Last Summer with Maizon

by Jacqueline Woodson

  “Yes, ma’am.” Margaret looked up at Ms. Peazle. “It’s understood.”

  Ms. Peazle smiled. Without her glasses, Margaret thought, she wasn’t that mean-looking.

  “Good, then I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow with something wonderful to read to the class.”

  Margaret slid out of the chair and walked toward the door.

  “That’s a very pretty dress, Margaret,” Ms. Peazle said.

  Margaret turned and started to tell her that Maizon was wearing the same one in Connecticut, but changed her mind. What did Ms. Peazle know about best friends who were almost cousins, anyway?

  “Thanks, ma’am,” she said instead, and ducked out of the classroom. All of a sudden, she had a wonderful idea!

  10

  The next morning Ms. Peazle tapped her ruler against the desk to quiet the class. “Margaret,” she asked when the room was silent. “Do you have something you want to share with us today?”

  Margaret nodded and Ms. Peazle beckoned her to the front of the room.

  “This,” Margaret said, handing Ms. Peazle the sheet of looseleaf paper. It had taken her most of the evening to finish the assignment.

  Ms. Peazle looked it over and handed it back to her.

  “We’re ready to listen,” she said, smiling.

  Margaret looked out over the class and felt her stomach slide up her throat. She swallowed and counted to ten. Though the day was cool, she found herself sweating. Margaret couldn’t remember when she had been this afraid.

  “My pen doesn’t write anymore,” she began reading.

  “I can’t hear,” someone called out.

  “My pen doesn’t write anymore,” Margaret repeated. In the back of the room, someone exaggerated a sigh. The class chuckled. Margaret ignored them and continued to read.

  “It stumbles and trembles in my hand.

  If my dad were here—he would understand.

  Best off all—It’ll be last summer again.

  But they’ve turned off the fire hydrants

  Locked green leaves away.

  Sprinkled ashes on you

  and sent you on your way.

  I wouldn’t mind the early autumn

  if you came home today

  I’d tell you how much I miss you

  and know I’d be okay.

  Mama isn’t laughing now

  She works hard and she cries

  she wonders when true laughter

  will relieve her of her sighs

  And even when she’s smiling

  Her eyes don’t smile along

  her face is growing older

  She doesn’t seem as strong.

  I worry cause I love her

  Ms. Dell says, ‘where there is love,

  there is a way.’

  It’s funny how we never know

  exactly how our life will go

  It’s funny how a dream can fade

  With the break of day.

  I’m not sure where you are now

  though I see you in my dreams

  Ms. Dell says the things we see

  are not always as they seem.

  So often I’m uncertain

  if you have found a new home

  and when I am uncertain

  I usually write a poem.

  Time can’t erase the memory

  and time can’t bring you home

  Last summer was a part of me

  and now a part is gone.”

  The class stared at her blankly, silent. Margaret lowered her head and made her way back to her seat.

  “Could you leave that assignment on my desk, Margaret?” Ms. Peazle asked. There was a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Margaret said. Why didn’t anyone say anything?

  “Now, if everyone will open their history books to page two seventy-five, we’ll continue with our lesson on the Civil War.”

  Margaret wondered what she had expected the class to do. Applaud? She missed Maizon more than she had in a long time. She would know what I’m feeling, Margaret thought. And if she didn’t, she’d make believe she did.

  Margaret snuck a look out the window. The day looked cold and still. She’d tell me it’s only a feeling poets get and that Nikki Giovanni feels this way all of the time. When she turned back, there was a small piece of paper on her desk.

  “I liked your poem, Margaret,” the note read. There was no name.

  Margaret looked around but no one looked as though they had slipped a note on her desk. She smiled to herself and tucked the piece of paper into her notebook.

  The final bell rang. As the class rushed out, Margaret was bumped against Ms. Peazle’s desk.

  “Did you get my note?” Ms. Peazle whispered. Margaret nodded and floated home.

  Ms. Dell, Hattie, and Li’l Jay were sitting on the stoop when she got home.

  “If it wasn’t so cold,” she said, squeezing in beside Hattie’s spreading hips, “it would be like old times.”

  “Except for Maizon,” Hattie said, cutting her eyes toward her mother.

  “Hush, Hattie,” Ms. Dell said. She shivered and pulled Li’l Jay closer to her. For a moment, Margaret thought she looked old.

  “It’s just this cold spell we’re having,” Ms. Dell said. “Ages a person. Makes them look older than they are.”

  Margaret smiled. “Reading minds is worse than eavesdropping, Ms. Dell.”

  “Try being her daughter for nineteen years,” Hattie said.

  “Hattie,” Margaret said, moving closer to her for warmth. “How come you never liked Maizon?”

  “No one said I never liked her.”

  “No one had to,” Ms. Dell butted in.

  “She was just too much ahead of everyone. At least she thought she was.”

  “But she was, Hattie. She was the smartest person at P.S. 102. Imagine being the smartest person.”

  “But she didn’t have any common sense, Margaret. And when God gives a person that much brain, He’s bound to leave out something else.”

  “Like what?”

  Ms. Dell leaned over Li’l Jay’s head and whispered loudly, “Like the truth.”

  She and Hattie laughed but Margaret couldn’t see the humor. It wasn’t like either of them to say something wrong about a person.

  “She told the truth . . .” Margaret said weakly.

  Ms. Dell and Hattie exchanged looks.

  “How was school?” Hattie asked too brightly.

  “Boring,” Margaret said. She would tuck what they said away until she could figure it out.

  “That’s the only word you know since Maizon left. Seems there’s gotta be somethin’ else going on that’s not so boring all the time,” Ms. Dell said.

  “Well, it’s sure not school. I read a poem to that stupid class and no one but Ms. Peazle liked it.” She sighed and rested her chin on her hand.

  “That’s the chance you gotta take with poetry,” Ms. Dell said. “Either everybody likes it or everybody hates it, but you hardly ever know ’cause nobody says a word. Too afraid to offend you or, worse yet, make you feel good.”

  Margaret looked from Ms. Dell to Hattie and then back to Ms. Dell again.

  “How come you know so much about poetry?”

  “You’re not the first li’l black girl who wanted to be a poet.”

  “And you can bet your dress you won’t be the last,” Hattie concluded.

  “You wanted to be a poet, Hattie??!!”

  “Still do. Still make up poems in my head. Never write them down, though. The paper just yellows and clutters useful places. So this is where I keep it all now,” she said, pointing to her head.

  “A poem can’t exist inside your head. You forget it,” Margaret said doubtfully.

  “Poems don’t exist, Miss Know-It-All. Poems live! In your head is where a poem is born, isn’t it?”

  Margaret nodded and Hattie continued. “Well, my poetry chooses to live there!”

  “Then
recite one for me, please.” Margaret folded her arms across her chest the way she had seen Ms. Dell do so many times.

  “Some poems aren’t meant to be heard, smarty-pants.”

  “Aw, Hattie,” Ms. Dell interrupted, “let Margaret be the judge of that.”

  “All right. All right.” Hattie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Brooklyn-bound robin redbreast followed me from down home / Brooklyn-bound robin, you’re a long way from your own / So fly among the pigeons and circle the sky with your song”.

  They were quiet. Ms. Dell rocked Li’l Jay to sleep in her arms. Hattie looked somberly over the block in silence and Margaret thought of how much Hattie’s poem made her think of Maizon. What was she doing now that the sun was almost down? she wondered. Had she found a new best friend?

  “Maybe,” she said after a long time. “Maybe it wasn’t that the class didn’t like my poem. Maybe it was like your poem, Hattie. You just have to sit quietly and think about all the things it makes you think about after you hear it. You have to let ... let it sink in!”

  “You have to feel it, Margaret,” Hattie said softly, draping her arm over Margaret’s shoulder.

  “Yeah. Just like I felt when I wrote my poem, or you felt when you found a place for that one in your head!”

  “Margaret,” Ms. Dell said, “you gettin’ too smart for us ol’ ladies.”

  Margaret leaned against Hattie and listened to the fading sounds of construction. Soon the building on Palmetto Street would be finished. She closed her eyes and visions of last summer came into her head. She saw herself running down Madison Street arm in arm with Maizon. They were laughing. Then the picture faded into a new one. She and Maizon were sitting by the tree watching Li’l Jay take his first steps. He stumbled and fell into Maizon’s arms. Now it all seemed like such a long time ago.

  When she opened her eyes again, the moon was inching out from behind a cloud. It was barely visible in the late afternoon. The sky had turned a wintry blue and the streetlights flickered on. Margaret yawned, her head heavy all of a sudden from the long day.

  “Looks like your mother’s workin’ late again. Bless that woman’s heart. Seems she’s workin’ nonstop since your daddy passed.”

  “She’s taking drawing classes. She wants to be an architect. Maybe she’ll make a lot of money.”

  “Architects don’t make a lot of money,” Hattie said. “And anyway, you shouldn’t be worrying your head over money”.

  “She has a gift,” Ms. Dell said. “All of you Torys have gifts. You with your writing, your mama with her drawings, and remember the things your daddy did with wood. Oh, that man was something else!”

  “What’s Li’l Jay going to be?”

  Ms. Dell stood up and pressed Li’l Jay’s face to her cheek.

  “Time’s gonna tell us, Margaret. Now, come inside and do your homework while I fix you something to eat. No use sitting out in the cold.”

  Margaret rose and followed them inside.

  “You hear anything from Maizon yet?” Hattie asked.

  Margaret shook her head. If only Maizon were running up the block!

  “I wrote her two letters and she hasn’t written me one. Maybe she knows we’re not really best friends anymore.” Margaret sighed. She had been right in thinking she and Maizon were only old friends now, not the friends they used to be. “Still, I wish I knew how she was doing,” she said, turning away so Hattie wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

  “We all do, honey,” Hattie said, taking Margaret’s hand. “We all do.”

  11

  Two weeks later, Margaret sat at the kitchen table, scribbling furiously into her diary. When she looked up, the clock on the kitchen wall said ten-thirty. She couldn’t believe she had spent three hours writing. She flipped back to where she had begun and counted. Fifteen pages! Margaret heard her mother’s key in the lock and quickly stuffed the diary back into her bookbag.

  “Margaret,” her mother said, coming into the kitchen, “what are you doing up? It’s after ten o’clock.”

  “I wanted to stay up to tell you the news,” Margaret said. Her mother sat across from her. “Ms. Peazle entered my poem in a contest! If I win, I get scholarship money and I get to read it in front of the mayor!”

  Ms. Tory smiled and Margaret almost laughed with pleasure at the pride in her mother’s eyes. “That’s wonderful, Margaret,” she said, bending to give Margaret a hug.

  Margaret shivered a little. They had never sat like this before, just the two of them in the soft quiet light of the kitchen. The feeling was new and strange. She felt closer to her mother all of a sudden. And the closeness felt grown-up and good.

  “That would have made your daddy proud,” her mother said.

  Margaret swallowed. She hadn’t thought about her father all day and now, looking away from the sadness in her mother’s eyes, she saw her father clearly, smiling proudly down at her.

  “He is proud, Mama,” Margaret whispered. “From his place in heaven, he’s real proud.”

  Her mother shook her head and dabbed at her eyes quickly, then rose. “Want to have some tea with me to celebrate?” she asked, going over to the stove. Not waiting for an answer, she put the tea bags in cups and turned on the fire beneath the kettle. “You hear anything from Maizon?”

  Margaret looked down at the table. The cloth blurred a little. Maizon had left a month ago. She shook her head.

  Her mother turned back to the stove and poured the water into the cups. “I guess Blue Hill must be pretty hard. It’s not like Maizon not to let anyone know how she’s doing.” She brought the cups over to the table. Margaret blew at the cloud of steam above her cup. “Have you spoken to her grandmother? Maybe she’s heard something.”

  Margaret shook her head again. “I haven’t been by there since Maizon left.” All of a sudden she felt guilty. “It would just make me miss her more.”

  “She must be pretty lonely in that big house by herself,” her mother said, reading her thoughts.

  Margaret took a small sip of tea. It was minty and almost bitter. “I’ll go see her after school tomorrow.”

  The kitchen fell silent. “You think Maizon forgot about Madison Street, Mama?”

  Her mother laughed a little uncertainly. “It would take a lot to forget Madison Street.”

  “I was talking to some girls in school and they said they like me better since Maizon left. They said that she was bossy and snotty.”

  Her mother looked up. “What did you say to them?”

  Margaret picked nervously at the vinyl checkered tablecloth. The small hole wore away to a bigger one.

  “Don’t, Margaret,” her mother said gently.

  “I didn’t say anything,” she admitted.

  “Don’t let them say bad things about her when she’s not here to defend herself. That’s not what a real friend would do.”

  Margaret swallowed and took a quick sip of tea. The hot liquid washed the sadness back down for a moment.

  “I wanted to tell them that Maizon’s not like that, that they didn’t know her like I did,” she said quietly.

  Her mother laid her hand on top of Margaret’s. “Why didn’t you? It’s not like you not to.”

  Margaret shrugged. “The words got stuck. Those girls never paid any attention to me. I wanted them to keep liking me. I don’t hardly have any friends in school.” She looked up at her mother helplessly. “I felt real bad when I walked away, though.”

  Her mother shook her head. “It’s hard to know what to do,” she said, almost to herself. “I miss your father and I want to talk about him with a friend sometimes, but then I don’t want anyone to remind me how empty I feel.” She sniffed and gave Margaret a weak smile. “You better get to bed. School tomorrow.”

  “You okay, Mama?” She felt as though a strong wind had blown in between them, pulling them further and further apart. The closeness she had felt a moment ago was gone.

  “It’s going to take time, Margaret. Everything will fall into pl
ace. But it’s going to take time.”

  Margaret hugged her. “We have a lot of time, Mama.”

  12

  “It must be scary for Maizon up there,” Grandma said. She sat in her armchair gazing out the window. In the early October wind, yellow and gold leaves pressed themselves for quick moments to the window, then hurried off again.

  “Guess it must seem to her like a long time ago she was smart,” Ms. Dell said. She sat across from Grandma on the overstuffed couch. “Now she’s just one of a lot of smart girls caught up there in that Connecticut school, inching along. Guess it’s hard no longer being the smartest one ...”

  “She’s still probably the smartest one,” Margaret said.

  Ms. Dell shook her head. “She’d have dropped us some kind of note if that was the case. Here it is already a month and some weeks gone by.”

  “Aren’t you worried, Grandma? Maybe something happened.”

  Grandma continued to gaze out the window. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. “When I took Maizon to Connecticut, it seemed like what she wanted most was for me to leave so she could be on her own. So I left quickly. You know how Maizon is, Margaret. She’s an individualist. I can’t say she’s a loner, because she needs people so much. And I know I spoil her. So I left and waited for her to call. I waited a week, then I called Blue Hill to see if there was anything wrong. They said everything was fine and Maizon was adjusting. I thought I should leave her to her adjusting and wait to hear from her. Sometimes I want to just go there and surprise her but I think that would be the wrong thing to do. I miss her so.”

  Margaret felt her chest press down and rise up in her throat. “How could she just forget about us? It’s like she doesn’t even remember me. I keep writing and writing . . .”

  “It’s hard up there, Margaret,” Ms. Dell’said reassuringly. “We thought Maizon forgot too.”

  Grandma nodded in agreement and Ms. Dell continued. “We thought what need does Maizon have with two old ladies—one who raised her, one who just raised eyes at her. But then after we talked some, thought about things a little, it made some sense to us. No, Margaret, she ain’t the smartest girl no more. And you know Maizon. It’s going to have to be a little snow on the ground in July before she let on that she ain’t.”