“Not always, Maizon. Not always,” Grandma said. Their voices were coming from the living room now. Margaret wondered if this was eavesdropping. She closed her eyes and tried to shut the voices out. She heard the knitting needles clicking softly and imagined Grandma’s hands moving swiftly over the dark-green yarn she was working with these days.
“I had a friend, Maizon,” she heard Grandma say softly. The knitting needles were silent, which meant Grandma was leaning toward Maizon, about to tell an important story. Grandma loves sharing stories, so it couldn’t be eavesdropping, Margaret thought. “... before I married your grandfather. I thought I knew her so well and she knew me even better. We grew up together in Colorado. She, too, lived on the reservation before the government came and took us from the land. But I brought your grandfather to meet her and she said to me, ‘You can’t marry him. He’s a black man.’ I knew that there had come a point where I still called this girl my friend but we didn’t even know each other. Because I loved your grandfather and saw him as someone I loved. But she saw him as black and refused to know him.”
“But Margaret and I agree on everything.”
“You won’t always, though. If the Lord separates you from her and you go to that school, you will learn things that are different from what Margaret is learning. You will grow in different ways.”
“Then I don’t want to go away.”
And I don’t want you to go away, Margaret thought.
“But, Maizon, you must understand, you have to grow. I remembered my childhood with this friend and I kept those memories because they were important to me. But I knew she had grown into someone I wasn’t. I still love her for who she was, not who she became. Do you understand, Maizon?”
“No,” Maizon said stubbornly.
“Oh, but you will. You will.”
Margaret fell asleep to the soft clicking of Grandma’s needles.
7
When nearly another month passed with no word from Blue Hill, Margaret let her hopes rise a little. Saturday was sunny and hot, a perfect day for a block party. Madison Street was noisy and filled with kids, happy that the street was closed off to traffic. From the kitchen, Margaret heard Maizon bound up the stairs and pound on the door. Ms. Tory sat in the living room with Li‘l Jay on her lap, gazing absently out the window. Margaret heard Li’l Jay yell when Maizon entered.
“Hi, Ms. Tory! Your door’s unlocked. Where’s Margaret?” she shouted.
“She’s in the kitchen helping me get this baby something to eat. I see you’re all ready for the block party. What do you have there?” she asked.
“Something I gotta tell Margaret about right away!”
Maizon darted into the kitchen just as Margaret pulled Li’l Jay’s bottle from the pan of hot water.
“Hey, Maizon! When I finish with this bottle we can practice our double-dutch again before the contest. Did you bring the rope?”
Maizon gasped. “I forgot.”
“Maizon, how could you forget? We’ve been practicing for a week now.”
“I got into Blue Hill!” Maizon shouted, handing Margaret a white envelope.
Margaret ripped the letter from it and moved her lips silently as she read.
“Maizon! They want you to leave September first! That’s not even two weeks away!”
“I know, and I still have to pack and buy clothes and say good-bye and ...”
“But, Maizon, you’re leaving in two weeks! Two weeks! Don’t you care!”
“About what?”
“About leaving,” Margaret said, carrying the bottle into the living room. Her hand shook as she handed it to her mother.
“Maizon got into Blue Hill, Mama,” she said, inching off to her room. Behind her she heard her mother congratulating Maizon.
“Yeah, wonderful,” Margaret whispered, flinging the window open.
She stared out at the construction site. The usually noisy cranes and trucks were still. The frame of the building was complete now, four stories higher than her own. Margaret sighed. She felt so empty all of a sudden.
“You sad ’cause I’m going away, Margaret?” Maizon asked from the doorway.
“I don’t care,” Margaret said.
“I wish you were going, too, Margaret. I didn’t even think of us not being together when I first got the letter. All I thought about was how happy my grandmother was. She said this was a good chance for me to meet different kinds of people and get a real good education.”
“But there are different kinds of people here, Maizon. And more people are going to move in. Rich people.”
“I know. But I know just about everyone here and P.S. 102 doesn’t have such good teachers. Remember last year when I knew more than Ms. Shawn?”
Margaret frowned and nodded.
“Blue Hill is supposed to be smarter than any school in Brooklyn. And since I got a scholarship, my grandmother says I should go. She says I could get into good colleges and everything!”
“College?”
Maizon came over to the window.
“I know it’s a long way away. But my grandmother says I should start thinking.”
After a moment Margaret asked, “What’s Blue Hill going to be like?”
“I don’t know. Lots of strangers dressed alike. Scary. I heard there are hardly any black people there. I won’t know anybody.”
“Maizon, I don’t want you to go away.” Margaret pressed her face against the cool pane. She didn’t feel like double-dutch or block parties or anything anymore. “I was wishing you wouldn’t get accepted.”
“I was hoping that too,” Maizon said. “But now that I got in, I know I have to go.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Margaret sighed. “I guess everyone has to go away sometime.”
“We can still buy the same clothes, Margaret. The letter says we don’t have to wear uniforms all the time.”
Margaret nodded. What did it matter? They were going to be wearing them so far away from each other.
“Maizon, you think Ms. Dell was right about us? Remember she said one day all the things we did together won’t matter ’cause other things will be more important?”
“Ah, I don’t believe that, Margaret! I know you’ll always be my best friend and I’ll always be yours. It’ll still be just like we’re living on the same block.”
“You think so? You think we’ll still be best friends? Connecticut is a long way away.”
“If we promise to be.”
“I promise. I promise I won’t talk to anybody about any secrets but you. Sometimes I’ll talk to Hattie and Ms. Dell, and Mama ... and maybe Li’l Jay, when he can carry on a conversation.”
“And I’ll only talk to teachers. I’ll write you about everything and call you and tell you what happens every day.”
They were silent for a long moment. Slowly, Margaret began to realize Maizon was really going away. The thought was a dull ache that started at her feet and worked its way up to her heart. She groped for words to fill the silence, but found none.
“Maybe I can visit, Maizon,” she said weakly.
“Yeah, and maybe I can come home on the weekend sometimes!”
“And maybe I can get a scholarship if I study and get real smart like you!”
“Yeah!”
“Promise always, Maizon?”
“Uh huh. You promise?”
“Uh huh.”
Maizon leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. Margaret was startled. She put her hand to her cheek and looked at Maizon.
“You’re my best friend in the whole world,” Maizon said solemnly. “I love you. Best friends should tell each other that.”
“You’re mine too, Maizon,” Maizon said softly, still a little surprised.
“And ... ?” Maizon prodded.
“And I love you.” Margaret smiled.
“Come on then,” Maizon said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “We have a double-dutch contest!”
They raced past Ms. Tory and Li’l Jay and sl
ammed out the front door.
“Hey! Hey! Where you two off to so fast?” Ms. Dell said. She and Hattie were sitting on the stoop. They had done most of the baking for the block party and now glanced proudly at the table set up on the sidewalk. “Come back here and try one of these desserts me and Hattie put so much time into,” Ms. Dell said, fanning herself with her hand.
Maizon inched backward toward a strawberry-frosted cake with white sugar roses. She scooped up a fingerful from behind her back and turned quickly to stuff the frosting into her mouth.
“I guess you think no one saw that, Maizon?” Ms. Dell teased, folding her arms across her chest.
“We have to go,” Maizon said quickly, grabbing Margaret’s hand. “It’s almost time for the contest.”
She pulled Margaret behind her.
Maizon began chanting what they had practiced. “Almost twins. We’re best friends, jumpin’ side by side.” Margaret joined in.
“Turn around, touch the ground, up and give me five.” They slapped their palms together.
“Almost twins—could be cousins—coolest girls alive!” They sang as they made their way toward the crowd of girls that had gathered for the contest.
8
“Sure wish you weren’t going away,” Margaret said, choking back tears for what seemed like the millionth time. They were sitting on the M train, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, and Margaret shivered as the train passed over the water. The L train would have made the trip easier but the L didn’t go over the bridge and Maizon had wanted to ride over it once more before she left.
Maizon sat nervously drumming her fingers against the windowpane. “Me too,” she said absently.
Margaret looked over at Mama and Grandma. Grandma stared out of her window. She looked old and out of place on the train.
“Maizon?” Margaret said, turning back toward her.
“Hmm?” Maizon frowned. She seemed to be concentrating on something in the water. It rippled and danced below them.
“Even though I wrote you those two letters, you only have to write me one back if you don’t have a lot of time or something.” Margaret looked down at her fingers. She had begun biting the cuticles, and now the skin surrounding her nails was red and ragged.
“I’ll write you back,” Maizon promised.
“Maizon ...”
“What, Margaret!”
Margaret jumped and looked at Maizon. There was an uneasiness in her eyes she had never seen before.
“Forget it,” she said.
Ms. Tory leaned over. “We’ll be getting off in a few stops.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence. At Delancey Street they changed for another train and a half hour later they were at Penn Station.
“I guess now we’ll have to call each other to plan the same outfits,” Maizon said as they waited for her train. Her voice sounded forced and fake, Margaret thought, like a grown-up trying to make a kid smile.
“I guess,” Margaret said. The conductor called Maizon’s train.
“I guess I gotta go,” Maizon said softly, and Margaret felt a lump rise in her throat.
“I’ll write you back, Margaret. Promise. Thanks for letting me keep the double-dutch trophy even if it is only second place.” They hugged for a long time. Maizon sniffed loudly. “I’m scared, Margaret,” she whispered.
Margaret didn’t know what to say. “Don’t be.”
“Bye, Ms. Tory.”
Margaret’s mother bent down and hugged Maizon. “Be good,” she said as Maizon and her grandmother made their way toward the train.
“Mama,” Margaret said as they watched Maizon and her grandmother disappear into the tunnel.
“What, dear?”
“What’s the difference between a best friend and an old friend?”
“I guess ...” Her mother thought for a moment. “I guess an old friend is a friend you once had and a best friend is a friend you’ll always have.”
“Then maybe me and Maizon aren’t best friends anymore.”
“Don’t be silly, Margaret. What else would you two be? Some people can barely tell you apart. I feel like I’ve lost a daughter.”
“Maybe ... I don’t know ... Maybe we’re old friends now. Maybe this was our last summer as best friends. I feel like something’s going to change now and I’m not going to be able to change it back.”
Ms. Tory’s heels made a clicking sound through the terminal. She stopped to buy tokens and turned to Margaret.
“Like when Daddy died?” she asked, looking worried.
Margaret swallowed. “No. I just feel empty instead of sad, Mama,” she said.
Her mother squeezed her hand as they waited for the train. When it came, they took seats by the window.
Ms. Tory held on to Margaret’s hand. “Sometimes it just takes a while for the pain of loss to set in.”
“I feel like sometimes Maizon kept me from doing things, but now she’s not here. Now I don’t have any”—Margaret thought for a moment, but couldn’t find the right words—“now I don’t have any excuse not to do things.”
When the train emerged from its tunnel, the late afternoon sun had turned a bright orange. Margaret watched it for a moment. She looked at her hands again and discovered a cuticle she had missed.
9
Margaret pressed her pencil to her lips and stared out the classroom window. The school yard was desolate and gray. But everything seemed that way since Maizon left. Especially since Maizon hadn’t written even once since she left. Margaret sighed and chewed her eraser.
“Margaret, are you working on this assignment?”
Margaret jumped and turned toward Ms. Peazle. Maizon had been right—Ms. Peazle was the crabbiest teacher in the school. Margaret wondered why she had been picked to teach the smartest class. If students were so smart, she thought, the least the school could do was reward them with a nice teacher.
“I’m trying to think about what to write, Ms. Peazle.”
“Well, you won’t find an essay on your summer vacation outside that window, I’m sure. Or is that where you spent it?”
The class snickered and Margaret looked down, embarrassed. “No, ma’am.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Ms. Peazle continued, looking at Margaret over granny glasses. “And I’m sure in the next ten minutes you’ll be able to read your essay to the class and prove to us all that you weren’t just daydreaming. Am I right?”
“I hope so, ma‘am,” Margaret mumbled. She looked around the room. It seemed everyone in 6-1 knew each other from the previous year. On the first day, a lot of kids asked her about Maizon, but after that no one said much to her. Things had changed since Maizon left. Without her, a lot of the fun had gone out of sitting on the stoop with Ms. Dell, Hattie, and Li’l Jay. Maybe she could write about that. No, Margaret thought, looking down at the blank piece of paper in front of her. It was too much to tell. She’d never get finished and Ms. Peazle would scold her—making her feel too dumb to be in 6-1. Margaret chewed her eraser and stared out the window again. There had to be something she could write about quickly.
“Margaret Tory!” Ms. Peazle warned. “Am I going to have to change your seat?”
“Ma’am? I was just ...”
“I think I’m going to have to move you away from that window unless you can prove to me that you can sit there without being distracted.”
“I can, Ms. Peazle. It helps me write,” she lied.
“Then I take it you should be ready to read your essay in”—Ms. Peazle looked at her watch—“the next seven minutes.”
Margaret started writing frantically. When Ms. Peazle called her to the front of the room, her sheet of notebook paper shook in her hand. She pulled nervously at the hem of her maroon dress she and Maizon had picked out for school and tried not to look out at the twenty-six pairs of eyes she knew were on her.
“Last summer was the worst summer of my life. First my father died and then my best friend went away to a private boarding sch
ool. I didn’t go anywhere except Manhattan. But that wasn’t any fun because I was taking Maizon to the train. I hope next summer is a lot better.”
She finished reading and walked silently back to her desk and tried to concentrate on not looking out the window. Instead, she rested her eyes on the half-written page. Margaret knew she could write better than that, but Ms. Peazle had rushed her. Anyway, she thought, that is what happened last summer.
“I’d like to see you after class, Margaret.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Margaret said softly. This is the end, she thought. One week in the smartest class and it’s over. Maizon was smart enough to go to a better school and I can’t even keep up in this class. Margaret sighed and tried not to stare out the window for the rest of the day.
When the three o’clock bell rang, she waited uneasily in her seat while Ms. Peazle led the rest of the class out to the school yard. Margaret heard the excited screams and laughter as everyone poured outside.
The empty classroom was quiet. She looked around at the desks. Many had words carved into them. They reminded her of the names she and Maizon had carved into the tar last summer. They were faded and illegible now.
Ms. Peazle came in and sat at the desk next to Margaret’s. “Margaret,” she said slowly, pausing for a moment to remove her glasses and rub her eyes tiredly. “I’m sorry to hear about your father ...”
“That’s okay.” Margaret fidgeted.
“No, Margaret, it’s not okay,” Ms. Peazle continued, “not if it’s going to affect your schoolwork.”
“I can do better, Ms. Peazle, I really can!” Margaret looked up pleadingly. She was surprised at herself for wanting so badly to stay in Ms. Peazle’s class.
“I know you can, Margaret. That’s why I’m going to ask you to do this. For homework tonight ...”
Margaret started to say that none of the other students had been assigned homework. She decided not to, though.
“I want you to write about your summer,” Ms. Peazle continued. “I want it to express all of your feelings about your friend Maizon going away. Or it could be about your father’s death and how you felt then. It doesn’t matter what you write, a poem, an essay, a short story. Just so long as it expresses how you felt this summer. Is that understood?”
Last Summer with Maizon Page 4