Speaking of Summer

by Kalisha Buckhanon

  Rip.

  I kept Children International for Fatu in Sierra Leone, coloring well now she was: $21.

  No more booze, I promised. I exchanged wine for my cabinet stash of tea, less raucous company without the same power to dust dreams from my nights. With the windows opened to the moist, crisp breezes May brought down to Harlem, Belinda had nothing to complain about her children hearing. At least not from my bed.

  But I found a bottle in a paper bag behind piles of wheat pasta and brown rice I never made for that romantic dinner I planned a few weeks back. A glass tranced me into the ability to make an essentials list, write out all the checks, and stamp all the envelopes.

  I AWOKE ALONE ON MY side of the bed in a blot of Merlot on the mattress, the grownup style of bed-wetting. My alarm hadn’t gone off; that only happened if I remembered to set it. Luckily, garbage trucks ran behind Uptown this morning. Today was Roth Staffing’s annual photo shoot. I was to write new website bios for them. The photo shoot started right after their lunch. It was after noon. If I took advantage of spring fashion—maxi dresses hung straight in the closet (no ironing required)—I would have time to grab coffee and a bagel at the bodega.

  I went to the kitchen to down the last of the orange juice. I was parched. I grabbed a carton of almond milk to chase it with. My face was swollen; I looked mad on one side and baffled on the other. I had no clean towels. Chase had yet to pick up my laundry. I grabbed an exfoliating mesh ball from the shower caddy. I scrubbed my tongue until it may have begun bleeding. Then, I switched the shower to as cold as I could stand it and held my open mouth up to the faucet. I reached outside the shower into the medicine cabinet so I could get to the Bayer, dislodging pill bottles and a container of Nyquil that spilled. I washed down aspirin with hard water. I didn’t dry off. I swiped deodorant and sprayed a mix of old Victoria’s Secret body splashes. I pulled my damp hair back with a scrunchie.

  A long royal-blue dress would do in a business-casual setting, a good fit over my bloated tummy. I was wearing small gold hoops still, two days now. My earlobes itched, but I didn’t have time to debate it. I threw a wooden bangle over my arm. I did not bathe enough these days for my last pedicure to lose luster, so I slipped on nude peep-toes. I could buff and file my fingernails on the train. I could lotion my hands and face, and do my makeup there too. Dark women could get away with bare face, a little mascara, Carmex, and lip gloss in a pinch. All were in my work tote. I would organize all the paper into it on the train ride too. Twenty minutes after garbage trucks knocked me out of sleep, I was locking my apartment door.

  On the second floor, a mattress and box spring bunched in with tall brown shelves. It all blocked my path. I could see through that a U-Haul box propped open the second-floor apartment door. Down the stairs, a box propped open our lobby door near the mailboxes as well. So did one at the outside door. What . . . ?

  “Hello, hello?” I called out. No one answered me. “Hello!”

  I stood to no answer. I pulled out a travel-size lotion I stocked from Chase’s business trips. I could at least shine my face and legs while I waited for a person responsible for this to materialize. I moved on to a vat of Carmex. Finally, I heard voices near the door on the second floor.

  “Help! I need to get out up here.”

  A pockmarked pink face peeked between the shelves and box spring. “Oh, just one second, ma’am. Hold on.”

  I saw another man shuffle out and ease his hands between the shelves. He scooted one back and slid it down the hall in a careful rotation through the door. His partner did the same with the other shelf. The mattress plopped against the cleared wall, the box spring against it. I crouched through a triangular clearing.

  “Sorry about that,” the man who found me said.

  “No problem. I wasn’t expecting anybody to be moving in today.”

  “Hope we weren’t too loud. Folks got a lot of stuff. We should be done by . . . what, ’bout three o’clock?”

  “Don’t bet on it,” his coworker said. “See how many trunks they got? We should have had another man for this.”

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Couple coming from Connecticut. They got a kid. Guy’s a lawyer.”

  I took a wild guess they were White.

  I saw Fran at the mailboxes, wrangling out her mail that always piled to the point postal workers chastised us tenants when they could not fit anymore in. I’d hardly seen her since her dramatic effort to prove to me that our rooftop door, and all possible entrances, were secure.

  “Excuse me,” I told the men.

  Fran saw me and waved.

  “Fran, I didn’t know anybody was moving in,” I said.

  “Oh? We left you a message.”

  “I must have missed it. What happened to my neighbor downstairs?”

  “Oh my goodness, Autumn. Belinda left months ago, after the New Year.”

  “Fran, I would have heard a move,” I said. “I’m a bit touched but not out of touch.”

  “She must have done so little by little, until it was empty. Section 8 didn’t cover it all. She rarely paid her part. We kept it out of court, but couldn’t keep working with her.”

  “Wait a minute. I just saw Belinda’s oldest boy last week, maybe.”

  And I heard Belinda’s door open and close all the time. That could have been familiar safe memory. I was used to it after so many years. She and her children must have been sneaking in to sleep. I had been stumbling out to the bodega for a late-night snack, about a week ago, when I saw her tallest boy. As usual, he called me “Miss” and offered to help.

  “Dunno. Maybe they still have keys. I’m not sure she had somewhere set to go.”

  I was enraged at Fran’s lack of concern about security, as if we’d learned nothing from Summer’s debatable abduction or bad luck but certain disappearance from here.

  “So, they have keys and they don’t live here?” I yelled. One of the moving men peeked down to see what the fuss was about. “How can we keep people from trying to break in? If she’s that hard up, what’s to say she won’t send people to rob us? Two women have been alone in this building all this time with keys wandering?”

  “I apologize we haven’t changed locks yet,” Fran pleaded. “We waited because of all the commotion from the rooftop incident, so you and Asha wouldn’t have any more changes now. We’ve dealt with a lot of situations recently we aren’t used to, Autumn.”

  “Well, I apologize if missing someone I love brought undue attention to your property.”

  “It was not a bother to us, more than concern for you,” she replied. “But we did have to think about how we can serve the most unpredictable needs that arise from tenants, so that included restricting them to those who can pay us.”

  I was not dumb. All the pretend liberalism and social activism ended when it came to the bottom line. Fran noticed, just like we all did. The same prewar space going for $1,500 a few years ago went for $3,000 now. The block was cleaned more often. More expensive shoes tightroped through the dog shit on the sidewalks and balance-beamed around glass from broken forty-ounces. New chains were coming to 125th Street, beyond Starbucks, MAC, and Old Navy. My landlords were good to me. They fixed what little needed to be fixed. They were patient with me on the rent, courteous sympathizers to the ordeals I managed. But I had to stand with the sister and her kids. The owners of our home inherited it, from their family who paid for it long ago. Now, it was just profit. Who was next—Asha? Me?

  “We’re doing the best we can, Autumn,” Fran insisted.

  “Have I ever said you guys weren’t?” I smiled.

  “No, you haven’t. And we don’t worry about you for it. Belinda was here for years. We stuck with her until her babies weren’t babies anymore. We had to take a stand.”

  Woman to woman, I understood her. Her family gave her property to rent, not a mission, for her livelihood, not another woman’s. Fran and I were both businesswomen. If I was in the red, it usually wasn’t my fault. Up
until recently, that is. But at my peak self, I saw money struggles after late payers threw me off when I needed it most, or non-payers assumed I didn’t need it at all. I felt sorry for Belinda and her kids, but I understood Fran’s perspective. Freeloading is always the training for more direct thefts.

  “You should meet the new people,” she said. “They’re your kind.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, into arts and culture. Hang out with them, Autumn. We think about you over here, all alone.”

  “I am fine,” I interrupted her. “And I’m sure everybody’ll get along well. But I’ll miss seeing those kids in the hallway. And smelling Belinda’s fried chicken.”

  “I know. So will I.”

  “Okay,” I stammered. “Well, I gotta get going. I’m late for a meeting. I’ll leave the rent on top of your box. Early. I’m on a new budgeting plan.”

  “That’s not necessary, but do what you wish.”

  Asha sat on our stoop in a purple kimono, reviving dreadlock wigs and puffing a cigar. Across the street, the couple leaned into the back of a long moving truck, laughing and talking.

  “Girl . . .” she said.

  I couldn’t afford to lose a step. Then, from the curb, my gaze racing for anything yellow or old black sedan, “Hey, did you know Belinda and the kids left?”

  “I hope my complaints about all the music they blasted didn’t have anything to do with it,” Asha sighed. “I guess we better get used to Celine Dion.”

  I could not get into it with her now, not gentrification or rising rents or even Belinda. We would gab on it all later. Plus it seemed the couple was starting to walk toward the house and I wanted to avoid them. A gypsy cab slowed to a crawl around the moving truck. So I ran to its back door and let myself in before the driver could pull off. The trip would cost $20, plus tip, to get through Midtown traffic.

  NORMA ROTH, THE TEMP AGENCY owner, didn’t even notice I was late. Her photographer finished only a few of her placement managers before I flustered onto the sixteenth floor of the Forty-Seventh Street skyscraper. I immediately proceeded to a back office where a stool, plain gray backdrop, and lights were set up. The company employed eight full-time staff, most in recruiting and accounting. Norma’s receptionist ordered doughnuts, coffee, and bagels for the time. Norma caught me clutching a cup of black coffee.

  “Oh, Autumn, you have to get your picture done too, honey,” she insisted. “You’re our web designer and marketing girl. I got a lotta good kids ’cause of you.”

  “Oh, no, no. I’m just here to interview you guys and update your bios,” I told her.

  No pressed powder in my bag. I knew my hair was a mess I only got away with because the “native” thing was on-trend.

  “No, I insist,” Norma insisted. “It’s the right thing to do. We’re all a team. And you look lovely, dear.” She pulled a compact from her purse and opened to its mirror.

  Norma paid me well and she never once complained about my shortcomings this past year, like all the others had. If only to appease her, I wiped shine off my face with a napkin, plumped up my lips, and smiled for the camera. Then, I went on to finding out if any more happened for the staff since I last charted the hobbies, hometowns, college majors, and local schools that led these more reasonable adults to full-time jobs in New York City. It took me two hours of tight smiles and quick catch-up. I discovered I mainly had to add “proud mom of one” and sometimes “two or three” to a few bios. And dads. And dogs and cats. I made careful notes not to mix any of them up. Then, I would have my rent money.

  “Autumn, thanks a lot,” Norma told me. “Now, if you could get all this up as soon as possible, honey, I’d so appreciate it. I’ve lost fifty pounds since they shot us last year. I want to show it off.”

  “Yes, I noticed. But you know, it’s rude to comment on other people’s weight.”

  “Oh, I’ll take it. Pour it on.”

  “You know, you weren’t big before.”

  “It started when I had to sit shiva for my mother’s brother. I stayed in the kitchen. It was easiest. But I had no excuse to keep it going.”

  “Well, I have to figure out your secrets.”

  “A lotta water and salads, some special vitamins my doctor cooked up for me, and walking out of this place a few times a day to join the rest of the living world.”

  “You deserve it.”

  I left her office suite confident I still had at least one major client.

  Maybe that lured me down Seventh Avenue, and entitled me to a stopover at Macy’s to see spring sales. I knew I shouldn’t have. Because I really didn’t need anything new: not one purse, bag, pair of heels, lipstick, or perfume bottle. However, I wanted to be waited on and pursued, seduced to give over what little I had to offer.

  My wares soothed me: a fresh cucumber hydrating spray, a Guerlain eau de toilette in the perfect size for a clutch purse, silver teardrop hoops. All on sale . . .

  The duets and packs of women could have been friends, or mother and daughters, or sisters, as I most imagined them. Yes, little girls were lured from their mother’s fingertips in shopping malls and pretty women disappeared from their lots. But I realized how comfortably safe and secure I always felt in stores. An army of women—clerks, managers, shoppers, and even food court servers—were Foxy Browns in our own rights. We were, altogether in our consumerist bliss, a daunting fortress for crafty men. How fun to think Macy’s, and everywhere like it, could be the last nunneries we had left.

  ONCE HOME, I DID REMEMBER to transfer a payment to Children International for my “child.” I fiddled with my online portfolio, only to switch its font and some colors really. I updated my title from “Business Writing & Media Specialist” to “Tired Ass Ho,” saved it by accident, and had to go through the trouble of switching it back.

  The ho part was opinion but the tired part was plain fact. I’d pushed through to make the rent and make it to Norma. That helped. But at some point I had to tackle the credit and stop sending utility payments late. I couldn’t do the roommate or Airbnb hustle. My home was still Summer’s home. If she reappeared to erase this mirage of the rest of my life without her, I’d have to put people out after I spent their money. I opened the pictures from Norma of me and the Roth staff. It turned out my hangover face was not as gruesome as I envisioned it. I looked fresh, actually, candid and honest. It was just how I needed to look to seek out new clients—soon.

  FIFTEEN

  There was a redwood rocking chair. Grandma’s maroon crochet blanket hung over it, in front of a china cabinet full of bottles we couldn’t touch and their Kool-Aid we couldn’t drink. The rocking chair was no one’s in particular. But the adults told me and my sister to stay out of it. We rock back too hard, and we’ll fall and break our necks—and “My good chair too.” But when Mr. Murphy sat in it, the legs bent. He didn’t rock in it. He jiggled from side to side and that’s not the way it was supposed to go.

  We had his Sports Illustrateds and Newsweeks on top of our Star and Shape magazines now. We had his “Gimme that!” big underwear. His long, loose, dark socks in the laundry room. We didn’t have to worry that the dryer and air conditioner ran up the electric bill. He paid them. We had liverwurst and hog head cheese in the fridge, next to hot peppers and open tins of sardines. We couldn’t go in Mama’s bedroom any more to watch her TV, because her door was closed and a man was snoring. Mama wasn’t downstairs to fix us eggs, toast, and juice. So we made cereal with too much milk. Stomachaches attacked us later. We saw Grandma fall asleep every night in the living room chair, and not go upstairs to her room. We stayed downstairs with her. We left bones and scraps for the abandoned cats Mama didn’t notice anymore.

  We made Father’s Day cards like every year, for our daddy. Mama told us to make Mr. Murphy one too, to be “nice.” We didn’t put as much time into his. We left out the flowers and hearts. He read the words Mama told us to write: “Thank You Mr. Murphy” and “We Love You Mr. Murphy.” He said, “Call me Cole.” We called h
im “Cole” for a few days. It did not fit our mouths that well. We went back to calling him “Mr. Murphy.” It seemed he was at our house all the time, or she was gone for days away at his. We saw how quickly Mama ran after the mailman with stamped envelopes ready, rather than bill envelopes lingering on our lazy Susan. Still, the general rhythm of our ways shifted into a partitioned life. It was a division of the quartet we once were, not a multiplication of it.

  Mama stopped taking us to see my father’s family. She spit when she talked about them. “They forgot us,” she said. Instead, we went to Mr. Murphy’s family things. One time he brought his son and his son’s wife to our house. They wore army clothes. Mr. Murphy took over the kitchen to make their coffee. We had to wait until the wife got out of the bathroom with her kids before we could go in. But as soon as we got a turn, Mama called us. She cooked a big lunch for them. We had to set the table, but not from this drawer and that cabinet. We had to open the china cabinet, and pull drawers underneath to get the heavy red napkins out. We put the big white spoons and forks in the food. We took the little kids to run through the new sprinklers Mr. Murphy bought. They were too little and they got scared. Mr. Murphy’s son’s wife was upset we made her little girl catch cold.

  We fixed back our hair, like ladies, when the strangers left. We played in the lipstick and eye shadow we bought at Kmart, with dollars Mr. Murphy slipped us to go find something as he and Mama grabbed the large bundles of toilet paper and racks of paper towels we never had before. We could do our homework all on our own, now, even though it was much harder in the higher grade. We were expected to do just as well. We were big girls, smart girls, pretty girls. And it was our job to be good and help Mama out.

  “She been through enough with y’all as it is . . .”

  We went out on our own, became murky and clandestine. The training bras cut into our skin, but we did not trouble Mama for new ones. We shared our clothes. We traded our shoes. We cleaned up without being asked. We said “Okay” when Mr. Murphy was there and Mama told us we can go to public school now.