The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught

by Neta Jackson

  “Oh, Chanda,” Stu moaned. Adele rolled her eyes. But it was one of those moments when everyone instinctively gathered around our sister, laid our hands on her head, her shoulders, her arms, her back, and began to pray. Avis got out her bottle of anointing oil and touched the oil on Chanda’s triple-D chest, generously exposed by the low-cut spandex top she wore.

  “Jesus!” Avis appealed to heaven, both in word and posture. “Your Word says that by Your stripes we are healed! We praise You that You forgive all our sins, You heal all our diseases, and You redeem our lives from the pit . . .”

  I wasn’t sure where Avis was going with this, but Chanda seemed comforted.We ended the meeting with a lusty rendition of “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end . . .” It was obviously a new song to both Yo-Yo and Becky, but they seemed to be drinking it in as much as Chanda. “. . . They are new every morning! New every morning! Great is Thy faithfulness, Oh Lord . . .”

  After our worship and prayer time, those who could stayed to talk a bit more about the lemonade stand idea. (Could we really pull this off tomorrow? ) A horn blared outside. Honnnk. Honnnk.Honnnk. Ruth pushed herself off her chair and stomped to Adele’s open front window. “I’m coming already!” she yelled. She turned back, muttering, “Such a nudnik.”

  But she beckoned to Yo-Yo and they headed for the door. “By the way, you won’t see me at Yada Yada next time,” Ruth tossed over her shoulder. “Rosh Hashana it is.”

  “Happy new year!” a few of us tossed back.

  “Wait, mi amiga. I’m coming with you.” Delores quickly gathered up her stuff, then eyed me. “Jodi. You come too. I need moral support.”

  I opened my mouth to protest since I was the one organizing the lemonade stand, then realized that Delores, she of great wisdom, would never ask me frivolously. I followed the trio down the short flight of stairs and out the front door where Ben Garfield’s big Buick was double-parked in front of Adele’s apartment building. Delores marched up to the driver’s side window and made circles with her finger to roll it down.

  “Shalom, Mrs. Enriques. You look ravishing today.” Ben could pour on the charm when he wanted to.

  But Delores was in no mood. “Well, your wife doesn’t look rav ishing, Ben Garfield. She’s too thin for six months pregnant. The babies are too small for six months. She needs to eat! Eat!”

  Ben’s charm immediately turned sour. “She eats, she eats.”

  “He says I’m too fat,” Ruth chimed in.

  “Ha! You’re the one who gorges on—”

  “Silencio !” Delores shook a finger in Ben’s face. “I don’t care who says what. She’s not getting enough nutrition. Look at her face! No color. Look at her skin! Sagging. She’s already a good candidate for preeclampsia. If she gets toxemic, they’ll take those babies early. Is that what you want? Two babies weighing just a pound or two, fighting for life? ”

  Ben’s expression darkened under the tongue-lashing. Yo-Yo had backed up a few steps and was standing on the curb, jaw dropped. But Delores’s demeanor softened. “Ben, I’m not picking on just you. I said all this to Ruth a couple of hours ago. But both of you” —she hooked a finger at Ruth— “listen to me. Before I took a job as a hospital nurse, I was a midwife. Sometimes the medical approach overlooks the benefits of the natural approach. Don’t overdo the bed rest—she needs exercise to get that appetite back. And don’t limit her diet for fear of weight gain! Those babies need the nutrition, and Ruth does too. She can carry those babies to term, good size babies too. But the two of you need to work together. Promise me? ” She tempered her words with laughter. “See? I’ve got witnesses.”

  Ben grunted. Who knew what he meant. Ruth heaved a sigh, walked around the car, and got into the front seat. Yo-Yo ducked into the back of the Buick like Peter Rabbit hiding in Mr. MacGregor’s watering can. Delores and I watched until the big car turned a corner and was gone.

  I cleared my throat. “Well, um, that was interesting. Think you dented their stubborn skulls? ”

  Delores’s round face broke into its own sunshine. “Quien sabe? Who knows? But they haven’t heard the last from me yet!” She took my arm as we walked back into Adele’s building together. “But, Jodi, we must pray. The time is critical. It is not too late to turn things around, but if they don’t . . .”

  I’M STILL NOT SURE WHY ADELE RELENTED and let us set up the lemonade stand in front of Adele’s Hair and Nails. But it never would have worked without her shop as an anchor. For one thing, she already had a card table on site that she kept in the back room. Not to mention a couple of folding chairs and a bathroom for emergencies.

  Wouldn’t have worked without Stu either. Somehow, between DCFS clients on Monday, our very own miracle worker managed to pick up plastic cups, a ten-pound bag of ice, and eight half-gallon cartons of off-brand lemonade—Chanda had given her two twenties—and get them over to Adele’s Hair and Nails. There they were, packed like sardines in Adele’s small, back-room refrigerator when I showed up after school, sweating n the mid-September sunshine and clutching the used-on-one-side, neon-green poster board I’d liberated from the teachers’ workroom. I’d also snatched a ride from one of my fellow teachers, an early escapee after the two thirty dismissal bell.

  Edesa Reyes, bless her, showed up not two minutes later, and together we set up the table, the cups, the ice, the lemonade, and the loud sign: FREE LEMONADE TO STUDENTS (ADULTS $1). I was counting on the staggered release times between the K–8 schools and the high school to give us time to set up.

  Edesa pointed at the “$1” amount and lifted a quizzical eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “Never can tell.Might start a fund to clean off that alley wall.”

  Edesa looked at me sideways from beneath the corkscrew curls popping out of her wide turquoise headband. “It was Chris Hickman, wasn’t it? ”

  I didn’t confirm or deny.

  She smiled, a bit sadly. “Stopped to take a look in the alley on my way here. Saw Chris’s ‘signature’ even though most of it had been spray-painted over with Latin King signs.”

  I’d forgotten Edesa had been with us when we saw Chris’s “art-work” at the el station near Jesus People several weeks ago. That was when she and Josh first got interested in Manna House. Edesa and Josh . . . Should I ask her about their friendship? I mean, was it more—

  But I was distracted by a trio of African-American boys—really big boys—slouching toward us in oversize T-shirts, low-slung jeans, and backward caps, lugging battered book bags. They kept looking over their shoulders and muttering to one another. I suddenly decided this had to be the dumbest idea in the world. What was I thinking? ! One flip of a hand could send our lemonade table flying if these boys had a mind for mischief. But the boys barely gave us a glance as they passed, clearly not interested in lemonade, free or otherwise.

  “We need to offer it,” Edesa murmured, nodding toward the next group of teenagers, a cluster of girls not in a hurry to go any- where, cracking gum, sluffing on shoes with the backs mashed under their heels, two on cell phones. “Hola !” Edesa’s warm mahogany face broke into sunshine as the girls came closer. “Would you like some lemonade? ”

  A few of the girls stopped, reading the sign suspiciously. “Free? ” said one. “Whazza catch? ”

  “No catch.” I made my voice as light as possible. “Help yourself.”

  “OK.” Three of the girls shrugged, took the lemonade. One even asked for a refill. Nobody said thanks.

  Down the street, we saw a large group of Latino boys clustering at the alley that had been double-tagged with gang signs. They milled about, waiting for—what?

  “That’s where we need to be,” Edesa said. The next thing I knew she had grabbed two cups of lemonade in one hand and one in the other, and was scurrying down the sidewalk. Torn between leaving the table unmanned and sticking with Edesa, I grabbed three more cups of lemonade and hustled after her.

  She was laughing and speaking Spanish to t
he boys,who looked at one another, smirking like, Who is this nut? But several took the proffered drink. Encouraged, I held out my cups, which were lifted from my hands, poured down laughing throats until empty, then tossed on the ground.

  I flinched. Uh oh.We’re going to get it for littering.

  “Venido!” Edesa beckoned with her hand to the other boys, grumbling because they didn’t get any.They trailed behind us to the table, and basically drank us out of four half-gallons of lemonade.

  We were folding up the card table when Ben Garfield’s big Buick slid alongside the curb, the window down. “The fun’s over Ruth told me I should come check on you.” He looked relieved that nothing more was expected of him.

  Sweet. I gave him my biggest smile, momentarily forgetting I was permanently annoyed at him. “Hi, Ben! Yeah, we’re done. Thanks for checking up on us, though.”

  Ruth’s silver-haired husband craned his neck, casing the street up one way, then down. The largest mass of after-school teenagers had drifted away, and Clark Street had resumed its everyday cacophony of impatient car horns, vendors with their carts on the corners, and a colorful mash of sidewalkers lugging plastic sacks of groceries or pushing strollers and speaking everything but English. He frowned at me. “So Denny let you two ladies do this all by yourselves? ”

  My annoyance popped back up like a jack-in-the-box.LET me? I wanted to scoff. This isn’t Saudi Arabia, buddy. But I stopped short of mouthing off, suddenly squirming.

  That was the thing of it. I hadn’t told Denny. Not a word.

  29

  We stored the card table and extra plastic cups in the back room of Adele’s Hair and Nails; kissed MaDear, who was parked in her wheelchair near the front of the shop dozing in the sunshine; and waved our thanks at Adele, who was rolling a pink plastic curler into the hair in the chair. Adele, pins sticking out of her mouth, just rolled her eyes at us as the bell tinkled over the closing door.

  “Want to come by the house? ” I asked Edesa. “Stay for supper if you’d like. I know Amanda would love to see you.” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I wanted them back.Why didn’t I say “Amanda and Josh” ? Now if I add, “Josh would too,” it makes too much of him—or them.

  “Gracias, Jodi. But I need to study. I’ve already got research papers! But I’ll try to come again tomorrow. Three o’clock? ” Edesa hugged me and was gone, heading for the Loyola el station about eight blocks away.

  Actually, I felt relieved. If she came home with me, we’d definitely end up talking at the supper table about what we’d been doing that afternoon. As it was, I’d probably still get home before anybody else, cook dinner, nothing needed to be said. After all, it wasn’t a big deal, even if it came up later. “Oh, yes, we had a lemonade stand for after-school students in front of Adele’s shop.Didn’t I tell you? ”

  But as I headed north on Clark Street and turned right on Lunt Avenue, my insides squirmed again. Why was I reluctant to say anything to Denny? Huh. Because I knew what he’d say, that’s why. “Jodi! That’s crazy.Who knows what kind of confrontation might happen next between those wanna-be gangbangers? I don’t want you anywhere near that area till things settle down. Don’t you remember what happened with that crowd at Northwestern? ”

  Actually, I had forgotten about that melee when I came up with the lemonade stand idea. I just wanted to do something positive, reach out to those kids. Weren’t we all proud of Josh’s speech at graduation when our son said, “We can make a difference. It has to start with me.” What was wrong with that?

  You didn’t tell your husband. That’s what’s wrong with it.

  Stubbornness thickened like pulled taffy in my gut. So? Nothing bad happened. Maybe we even made a difference.Didn’t those kids milling around the alley leave it and drink up half the lemonade? But if I’d told Denny ahead of time, too bad.We wouldn’t even have had a chance to find out.

  Besides, I told myself as I hefted my school tote bag to the other shoulder, turned off Clark, and hiked down Lunt Avenue. I really didn’t have time to tell Denny.We didn’t decide to do the lemonade stand until last night, then Yada Yada ran late, and this morning was the usual hurry-scurry out of the house.

  I squashed the uneasy feeling that if things had gotten out of hand again between the Latino and black kids, Edesa and I would have been sitting ducks. I’d hoped for at least five or six of us Yada Yadas “being a presence.” Still . . . nothing happened. Maybe more of us would show up tomorrow. It was going to be just fine.

  ON TUESDAY, Carla Hickman decided her name ( “one who is strong” ) gave her permission to punch Miguel ( “who is like God” ) in the nose during morning recess when he grabbed the rope during a game of double Dutch and tripped her down on the play-ground pavement. “Teach him not to mess with me,” she muttered as I marched both of them to the principal’s office, where we also kept the first-aid kit. “’Sides. Ain’t nobody like God. That’s a dumb name, anyhow.”

  Hmph . May be it was time to take down my Welcome Bulletin Board, which proclaimed all the names of my students and their meanings.

  I had to make calls to both parents after school to explain Carla’s skinned elbow and Miguel’s bloody nose. Florida sounded breathless on the phone. “What? Carla fightin’? Look, Jodi, I just got home from work, now I gotta get over to the high school to pick up Chris. Call me tonight; we can talk about it.” Then, like an afterthought, “She punched him a good one, huh? ”

  Was that a chuckle I heard as she hung up?

  So I was late getting over to Adele’s Hair and Nails. Kids of all ages were already cruising the sidewalks, supposedly on their way home. But the card table was set up, Yo-Yo and Ben Garfield were pouring plastic cups of lemonade, and Edesa, bless her, was taping up the garish green sign. The day, which had started out at a comfortable sixty-five degrees, had inched up to a muggy eighty—typical for mid-September. Perfect for lemonade.

  The after-school crowd seemed surprised to see us back. More girls stopped by. Less suspicious. I realized Yo-Yo and Edesa talked easily to the teenagers.Why not? Yo-Yo looked like a teenager herself in her signature overalls and tinted, spiky hair. Edesa bubbled easily to the Latino kids. “Hola! . . . Un poco de limonada? . . . How was school today? El agujerear? ” She laughed and poked Yo-Yo. “Sí, school is sometimes boring.”

  Ben and I faded into the background while the two younger women chatted up the girls (and a few boys) who accepted cups of lemonade. “Hey, thanks for bringing Yo-Yo today,” I told Ben. Why was it I could be so mad at the old goat one day and want to hug him the next? “And thanks for hanging with us. Really helps.”

  “Nah. You gals got it covered. Good excuse to get out of the house, though.”

  Better tiptoe there. “Um, how is Ruth doing? She OK? ”

  He shrugged, his features sagging. “I don’t know. I guess. The pregnancy is hard on her. Should’ve never happened . . .” He faded into his own thoughts, and I decided to leave it alone.

  We handed out the remaining four half gallons of lemonade easy—and we hadn’t even seen the large group of Latino guys who’d drunk our stash yesterday. “Uh-oh,” I said, shaking the last carton. “Ben, do you think you could drive up to Howard Street and get us some more? ”

  Ben had no sooner left than a familiar trio appeared—from nowhere it seemed. The three oversize boys in baggy pants who had swaggered past yesterday with barely a glance. One of them picked up the last empty carton. “Whassup wid dis? You ain’t got no more lemonade? ”

  I bit my tongue.What grade was he in—junior? senior? Didn’t the school have some minimum standards for speaking English?

  Edesa just kept smiling. “No problemo. More is coming.”

  A hand shot out and gripped her upper arm. My alarm bells didn’t even have time to go off. “Why a sweet-lookin’ Afro chick like you speakin’ Spanish? Huh? Tell me dat, woman!”

  The other two boys chimed in. “Yeah. You wit de Kings? ” “You dissin’ us? ”

  Yo-Yo’s
eyes had gone wide. She seemed frozen in time. Me, too, for that matter. All we had to do was tell them she’s from Honduras, right? Everybody—blacks, brown, white—speaks Spanish there. I opened my mouth but couldn’t breathe. Oh God!Help us!

  A bell tinkled. The door to Adele’s Hair and Nails whooshed opened and Adele marched out, a curling iron in her hand trailing its cord. “You boys get outta here—now! Before I hit you upside your heads. And this baby’s still hot!” She thrust the curling iron six inches from the bully’s face.

  The boy flinched; his eyes narrowed.His buddies shouldered in. But just then three of Adele’s customers spilled out into the street, hair in curlers, one wrapped in foil, the third with half her hair sticking straight up in sections, held by white goo. The yelling and arm waving probably lasted for only thirty seconds, but the boy let go of Edesa’s arm and the three slouched off, muttering.

  Adele stood in the middle of the sidewalk, fists on her wide hips, still gripping the curling iron. Her eyes glared at their backs from beneath her short, silver-black Afro. The customers disap peared back inside, muttering. Adele slowly turned to us. To me, actually.

  “Pack it up, Jodi. This business is over.” And she stalked back inside.

  HURRICANE ISABEL hit the East Coast that week, but we had our own category five at the Baxter house. I was trying to figure out a way to tell Denny what happened when Josh got off the phone Tuesday night and poked his head into the kitchen, where Denny and Amanda were doing dishes and I was putting leftovers away. “Yo,Mom. Edesa just told me about the lemonade stand you Yadas had on Clark Street today. Did I miss something? Got a bit tense, she said.”

  A silence dropped into the kitchen, like the warning calm just before a tsunami. All movement stopped. All eyes turned on me.

  “Um, not really. Just a last-minute thing.” I nervously spooned leftover tossed salad into a plastic container and snapped the lid. “We came up with the idea Sunday night, and . . . it was, uh, such a rush to put together, I guess I forgot to let you guys know.”