Yolonda's Genius

by Carol Fenner

  Shirley paused. “I can get us a better rope.”

  “Have to be a whole lot better than that thing. And you need two ropes. Regulation size.”

  “Oh, I can get that,” said Shirley. “Easy.” She turned and walked back down the sidewalk, the old rope unwinding from her shoulder and dragging behind.

  Yolonda felt suddenly deserted. Lonely.

  “Wanta Coke?” she called after her.

  “No,” said Shirley. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Wait up,” hollered Yolonda. She made herself walk slowly after Shirley, as if she didn’t care all that much. “I do have to practice. My Aunt Tiny’s coming next week on Friday and I have to play for her. Come on, have a Coke. I have some innermost thoughts to tell you.”

  “Yeah?” Shirley brightened. “Okay. What’re friends for anyway?” She followed Yolonda, dropping the rope beside the door.

  Yolonda popped the bottle caps from two cold Cokes and poured them fizzing over ice in two of her mother’s good glasses. They sat at the kitchen table and Yolonda told the whole story about the Dudes and Andrew’s harmonica. Shirley gasped and ohed. When Yolonda dramatized her face-off with Romulus Foster, her friend clapped and squealed.

  “Just don’t mention it to anyone — how I whipped Foster’s butt.”

  Shirley got very quiet.

  “I’m trying to let it die down. Don’t want to have to repeat my performance.”

  Shirley looked at Yolonda soberly. “I heard some gossip at school. Someone said you had a knife. Somebody else said you did karate you learned in Chicago. What you’re saying’s true, right?”

  “Why would I lie?” said Yolonda — then caught herself. She had lied about double Dutch. She had told her mother near lies about Andrew’s harmonica. “A knife is a stupid thing. Anyway, you can ask that Stoney Buxton guy.” She looked into her Coke and poked the ice with her finger. “He saw the whole thing. He tells me to my face, he says, ‘Girl, you are really something.’”

  “Oh, no!” said Shirley. “What’d you say?”

  There was time for a couple more Cokes while Yolonda told Shirley about Stoney Buxton and his good arm muscle and repeated everything he’d said to her plus a few things he hadn’t said but she hoped he had been thinking. And then they talked about other boys in school — the cool ones and the nerds and the hateful ones. And, before they knew it, it was six o’clock and Yolonda’s momma was driving into the garage. Yolonda hadn’t gotten to the “innertmost” part yet, the part about Andrew’s dying genius. And she hadn’t practiced the piano at all.

  “I really have to practice tomorrow,” she told Shirley at the door. “Aunt Tiny will be here next week. She’s sort of famous. She knows Oprah Winfrey personally.”

  “Wow!” said Shirley. “I’d sure like to meet her.”

  “Maybe,” said Yolonda casually. “It depends on our schedule. She’ll probably want to do our hair ‘n’ all”

  The admiration and hopeful envy on Shirley-whirley’s face enlivened Yolonda. Watching her friend walk home dragging her raggedy rope, Yolonda told herself she would get up early to practice the piano before school.

  Even though Yolonda’s Aunt Tiny was really her father’s sister, Yolonda’s mother and Tiny acted like actual sisters. Still, Yolonda was sort of surprised when, the following week, her mother turned giddy with excitement. Yolonda hadn’t thought too much about it before, but her mother didn’t seem to have made many friends in this town — not any that she’d noticed anyway. Why, she’s lonesome, thought Yolonda in surprise — a grown woman. The night before her aunt’s arrival, Yolonda baked a cake and her momma decorated it with flowers and TINY spelled out in red frosting.

  Yolonda decided to go to the airport to meet Aunt Tiny when she saw that her momma had filled the car with balloons.

  “Won’t Tiny be surprised?” her mother cried excitedly. She is acting like a kid, thought Yolonda, but the balloons had made her own choice easy. It would be so much fun to greet her aunt with a fistful of balloons.

  “You and Andrew can carry most of them, and I’ll hold a few, too,” said her mother “Tiny will love it.”

  In the lounge at the airport, they watched through a wall of windows as Aunt Tiny eased her great bulk out of the door of a small commuter plane and down the fragile-looking steps. How gloriously she filled the doorway as she entered the waiting room, bracelets jingling and scarves flowing in many shades of purple.

  The great woman laughed her delicious laugh when she saw the balloons thumping delicately together in their bright bouquets. She took them all in one plump, beautifully manicured hand. From her finger winked a huge amethyst ring.

  “They had to sit me in the three seats at the back o’ that itty-bitty airplane,” she bragged. Her face was as smooth and round as the balloons and perfectly made up. Yolonda hugged her, and she smelled as rich and warm as ever.

  Then Yolonda pushed Andrew forward to enjoy the treat of Aunt Tiny’s hug. Tiny pressed Andrew against her side and stroked the top of his perfect little head. Andrew’s hand reached for his back pocket and stayed there, cupped around the new harmonica wedged in its case.

  “Got to get me a bath, Josie,” said Aunt Tiny to their momma. She fanned herself with the current copy of Ebony. Above her, the balloons danced slowly to the movement. “Will your tub fit me?”

  “Oh, Tiny, you’re a beautiful sight,” said Yolonda’s mother, hugging the great woman, too. “I hadn’t realized how homesick I was till I saw you. You look wonderful!”

  “Get me to that tub, Josie,” said Aunt Tiny.

  But they had to wait at the luggage-go-round for Tiny’s bags. Andrew got to carry her red makeup case and Yolonda pulled her big, matching suitcase on its little back wheels. Aunt Tiny held the balloons delicately. They trailed out above her scarves like a part of her costume.

  “Just look at my hair, Tiny,” cried Yolonda’s mother as they headed toward the car. “Nobody like you around here.”

  “Now there is, Josie honey,” said Aunt Tiny. “Now you got the real thing. We’ll fix you up to rave about.”

  Tiny stopped to rest, leaned on a car, then she bent her head as far down as her chins would allow and took in Yolonda.

  “Taller,” she said. “You’re growing upwards, Yolonda. My niece is going to be tall as her daddy.”

  On the drive home, Yolonda and Andrew sat in the back with all the balloons. “What’re we gonna do with these now?” Yolonda asked.

  “Why not let ’em go?” said Aunt Tiny gesturing grandly toward the window. “Decorate the sky — more room there than in this car.”

  “Kills birds!” cried Yolonda and her momma at the same time. “Strangles them; the string does,” added Momma. “We’ll have to recycle. For now, they can float in Tiny’s room.”

  “Well, it was a lovely surprise,” said Aunt Tiny. She reached back and plunked one of the balloons.

  Surrounded by the soft thuds and squeaks, Andrew thought he’d need his pipe to make the sound of balloons. Or the sounds of their tangled, captive strings — or the flying sound of a bird.

  When they got back home, Yolonda dashed from the car and was seated at the piano, playing, before Aunt Tiny had unwedged herself from the front seat.

  Yolonda had decided on the Wagner bridal march. Da dum de dum.

  She sang:

  “She’s never sometimey.

  Her nails are red and shiney.

  Here comes the fa-a-

  A-a-mous Aunt Tiny.”

  Certainly her Aunt Tiny was never “sometimey,” an expression Yolonda’s mother used for a person who couldn’t be counted on. Aunt Tiny could be counted on.

  That evening was a real party. They feasted on crown roast of lamb filled with buttered baby peas, honey-roasted sweet potatoes, and their momma’s famous orange salad with walnuts and poppy-seed dressing.

  Andrew watched from inside himself. He didn’t often see his momma so happy, laughing and lively.

  At one point duri
ng the meal, his momma and Aunt Tiny began to sing at the same time. “Stop! In the name of love. . .”

  Andrew marveled. His momma and Aunt Tiny pointed at each other, arms stretched across the table. From their open mouths, the song had poured out like escaping twin bubbles. “Stop! In the name of love, before you break my heart. . .”

  Andrew slipped his harmonica out of the case and tickled their song with some chords. . . . before you break my heart . . .

  His playing happened easily, the way it used to, but then he heard it. Heard it. The sound from his harmonica didn’t go forward, spinning out of him, letting him send out another curl of sound in the old way. It stopped at an invisible wall and cut back at him like splintered ice. He choked on the sound, swallowing its coldness back into himself. The wooden holes were dry and dead against his lips — were nothing but dead wooden holes. Holes.

  Yolonda was looking at him strangely. She must know about the holes. Andrew dropped his head. Carefully he placed the harmonica into its velvet bed and carefully, carefully he closed the lid so that it didn’t even snap.

  Later, in the living room, they put on CDs. His momma opened a bottle of champagne — thk-pop-ssss — and he reached again for his back pocket, but only kept his hand curled there around the fat shape. They turned the music up. It was slow and hot. “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Aunt Tiny stood in one spot and swayed to the music, then turned gently with small steps. She was wearing a brocaded robe of red and gold, put on after her bath. The robe streamed like a sunset, swirling as she moved. Then, with a sweet-breathed grunt, she reached and swooped Andrew up into her great soft arms and began to dance with him.

  Andrew struggled. Aunt Tiny’s embrace smothered all sound. I can do the music by myself, he wanted to say. I’m a big boy. He fought to keep from crying out.

  Then Yolonda said, “Dance with me, Aunt Tiny.”

  Gratefully Andrew slid down to the floor and hurried over to the love seat against the wall.

  His mother began to dance now, holding her long-stemmed glass of champagne and humming, watching her feet twinkle.

  His sister faced Aunt Tiny. Yolonda’s feet were light and she moved her body only from her knees. She wove herself around her solid knees like a Chinese lantern in a soft wind. Her head was high; she didn’t watch her feet the way his momma did.

  Andrew felt his heart grow full. A Yolonda sound simmered there. He drew out his harmonica and played the Yolonda sound. Deeper notes, they were, slipping in and out of “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

  Yolonda turned her face to him and smiled. Such a smile. What instrument could play that smile?

  Then the music turned fast. Aunt Tiny sank into her chair with a gasp. His momma collapsed into another.

  Yolonda danced alone. She flipped her heels saucily; her fingers flirted in the air. What instrument? What chorus of instruments could play his fabulous sister?

  That night, in his bed, Andrew blew gently into his pipe, muted sounds — Yolonda’s proud head on its strong, smooth neck. But that needed drums behind it. He thumped with his foot on the bed stead. Better. He played Yolonda’s knees and the sway of her body over them. He tried playing Yolonda’s smile, sweet and swelling wide open, on his little pipe. It wasn’t working. He paused and thought.

  Maybe his harmonica? Or both together. A violin? He’d never needed another instrument before. He wished for someone else to play with him and, right then, he knew he’d have to learn how to make the black marks of the music code so that someone else, too, could play the sounds he heard in his head.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  One of the great and terrifying things about Aunt Tiny was that if she didn’t like your hair, she’d go after it. She cut JAZZ into the back of Andrew’s hair and gave him a modified eraser-top.

  She sat Yolonda in the kitchen and trimmed her thick mass of hair, working out of a red zippered case full of scissors and oils, curling irons and straightening irons. Yolonda sat on a stool with a sheet draped around her shoulders. She held a hand mirror so that she could check the progress every so often.

  Aunt Tiny had just finished separating curly strands all though Yolonda’s thick hair and twisting each one with a fragrant oil when the doorbell rang. Yolonda’s whole head was a gleaming mass of shining black corkscrews. She pranced proudly to answer the door, shaking her curls.

  It was Shirley; she stared in astonished admiration. “Wow! Is that you, Londa? How’d you get your hair like that?”

  “I told you,” said Yolonda impatiently. Shirley could be so dumb. “My Aunt Tiny’s here.”

  “It looks great!”

  Yolonda tossed her head. The curls bounced and sprang.

  “I can just imagine your hair jumping while we’re turning ropes!”

  Yolonda saw that Shirley wore a brand-new rope in loops over her shoulder. Lots of rope.

  “I looked up the regulation size, Londa,” said Shirley excitedly. “They have lots of good books on double Dutch at the library.”

  “No!” said Yolonda.

  “No, what?”

  “No ropes. No turning. No double Dutch. No nuthin’,” she barked.

  “But we were great at cake. We could be great at ropes. I feel it in my bones, Londa.” Her gruff voice cracked to a hoarse whisper.

  “My name’s Yolonda. And the cake baking was dumb. My brother got wasted while you were hopping around our oven.”

  “I didn’t waste your brother, Yolonda,” Shirley said, suddenly very serious, her eyes wide and flickering. “I was the one who reminded you he wasn’t there.”

  “Are you telling me it was my fault?” An unreasonable rage suddenly flamed in Yolonda. “You think I let it happen? You think Andrew is ruined because of me?”

  “I didn’t say that. No, Yolonda. I never said that.”

  “Anyway, the cake was a stupid waste of time. Double Dutch ropes are even more stupid. And besides, no dumb-body here jumps good enough to practice for. I’m not wasting my time.”

  Shirley drooped, loops of rope sliding. But, doggedly, she continued, “You saying you don’t want a friend? I thought we were going to be best friends.”

  “Best friends?” Yolonda bit the words, slicing them with scorn. “I got enough problems all by myself. I don’t need a best friend, too.”

  “Everybody needs a best friend, Yolonda Blue. You, too. But it won’t be me. It’s certainly not going to be me.” Shirley straightened her skinny little body and walked off the porch, pale hand holding the loops of rope against her shoulder.

  Yolonda stood in the doorway, her rage dissolving about her. Well, she thought in miserable satisfaction, now I don’t have any distractions. That Shirley girl was too much distraction. Still, the bad feeling grew even thicker.

  Aunt Tiny looked at her curiously when she returned to the kitchen. “That a friend of your’s, Yolonda?” she asked.

  “She’s a white girl,” said Yolonda.

  “Not what I asked,” said Aunt Tiny. There was a pause, heavy in the quiet of the kitchen. Yolonda wiggled uncomfortably. She had to admit she hardly ever noticed anymore that Shirley was white. Sometimes she thought they might look ridiculous in public — Goliath and David, big and little — a great, queen-sized girl with a skimpy little toy poodle of a friend. But she didn’t think “white girl.”

  “No,” said Yolonda finally. “I don’t have any friends in this burg.”

  “Too bad, honey,” said Aunt Tiny. “You could have asked her in. You could have done her hair while I do your mother’s.”

  For a brief moment, Yolonda considered running after Shirley. Catching her. Yolonda remembered her straight little body marching off. Apologize? Yolonda remembered the thin droop of Shirley’s mouth, her sadly whirling eyes. I’d look like a fool she thought.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” she told her aunt. “I got to practice some Mozart.”

  But she didn’t go in to the recently dusted piano. She leaned against the kitchen counter, watching, allowing herself to be draw
n away from the bad feeling by her aunt’s magical skill.

  Tiny was doing what she called “a gorgeous number” on Yolonda’s momma. She had unpinned the neat thick bun and brushed her momma’s long hair into springy strands between her fingers. Then Aunt Tiny cut and straightened a slice of bangs across her mother’s high, clear forehead so that one eye peeked out naughtily. She cut and layered one side short and perky, leaving the other side a bit longer. It made her mother look very flirty.

  Yolonda was offended. Her momma was a mother and a businesswoman. She didn’t flirt. She had had her day. What was she doing peeking out of bangs? How lonely was she?

  Tiny didn’t let Yolonda’s momma look in the mirror as she combed and snipped. Momma’s eyes were half closed in bliss. Yolonda was sure she would be upset or, at the very least, embarrassed when she woke up and saw how silly she looked.

  Then Tiny wove layers of thin, glossy braids high up in the back and long, long down the back. Here and there, among the braids, she set little jet beads. More flirting.

  Look at that hair thought Yolonda, with those little beads winking away. She was mesmerized by the nimble movements of her aunt’s fingers.

  “Oh, Tiny,” cried her mother when she was finally handed the mirror. She was not embarrassed at all. “Is that me? I’m beautiful!” She jumped up and hugged Aunt Tiny.

  “Get me to my chair,” said Aunt Tiny, wiping her face with a little embroidered handkerchief.

  “Girl, that’s work.”

  At Trend salon, Tiny hardly ever did any of the customer’s hair anymore. Only special customers. Stars. She hired the best hairdressers she could find to do everyone else and she just walked around making suggestions, chatting with folks, checking to see if they were pleased.

  “Girl, that’s work,” she repeated. “Not many people can get me to work that hard anymore.”

  “We’ll let Yolonda bake you another cake — one of her specialties, Tiny. What kind shall it be?” They had polished off the welcome cake the night before.