Mama gave Helen a bronze brooch of a mermaid with aqua stones on the tail. Helen gave Mama a silver watch with a delicate little face. They both gushed over the gifts, putting them on right away. Helen even insisted on pinning her brooch to her housecoat just to see what it might look like on.
“You can’t even see it with all these flowers, can you?” She laughed, getting up and going to the bedroom.
“Oh, come on, Helen! You can try it on later. Don’t go and change your clothes now!” Mama called.
Helen came right back in, brooch still fastened to her floral housecoat, but now she was carrying a box wrapped in solid blue paper with a silver bow.
“This is for you, Ella.” She held it out to me and I quickly looked to Mama, who smiled.
“Looks like you got another present, girl. Better open it!” said Mama.
I was careful as I removed the bow and wrapping paper. Something about tearing through Helen’s beautiful wrapping job didn’t feel right. She’d gone to such trouble.
Inside was a book covered in red velvet. Stitched across the front, in white, it said Ella. It was a diary.
“Oh.” I gasped. “It’s beautiful. Did you make this?” My finger gently traced the careful stitching that made my name look like art.
Helen nodded. “I think it’d be nice for you to have something you can jot your personal thoughts and feelings in. Merry Christmas.”
“Hey! Looky there.” Mama pointed to the far side of the tree. “I see something.…” Sure enough, there was another present. I crawled to it and read the name tag. It was for me, from Mama.
“Wow!” I squealed. It was a large and round box and wasn’t wrapped except for a ribbon tied around it. I knew it was a hatbox. I opened it, and sitting there on a bed of satin was a hat. A lady’s hat.
“You like it?” Mama was reaching for the box. “Let me put it on you. I know how you like hats.”
With the exception of my Stetson, I’d never worn a hat. I actually never cared much for hats. But my Stetson was different. It was special. Ever since Mama had hot-combed my hair, she’d kept it away from me. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t want it to muss my hair or if she just didn’t like her little girl wearing a man’s hat. I realized that I hadn’t seen it in a while so I scanned the room trying to locate it. Finally I spotted a piece of its brim peeking out from under Mama’s overcoat, scarf, and gloves on the armchair near the front door.
Mama pulled the stiff triangle of blue felt from inside the box and positioned it a little to the side atop my head, then secured it with a long hatpin. “Look at that!”
“Such a lady!” Helen said.
I stood and went to the mirror in the bathroom. But just as I suspected, I looked foolish. Like I’d been playing dress-up in a movie star’s closet.
“Whatcha think?” Mama asked from the living room.
“It’s pretty,” I said. I wasn’t lying. It was pretty… for someone else. But certainly not for me. “Thank you, Mama.”
We opened the box from South Carolina last. I wondered where Helen’s family was. Didn’t she have none? There was no box from home for her. Not like what Granny had sent me and Mama.
Granny had sent us homemade pralines. You could smell the brown sugar and butter as soon as Mama lifted the lid from the box. One bite into that sweet pecan candy and I was back in Alcolu, wrapped in Granny’s arms, with Poppy’s delicious pipe smoke catching in my hair. I’d be scratching Bear behind his ears, while trying to keep his snout away from my candy. I’d split my piece with Henry, and he would’ve finished his already. He always had such a sweet tooth.
Inside the box from Granny was another box, marked Ella. It contained red T-strap Mary Janes. I knew that was Granny meeting me halfway to finding decent Sunday school shoes. She knew I couldn’t bear the thought of the shiny black patent-leather ones, like all the girls still wore. Far as I was concerned, them was baby shoes. The red ones were nice, though. Didn’t look like baby shoes, and, most important, they were different from everybody else’s. I liked that.
Myrna and Henry had both made me cards. Myrna’s had a Christmas tree on the front, with red balls hanging off its sides. Inside it said Merry Christmas in red and green, and was signed Myrna. Henry’s, of course, was a work of art. On the front, he had drawn a picture of a girl. Even though it was the back of her, I knew it was supposed to be me ’cause of her curly hair and her Stetson hat. She was looking up into the sky at a big ol’ crescent moon surrounded by shimmering stars. Inside, the girl was swinging from that same moon and smiling. It said:
May all your wishes come true this Christmas!
I miss you.
Your cousin,
Henry
“Well, isn’t that something!” Mama said, taking the card from me to have a better look. She and Helen both took turns studying it and saying “Wow” and “What a talented boy.”
“It’s too bad he can’t meet Allan,” Helen said.
“Yes!” Mama said as she slipped on a pair of pale gloves a friend had given her. Some fella named “Donald” or “Dudley” that I had never met.
“Allan Crite is a very talented artist.” Helen stood and walked to the closet. From inside, she continued talking: “He’s a draftsman for the shipyard, making drawings for them and such, but his paintings have been featured in New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. All over.” She reappeared and handed me a small pamphlet. “He lives right down the street.”
The pamphlet was an advertisement for An Allan Rohan Crite Exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The front showed a colorful picture of women and children, in all shades of brown (even mine!), crowding a neighborhood street much like the one right outside Mama’s door. I turned the page and found a tiny square photo of Allan Rohan Crite. I could hardly believe my eyes—he was colored.
“I didn’t know they put colored people’s paintings up in museums,” I said, studying the picture on the cover again. It was called School’s Out.
Helen handed Henry’s card back to me. “Your Henry might be in a museum one day, too,” she said.
I was sure that one day he could be like Allan Crite. I was going to take the pamphlet back to him and show him what was possible.
Mama, still in her dressing robe, had put on the new gloves, the watch Helen had given her, my funny new hat, and a fox-fur shawl. A gift from another friend. “Seymour” or “Sigmund” or something. She thought it was very glamorous, but I thought it looked like she’d pulled a couple of dead weasels off the road and flung ’em over her shoulders. They had the heads and tails still on them!
I reached out for a tree limb, squeezed its sharp needles between my fingers, and smelled the cool woodsy fragrance on my fingertips. Helen caught me and winked. I smiled and winked back.
Sure, it smelled like Christmas, but Christmas here was certainly different from Christmas at home. At home, there’d be food on the stove already. There’d be so much noise from all of us talking at one time, holding up our new presents, and admiring someone else’s, that Granny would hold her hands over her ears and leave the room. There’d be a fire and music, Poppy, Granny, Aunt Rhoda, Henry, and Bear, and even Myrna. I’d felt myself missing them before, but I hadn’t felt really sad until after I read Henry’s card. I desperately wanted to know what he was doing, what he was opening. I wanted to split a gingersnap cookie with him and trade my hard candies for his Sugar Daddys. I wanted us to dance.
I stood and walked to the kitchen. My throat was feeling tight and my face warm.
“Where you going, baby? You hungry? Want me to make you something?” Mama asked.
“It’s okay. Just getting some water.” I hurried out of the room, hoping she wouldn’t follow. I didn’t want her to see me cry.
henry
Christmas wasn’t the same without Ella to share it with. Mama came, and Granny invited some neighborhood friends over, but even with a house full of folks, the sound of her absence was deafening to me.
When Daddy didn’t make it for Thanksgiving, I decided I would pray every day after for him to come for Christmas. It didn’t work. A wire came a week before, saying he wouldn’t be here. A few days after that, I got a letter in the mail with a drawing of Daddy in a Santa suit, holding a big fat belly, which was especially funny since my daddy’s known as a “string bean.”
All of Daddy’s letters had a drawing, and I tried to send one with each of mine, as well. I was working on a portrait of Daddy. Just a small sketch, something that he could carry with him in his pocket to look at sometimes. It was taking me a long time to finish it, since I really wanted it to look like him. I had a picture of him clipped to the corner of the drawing, and whenever I finished early in class, I’d work on it a little. Sometimes even at recess, if Franklin was off kicking the ball with the other kids. Without Ella around, I found myself alone a lot.
Our first day back to school after Christmas break, I was on my way into the schoolhouse when Ben came up behind me and, without saying anything, stepped on the back of my shoe, making it come clear off my heel. The nearby kids, who’d seen him sneak up on me, all laughed. I wheeled around.
“Quit it!” I shuffled over to the front step of the schoolhouse to pull the heel of my shoe back up. Ben followed me.
“Oh, don’t cry, wittle baby!” he said in a baby-talk voice. Then he smacked the back of my head. The kids all laughed again.
“Stop, Ben!” I rubbed my head where he’d struck me and started for the door to go inside. Ben jumped around to the front of me, blocking my way.
“What if I don’t feel like it?” He was putting on a show for the onlookers now and I knew there was little I could do stop his performance. I tried to go around him, but he pushed my shoulder back and I dropped my schoolbooks. I bent down to pick them up, and as I was reaching for a sheet of paper that had fallen out of one of the books, Ben snatched it up first.
“What’s this?” he asked, smiling over the portrait of my dad. I reached for my drawing.
“Give it back, Ben.”
“Say please,” he taunted, then looked back at the portrait. “This is really bad!”
“Please, Ben,” I said, reaching for it. He was inspecting it closely, shaking his head and laughing.
“Pretty please.” He was looking at me with a mocking pout on his face. Grinning and enjoying the stage.
“Pretty please, Ben?” I grabbed for the drawing, but he quickly snatched it away and I came up with a handful of air. My whole face was hot and I felt like I could cry. I wouldn’t dare do it. It was just what he wanted.
The cackling crowd had grown. Fred and George, Peggy and Loretta, and my buddy Franklin were all there now, too. They weren’t laughing with the others. They were watching me to see what I’d do. Or what I’d allow Ben to get away with.
“Is it supposed to look like this?” He unclipped my dad’s photograph and turned the drawing, placing them side by side so everyone could see my work in progress. The too-small eyes. The lopsided smile. I kept trying to grab ahold of it, but he held it up high, dangling it dramatically out of my reach, basking in the attention. I thought I heard a couple of small voices in the crowd, almost whispers, say, “Ah, c’mon,” and “Give it back.” But they may have just been the voices in my head.
Finally a body cut through them all, snatched the drawing and the photo, and gave Ben a quick shove.
Myrna.
“Bully!” It was all she said. Then she handed the photograph and my drawing to me and stood between me and Ben until I’d tucked them back in my book and gone inside. I heard Ben suck his teeth and let out a short laugh.
The crowd dispersed. No one said anything to me as they passed me. I was grateful to Myrna, but embarrassed that I hadn’t taken care of it on my own. That I’d needed her to step in. If Ella had been there, she’d have done the same thing. Only, with Ella there, it wouldn’t have gone so far. As soon as Ben had stepped on my heel and given me the flat tire, Ella probably would’ve stomped on his shoe. Whatever would’ve happened, I wouldn’t have felt so alone with her there.
ella
“Lucy, get dressed!” Helen pushed Mama away from the window and into the bedroom. “C’mon, girl. We’re all ready to go!”
It was New Year’s Eve day.
It had snowed the day after Christmas, and it had been freezing every day since. I loved that first snow. Fat white flakes drifted down and Mama let me run outside in it. I tried to catch some of the snowflakes on my tongue, but it was impossible. They landed everywhere on me except my mouth. Loads of kids abandoned their warm homes for a few minutes of playing in the fresh snow. I looked around for the girl from the happy family across the alleyway but I couldn’t see her anywhere.
Today the three of us had decided to go down to the Charles River to watch people ice-skate. I’d heard of ice-skating, and had even seen a photo in Life magazine of people skating in New York City, but had never seen it in real life. No river in South Carolina ever froze solid, so I’d never had the chance to see anything like it there. I couldn’t quite understand how it worked. From what I understood, there were no wheels on the skates. Instead there were blades, like thick knives. It sounded dangerous, like maybe if you were too heavy, you might cut a hole in the ice. I decided I’d keep a special eye on the big folks, so I could call for help if they fell in.
The river was blazing white. So bright you had to squint. But it was beautiful. And the sight of people gliding over that ice was pure magic.
Groups of schoolgirls held hands as they skated. Boys skated, too, but only grabbed ahold of each other when they were sure they were gonna fall. Couples skated. Lots of couples. Once in a while a lone skater would break from the circle and attempt a fancy move, like a figure eight, a twirl, or a jump.
“Think you can do that?” Helen asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You ever done it?”
She laughed. “A long time ago.”
“You couldn’t get me out there!” Mama howled.
Before long, we were all complaining of frozen fingers and empty stomachs, so we ducked into a little chop suey restaurant and I had my first taste of Chinese food. There was pork and all sorts of shredded vegetables, and the tangy brown sauce was like nothing I’d ever tasted before. Mama and Helen tried to teach me how to use the chopsticks, but that was near impossible. I couldn’t understand what the point was when you had a perfectly good fork on hand.
On the way home, just before we turned off of the main road, toward Mama’s apartment, she spotted a corner deli.
“Oh, wait! I almost forgot.” She placed her slender gloved hands on my shoulders and directed me inside.
We were immediately greeted by a tall man with a bushy white mustache and a potbelly, and skin the color of mine. But he wasn’t black, or even high yella. He was Italian.
“Bella!” He wore one of the happiest smiles I’d ever seen, and one of the dirtiest aprons.
He made a beeline for Mama, took her face in his hands, and kissed her on one cheek and then on the other. I’d never seen anything like it. He didn’t seem to care at all that she was a colored woman.
“Mr. Lebrizzi, I want you to meet my Ella,” she said. He put a thick palm under my chin and examined my eyes, my nose, my whole face, smiling and shaking his head, for some reason, in disbelief.
“Oh, Miss Lucille! Bellissima! Bellissima!”
Mama told Mr. Lebrizzi that I had recently arrived from South Carolina.
“Even though I’m out much of the time, my Ella never complains. Such a big girl.” She tidied one of my curls.
Before we left, Mr. Lebrizzi gave us Italian sfogliatelle, cream-filled pastries that looked like lobster tails, and a bottle of wine.
“Happy New Year, beautiful ladies!”
Outside, Mama said, “There are angels, Ella. Even when times are their toughest, if you look, you’ll find the angels. Mr. Lebrizzi is one of my angels.”
Granny always told me that
moving away had never been easy for Mama, not just because she missed all of us, but because going to a new place can be difficult and Mama didn’t have a lot of money. But, Granny said Mama always seemed to attract kind people that wanted to help her. It was clear that Mr. Lebrizzi had been one of those kind, helpful souls. An angel.
Back at home, we laid the Italian cream puffs out on the coffee table. Helen popped the cork on the wine and poured one glass for Mama and one for her. Mama tipped a tiny bit of her wine into my glass, then raised hers high.
“Here’s to beautiful days and beautiful girls!”
“A New Year full of joy!” Helen cheered, then tapped my glass.
“Look into my eyes, Ella,” she said.
“You have to look into the other person’s eyes when you toast,” Mama echoed.
I looked up at Helen and she was staring at me like she was trying to hypnotize me or something. I laughed. I liked it when she was silly.
After trying the sfogliatelle, we played charades. I loved charades!
“When did you get so good at this?” Mama jumped off the sofa and poured herself some more wine. “Okay, okay. I’ve got one,” she said.
She put up two fingers. Helen and I both shouted, “Two words!” Mama nodded. She held up two fingers again.
“Second word!” I shouted. Mama nodded. She held up two fingers again.
“Two syllables!” said Helen. Mama nodded and tapped one finger against her other hand.
“First syllable!” we sang.
She placed the backs of her fingers under her chin, and fluttered her eyes innocently.
“Girl!”
“Eyelashes!”
“Bashful!”
Mama grinned and kept batting her lashes. She walked a little and smiled at imaginary people as she did.
“Sweet!”
“Good!” I said. Mama stopped and pointed at me.
How High the Moon Page 9