“But that’s them showing you the way to be who you want to be.”
I looked at Margaret, all of a sudden wanting to cry. Her hair was pulled back away from her face and braided down the back of her neck the way it usually was and her skin was the same dark brown it had always been. She was right there in front of me—not even half a foot away. But even as we sat there talking, something was already moving in between us. We were slipping away from each other. It was like we had begun to speak different languages.
“You know how you hear a song, Margaret,” I said, “and it could be about the dumbest thing, but when you hear it, something clicks inside of you and all of a sudden you want to cry?”
Margaret nodded.
“That’s what this moment feels like to me.”
“I’m feeling kind of choky, too, Maizon. But I don’t really know why. I’m going to write you all the time.”
“And I’m going to write you back. All the time. Maybe two letters a day.”
Margaret shook her head. “You won’t have time to do all that writing. You better think about doing a little studying, girl. Blue Hill is going to teach circles around your head.”
“Shoot,” I said, waving my hand. “That dumb school isn’t even ready for me.”
Margaret looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. But she didn’t say anything.
3
Eeny Meeny Miney Mo. Let’s catch Li‘l Jay by his toe. If he hollers, don’t let him go. Eeny Meeny Miney Mo,“ Ms. Dell sang, pulling on Li’l Jay’s toes. He squealed, wiggling his feet away from her. Margaret’s brother, Li‘l Jay, would be sixteen months soon and he could walk almost anywhere.
We were sitting on Margaret’s stoop, because it was too hot to stay upstairs. Ms. Dell and Hattie had joined us, folding out lawn chairs at the top of the stoop. They lived right downstairs from Margaret and loved our company. At least, that’s what I heard Ms. Dell telling Grandma a while back. Margaret and I sat at their feet, on the top step. The stoop was hard and warm underneath me. A lawn chair of my own would have been nice.
“You got any more soda?” I asked Margaret, tipping her glass to my mouth. It was as empty as my own.
The block was noisy as usual with kids running up and down, darting between cars and hiding behind rows of garbage cans. Margaret and I were too cool to be bothered with silly neighborhood kids. But as I watched them round everybody up for a game of kick the can, I thought maybe I should join them, just one last time, since my days on Madison Street were numbered.
“Sing, Maizon,” Margaret said, yanking my arm. “You have a good voice.” Then she turned back toward Ms. Dell and Hattie, and started it up again. “Let’s go. Hey let’s go ... Hey let’s go ... Eeny Meeny Miney Mo. Catch that baby by his toes ...” Margaret sang at the top of her lungs.
“That’s a dumb song,” I said.
Ms. Dell cut her blue eyes at me. In the near-darkness, they looked even stranger against her dark skin. “Humph,” she said. Then she gave Li‘l Jay a shake and stood him on her lap. “Look at this baby’s pretty little legs,” she cooed.
“I’ve seen better legs on a table,” I said.
Ms. Dell looked over at me again, then over at her daughter, Hattie, who was working the hem of a dress as she sang. Hattie would be twenty in December and Ms. Dell had told Grandma that Hattie couldn’t move out of her teenage years fast enough. I knew what she meant. Hattie was downright evil sometimes. And besides that, she didn’t like me much.
“Up with it, already, Maizon,” Hattie said, moving the dress across her lap and picking up the stitch again. The skirt was white, that kind of stretchy material Grandma didn’t allow me to wear because she said I was too young to be trying to show off curves I didn’t even have yet. The minute I got a curve, I was going to use my money to buy a dress like Hattie’s. “What’s nipping your nerves and making you so evil tonight?”
“She’s got the Blue Hill blues,” Margaret said.
Sometimes I wondered if somebody had passed Hattie over in the brain department. “And I sure don’t feel like hearing anybody’s bad singing tonight,” I said.
Ms. Dell reared back in her chair like she had seen something scary. “You are evil.”
“I wish,” I said, holding up a finger. “I wish there was just one person on this crowded stoop who could understand what’s going on inside my head. Just one. I’m not asking for a hundred people, I not even asking for fifty or ten. Just one person.”
“I understand, Maizon,” Margaret said. “I’m your best friend. So of course I understand.”
“And Maizon,” Ms. Dell said, “you know I understand.”
“That’s different, Ms. Dell. You have special powers.” Ms. Dell had been born with the gift of clairvoyance. She could look right into a person’s head and know everything that was going on there. Some people were scared of her. Not me and Margaret though. There wasn’t much we wouldn’t give to have her powers. I folded my arms across my chest and glared out into the street. The streetlights flickered on, casting a yellow glow out over the block. “Eavesdropping right inside a person’s brain doesn’t count.”
“Well, don’t expect me to understand you, Maizon,” Hattie declared.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t.”
If anyone had asked, I’m sure neither of us could have said what it was we didn’t like about the other. Ms. Dell said we were too much alike. She had a hard time understanding how we could like ourselves, let alone each other. “You’re both so hateful at times,” she said. Hattie once said I thought I was cute and I’d said back, “I think, therefore I am,” which she thought was a smart aleck remark. For a teenager she didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Too bad she was pretty. It’s kind of a waste.
“Don’t you two get started,” Ms. Dell warned, shifting Li‘l Jay on her lap. “Now, Maizon, I know you’re all full of confusions about this school. But don’t worry your pretty head over anything. I’ll be with you.”
“That’s what everybody says, Ms. Dell. ‘I’ll be with you.’ ‘I’ll be with you.’ But when I get up to that school, it’s going to be me. Maizon Singh. A-L-O-N-E.”
“Never,” Ms. Dell said softly.
“What?” I thought I hadn’t heard her right.
Ms. Dell’s brows moved in toward each other, sending the lines above them deeper into her forehead. “I said ‘never.’ If you live to be a hundred and seventy-five, Maizon Singh, and you, too, Margaret, and even you, Li‘l Jay, you’ll never be alone. You understand that?”
Margaret and I shook our heads quickly. I didn’t believe it or understand it but I wasn’t about to dispute Ms. Dell’s word. Even Li‘l Jay moved his head up and down when he saw us doing it.
Ms. Dell leaned back in her chair. “That’s all I have to say.”
“Eeny Meeny Miney Mo ...” Hattie began. “Let’s catch Maizon by her toe. If she hollers, don’t let her go. Eeny Meeny Miney Mo ...”
I felt a warm drop and looked up at the sky. There was no moon in sight. In a second, I felt another drop.
“See, Hattie,” I said. “Your bad singing is making it rain.”
4
The M train moved slowly over the Williamsburg Bridge. Below us, the East River rippled and danced blue-gray like it was putting on a show for someone. Margaret had given me the window seat, since this would be my last ride on the M train for a long time. Across from us, Margaret’s mother, Mrs. Tory, sat beside Grandma. Grandma was going to ride with me out of New York City. Then she would take a train back from Stamford. Blue Hill was a long way away. I drummed my fingers against the windowpane. My stomach felt like someone had tied it into a hundred knots and the knots were growing and growing.
At Penn Station the conductor called my train twice before I turned to Margaret. “I guess I gotta go,” I said softly. “I’ll write you back, Margaret. Promise. Thanks for letting me keep the double-dutch trophy, even if it is only second place.” We hugged for a long time.
�
�I’m scared, Margaret,” I whispered.
“Don’t be,” Margaret said.
Mrs. Tory bent down and hugged me. “Be good,” she called as Grandma and I made our way toward the train. I couldn’t look back. I couldn’t stand to see them growing smaller and smaller and farther away from me. When I finally looked back, Margaret and Mrs. Tory were out of sight. I wanted to call to Margaret and tell her this was our first trip to Manhattan, the trip we had planned since we were little. I wanted her to reappear all of a sudden and yell, “Maizon, we did it! We finally got to the other side of the bridge!”
I must have slowed down some, because the next thing I knew, Grandma was taking my hand and leading me onto the train. My vision was blurred. A hundred thoughts were running through my head all at once. What if Mr. Parsons had lied? What if there were no other black girls there after all? What if I never saw Margaret again? Or Madison Street?
Grandma settled into the seat beside me, just as the train began to roll forward.
“This will be a nice ride for you, Maizon. You can watch yourself leaving the city behind.”
I leaned on my hand and stared out the window. Tall gray buildings moved slowly past us. I had never thought about this particular ride. It was strange. People were always moving around, figuring ways of getting from one place to another. Every day they piled into Grand Central Station, then piled out again. Every day they got onto planes and climbed aboard buses and left somebody behind somewhere. Even while I was sitting there, somebody was kissing the person they loved good-bye somewhere and making all kinds of promises to write or call. I had two letters from Margaret stuffed in my knapsack with the double-dutch trophy we had won this summer. I had portions of our friendship with me—stuff that Margaret trusted me with. Maybe this was enough for now.
The gray buildings blurred into patches of green. It was cloudy outside and hot.
Grandma pulled me to her and I buried my head in her shoulder. “You’ll be a different person from all of this, Maizon,” she said, as though she were reading my mind. “I love you now. I’ll love you later. Remember that.”
I nodded.
“We’re all going to miss you. Madison Street won’t be the same, you know.”
I nodded again and Grandma took my chin in her hands and pulled my face toward her. Tiny wrinkles crept away from the sides of her eyes when she smiled. “I’m so proud of you. If your mother were alive, she’d be proud too.”
“You think my father would be proud, Grandma?” My father had left me with Grandma when I was a baby. I knew it was because he was sad that Mama had died giving birth to me. Maybe he figured I would be too much trouble to raise. Grandma said I was no trouble at all.
“Your father would be proud. Very proud.”
“I wish I knew where he went, Grandma. I wish I could just see him and say, ‘Hi, Dad. Look how great I turned out to be. Okay. You can go away now.”’
Grandma laughed. My mother was her only daughter. Sometimes she hated my father for leaving, but she tried not to show it in front of me.
“I’m glad you kept me, Grandma. Thank you.”
Grandma clucked her tongue. “We’re two peas in a pod, Maizon. You just remember that. It was fate that brought us to each other—”
“But love that will keep us together,” I finished.
Later, when the conductor announced Stamford, Grandma moved slowly to her feet.
“Hold on, Grandma. Wait till the train stops.”
“I have to get a head start, Maizon. When you get to be my age, no one waits for you anymore.”
“They better wait,” I said, walking with Grandma to the front of the car. “You’re my grandmother. So they better good and wait.”
Grandma laughed, turning to me at the door. “Here,” she said, pressing bills into my hand. “For anything you might need.”
“Like what? They feed you there and everything.”
“Something unexpected might come up, Maizon. You have to be ready.”
I nodded and Grandma leaned in to kiss me on the forehead. I knew what she meant, because we had a talk before I left. Grandma thought I might get my period at Blue Hill. I wasn’t in any hurry to get it and neither was Margaret. If we didn’t get it until we were sixteen, it wouldn’t be a day too soon. I put the money in my pocket anyway.
“I’ll miss you, Maizon,” Grandma said. I hugged her until the doors opened. Even then, I didn’t want to let her go.
“Good-bye, Grandma.” I stood at the door and waved until the train started moving again. Then I kept waving until Grandma was out of sight. “I’ll miss you so much.”
Before sitting down again, I reached into my pocket. Two twenties and a ten.
5
When the train pulled into the Canton station, it gave a loud sigh before jerking to a stop. Around me, people were hustling their bags from the overhead stand and moving slowly toward the door. I couldn’t move. The clouds had faded away somewhere between New York and here and now the sun shone through honey-gold in the sky. I had never seen anything so beautiful.
A long time ago, Grandma told me the story of her first time in New York. She was twenty-five and had taken a bus from Colorado. It had taken seven days, with the bus stopping in different small towns throughout the night and people getting on and off around her. Grandma said she was the only one traveling by herself on the whole bus and that she felt the loneliness all through the days, driving through half-dead-looking towns and stopping at bus stops in places that looked like all there was to them was a bus stop. Then Grandma leaned back on the sofa and pressed her hands together, and told me that she had to wait until the nighttime to cry because she didn’t want people to know what kind of loneliness she was feeling. She said a bubble sat between her mouth and throat all day, and only when the moon was full up in the sky did she let it burst into tears.
“Canton. Last stop!” the conductor called. Outside, people moved quickly beneath my window. Far beyond them, green mountains loomed up out of the distance.
“Let me take that,” the conductor said, taking my suitcase in one hand and using the other to help me down the two small stairs of the train. I stepped onto the platform and nodded. “Thanks.”
“Pleasure,” he said, winking at me and moving on to the next person.
“Maizon Singh?” A woman called, moving quickly toward me. Even though she was as big as Ms. Dell, she moved like a small person, taking smooth quick steps toward me, holding her hat with one hand and a purse with the other. She looked familiar and after a moment I realized she was in many of the pictures Grandma and I had pored over in the few months before.
“Ms. Bender?” I asked.
“Two hundred girls and you’re my only load-up, Miss Maizon Singh,” she said as I followed her over to the green station wagon she had parked beside the ticket window. “I guess you know I’m your dorm mom.”
I nodded, shoving my suitcase into the backseat before climbing in beside her. The car smelled of peppermint and vinyl.
Ms. Bender looked over at me and smiled. “Hear tell, you know a whole lot, Maizon. Hook up.”
I fastened my seat belt and stole another look at Ms. Bender as she pulled away from the ticket window. She drove slowly and carefully, the way Grandma used to drive before her legs starting getting sore. She had the most beautiful hair I had ever seen. It was long and black with streaks of gray and white running through it. Her skin was so pale, it looked like someone could just reach right through it; and her eyes were green, it seemed, then at another moment they looked gray or blue. I had never seen eyes change so.
“Dorm mothers live in your dorm,” I said. “And kind of keep watch.”
Ms. Bender nodded, checked her rearview mirror, then stared straight ahead again. We moved slowly past huge Victorian houses set back from bright green lawns. I pressed my palm against the half-closed window and let the warm air blow into my eyes.
“What kind of trees are those?” I pointed to a tree covered with pink,
white, and lavender blossoms. “They’re so beautiful.”
“Mountain laurel, Maizon. And that sweet Connecticut air you’re smelling is pine and beech and birch and elm. Come mid-October, the sky’s going to catch on fire. All gold and red and burgundy.”
I inhaled. I had never smelled anything so wonderful. “Makes me think of fall just beginning to happen.”
“Sure does. That last warm day coming at you when all you want to do is be outside in it.”
After a moment, Ms. Bender patted my leg. “Don’t look so doomed, Maizon. You’ll make friends here.”
I turned to her. “What are the girls like?”
She laughed softly, revealing small, even teeth with a gap between the two front ones. “A Blue Hill girl. That’s like asking what Americans are like or what New Yorkers are like. There is every kind of girl here. Big ones, small ones, nice ones, and downright mean ones ...”
“Are they all rich girls?”
Ms. Bender was silent for a moment. “I really couldn’t tell you. Something seems to happen to a girl when she becomes a Chameleon—that’s our mascot and insignia. I guess it’s the same as what happens with the reptile—the girls change over into someone they weren’t when they came here. I guess it’s a little bad to say this, especially to a new arrival”—she looked over at me and smiled—“but I’m going to say it anyway. I think most of the girls are well off financially, being that the scholarship program is so new. But after a while, they seem to blend into something that’s no longer about how much money they have or anything like that. No. It seems to me, it takes something more to become a Chameleon. And I’m not so sure what that something is.”
I nodded, not understanding what Ms. Bender was getting at.
6
When Ms. Bender pulled up in front of my dorm, Edwina Chapman Hall, I had to sit in the car a moment, not sure what my next move would be. The two-story redbrick building had long, straight rows of windows with black sills and flower boxes. Some of the boxes had zinnias and geraniums growing out of them. Others were empty. Trees lined the side of the building and a redbrick path led right up to a huge black door. I looked up. There were groups of girls pressed against various windows. When I looked in their direction, some waved, some ducked behind their curtains.
Maizon at Blue Hill Page 2