2-in-1 Yada Yada

by Neta Jackson

  I felt free this morning. Sort of like that old hymn, “Take your burden to the Cross and leave it there” . . . or something like that.

  Hadn’t thought about that one for ages. We didn’t sing hymns too often at Uptown Community, not like we did in the little Bible church I grew up in. I wondered if I had a hymnal somewhere; I could look it up.

  Walking to school and carrying my heavy tote bag turned out to be a bit optimistic for the first day, because my left leg ached something fierce by the time I got there. But I was early enough to take a couple of pain relievers and told myself I’d make it through the day okay.

  My student teacher was already in our classroom, looking as cute as Betty Boop with her short, dark, curly hair and a simple pale-blue jersey dress bringing out the blue in her eyes. “Blue is definitely your color, Christy,” I said, giving her a hug.

  She seemed a little flustered by the hug but gave me a big smile. “I’m really nervous, Ms. Baxter.” She nodded toward the bank of windows that looked out on the playground. “All those children . . .”

  “Feel free to call me Jodi when the children aren’t around,” I started unloading my tote bag, “but get used to being called ‘Ms. James’ when they are.”

  She giggled. “That will be so weird.”

  We set to work putting the finishing touches to the bulletin board. Christy had cut out each child’s name in colorful bubble letters. Below each name I stapled a construction-paper cloud with the meaning of the child’s name written in black letters.

  “That is so cool, Ms. Bax— . . . um, Jodi.” Christy studied the board.

  The hands of the clock nudged toward 8:40. “Grab that class roster,” I told Christy, heading for the door with a square of laminated paper that read “3-A.”We made it to the playground just as the lineup bell rang. I held up the “3-A” sign, hoping parents had told their children which classroom they were in. A passel of energetic boys got in line pushing and shoving, their oversized backpacks bumping about on their skinny rumps. Most of the girls held back, out of the way of the pushers. I smiled at the first boy in line: a handsome child with hazelnut skin, brown eyes so dark they were almost black, and a nearly shaved head. Hmm. Without the hair I couldn’t be sure about ethnicity—could be African-American or Middle Eastern. “What’s your name, young man?” I asked.

  “Xavier!” He shouted it out almost defiantly. The boy behind him giggled. Still could be almost anything.

  The final bell rang. Okay, Lord, this is it. See this line? They’re mine for the year. Correction. They’re Yours for the year. I’d appreciate a little help. Make that a lot of help. I led them through the metal detectors that had been installed after 9-11 and down the hall to 3-A. Then I stood in the doorway as they jostled into the room.

  As soon as each student—thirty-one of them!—found the desk with his or her name taped on it, I introduced “Ms. James” as my “team teacher” and wrote both our names on the chalkboard. We ran through the usual classroom rules—Respect People, Respect Property, Respect Yourself—and added my own clarifications: “When the teacher is talking, you’re listening. Raise your hand if you have a question or need to use the washroom. No punching or spitting on other people.”

  Immediately there were a lot of spitting noises. I groaned to myself. Shouldn’t have given them the idea.

  I moved to the Welcome Bulletin Board while Christy sent the first child to join me. “Can you find your name?” I said to the little girl with three fat ponytail braids wrapped on each end with colorful rubber-band balls. She pointed to her name in bubble letters: Jade. “Can you read what your name means underneath?”

  She squinted. “Jewel?” She looked up at me.

  “Yes.” I smiled. “Jade is a special kind of jewel, a very rich green color.” I leaned toward her and spoke in a loud stage whisper. “Green is one of my favorite colors.”

  I was rewarded with a smile, and Christy tapped the next student, a pug-nosed kid sporting an army-style buzz cut. “Cornell,” he announced, pointing to his name. He studied the cloud underneath his name. “Horn blower?” he scoffed. “What’s a horn blower?”

  The other children laughed, but I held up my hand with a warning look. “Someone who can play a trumpet or a trombone or maybe one of those big baritone horns.” I raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Did you ever think about joining the school band?”

  “I don’t got no horn!”

  “You might want to think about it,” I said, “with a name like that.”

  Now several hands shot up in the air, but Christy continued alternating a girl, then a boy, from different areas of the room. When Britny read, “From England,” under her name, she scowled. “I ain’t from no England.” She certainly wasn’t; she was as African-American as they come.

  “But that’s what your name means. Maybe . . .” I thought fast. “Maybe you could learn some things about England and tell the rest of the class. And maybe . . .” I whispered in her ear. “Maybe someday you will travel to England and see the queen!”

  “Okay,” she said and practically skipped back to her desk.

  Now hands were flying everywhere. Everybody—well, almost everybody—wanted to know what their name meant. I tried to make a positive comment for each one, shamelessly bending some of them toward positive classroom behavior.

  Ramón—“Mighty Protector.” “Ah! Ramón must be our class protector. He’s going to protect anybody from getting bullied by somebody else.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Ramón. “Any of you guys bully a little kid, I’m gonna smack you in the face.” Laughter erupted once more, and I had to make sure Ramón knew that was not what I meant.

  Xavier—“Bright.” “Do you know what ‘bright’ means, Xavier?”

  “Yeah.” He spread his fingers on either side of his face, like sun rays. “I glow in the dark!”

  Now the class was laughing nonstop. I was losing them. Just then the door opened quietly, and Avis slipped into the room. Oh no. I forgot that each classroom got a visit from the principal on the first day. She couldn’t have come at a worse time!

  I held up one hand like a traffic cop and waited till the children quieted. Then I turned back to Xavier. “Yes, that’s one meaning of bright, like a dazzling light. It also means smart—very smart.” I tapped the side of my head. “I think you are going to show us this year just how smart you are, don’t you?”

  Xavier strutted back to his desk, and I introduced “Ms. Johnson, our principal,” who gave a little pep talk to the children about being good citizens of our school community and the importance of respect, rules, and teamwork. As she slipped back out the door, she caught my eye and tipped her head toward the bulletin board. “Clever.”

  The knot in my stomach untied. Oh God, thank You for Avis!

  We went back to the meaning of our names, but when Christy tapped one boy on the shoulder, he scowled and scooted deeper in his seat. “Don’t wanna. It’s stupid.”

  I walked to where I could see his name on his desk. “Hakim?” I was surprised at his reluctance, but didn’t want to force it. Instead I went back to the bulletin board and found his name. “Hakim . . . ‘wise healer.’ ” Oh dear. I had no idea how to apply that to an eight-year-old. “Maybe,” I tried, “you will be a doctor someday.”

  “Don’t wanna be a doctor.” The boy’s tone was fierce. “They ain’t no good anyway.”

  Okay. Better just leave it alone.We moved on to the few remaining students.

  THE TWO-THIRTY BELL RANG. The class started a stampede for the door, and we had to sit everyone down again and start over. “Line up! Everybody got your backpack and take-home folders? If you didn’t bring the items on the supply list your parents got in the mail, there’s a copy of that list in your folder.”

  As Christy led the line out the door, Britny suddenly stepped out of line and stood in front of me. “How come your name and hers”—she pointed at Christy’s back—“ain’t on the board? What do your names mean?”

  W
e weren’t supposed to use our first names with the children, but to tell the truth, I hadn’t had time to look them up. Jodi . . . Christy . . . That would be interesting. I gave Britny a quick hug.

  “I don’t know. Good question. I’ll have to look them up.”

  I was so tired and achy when I got home, I just wanted to soak in the tub and crawl into bed. Amanda came home upset because she didn’t get the teacher she wanted for Spanish II, and for a while there was a lot of door slamming between her room and the bathroom. Josh was his usual minimalist self, offering “Okay” and “Not really” to my questions about his first day as a senior.

  Humph. So much for good communication with my teenagers. I took some iced tea out on the back porch, intending to sulk. Instead, the same hymn I’d been humming on the way to school popped back into my head. “Take your burden to the Cross and leave it there . . .” No, that wasn’t quite right. What was it?

  I dragged myself back into the house, found the red hymnal we used back at our church in Downers Grove, and turned to the index. There it was on page 353: “Leave It There.” Except the actual phrase was, “Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.”

  I squinted at the author: Charles A. Tindley. Wrote both the words and the music. Who in the world was he? I’d heard of Charles Wesley and Fanny Crosby, but Tindley? Curious, I looked in the author index to see if he wrote anything else. Yep. “Nothing between my soul and the Savior . . .” Hmm. I knew that one too.

  I heard the back door bang. “Denny? Who’s Charles Tindley?”

  Denny appeared in the archway to the living room where I was sprawled in the recliner with the hymnal, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. “Hi to you too. Am I supposed to know this guy? I’m starving. What’s for supper?”

  He had to be kidding. He sounded like an Archie Bunker rerun. “Leftovers,” I snarled. “Or PB&Js. Or we could go out to Siam Pasta. I’m beat.”We didn’t often take the kids out to eat— not with their hollow legs—but, hey, we had all survived our first day of school. Cause for celebration. And Siam Pasta passed the test for a five-star rating from the Baxters: good food, lots of it, cheap.

  Denny shrugged. “Why not? Beats PB&Js.”

  It actually turned out to be a good idea, because once we got the kids trapped in a restaurant booth—no phone, no distractions, no place to go—we actually got more lowdown about their first day of school. As for Denny, he said things went okay on the first day, though he had a lot of ideas that could improve communication among the coaching staff. “Though I don’t think the athletic director wants to hear them from me,” he grumbled. “Maybe he’ll retire, and I can apply for his job.”

  I got a laugh out of Josh when I told them about our “mighty protector” threatening to smack anybody who bullied another kid. “Got the idea of looking up the meaning of their names from you, Amanda,” I said. “Well, from Delores, really, when she said your name means ‘lovable’ in Spanish.”

  Amanda glared. “Mom! You weren’t supposed to tell anybody!”

  Oh. Right. Yet already I could see that trying to take it back would be like trying to retrieve dandelion fuzz after blowing it off its stem. I was sure the cogs in Josh’s brain were clicking away, devising ways to hold this interesting fact over his sister’s head. “Well, then, I’ll just have to make the same rule for the family I made for the kids in my class: You can’t use the meaning of somebody’s name to tease them.” Oh, sure.

  Revived somewhat by supper “out,” my curiosity got the best of me and I turned on the computer. No e-mail messages from Yada Yada—everybody was probably too busy recovering from the first day of school. I wondered how Carla Hickman’s first day went. Did Florida get her registered? I decided not to call. The Hickman family needed space to adjust to this new wrinkle—a miracle wrinkle—in their lives.

  Instead, I called up one of the name Web sites I’d been using to locate the kids’ names and typed “Jodi” in the search box. I stared at the page that came up on-screen.

  Jodi—a derivative of Joan.

  Meaning: “God is gracious.”

  Maybe I was just tired. Maybe the long, difficult summer finally caught up with me. Maybe it was just a reminder of something God had been trying to tell me for weeks. But I put my head down on the computer keyboard . . . and wept.

  16

  God is gracious . . . God is gracious . . . I didn’t tell anybody the meaning of my name right away. I wanted to tuck it into a private place in my mind and let it soak down deep. I’d looked up Christy’s name too, just in case Britny asked again. All the variations of “Christine” meant “Christ follower.” What would Christy think about that? Was she or wasn’t she? We weren’t supposed to talk about our personal religion in public school.

  Not that we had much time for chitchat. The first week of school was like trying to stay one step ahead of a steamroller driven by thirty devious eight-year-olds. One misstep, and the kids would run right over me. In the back of my mind I worried about Hoshi and wondered how Florida’s little girl was adjusting, but it was Thursday night before I got a chance to call either of them.

  Wednesday night, I’d decided to go back to Bible study at Uptown with Denny—I hadn’t been since I’d been in the hospital. Pastor Clark was beginning a study of the book of James, which sounded promising. Good ol’ James, a down-to-earth brother if there ever was one. Practical. Straight to the point. Unlike the apostle Paul, whose sentences rambled on and on like a sweater unraveling, with just as many knots to untangle.

  I saw Avis at Bible study, but we didn’t really get to talk except in passing, when she said she couldn’t attend Rosh Hashanah at Ruth’s church this Saturday, but she’d like to hear about it if I went. I told her Denny and I hadn’t talked about it yet.

  Thursday night things were quiet at the Baxter house. Josh was at Uptown, manning the soundboard for the praise-team practice; Amanda was baby-sitting the Reilly twins, nine-year-old sweeties whose mom sang on the praise team and dad played guitar. In the living room, Denny was watching videotapes of other soccer teams in the high-school league, trying to identify patterns and weak spots.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, Willie,” I said to the dog. “Whatcha wanna do?”Willie Wonka ignored me and waddled off to do some male bonding with Denny.

  I took the cordless out to the back porch and called Nony. One of her boys answered. “Smith residence. To whom do you wish to speak?”

  I nearly fell off the porch steps. He sounded like an English butler. Weren’t Nony’s boys only nine and eleven? “Um . . . this is Jodi Baxter. To whom am I speaking?” To whom? I hadn’t been this correct since high-school English.

  “This is Marcus. Hi, Mrs. Baxter. Do you want my mom?”

  I wanted to hug him. He was going to be a heartbreaker someday. He probably put his dirty clothes in the laundry too— unasked. “Actually, Marcus, I’m calling for Hoshi. Is she there?”

  “I’ll get her.”

  I waited for what seemed a long minute, then I heard Hoshi’s quiet voice. “Yes? This is Hoshi.”

  “Hi, Hoshi. It’s Jodi. I’ve been thinking about you all week. Nony told us your parents went home. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m okay.” Her voice was only a few notches above a whisper.

  “How is your mom?—her hand, I mean.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “I don’t know, Jodi. I haven’t heard anything since they left last Monday. The Smiths let me call to Japan, but nobody answered.” She started to cry.

  “Oh, Hoshi.” The poor girl was going through hell, and I just dragged it all up again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, no, Jodi, it’s all right. Wait . . .” I could hear her blowing her nose before she came back on. “I’m happy you called. Please pray for my parents. That’s all I know what to do. Nony and Dr. Smith—they are very good to me.”

  “Do you . . . would you like to come to dinner sometime next week?” Oh, you’re rash, Jodi. You can
barely scratch dinner together for your own family on weeknights. “Or do your classes start next week?”

  “No . . . I mean, yes, I would like to come. Classes don’t start till the last week of September. It would be nice to share the table with your family.”

  We tentatively agreed on the following Tuesday, with Hoshi coming by the El and then we’d take her home. After we hung up, I went inside to check it out with Denny, but he was taking intense notes while guys in blue-and-gold uniforms—probably the Sullivan Tigers—ran back and forth on the TV screen. I knew better than to interrupt that focused look.

  I retreated to the back-porch steps again and dialed Florida. Another male voice, but this one was deep and brief. “Yeah?”

  I took a stab. Had to be Florida’s husband. “Uh, Carl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Jodi Baxter. Is Florida there?”

  Carl Hickman didn’t reply. He just yelled off to the side, “Flo!Phone for you.”

  This time it seemed like I waited two, maybe three minutes. Finally Florida picked up the phone. “Hey, Jodi. Whassup?”

  “Whassup yourself. I called to see how it’s going with Carla. You get her registered for school?”

  We chatted for about five minutes. The social worker at Carla’s new school had been very helpful, she said, even suggested some family sessions with a school counselor to help ease the transition at home as well as school. “ ’Course you know, Jodi, if Carl got his-self a job, that would be one big help. Then we could get a bigger apartment. Right now I got all three kids in that closet they call a second bedroom.”

  I remembered when Amanda and I had visited Florida’s apartment— before the accident. All I’d seen in that little bedroom was a double mattress on the floor. Surely Carla and the boys weren’t sleeping . . .

  “Beds, Florida? You got beds for the kids?” I couldn’t help it. Had to ask.

  “Yes, thank ya, Jesus. Found a bunk bed at Salvation Army for the boys and an army-cot thing for Carla—actually, that’s all we got space for till we get a bigger place. Sheets, though. We could use some twin bedsheets. And pillowcases.”