by Neta Jackson
Flo had laughed out loud. “Girl, you takin’ your life in your hands with that one. Sure, come on. House won’t look like Martha Stewart, but I’m cool. And I’d love to meet Amanda. I’ll go kick my menfolk out of bed—time they was movin’ they butts anyhow.”
The southbound Red Line pulled into the Morse Street Station with a metallic squeal, and the doors slid open. Only one person got out—Morse was the second stop after Howard Street and most people who got on at Howard were heading downtown. The boys who looked like they might trip over their pants held back and let Amanda and me get on first. Nice, I thought. I hadn’t expected that. The car was about half-full, but Amanda and I got two aisle seats across from each other.
Denny and I always told out-of-town guests they had to ride the el if they wanted a genuine Chicago experience—though I suspect the riders who were privy to it for everyday transportation were unimpressed by people who rode the train “just for fun.” As the train picked up speed, it snaked perilously close to apartment buildings whose second-floor windows looked out eye to eye with commuters on the elevated train. How could the people who lived in those apartments stand it? No wonder most of the windows had their blinds pulled. But how depressing was that?
“Look, Mom!” Amanda pointed out the window on her side of the train at a back porch loaded with hanging baskets and flower boxes, a profusion of bright colors spilling over the sides. “Cool,” said Amanda. “Like ‘bloom where you are planted.’ ”
Out of the mouth of babes . . . I shook my head. Could I bloom if God planted me with the back of my house butted up against the elevated train tracks with a deafening din clattering past every fifteen minutes? Why not? a voice argued from somewhere inside my head as another flower-bedecked rear porch flew by.What does scenery have to do with it?
“Morse” . . . “Loyola” . . . “Granville” . . . the el pulled up along each platform stop, exchanged passengers, then rolled out again. Shutting out the clickety-clack, clickety-clack, I listened harder to the voice in my head, remembering the speaker at the women’s conference—Olivia Mitchell. Even when she got up to speak, the praise went on for several more minutes. I don’t need your permission to praise! she’d told us. You don’t know where God has brought me from!
“Mom? Mom! Isn’t this where you wanted to get off?”
The train doors had slid open, revealing the word BRYN MAWR in block letters on the platform sign. “Yes!” I jumped up, grabbing Amanda’s hand. “Let’s go!”
We walked a few blocks on Bryn Mawr, crossed Broadway, and hit Magnolia just one street over. Florida’s apartment building was just half a block south—a six-flat. In the foyer I punched the button that said “Hickman, 3rd Fl. N.”
A tinny voice said, “Who is it?”
“Jodi and Amanda.”
A loud buzzer echoed in the small foyer, and I jerked open the door.
“Mom,” Amanda whispered as we climbed the worn, carpeted stairs, “I feel funny. I don’t even know these people.”
“I know, honey.” I felt funny, too, and I did know these people—Florida, anyway. “But thanks for coming with me. Means a lot.”
Two doors stood on either side of the landing at the top of the stairs. Before we could read the little paper names inserted in the door nameplates, the door on the right opened. Florida stood there in T-shirt and jeans, cigarette in hand, a big smile wrinkling her nose.
“Jodi! Give me a hug, girl.”
I gave her a big hug, feeling like my own smile was wrapping itself around the back of my head. Gosh, I really had missed her.
“This your baby?” Florida stepped back and gave Amanda a head-to-toe once-over. I suddenly felt appalled. How stupid of me!—flaunting my daughter, when Florida’s daughter was missing. But Florida seemed oblivious to my self-chastisement. “Why didn’t you tell me she was such a beauty! Mmm-mm. You better get yourself a shotgun and keep it loaded.” She held out her arms, the cigarette ash growing longer by the second. “C’mere, darlin’. Let Aunt Florida give you a hug.”
This seemed to please Amanda tremendously, and she returned Florida’s hug with a grin. Florida opened the door wider. “C’mon in. Don’t mean to leave you out in the hall. Chris! Cedric!” she yelled somewhere over her shoulder. “Turn that thang down and come meet some friends of mine.”
The living room to our left was dim, lit only by a video game bouncing on a TV screen. Two young boys reluctantly put down their controllers and came to the doorway to shake our hands. Chris, Florida told us, was thirteen; Cedric was eleven. Even though Amanda was only one year older, I noticed she towered over Chris by a good three inches. Both boys had Florida’s warm hazelnut skin; embarrassed grins escaped as she bragged on how well they were doing in middle school.
“What game are ya playin’?” Amanda asked, moving into the living room. “I’ve never seen it before. Can you teach me how?”
“I guess,” Chris shrugged.
“Sure!” beamed Cedric. “It’s really fun.”
I stared at Amanda’s ponytail as the three kids settled down on the floor in front of the TV. Would wonders never cease? Two minutes ago Amanda didn’t even want to be walking up the stairs.
“Come on back to the kitchen,” Florida said, leading the way down a long narrow hall. “I’ve got coffee on.”
I sneaked a peek into the two bedrooms to my left as we headed toward the kitchen—a double bed, unmade, in one; a double mattress on the floor in the other. The second room was so small the mattress practically touched both walls.
A man with tired eyes in an otherwise pleasant face sat at a round table in a room just off the kitchen that seemed to serve as all-purpose room. A computer monitor and keyboard sat atop a small desk in one corner, surrounded by schoolbooks and stacks of mail; a sewing machine sat on a recycled end table. The chairs around the table didn’t match. The man must be—
“Carl, this is Jodi Baxter, one of the women I met at the conference last week.”
Florida’s husband reached out a hand and murmured a greeting, but he seemed puzzled as I shook his hand. “Not the same one who was here last night?”
Florida snickered and headed for the coffeepot. “You got eyes, Carl! Stu was taller, had long blonde hair.”
I was startled. Stu was here last night? But Carl seemed embarrassed. “Sorry. Just took me a minute. You know, you both . . . you both . . .”
“White,” Florida finished, returning from the small kitchen with a big grin and handing me a cup of black coffee. “These white people all look alike, don’t they?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m really glad to meet you, Carl— your handsome boys, too,” I said, trying to smooth the awkwardness. But what was there to say next? I couldn’t ask about his job; Florida had said he was unemployed. I turned to Florida. “Stu was here last night?”
“Yeah.” Florida sat down at the table and motioned me into a seat. Carl seemed to take the cue and excused himself. “She wanted to talk about Carla, get whatever information she could about the DCFS case. I . . . gave her the folder we had with letters, forms. She said she’d be sure to return it.” Florida looked at me. “What? You think maybe that wasn’t a good idea?”
She must have seen the strained look on my face. I certainly felt my mouth tighten, my forehead frown. But what was I thinking? That Stu had gotten here first. I had wanted to visit Florida in person, show her I really cared about her and her family . . . and Stu had beaten me to the draw.
I shook my head, trying to shake my petty thoughts loose. Florida seemed to be waiting for my answer. I made a stab at one. “Uh . . . I don’t know. Maybe. Do you have copies of all those papers?”
“No. But Stu said she’d photocopy them and return my originals.” Florida stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray and muttered, “One of these days God and me gonna have a talk about this habit . . .” Her thoughts seemed to drift, then she sighed. “Guess I shoulda made copies first, but she seemed eager to get the process started. Thoug
h for the life of me, I don’t know what she can do. She doesn’t even work at DCFS. Not now, anyway.”
I pushed past my own conflicted feelings to reassure her. “I’m sure Stu just wants to help if she can. But it would be good to get those originals back as soon as possible.” I looked around the room. There was one framed poster on the wall—the poem “Footprints” done in fancy calligraphy. Christian pop art. But no framed photographs. “Do you have a picture of Carla? I’d love to see it.”
“Those were hard times, Jodi. Didn’t take many pictures.” But Florida got up and rummaged in one of the desk drawers, then handed me a snapshot of a little girl about two years old, holding a ball. The quality was poor, but the grin on the little girl’s face was bright, the eyes laughing—just like Florida’s.
“She’s adorable,” I breathed.
Florida’s shoulders slumped. “That’s the last picture I have of her—two years old. She’d be eight now. I try, I really try, to imagine what she looks like, but I can’t. And sometimes I’m afraid . . . afraid I won’t find her again, or if we do, afraid she won’t know me anymore, won’t want to come back.” Tears slid down her cheeks.
Tears were filling my own eyes. I clasped Florida’s hands in both my own. “No, no. We’re not goin’ there.” Good grief, I thought. I sound like Avis. “Look what God has done for you already! You’re ‘five years saved and five years sober’—isn’t that what you said?”
“Yeah.” Her smile was tentative, like a small break in the rain clouds. “Five years this June. After they took the kids from me.”
“You’ve come so far, Florida! God has been putting your family back together again—look at your two beautiful boys! And your husband, too.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Good-lookin’ guy, you know, even if he doesn’t have a job. Yet.”
“Yep. You’re right. God’s been good . . . all the time. Hasn’t brought me this far to leave me.” The old fire rekindled in her eyes. “And I can’t be around negative people who think otherwise.”
“Ah. Ruth’s comment.” It couldn’t be avoided. It had to get out on the table.
“You got that right!” she shot back. “What does she know about me, or . . . or Carla . . . or our situation, or . . . anything!”
AMANDA AND I STOPPED AT A LITTLE CAFÉ on Broadway for Chicago hot dogs and milkshakes before catching the Red Line back to Rogers Park. “That was fun, Mom,” Amanda said, trying to keep the trimmings from falling off the bun as she took a big bite of her hot dog. “Chris and Cedric are nice.Thanks for bringing me along.” These last words were muffled by the wad of food in her mouth.
I nodded. Aside from talking with her mouth full, I was proud of her. Amanda had really risen to the occasion. I wasn’t so proud of myself. The visit to Florida had clearly shown me two things:
We had to patch up the rift caused by Ruth’s comment before Yada Yada ripped apart at the seams.
And I really was jealous of Stu.
18
My load of laundry was sitting on top of the dryer, sopping wet. Rats! I’d forgotten to turn the washing machine back on after Denny’s shower. It looked like our upstairs neighbors—a working couple who never seemed to be home—had moved my unfinished load so they could do some laundry while we weren’t home. With only two households using the washer and dryer, it usually wasn’t a problem. But now I couldn’t remember whether my load had been in the wash or rinse cycle.
I gave up and ran it through all over again.
When I came into the kitchen from the basement, I could hear Amanda and Edesa exchanging Spanish phrases in the dining room. “Como te llamas?” . . . “Me llamo Amanda.” . . . “Cuánta gente en su familia?” . . . “Hay cuatro personas en mi familia.” Caught that one. Something about “my family.”
Edesa had arrived right at four o’clock. Amanda seemed to take to her right away, probably because she was young and pretty and shook Amanda’s hand with a delighted smile—unlike Mr. Ortez, Amanda’s teacher, fiftyish, who seemed to have a perpetual frown engraved between his flabby jowls. Now that I thought about it, that frown would not make me want to ask for extra help, either. But Edesa hadn’t wasted any time getting down to business. She’d asked for Amanda’s last few quizzes to get an idea of what her weak areas were and they’d set right to work.
Denny and Josh came home from the men’s workday at Uptown Community right in the middle of the Spanish lesson, and of course had to tromp into the kitchen for something to eat. I followed them, trying to get them to muffle the sounds of two hungry males pulling out chips and salsa and popping cans of Coke. “What’s for supper,Mom?” Josh said in a failed attempt to keep it to a whisper.
“Your mom and I are going out,” Denny said. “Supper is whatever you and Amanda can find to eat.”
Amanda’s voice floated in from the dining room. “Can Edesa stay for supper?”
“No, no. That’s all right. Thank you anyway,” Edesa protested.
I looked at Denny. Now what?
As it turned out, Denny admitted later it was a delightful time getting to know Edesa over a quick supper of quesadillas—tortillas topped with melted cheese and piled high with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped green onions, and salsa—with a side of packaged red beans and rice. It was one of our “easy meals”—ready in thirty minutes—and I didn’t think much about it until Edesa held up one of the store-bought flour tortillas and said with a teasing grin, “My mama makes these from scratch . . .” Pat-pat-pat-pat—she flipped the tortilla from side to side between her palms. “. . . and bakes them in a brick oven. Mmmm. Now that’s a tortilla.”
I was horrified. Edesa must’ve thought we were trying to give her an “authentic” Honduran meal or something. But before I could get out a protest, she pointed at my face—I’m sure my mouth and eyes were round as Cheerios—and burst out laughing. Amanda, Josh, and Denny joined right in, though why they felt the joke was on me, I don’t know.
But that sparked a lot of questions from Josh and Amanda about the town in Honduras where Edesa grew up. Most of the population, she said, was mestizo—mixed Amerindian and European—with blacks, whites, and indigenous Indians making up about 10 percent. Her people were descended from African slaves who rebelled in the Caribbean and were exiled to Honduras by the British. “Unfortunately, racism exists in Honduras, too,” she said, her eyes liquid and dark, like looking into a deep well. “We are still considered ‘outsiders.’When Hurricane Mitch hit the coast in 1998, no one sent us any aid, especially those of us who belong to Pentecostal churches—a small minority in a largely Catholic country.”
By the time we finished talking, it was getting dark, and Denny was concerned about Edesa riding the el alone. So, for our “date” we gave her a ride home to the Near West Side—not too far from where Delores lived, she said. The night was clear, and the brightest stars could be seen in the darkening sky as we drove down Lake Shore Drive, in spite of the brilliant lights from Chicago’s skyline. The Loop was alive with horse-drawn carriages, partygoers heading for restaurants or the theater, and families silhouetted against the colorful sprays of Buckingham Fountain enjoying the May evening. But when we had spit out of the other side of the Loop like a watermelon seed zipping west on the Eisenhower Expressway and finally turned off on the narrow one-way streets of the Near West Side neighborhood, the darkness seemed to close in around us.
“Sweet girl,” Denny said, coming back to the car after walking Edesa into the dim pocket of her apartment building foyer and making sure she got inside okay. “Now what? Too late for a movie—unless you want to go for the late show.”
“Uh-uh. Not with church tomorrow,” I groaned. But I did have an ace up my sleeve. “Wanna try out the Bagel Bakery? I hear they got awesome Jewish pastries.” I waggled my eyebrows knowingly and fished out a scrap of paper where I’d written the address from the yellow pages that afternoon. “On Devon somewhere.”
Denny looked at me suspiciously. “Do I detect another
Yada Yada conspiracy afoot? Jodi . . .”
“Only if you want to,” I amended hastily.
“Hey,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “I’m only along for the ride.” But his hangdog look was so exaggerated I punched him on the shoulder. “Okay, okay,” he agreed. “Why not? I didn’t have anything else to suggest anyway.”
IT WAS ALMOST EIGHT-THIRTY by the time we pulled into the parking lot of the tiny strip mall on Devon, and the Bagel Bakery was hopping. Denny held the door for me. “Popular place.”
Inside, a warm, homey smell pulled us into the waiting arms of the bakery. Loaves of bakery bread and freshly made bagels and bialies—rye, pumpernickel, onion, egg, wheat, cinnamon—and various sugary pastries filled the glass cases. An overhead menu— fast-food style—offered soup, bagel and bialy sandwiches, cheese blintzes, kugel, potato latkes, and kreplach, whatever that was.
Denny eyed the food as plates were handed to waiting customers, trying to figure out what was which, but my attention was drawn by a young woman with short, spikey hair behind the bakery counter. “Half a pound of ruggeleh?” she was saying to a customer. “Do you want the raisin-filled or raspberry . . . both? You got it.” A moment later the customer walked toward the cashier with her white paper bag.
“Yo-Yo?” I ventured.
The young woman behind the counter stared at me for a moment, then broke into a huge smile. “Jodi? Hey, Jodi! Speak of the devil . . . and is that your man?”
I grinned. “Yeah. That’s Denny.” I pulled “my man” away from the food counter. “Denny, this is Yo-Yo, one of the women in my prayer group at the conference.”
“Right. ‘Yada Yada,’ ” he teased, as if giving the secret password. “I’m delighted to meet you, Yo-Yo, and everything looks so good I may stuff myself.”
“Go right ahead! Get something to eat. I’ll take a break in a few minutes and come join you.” She turned to another customer. “What you want tonight, Mr. Berkenstein?”