by Neta Jackson
“Where are Emerald and José?” I asked.
Delores jutted her chin in the direction of the knot of excited teenagers gathering at the water’s edge, still bundled in their winter coats. “Such antics!” The forty-something mother wagged her head. “Mi familia en México? They will think we have all gone loco.” She rolled her eyes. “But whatever Amanda and Josh do, Emerald and José want to do it too.”
“Don’t mind Delores, Jodi,” Edesa said cheerfully. “Underneath all that fussing, she’s happy José is alive and can do something fun and crazy!” Edesa’s dark eyes danced in her warm mahogany face. Edesa—college student, babysitter, and “big sister” to the Enriquez children—wore her African-Honduran heritage as brightly as the neon-orange wrap that held back her mop of loose, nappy curls. And she’d rescued Amanda’s grades last spring, tutoring her in freshman Spanish.
“Hey, Ben! Over here!” I heard Denny’s voice hail Ruth and Ben Garfield, trudging over the hard-packed sand like two refugees trekking out of Siberia, following Yo-Yo Spencer and her half brothers, Pete and Jerry. The boys ditched the adults and joined the teasing, shoving group of teenagers at the water’s edge, as Ruth and Ben stopped to talk to Denny.
“Hey.”Yo-Yo nodded at Delores and me, then arched an eyebrow at Edesa. “You gonna take the plunge, ’Desa? Jodi? Anybody?”
“Are you serious?” Edesa shook her curls and laughed.
Yo-Yo grinned, reached inside her overalls and bulky sweatshirt, and pulled out a swimsuit strap. “I dunno. Thought I might if some other adults did.” She tipped her spiky blonde head toward Ruth and Ben, who were still talking to Denny. “Didn’t tell Ruth, though, or she woulda given me a nonstop lecture all the way here. Didn’t tell Pete or Jerry, neither. Ya know them two—they think you’re dead meat if you’re over twenty.”
I hooted. Yo-Yo “dead meat” at the ripe old age of twenty-three? Ha!
A flurry of activity near the shoreline caught our attention as the teenagers and even a handful of brave—or merely foolish—Uptown adults started shedding coats, sweatshirts, sweatpants, shoes, and socks and dumping them in piles on the beach. “Oh, good grief,” I sputtered. “Denny is really gonna do it. Stu too.”
The Polar Bear Plungers formed a ragged line, backs to the water, facing the huddled onlookers. Bundled up as I was, I still felt the bite of the wind nipping off the lake, making my eyes water. Denny was jogging in place, trying to keep his blood going, while the younger set hopped up and down from one bare foot to the next. Josh—the old-est Uptown youth at eighteen—held up both hands like a prizefighter, dressed only in his swim trunks, complete with shaved head. “We who are about to freeze,” he yelled, grinning defiantly, “salute thee!”
The Polar Bear line went crazy, cheering and yelling like gladiators about to enter the arena.
“Hey, wait for us!” somebody yelled. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Chris and Cedric Hickman—Florida’s boys—running toward the line of half-naked daredevils, leaving a trail of their clothes and shoes on the sand as they stripped to their swim trunks. Behind them, Florida was hustling in our direction, picking up clothes as she went, trailed by a tall black man carrying a young girl piggyback.
“Bless You, Jesús!” Delores breathed. “It’s Carl Hickman! And Carla. The whole family!” She winked at me. “Now maybe that’s worth coming out today to see.”
I felt torn between wanting to greet Florida and her husband—it was a first, Carl showing up at an Uptown event with his family—and not wanting to miss The Plunge. Just then the ragged line broke ranks and ran into the water, yelling at the top of their lungs. Beside me, Yo-Yo kicked off her shoes, dropped her denim overalls and sweatshirt, and ran toward the water.
“What? Yo-Yo’s going in? That girl, she is crazy, yes?” Without turning my head, I knew Ruth and Ben had joined our little cluster. “And Denny! A heart attack he is going to have.”
I was trying to keep track of my kids in the water—Amanda was still wearing her bright red knit hat—to make sure they came out again. But I couldn’t help laughing at Denny, lifting his legs high and waving his arms, looking for all the world like a marionette pulled by invisible strings. A majority of the teens plunged head-first into the numbing-cold water, then came splashing out, still yelling and dancing up and down. Denny, probably figuring he’d gone far enough proving his manhood, turned when he’d waded in up to his waist and splashed back to shore.
I rushed forward with my armload of towels and blankets, trying to locate my shivering family. “You’re nuts,” I told Denny, throwing an old quilt over his shoulders, but he just grinned, as proud of himself as if he’d climbed Mount Everest. Josh ran up, grabbed a towel, and ran off again to pose with the youth group for some-body’s camera.
“Here, Yo-Yo,” I said, handing her an extra beach towel as we rejoined the group of Yada Yada sisters and the ragtag assortment of husbands and younger kids. “Hey, Florida. Carl, it’s great to see you . . . and Carla!” I grabbed the eight-year-old and gave her a hug. “You guys coming to the Warm-Up Party at Uptown? Pastor Clark drove the church van here to give a ride to any-body who needs one.”
Carla hopped up and down in her white pull-on snow boots, tugging on her daddy’s hand. “I want some hot chocolate!”
I bent down to her level. “I’ve got some in the car. Yours will be the first cup when we get to the church.”
“No! I mean over there!” The little girl pointed and all heads turned. Sure enough, Stu—back in her sweats and felt helmet—was passing out Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate from a huge Igloo cooler to a cluster of grateful teens. Right on the beach.
“Sure, baby. Come on,” Carl murmured, as she pulled him away.
I groaned inwardly. Upstaged again. God, why do I always feel like this around Stu? Then I scolded myself. Suck it up, Jodi Baxter.Who gave you a patent on bringing hot chocolate? I looked at Ben and Ruth. “You guys coming to the Warm-Up Party?”
“Don’t look at me,” Ben Garfield groused. “Ask Ruth. I’m just the cabbie.”
“Of course we come,” Ruth announced. “We didn’t drive all this way to just watch these young people catch their death. Though the purpose of such nonsense, I don’t see.” She looked this way and that. “Where’s Avis? Doesn’t she go to your church?”
“Ha!” I snorted. “You’re not going to get Avis out of the house to watch a bunch of crazies dip in the lake in midwinter—not unless it was a baptism or something.”
“Well, now, see?” Florida grinned slyly. “I been prayin’ that this here Polar Bear thing be like a prophecy, an’ someday we gonna see all these kids come outta that water washed in the blood of Jesus.”
Yo-Yo had one leg back in her overalls and one leg out. But she froze in midhop as if someone had yelled, “Red light!” in the kids’ party game. Her blue-gray eyes widened. “Whatcha talkin’ ’bout, Florida? Washed in what blood?”
2
I laughed aloud at the look on Yo-Yo’s face. Poor kid. She had barely stuck her toe into “this Jesus gig,” as she called it, since coming to the Yada Yada Prayer Group, and she was still trying to figure out what she’d gotten herself into. “Uh, baptism,” I said. “You know, to show we’ve died with Christ and . . .”
I stopped. Her round eyes and mouth were obvious clues that I was talking gobbledegook. “Never mind.We can talk about it later.” Avis can explain it later is what I meant. Or Florida. Somehow my churchy clichés didn’t communicate to Yo-Yo, who wasn’t that long off the street and out of prison.
By now, most of the Polar Bear Plungers had wiggled themselves back into their clothes and were making a beeline for cars in the beach parking lot. Seeing Josh in the driver’s seat of our Dodge Caravan, Yo-Yo’s brothers piled in along with José and Emerald Enriquez, so Denny and I hailed a ride with Pastor Clark and the Hickman family in the church van. Fourteen-year-old Chris muttered darkly about having to ride with the “old farts,” which got him a slap upside his head from Florida.
>
The spicy smell of homemade chili greeted us as shivering bodies crowded through the door of Uptown Community’s storefront on Morse Avenue. I shanghaied a couple of teenagers to haul my picnic cooler of hot chocolate up the stairs to the large multipurpose room on the second floor, set it on the pass-through window from the kitchen, and began filling cups with the sweet, hot liquid.
“Ooo, girl, this stuff is good!” Florida drained a cup and held it out for a refill. “You use real chocolate to make this?”
“Yeah. Cocoa, sugar, milk, cinnamon.” I felt mollified. Stu might have won points by being Johnny-on-the-spot with her hot chocolate on the beach, but even Jesus saved the best wine till last when He partied.
The bathrooms were busy for a while as the Polar Bear Plungers got out of their wet swimsuits and damp sweats and back into dry clothes. The rest of us sat on folding chairs in little clumps, sipping hot chocolate and filling our bellies with bowls of thick chili. I could hear the electric hand dryers going nonstop in the women’s bathroom. “Makeshift hair dryers,” I murmured to Florida—or tried to—but I’d just eaten some crackers and it came out, “Mathift hay dryerth.”
Florida snickered. “Oh Lord, I’m glad somebody else feedin’ my kids today! These holidays take a big bite outta money we don’t have.” She cast a roving eye around the room. Satisfied that her kids were both eating and behaving, she craned her neck again. “I don’t see Stu. She didn’t drive all the way from Oak Park just to jump in the lake for two minutes, did she?”
“Two miserable minutes,” I added.
Florida snickered. “Ya got that right! But if ya ask me, it’s time that girl quit talkin’ ’bout movin’ into the city and do it. She’s puttin’ a lot of miles on that fancy lil’ car of hers, traipsin’ back ’n forth ever’ Sunday for church and Yada Yada too.”
“Yeah, I know. She talks about getting out of real estate and back into social work. . . . Maybe she wants to, maybe she doesn’t.”
Ruth sat down with a whumph. “What? A new job Stu has?” Florida and I quickly shook our heads, but Ruth was already shooting her marbles down another alley. “When is Nony coming home? Doesn’t school start next week?” Ruth fanned herself with an old church bulletin she’d picked up and sighed. “I suppose we’ll be hearing ‘South Africa this’ and ‘South Africa that’ once she gets back.”
Nonyameko Sisulu-Smith—another Yada Yada sister we’d met at the conference last spring—and her two boys had been in Kwazulu-Natal ever since Nony’s mother had had a stroke last November, yet she’d been taking her own sweet time coming back, much to her husband Mark’s frustration. He had finally joined them in December “for the holidays,” but Nony’s absence had left a big hole in the Yada Yada Prayer Group for too long. “Last e-mail we got from her said this weekend,” I said. “Didn’t I forward it to you, Ruth? They thought her mother wouldn’t survive the stroke, though it looks like she’s recovering bit by bit.”
“E-mail, shme-mail,”Ruth muttered. “Haven’t looked at it since Christmas. A favor that woman should do, die decently and let Nony come home to her family.”
Florida and I looked at each other. That sounded terrible—but we both knew what Ruth meant. We all thought Mrs. Sisulu would “pass,” and then Nony could wrap things up with her relatives and be able to be “at home” here in the States with her husband. Yet I had my doubts that her mother’s death would change anything for Nony. It was South Africa that was in her blood, not just her extended family.
“So, a man she has now,” Ruth said.
I stared at Ruth. “Who?”
“Avis! Last time Yada Yada met, teasing her you were, about some man who showed up at church with her. Church dates—sounds serious to me.”
“Ruth!”Trying to follow Ruth’s jumps in conversation often left me spinning. “Yes, I was teasing her, but I hardly think it’s serious. The guy knew Avis’s husband before he died—an old friend, I think, who moved here to Chicago on business and looked up Avis since he didn’t know anyone.”
“Mm-hm.” Ruth just fanned as if she knew better.
“Hey, guys.” Stu was one of the first ones out of the bathroom, her still-damp hair falling over one shoulder as she pulled up a chair to join Ruth, Florida, and me while balancing a bowl of chili, a napkin, and a plastic spoon. “Anybody know of any apartments for rent? Not you, Ruth—I don’t want to live out in Lincolnwood. Somewhere in the city. Here in the Rogers Park neighbor-hood would be great.”
Florida and I exchanged a tiny glance. Stu hadn’t over-head us, had she? Nah.
“So.” Ruth nodded knowingly. “You are no longer selling houses? Back to social work, eh?”
Stu wrinkled her nose. “Got an interview at the DCFS office here in Rogers Park next week. Probably have to start at the bottom again, but I’d like to work with foster care.”
Ruth flinched slightly. Foster care was a touchy subject, ever since the Department of Child and Family Services had taken away a foster daughter she’d wanted to adopt and sent the child back to her mother—after the girl had spent five years in Ruth’s home.
“Don’t know any rentals offhand,” I said hastily. “I’ll keep an eye out, though.”
“Uh, Señora Baxter?”
I jumped. José Enriquez stood behind me, smiling big, his wet black hair slicked back from his forehead. Gosh, he’s good-looking. Too good-looking for only fifteen. No wonder Amanda was smitten.
“Could I speak to you and Señor Baxter a moment, please?”
Me and Denny? My systems went on red alert. He sounded too serious, and he was smiling too big. Ruth fanned her bulletin really fast now and stared at José. Florida studiously looked the other way and—dang it! —was trying not to laugh.
“Uh, sure, José.” I reluctantly stood up and looked around for Denny. I handed my empty chili bowl to Florida but kept my cup of hot chocolate. I had the feeling I was going to need something to hang on to.
Denny was talking to Carl Hickman and Ben Garfield, which made an odd trio. Ben was sixtyish, short, wide-waisted, and crowned with a surfing wave of silver hair on his high forehead. Carl was twenty years younger, tall and thin, his pecan coloring setting off his salt-and-pepper moustache and tuft of hair under his bottom lip. Denny was solid, given his job as a high school coach. He had flecks of gray in his brown hair too, but his clean-shaven face couldn’t hide the big dimples that creased his cheeks or the laugh-wrinkles around his gray eyes, making him look like an overgrown kid.
I caught Denny’s eye and crooked a finger at him. He excused himself and met us in the middle of the room. “What’s up? Hi, José. No frozen toes?”
José grinned. “No, Señor Baxter. But the girls”—he waved toward the women’s restroom, which still buzzed with high voices and the electric hum of the hand dryers—“are creating their own sauna, yes?” He laughed.
Get to it, José, I muttered to myself. My anxiety was popping out like pimples on prom night.
As if reading my mind, José suddenly sobered. “Señor and Señora Baxter, I would like to ask your per-mission to give Amanda—”
My heart lurched and I sucked in my breath, ready to scream, “Not on your life, buster!”
“—a quinceañera. It is a special party when a girl turns fifteen. I have talked it over with my mother, and she thinks it is a wonderful idea.”
I just looked at him stupidly. Amanda had turned fifteen last August. Had Amanda put him up to this? What was Delores thinking, giving my daughter a birthday party, a . . . a quince-something. Whatever. Sounded like something from their Mexican culture. The Baxters, however, were anything but Hispanic. Ordinary Midwestern white-bread. That was us.
“Hm. Sounds interesting, José.” Denny gave me a quick glance to be sure I wasn’t about to fall out on the spot. “You do know that Amanda already turned fifteen last summer?”
José nodded. “Sí. But we were not yet friends till you came to visit us at Iglesia del Espíritu Santo, so it was not possible then. Now t
hat we are friends, it seems a shame that a wonderful girl like Amanda should not have a quinceañera.” He smiled big again. “It does not really matter if the time is exact. It can be for her fifteen-and-a-half birthday!”
Which would be—I counted quickly in my head—February. Next month.
I took a quick glance around the room. Where was Delores? Why didn’t she say something to me earlier? She should have warned me, given me a heads-up . . . there she was. “Just a moment,” I murmured and headed for Delores, who was retying Emerald’s hair ribbon and laughing with Edesa.
“Excuse me,” I said, firmly taking Delores by the hand. “Can you join us, please?” and I dragged her across the room to where Denny and José stood talking.
“Now.” I put on the best smile I could manage. “José informs us he wants to give Amanda a quin . . . uh, a quin—”
“A quinceañera. Sí!” Delores beamed, her round cheeks still glowing pink from our foray out by the lakefront. “A wonderful idea, yes?”
I still didn’t have a clue what a quinceañera would entail, but it didn’t really matter. “Well, yes, of course—maybe for Emerald. She’ll be fifteen in a few years, and I’m sure it will be lovely. But . . .” I looked at Denny for help; he looked at me as though curious to know what I was driving at. “But . . .” Oh God, help.What am I trying to say here? I don’t want to hurt Delores’s feelings—or José ’s either, for that matter. But . . .
Okay, I was going to be honest. “But it feels awkward for you to give our daughter a birthday party.” I could feel the color creeping up my neck. “As if . . . as if we fell down on the job, didn’t celebrate her birthday adequately.” Personally, I thought Amanda had a very nice birthday, though admittedly just a family dinner with Edesa Reyes and Emerald as special guests—her “big” and “little” sisters.We’d even redecorated her bedroom—well, we’d given her some sunshine yellow paint and a new comforter.