as an excuse for the present and that the only person to please is God. We faithfully discuss campus gossip like two old ladies and gasp at the artistic images plastered on the pages of Vogue every month. We shop like it’s going out of style and agree that every now and then, big purchases are necessary to reap of benefits of hard work. Tanya and I play as hard as we work—and that’s a lot of partying.

Woman in Blue
I am one of colored girls Ntozake Shange talked about in her choreopoem. I am a collection of the ladies in brown, yellow, green, red, purple, orange and blue. At this moment, I find myself looking at the end of my iridescent rainbow, not quite considering suicide—I’ve got too much to live for—but wondering if I did enough to please everyone on my path. I’m a public relations student; so pleasing people is one of those underlying concepts they teaches us. We are trained to strategically fix problems so the world is a better place, yet I struggle with strategically fixing myself. I am like the sky, blue because it’s supposed to be, or at least that’s what they tell us. I just do as I’m told. Yet, I play the role of the voice of reason, the one that lends the ear, shoulder and fist when it comes to knocking sense back in the hearts of people.
My size is not a reflection of my seriousness because big things come in small packages, as my mother always said. My brown eyes polluted with freckles collect information, whether it’s the sociological glance at the public school system of New Orleans or the Fall 2010 trends from the runway. I read Roots when I was 12 and had nightmares for days until I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, then fell in love with the act of writing. I love hard and that love has been thrown back in my face on several occasions, mostly because of my ability to stand in the way of myself. That is, until my sisters come and push me out of my own way.
As May 2011 slowly approaches us, I find myself wanting to run back to freshman year when Brandi, Whitney, Tanya and I were just young women trying to leave our footprints on campus and stay afloat. Now as seniors, we are ready to move in the directions we spent nights talking about, although some plans have changed since I’m not going to grad school to study creative writing, and Whitney is taking a break before med school.
Well, at least some of us are ready. I am not prepared to be away from the women I call my sisters, to not be at arms length from them when I need a good laugh or a belt at the last minute. It scares me every time we go out as a team, conquering New Orleans one night at a time, that we’ll never have moments like that anymore. Who will be there when I have writer’s block or when I need someone to ride with me to the daiquiri shop, because I refuse to go there alone? The end of the rainbow is coming and I wonder will the four of us still stand together, knowing that another rainbow waits for us on the other side?
I have a feeling we’ll see the end of our rainbows just fine, standing on each other’s shoulders, making sure no one falls flat on their face.
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