2-in-1 Yada Yada

by Neta Jackson

  I picked up the blue bin. We met on the sidewalk as he came back toward the house. I stood in the way.

  “Denny? I thought we had an understanding—no beer at this party. Especially at this party.” I held out the recycling bin.

  Denny puckered his lips again and looked aside, as though studying our neighbors’ fence. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer. But he turned back, his gray eyes flickering with ill-concealed impatience. “Jodi, I will tell you exactly what happened. But I’m getting tired of you questioning me like I’m a sneaky teenager.” He took the recycling bin and walked it out through the back gate, then came back empty-handed.

  “Ben Garfield came to this party. Remember Ben? Short Jewish guy who likes his beer.”

  I felt annoyed at his smart-aleck tone but kept my mouth shut.

  “Mark and Ben and I are making small talk in the backyard while you and . . . and your Yada Yada thing”—he waved his hand in little circles toward the house—“go inside and do your stuff. And Ben asks, ‘Say, Denny. Got any beer?’ Just like that. And as it happens, I do have some beer. It’s sitting out in the garage where my wife hid it. I didn’t bring it up, I didn’t put it out, but the guy asked for it. So what was I supposed to do, Jodi?”

  This time I was the one who studied the neighbors’ fence.

  Denny shrugged. “So I told him, yeah, but it’s not cold. Thought that might be the end of it, but Ben says, ‘Stick a couple in the ice chest, will ya?’ So I went to the garage, got a couple of beers, and stuck them in the ice chest. For Ben, Jodi.”

  Okay, so it wasn’t Denny’s idea. I should have dropped it right there. But I still felt betrayed. “What about Mark?”

  “What about Mark?”

  “What’s Mark going to think? You didn’t offer him one, did you?” My voice was rising and my temperature, too, imagining Mark telling Nony on the way home that Jodi’s husband kept a stash of beer in the garage. “What about the kids? Did they see you drinking?”

  Denny’s eyes darkened, and he put his hands on his hips. “Last question, Jodi. Ben offered Mark one of the beers and Mark said, ‘No thanks.’ Simple as that. And yes, Ben was still drinking the second beer when all the kids came back. Nobody blinked an eye. Now . . . are we done here?”

  No, I thought, we’re not done here. This wouldn’t even be an issue if you hadn’t bought those six-packs in the first place. But Denny had already gone back into the house.

  WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN a pleasant, peaceful Sunday evening after successfully pulling off Florida’s sobriety party turned instead into Denny and me giving each other the silent treatment. I felt discouraged, like walking on a treadmill and getting nowhere. We had to talk about this sometime. What was with Denny, anyway? Why couldn’t we talk about it without him getting all huffy? Or maybe I was the one who got huffy. But he knewthis was a sore point for me. My parents would think we were on the road to perdition if they ever knew we had beer in the house with their grandchildren.

  With Denny nursing his anger in front of the living room TV, I cast about for something to keep me busy. I supposed I could get a head start on those annoying construction-paper flowers to decorate my classroom for Parents Day . . . or make some baked beans for the picnic we’d been invited to tomorrow afternoon by some Uptown families who were barbecuing at Lighthouse Beach. But I didn’t feel like it. Tomorrow was soon enough.

  Ah. I spied the overflowing hamper in the bathroom. Hadn’t touched the laundry all weekend. The perfect mindless task. Maybe I’d even do the kids’ laundry—they deserved something for being such great party hosts for the Yada Yada kids all afternoon.

  Dragging the laundry baskets from each bedroom into the dining room, I started sorting, wishing I was sorting wood and metal so I could drown out the canned TV laughter from some dumb “reality show” in the front room. I threw dark wash-and-wear into one pile (bam! bam! they’d go) . . . light-colored stuff into another (crash!) . . . bras, slips, and blouses into a cold-water pile (bang!). . . jeans with sweats (boom!)

  — Okay, I was angry. But the afternoon felt spoiled, like the yellowed underarms of my favorite white T-shirt. I tossed it in the pile of light stuff. There were other things I’d really wanted to tell Denny about what had happened that afternoon, like discovering that Florida and I had run into each other (almost literally!) twelve years ago. That still boggled my mind. Couldn’t be just a coincidence . . . could it? I mean, not if I truly believed God was in charge of all our comings and goings. So what did it mean, that Florida had come back into my life, a totally changed person?

  I tossed a pair of Josh’s sweatpants onto the pile of jeans then picked them back up to remove a paper sticking out of one of the pockets. Why couldn’t he remember to empty his pockets before he threw his clothes in the laundry? How many times had we had to tape dollar bills together or iron school papers—or worse, ruined a whole load with a renegade ballpoint pen?

  I yanked the folded paper from the pocket and unfolded it. Stylized yellow butterflies rode a swirl of brilliant colors from top to bottom, advertising something about a “Teen Rave.” What in the world was a teen rave? Sitting down on the floor in the middle of the piles of laundry, I studied the copy separated by the lemon yellow butterflies. “Teen Club! . . . Dance! . . . Alcohol Free! . . .No One Over 17 Admitted! . . . Fun! . . .Teens Only! . . . Rockin’! . . .”

  I looked at the sweatpants. Josh had been wearing those sweats when he and the other kids went to the lake this afternoon. Did he actually think we’d let him go to a teen dance club? “Alcohol free” sounded good, but “No one over 17 admitted”? What—no chaperones? Red flags went up all over the place with that little tidbit. Where did he pick this up, anyway?

  Stomping feet on the back porch brought Willie Wonka’s nails clicking down the hallway from the living room toward the back door. Couldn’t have heard it—must have felt the floor shaking. The dog paused, confused by the piles of laundry between him and his goal, then he executed a few awkward leaps and met Josh and Amanda at the back door.

  28

  Wonka!” Amanda draped herself all over the chocolate Lab, just like she’d been doing ever since she was a three-year-old.

  “Hey,Mom.” Josh paused at the doorway between kitchen and dining room. “Doing laundry? On Sunday?”

  I waved the flyer at him. “What’s this?” I pasted on a smile.

  “Oh. That.” Josh shrugged and started to pick his way through the piles of clothes on the floor. “Just something Pete gave me.”

  “Pete?”

  He sighed patiently. “Pete Spencer—Yo-Yo’s brother.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda butted in, holding one end of Willie Wonka’s old knotted play sock and pulling him into the dining room, his teeth clamped on the other end. “Pete asked Josh and me to go to this teen dance club thing next weekend. He said it’s really fun . . . no alcohol allowed . . . a place high school kids can go to have fun.”

  My anxiety level pushed up into the orange zone. Amanda had been invited, too? She was only fourteen!

  “Josh, hold it.” My son was about to disappear down the hall toward his bedroom. “It says ‘No one over seventeen allowed.’ That means there’s no adult supervision.”

  Josh actually rolled his eyes at me. “No, Mother. The club owners are adults—gotta be, right? They say that so the place won’t be crashed by college kids and party types.” He looked down on me from his five feet eleven. “I thought you’d want us to go.”

  “Want you to! Why?”

  “Because it’s Pete asking us to go.”

  “But you hardly know Pete! And he’s had a very rough life— his mom’s an addict, his sister was in jail. I mean, kids like that easily get caught up in smoking or drinking or doing drugs, and I don’t want—”

  “Mom.” Josh’s voice took on a weary tone, as though explaining something to a child. “This Yada Yada thing today? They were your friends. You acted like you wanted us to be friends with their kids, right? So . .
. we’re just trying to be friends.” He threw up his hands, turned, and disappeared into his room. At that moment he looked just like his father.

  “Yeah, Mom,” Amanda echoed. “Besides, Florida smokes and she’s your friend. She was smoking right here.”

  “What do you mean?” Of course I knew Florida smoked, but I hadn’t noticed her “dipping out for a cig” today.

  “Out front—you know, when we were all eating in the back. Yo-Yo too.”

  Oh, great. Just great. I wanted to be friends with these women in Yada Yada. I really did. But I hadn’t counted on what kinds of things my kids might pick up from the lifestyles of such a diverse group.

  “Well, you’re right,” I said. “But those are habits they picked up before—” But Amanda and Willie Wonka were already tussling their way down the hall toward the living room.

  Grrr. Why did I keep ending up on the losing end of arguments in this house? But I still felt uneasy about that flyer. I needed to talk with Denny . . . when we were talking again, that is.

  I tossed the flyer on the dining room table and took the first load down to the basement. At least the washing machine was free. In fact, I hadn’t seen our upstairs neighbors all weekend. Maybe they’d gone out of town for the holiday. I kinda wished they’d seen our multicultural backyard party today . . . maybe they wouldn’t be so standoffish.

  Upstairs I heard the phone ringing, then Amanda’s voice a moment later. “Mo-om! It’s for you!” I hustled up the basement stairs and picked up the kitchen extension.

  “This is Jodi.”

  “Sista Jodee?” The Jamaican accent on the other end could be only one person.

  “Oh!” I tried not to sound surprised. “Hi, Chanda.”

  “Sista Jodee?” The voice on the other end hesitated.

  What did she want? Did she leave something at my house this afternoon? “I’m here, Chanda. What is it?” I heard a snuffling noise, like she might be crying.

  “Sista Jodee, I got somethin’ for Yada Yada to pray about, but . . . I don’t have a computer. Could you send it to other people by e-mail? I can’t wait till our next meeting.”

  Couldn’t help feeling good that Chanda had called me. “Sure, Chanda. I’ll get a pencil . . . okay, go ahead.”

  Again I waited through some snuffling. When she did speak her voice was so quiet I missed what she said. “Try again, Chanda. I can barely hear you,” I said, plugging my other ear.

  “I . . . found a lump in my breast,” she whispered from the other end. “I’m so scared, Sista Jodee. My mother, she died from breast cancer. What if . . . what if I got it too?”

  I FELT OVERWHELMED by Chanda’s phone call. No wonder she’d acted like a scared rabbit when she first got here today . . . and no wonder she’d been so eager to have Yada Yada meet again. Without being able to get in on the e-mail loop, she was pretty isolated from the prayer group except for one-on-one phone calls. And who did she know well enough in the group to just call and talk? Adele? Maybe, maybe not.

  The TV was still going in the living room. Sounded like the whole family was in there now, laughing at some show. I was tempted to join them, to just let everything be okay. I even took a few steps in that direction, and then stopped. I did promise Chanda I’d send her prayer request on the e-loop. And—I groaned—I still had all this laundry to do.

  I was still sitting at the computer when I heard the TV go off and a noisy threesome tromping down the hall. “ ’Night, Amanda! ’Night, Josh!” I called.

  “ ’Night, Mom,” they called back, disappearing into their caves—though I knew good and well they’d stay up late listening to music or reading or talking on the phone, because they could sleep in tomorrow. The teenage version of Memorial Day.

  I sensed Denny standing in the hallway behind me, watching my back. Half-turning my head I said, “Denny?”

  “Yeah?”

  I turned and faced him. He looked so boyish standing there in his jeans, hands in his pockets. I knew he hated the distance that came between us when we quarreled, hated it as much as I did. “I . . . wanted to say thanks for everything you did today to help pull off Florida’s party. Grilling, cleaning up . . . but mostly just liking my friends and showing it.”

  Denny hunched his shoulders and propped himself against the open archway between dining room and hallway. “Don’t know if Nony said anything when you guys were meeting today, but sounds like she’s putting a lot of pressure on Mark to emigrate to South Africa. But from what Mark says, it just ain’t gonna happen. No way does he want to raise his sons in Africa.”

  “No . . . she didn’t say anything today. But I’m not surprised.” This wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.

  “I’d still like to hear more about how Stu ‘found’ Carla. What in the heck does that mean?”

  “Sure.” I drew a breath. “Wanna talk now?”

  He peered at me for a long moment. He knew good and well what I really wanted to talk about. “Tell you what . . . we both got a day off tomorrow. We’ll talk then, okay?”

  I tried not to let my disappointment show. But he was probably right—tomorrow would be better. We were both tired now. “I’ve got to spend some time at school getting ready for Parents Day this week,” I reminded him. “And we’re meeting the Whittakers and the Browns at Lighthouse Beach around four for a picnic.”

  “We’ll make time,” he promised. “Coming to bed?”

  “Yeah. Give me a minute.”

  I turned back to the computer and stared at the e-mail message on the screen I’d been writing . . .

  To: Yada Yada

  From: BaxterBears@wahoo.com

  Subject: Prayer Request from Chanda

  It was GREAT to see everybody this afternoon. (We missed you, Hoshi!) What a fantastic way to celebrate Florida’s five years of sobriety!

  Chanda called this evening with a prayer request: She discovered a lump in her breast (last week?) and is really scared. Her mother died of breast cancer. She really wants our prayers. Don’t think she’s seen a doctor yet. She could use lots of encouragement.

  Florida and Stu, please keep us up to date on what happens next, now that Carla is found. (Like Avis said, what an answer to prayer! I’m still praising the Lord!) We still need to pray, right?

  Just a reminder to mark your calendars for two weeks from today. Adele said we could meet at her house that Sunday, five o’clock.

  I’d been kinda surprised when Adele volunteered to host the next get-together of Yada Yada. ’Course we weren’t going to do a party—just prayer. Still, I hadn’t expected Adele to be the first volunteer.

  I moved my cursor to “send,” then hesitated. “. . . still praising the Lord”? Hardly. I mean, yeah, theoretically I was still praising the Lord that Carla had been found. But I hadn’t been doing any actual praising since Avis had said the last “Amen.” And “We still need to pray, right?” Right. I seemed to recall promising God that morning that I’d “make it up to Him” when I hit the floor running with everything I had to do to get ready for church and Florida’s party. But somehow it was easier to talk about praying for all these requests than actually praying.

  I deleted the “still praising the Lord” phrase, hit “send,” and shut down the computer.

  I’d pray tomorrow. I really would.

  29

  Denny and I finally talked. Not exactly sure we came out at the same place, but at least we talked. I woke up early enough on Memorial Day to get some quiet time in the living room with my coffee, Willie Wonka, and Jesus. That was a good start. For a while I just soaked up the pleasure of not having to rush out of the house on a Monday morning and let myself fantasize about the day school would be out. Frankly, I could hardly wait. My first year teaching in a Chicago public school was hardly the high point of my teaching career—even with a good principal like Avis. Part of me longed for the third grade class I’d taught in Downers Grove, where everybody spoke standard English, and I only had to deal with thirty different personalitie
s, not thirty different cultures.

  I wasn’t sure I was ever going to “get it.” Frankly, I dreaded starting over again next fall with an entirely new class. A lot of the kids were sweet, but it only took one eight-year-old thug-in-the-making to ruin it for everyone, including me.

  But I prayed. Prayed for Chanda and the fear she was dealing with, and that she’d suck up the courage to get to a doctor. Prayed for Ruth, for the loss of the little girl she’d hoped to adopt but instead lost forever. Prayed for Florida, that she could be reunited with Carla as soon as possible. Prayed for Carla, who hadn’t seen her mommy in five years. (Five years . . . I couldn’t even imagine not seeing Amanda for five years.) I even prayed for the foster family who would have to give her up.

  And I prayed for Denny and me, that we could get over this little hump. I mean, Jesus, we’ve been married almost twenty years— twenty good years—and we have learned to work out a lot of differences. How come we’re suddenly tripping over this?

  I spent several hours at school, along with quite a few other teachers taking advantage of the holiday to decorate our classrooms, and felt pretty ready for the Parents Day coming up on Friday . . . providing Kevin kept his pencil to himself and didn’t vandalize anybody’s work, or we didn’t have a bomb threat or something.

  Denny and Josh were over at Touhy Park shooting baskets when I got home, and by the time they got home and showered, it was time to pack up the bratwurst, buns, charcoal, lighter fluid, and the hot beans I’d left baking in the oven and head for Lighthouse Beach.

  So it was almost eight o’clock that evening before Denny and I had a chance to take a walk, leaving Amanda and Josh, over their protests about “homework,” to clean up the picnic stuff. We walked hand in hand down Lunt Avenue toward Sheridan Road and ended up at Panini Panini sidewalk café, where we ordered iced coffee— decaf.

  I told Denny everything Stu had told us about tracking down a foster child they thought was Carla. “That’s gotta be tough,” he said, twisting his iced coffee around and around on the round glass tabletop. “Tough for the family who’s been taking care of her for five years, tough for Carla, tough for Florida who’s been working so hard to put her life together again.”