Recitatif

"'Oh,' she nodded her head and I liked the way she understood things so fast."

Roberta doesn't judge Twyla. While the other girls mock Twyla and her mother, Roberta easily accepts Twyla's simple explanation for her mother's inability to care for her. She appreciates that Roberta does not pry for more information, nor make fun of her for her mother's irresponsible ways.

"We didn't like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play with us because we weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were dumped."

The other girls in the orphanage are just as vulnerable as Roberta and Twyla. Unlike Twyla and Roberta, however, the other kids are "real orphans" since their parents are dead. Ironically, Twyla is jealous of the girls because their parents are dead. She sees their position as enviable because they do not have mothers who embarrass them. And yet, when Twyla's mother visits, despite her deep embarrassment over how Mary acts, she still buries her face in her mother's coat, wanting to hold her and not let go. It's clear how much she loves her mother, despite everything that has happened.

"The staff tried to keep them separate from the younger children, but sometimes they caught us watching them in the orchard where they played radios and danced with each other."

The older girls are referred to as the "gar girls," Roberta's mispronunciation of the word "gargoyles.” They are the mean girls who bully Twyla and Roberta. And yet, Twyla realizes at some level that these girls are as vulnerable as she is. They take on the identity of tough girls with big hair and lots of makeup in order to feel strong but really, they are just like them.

"Or what if she wants to cry? Can she cry?"

Twyla and Roberta are fascinated by Maggie and her inability to speak. They wonder what happens when she is vulnerable or in need of help and needs to call out or cry. They figure that she is unable to hear them and so they call her names. Twyla feels bad about this later, thinking that Maggie really could hear them. They identify with Maggie since they too have an inability to express themselves and to be understood.

"But her face was pretty-like always, and she smiled and waved like she was the little girl looking for mother—not me." 

Twyla's mother is not able to fulfill her role as a parent. In fact, the 8-year-old Twyla observes that possibly their roles are reversed, since Mary acts like the little girl. She fails to bring any food to share with Twyla like Roberta's mother does. She wears inappropriate clothing to church and is unable to control her emotions, which deeply embarrasses Twyla. But she is also proud that her mother is pretty.

"Roberta's mother looked down at me and then looked down at Mary too." 

Roberta's mother's physical presence is massive and also oppressive. She is described as a large woman with a stern face. She refuses to shake hands with Mary, who is dressed in tight clothes. Roberta's mother wears a large cross, suggesting that she’s very religious. She brings plenty of food for Roberta to eat, but Roberta just picks at her food, which Twyla can't understand. Roberta's mother, just like Twyla's mother, is also unable to care for her daughter, though the reader is never told the reason for this other than she was "sick." Roberta later reveals that she too grew up in an institution.

"She laughed then a private laugh that included the guys but only the guys, and they laughed with her. What could I do but laugh too and wonder why I was standing there with my knees showing out from under that uniform."

As a teenager, Roberta has clearly rebelled against her mother's strict religious ways. Twyla compares her to the gar girls, the older girls from the orphanage, who wore lots of makeup and bullied them. Roberta does not treat Twyla warmly, preferring to mock her for her lack of knowledge about Jimi Hendrix. She shows off for the two guys that she is with, preferring to be accepted by them than by Twyla. Roberta later explains her behavior as the result of the racial tensions of the time. Twyla doesn't believe this was the reason because she remembers feeling there was more racial harmony at the time. 

"They have lived in Newburgh all of their lives and talk about it the way people do who have always known a home. His grandmother is a porch swing older than his father and when they talk about streets and avenues and buildings they call them names they no longer have."

Unlike Twyla, who had an unstable childhood as a result of living with the "dancing" Mary and then in an orphanage, Twyla’s husband seems to have had a very stable upbringing. His family is firmly established in the town of Newburgh. Although Newburgh has suffered economic ups and downs, the family structure has insulated the Bensons from these changes. They are still working class, but they have a strong, loving network of family that allows them to thrive.

"But she was waiting for me and her huge hair was sleek now, smooth around a small, nicely shaped head. Shoes, dress, everything lovely and summery and rich."

Roberta has transformed herself again, as evident from her appearance. The adult Roberta is eager to talk to Twyla, unlike the teenaged Roberta, who rebuffed Twyla's attempts at conversation. Twyla is married to a wealthy widow and now has four stepchildren. She lives in Annandale, a richer suburb. Roberta's entry into the upper class separates her from Twyla, who is working class. However, they quickly bond at the coffee shop and regress into their 8-year-old selves, until the memory of Maggie threatens to divide them.

 "Suddenly, in just a pulse beat, twenty years disappeared and all of it came rushing back."

The two women are able to remember their 8-year-old selves and the friendship they shared, a friendship not threatened by race or class divisions. They feel the same sisterly affection that provided them strength in the orphanage. Unfortunately, in the next scene, that sisterly affection disappears when they find themselves on opposite sides of the bussing debate. 

"Now they surrounded my car and gently, gently began to rock it. I swayed back and forth like a sideways yo-yo. Automatically I reached for Roberta, like the old days in the orchard when they saw us watching them and we had to get out of there, and if one of us fell the other pulled her up and if one of us was caught the other stayed to kick and scratch, and neither would leave the other behind. My arm shot out of the car window but no receiving hand was there. Roberta was looking at me sway from side to side in the car and her face was still."

In this surreal scene, a peaceful protest has turned menacing when the mothers surround Twyla's car and begin to rock the car. Twyla's first instinct is not to panic but to reach for Roberta, the one person to stand by her side when she was threatened by bullies. But Roberta will not help her, and Twyla realizes she is on her own. 

"MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO! it said."

Roberta is part of the anti-bussing protest, carrying a sign that reads MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO. Twyla is enraged when she sees Roberta participating in the protest because Twyla sees it as a betrayal. She tells Roberta that the other mothers are like the adults from the orphanage, who told them what to do. Roberta replies, "They're just mothers" (257). Although the story never introduces Roberta's children, it’s interesting to note her insistence on her role as mother, as mothers in this story have been absent or neglectful. Roberta's insistence on the rights of mothers shows a need to distance herself from that former life.

"But I was puzzled by her telling me Maggie was black. When I thought about it I actually couldn't be certain. She wasn't pitch-black, I knew or I would have remembered that."

Maggie is a type of mother figure for Twyla, and changing her racial identity is a powerful re-imagining of the mother figure. It was Twyla's mother who first made Twyla aware of racial difference, making people of different races Other. Maggie is not only a surrogate mother, but also a symbol for Twyla's own identity. Her indeterminate race makes Twyla feel uncertain of her own identity.