by Neta Jackson
“Yeah,” I said defensively. “But you forget we don’t have a family room or a basement rec room anymore. You and the kids would end up stuck in your bedrooms all evening. Or out in the yard with Willie Wonka.” It wasn’t the first time I’d let Denny know I missed our spacious house out in Downers Grove.
His comment stuck in my brain as I bundled up Avis and Peter’s friendship quilt in a garbage bag to keep it clean, grabbed my plastic container of chocolate-chip cookies, and made a beeline for the garage before Becky showed up to crank ice cream. It was awkward, taking off for Yada Yada and leaving Becky behind—though what could we do about it? Just because she was on parole didn’t mean the rest of us had to be on house arrest.
I fumbled for the minivan keys as a figure showed up in the door to the yard. I looked up, expecting to see Stu.
“Mom!” Josh’s six feet filled the doorway. “You’re going to Yada Yada, right? Can you give this note to Edesa? Uh”—he looked at my loaded arms—“where should I put it?”
I just stared at him, mouth open. A note for Edesa? Grinning, he stuck the envelope in my mouth and said, “Bite easy!” Then he squeezed out the door just as Stu showed up. “Hi, Stu. Bye, Stu.”
Stu looked after my son, then back to me as I stood between the cars, my arms full, Josh’s note in my teeth. “I’d better drive,” she smirked, opening the passenger door of her Celica and squeezing me, bulky garbage bag, and container of cookies into the front seat.
“What’s that?” Stu spun out of the alley and headed for Clark Street.
That’s what I’d like to know. I took Josh’s note out of my mouth and stuffed it into a pocket of my jeans as I patted the garbage bag. “Avis’s quilt.”
“What have you still got that for? Don’t you see Avis every day at school?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “But some of the Yada Yadas asked me to bring it to the next meeting and give it to her there. Most of the sisters didn’t get a chance to see the quilt squares the others made.” Understatement. The quilt had barely gotten stitched together in time for Avis’s wedding, where it showed up draped over the Jewish huppah. And the reception, where we were supposed to have time to gawk at the quilt, had fizzled out because of the free-for-all baptism at the lake.
“Oh. Good point.” She merged into the two-lane traffic on Clark Street, thick with pedestrians as well as cars enjoying the Memorial Day weekend. Handcarts and sidewalk vendors sold everything from corn dogs to enchiladas and burritos. “Humph,” Stu grumbled. “Would’ve been faster to take the side streets.”
Denny’s comment still niggled in my head. “Stu, should we invite Becky to come to Yada Yada?”
Stu swung her gaze from the traffic and looked at me. “How could we do that? She can’t leave the premises. I mean, sure, she can come when Yada Yada meets at your apartment or mine, but other than that—hey!” Stu slammed on her brakes just in time to miss hitting a pedestrian who insisted on crossing the street in the middle of the block, dodging cars. “Stupid jerk!”
I waited until the car started to move again. “Yeah, I know. We’d have to make adjustments, like meet at our house most of the time. Or”—I glanced at her sideways—“get permission from her parole officer to leave the house every other week. Couldn’t we do that?”
Stu was quiet for several moments, threading the car through holiday-happy youths, most of whom were yelling at each other in Spanish. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess we could try. But usually those requests have to come on letterhead from some organization. Last I checked, Yada Yada doesn’t have letterhead.”
I giggled. “Yeah. Even if we did, not sure what the state of Illinois would think of letterhead that said ‘The Yada Yada Prayer Group.’ ”
Stu laughed. But her smile quickly sobered, almost to glum level. “Gotta be honest with you, Jodi. I’m not all that excited about inviting Becky to Yada Yada. I mean, I live with her. She’s in my living room, my kitchen, and my bathroom whenever I come home. She’s coming to church at Uptown now. I’m not eager to have her in my face everywhere I go.” She grimaced. “That sounds really selfish. But there it is.”
I looked at Stu; her face was flushed. The calm, cool, and collected Stu I’d known for just over a year had let down her guard with me twice in one weekend. She was being honest with me. I felt . . . honored. My up-and-down relationship with Stu had definitely turned a corner.
But it put me in a bind. How did I respect her feelings—I certainly understood them!—and still deal with the growing certainty in my gut that Becky needed to be part of Yada Yada? We didn’t like her “old” friends, but how else would she make new ones? And Becky was a new Christian, like Yo-Yo. Brand-spanking new. Didn’t she need the kind of sister support and prayer and Scripture challenges the rest of us needed? That I needed, even though I’d been a “good girl Christian” most of my life?
Yada Yada had turned my life upside down. Maybe “rightside up” would be more accurate.
How could I keep that for myself and shut Becky out?
17
A loud buzzer released the door in the foyer, and we climbed the short flight to the first landing, where Adele stood in her open doorway. I handed her the cookies. “Sweet,” she said. “Go on in. I’m bringing drinks in a minute.” Our hostess shuffled off in a pair of worn slippers.
As usual, all the shades were pulled, and the front room was dim. MaDear sat in a corner by the front window, wedged into her wheelchair by a foam cushion shaped like a large highchair tray. She didn’t seem to notice us coming into the room, even though Florida, Hoshi, and Edesa showed up right on our heels, chattering like a high school reunion. Delores came in, too, though she looked a bit preoccupied. They must have met up at the el station and walked to Adele’s together.
I spread out Avis’s friendship quilt over a couple of chairs and moved out of the way as the others crowded around to “ooh” and “ahh.” “Adele! Do you mind if I open the shades? So we can see the quilt better!” That was my excuse, anyway. All those drawn shades on a bright, spring evening made me feel claustrophobic.
I thought I heard Adele grunt from somewhere in the direction of her tiny kitchen, so I squeezed behind a big overstuffed chair and pulled on the bottom of the shade. It rolled up with a loud snap. Adele’s window now framed a brick wall not five feet away with a facing window, shade pulled. Oh. Oh well. Still lets in some light. I sidled over to the front windows—three in a row—and raised the shades, gently this time. The late afternoon sun had already slid behind the buildings across the street, but the bright daylight seemed to startle MaDear. She looked around, bewildered. “Eh? Mornin’ already?” She squinted up at me. “Yo’ not Adele. Where Adele at?”
I leaned over and gave MaDear a kiss on her leathery, freckled cheek. “She’s coming. No, it’s not morning. Just a sunny evening.”
Adele brought in a tray with lemonade and the chocolate-chip cookies, eyeing the bald windows dubiously. I noticed she handed MaDear a sippy cup, like the ones I used to give my kids when they were little. I felt a pang. How humiliating to get so old one had to be treated like a toddler again! On the other hand, the sippy cup was brilliant. MaDear could drink on her own with no spills. “Good idea,” I said to Adele.
“Don’t know about that,” she grumbled. “I keep those shades down so people can’t look in here. This is a first-floor apartment, you know.”
It took me two seconds to realize Adele thought I was talking about putting the window shades up, not the cup. “Oh! I’m sorry, Adele. I can put them down again.”
She waved me off. “Leave ’em. We’ll pull ’em when we have to turn on the lights.”
The door buzzer interrupted, and she shuffled off to let in the next batch of Yada Yadas. Turned out to be Avis and Chanda. “Sorry to be late,” Avis said. She was dressed down—well, “down” for Avis—in slim jeans and a short-sleeve sweater top. “We’ve been circling the block for ten minutes looking for a parking space.”
“An�
�� when she find one,” Chanda pouted, “we have to walk t’ree blocks!”
“Now see?” Florida crowed, helping Adele pass out glasses of lemonade. “Bunch of us who came by el was the first ones here.” She simpered at Chanda. “You sure you wanna get that fancy new car? Bein’ poor has its ’vantages. No parking hassles.”
Chanda sniffed. “Maybe me get a chauffeur, too, drive me aroun’ like a movie star, drop me off at de front door.”
But her braggadocio was lost as Avis caught sight of the quilt and actually squealed. “It is a quilt! Mine, right? Mine?” Her eyes were wide as she reverently touched the tiny stitches and then gave us a sheepish smile. “I was beginning to think the quilt I’d seen draped over the huppah was a mirage.” For several minutes we all gathered around, pointing out all the different embroidered designs each one of us had done on the muslin quilt squares. Avis kept shaking her head in delight, tracing the names “Avis and Peter” on the center square. “How did you ever . . .”
“Delores’s idea.” Edesa dimpled. “She got us started way before you got that ring.”
Avis’s mouth dropped, even as her smile widened. “A bit rash, don’t you—”
The buzzer rang again, and Yo-Yo bopped into the room—alone. She guzzled a glass of lemonade as if she’d just crawled off the Sahara and then wiped her mouth. “Ruth ain’t comin’. Said she don’t feel too good. Mr. Ben drove me over anyway. Told me to get one o’ you Yada Yadas ta drive me home, though.”
“Nony will not be here as well,” Hoshi offered. “She and Mark flew to . . . to . . .” Her smooth forehead puckered into a frown. “To visit elderly grandmother.”
“Really?” half a dozen voices chorused. Obviously none of the rest of us knew that Nony and Mark had gone out of town. Out of state, to be more exact. Mark’s grandmother still lived in Georgia. Probably a good thing, I thought. Maybe the Sisulu-Smiths could put all this hate group stuff aside for a while and just enjoy the holiday weekend away.
On the other hand, I’d been counting on Nony to fill us in on when this “free speech” rally was supposed to take place. I didn’t really want to be the one to bring it up. But I knew we needed to be praying—big-time!
“—so guess we can get started,” Avis was saying. “Let’s worship the Lord for a few moments, focus our minds on Jesus, put aside other distractions—even those to-die-for chocolate-chip cookies.”
Yo-Yo had just bit into one of my cookies, and she stopped, mouth full, and looked around guiltily. Edesa Reyes giggled and gave her a hug. “Go ahead, pequeña hermana,” she stage-whispered. “I won’t tell.”
“What’d she call me?” Yo-Yo swallowed the bite of cookie.
Edesa just flashed a teasing grin, and I was suddenly mesmerized by the Honduran student’s effervescent beauty, spilling over like champagne bubbles when the cork is removed. Her wide smile and dancing eyes beckoned like a playful elf, but I couldn’t help noticing her skin, glowing like dark polished oak, surrounded by bouncing corkscrew curls and jangling earrings. No wonder Josh had a crush on Edesa.
I suddenly remembered the note. Should I give it to her now? Murmured prayers were already traveling around the group. “We love You, Lord” . . . “Thank You for the privilege of talking to You with my sisters” . . . “You are an awesome God! Jehovah-Jireh, my Provider! Thank ya!” . . .
I kept my head bowed, but for some reason I felt awash, like I’d just been cut loose from the dock and was being swept out to sea. My son, my firstborn, stood on the cusp of manhood, about to graduate from high school, but he continued to resist our expectations about attending college next year, and the “girl” he pined for was a woman. Someone I considered my friend, even if she was twenty years younger.
Even more unsettling, I’d left him sitting at home plowing through those awful books—books I didn’t even want to mention by name, not here. What would my Yada Yada sisters think of Josh—or our family—if they knew what he was doing? Even if it was for a good cause—or was it? Was a senior debate topic worth dabbling in the rhetoric of hate?
Oh God, I groaned silently. I feel so helpless.
Just then, I heard Delores speak into the prayers. “Gracias, Padre, for letting us come to You when we don’t know what else to do. When we don’t understand what’s happening to our families. When the world seems to be sweeping them away from us.” Her voice trembled a moment, then strengthened. “Gracias, gracias, that You hold onto us when it seems we can’t hold on any longer.”
Good grief. Had the woman read my thoughts? “Ditto, God,” I murmured. But I heard pain in Delores’s voice. What was going on with the Enriquez family? José hadn’t mentioned anything amiss when he showed up Friday night. I peeked through my eyelashes at Delores’s arm. No bandage. The dog bite must have healed. But what was going on?
Florida started singing a song I hadn’t heard before, but it was easy to pick up.
Hold to His hand . . . God’s unchanging hand . . .
Hold to His hand . . . God’s unchanging hand . . .
Build your hopes on things eternal
Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Florida filled in the verses—at least three—and by the time she sang, “If your earthly friends for-sa-ake you, still more closely to Him cling,” we all jumped in on the vamp: “Hold to His hand! God’s unchanging hand!”
As the last notes and claps died away, we all jumped as MaDear suddenly screeched from her corner: “Help me, Jesus! Help me!” And she started to wail.
“It’s all right,” Adele murmured, rising heavily and heading toward her mother. “Old songs like that bring up a lot of old stuff. She’ll be all right.”
We all sat in silence for several moments as Adele ministered comfort at the far end of the room. The words of the song—an old song, Adele said—still hung in the air. Then Yo-Yo heaved a big sigh. “Well. Gotta tell ya, Delores, your prayer said it for me. I don’t unnerstand teenagers anymore.”
Our laughter broke the tension. Yo-Yo wasn’t that far from being a teenager herself. But I knew raising her half brothers on her own wasn’t a laughing matter.
“Pete—that boy’s got me comin’ an’ goin’,” she went on. “Wasn’t so bad when he and Jerry were shorties. Thought I could be the mama they never had. But, man! I’m about ready to throw that wannabe ’hood rat out on his butt. Comin’ in late, stinkin’ like weed.” She cussed under her breath.
“Yeah,” Florida jumped in. “Throw the Hickman teenager into that pot. No sooner does Carl get a job and things be lookin’ up for us, than Chris start hangin’ out on the street. Lord, help me. He’s not listenin’ to either one of us. Wish Carl would knock some sense into him, make him toe the line. But Carl workin’ a lot of hours now—an’ I’m grateful for that, thank ya, Jesus. But he ain’t around that much, and when he is, all he does is yell at Chris. Fat lot of good that’s doin’.”
“Sisters.” Avis said it like a call to order. “We need to understand what’s going on here. God has been answering many of our prayers. Yo-Yo chose to be baptized, Carla has been returned to her family, Carl Hickman got a job. Didn’t we pray on our face before God for these things?”
“Yeah,” Stu added, “and we prayed that Mark and Nony would quit fighting over which continent to live on, and now Mark is taking his family to South Africa.”
“I prayed I could forgive Becky Wallace. And I did.” Hoshi’s voice was quiet but firm.
“An’ Becky gettin’ an early release. God sure messed with the system big-time in her case.” Yo-Yo laughed.
“You an’ Mr. Douglass gettin’ married,” Chanda giggled. “Now dat’s good.”
Avis smiled. “That too. All these and more are blessings from God, answers to our cries. But we need to keep alert, because Satan doesn’t like to see our prayers answered. He doesn’t want our trust in God to grow. The apostle Paul told the Ephesian church . . .” She paged through her Bible. “Here it is. Chapter six, verse twelve: ‘Our struggle is not against flesh an
d blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ ”
Was she talking to me? “Spiritual warfare,” Avis had called it when she left that message on our answering machine—after I’d told her about the books Josh had ordered.
But that was confidential! I hadn’t planned to tell anyone else.
“Guess you could say that’s what’s happening at my house too,” Stu said. My heart stuttered . . . then steadied. Stu didn’t know about the books. Not from me anyway. And she said at her house, not mine. “God did answer our prayer about Becky Wallace,” she went on. “Could say I even pushed God on that one.”
Both Florida and Yo-Yo snickered. “Could say that.”
Stu made a wry face. “But I have to admit it’s kind of tough right now. Becky’s going nuts being confined to the apartment and yard, and she’s driving me nuts. We no sooner get something worked out—like cleaning out the tub or hanging up wet towels—than something else happens. Now it’s her ‘old friends’ dropping by! When I’m not home, to boot.” Stu shook her head, her face gloomy beneath her blonde tresses. “Didn’t think about that being ‘spiritual warfare’—but I’m about ready to surrender and call it quits!”
18
For a moment no one spoke. What did Stu mean? What would happen to Becky if she actually called it quits? Adele raised her eyebrows. “Humph. Sounds to me like Becky Wallace needs a new posse. Needs a couple of hours in my shop, too, but that’s another story.”
Florida snickered. “You speakin’ the truth, girl—on both counts. I’m thinkin’ we left Stu in this soup all by her own bad self. Maybe some of us could drop by her place from time to time, give Becky a little company. Like we do for MaDear.” She jabbed a finger in my direction. “After all, the devil was workin’ overtime when B. W. came bustin’ into Jodi’s house last September. Then God worked overtime gettin’ that mess untangled. Maybe it’s time for the rest of us to put in a little overtime, before the devil turn ever’thing inside out again.”