“Is there a reason why?”
She shrugged her shoulders and, with a small smile, said, “Not one in particular . . . probably many in the beginning, that only I would understand. I suppose, then, that after not having dated for so long, I just never got around to it. After all, I spend lots of time at work, and then I busy myself at home when I’m off, and time just slipped away from me, I guess.”
Isaiah expelled a breath of air and said, “Whew! That’s really something. Then if that’s the case, you really don’t have much experience with men.”
“No, I don’t.” She couldn’t help but let go with a small laugh, adding, “I’m sure that you could tell that, since every time you talk to me, I couldn’t really even speak back to you . . . I clammed up.”
He laughed, too. “I did notice that. And actually, I’m glad to know this, because I thought I made you uncomfortable ’cause there was something you just didn’t like about me.”
“No, I like you just fine,” she said quite clearly. Almost immediately, she raised her eyebrows, and her full lips formed an O as she realized what she’d said. “I—I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, embarrassed once again.
There was no way Isaiah was going to allow her to back out of that statement now, though. He asked jokingly, “Oh, you like me, huh? That’s good, ’cause I like you, too, Tamara Britton.”
Laughing and then sipping from their cups, they chatted until Sienna and Denise Jackson’s daughter Sabrina broke into their conversation. “What y’all doing?” asked Sienna, with curiosity clearly written on her face.
Isaiah looked at Tamara and, answering for the both of them, replied, “We’re talking and watching you all—what we are supposed to be doing. What y’all doing, Miss Sienna and Miss Sabrina?”
The girls giggled again and said together in a singsongy tone, “Nothin’.”
“Are you having fun?”
“Yes,” they answered in unison, and then broke out in giggles at that.
“Praise the Lord, then!” Isaiah replied. “That’s what we want you young folks to do, right? Have fun!”
Tamara took one look at Sienna’s glowing face and could tell that the girl was having a great time. She looked cute tonight. Her distressed-denim bell-bottoms were topped by a red peasant-style matching shirt, and she wore matching Skechers striped in shades of red and blue.
She envied Isaiah his ability to banter easily with the girls, and she could see that his casual yet clear manner of communication made them feel comfortable talking to him. Tamara was certain that these same qualities were what made him an excellent teacher as well.
Sienna looked at Tamara inquisitively and asked, “How ’bout you, Tamara? Are you having fun?”
Tamara’s answer was drowned out by a thumping beat right before the teen deejay announced to the crowd, “I’m back at y’all, okay? Now, c’mon, y’all, let’s make some noise for the Lord, now . . . this is Donald Lawrence and the Tri-City Singers on the box.” Warming the crowd up with his words, the young deejay introduced the music, adding, “Never, never let Satan have his way with you; and remember, no matter what you are going through, God’s got the victory. Life is good, y’all; every day there’s a new beginning, another chance for you to receive your miracle, and today is the first day of the rest of your life!”
“Girl, I like this song,” said Sienna excitedly. “C’mon, Sabrina.”
They quickly joined the crowd, who were clapping and waving their hands to the upbeat sounds. As they swayed to the music, many of the young people began to sing loudly along with the lyrics.
All her discomfort was forgotten as Tamara watched the joyful crowd while listening closely to the inspiring words of the tune. It was also dawning on her that the horror of the two Smith children, which had been weighing her down for weeks, seemed to lighten, and she realized happily that she had not experienced one unhappy memory during the entire evening.
Glancing over at Isaiah, she saw that he was nodding his head to the beat, watching the teens with a big smile on his face, and singing along with them.
His smile proved to be contagious, as were the song’s catchy beat and optimistic lyrics. The music fully lifted her spirit, and by the time the song reached the chorus, she, too, smiled, clapped, and swayed along with the crowd, singing in a voice that no one but she could hear.
37.
Misjudged
Tamara slammed the car door and sighed to herself as she hurried along the sidewalk to Sissie Bailey’s again. She really did not want to revisit the unpleasant woman again, but she had run out of options. All her avenues of inquiry had turned into dead ends, since no one around town seemed to know the whereabouts of Maurice Lewis III, or “Three,” as he was known on the streets. Sissie Bailey was a long shot; the woman had not even known much about her own daughters, but Tamara still hoped she might know something that would lead her to Maurice Lewis.
After taking a moment to prepare herself mentally to face the tough woman, she knocked hard on the metal door. A moment later Tamara was gazing into the worn face of Celestine Bailey, better known as Sissie. The woman scrutinized her, trying to place her face. Once recognition dawned, Sissie asked coarsely in her raspy voice, “You again? What you want now? Didn’t I answer all your questions the first doggone time you was here?”
Not really surprised by Sissie’s coldness, Tamara cleared her throat and stammered, “Y-yes, M-Ms. Bailey, you did, but unfortunately all that information led me to was a d-dead end.” She started to tell her what Samyra Bailey had shared with her about her daughters, but instead asked, “Can I come inside . . . just for a few moments?”
The woman placed her hands on her ample hips and said, “I don’t know . . . I really am busy right now, and I don’t want no company.”
In a low, insistent voice, Tamara added, “But, Ms. Bailey, I have some information about your daughters . . .”
Sissie gave her an incredulous look from the side of her eye. “My daughters—hmph! I might as well not have no daggone daughters. They don’t do nothin’ for me,” she said in a hard, flat tone. But after only a few seconds, the woman moved back and opened the door wide enough for Tamara to step inside. “Sit on down. Don’t come up in here standing up like you too important to sit down or somethin’.”
Compliantly Tamara sat on the edge of the too-soft couch and said immediately, “Ms. Bailey, I saw Samyra.”
“Umph!” said the woman through her turned-up lips. “Not that I care. I know where she is anyway, and she ain’t even talkin’ to me!”
Ignoring the woman’s negative comments, Tamara added in a rush, “She told me where her sisters—your daughters—are, too. She said that Kaytriona is married with a couple of kids, and . . . I hate to be the one to tell you this . . . Jannice is dead.”
The woman looked shocked for a moment. “Dead?”
Tamara said softly, “Yes, she OD’d.”
The woman looked at her with flat eyes and said angrily, “They could’ve told me. Somebody could’ve told me. I know that I’ve been a bad mother. I know that, but they still my kids, and somebody should’ve told me.”
Tamara looked at the woman sadly. “I agree, Ms. Bailey, somebody should’ve told you.”
“I did love ’em, you know.” It seemed to Tamara then that the wear and tear in Sissie’s deeply lined face softened a bit, and she added with a tiny laugh, “I remember when each one of ’em was born, they was the prettiest little ole girls you ever wanted to see. All of ’em was fair-skinned and stayed that way, ’cept for Jannice, and that girl just browned up after we was home ’bout a week.”
“Jannice had seven girls herself . . . Did you know that?”
Sissie glanced at Tam then with a frown on her face. “I knew about the first three girls—Lord, when did she have four more, and what happened to them all?”
Tamara looked into the woman’s eyes for only a moment and then shifted her glance away. “Unfortunately, all of them were eventually taken by
the state . . . She lost them all. The older girls were together for a short time, but the others never lived together at all.”
“The state got ’em all, huh?” Her sadness was evident as she shook her head and said mournfully, “Poor babies . . . poor, poor babies.”
The unexpected tenderness of the woman’s response caught Tamara off guard, but she pushed away her own sympathetic feelings and gazed at the woman intently. “Ms. Bailey, do you remember when I told you about my friend? Well, I think my friend is one of those girls taken into state care. She was the second daughter, and her name is Yvette.”
Sissie got up from the couch then and wandered to the front window. Pulling open the side curtain so that her face was hidden behind it, she stood quietly at first. Then Tamara was stunned to hear the woman sniffling loudly, till finally she spoke in a muffled voice. “I don’t know how this all happened. I was only fifteen when I had my first . . . One day I just had kids, and I guess I wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout them enough or somethin’. I was still young, and I just wanted to have a little fun, you know?”
“I can understand that.”
The woman turned to her, and Tamara saw tears glittering in her eyes. Then Sissie quickly turned away again, gazing out of the window. “My own mama wasn’t around, either . . . and when she was, she never acted like she loved me. I s’pose every now and then I wanted to feel somebody’s arms around me and lovin’ me, you know? Is that so wrong?”
For some reason Tamara remembered the words of the Reverend Walker, Isaiah Perry, Denise Jackson, and all that she’d been hearing about love. Understandingly she replied, “I suppose we all want to feel loved sometimes, Mrs. Bailey.”
“But, the truth of it is, the love didn’t last, and none of it turned out to be as much fun as I thought it would be, ’cause for a few moment of happiness, I lost everything, everybody . . . most of all I lost my kids. No matter what nobody think about me, life weren’t never the same after that . . . always empty for me . . . No matter what nobody think, I never wanted to lose my kids.”
Tamara felt her own eyes begin to prickle. Fighting to retain control of her emotions, quickly she changed the subject. She cleared her throat and asked, “Ms. Bailey, do you remember any of Jannice’s boyfriends?”
Her voice gentler, the woman answered, “I really wasn’t around her that much, ’tween me actin’ a fool and them being in the system and then me finally getting locked up, you know? Bet you didn’t know that it was Jannice and Sammy’s daddy I killed.” She looked at Tamara with her faded, dark eyes. “I hate I had to do the time, but I’m not sorry—ain’t nobody ever gonna beat up on me like that and get by.” She then sighed, “Anyhow, mostly what I know about her is from what I heard, you know?”
Again Sissie had thrown her a curveball, with her unexpected admission of killing Jannice’s father and by telling her of the man’s abuse. With much effort, Tamara resumed her questions. “I know, but I was just hoping that you might have heard something about the first boyfriend, or recognize the name Yvette.”
Sissie wiped her eyes with a napkin before saying, “I do remember hearing ’bout Yvette . . . never did see her, but I remember Samyra telling me ’bout her when she visited me in jail. That was a long, long time ago. Shoot, Sammy was only ’bout sixteen then, and she told me Yvette was the prettiest little ol’ baby she’d ever seen . . . Said Jannice didn’t have her a month. Tiny, brown, and looked just like her mama . . . Yes, I do remember hearing ’bout Yvette.”
Tamara’s voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Yvette’s father was Maurice Lewis the Third—they called him ‘Three.’”
“Three? Yes, I remember him . . . big guy. I used see him around before I went into the joint. He was tall and good-looking and quite a bit older than Jannice. Well known on the streets—really wasn’t much more than a hustler, but you could tell he was real smart when you talked to him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Naw, I don’t know that.”
Tamara’s heart sank. The truth was that if Sissie didn’t know where Maurice Lewis was now, Tamara had no idea where to turn. Still, she could not believe that after all these months of searching, everything was coming to a standstill here. She asked one more time, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” the woman said, and her tone became cross.
“Oh . . . ,” said Tamara softly.
Then Sissie added, “He gots a sister, though . . . She lives somewhere in town.”
Tamara snapped to attention and looked at Sissie hopefully. “A sister?”
“Yeah, a sister. She’s quite a bit older than he is, about my age, I think, ’cause like I said, he wasn’t no spring chicken hisself. Let’s see . . . her name is Lillian. Lillian Lewis.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
Sissie walked away from the window and sat back down next to her. “I don’t know all that, now.”
Tamara smiled at the woman. “Ms. Bailey, thank you so much . . . You have helped me. You’ve helped me a lot.”
Sissie gave Tamara a piercing look. “So, I guess you trying to tell me that friend of yours might be my granddaughter, huh?
Surprised at the question, Tamara answered after a moment’s hesitation, “Yes, I suppose that’s what I’m telling you.”
“Like she’d want to be related to somebody like me,” the woman said with a catch in her voice.
Tamara looked for words of comfort. “I’m sure she would like to meet you, Sissie. I’m sure she would,” she said.
The woman looked at her with a little light now in her faded eyes and said, “You think? Do you really think after all I done, that she could forgive me?”
Tamara replied quietly, “It might take her some time, but eventually she may be able to forgive you.” This unexpected glimpse of Sissie’s soft side was profoundly moving for Tamara, yet also disarming, and she was ready to retreat from this emotional situation. She hastily brought the conversation to an end. “Thank you so much for your help, Ms. Bailey.”
“Least I can do, huh? Other than that boy in there, I ain’t got nobody who cares about me—maybe I’d like to change that.”
“I’m sorry I had to bring you bad news today.”
“It ain’t yo’ fault,” said the woman grudgingly. “Stuff happens, don’t it? Sometimes it just seems like all the bad stuff happens to folks just like me,” she added sadly.
Once outside the house, Tamara walked quickly to her car. She was still shaken by the woman’s show of emotion. Clearly Sissie was not as hard as she’d pretended to be; in fact, it seemed she actually had a heart. Tamara felt guilty at having judged the woman so quickly. Feeling emotionally wound up now, it was only when Tamara was back in the safe haven of her car that she was able to breathe deeply.
Though at first it seemed she’d gone full circle right back to where she started with Sissie Bailey, ironically, the woman had given her invaluable information almost accidentally . . . Maurice Lewis had a sister, and she lived somewhere in town. The truth of it was that she may actually have gotten quite lucky tonight, and she said aloud in the empty car, “I just might actually find Three . . . I might actually find him.”
She allowed herself a small smile before sitting there several moments with her heart pounding hard in her chest.
38.
Locked up
The girl ignored the stares of the other kids outside in the common area. By now she’d grown accustomed to adjusting to life in different places, and though she still didn’t like it, she considered herself a pro at facing these types of uncomfortable new situations. She could block out others’ existence whenever she wanted, and today their faces were a mere blur to her as she searched intently for a place with a little privacy to settle in.
“Girl, you hear me talkin’ to you,” said the boy. “I guess you think you too good to talk to somebody, huh?” He’d been walking behind her ever since she’d come outside into the playground area, and though she knew he was there, she’
d been purposely ignoring him, too.
“No,” she said quietly, finally acknowledging that he was there.
“Did you say something?” the boy asked. He’d grown so used to her lack of response that now he seemed shocked that she might actually have replied to him.
“I said no,” she repeated in the same quiet tone.
“No, what?” he asked, so surprised now that she was talking to him at all, he forgot his original question.
“No, I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I just don’t feel like talkin’, that’s all,” she replied unenthusiastically.
She sure was a pretty little thing, he thought as he gazed sidelong at her . . . small, just like he liked ’em, too. Nobody had said anything about her to him, so he must be the first one to have seen her. He could tell she was kinda shy, though, just by the way she held her head down, so maybe he’d cut her a little break, back off for a minute or two.
Careful to keep his tone neutral, he swiftly changed tactics and said, “Okay, then. You don’t have to talk to me.”
The girl glanced up at him for a moment, obviously suspicious at the sudden change in his demeanor.
“I tell you what . . . I can tell you don’t want to be bothered, and I know a special place right out here where you can have a few minutes to yourself, too. Just follow me.”
Just then she felt the stares of some kids who were now quietly watching the two of them curiously. One thing was certain, she thought: she was in no mood to answer lots of questions, nor did she have the energy necessary to continue to tune them out right now. All she really wanted was just to be left alone.
Warily she followed the boy as he led her around the fence to the side of the building, where there was a small doorway that was deep and wide enough for a person to sit in alone. Sizing up the small spot, she quickly surmised that if she turned sideways and pulled her feet up, the others could not even see her sitting there.
“Go ’head, sit on down . . . I’m not going to bother you,” said the boy with a wide, toothy grin on his face.
Plenty Good Room Page 22