Rhythms of Grace

by Marilynn Griffith

  “Oh, Grace. I’m so—”

  My feet carried me away quickly so I wouldn’t have to hear the rest. I appreciated people’s sincerity, their condolences still made me sick. He’d never known Peter. He had nothing to be sorry for.

  Except me.

  And I’d had enough pity to last a lifetime. Lost in a pack of students headed outside for PE, I fought all my fears, all Mal’s predictions. Last month’s open door now seemed like a deep pit, poised and waiting to swallow me whole. I was out of breath by the time I made it to the cafeteria, and while I’d left Brian behind, he was still with me, still invading my private, precious space. Space I was still trying to guard when I ran into Zeely, rushing from the other direction.

  “Y’all big people are going to be the death of me. Watch where you’re going, girl. You ’bout knocked off my wig. I tried to call you to pray this morning, but you didn’t answer and I didn’t see you out walking. I got your text. What’s up?”

  “I’m going through some things.” More like someone, but I was fresh out of explanations. Like the slaves who’d arrived at the downtown square with their testimony price, I just wanted to go in peace. A little quiet wouldn’t hurt either.

  Not that Zeely was about to let me have any of that. She pulled me toward the trays, waving for the lunch lady to wait for us before throwing out what remained of the food. “I know we haven’t been able to talk much since those kids cut the fool at orientation. If you’d rode with me, you wouldn’t have been there for the madness, but that’s beside the point . . . Don’t let it worry you. This school isn’t like those little private academies you taught at before, but it matters, you know? It counts for something. For a lot of these kids, we’re their last stop. So hang on. It’ll get better. They settle down in the second nine weeks. The spring is murder, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  I shook my head while Zeely paid for our meals. She didn’t bother to ask if I had any money. My obvious distress must have given me away. “It’s not the kids.” True enough, what had happened in this cafeteria my first day in town still pulled at my mind sometimes, but right now it was the man in that class who had me in a whirl. The lunch lady patted my hand as we passed by. I stopped to return her smile. I remembered her now and not just from the orientation. She’d been the pianist at Mount Olive when we were kids. Her makeup made my mother boo and hiss behind her hymnal every Sunday.

  I took the last fruit bowl and followed Zeely to the pancakes, then the sausage and the eggs . . .

  My friend rested easily on one of the orange disc seats connected to the lunch tables, which looked much bigger without fifty kids jammed around it. She carved her pancakes kid style while I eased onto the seat, hoping it wouldn’t give out under me. Finally comfortable, I speared a piece of pineapple and sipped its juice.

  “So, was he looking that good this morning?”

  I almost choked.

  “What?”

  Zeely swirled her fork in syrup. “If it’s not the kids, it’s him. We don’t have much time, so let’s just be real about the thing. What’d he wear today?”

  There was nothing to do but laugh. And tell. “Remember those African suits Peter used to wear? He had on one of those. Cornflower blue. Remember that crayon?”

  She sipped her milk and nodded in agreement. “Brian isn’t my favorite person, but the man can wear a suit. But you didn’t almost knock me down because he’s fine. That’s old news. What’s the drama?”

  What was this, the Spanish Inquisition? My defenses started to rise. “I don’t think Dr. Mayfield is the issue. The catalyst perhaps, but not the issue. For some reason being around him makes me—”

  “He makes you want a man. Just admit it.” Zeely smiled before biting into a sausage link.

  She was having way too much fun with this, not to mention being wrong. I’d chosen my singleness this time, the moment I’d told Mal my story. Brian had a lot going for him, but he was just something else for me to pray over, walk through. Nothing that would last. “No offense, Zee, but I was married long enough to remember that it isn’t as easy as it looks. I don’t know how Mal talked me into almost marrying him, but that whole mess has liberated me from the pursuit of men: praying for them, waiting for them to call, trying to figure out what they’re thinking. I just don’t have that kind of time.”

  As the words left my mouth, I knew I’d said too much, traveled too far into my friend’s private space.

  Zeely pushed away her plate after tasting everything. “I’m not offended, Diana. Sure, I want a husband. Kids. I’ll admit it. But I’m still here: working, worshiping, being a good thing. If nobody chooses to find me, it’s his loss, ’cause I’m as good as it gets.” She wiped her mouth.

  I closed mine. She’d cast a blow of her own with the way she spat my real name, reminding me that husband or no, I wasn’t any different from her. And I wasn’t. We both had the same husband now: God himself.

  She dotted her lips with a napkin and applied a fresh coat of lipstick. Flawless, even without a brush. “You can deny it all you want, but Brian woke you from the dead. Acknowledge it or you’re setting yourself up for the fall.”

  Falls? What would she know about them? Zeely’s life had been a steady stream of success after success. Her father had never looked at her as though she were a stranger. She’d never had to make sure everything was perfect before sneaking off to church. Man or no man, she still had her virtue and the respect of everyone in town. I only garnered their pity, even from Brian. I checked the clock, wondering if Joyce was in her office. “After all those years with a man who wouldn’t step foot in a church, and almost two years wasted on a man who wouldn’t step outside one, I think I’d rather keep things just like they are.”

  Zeely stood, inspecting her reflection in her compact like some of the girls in my class. “You know I’m not paying you any mind, right? Get mad at me all you want, but WE both know that just when you think you’ve got something figured out, the Lord will move in another direction. If you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t be here.” She turned and patted the back of my skirt like a football player after a huddle. “Now go fix yourself up and get back to class. You know your man is back there waiting on you—”

  “Will you hush?” I flicked Zeely’s shoulder, looking around to see if anyone was listening. Miss Thelma had leaned over so far that she could have flossed my teeth. One thing about schools, gossip travels like fire. I’d been burned by enough of it. “I have a meeting with Joyce, if you must know, and no one is waiting for me. Trust me.”

  “I’m just teasing you. Believe me, I’m not worried about Brian pushing up on you. He can hardly handle a staff meeting, much less a relationship.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” It was Miss Thelma, heading past us to the kitchen. Was there anywhere in this town where someone wasn’t watching? Listening? Probably not.

  With a sigh, I waved goodbye and turned in the opposite direction of Zeely’s laughter. A few feet from Joyce’s office, I pulled her note from my pocket and threw up a feeble, final prayer:

  Please, Lord. Have mercy.

  Come to the office on your break. Joyce’s note had said, Nothing more. I paused at the open door, marked Intensive Care, trying to imagine what she might want to talk to me about. Was it something about Brian? Had he asked for me to be fired? Transferred? The note had been in my box before school started, but still . . .

  “Are you going to stand out there all morning?”

  So much for my hallway reflections. “No, ma’am.” She had me. Nothing left to do but go on in.

  The office, which looked smaller from the hall, bustled with books from floor to ceiling. There were pictures too, plastered on two bulletin boards like the display in an obstetrician’s office, all the children she’d helped to give birth to themselves. I knew if I looked hard enough I could probably find the yellowed picture I’d tossed into the box with the others at practice one day. I knew, so I didn’t look. For now, it was
enough just getting through that notebook from my past.

  A church scene of black figurines lined the edge of a cramped, but organized desk and overflowed onto the bookshelves behind her. Joyce sat in a winged-back office chair, leaning over her Bible. I knew from the things she’d said over the loudspeaker this week that she was in Colossians.

  “Chapter three. Guidelines for holy living.” She answered my unspoken question and set the Bible aside. “Sit down.”

  I perched on the edge of the couch across from her. When talking to Joyce, it was best not to be too relaxed.

  She got right to the point. “I need a favor from you.”

  “Oh?” I crossed my arms. This was how I’d ended up back in Testimony in the first place—Joyce’s need. I wasn’t sure that I had any more to offer. Not just yet.

  “For some time, I’ve been praying about Ngozi.”

  “The dance troupe?” I pushed back on the sofa now, needed its support behind me.

  “Yes. I’d like to see it going again. These kids need the arts more than ever. The city is cutting things left and right.”

  I fumbled with the belt to my sweater. “Do you want me to talk to Zeely about it? Help you recruit someone?”

  She gave me an admonishing look. “No. I want you to teach it.”

  The room spun. “Me? I can’t. I’m out of shape. I’m—”

  “You’re here. Sometimes that’s all God needs. All I need. Clean and available. Don’t look at me like that, like you can’t do it. We both know you can. You pray on it and get back to me.”

  Joyce seemed sincere about my prayerful consideration, but her tone sounded final.

  I stood and extended my hand, trying to sound like the grown woman I was. “Okay. I’ll think about it, but why not Zee? She’s already teaching dance—”

  Joyce clutched my hand. She squeezed. “The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. You are the best dancer I’ve ever met. Better than Zeely. Better than me. I wish I could have given you more, loved you longer, but I tried, didn’t I?”

  I nodded, trying not to cry.

  “Well, all right then. I know this isn’t comfortable for you. For Zeely, either. But to whom much is given, much is required. Ask me how I know. My flame is fading. It’s time to give it to somebody else. These people need a trailblazer, a water-walker. I think that’s you.”

  By the time she let go of my hand, I was struggling to breathe. While I’d thought reading that notebook was breaking me down, this was a hundred times worse. Here, in the irises of Joyce’s eyes, I’d seen it all: my admittance to the psych ward on the day Joyce had arranged a special audition with the junior branch of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. She had believed in me then and I’d crumbled. My head told me that I was stronger now, but my heart wasn’t so sure. Something told me that I’d have to find out the hard way.

  Slipping back into her role as my employer, Joyce handed me a tissue and did a time check of her own. “Wipe your face, baby. It’ll be all right. Sometimes we have to reopen wounds to clean out the infection. It hurts, but it’s the only way to heal it for good.”

  For good? I wondered. Every time I thought it was done, over, somebody came and ripped off my scabs, usually the woman who I was talking to now. This was one cup that I didn’t look forward to drinking from. I prayed that God wouldn’t make me have to.

  I picked up one of the collectibles on the desk, a chunky little angel with two afro puffs. I held her for a moment before putting her back, wondering if that’s what we’d become to Joyce, toys acting out a scene. “I’ll pray about it.”

  “That’s all that I ask.”

  Ngozi. Blessed. I sighed. My last year in the dance group had been anything but blessed. “I’d better get back to class.”

  Joyce reached for my hand one last time. “Yes, but before you go, I need to tell you something, ask you for one last favor.”

  I stood quietly and listened to it all. I don’t remember when I started crying, but once I did, I thought I’d never stop.

  25

  Brian

  I hadn’t meant to hurt Grace, but I’d managed to do a pretty thorough job. Prayer, the thing I still related to best from my church days, came to mind. It probably didn’t mean the same thing to me now as it had meant then. Today seemed a prayer in itself, each breath a plea. And still I’d missed it. Joyce was probably downstairs praying for heaven and earth to slap together, as Reverend Wilkins used to say.

  I sure hoped so.

  With Joyce and my students on my mind, I went into my office and opened a drawer that always stayed locked, retrieved an envelope, flimsy from much handling. Inside was a class roster with four names added to a typewritten list in Joyce’s flowing script: Zeely Wilkins, Jerry Terrigan, Brian Mayfield, and Ronald Jenkins. On the next page was a memo, one that I sometimes read to my classes for inspiration. Today, I needed it just for me.

  Ms. Rogers,

  For reasons determined by the counseling department, the following students have been identified as atrisk for re-matriculation. You will be responsible for training them for basic life skills until the special education department is fully developed. We apologize for the change in your assignment.

  The Administration,

  Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School

  In a few places, round spots blurred the words, tearstains that had poured from Joyce’s face as she read the note to us. Some people had been scared by her anger, her passion. Not me. I’d inhaled it, understood it. Not for the first time, someone had declared my failure, gathered my life into columns, black-and-white bubbles on testing forms.

  I’d wondered, along with the rest of the class, if she was for real, if she really cared. Later in the year, when she invited the principal to our class to hear our Shakespeare recitation and volley of Latin verbs, I felt ashamed for having doubted her.

  I was even more ashamed of that principal. It still hurt to remember how he’d waved us off in the middle of our Whitman and Hughes, frowning at Joyce as though she’d made a terrible mistake.

  “Don’t get their hopes up so. It’ll just make things harder. Give them some crayons. Do this right and next year you’ll get first pick of the students. Cream of the crop.”

  We’d all been written off before, but we’d never been there to hear it. Years later, in graduate school, I’d met up with that man again, this time as his student in Cross Cultural Education Techniques. His first line of the semester had changed my life: “Africa is lost forever.” I’d left the room determined to prove him as wrong as Joyce had with each of us. After that, the principal was never invited back. If more memos ever came about us, we never knew. After that, we became a family.

  When Joyce shut the door after that man, the class was silent. She told us to take off our shoes, to come to the center of the room. Said that since that man told us what he thought of us, it was only fair for her to tell us what God thought about us too. And so she did, in a sermon more eloquent than any preacher I’ve ever heard. She lined us up and blessed us, dared us. In that moment, Imani was born, seeded through one woman’s faith, birthing doctors, lawyers, teachers, and preachers.

  She gave us all notebooks and told us to carry them wherever we went. “You are a book, a story that people will read in everything you do and say. Your words and your actions count now. Later, you will see how all your stories come together into one story— our story, The Imani Chronicles. Each of you, every student in my dance class, every person I have taught, is part of our tale. I can’t wait to see how it all ends.”

  We didn’t know it then, but Joyce really did want to see where we’d all ended up, and whenever she could, she did find out and send an invitation to become an Imani teacher. No one could teach the system like those who had learned under it, she said. Not even her. I wasn’t so sure about that.

  Over the years she taught us, we were graded daily for having our notebooks, and when one had been filled, we started another just like it.

 
; “Each day write down something. If nothing comes to mind, copy down a good poem or a bit of the Bible. Record your worst days with your best words. Later, when it hurts less and means more, you’ll be glad that you did. When I’m old and have my own school, I’ll find you and ask you to come and teach my children how to be a story, a dance, a song . . .”

  Few of Joyce’s pupils ever returned when she sent them the letter, gave them the call. I wasn’t even sure how I’d ended up here myself. Was I really doing for these kids what Joyce had done for me? Before now, I’d thought so, but the more time I spent with Grace, the more I felt like I was still the one in need of rescue.

  Behold, I do a new thing.

  Ach. I was going to need an antacid soon to keep back the tide rising in my belly, the rumble that once led me into a cold, swift river to be baptized. Determined not to give in to the feeling, I scanned my shelf for Nietzsche or some other infectious, intelligent fool. Before I found the right book, my lips betrayed me, my heart tore in two.

  “God, I doubt I’m on your list of people to call back, but this is not really for me. It’s for Grace. For all of them. Help me with this boy, Sean. Help me to see in him what Joyce once saw in me.”

  When I opened my eyes, Grace was standing in front of me.

  And she was crying.

  She said they were happy tears, but I wasn’t so sure. Joyce had asked her to start Ngozi up again. That surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. Joyce was always up to something. I hoped that Zeely would be okay with it if Grace decided to take it on.

  Grace seemed worried too. “Do you think she’ll be upset?”

  We only had a few minutes before students filled the room between us, and I’d played enough games with her for one day. “What do you think?”

  “I know. What should I do?” Her beautiful eyes went shut.

  The bell rang in time to save me. Six months ago, I would have spouted instant wisdom, told her about energy and power. Today, I had nothing. As we moved through the next class block—vocabulary, spelling, reading comprehension—I saw that Joyce’s request had shocked Grace more than my brashness this morning. I hoped she hadn’t mentioned it in her meeting, but I couldn’t blame her if she had. I was out of line. Maybe I’d finally come up against something that was really beyond my capacity.