Forever This Summer

by Leslie C. Youngblood

  I wished I had the easiness Markie had with the customers. I wasn’t the quickest in cleaning tables. I didn’t have her finesse while serving and I spilled more than I refilled. Aunt Essie relegated me to wrapping silverware in cloth napkins. The way Markie glided around and schmoozed with customers was just like racewalking—it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  On the third day, I was just about to turn onto Columbia when Markie jogged up to me. She wore an I Eat Unicorns T-shirt and shorts with oddly shaped pockets and drawstrings along the sides. I was a little embarrassed that I had on the same drab short set I’d worn when we first met.

  Though I kept walking with Markie without talking, I was practicing the conversation in my head as loud as cicadas. There had to be a way to do both: find her mama and get the fundraiser plans underway. With the diner in sight, she crossed the street and veered to the left.

  “So you say something as serious as ‘find my mama’ and then vanish. What’s up with you?”

  “Are they expecting you this minute at the diner?” she asked.

  “Not this minute,” I said. Since Mama was okay that I was going to the diner every day, I made sure I was out the door as early as possible. I liked walking before the sun was on full blast.

  “Wanna hang out with me for a while?”

  I knew the answer right away, but I waited like it took some contemplation. Daddy said he never accepted a customer’s offer without contemplation.

  “You’re going to spill it about your mama?”

  “Maybe. If I’m up to it. But no promises. Why tell you all that when you might be gone in a few days?”

  “I’ll be here longer than that,” I said.

  “You think so, huh?”

  “Why? You heard something different?”

  She cuffed her hand around her ear. “I hear lots of things.”

  “Well, so do I and none of them sound like we’re leaving anytime soon. I bet I’ll be here long enough to do two important things.” I held up two fingers for emphasis.

  “I’ll bite. What?”

  “Help you find your mama and put on the biggest and best talent show Bogalusa has ever seen. You and me, we can help each other.”

  “Not bad,” she said and shrugged.

  Since that was better than a “no,” I didn’t push her and kept walking.

  We turned off Columbia onto a street called Big Tree. But the thing about Big Tree is there weren’t any trees at all. A few people were out taking down laundry. Rows of single-story apartments lined the street. Some doors had welcome mats in front with folding chairs out on each side.

  “What’s the name of these apartments?”

  “Apartments? Is that what they call them in Atlanta? They’re projects here.” Then, like I’d never heard the term before, she said, “Government housing.”

  Three blocks down the street, we entered a park. Or what was supposed to be a park.

  “What’s this place?” I asked.

  “McClurie Park.”

  Swings had been flipped around the top bar of the swing set that was connected to a dirt-covered slide; the missing bars on the monkey bars, the one-eyed caterpillar sitting atop a rusty coil spring, all must have been new back when the diner first opened, which, according to Grandma Sugar, was in the early 1960s.

  Markie strutted over and situated her Chucks on the bleacher with green, peeling paint, then reached down and snatched a few buttercups out of the ground, flicked the heads off. I wished I’d thought of doing that first. It gave her a cool, unbothered look that I wanted. Then she threw the headless buttercups up in the air, except for one that she stuck in the corner of her mouth and chewed.

  “Bet you got better places to hang out in Atlanta than this place?”

  “Depends on where you go,” I said. I conjured up images of Centennial Olympic Park with its musical fountains that danced underneath the sun.

  Another buttercup took a nosedive. “I hang out here sometimes when I don’t feel like going over to Cassidy Park or to the library.”

  I risked getting a splinter and sat on the bleacher. A huge oak canopied over it, so the shade was just as good as any porch.

  “How far is the library? If you’re looking for someone, that’s a good place to start finding information, right?”

  “Not like I haven’t tried that already. The library is just a few blocks. If you want to go there, you’re on your own. I bet you’re a summer bookworm, anyway.”

  “What if I am?”

  “Do you ever see worms come out in this heat?”

  “No, but what does that have to do with books?”

  “Worms come out when it rains. That’s the best time to read. Sun is for fun. Aunt Vie used to tell me that just to get me out the house sometimes.” She squinted, looked up, and then took deep breaths like the sun gave her superpowers. “You perked up at the thought of the library like you’re ready to write a book report. Thought you wanted to get out of the house to have some fun and adventure.”

  “And I thought you were going to open up. I’m going back to the diner.” I moved as if to leave.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “For a while, Aunt Vie was my foster mom. But I messed up a lot. Big time.”

  When she didn’t tell me how, I didn’t push.

  “Where are your folks?” I said, knowing if I didn’t ask then, I probably never would.

  “You know.” She slid her hand across her throat.

  “Oh no! They both died? Like a car crash or something?”

  “No, my mother abandoned me. Not like in a dumpster or nothing, but she left me with a neighbor and never came back.”

  “Wow. How old were you?”

  “Two or three, I guess. Didn’t even bother with an adios. Au revoir. Cheerio. Arrivederci. All the same to me: ‘See ya and I wouldn’t wanna be ya.’ I remember her in flashes, though I don’t know if they are real or something I’ve imagined. I don’t even have that for my dad. They’re out there somewhere, living the good life. They’re probably only dead to me.…”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I admitted.

  “You’re not supposed to. Your parents didn’t kick you to the curb.” To emphasize, she kicked her leg out and watched her imaginary ball as it ripped through the park. “Gooooal,” she announced.

  I sat on my hands. It stopped me from wrapping my hands around my stomach like I’d do if Nikki was here. She knew what that meant. Emotions were trapped in there. They made your stomach hurt more than too much Halloween candy.

  “It felt like my dad had died after the divorce. It hurt so much not seeing him every day.”

  I folded my lips in. They tasted salty like I’d been crying. Markie was quiet for a minute. I almost didn’t believe that I had said what I thought I said.

  “That’s too bad. Not quite the same, but I feel you,” she said.

  “You’re right. Just thinking out loud. It wasn’t even close.”

  She kicked the air ball again. “But what’s it like, though?”

  “What’s what like?”

  She shrugged, then filled her jaw with air, letting one cheek go flat, then the other, before releasing. “Having parents? I mean, of your own. What’s that like?”

  I dropped my head, so I didn’t have to meet her eyes. “We saw this video in science class of a mama bird feeding baby birds. They’re tiny and their mouths are huge. The mama feeds each of them. That’s all they have to do is sit in the nest and open their mouths. In my mind, though, the daddy bird is there, too, helping.”

  I left out how I asked for a bathroom pass after that and went in the bathroom and cried.

  It made me sad to think that the daddy bird wasn’t there. I felt so childish I never even told Nikki about it.

  “I’ll keep that image in mind. Thanks.” Then she said, “Lucky birds.”

  She sat down and took some peanuts out of her pocket and put the bag between her knees. She pointed to them and I shook my head. Seconds later, she was popping off t
he shells and tossing the casings in front of us. Didn’t take long before birds appeared. Lots of them. It made me mindful of how much coconut oil I had in my hair.

  “Do you know that some animals kill and even eat their young? Filial infanticide or filial cannibalism, take your pick. Or if there is a deformed cub or a weak one slowing the progress and taking food away from the healthy ones, the mama abandons it—free lunch for predators.”

  Then she giggled.

  I frowned. Maybe it was that nervous laughter that you do when you’re really about to cry. But no. Her eyes were sandpaper dry. Not a tear anywhere around.

  “What’s funny?” I said.

  “Free lunch. Diner. Get it?” She arched her eyebrows.

  “I guess.”

  “Anyway, I think my mama didn’t want to be weighed down with a short-armed girl that in her mind was never gonna be good enough or strong enough, so she left me. Maybe my dad didn’t even know about me. Or maybe he’s the one who made her do it. Who knows? Can’t say I blame her.”

  I wished Tangie was here. She’s sixteen. She’d know what to say.

  “It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. Maybe there was a reason. A reason you don’t know about.”

  Two young boys walked by. One had a huge beach ball under his arm. The other played a handheld video game. The machine-gun fire crackled with every footstep. Birds flew away in globs.

  “Okay. Does your baby sister play with dolls?”

  “All the time,” I said and shrugged.

  “How many of them have an arm that looks like this?” She pumped her right shoulder like she could unhitch her arm from her body. When I glanced, then looked away, she grabbed hold of her little arm and waved it until I faced her again. “Nope, not this time,” she said. “Take a good look. Go ahead. It’s a part of me like your right arm is a part of you. I won’t be mad or nothing.”

  For the first time, I looked at her arm straight on. It was puffy and twisted some, like a doll’s arm pulled out of its socket and put back on backward. When you stared at it closer, there were two fleshy nubs that looked like the tip of a baby’s finger.

  “Is this one of the arms of her favorite doll?”

  “No,” I said.

  Once Grandma Sugar told us that she could barely find Black dolls for Mama when she was growing up, so most of Mama’s dolls back then were white. But neither of them had ever bought a doll that had a short arm or leg. Then I realized what Markie meant: I don’t know if I would have played with it even if I had one. But I wanted to think so.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “What?”

  “What you’re thinking. You’re an easy read, Georgie.” She giggled. “You wouldn’t last two days in the system.” She put her hand to her face. “Every feeling you have is right there.”

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard something like that before. Mama called it “wearing your heart on your sleeve.” Sort of a gross image when I visualized it.

  “Didn’t think I had to hide ’em.”

  “Another reason you’re a lucky bird. Hiding your feelings is something you haven’t had to learn for survival.” She dug in her backpack and pulled out a couple of pieces of gum and offered me one.

  “Thanks.”

  “Anyways, once the people who supposed to love you most in the world abandon you cause you’re not good enough, your feelings are polytetrafluoroethylene.”

  “Poly… what?”

  She cleared her throat and rolled her neck. “Paa-lee-teh-truh-flaw-row-eh-thuh-leen—Teflon. Just like that animal stuff. When no one wants you in their stupid lab group, you learn more. When no one wants to play with you at recess, you read more. But I bet you never, ever have had that problem. Anyway, nothing sticks to me. Shorty and I here can deal with anything.”

  “Shorty? That’s a cool nickname,” I said.

  She gave her arm a playful pinch, then sorta hugged it, but let go quickly like she remembered I was there. “Not better than G-baby, but I like it.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  “No, seriously. Not being facetious.”

  “That’s like fake, right,” I said, not sure what to think about that poly word.

  “Something like that,” she said.

  I locked it in to look up later.

  After tossing all the peanuts to the animal kingdom surrounding us, she dug a rock out of the dirt and threw it at the swing set. The rock pinged off the metal pole like a gong.

  “Probably should get back to the diner now,” Markie said. “Don’t want anyone worried about you.”

  “C’mon, Markie. You haven’t given me the go-ahead about helping you find your mama or helping with the talent show. We can do both of them together.”

  She nodded. “Been thinking about that since I mentioned it. Gotta feeling you have what it takes to pull off the talent show, but what if the help I need takes you out of your comfort zone?”

  “Um. Well. Being uncomfortable is how you grow. I’m getting used to this town. Wherever the search takes us, no problem,” I said, as cool as I could fib. It wasn’t just a problem, but a huge one. Gargantuan. But that wasn’t the only issue at the moment.

  As we strolled out of the park and back through the apartments, more doors were opened and the number of kids milling about had grown. Once we were out on Columbia, I stopped like I’d come to the edge of the earth. “Whoa! I think…” I craned my neck. “I think that’s my daddy’s SUV.” Excitement bubbled over before I could stop it.

  “Those are Georgia tags.”

  “He didn’t tell me he was coming today.” Then I thought to add, “You’re welcome to come to the house.”

  “Nah, looks like a family thing. He’s probably trying to surprise you. Don’t want to be a hanger-on. Give me your number, I’ll hit you later.”

  I rattled it off. “Call or text me and I’ll lock yours in,” I said. “We can do this!”

  “Gotcha. I’ll let you know.”

  “Cool,” I said. “And I’ll show you some plans, too.”

  She shot up a peace sign and that was as good as a green light. Seconds later I heard my phone bleep.

  It almost felt like magic that I’d seen Daddy’s SUV now. All of Markie’s talk about family had me missing Daddy and Peaches. But as soon as I said that, I remembered what that meant—babysitting. There was no escaping it. If it would be a challenge for me to operate out of my comfort zone, it would be impossible with Peaches in the mix.

  I decided to bookmark all those thoughts and focus on Peaches. I was glad that I’d put on an extra dab of Teen Spirit and had on my sneakers, because I zoomed past Boga-Littles and practically ran all the way.

  9

  CAN YOU TIE YOUR SHOE?

  Daddy’s SUV looked like a black rhinoceros in front of Aunt Vie’s house. He sat on the porch talking to Mama as Peaches opened and closed the front gate, flicking the latch up and down like eyelids.

  As soon as Peaches saw me, she opened the gate and ran along the sidewalk to meet me. I lifted her up like I’d pick a flower from a garden.

  “How did you get here?” I said and twirled her. We’d never been away from each other for more than a week, excluding the time she was in the hospital, which I didn’t like to think about.

  “Daddy asked me how much I missed you, and I told him this much.” Peaches spread her arms out until she was in imaginary airplane mode. “He said that’s too much, and we came here.”

  I hugged her and inhaled the scent of her favorite snack, strawberry fruit chews. And I triple-kissed both of her cheeks. I shoved my curiosity aside and said, “Is that lip gloss?”

  “Yep, Mama Milly bought it for me.” I glanced at Daddy. He waved and walked over to meet us at the gate. Mama stayed seated in the rocker. That was the first time I’d heard “Mama Milly.” I left it alone. “Mama said I can wear it during the summer for play but not in school.”

  “Sounds fair,” I said. Then she lifted her T-shirt away from her body an
d put it to my nose.

  “Perfume?”

  “It’s body wash for kids, just like you and Tangie have. Mama Milly bought me this plastic purse that had three mini-bottles of it.”

  “Smells scrumptious,” I said.

  “This place doesn’t smell scrump… scrumptious,” she said.

  “I know. You’ll get used to it.”

  Daddy wrapped us in his arms, which I had long since decided was the safest place on earth. He kissed my cheek and his beard tickled my face. His hair wasn’t cut, and it poofed from his Braves cap.

  “Georgie, take Peaches upstairs and freshen up. Aunt Vie is napping, so keep it quiet,” Mama said.

  “I’m going to take my favorite girls out for ice cream, then I have to get back on the road.”

  “Mama’s not your favorite girl anymore, just G-baby and me, since Mama Milly isn’t here.”

  “We’re all his favorites,” I said, skating out of the awkwardness.

  “Mama is Daddy Frank’s favorite girl now.” Peaches had started calling Frank “Daddy Frank.” I hadn’t gotten there yet. I sorta wished I could, though.

  “You two hurry along, now,” Mama said.

  As we marched in the house and upstairs, Peaches said, “Daddy don’t pack like Mama. He left all my good pieces home.”

  I had to giggle at the word “pieces.” That was what Mama and Grandma called clothes.

  Once in the room, I flung her suitcase on her twin bed.

  “Mama will get you some more clothes if you need ’em. Take your stuff out and put it in the drawer and make sure everything is folded and neat.” I hoped she didn’t notice that my suitcase was in the corner, still packed.

  “Daddy said that I’d see my great-aunts. Where are they? I don’t see anybody. Where is Grandma Sugar and… and Aunt Essie?”

  “They’re at the diner. We’ll ask Daddy to stop by.” I would have wanted to eat at Sweetings, but the thought of sitting there with Daddy and Peaches with Markie serving us felt odd. Like that saying Mama uses sometimes, “pouring salt in a wound.” Not after that conversation we had.

  Before we left with Daddy, we peeked in on Aunt Vie. She was still sleeping.