by Janet Walker
Chapter Forty-Eight
LOVE AND ENMITY
The morning sun streamed through the plant-lined bay window of the breakfast nook of Gracewood Mansion. Softly playing on the house’s sound system were the tearful strings of an orchestra and the soothing textured voice of Sarah Vaughan. At the breakfast table, Grace, wrapped in a robe, sipped green tea and read the Sunday sports section of the Journal-Constitution. As the tea warmed her bosom, the words she was reading warmed her soul, while Vaughan’s sublime exhalation of notes warmed her spirit. It was the best she had felt in years. Momentarily, Sarah’s song began sliding toward its finish and the kitchen’s panel door swung inward. Tracy’s head and shoulders protruded searchingly into the room. Grace looked up, saw her teen houseguest, and smiled. “Come in,” she invited warmly.
Tracy, wearing new silk pajamas Grace had given her the night before, walked over to the table and slipped into the chair across from the woman.
“Good morning!” the woman said cheerily.
“Morning.”
“It’s after eight o’clock. You must have been tired.”
“Yeah.”
“You deserve to be. And I hope you’re hungry. I made you a breakfast fit for a champion.”
The teen smiled, blushed. “Not me.”
“Yes, you,” the woman insisted, and she slid the newspaper across the table and toward the girl. “Don’t take my word for it. Read,” she said, pointing at an article on the page that was spread open.
The teen leaned over the paper and read silently. The woman raised the teacup to her mouth and sipped, watching from over the rim, anticipating Tracy’s reaction to the article. For a moment, nothing broke the silence in the room except soft piano notes, followed by Vaughan’s mournful and unhurried contralto—the intro to a sad and slow rendering of “My Favorite Things,” a song Rodgers and Hammerstein had intended to be sung urgently, if not happily. Tracy glanced up, lips set in an oh of surprise. Over the rim of her cup, the woman’s expression said I told you so. The girl, speechless with disbelief, bowed her head again over the paper to read the rest of the article. The woman sipped tea and again waited, as Sarah’s melancholy enumeration filled the air in the room. Another moment passed and the teen looked up from the paper, at the woman across from her, and the disbelief gave way to wonder and a blushing smile.
“Who wrote that?” she asked. “That white man?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know he was gonna write that much about me.”
Grace smiled. “He’s been watching you all season. I don’t always agree with everything he writes but this time I do because he predicts what I knew the first time I saw you play: that you are going to have a future in basketball. And I,” she added tenderly, “want to be along for the ride.”
Virginia Daggett felt a pinch of panic in her belly when she saw the male police officers, Jazz Nelson’s wife, and the Haines girls’ coach look in her direction. Surely, they weren’t looking at her—she hadn’t done anything. But they had to be, because they stood at the Haines bench with Berta and had stared briefly in her direction. But why? Virginia tensed. After years of institutionalization, she harbored both a hatred for and terror of anyone who had authority to deprive her of freedom and mistreat her at will. Uniforms. Because for too long, Uniforms—stupid, arrogant, power-drunk, ignorant-mothafucka Uniforms—had held the keys that controlled her life, that dictated when and what she would eat, when she could smoke, if she could fuck, when she could piss, in front of whom she would shit, when she could speak, when she should sleep and, in the end, what she would dream. Goddamn Uniforms. And now, two of them, and the two female coaches and Berta, were huddled together at the Haines bench, talking about her. Or were they? Virginia looked around quickly, beyond her left shoulder, because perhaps they were discussing someone else nearby, but she could discern nothing amiss about the people who sat around her on the bleachers—they were the usual exuberant crowd that took in the Haines games.
Virginia decided to ignore the Uniforms. She rested her eyes again on the Haines cheerleaders who flounced and shouted before her. Fastened her eyes on their moving black-and-gold skirts, their brown thighs—some, sinewy; some, plump—and on their careening hips and bouncing breasts. Up till now, she had enjoyed the halftime show, enjoyed it more than she had the ball game, because she liked to watch good ball and the girls’ game had been a great disappointment, largely because Tracy had choked and failed to deliver. So, seeking satisfaction, Jinya had looked forward to half-time, and when the show began earlier, she reclined on the bleachers, legs spread apart, elbows and back resting against the row behind her, eagerly watching the first group of girls, the Beck cheerleaders, who wore burgundy-and-tan skirts and snug burgundy blouses. With their clear brown skins and dainty gestures, they had been satisfying to watch, but their cheer had been too goddamn long. And boring. (Shouts) Butler! Butler! Carver! Christian! Dent! Head! Lowry! McGavin! Prentiss! Sullivan! Thomas! Williiiiiis! (stomp-stomp-stomp-stomp-stomp) (Singing, with hand clapping and foot stomping) These are…the Lady Ly-ons…and they roo-ule…things at Beh-eck. They are baa-ad…and we’re glaa-ad…that they’re for us…and not against us. She had hoped that was the end of it, but—no! The Oreos had to write a symphony when they should have just gotten to the point. Coach Gray-ace…sets the pay-ace…She’s invincible…not reprehensible. She’s not lac-king…always bac-king…up her tee-eam. You know what I mee-ean. They repeated the players’ last names and the five stomps. Again, Virginia had thought the cheer was ending at that point, but the Beck bitches obviously believed other people were as impressed with them as they were with themselves, because they proceeded to shout out the spelling of each player’s surname and sing a tribute to her before moving on to the next name.
Jinya had smiled cynically when they sang the last words of Tracy’s tribute, for they had described her as shy and so at least they had her personality right. They had finally brought the cheer to an end by stomping five times and then freezing in a dramatic pose. Virginia had clapped lackadaisically—the Oreo cheerleaders, for their cheering style, might as well have been white girls; but still they touched a place deep within Virginia, for they were female, and Virginia’s mouth watered at the idea of taking the head cheerleader, the sexy dark one, the only deeply dark one on the squad, and seeing if the juice of berry blackness was as sweet as the proverb promised it would be.
Later, when the sassy cheerleaders of L. Carlton Haines walked onto the floor to begin their half-time program, Jinya’s fantasies of curiosity turned into familiar lust. These were girls she knew, girls with attitudes so hard they made you believe, before you had one, that their sweaty, funky pussies harbored gold. When they strode onto the floor, the sight of them had been enough to fill Jinya with a deep carefree feeling she rarely experienced without the help of weed. But now she worried. And glanced nervously askance. Yes, the cops and Jazz Nelson’s wife and the Haines coach were about to head for her, she was sure of it. Still, Jinya trained her eyes on the Haines cheerleaders, who were just beginning their second cheer.
(Shouting in unison) H-A-I! N-E-S!
THAT’S WHO WE ARE—WE THE BEST!
WE GON’ TEACH YOU HOW TO PLAY!
WE GON’ KICK SOME BUTT TODAY!
(Singing with foot-stomping) HAINES! That’s who we are!
HAINES! We take it far!
HAINES! We know we bad!
Beat up on you and leave you sad!
On the final word, the Jaguar cheerleaders, in one fluid motion, rolled their hips and popped them in the direction of the Beck side of the gym, patted their behinds once with a hand, and flicked the same hand toward their opponents in a gesture of dismissal. Virginia smiled. Ghetto girls. That’s what she was talking about. But then Virginia’s smile vanished and her heart pounded.
The Uniforms and the coaches had stopped and now surrounded her.
A bass guitar had joined Sarah Vaughan and the soft lone piano. Grace rested the cup
of tea on its saucer and smiled at the girl. “I am so proud of you,” she said earnestly. “Few players could have turned that game around the way you did last night.”
“Thanks. But everybody helped.”
“They did. They all came to life. But it was because you did.” Grace hesitated before admitting, “I could accept a loss if my team played well. But if we had gone down in flames, the way it looked before the half, that would have been unbearable. Especially to Haines.” She picked up the cup again, gazing thoughtfully, envisioning such a debacle, and made a soft sound in her throat.
On the other side of the table, Tracy squirmed as she struggled with a thought. “Why don’t you like Haines?” she finally asked.
Grace was surprised by the question and pondered a response. “I don’t dislike Haines,” she finally answered honestly. “Haines dislikes me.”
Virginia set her lips grimly and cut her eyes up at the Uniforms. Both stood before her, thick muscular legs spread apart slightly, hands on their holsters. “Hiya doin’?” one of them said. She simply stared at him. Inside, her heart thumped hard and she could feel her eyes getting moist, so she blinked furiously to keep back tears. No way was she going to let the mothafuckas make her cry. They would think she was crying out of fear, which wouldn’t be the case. No, she became tearful when she lost her temper. Virginia glanced quickly at the two women who stood on either side of the cops, the Haines coach, a sexy dark-skinned sister who peered at Virginia with a concerned, questioning, almost sympathetic expression, and Jazz Nelson’s bitch wife, pushing attitude and dressed in gray and, with her pretty face and nice bowed legs and fine-ass body, looking good enough to fuck. Virginia licked her lips, which had become suddenly dry. No, she wasn’t going to cry, not in front of the ladies, and have them think she was a punk. She stared at the Uniforms with an expression that clearly asked, What the fuck do you want?
“You Virginia Daggett?” one of them asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can you step outside with us, please?”
“For what?” she demanded.
“We just wanna ask you some questions.”
Virginia’s heart pounded furiously but she knew the procedure, she knew her rights. “What, you arresting me?” she challenged.
“No.”
“Then ask me right here,” she insisted.
“We don’t wanna ask you here. We’d rather do it outside.”
“Look, man, I ain’t going nowhere until I know what for!” Jinya was scared now—terrified. She was on parole and couldn’t afford any trouble. She also couldn’t imagine what the cops would want with her—she hadn’t done anything.
“All right,” agreed one of them. “We hear you gotta gun on you. We just want to make sure that’s not the case.”
Jinya screwed up the features of her face in incredulity. “What! A gun? Man, who the hell told you that?”
“Do you have a gun on you?”
“No!”
“It’s against the law to possess a weapon on school property.”
“Man, I know that, I ain’t crazy! Who told you I gotta gun?”
“Your friend over there.”
“Who? Berta? Man, she lying, I ain’t got no gun! I’m already on paper—I ain’t trying to go back!”
The Uniforms looked at her without expression.
“What, you wanna search me now?” she challenged angrily, standing and holding her arms at shoulder level.
The Uniforms secured their hands on their holsters. Jinya saw this and became even more incensed.
“Oh, what, you gonna shoot me now? I told you I ain’t carrying!”
“We can’t search you. But we can take you outside and pat you down.”
“Man, for what? I told you I ain’t carrying nothing! Berta!” she yelled harshly. “Bring yo ass over here! Lying on me and shit.”
The Uniforms and coaches turned to look at Roberta Martin, who stood across the floor near the Haines bench. She had been watching the group already and had expected to be called. Now, she approached timidly, her thick thighs rubbing together with each step, the number thirty-two on the front of her jersey straining outward from her fat breasts, a grave and hesitant expression on her pug-nosed face.
“You told them I’m carrying a piece?” Virginia demanded when Berta reached the group.
“Tell her what you told us,” a Uniform said.
Berta did not look Virginia in the eye as she spoke. “No. They came up to me, telling me what Tracy said I said.”
“That’s right. You told one of my players that this girl had a gun and threatened to get my player after the game,” reminded Jazz Nelson’s wife.
Berta looked anguished. “Yeah,” she confirmed.
“I ain’t say no shit like that!” declared Virginia angrily.
“Hey,” a Uniform reprimanded, “enough of that language, all right?”
“Why you tell them that, Berta?”
“’Cause, Jinya, you did say you was gon’ git Tracy,” Berta protested fearfully. “The other day.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t mean it, I was just playing. And I ain’t got no gun on me!” she told the cops. “I ain’t stupid!”
The Uniforms and coaches turned their accusatory looks to Berta. “Why’d you tell us that?” one of the Uniforms asked Berta.
Berta’s eyes were downcast and she mumbled as she spoke. “Tracy was sayin’ stuff to me on the floor, tryna mess with me, so I just said something back, tryna mess with her. That’s what we do. Say stuff to mess with each other head.”
“Well, first of all, you don’t lie to the police, you understand? We could arrest you for that.”
Berta looked penitent and nodded obediently. She glanced up at her angry friend and mumbled, “Jinya, I told ’em you ain’t have no gun, that I just said that, but they ain’t believe me.”
Virginia cut her eyes at Berta and said nothing. Hurt was too thick in her throat to let her speak.
“Well. Doesn’t seem to be anything but talk gone too far. But y’all need to be careful about what you say. You can’t go around making threats, especially in a setting where you’ve got juveniles, because we take threats like that dead serious. We have to, because we never know when somebody’s serious and when they’re not, and if somebody ends up getting hurt, we’re to blame for that. You understand?”
“Yes,” mumbled Berta meekly.
The Uniform who had spoken looked at Virginia for a response. She glared at him but said nothing.
“We’ll be watching you after the game, though,” he added.
The other Uniform looked at Miz Evans. “All right?”
The dark coach nodded. “Yes,” she said.
He looked at Jazz Nelson’s wife. “You okay with that, Miz Nelson?”
“No” came the reply.
Virginia looked with incredulity at the pretty bitch.
“I need to make sure my player feels safe, and I think that as long as she is here, Tracy will continue to feel threatened.”
“Threatened?” repeated Virginia. “The hell—?” she began, as if she couldn’t believe what she had heard.
The Uniforms hung their heads briefly, uncomfortable with the task of denying a request of Amazing Grace Gresham and Jazz Nelson’s wife. “Um,” one said, “we—can’t just make her leave, Mrs. Nelson…”
“Damn right!” interrupted Virginia. “I gotta right to be in here just like everybody else!”
“…unless we can prove she’s a danger, or that she’s threatened somebody—”
“She did threaten my player. They just admitted that Miss Daggett said she would get Tracy after the game. And I’m not so sure she doesn’t have a gun. She has a history of violence. She and this girl used to bully my player when they were younger. And she was just released from prison.”
The Uniforms, both at once, swung their heads and looked at Virginia Daggett. Virginia glared at the woman in gray, her face screaming with heat, her eyes blurring with tears. The pretty
woman returned the stare and did not flinch.
“What were you in for?” a Uniform asked.
Virginia hesitated, lowered her eyes, hot with anger. “’Sault,” she mumbled.
“What’d you get?”
“Ten years.”
The Uniforms frowned, confused. “Ten years? How many did you serve?”
“All of it.”
“How old are you?”
“Twen’ two,” Jinya mumbled.
The Uniforms, both at once, lifted their brows with sudden deep curiosity. “What’d you do?” one inquired.
Virginia hesitated, frowning, eyes still downcast, skin still hot, but this time the hot was from embarrassment. “’Saulted a teacher.”
“What—in elementary school?” one of the Uniforms asked.
“Yeh.”
“What’d you do?” one repeated in disbelief.
“Shot ’er,” Virginia mumbled.
The Uniforms, both at once, looked at Virginia Daggett as if they had just encountered a violent, unstable suspect.
One of the Uniforms stiffened with remembrance. “A teacher at Tyson?”
Virginia did not respond, so Haines coach Audrey Evans nodded reluctantly.
“I remember that,” the Uniform said. “So that was you, huh?”
Virginia tried to look unflinchingly at the officer. She blinked rapidly and said nothing.
“Now, see, that puts a different light on things. We need to step outside and make sure you ain’t strapped.”
Virginia’s face burned. It was never going to stop—the harassment, the accusations, the stares, the whispers behind her back. She knew what people said about her, what they thought, because of what she was, what she had done. Which is why she stayed high most of the time, to numb the pain of never fitting in, of never quite belonging anywhere, except where she had come from. There, she had found a place, had developed a life—a rep, respect, routine—that she was finding impossible to acquire on the outside. Next month would be half a year and still she had not found a corner of her own where she could be left alone, where she could be accepted and her past forgotten. Instead, she was still putting up with shit like this. Virginia frowned and cut a look at the cops.
“You ain’t got no right to put your hands on me, man.”
“As a matter of fact, we do,” the Uniform said. “You made a threat on school property. Safety of the students is our priority.”
Virginia’s vision blurred for an instant. “I said I ain’t carrying no mothafuckin’ gun!” she screamed in the Uniform’s face. Her action frightened the Uniforms. Swiftly, before Virginia realized what was happening, they had secured her arms with painful grips and wrenched them behind her back. She felt herself being pushed from behind and moved across the gym toward an exit door. Her face burned, her vision blurred, tears dripped down her cheeks. She thought the cops were going to lead her outside—she was aware, keenly aware, that although some noise level in the gym continued, everyone in the place was looking at her. She wanted to cry from shame, the way a child cries who is hurt, but she did not, could not. Rather, she scowled and let the men press her firmly against the cinderblock wall next to the exit door. No, they weren’t doing this shit inside the gym, in front of everybody! She felt them aggressively pull her arms above her head and kick at her instep, forcing her into a standing spread-eagle position. And then she felt them pressing and sliding their palms along the surfaces of her body—down the sides of her torso, on her breasts, along her hips, against her back, down the outside of her legs, along the inside of her calves, around her thighs. Against her pussy. And then the hands were gone.
“All right. She’s clean.”
She glared back at the voice.
“Guess you were telling the truth. But we’re gonna keep our eye on you for the rest of the night.”
Warm tears continued to trickle and Virginia’s face felt like an electric heater. Her chest rose and fell deeply and she knew—knew—that if she did not walk away at that moment she would go for the holster of one of them and blow somebody’s brains out. “Fuck you,” she muttered and whirled away, kicking the exit door open with a booted foot and then striking it violently with the heel of her palm as it swung back toward her. “Mothafuckas!” she screamed as she entered the lobby and headed outside, her head so hot her scalp was sweaty. Somebody, she promised herself, was gonna pay for this shit.
Grace got up from her chair. “I’ll get you a plate,” she offered. “You like omelets?”
“I never had it,” Tracy admitted with a sheepish grin.
Grace smiled. “You’ll like it.”
Tracy watched the woman at the stove for a long moment before realizing she was staring. The teen lowered her gaze, looked at the tabletop, and smiled. It was lovely being here.
Sarah sang about snowflakes on eyelashes. Grace placed the items of food on a plate and hummed along with the music. When the plate was full, Grace walked with it to the microwave oven and popped it inside. She punched in the cook time and turned, leaning against the counter and smiling at the girl.
“I’ve got a surprise for you today. After we pick up the sandwiches for my errand, I’m going to drop you off at my favorite spa. Would you like a makeover?”
The girl’s mouth dropped open in shocked pleasure. “For real? Yeah!” she answered. The teen suddenly shifted into feigned suspicion. “You tryna say I’m ugly, Miz Grace?” she demanded playfully.
The woman smiled. “Absolutely not. I think you’re beautiful. A makeover would simply highlight that fact.”
“Oh.” The girl blushed deeply. She couldn’t remember anyone ever calling her beautiful. “Thanks.”
“And since you said your aunt doesn’t celebrate Christmas, well, I thought this might be my non-Christmas gift to you. Nine days early.” The woman smiled and winked at the youth.
Tracy nodded eagerly. “Okay!” she said in compliance.
The microwave beeped its finish. Grace opened the oven door and removed the plate. “Your aunt won’t have a problem with you wearing makeup, will she?” She set the plate on the table in front of Tracy.
“Nah,” the girl answered. “She won’t mind. She like makeup. She sell it.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Mary Kay.”
Grace made a thoughtful sound in her throat and went to the fridge, where she removed a pitcher of orange juice and poured a glass. “I think I believed Witnesses didn’t wear makeup.”
“They do. My aunt don’t never go out the house without it.”
Grace brought the glass of juice and a fork and knife to the table.
“Thanks,” said Tracy.
“You’re welcome,” Grace said. She sat in her chair again.
Tracy picked up the fork to eat but hesitated, eyes shining with happy wonder. “I’m gonna get a perm?” she asked.
Grace chuckled. “If you want one.”
“Yeah!” the girl affirmed and then sighed happily, wondering what kind of style the makeover would give her. “My mama never wanted me to get one.”
Grace grew grave. “After I talk with your aunt tomorrow, you won’t have to worry anymore about what your mother wants.”
They looked at each other somberly, making a silent pact that united them against Diane Sullivan, and then they smiled, a current of affection passing between them.
“Eat your food, Sullivan. So we can make your appointment.”
The teen eagerly began devouring the toast and omelet as Sarah Vaughan continued to sing.