Excerpt from Nobody's Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Ever since I was little, when my daddy come home from work, I holler "Dadaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!" And wherever I am in the house, he come give me a hug and I get to smell the oil and paint thinner on him and sometimes he bring me something. It's always small, like a candy bar or a keychain. I got bout a hundred keychains and no car key to put on em. So, that day, Drina was mostly done with my hair and it was about six o'clock and I hear my daddy come through the living room saying, "Hey, where my baby girl? Where my hug?" And I holler back, "Come see my hair!" And he walk on the porch with Doni, who nobody told me was even in the house. Doni came cause he and my daddy had been working on this car my mama been wanting since she sold Mary Kay. A pink Cadillac. They restored a old, old one, though, and they did some of it at the house cause my daddy don't like folks all in his business. He didn't tow it to the shop till it was almost time to paint it. So Doni come out and he say hey to everybody except me, so I call him on it.

"Hey, Doni."

"Oh, yeah, hey, Suzette. I saw you; you just looked busy, and I wudn't tryna bother you."

I put my magazine down. "I ain't busy. Unless I'm busy bein bored." Drina yanked a little too hard on one of my braids while she was finishing it, and it better not have been cause she copped an attitude. "How you doin?" I asked.

"I cain't complain. Dang, them braids is fire, Drina. I see you mixing the blond and lavender. Tha's cute."

Drina giggled a little and said thank you, but I'm feeling a way cause they my braids, and he still acting like I ain't even in the room.

"These was my idea. I saw em on Instagram."

Doni just ignore me and come close to look at Drina's hands. "Man, I need to learn how to do hair. Make me a little extra change."

Drina's ass start kee-keeing again. I'm pissed now.

"Did you come out here for something? Or is you tryna to enroll in beauty school?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," and he had the nerve to turn his back to me and ask my mama if she wanna come look at paint colors cause they gon be ready to do that soon and he think a three-tone job on the trim would look nice. When he leave, he say, "Bye, Miz Elkins; bye, Drina. Take it easy." And I'm so mad I don't say nothing to nobody else for the rest of the day.

* * *

"Whatchu think about Doni comin over here like that?" It's Sunday morning, and I just had my coffee. I'm on the phone with Drina cause I wanna go to the mall but I don't wanna go with my mama.

"He didn't mean nuthin by it," she sighed. "I think he kinda sweet."

"Sweet?!"

"Yeah. He said he liked your hair. Men don't never say stuff like that unless they want somethin."

"Well, he didn't say that. What he said was he liked how you was doing it."

"I don't see what the difference is."

So I just change the subject, cause Drina playing stupid and I'm getting mad again.

"You coming?"

"Where?"

"To the mall!"

"Zettie, honey, I'm tired. I got a practical dem at school Monday and I gotta go grocery shopping for Big Mama later. And what they got in the mall that you ain't bought already?"

"I just wanted to get out of the house."

"Shoot, if that's all you want you can come run errands with me. We'll go eat somewhere after. I'll come get you around five. I'm just gon take a quick nap first."

"Man, I guess." And I get off the phone quick cause I don't wanna give her the satisfaction of hearing me give in.

But I still had a whole afternoon to find stuff to do while I waited for Drina. I was tired of Snapchat and looking at makeup tutorials and checking on the stuff that just went on sale at Nordstrom's online. And I was tired of lurking, too, looking for folks I went to school with, trying to see what they was doing, especially if they went to college. Everybody I knew wanted to go to Xavier or Southern: the Black schools. If it was me I woulda picked Xavier cause the campus was prettier. But Daddy said it wasn't worth the tuition, and you know the rest. So instead of being there, I just used to watch folks act a fool online during homecoming and then at Mardi Gras and spring break. Half the time they'd be drunk and the girls' titties would be falling out they tops cause they don't know how to buy clothes that fit right. But real talk, I'd probly be out there doing the same thing if I could. And then I realized I was hating on them girls cause I was jealous and I needed to do better. But I didn't know what doing better looked like, so I put my phone down for a while, and went out to watch Daddy work on Mama's car seats.

Excerpted from the book Nobody's Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong. Copyright © 2022 by Destiny O. Birdsong. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY. All rights reserved.