2-in-1 Yada Yada

by Neta Jackson

  Armed with a pumpernickel bagel piled with lox and cream cheese for Denny, and a spinach and cheese blintz for me, we looked around for a table. The place was full of men, women, and children—a gray-haired grandfather over there, tickling a dark-haired cutie who tried to protect her “tickle zones” amid peals of laughter . . . a mother scolding, “Eat! Eat! I paid good money for that kugel!” . . . teenagers huddling in a corner . . . and a table of four women, dyed heads all bent together like a cootie convention. I noticed that almost all the males—young and old—were wearing small, black, embroidered caps, anchored to their heads with clips or bobby pins.

  “You need a yarmulke,” I teased Denny, edging toward a booth that was being cleared by a young man in a white apron.

  A few minutes later Yo-Yo came out from behind the counter, wiping her hands on her apron, revealing her signature denim overalls underneath. “Hey, Jodi,” she said again, sliding in beside me on the yellow vinyl seat across from Denny. “What brings you here?”

  “To see you,” Denny offered. “We’re supposed to be on a date, but . . .” He tried on his hangdog expression again.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s fine. And he’ll be fat, too, if he hangs out here much longer.” I tipped my head toward the general hubbub around us. “This place always this busy?”

  Yo-Yo shook her head. “Nah. But Saturday night after Shabbat ends, they flock in like bees around honey. Sunday morning, too.”

  “Shabbat?”

  “You know . . . like Sunday for you, only Saturday. We close at sundown on Friday, open at sundown on Saturday.” She shrugged. “Get Friday night and Saturday off, anyway.”

  “You Jewish, Yo-Yo?” Denny asked between bites of his bagel.

  “Me?” She guffawed. “I ain’t nothin’. But it’s a good place to work. Ruth got me the job, you know. Speaking of Ruth . . .”Yo-Yo craned her neck, scanning the lively tables and the people who kept coming in. “Ruth and Ben usually come in Saturday night. Haven’t seen ’em yet, though—oh. But you can meet Jerry.”With hardly a break she raised her voice and yelled, “Jerry! Jerry! C’mere!”

  A young boy about twelve or thirteen untangled himself from the knot of teenagers clustered around the corner table and came over to our booth. He wasn’t wearing a yarmulke, though I thought he could’ve used one of those clips to keep the shock of lank, brown hair out of his eyes.

  “Jerry, this is . . .” She looked blank for a moment. “Jodi!” she hissed. “What’s your last name?”

  “Baxter.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, friends o’ mine. And this”—she swatted the boy playfully on his rear—“is my kid brother. Say hi, Jerry.”

  “Hi Jerry.” The boy snickered at his own joke, then gave a little wave. “Nice ta meetcha.” He grinned and backed away toward the corner table.

  “Kids,” Yo-Yo snorted. “Ain’t got the manners down yet. I’m still working on keeping ’em fed and a roof over their heads. Pete —that’s the older one, he’s sixteen—he’s out with some friends tonight. Scares me to death to let him out of my sight.”

  The enormity of Yo-Yo’s situation—working a full-time job, trying to raise two teenage brothers—left me speechless for several moments. Denny, too. I could tell he was watching the boy as he melded back into the group of young people.

  “Yo-Yo,” I said, “have you gotten any of the e-mails from Yada Yada this week? I know you don’t have e-mail yourself, but Ruth said—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Ruth has printed out stuff and brought it to me every couple of days.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Hope it works . . . keeping that prayer thingy goin’, I mean. People got some stuff, don’t they?”

  That was the truth. I desperately wanted to ask if Ruth had talked to her about that whole foster-care business, but Yo-Yo jumped in again. “Hey. Maybe Yada Yada needs to get together, rather than just computer talk, ya know? Got plenty of reasons. Why don’tcha throw Florida a party—a five-year sobriety party? Man, if I’d been on them drugs and stayed clean for five years? I’d want to party—not party party, but you know, with folks like you and the rest of them women I met at the conference. ’Cause that’s major stuff—Hey! There’s Ruth and Ben. Hey, Ruth! Ben!” she yelled across the crowd. “Look who’s here!”

  19

  I saw Ruth Garfield’s eyebrows lift as they came in the door, and she headed our way, her husband trailing behind. Yo-Yo hopped off the vinyl seat. “Look who’s here—Jodi and . . .”

  “Denny. Denny Baxter.” Denny slid out of his seat, stood, and shook hands with both Ruth and Ben. Ben looked about sixty, with wavy silver hair and crinkly friendly eyes. “I’m really happy to meet you, Ruth.” Denny clasped her hand in both of his. “This Yada Yada group seems to have taken over our house ever since Jodi got back from that conference.” He motioned to the padded bench he’d just vacated and slid in beside me. “Sit down, please!”

  Yo-Yo grinned at the Garfields. “The usual? I’ll get it. You guys talk. I gotta get back to work anyway.”

  “Got any beer, Yo-Yo?” Ben gestured at Denny. “Want a beer, Denny?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “Make that two, Yo-Yo!”

  I felt my face go hot. Denny was going to drink a beer, right here in public, in front of my new friends? One of which was a “Messianic Jew,” or whatever a Christian Jewish person was called, and Yo-Yo wasn’t a Christian at all! What’s wrong with this picture, Denny? I wanted to yell.

  I felt like the “picture” had flash-frozen, but it was probably only for a millisecond, because Ruth reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Oh, Jodi, I am so glad to see you. You don’t know . . .”

  “Uh . . . me, too, Ruth. I know it’s only been a week, but it seems like a year!”

  “I know.” She tossed a look at the two men, who were already jabbering away. “Looks like Ben and Denny hit it off.”

  I shifted nervously. What did she mean by that? Drinking buddies already?

  “Tell me, how is everybody?” Ruth asked eagerly. “I mean, in Yada Yada. Have you seen anybody else since last weekend?”

  My knotted muscles relaxed slightly. I’d been worried that Ruth had been blown out of the water by Florida’s strong reaction to her “suggestion” about kids in foster care. But she seemed to genuinely want to know about the others.

  “As a matter of fact, today especially! I saw Florida this morn-ing”— I purposely dropped this in, but moved right on—“and Edesa, bless her heart, offered to tutor my daughter, Amanda, in Spanish, so she was at our house today. And let’s see . . . oh, yes, Avis and I went to see José Enriques last Monday night, so we both got to see Delores—”

  “Yes! I did too! On Wednesday. That poor boy—broke my heart, it did. But Delores . . . that’s a strong woman! If my child had gotten shot . . .”

  I leaned forward slightly. Denny and Ben were talking about the latest Cubs and White Sox scores. “Do you have children, Ruth?”

  Ruth looked down at the Formica tabletop. But only for a second. She came up smiling. “No, no, never did.” Lowering her voice to a stage whisper, she jerked her head slightly in Ben’s direction. “He’s number three.You’d think one of those times . . .” She brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, as though brushing off the subject. “Eat, you two! Don’t wait on us. Ours is coming.”

  As though playing the prophet, Yo-Yo appeared with a large bialy—sliced and filled with something that looked like sautéed vegetables, pizza sauce, and melted mozzarella cheese—that she set down in front of Ben, and a bowl of matzo ball soup and an onion bagel that she set down in front of Ruth. “And these are for you,” she said, whipping out two bottles of cold beer from the pockets of her tunic and setting them down in front of Ben and Denny. Last out of her pocket was a bottle opener. “Enjoy, folks. Gotta get back to work.”

  My mad came back. I couldn’t believe it. Denny really was going to drink that beer, right here and now.

  “How did you guys meet Yo-Yo and
her brothers?” Denny asked, polishing off the last bite of his lox-and-cream-cheese bagel and washing it down with a swig from the bottle.

  I wanted to snatch it out of his hand . . . but Ben said, “Ho ho, now that’s a story.” That got my attention; I’d been wondering the same thing all week.

  “Story, schmory. Not such a big deal,” Ruth protested, but I could tell she was warming up. “I work as a secretary, right? I type, I take dictation, I answer the phone, I smile, I make the coffee, I cheer everybody up. Always making the boss guys look good—but for what? So they can make money. Pffffft.” Ruth thumbed her nose and rolled her eyes. I didn’t dare look at Denny for fear we’d both burst out laughing. “So I tell God, I says, ‘God? If I’m gonna smile myself to death, I want a better return on my efforts.’ I’m thinking money, see? But I forgot to factor in God’s sense of humor. God’s got a cosmic sense of humor, you know. Remember Queen Esther? And Haman? Ho, ho, I nearly fall down laughing every time we celebrate Purim. To think—”

  “Oh, no,” Ben groaned. “Noodle, don’t get started on Esther. Back to Yo-Yo.”

  Noodle? He called her Noodle! Oh, that’s a stitch!

  “What’s the hurry? The place on fire?” Ruth gave an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, okay. You want a short story, you get a short story. A woman in my office—nice black lady—visits women down at the county jail. So I’m thinking, That’s nice. Then I think, If I have to make nice, I’d rather make nice on someone who can use it more than the fat cats I work for. So I go with this lady to the jail one night. Turns out she does a Bible study—you know, a Christian thing—with whoever wants to come. But it didn’t matter who—Christian, Muslim, Jew, whatever. These gals wanted to talk; I like to talk—”

  “Got that right,” muttered Ben, giving Denny the eye.

  Ruth swatted him with her paper napkin. “You said tell the story!”

  “Nah. I said, ‘Now that’s a story.’ ”

  “Oh, please don’t stop now,” I interrupted. “I really do want to hear how you met Yo-Yo.”

  “See?” Ruth said, flicking her fingers at Ben like an annoying fly. “All right, where was I? . . .”

  Ben hoisted his beer bottle with an indulgent smile of resignation.

  IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT by the time we got home. “Ben and Ruth . . . they’re something else.” Denny was grinning when we got back in the car.

  I laughed. That was the truth. All the way home I thought about Ruth’s story, how Yo-Yo had drifted into the Bible study at the county jail, always sitting in the back. When the “nice black lady” found out Ruth was Jewish, she asked her to tell some Old Testament stories to the women. That knocked my socks off! . . . Finding a common denominator even though Ruth wasn’t a Christian. Apparently Ruth was a great storyteller. Yo-Yo kept asking, “Why did God do this?” “How come God did that?” Ruth said she didn’t have a clue, but the Bible study lady started to explain how the Old Testament fit together with the New Testament.

  “It got me thinking—” Ruth had said.

  “Thinking, not talking, eh?” Ben winked at me.

  Ruth had swatted him with the napkin again. “So one day I went to this Jews for Jesus–type church—”

  “Yeah. Can you beat that? An oxymoron, if you ask me.”

  Ruth ignored him. “So now on Saturday I go to synagogue with Ben—when he goes, that is—and on Sunday I go to church. With other Messianic Jews.”

  “What’s a guy to do?” Ben had shrugged. “She’s got a foot in both pots.”

  In spite of all the banter, I suspected he adored her. “For that matter,” I told Denny on the way home, “Ben seems more attached to Saturday night at the Bagel Bakery than Saturday morning at the synagogue. He wasn’t wearing a yarmulke, for one thing.”

  Denny grunted. “Huh. You could be right.”

  Ruth had liked Yo-Yo from the start. “A plain talker—when she talked,” she had said with an eye on Yo-Yo, busy behind the bakery counter. Then one week Yo-Yo wasn’t there. Or the next. Ruth found out she’d been given two years at Lincoln Correctional Center downstate. Eighteen months with good behavior. Ruth wrote a couple letters to Yo-Yo and got one back.

  “That did it,” Ben had butted in. “She dragged me down to Lincoln to visit the girl. Not my idea of how to spend my day off—at a women’s prison.” But a hint of a smile had softened his words.

  That’s when they discovered that Yo-Yo had two younger stepbrothers she worried about plenty. Their mother had a “drug problem,” and the boys were dropping through the cracks. “Whatever she did to get arrested, I think she did it for those boys,” Ruth had said.

  “That’s really something,” I murmured as Denny turned the minivan into our alley and clicked the garage opener. “How Ruth and Ben hunted up Jerry and Pete and took ’em places and did things with them while Yo-Yo was in prison.” Ben had said they’d only met the mother once, and she’d been so strung out when they came to the door that she hadn’t asked any questions about who they were or where they were taking the boys. Just, “Fine, go.”

  All the lights were on, and both of our kids were still up when we got home—cat’s away, the mice will play—but we chased them into their bedrooms and settled down on the living room couch with some chamomile tea, my stocking feet in Denny’s lap. Willie Wonka flopped on the floor with a huge sigh.

  “Whatsa matter,Willie?” Denny said, scratching the dog’s silky ears. “Mad at us?” He put on a growly voice. “ ’Bout time you two got home. Don’tcha know I can’t go to sleep till everybody’s in?’ ”

  I was only half-listening, still thinking about our evening at the Bagel Bakery. I had hoped to talk about Ruth’s e-mail about “what’s best for the child.” In Ruth’s shoes, I would probably be scared off from saying anything more to Yada Yada after Florida’s hot reaction and Adele’s sarcastic comment about “friendly fire.” At one point, I thought I’d found the perfect opening to bring it up . . .

  “It was Ruth’s idea, really,” Ben had acknowledged, “to take those boys under our wing . . . kinda like foster parents, even though they didn’t live with us. And she helped Yo-Yo get custody when she got out. She’s got a knack for that.”

  “Oh!” I’d said, little lights going on in my head. “Have you worked with the foster care system, Ruth?”

  “Now that’s another story,” Ben had said. “I’ll need another beer if we go there. You, Denny?”

  I mentally glared at Denny, but to my relief he shook his head. Ruth, however, dodged the ball. “Talk, talk, talk—that’s all I’ve been doing. What am I, a monopoly? Jodi, how did you meet Denny? A good catch he is, I’d say! He could give my Ben a few pointers.”

  And so we’d chatted and got acquainted right up till Yo-Yo kicked us out at closing time. My “good catch” had been thoroughly charmed by Ben and Ruth, and Yo-Yo, too—which was fine, but I was left still wondering if Yada Yada was going to hang together or not. At least Ruth had seemed eager to hear about the other women in the prayer group, even though we’d verbally danced around the “elephant” in the middle of the room as though it wasn’t there. Maybe she was okay . . .

  “Denny,” I mused, nursing the last of the tea in my mug, “what do you think about throwing a five-year sobriety party for Florida, like Yo-Yo suggested? . . . Denny?”

  Romeo was snoring softly at the other end of the couch. Well, let him. He was still going to get it for drinking that beer tonight.

  20

  I didn’t feel like praising the Lord when I woke up. I overslept, the laundry was only half-done, I’d totally forgotten to plan something for the Mother’s Day potluck—who came up with that dumb idea, anyway?—Denny seemed oblivious that I was mad about the beer, and Stu was coming to Uptown Community that morning.

  Hallelujah.

  For the next hour and a half we did the “Baxter Hurry Scurry,” and at two minutes to ten we hustled up the stairs of the double storefront Uptown occupied to the large upstairs room that served as the sanctuary
. Well, at least Josh and Amanda and I did. Denny was still driving around trying to find a parking space. I snuck into the kitchen with my Easy Chicken-and-Rice Casserole and hoped I’d remember to stick it in the oven at eleven o’clock.

  I sniffed. Fresh paint. The work crew yesterday must have painted something.

  The Reilly twins were passing out carnations to everybody as they came in—red if your mother was still alive, white if she had “passed on.” In one corner of the large room the music group— two guitars and a keyboard—was warming up. Josh settled in at the soundboard—his new passion. Avis was talking with Pastor Clark at the front; she must be leading worship this morning.

  And Stu had already arrived. She was wearing a smart lavender suit—overdressed for this crowd—her ash blonde hair coiled into a professional bun at the nape of her neck. She waved at us with the red carnation she was holding and pointed at the empty folding chairs next to her.

  “Oh, Lord,” I muttered, “she saved seats for us.”

  Stu was sitting in the third row near the front beside a young couple in jeans and T-shirts. Two street people dressed straight from the Salvation Army sat just behind her, a situation that was sometimes challenging to the nose. We often had more street people on potluck Sundays, I’d noticed. Otherwise our congregation was pretty much a casual mix of “wuppies”—white urban professionals— both married and single, who wanted something a bit different than traditional church, with a hopeful sprinkling of color here and there and a whole mess of kids. Kids . . . somewhere along the way I’d lost mine but spied Amanda sitting with some of the other young teens.

  Get a grip, Jodi. I smiled back at Stu and headed—slowly—for the third row. Just because Stu is a go-getter doesn’t make her your rival or anything. Go on; she looks glad to see you.

  “Hey, Stu.” I plopped down into a chair beside her. “You made it.” The smell factor from the row behind us didn’t seem too bad today.