A Deeper Love Inside

by Sister Souljah

  “One hundred dollars.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I spent most of it.” My first lie to Momma. Then I added truthfully, “I’m going to the market with what money is left. We ran out of groceries.”

  “You going out? I’m a wait here,” Momma said.

  I didn’t trust her. This was a new feeling between Momma and me, distrust.

  “Please come with me?” I asked sweetly.

  “No,” was all she said. I wanted to change my mind and stay and watch her. At the same time, I needed to get the ingredients for the healing soup to heal Momma. I wasn’t sure what to choose. Should I stay? Should I go?

  “What you standing there for? Go get the groceries,” she said. I left, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.

  What are the chances of me seeing Elisha? Probably zero, I thought as I walked to the faraway organic market. What did I want to see him for anyway? I asked myself. No answer came to mind.

  He wasn’t there. As I pushed my cart around, I looked down at my cheap, ugly sneakers. Then, I looked at myself, the part that I could see. I’m glad Elisha isn’t here, I thought to myself. Look at me. All this time the businesspeople on the block kept calling me “pretty little girl.” I looked a cheap mess.

  we are a healthy community was on the message board, which was posted on the wall right before the exit at the organic market. I walked past it with my expensive organic foods packed in expensive organic foods shopping bags. Then I took three steps back, and posted a note:

  Elisha it’s me, Ivory. I shop here on Fridays at 3.

  I pinned it on the board where there were many postings, and messages.

  Momma was gone when I got back. I believed she would return soon. If she didn’t, it would be too cruel to me and too bad for her and too sad for us. She needed the healing soup. She needed me to take care of her.

  I washed, peeled, sliced, chopped, and crushed, preparing the ingredients for the soup. In my deep clay pot, I placed a few stalks of thyme and poured in the purified water and, by accident, spilled a few tears.

  Chapter 32

  October 2, 1996

  Big Johnnie,

  I know my month is up and I’m supposed to leave. My mom died and I’ll be staying downstairs with Aunty for a lot longer than I thought.

  Love Ivory.

  That was the big lie tucked inside the little note that I left for Big Johnnie. I laid it on top of a bowl of homemade vegetable stew, made with organic red beans, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, tumeric, sea salt, cumin, coriander, and three big soft organic potatoes. I left a hot, fresh slice of cornbread, made with fresh organic corn for him to dip in the delicious stewed gravy.

  I had been dodging a face-to-face with Big Johnnie for a month. Although I cleaned his place thoroughly, organized his inventory, matched up his labels, trashed his expired foods, cut, collapsed, and tied his empty boxes into neat stacks, organized his old newspapers, packaged twenty-five sandwiches per day plus ten buttered rolls and five peanut butter and jellies, and knew his store like the palms of my hands, I did all of that from 3:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. each morning. He didn’t see me. He didn’t have to. Purposely, I wanted him to believe that Momma, aka my aunt, was on a good streak. I wanted him to imagine that “Aunt” was doing all those jobs while I prepared the sandwiches. I wanted him to believe that aunt and niece worked together preparing his special morning meals. Big Johnnie would leave my pay each Friday, in a white envelope with my name on it, at the front counter. I’d take it down below with me at 6:00 a.m. when I was finished with my work, and do the same routine the next week.

  I wanted to face Big Johnnie at the end of the month with Momma standing at my side, wearing one of the three new outfits that I had purchased for her. Now I would have to face Big Johnnie myself and alone, and pretend not to be living alone underneath the floor of his store. I knew no adult would allow two eleven-year-old girls, Siri and me, to live underground alone. At least no adult would, except Momma.

  Hesitantly, I entered the front door of his store for the first time in thirty days.

  “Big Johnnie,” I said.

  “Princess Ivory,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I had to extend my stay living beneath your store.”

  A customer rushed in. He served him. He left.

  “Maybe now you can let me know about the rent,” I asked.

  “Don’t concern yourself with that. You have a wake and a funeral to attend. When my mom passed away it was the saddest year of my life. It didn’t matter what anyone said or did. Mom was all I could think about. That’s why I can sit in here eighteen hours a day,” he said. “I just think of my mother and how grateful I should’ve been while she was alive, that she didn’t raise me to be one of these crazy fools I see out here every day.”

  I began to feel bad about my lie.

  “Your momma must’ve been one incredible woman, too. She raised an incredible daughter.” My eyes teared up on their own, with guilt and thoughts of my real momma.

  “Thank you,” I said softly. “So is it okay for me to stay?”

  “Please, please, don’t leave me,” he dramatized. We both laughed, me wiping away my tears.

  • • •

  “I heard your mother died,” Mr. Sharp said. He was so sharply dressed in a suit and shoes shined so well I could see them reflecting the sun. He was sitting in his Mercedes outside of his store with the engine running. “Go get Linda. Tell her I said to lock up and come on out.”

  I ran in to tell her.

  “You get in the back!” he said to me through the window. I got in, surprised and embarrassed by my cheap shoes on his plush interior in his throwback Benz. I fidgeted some. Even Linda looked a little uncomfortable.

  “Seat belts,” he said to both of us. “You see the box in the back?” he asked me, as he pulled away from the curb. “Open it.”

  I reached over and picked up the gift-wrapped box. I sat staring at it for some moments until I noticed Mr. Sharp was staring at me through his rearview mirror. I peeled the gift-wrapping away. It was a gold-framed picture of Poppa looking like king of the world. Beneath the tissue paper was a gold-framed picture of Momma. Her pose was so mean, she could’ve been a cover girl on Vogue magazine. Again, my tears turned on me.

  “A woman’s tears are beautiful to me,” Mr. Sharp said. “Every time I see them I’m amazed. Wish I could do that as easily as you all can do that. I’m forty-four. I’ve seen all type of things. I’ve never cried, not even one time.”

  He was talking nice, but his words made me have confusing thoughts. How could tears be beautiful? When a woman is crying it means she’s hurting, doesn’t it? I thought to myself.

  “Whose father is that in the photo in your hand?” he asked. I didn’t say nothing. “Whose mother is that?” I didn’t say nothing. “Is she dead?” he asked. “Is the woman in the picture dead?” I didn’t say nothing.

  “I loved your father. It would be my honor to help his daughter. In these times, a black man has to be careful. They always got us walking a tightrope; I find that we just have to become the best tightrope walkers in town. As a man, people look at me suspiciously if I say I love my brother. Men are supposed to love their brothers, work together, and fight together. When one falls, his brother gotta step up and take care of his brother’s wife and family. That’s how it supposed to be. But now, if a man makes any kind of gesture to a woman, he’s viewed as a pervert, someone who wants something, someone suspicious. If a grown man shows compassion to a young girl, he is seen as a molester and a rapist. They’ve closed down all the avenues for real men to express real love as a brother, as a father, as a friend. So we have Linda here, to break up the suspicion. To confirm that I’m just a good man doing a good deed to balance out some other deeds I done that wasn’t so good,” Mr. Sharp said, in a slow, steady, manly voice.

  Up until that day, Mr. Sharp had given me plenty of learning lessons, but had not offered me a job, or given me a copy of the photo off th
e wall that I asked for the first day we met. He said, “I been watching and waiting to see if you were gonna be sticking around.” Now he was taking me shopping.

  “Choose two pairs of shoes, and two pairs of sneakers,” he said. “We used to call it our ‘nice shoes’ and our ‘play shoes.’ ”

  In the Saks Fifth Avenue store he said, “Show me your style. Once I know your taste, I can make you something even better.” He was confident.

  In the Gucci store, he warned me, “This is a one-time, all-day, shopping spree event. I don’t want to spoil you. I already spoiled my own two daughters. Now they grown spoiled women. I don’t want to rob you of your enthusiasm, your work ethic, or your understanding of the true value of each penny, and every dollar. After today, you’ll come and earn some money working for me after school.”

  I wanted to work. I appreciated him. But I didn’t want to be exposed or to admit to anything either. I wanted to refuse the shopping event, but I felt it would ruin everything between me and him if I did.

  “Mr. Sharp, what if I say, it’s okay if we talk about some things but not other things? What if I make up a sign like this . . .” I manipulated my fingers. “And anytime I flash this sign, it means I don’t want to answer that question.” I smiled. “So when you see it, you don’t ask that no more,” I said softly.

  He laughed a hearty laugh. Linda began laughing, too. I wondered what she was laughing at when she always spoke only in Spanish. I decided she was just happy he was happy. It was one day of seeing him as a man and not a boss. I didn’t know if it was her first time like this or not.

  “What if I don’t agree to your sign language?” he asked.

  “Well, Mr. Sharp, you’re a nice man. I don’t want to lie to you.”

  “That’s the Ricky Santiaga I know. You don’t have to tell me you’re his daughter,” he said.

  I flashed the sign.

  • • •

  In Esmeralda’s Beauty Salon, a few doors down from Big Johnnie’s, I was having my hair done for the first time since lockdown. Used to Siri or me doing it myself, I felt a different feeling when Esmeralda touched me. The warm water in my hair, her fingers massaging my scalp, clearing away the shampoo suds, and even the way she kept securing the plastic around the front of my body so my clothes wouldn’t get wet felt unfamiliar. No one touches me, I thought to myself. While the shampoo bubbled up in my hair, some tears did flow from my eyes, even though they were closed while enjoying the feeling of the wash.

  The ladies in Esmeralda’s liked me a lot for saving them and some of their customers from getting those parking tickets.

  “Who did your nails, mami?” one of ’em asked.

  “I did,” I said, but really it was Siri who had the patience to paint on unique designs, blow them dry and wait and apply a top coat. Holding a mirror and showing me all the angles on my hairstyle, three beauticians stood still for some seconds admiring my new look.

  “Que linda!” they said.

  When I went to pay, Esmeralda refused my money.

  “No, mami!” she said. “Today for you is free,” she whispered while walking me out the front door of her shop. She wouldn’t even take the tip. I knew that was big. Sometimes I sat inside their shop when it was raining. I’d be flipping through fashion magazines. Their tip game was crazy! They started with an empty clear jug each morning, and counted out a bunch of ones, fives, and tens and a few twenties every evening. I was plotting on getting in good enough with them for me to become their “hair wash only girl.” I thanked Esmeralda four or five times. She stood outside her shop door watching me walk down the block for some seconds.

  As my feet moved light and comfortably in my new Nikes, my legs in my Guess jeans, my breasts in my new North Face jacket, my new Gucci bag on my shoulder, I dropped my last quarters of the day in the meters, and passed The Golden Needle on Mr. Sharp’s day off. I admired my manicured natural nails, clear polish with a razor-thin purple line across the tips, a la French manicure. As I waved at Linda, my mind realized that Esmeralda and them had probably heard from Big Johnnie, or one of his customers, that my mom had died. No wonder everyone was treating me extra-extra special. Every person, the men and the ladies, knew that the loss of a mother was the worse feeling and possibility. Only Mr. Sharp knew the real truth, the truth I never confirmed for him.

  As I walked, I thought about how every day I feel the same sadness a child whose mother had actually died would feel, I believed. If it were not for Siri’s singing and beautiful humming, I don’t know how I would ever be okay enough to make it through each day. Even in lockdown, laying awake in my bed at night in the C-dorm, I felt like I had a hole in my heart. But at least then, I was still surrounded by plenty of other little crazy girls who each had a hole in their hearts, too. In the underground beneath Big Johnnie’s floor, I got real familiar with extreme and continuous loneliness. Death and loneliness seemed the same to me. At least they had to be cousins, I thought to myself.

  For two back-to-back Fridays, Elisha had not shown up to meet me at the organic market. The note I left for him would always be removed by the time I returned. I’d post another one each time. This Friday I was hoping I’d be lucky. Since a few things had begun going my way for the last twenty-four hours, and since I did not have to spend one dollar of my savings on these new clothes, I thought it was a possibility that Elisha would be there this Friday, and he was.

  Chapter 33

  “My mother liked you,” was the first thing he said when I walked up. He handed me a copper-gold box of chocolates. More importantly, it was Godiva, the kind of chocolate Poppa used to give me one piece at a time, to prove a point.

  I smiled. Then he handed me another gift, a round wooden box. I opened it. It was an assortment of olives and cubes of cheese.

  “I wanted to give you some options,” he said. Then a bright smile began beaming naturally across his face. His teeth were perfect, like the day after a person gets their braces tooken off. I smiled again.

  “I like her, too. Is she inside the market?” I asked him. He took back the wooden box, pulled a tiny shopping bag from his North Face pocket and put the wooden box inside and held it for me.

  “No, do you need to go in there?” he asked.

  “Uh-un,” I said as I opened my Gucci backpack that I carried like a handbag, and placed the box of chocolates inside.

  “Ivory, what do you like?” he asked. Him saying my name made me tingle some, even though it wasn’t my real name. I don’t know why I was tingling.

  “Music,” I answered softly.

  “Speak up!” I heard Siri’s voice in my ear. “Don’t turn all soft just because he’s a boy,” she said.

  “But you’re soft,” I said to Siri.

  “Huh?” Elisha said.

  “Do you like music?” I asked him.

  “Everyone likes music,” he said. “My mother started me on guitar lessons when I was five. I’m twelve now, so I guess you could say I play pretty good.”

  “I dance,” I said.

  “All girls say that,” he said.

  “I’m not the same,” I told him. “As them . . .,” I added softly.

  “I know,” he said. “That’s what my mother said about you.”

  “So did you come to meet me cause your mother said so?” I asked him.

  “Yep,” he answered with full confidence. “C’mon, let’s walk,” he said.

  “Do you like sports?”

  “Not really,” I said. “You?”

  “I ball, but it’s not really my thing,” he said.

  “What’s your thing?” I asked.

  “Movies,” he said.

  “You want to go to the movies?” I asked, a little excited at the idea. I hadn’t been to one in more than four years.

  “No, I want to make movies,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s dope,” I said, and then I turned a little quiet, imagining.

  “You seem like you might make a good actress,” he said, staring straigh
t ahead. I was just trying to figure out if that was a compliment or an insult.

  “Why you say that?” I asked.

  “I told my mother that you acted like you accidentally pushed that shopping cart into me,” he smiled half way.

  “I did not,” I said, swiftly switching suddenly fierce.

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You would make a good actress, because you made my mother believe you!”

  I stopped walking and turned towards him, getting red.

  “Why would I do that!” My attitude burst out. He laughed.

  “See, that seems more like the real you,” he said calmly.

  “You don’t know me!” I told him.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But because I’m gonna be a movie director, I’m good at watching people.” He held his hand up and gestured like he was looking at me through the lens of a camera.

  “This is my school,” he said. We were standing in front of Brooklyn Boys Academy. Then he pointed diagonally across the street. “That’s my house, right there.” It was a Brooklyn brownstone. He pointed again. “That’s the church my mom goes to. The organic market is right back there.” He pointed in the direction we just walked from.

  It must be easy, I thought, for him to feel so free and relaxed that he’d easily say I live here, I go to school here, this is my plan for life. I wouldn’t and couldn’t. But I admired that he could.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “You live where? You’re twelve or thirteen? Your family?” he asked.

  “I live way down there,” I pointed. “I walked twenty-eight blocks to meet you. I go to the organic market because I was taught that non-organic fruits and vegetables were sprayed with poison. I want my momma to eat well. It’s too expensive for me, the organic market, but I shop there for Momma anyway. I’m a year younger than you, but I feel older than I am. I just moved to Brooklyn. Most of my friends are age forty and up. So I’m so happy to meet somebody young like me.”

  He busted out in boy laughter. “That’s crazy! Most of your friends are forty and up?” he questioned.