2-in-1 Yada Yada

by Neta Jackson

  “I bet Josh is in that crowd somewhere,” Denny moaned, scanning the thousands of bodies, shades, and sun hats populating the lakeshore. I was tempted to kick him out on the curb and drive home myself.

  We finally pulled into our garage around four-thirty. Sheesh. Not early enough to freshen up before Yada Yada; not late enough to stay home. Oh well.

  Amanda was already home, serving glasses of ice water for Edesa Reyes and Delores Enriques, who had come up on the El together. Left to themselves, Edesa and Delores often spoke rapid Spanish to each other, the younger woman obviously adoring her motherly mentor. It was easy to think of them as mother/daughter—except that Edesa had the rich, dark coffee-bean complexion of her Honduran heritage, while the Enriques family was “Mexican latte.”

  Willie Wonka was beside himself with joy that his family was back. He kept running from one to the other, leaving wet kisses on our knees and ankles. Denny was right; a note from Josh on the dining-room table said he’d gone to the air show. I hated to take off again without seeing him, but . . . Hey, I reminded myself. At least he left a note.

  I splashed water on my face, dabbed on another layer of deodorant and a whisk of blush, and then came back out to the living room where Amanda was raving about worship at Iglesia del Espirito Santo that morning. “I understood a lot of the Spanish, Dad!” Our budding beauty then pounced on me. “Mom! Yada Yada has to go visit Edesa’s and Delores’s church! And when you do, I want to go with you.”

  Delores Enriques’s round face beamed. “Why not next week?It’s the last Sunday in August—time for Yada Yada to do another church visit. We can invite the others tonight.” The older of the two women gave Amanda a warm hug. “Amanda, Amanda . . . she suits her name, si?”

  Edesa laughed at Amanda’s red face. “Amanda means ‘lovable’ in Spanish.”

  Amanda blushed. “Mom! Don’t tell Josh. I’ll never hear the end of it!”

  Lovable. Well, my daughter could be at times. And to tell the truth, I’d rather stay home right now with my “lovable” daughter than get back in that clunker car again. Yet I held out my hand to Denny for the keys and turned to my Yada Yada sisters. “Ready?” I smiled, hoping I sounded more cheerful than I felt.

  “Are you sure?” Denny mouthed at me as we trooped through the dining room on our way out to the garage. I gave him a halfhearted shrug and left him sorting through Saturday’s mail.

  I MADE IT FINE to Nony’s house, even though my fingers tensed on the wheel as we approached the intersection at Clark and Howard streets, where I’d had the accident. Today was hot and sunny—nothing like the downpour that day, which had matched my ugly mood. For a brief moment, Jamal Wilkins’s startled face rose up in my mind’s eye, like a hologram—there but not there. The light was green, but I crept cautiously through the intersection, looking both ways, and then finally let out my breath. Edesa and Delores probably didn’t even realize we’d just passed the site of the accident.

  Evanston picked up where Chicago left off, and the Sisulu-Smiths lived on the north side near Northwestern University. We found Nony’s home easily enough, a lovely two-story brick home on Lincoln Avenue with beds of impatiens hugging the house, and ivy clinging to the bricks and framing the windows. The house was modest by North Shore standards, but it was roomy enough for raising a family and “tastefully decorated,” as Denny would say.

  Nony met us at the door in a loose, caftan-type dress and gold-strap sandals, still managing to look like a National Geographic cover photo of African royalty even in her at-home attire. She led us past the polished wood stairs, through the spotless kitchen where Hoshi—who had been staying at the Sisulu-Smith home since NU dorms had closed last June—handed us glasses of iced tea on our way to the family room in the back, which looked out over a nice-sized yard with sturdy wooden play structures, big pots of flowers, and a tall hedge all around.

  I sighed. Willie Wonka would love that backyard.

  Most of the floors in Nony’s house were polished wood, covered with patterned area rugs I presumed were African designs. On a trip to the bathroom I peeked into the dining and living rooms, both of which looked untouched by living human beings. I mean, did anyone dare sit on a white damask-covered couch?

  Avis was already there, with Ruth Garfield and Yo-Yo Spencer. “Whoa,” Yo-Yo sputtered. “Look at Jodi’s new hairdo!”

  After four days, I knew my hair didn’t look quite as good as when I got out of Adele’s beauty chair, but the little twists had held over the top and sides, and I’d actually rolled the back on some big curlers that morning to give it some bounce.

  “Well, look at you, ” I tossed back. “Your overalls in the wash?” It was one of the few times I’d seen the twenty-something Yo-Yo in anything but. Tonight she had on khaki shorts and a rumpled Bulls T-shirt. With her short, spiky hairdo, she looked like an ad for preworn Gap casuals. Yo-Yo just smirked. “A picture she is! Denny had to beat off the competition, yes?” Ruth Garfield beamed at me from beneath her own frowzy bangs and planted a big kiss on my cheek that I was sure left red lipstick marks. “So!” she went on, giving me a big wink. “You and your bubbala had a—you know—great anniversary?”

  The front doorbell ding-donged just then, and a moment later Florida Hickman and Chanda George tromped in. “Jodi! You back, girl?” Florida plopped down on a big floor cushion. “I thought maybe you lovebirds would still be at it.” She grinned up at me.

  “All right you guys, lay off. Denny and I had a great weekend, and that’s all you’re going to hear about it.” I settled myself on the large, comfy couch beside Avis, knowing that everybody thought they knew what I meant. Truth was, I didn’t want to admit that the incident with MaDear had threatened to derail our weekend big-time.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about prying questions, because Chanda had been practically dancing ever since she came in. “You gotta go to the bathroom, girl?” Yo-Yo butted in. “Go! You makin’ me nervous.”

  “Nah, nah.” Traces of Chanda’s Jamaican accent spiced up her persona, which tended to be on the dumpy side, like the shapeless skirt and sweater hugging her extra pounds. A grin practically split her round face. “Nobody askin’, so I’m a-tellin’.” She paused for dramatic effect then squealed, “I won! I won!”

  We all gaped. None of us took Chanda’s weekly lottery tickets seriously, and the only time I’d worked up the courage to suggest she use her money more wisely met with unabashed optimism.

  Ruth reacted first. “What are you now, a millionairess?”

  “Nah,” Chanda’s smile was nonstop, “but I matched me t’ree numbers in the Pick T’ree game and got a hundred sixty dollars!

  Whoo-oo!” She did a little victory dance on Nony’s African rug.

  “Me and the kids uppin’ to Great America next weekend.”

  “That’s it? A hundred sixty bucks?” Yo-Yo shook her head, probably thinking the same thing I was: Bet you spent more than two hundred bucks winning that hundred-sixty.

  Chanda shrugged and sat down, still beaming. “My luck turnin’ now.”

  Avis’s eyebrows raised a hair—a twitch that usually meant, Not going to go there. I have to pick my battles.

  Stu was the last to arrive, but she had the farthest to come, all the way from Oak Park. At least her silver Celica would be relatively safe in this neighborhood. “Aren’t you tired of all that drivin’ yet?” Florida wagged her head at Stu. “You goin’ to church at Uptown, and you drivin’ an hour each way to Yada Yada. You need a crib in the city, girl.”

  “Maybe when I change jobs.” Stu took a seat next to Chanda, crossing her long, slender legs. “Right now most of my real-estate showings are in Oak Park—what?” she said to Chanda, who was grinning at her. “You win the lottery or something?”

  Chanda’s mouth fell open. “How’d you know?” Everybody cracked up.

  Yet as I watched Chanda, something niggled at my mind— besides the fact that she’d cleaned my house from top to bottom after my a
ccident and wouldn’t take any pay, even though cleaning houses is how she made her living. Then I realized what it was. Chanda had come in with Florida, which meant she’d ridden up on the el. Didn’t she usually get a ride with Adele?

  Adele wasn’t here.

  Avis must have had the same thought, because she said, “Guess we should get started. Adele’s the only one missing. Anybody hear from Adele?”

  “Yah.” Chanda sighed. “I call her for a ride, but she say she not comin’. So I met up with Florida.”

  “She not coming” hung in the air for only a heartbeat, but I felt my mind pull two ways. Relief that Adele wasn’t coming. But why wasn’t she coming? Was she upset? At who?

  I felt guilty—and resented the fact that I felt guilty.

  Avis opened her Bible to the Gospel of Luke and read the passage in chapter 22 about the Pharisee who asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment of all. To which Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

  “What?” Yo-Yo, who rarely brought the Bible I’d given her, grabbed Ruth’s Bible off her lap. “Let me see that.” She silently read the verse Ruth pointed out and then smacked her forehead. “You mean I gotta love my neighbors? But I hate my neighbors. I think they ate my cat for Thanksgiving!”

  We couldn’t help it. Every single one of us totally lost it. Nony’s boys stuck their heads around the corner, no doubt wondering why all these women were laughing so hard. Even Avis’s shoulders shook with helpless mirth. Florida kept howling, “I love it! I love it!” Yo-Yo was barely on the other side of her decision to “do the Jesus thing,” and frankly, she didn’t dress up her words any more than her clothes. When was the last time I was honest enough to admit I didn’t like my neighbors? It wasn’t the kind of thing a “good Christian girl” from Des Moines said out loud.

  When we’d finally dried our eyes, Avis encouraged Yo-Yo to read the rest of the story when she got home, the story of the Good Samaritan who did love his rotten neighbor, but suggested that right now we move on to prayer.

  I opened my mouth to ask for prayer about the messy situation with MaDear and Denny—after all, half the Yadas had been there when MaDear threw a fit; why shouldn’t the others know about it?—then closed it again. MaDear is Adele’s mother, not mine. Maybe it isn’t my story to tell. On the other hand, Denny was my husband, the victim of mistaken identity—so wasn’t it my story to tell too? I opened my mouth again, like a goldfish mouthing underwater O’s. My hesitation cost me, because I heard Avis say, “Hoshi, have your parents arrived yet from Japan?” I closed my mouth and swallowed a sigh.

  Hoshi was probably the quietest person in the Yada Yada Prayer Group, but her story had come out in bits and pieces. She had come to the U.S. a year ago to attend Northwestern University as a history major, ending up in a world history class taught by Dr. Mark Smith—Nony’s husband. At a student reception for history majors, Nony invited the Japanese student to visit their home and also invited her to their “church of all nations” in Evanston, the Worship Center. Now Hoshi’s decision to follow Jesus was about to be tested: her Shinto parents were coming from Japan to visit their daughter, and we’d been praying for Hoshi to have the courage to tell them about her newfound faith.

  “No,” Hoshi replied to Avis, “but soon.” She was fairly tall, with silky black hair often pulled back into a simple ponytail at the base of her neck, and she had a tendency to nod a lot while she was speaking. “My parents—they will be coming in three days, for my birthday next week. Two weeks they will stay.” A pink flush appeared on Hoshi’s smooth cheeks. “I am scared so much to tell them that now I love Jesus. They will . . . feel very bad, very hurt. Maybe not speak to me again.” Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  “What are the names of your mother and father, Hoshi, so we can pray for them?” Delores’s tender question broke Hoshi’s reserve, and she started to cry.

  “Takuya Takahashi, my father . . .” The tears slid down her cheeks. “And Asuka, my mother.”

  Nony moved quickly to the side of the student she had befriended and simply started to pray. “Thank You, Jesus, that You have said You will never leave us nor forsake us. We are bought with a price, therefore we glorify You in our bodies and in our spirits, which belong to You . . .”

  I recognized the scripture Nony was paraphrasing, but as usual, I couldn’t pinpoint the reference. I’d have to look it up in the concordance when I got home.

  Several other sisters prayed for Hoshi, then Avis suggested we take turns calling Hoshi during the next two weeks to encourage her, to pray with her. Stu, of course, had a “better” idea. “Why don’t you bring your mother to the next Yada Yada Prayer Group, Hoshi? To meet your new friends. If that seems like a good thing, of course.”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .” Hoshi was wide-eyed. “Please, I don’t mean I am ashamed of you, but, I don’t know. My mother . . .” She shook her head.

  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea either. The culture clash in our group could be pretty overwhelming, even for women who shared Christian faith in common. And somebody’s mother, visiting from a foreign country, steeped in a foreign religion—it sounded like a recipe for disaster to me. But Avis said, “Well, you know she’s welcome if you decide to bring her, Hoshi.”

  We moved on to the latest news in Florida’s efforts to get her daughter, Carla, back from foster care. She’d been taken away before Florida got “saved and sober.” Nothing could get Florida’s eyes sparking like the subject of Carla. “I keep tellin’ them that school is starting in two weeks, and it wouldn’t do no good to Carla to start her in one school then transfer her to another, you see what I’m sayin’?” Her crown of copper ringlets bobbed as she jabbed a finger in the air. “Then they have the nerve to say, well, then, maybe Carla should stay with her foster parents another year. Almighty Jesus! Sometimes I am so tempted to lose my religion, just long enough to punch that social worker in the nose.”

  I didn’t blame Florida one bit. I could hardly imagine all the red tape she was going through now that Carla had been located—so close, and yet still so far from “coming home.”We prayed, stirring up a good storm in the heavenlies, binding Satan, rebuking red tape, and praying a hedge of protection around eight-year-old Carla.

  As the prayers for Florida and Carla were winding down, I glanced at my watch. It was almost time to close, and nobody— not Avis or Florida or Stu—had brought up what happened at Adele’s beauty shop last Wednesday. I wished somebody besides me would bring it up. Denny and I felt caught in the proverbial Catch-22 and certainly could use some prayer. Or would that be “telling tales” since Adele wasn’t here? But all Avis said was, “Any other things that need prayer?”

  “Yeah,” I jumped in, but I chickened out about MaDear and offered up something safe. “Denny hasn’t heard yet whether he still has a coaching job at West Rogers High. We’re feeling pretty desperate.”

  “T’ree weeks till school be startin’ and him still not know? Or it only be two? Well, no matter.” Chanda shook her head. “Mm-mm-mm. Next t’ing they be tellin’ us is the teachers on strike and our kids not goin’ ta school.”

  The prayers of my sisters wrapped around my anxiety. Maybe this is what we needed to pray about anyway. First Ruth blurted, “Shake loose this constipated school system, God,” which provoked a few chuckles. Then Nony prayed, “Oh God, the psalmist said he had never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread, so we ask You, Lord God, to be with Denny and Jodi right now, to provide for them beyond their expectations . . .”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Nony’s husband. Mark held up a cordless phone. “For you,” he whispered.

  I felt awkward leaving the group when the prayers were for Denny and me, but I slipped into the kitchen with the phone. “Hello?”

  “Jodi.” Denny’s voice. “Sorry to bother you in the middle of your pr
ayer time, but . . . we got some good news.”

  “Good news?” My heart leaped. His job!

  “Yeah. The mail that came while we were gone? The insurance company sent us a check to cover the car. Won’t cover a new one, but—”

  “That’s the good news?” I couldn’t believe it. “You called me in the middle of our prayer time to tell me we got the insurance check?” I mean, of course I’d be glad to get rid of that borrowed clunker we’d been driving, but it could’ve waited.

  “Partly, but thought you might also want to know I got my letter from the high school. Since Yada Yada was probably praying about my job tonight.”

  I sucked in my breath. Uh-oh.Here it comes. The good-news/bad-news bit.

  “Somehow it got sent to the wrong address—can you believe that? Anyway, I was supposed to get it weeks ago.” I could almost hear him break into a smile on the other end of the phone. “Good news, babe. They renewed my contract to coach another year.”

  8

  Denny’s news got a round of whooping and hollering when I came back into the family room grinning from ear to ear. “Thank ya, Jesus!” Florida cried. “Ain’t that just like God—right on time.” She punched the air in a victory salute.

  More like right under the wire, I muttered to myself, remembering how much Denny had been sweating it out all summer. Yet I wasn’t about to complain. At this point any job sounded like good news to me, and to be able to coach the same kids he’d had last year? Icing on Denny’s cake.

  We had a few more rounds of prayer and praise before Avis closed us out, and in the hubbub of everybody talking and leaving, we somehow also managed to agree that our next church visit would be at Iglesia del Espirito Santo this coming Sunday, and the next meeting of Yada Yada would be two weeks from today at my house.