by Neta Jackson
Nony’s eyes danced. “I had not thought of that. But I suppose it has the same root meaning—a time of rest, a time to set aside your work. For Mark, it means taking a year off without pay, but he can have his job back when he returns.”
“So de mon jus’ wan’ to loaf aroun’? Not work?” Chanda rolled her eyes. “Me had me fill of dem loafers sittin’ on dey behinds, eatin’ me food and sayin’ dey broke.”
I stifled a giggle. That would be DeShawn, otherwise known to the prayer group as “Dia’s daddy,” who suddenly showed up after Chanda won the lottery. Chanda finally got wise to him and gave him the boot . . . though I wondered how long that would last.
“No, no, nothing like that! Mark’s taking a sabbatical for me, so that we can go to South Africa for a year—together, as a family!”
Adele, sitting on one of Yo-Yo’s hard chairs with her arms folded across her ample bosom, tsked through her teeth. “Nony, if Mark is doing this for you, there may yet be hope for the male species.” Yo-Yo snickered. “Though my guess is,” Adele went on, “none of us wants to think about you being gone from Yada Yada for a whole year.”
Adele’s comment pulled a plug out of the dike. Suddenly everyone was talking at once: “Oh, Nony! We will miss you so much!” and “Are you really going to go?” mixed with “When will you come back?”
Ruth held up her hand like a traffic cop. “What is she—gone already? Let the lady tell us what the plans are.”
Nony flashed a grateful smile. “Mark has to finish this semester, of course. And we will have to find a renter for our house—so many things to do! So we haven’t set a date yet—maybe August? Oh! One thing I ask for your prayers. Mark has applied to teach at the new University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, a merger of several small universities that opens next January. He is quite excited about it; I am too.” Her voice softened, almost shyly. “Because then going to South Africa would not be just for me, but for him too.”
It didn’t take a math genius to realize that if the Sisulu-Smiths left for Africa this summer, but the school year did not start until January, Mark’s one-year sabbatical might be more like one and a half. I suddenly felt bereft. That was a long time—too long to be without Nony in my life. And what about Hoshi? Nony and Mark were practically family to her! Her only family . . .
“But we need to move on,” Nony said graciously. “There are many other prayer concerns, I know. Hoshi? Why don’t you begin?”
In her careful English, Hoshi Takahashi asked us to pray for what she should do this coming summer when classes ended in June. “I only have one more year at NU. Then”—she smiled, a bit sad—“even bigger question of what I should do.” She left unsaid the painful reality that she might not be welcome if she went home to Japan.
Ruth waived her turn, saying Ben was behaving himself, if she didn’t count him being crotchety, and everything else was fine. Delores didn’t mention anything about being bitten by the pit bull—just “Keep praying for Ricardo.” Her lip quivered slightly, and I wanted to launch myself across the room and wrap my arms around her. Oh God, how easily I take Delores’s strength and upbeat attitude for granted! But it’s been almost a year since Ricardo got laid off. She’s really hurting. I glanced at the bandage peeking out from her sleeve. And maybe scared.
Edesa Reyes—the young African-Honduran student who often babysat for the Enriquez family—gave the older woman a quick hug. “I went on rounds at the hospital with Delores recently, and realized many of those sick children might not be there if they had good nutrition, regular shots, and checkups. I have completed almost two years at Chicago Community College in social work, but . . .” She looked around shyly, her bouncing corkscrew curls held back from her warm, mahogany face with a colorful orange headband. “I’ve been thinking I could be more help to the Latino community if I switched to public health. Will you pray God will show me what to do?”
I put Hakim into the prayer hopper next. “And pray for me, because . . . I feel like I failed him. I wanted so badly to make it right after discovering he was, you know, Jamal Wilkins’s little brother.”
“Jodi.” The way Adele said my name felt like she’d just told me to sit up straight. “Don’t keep beating yourself up over that boy. You can’t fix everything—haven’t you learned that yet? Give him over to God, and concentrate on your job: praying for Hakim. You can do that.”
I wasn’t sure if Adele was chastising me or encouraging me—probably both—but I gave her a weak smile. “I know. You’re right.”
Nony gently nudged us to keep going so we could hear from everyone, and finally it was time to pray. Nony began simply, “El Shaddai, You are the All-Sufficient One, and Your sufficiency is all we need. You already know each of the needs we have shared here tonight, and we thank You—yes, thank You!—that Your plans are to prosper us and not to harm us, as Your Word says. But keep us alert, Father, for the Evil One schemes and plots to shake our trust in You . . .”
IT FELT GOOD TO TURN ALL OUR NEEDS, all our tangled feelings into prayers for one another. Before we left, we helped set Yo-Yo’s apartment back in order, called for Ben Garfield to bring the boys back and pick up Ruth, and made sure everyone had rides. Stu didn’t even blink when Florida announced that she’d been elected for taxi duty into the city.
As promised, I gave Nony and Hoshi a ride home. We dropped off Hoshi at her dorm, then drove another half-mile past the NU campus, turned onto a lovely tree-shaded side street, and pulled up in front of the Sisulu-Smiths’ neat brick home with ivy climbing all around the door and window shutters. Nony hesitated before getting out. “Don’t think Mark’s home yet. I . . . hope everything’s all right.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
She gave a half smile. “I’m sure it is. It’s just that . . . for some reason he seemed upset just before we left to pick up Hoshi. Somebody came to the door—getting signatures for something or other, he said—but after that, he seemed all uptight and snappy. We barely spoke on the way to Yo-Yo’s house; I’m sure Hoshi noticed.” She shrugged. “Oh well. Maybe he was cross about having to go to that department meeting tonight. It’s probably nothing.” She opened the door. “Better go rescue the babysitter. Marcus and Michael tend to pull a few tricks when Mom and Dad aren’t home.”
“Can I use your bathroom?” I asked, opening my door. “All that coffee I drank at Yo-Yo’s is suddenly yelling, ‘Emergency!’ ”
Nony laughed, and we walked up the brick walk together. As she fumbled with her house key, she suddenly peered into the ivy that clung to the brick masonry. “Look at that. Someone stuck trash in there. I hate that!”
She reached toward the ivy, but I danced urgently on my toes. “Uh, can you hurry with that key? I really gotta go.”
“Sorry. Forgot.” She unlocked the door, and I pushed it open, dashing toward their half bath, which was just off the front hall.
A few minutes later I came out, but the front door was still standing open and no Nony to be seen. Puzzled, I came back outside and found her sitting on their front stoop, her shoulders shaking with silent tears.
“Nony!” I sat down beside her. “What’s wrong?”
She turned to me, her eyes frightened, and handed me a crumpled pamphlet—the litter she’d pulled out of the ivy.
“Oh, Jodi,” she whispered. “I didn’t know . . . I didn’t realize . . . such hate existed here in my adopted country too.”
8
I took the pamphlet and stared at the bold-faced print: IF YOU LOVE AMERICA, WAKE UP! And then in slightly smaller type: “Don’t stand idly by while the worldwide Jewish conspiracy takes over our government, our universities, our financial institutions . . . while the purity of the White Race is polluted by the mud races . . . while our rights as White People for self-preservation and self-protection are being eroded, one law at a time. The time to fight back is now!”
The pamphlet was several pages long, presumably elaborating on these “points,” but I couldn’t stomach any more. �
�Who in the world?” I muttered, turning the pamphlet over. There, at the bottom of the last page, it said, “For further information, contact the Coalition for White Pride and Preservation (CWPP).” The phone number had a Chicago area code.
I snorted. “What garbage! Don’t give it another thought, Nony. This is the ranting of a few kooks.” But I had to admit it rattled me too. Mud races? Talk about inflammatory! And what was with this “worldwide Jewish conspiracy”?
Nony turned her head away from me and stared into the branches of the large, majestic elms lining the street, their outstretched limbs hidden by a profusion of newly minted green leaves. She was silent for several long moments, the only sounds a faint hum of traffic on Sheridan Road a couple of blocks away and a whisper of wind in the trees. Then she sighed. “It isn’t just kooks, Jodi. I’ve seen it before—intelligent white people, people in government and law enforcement and teaching in universities, sincere white Christians who go to church and are good mothers and fathers—saying the same things. Thinking the same things. Except it was, ‘If you love South Africa . . .’ ”
I squirmed, acutely aware that I fell into the “white people” category. Surely Nony didn’t think all white people, or even most white people, would agree with this kind of warped thinking—did she? I felt myself growing defensive. Just because Nony had grown up with apartheid didn’t mean—
A Voice in my head—or maybe it was my heart—said, This isn’t about you, Jodi. It’s about Nony. Put yourself in her shoes.
I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I had no idea what it meant to grow up under apartheid. In fact, to be honest, I didn’t know what it meant to grow up in the Jim Crow South, or even on the South Side of Chicago. I wanted to say, “But that’s over now! That’s in the past!”
Except . . . the pamphlet in my hand would make me a liar.
I reached out and took her hand. “Nony, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this is anything but the drivel of a few die-hard racists. We have civil rights laws now, and most people appreciate that we are a multicultural society. Don’t take it too seriously.”
She left her hand in mine but continued to stare somewhere beyond the trees. “Unfortunately, Jodi, white Americans are comfortable with a multicultural society—as long as they are still the majority. But that is changing. Tolerance wears thin when you think your own rights and privileges are at risk.”
She gave my hand a squeeze, took the pamphlet, and stood up. “Better let the babysitter go before I have to pay for another hour!” She grimaced. “Teenagers! They’re getting expensive.”
Relieved at changing the subject, I gave a short laugh. “Yeah. Their toys are expensive too—CD players, hundred-dollar gym shoes, picture cell phones. Sheesh!” Not that I’d ever bought my kids a pair of hundred-dollar shoes. The Baxter budget coughed up enough for a decent pair from Sears, and if my teenagers wanted a brand name, they had to waste their own money—though their attitude usually made me feel like Ebenezer Scrooge. “Yikes, I better go. Denny will wonder if I cleaned out the bank account and headed for the border.” I gave Nony a hug. “Talk to you later, OK?”
As I climbed into the minivan, Nony waved at me from the front door and then turned to go in . . . the pamphlet still in her hand.
I WANTED TO TELL DENNY about the stupid pamphlet Nony had found, but the kids beat me home from youth group, and Denny was helping Amanda study her Spanish II vocabulary. “Da-ad! You don’t pronounce it right—not like Edesa!” Amanda wailed as I passed through the dining room on my way to let Willie Wonka out for his final pee.
“I’m all you’ve got right now, toots. So come on. Give it to me: jefe, dueño, caudillo. All meaning . . . what?”
By the time Denny the dad finished butchering Amanda’s Spanish vocabulary, Denny the husband had that “bedroom look” in his eyes, and I knew he wouldn’t want me to throw cold water on his ardor with a depressing report about some Chicago-area hate group. So I let it go. After all, I told myself, that’s what I told Nony to do, wasn’t it?
“Shh!” I giggled as he locked our bedroom door in Willie Wonka’s face, then picked me up and dumped me on the bed. “The kids are still awake!”
Denny rolled his eyes as he shed his jeans and shirt. “Number one reason why we should’ve sent our kids to boarding school when they turned thirteen.”
On the other side of the door, the dog scratched and whined.
“Denny!” I hissed. “Let Wonka in. The kids know what we’re doing when we lock the dog out.” I was having a hard time keeping my giggles quiet.
“Arrgh!” he muttered, but he did let the dog in before shedding the rest of his clothes and slipping between the sheets beside me.
“A roll in the hay on Mother’s Day?” I teased as he pulled me close against his bare chest. I caught a whiff of Polo men’s cologne. “You’re not trying to make a mother out of me again, are you?”
“Jodi!” He sat up with a jerk and looked at me, alarmed. “That’s not funny! You’re not late or anything, are you?”
“No, silly.” I pulled him back down beside me and shut him up with a lingering kiss on the mouth, enjoying the scratchiness of his chin, the warmth of his breath. But I was surprised at his reaction to my little joke. A baby . . . would it be so bad?
You’re forty-three years old, Jodi Baxter! What are you thinking?
Denny was right. We were just a few years shy of being empty nesters, except for our nosy dog—if he lived that long.
Suddenly I felt incredibly sad and wasn’t sure why. Empty nesters . . . empty . . .
The kids had grown up with Willie Wonka; I couldn’t imagine the Baxter household without him—or without Josh and Amanda, for that matter, obnoxious as they could be sometimes. At least I’d always have Denny—wouldn’t I? We’d celebrated our twentieth anniversary last fall; things were good . . .
For some reason, I saw Nony in my mind’s eye, sitting on her steps, her happiness at Mark’s sabbatical punctured by that dreadful pamphlet.
I TRIED TO GET TO SCHOOL EARLY, I really did, hoping to yell, “Surprise!” with the other staff when Avis opened the door to her office. But she must’ve come in an hour earlier, because there she was when the rest of us arrived, already sitting at her desk beneath the canopy of yellow and green crepe paper draped from the ceiling, opening mail, reading reports. The amazing pile of wedding gifts had been neatly stacked on the floor to give her working room.
Ms. Ivy rolled her eyes at me, and I could read disappointment on her face. Several other teachers clustered in the hall, realizing their principal was already there, unsure what to do with the “celebration” plans.
I think I forgot it was a school day and I was a third-grade teacher and Avis was the school administrator. Because I marched into the office and said, “Oh, no, you don’t, Avis Johnson Douglass,” grabbed her by the hand, and hauled her out into the main office, pulling her office door shut behind me. “OK, we’re going to run this like we planned it—right, Ms. Ivy? Places, everybody!”
I dragged Avis, who by this time was starting to laugh—Oh, thank You, Jesus!—out into the hallway and out the double doors of the school. “Avis!” I squealed and gave her a big hug. “It’s so good to see you!” Then we turned around, and I marched her back in again. The main office was dark; the door was closed. “Go on,” I hissed. Avis rolled her eyes, but she obediently opened the main office door and flipped on the light.
Nothing.
Shaking her head, Avis headed for her inner office, opened the door—
“Surprise!” All the office staff and a healthy contingent of teachers had scrunched themselves into her office and launched into, “For she’s a jolly good fellow . . .”
By now, Avis was laughing for real and accepted a round of hugs and congratulations. “Thank you, everybody. It’s wonderful. I was surprised when I got here this morning, but, you know . . .”
“We know. You’re shy.” My comment got a few snickers from the staff. As Bethune Elementary’s princ
ipal, Avis Johnson-now-Douglass was anything but shy. More like Condoleezza Rice, the president’s no-nonsense chief of staff.
Avis clapped her hands together twice. “All right. Ten minutes until the bell rings. We all have work to do, right? But tell you what: I’ll call Peter and see if he can come by after school, and we’ll open these gifts and you can all see what a lucky—no, what a blessed woman I am.”
“Order some pizzas, and it’s a deal!” cracked Tom Davis, one of the few male teachers at Bethune Elementary.
“You got it! Pizzas! Now . . . everybody out of my office!” Avis smiled widely and firmly shut her door.
I GOT HOME A BIT LATER THAN USUAL because of the off-the-cuff pizza-catered wedding shower after school. Peter Douglass charmed all the staff, then he charmed me by giving me a ride home along with a box of leftover Gino’s pizza, which I planned to warm up and serve my family for supper.
I even gave in and let Denny and the kids fill their plates with pizza and hot garlic bread and take it into the living room to watch the news. Make that Denny, Josh, and me. Amanda opted to munch in the kitchen with the phone to her ear.
The news wasn’t pretty. Iraqi insurgents chose to ignore the U.S. declaration that the Iraq war was over and were creating havoc. “In other world news . . .” Videocameras zeroed in on a devastated government building in Chechnya, Russia, while a voice-over intoned: “—at least fifty dead and climbing. The truck bombing today offers grim evidence that the separatist struggle has entered a new phase, with Chechen fighters increasingly resorting to suicide missions . . .”
“The world’s going crazy,” I muttered, remembering why I didn’t like eating supper in front of the TV. In front of the evening news, anyway. Hard on the appetite.
“In local news,” the news anchor intoned, “Northwestern University officials are disturbed by—”
I stood up. “Anybody want more pizza? Garlic bread?”