by Neta Jackson
“Puh! What’s to say? I talk too much about this baby, people start to argue with me. ‘You? Pregnant? A bad joke. Must be cancer. Oy gevalt, at your age. Poor Ben.’ ” She snorted. “Better to keep my mouth shut.”
A car horn outside pumped three long brassy notes. “Yo-Yo! ” Ruth yelled out my front door. “Tell Ben to keep his shirt on! I’m coming, I’m coming!” Then she patted me on the arm. “Thanks for asking, Jodi.You, I don’t mind. And . . . we need prayer.” She bit her lip. “A lot of prayer.”
We hugged a long moment, and then she was gone.
Chanda was the last to leave. “Sista Jodee! Can you give me a ride home? ”
“Ack! Chanda, Denny has our car.” I yanked open the screen door. “Maybe the Garfields haven’t left yet.” But the taillights of the big Buick were already winking away. I stifled an expletive or two. Why didn’t Chanda grab a ride with Adele or Avis when she had a chance?
I faced Chanda. “Sorry, Chanda. No car. Denny took Amanda to a movie.”
“When dey be back? ” Chanda flopped down on our couch. “Mi can wait.”
It was all I could do to keep my mouth from dropping open. The nerve of this woman! I wanted to clean up after Yada Yada, then relax and read a book or something. Not babysit Chanda George. Then I had a revelation. Stu! Stu lived upstairs. Stu had a car. I’d just run up and ask if she could—
“Wanting to talk ’bout someting, anyway.” Chanda dug around in her oversize bag. “Mi hoping you and dat mon of yours know someting about dese time-share vacations.” She pulled out a wad of glossy pamphlets and a business-looking folder.
I parked my Stu idea and sank down on the couch beside Chanda. You’re a selfish brat, you know that, Jodi Baxter? Money or no money, Chanda is a single mom and probably very lonely. How much time do you actually spend with her, anyway? I took one of the folders. Hawaii beckoned.
“Now dat—” Chanda’s eyes shone. “Dat’s mi free vacation to Hawaii! Hawaii, Sista Jodee! Airfare, t’ree nights, two meals a day—all free! What you tink about dat ? ”
That I didn’t believe it for a minute. “What’s the catch? ”
She looked confused. “Catch? ”
“That’s it? You won a free vacation? Or is there something else? You said something about time-share.”
“Yes, yes, dat vacation be mine. Easy as squish big mosquito. Just go to dis reception an’ listen to all dey facts about ‘time-share’ vacations, den pick up mi free tickets. No obligation, dey say. First time free!”
Reception. Slow death by sales torture was more like it.
The back screen door slammed. A moment later Amanda poked her head into the living room. “Hi,Mom.Hi,Ms. George.” Then she ducked back out again.
“Hey, babe! We’re home!” Denny’s voice from the kitchen. Waylaid by the refrigerator, no doubt.
I smiled at Chanda. “Car’s back. I can take you home now.”
“No, wait.” She laid a hand on my arm. “What mi wanting to ask, Sista Jodee . . . dis reception be coming up dis week. Dat’s when mi get dem tickets to Hawaii.But . . .” She looked sheepish beneath her crown of stylish corkscrew curls. “Dey talk so fast, Jodee. Mi cannot understand all dey say. So mi asking, could you come with me? So mi don’t miss anyting.”
7
I punched my pillow and flopped over.Too hot to sleep, even with the window fan on high. Were we the last people on the planet without air-conditioning? Had to be at least eighty-five degrees and 100 percent humidity—at midnight! I glanced resentfully at Denny, bare-chested, mouth open in sleep. Would it break the bank to get a small air conditioner for our bedroom window? Huh? What would it be—a hundred bucks?
Fear licked at my sweat. Now wasn’t the time to buy an air conditioner. Not if I was about to lose my job. “Oh, God,” I moaned and flopped again.My oversize Bulls T-shirt, damp and wrinkled, wadded up around my middle.
“Uhhnnn, Jodi,” Denny mumbled beside me. “Quit rocking the boat.”
That did it. I slid out of bed, padded into the living room, where the fan in the bay window was going full blast, and pulled the recliner around until it lined up with the mechanical breeze. Maybe I could fall asleep out here. As I sprawled in the recliner, Willie Wonka’s nails clicked on the wood floor; then his cold nose touched my hand.
I scratched the top of the dog’s noggin. “Sorry I got you up, Wonka.” For some reason, the dog’s gentle affection made my eyes puddle. OK, God. I know it’s not just the heat. I’m scared. I don’t want to lose my job! I like teaching! Didn’t I? OK, so there were some months I threatened to quit every other day. No-show parents at parent-teacher conferences. Kids who spoke English as their second language and could barely read. A too-crowded classroom, where half the kids might qualify as ADHD. But overall, teaching at Bethune Elementary had been God’s gift to me.Nonreaders becoming readers, late bloomers blooming, aha moments of learning. A few special children, like Hakim Porter,who had worked his way into my heart, only to have to let him go. And Avis Johnson-Douglass, the best principal a teacher could ask for.Not only a great boss, not only the worship leader at my church, not only the person who’d invited me to that Chicago Women’s Conference a year ago where we met all the other Yada Yada sisters—but also one of my best friends.
Or so I thought.
“Avis!” Fear and frustration welled up in me, along with new tears. “You can’t do this to me!” I meant to be yelling in my head. Good grief. Did I yell out loud? I sat up, held my breath, and listened, but all was quiet at the back of the house. Relieved, I sank back into the recliner.
Good grief is right, Jodi, said the Voice in my spirit. Are you back in prayer kindergarten? Whatever happened to ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything—with thanksgiving!—present your requests to God. And the peace of God will guard your heart and your mind’? You don’t even know anything for sure, but you’re already hightailing down the road of anxiety.
Using my rumpled T-shirt, I wiped the tears off my face. It was true. I was working myself into a state and I didn’t even have the facts. And—I swallowed—even if I did lose my job, had God brought me this far to leave me now? Somewhere in the back of my brain, I could hear the words of that processional, the one the choir at Adele’s and Chanda’s church had sung the Sunday Yada Yada visited.
We’ve come this far by faith
Leaning on the Lord!
Trusting in His Holy Word
He’s never failed me yet . . . I’m singing
Oh, o-o-o-oh, o-o-o-oh! Can’t turn around
We’ve come this far by faith . . .
GOD’S PEACE MUST HAVE PUT ME TO SLEEP because I was still in the recliner when I woke up the next morning, mere minutes before the alarm went off in our bedroom. And I did feel peaceful for most of the day after the Baxter men left for their summer jobs. After walking Willie Wonka, I put on some gospel music to help me tackle the pile of mending that filled an entire laundry basket; had to turn it off to take a phone message for Denny from West Rogers High. Even delivered iced tea to Becky Wallace, who was down on her knees in the backyard weeding the flower garden.
“We shoulda planted some tomatoes in that real sunny spot.” She rocked back on her heels, wiping the sweat off her face with her arm as she took the glass of iced tea. “Maybe next spring.”
Would Becky still be here next spring? Surely—
She squinted up at me. “Hey. I got some good news.”
“What? ” I sank down onto the grass. That’s what I needed. Some good news.
“Know how I been tryin’ to find some kinda job I can do at home till I get this monitor off my ankle? Telemarketing or stuffin’ envelopes—somethin’ like that.”
I nodded. The classifieds section usually disappeared before we even picked up the newspaper from the front porch each morning. But not many work-at-home ads panned out. Some wanted money up front for the “kit” which was “guaranteed” to double or triple your investment in the first month.Others did bac
kground checks, and that was the last she heard from them.
“Anyway, talked to my parole officer, an’ he says I can get a regular job—you know, workin’ somewhere away from home. I been on house arrest almost three months with a clean record” —Yeah, I thought, except for the time Stu caught you high on weed that one night— “so all I gotta do is tell him my work schedule, figure in travel time to an’ from, an’ be here when I’m s’posed to.” She shrugged.
“That’s great, Becky! Really!” I could only imagine how stircrazy she must be, stuck here at the Baxter/Stuart premises on Lunt Avenue. “But, how are you supposed to go out looking for a job? I mean, that usually takes a lot of running around.”
“I dunno. Guess I gotta talk to the PO ’bout that part.” She squinted at me again. “You got any ideas for jobs? ”
Jobs? Huh. If I did, I ought to be checking them out myself. Almost blurted that I might be joining the ranks of the unemployed, too, but I swallowed the thought. No, no, I wasn’t going to go there. “Definitely will keep my eyes and ears open, Becky.” I took her empty glass, then hesitated. “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything with thanksgiving present your requests to God . . .”
“Say, Beck. You wanna pray about it? Like now? ”
PRAYING WITH BECKY ABOUT A JOB made me feel hopeful about mine. Maybe I was ready to graduate from prayer kindergarten and move into first grade. Just had to remember to keep giving stuff to God instead of worrying it to death, like Wonka with his nasty old rawhide bone. And it was working. Peace followed me around most of the day—that is, until Chanda called me late that afternoon to ask could I pick her up at six fifteen? The reception started at seven.
“I can’t believe I agreed to take Chanda George to one of those time-share promotions!” I fussed to Denny, who got home at five o’clock and was getting ready to go for a run along the lake.
He snickered, pausing to sort through the day’s mail. “I think it’s hilarious. Seems like I remember you telling me you’d pack your bags and go home to Mother if I ever dragged you to one of those things again.”
I swatted him with a potholder. “Yeah, that’s because you saw it as a cheap date. Not to mention that you got thrown out by those two bouncers because you threatened to enlighten ‘the other suckers’—the phrase you used, I believe—about the so-called free gifts we’d been offered. I was mortified.”
“Hey. Just doing my civic duty. That car phone they promised for showing up was free all right. Just didn’t work unless you bought the installation package for thirty bucks.”
“I know, I know.” I groaned. “But I’m not good at this sort of thing. Maybe you should go with Chanda, keep her from making a big mistake.”
“Aw. It’ll be all right. A lot of people buy time-shares these days. It’s probably legit. And she’s got the money. Let her enjoy.” Denny planted a kiss on my forehead. “OK, I’m off. If you’re gone before I get back” —he waggled his eyebrows— “have fun.” He made for the back door.
“Wait!” I plucked a sticky note from the refrigerator. “You got a call from the high school. They want you to call back.”
“Oh, brother.Was it the AD? ” Denny and the athletic director at West Rogers High had their, um, differences.
“Nope. A woman. She just said call the high school office.”
Denny digested this. He took the sticky note and studied the number, frowning. Then he shrugged. “Too late to call today. I’ll call tomorrow.” And he was out the door for his run.
I watched him disappear into the alley. Why would Denny get worried about a call from the high school office? My own anxiety kicked into gear again. Last summer Denny hadn’t known until two weeks before school started whether he had a job or not. Budget cuts. But he’d kept his job as assistant coach for boys’ soccer, basketball, and baseball. He’d wanted to stay with “my boys,” as he called them, building on what he’d tried to develop the year before.
But now . . . was it all going up for grabs again? Along with my job?
CHANDA WAS DECKED OUT in a two-piece, bone-colored pantsuit—the kind with a tailored jacket worn long to midthigh. Chunky bone-and-black earrings and a matching necklace were perfect against her warm, brown skin. Only problem was, I forgot to ask what I should wear. I’d shed my shorts but had just pulled on a denim skirt and a clean white T-shirt. Even forgot my earrings.
Oh, well. This was Chanda’s evening. Let her shine. Or not. I really didn’t care.
I pulled into a self-pay parking lot around the corner from the address Chanda had given me right at seven o’clock. Six bucks after six. Not too bad. But I handed the ticket to Chanda to avoid any confusion about who was paying.
“Two plane tickets to Hawaii, all expenses paid, mm-hm.” Chanda was floating. “Wish Dia’s daddy would straighten up his sorry self.We could get married an’ dis be our honeymoon—”
“Chanda! Dia’s daddy is not going to ‘straighten up’ in time to use that ticket to Hawaii! Girl, don’t let DeShawn mess with your head. You know better than that. Come on.” I locked the minivan, and we headed out of the lot.
“You right, you right, Sista Jodee.” She giggled. “Smooth as butter, ’bout as spineless.” She sighed. “But dat mon one good dancer. Sure would like to see ’im do dat hula.”
That struck us both funny, and we were still laughing as we followed two couples through the door of the brick building that said GLASS SLIPPER VACATIONS. A man in a dark suit held a clipboard. “Your names, please? ” he asked the two couples, who seemed to be together. He checked their names off his clipboard and turned to us. “Uh . . .” He seemed momentarily flustered. “Name, please? ”
“Ms. Chanda George.” Chanda tilted her nose in the air, as if daring the man to find fault with that.
“George . . . George . . . ah, here we go.” Smiling, he checked her name on his list. He turned to me. “And yours? ”
Now I was the one flustered. He wasn’t going to find my name on his list. I was about to squeak, “Jodi Baxter,” when Chanda took my arm, her nose still in the air. “Ms. Baxter be with me.”
The man didn’t move. “I’m sorry, Ms. George. But this reception is by invitation only.”
Oh, good grief. I was going to spend the entire evening sitting in my car.
“Dat’s right,” Chanda sniffed, waving a card in his face. “An’ dis invitation say to bring your spouse or partner. So we goin’ in.”
I nearly swallowed my tongue.My eyes bugged at Chanda, but she marched past the man, still gripping my arm. I didn’t dare look at his face; I was sure he was gaping at us. When we turned a corner, following the couples ahead toward a large room full of small tables covered by white tablecloths, I hissed, “Chanda! Are you crazy? Now he thinks . . . he thinks . . .”
Chanda sniffed again. “Don’ care what he tinks. You get to bring somebody. Single woman like me, dey want we to come alone. Use a lot of big fancy words. Not be fair.”
“OK, it’s not fair.” I spoke through my teeth. “But if you come as a ‘couple,’ they are gonna want both partners to sign their legal contract! They’re not dumb. What happens when they want me to cosign your . . .”
A young man in a suit and tie, latte-skinned but probably African-American, met us at the door of the large room. He barely looked old enough to have a driver’s license. “Hello!” He extended a friendly hand, perfect teeth widening in a ready smile. “Ms. George! And you are . . .? ” He shook my hand too. “My name is Michael, and I am your host this evening.” He waved toward a couple of burgundy-skirted tables along the far wall. “Help yourself to the hors d’oeuvres. Drinks are complimentary, of course. I’ ll wait for you at table number seven over there.”
Chanda made a beeline for the food, loading up her plate with shrimp kabobs, tiny rolled sandwiches cut in wheels, melon chunks, grapes, and hot croissants. A punch fountain splashed in the middle of another table, along with soft drinks and red and white wines. I grabbed a china plate.Might as well
make the most of it. It was going to be a long evening.
8
We’d been there an hour already, nibbling hors d’oeuvres, while Michael enthusiastically paged through a fat, glossy notebook of time-shares in Hawaii. He’d started with resort villas to drool over, complete with private beaches, Jacuzzis, “tastefully appointed” bedrooms, balconies overlooking the ocean, floating weeks—and elegant prices to match. Even Chanda had choked. “Forty-nine tousand dollars? For one week? ”
“No, no, ma’am. One week every year for the rest of your life! You own that week! It’s yours.” Michael beamed. “Each sale I make, I earn points toward a time-share like that. Maybe I will be your neighbor.”
“You do dat.” Chanda started flipping vinyl pages. “You can be mi neighbor in a resort dat don’t break de bank.” I stifled a snicker.
“Of course. We have many beautiful resorts in a moderate price range.”
My eyes glazed as he pointed out the features of time-shares that cost thirty-five thousand . . . twenty-eight thousand . . . twenty-two thousand . . .
“Excuse me,” I said. “Michael, we need to use the ladies room, which is . . . ? ”
He looked slightly alarmed. “Of course.” He pointed to the far side of the room opposite the door we’d entered. “Right over there.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or panic. They obviously didn’t want us just skipping out. “Chanda!” I whispered as we each chose a separate stall. “Are you sure you want to buy a time-share you’re locked into for your whole life? Maybe you don’t want to go to Hawaii every year. Maybe you should just give up that so-called free weekend in Hawaii and buy a plane ticket. Cost you a whole lot less than those time-shares.”
Chanda flushed the toilet and came out of her stall, banging the door.We met at the sinks. “Dose tickets be mine if I listen to dey sales pitch. Don’t have to buy.” She washed her hands and bumped the air dryer with her elbow. “Come on, Sista Jodee. Let’s see what else dey have. De prices going down.”