2-in-1 Yada Yada

by Neta Jackson

  “Avis is also the worship leader at our church, and we’re in the same prayer group.”

  My parents hardly knew what to say to that. I’m sure it wasn’t what they expected of a public-school principal. Or maybe they were surprised that an African-American was the worship leader at their daughter’s church. Or was it that she was a woman leading worship? I couldn’t tell.

  My dad recovered first. “Well. I am so glad to see that God is still allowed in the public school. Praise the Lord!”

  Yikes. Had my dad’s voice carried to the outer office?

  A smile tickled the corners of Avis’s mouth. “Praise the Lord, indeed,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Though we aren’t supposed to shout about it in a public school.”

  “Nice lady,” my dad commented as we walked toward their Buick in the school parking lot. At least I got a ride home.

  Amanda was grumpy that she had to come all the way home from school if we were just going back to watch the Lane Tech soccer team play Wheaton North at five o’clock. Pulling her out of earshot of my parents, I told her she was welcome to stay home with her grandmother, who was tired out from walking around the museum and electing to stay home and rest. Or she could quit grumbling and count her blessings that we were letting her out of the house to go to Josh’s game. She heaved a persecuted sigh and followed my father and me to the garage.

  Once at the game, however, she forgot she was sulking and yelled, screamed, jumped up and down, and otherwise cheered the Lane Tech Indians, even though they trailed behind all the way and lost to Wheaton North’s Falcons. She also managed to talk to a lot of school friends who came by, I noticed. Oh well. At least she stayed in our general vicinity.

  After the game, Josh clomped over to us in his soccer cleats and muddy green-and-gold uniform. “You don’t want to hug me!” he warned, but he seemed pleased that the three of us had come to the game in spite of the loss. By the time we waited around for Josh to change, I knew supper was going to be very late. At least I’d remembered to bring the cell.

  I got Denny on the third ring. “Just got home myself,” he said. “Don’t worry about it, Jodi. I’ll order a couple of pizzas.”

  After polishing off two medium pan pizzas from Gulliver’s, we played table games—well, not Josh. He excused himself to go play pool at a friend’s house. Amanda went head to head with her grandmother for the highest Scrabble score. My mom won by two points—a feat that put pink splotches of pleasure into her cheeks.

  Later, after my parents had gone to bed, Denny and I lay on the foldout watching the news. “Kinda nice that Amanda’s grounded,” I murmured during a commercial. “She’s hanging around her grandparents more than she would normally.”

  “Shh. I wanna hear this.” Denny turned up the volume as the news came back on.

  I pulled the blanket over my head. Two days down; two to go.

  Even though it was Saturday morning and I could sleep a little longer, I woke up at the usual time. Ah, a few moments to myself. I let Willie Wonka out into the backyard, started a pot of coffee, and booted up the computer. Hadn’t checked e-mail for a couple of days. Hadn’t thought much about the Becky Wallace letter either. Still time to chicken out.

  But there were e-mails from both Florida and Ruth with “Re: Letter to Becky Wallace” in the subject lines.

  “You write a good letter, girl!” wrote Florida. “See? I knew you were the one. Glad you and Denny deciding to come too.”

  Ruth’s was even shorter. “Yo-Yo says fine. Send it.”

  Then I saw one from Nony, dated late last night. I clicked it open.

  To: Yada Yada

  From: BlessedRU@online.net

  Subject: Urgent prayer

  Dear sisters, I just got word from my brother in Pietermaritzburg, SA. My mother had a stroke. My brother says not to

  come; she will recover most faculties in time. But it is terribly difficult to be so far away from my family at such a time. I want to take the boys to see their grandmother while she still knows who they are. Mark does not think I should take them out of school. Please pray that we will have wisdom—and agree on what to do.

  Love, Nony

  Oh wow, that’s tough. I clicked on Reply and sent back a quick message: “Praying for you big-time.” Huh. Easy to say, Jodi. Better do it.

  By the time I printed out the Becky Wallace letter, hunted up an envelope and a stamp, and spent some time praying for Nony and her family, I could hear Denny folding up the couch in the living room and my father’s footsteps shuffling toward the bathroom. Better start breakfast. It wasn’t too warm for oatmeal, was it?

  “Ah! My favorite breakfast!” my father said, coming into the kitchen ten minutes later. “What’s on the docket today, princess?”

  Grr. When was my dad going to figure out I wasn’t his “little princess” anymore? But I put on a smile. “Somebody’s got to hang that monster mobile you gave me for my birthday.”

  “Watch out!” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Once I get my hands on a hammer and nails, no telling what’s going to get nailed down.”

  Amanda wandered into the dining room as the four of us— Denny and me,Mom and Dad—were starting in on our oatmeal. “Got enough for me?” She plopped down in an empty chair.

  My mother leaned over and patted me on the hand. “Glad to see that the kids eat a good breakfast, at least.”

  It was all I could do to keep from yelling. Okay, Mom. So they’ve had burgers and pizza the last two nights. It hasn’t exactly been a normal two days. Sheesh.

  I started to pull my hand away, but my mother suddenly held on, staring at it. Then she looked up at me accusingly. “Where is your wedding ring, Jodi?”

  27

  My wedding ring! I mentally raced through possibilities. “It’s getting cleaned” . . . “It got too tight” . . . “What? Didn’t Mom tell you?” Amanda piled brown sugar and raisins on her oatmeal. “Her ring got stolen when that crazy robber—”

  “Stolen!” Both my mom and dad yelped like Willie Wonka with his tail caught in a door.

  “Wait! Wait! Calm down.” I waved them back into their chairs. “I’m getting it back. In fact, I’m picking it up today.”

  “Picking it up?” my mother croaked. “Where?”

  “Uh, the police station. It’s not far.”

  “You mean to say,” my father said slowly, “they caught the burglar, and he still had your ring? How . . . ?”

  “Wasn’t like that,” Amanda piped up. “Dad caught the—”

  “Amanda!” Denny’s gruff voice stopped her midsentence. “We’ll do the telling.” He turned to my parents. “The thief was caught in the process. We called the police, the thief pled guilty and is now in prison, and they said we can pick up our jewelry.”He shrugged. “That’s pretty much it.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “ ’Scuse me.” She headed for the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

  “She gets a little dramatic.” I put on a lame smile.

  My father was still frowning. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. We didn’t want you to worry.” That was certainly the truth. “The thief was caught right away, and I’m getting my ring back—it didn’t seem necessary.”

  The four of us sat in awkward silence for a long half-minute. I didn’t think I was fooling my father; he still looked troubled. But my mother patted my hand again. “Well. At least it’s not, you know, you and Denny—”

  I jerked my hand away. “Mom! Is that what you thought? That Denny and I are having marital problems, and I took off my ring?” I must have looked so horrified that Denny started to laugh. My mother smiled tentatively; even my father chuckled. I gave up and laughed too.

  MY FATHER hung the wind chimes on the back porch, practically giving me a heart attack as he climbed up on a rickety stepladder from the garage. Asking him to do this was a bad idea, but he whistled as he worked, came down the ladder in one piece, and gazed prou
dly at the result. A small breeze cooperated by moving the chimes, which gave off a melodic ding-a-ling-dong.

  Nice in the daytime, I thought. Not sure how I was going to feel about those chimes on a windy night with my bedroom window mere feet away.

  We needed groceries, and I’d planned to sneak in a trip to the police station to pick up my ring while I was out. Now that my stolen wedding ring was common knowledge, I asked my parents if they wanted to run errands with me “and see the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, you go on.” My mother settled in the recliner with her bag of knitting. “I had enough walking yesterday.”

  My dad, though, pulled on his windbreaker and tweedy driving cap, ready to go. We took my folks’ sedan so Denny could have our minivan. A group of suburban volunteers were coming to Uptown today for orientation to the church’s outreach ministry, and Denny was going to give them a tour of the Rogers Park area.

  Dad and I hit the new Dominick’s on Howard first, and he patiently wheeled my cart up and down the aisles. Then we pulled into the Rogers Park Fruit Market on Clark Street, where ten bucks went a long way. As usual, the Greek owner was omnipresent, greeting customers by name, helping to bag groceries, talking to delivery drivers. “Hey, Nick!” a dark-haired man yelled in the owner’s direction. “You got any African yams?”

  As we pulled out of our parking space ten minutes later, I told Dad to go around the block and get back on Clark. “I think I can find the police station—it’s on Clark Street, not too far from here.” I wasn’t sure how far, but I remembered the modern two-story brick building, looking out of place on this long strip of storefronts, laundries, and ethnic eateries. Sure enough, a couple of blocks south of Pratt I saw the dusky brown bricks spelling out the word POLICE in a huge half-moon, standing out in stark relief along the front side.

  Dad drove around to the parking lot in the back. As we got out of the Buick, I saw a policeman assisting a teenage girl—jeans, sweatshirt, athletic shoes, long brown hair—into the back seat of a squad car. Giving her a lift home or something? Then I noticed that the girl’s hands were handcuffed in front of her. My heart felt like it lurched upward into my throat. Oh God. She’s just a kid!

  My knees suddenly felt rubbery. I didn’t want to go inside. I’d had more involvement with the police in the past few months— interrogating José Enriques in the hospital after he got caught in gang crossfire, getting charged with reckless homicide after the terrible car accident that killed Jamal Wilkins, and having my house full of police and evidence technicians after the robbery— than I’d had in my entire life. None of which I’d told my parents about.

  Trust your parents more, Jodi.

  “Jodi? You all right?”

  I didn’t realize I’d stopped right in the middle of the parking lot till my dad spoke. “Uh, sure, Dad.”

  The police station bent like an L around a small plaza on the corner of Clark Street and Schreiber, which boasted a couple of benches and a modern sculpture of who-knows-what rusty beams. We headed for the revolving door set into a long bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, hesitating long enough for the person pushing through from the inside to come out before we made our move.

  As the woman exited, charging out in a steamy huff, my eyes bugged. Close-cropped reddish ’fro, chunky gold earrings, substantial bulk inside her long coat— “Adele!”

  Adele Skuggs stopped short and looked at me, then at my father, then back at me as if she needed to process who I was.

  “Jodi.”

  “Uh, Dad, this is Adele Skuggs—another woman in my prayer group.” Or was. I blundered on. “Adele, this is my father, Sid Jennings.”

  Adele gave a distracted nod in my father’s direction. “If you’re here to pick up your jewelry, don’t bother. Man told me I had to go down to Twenty-Sixth and California to pick it up. Like I got time.”

  “What? The man I talked to—”

  Adele snorted. “Maybe so. But just now, the man’s telling me I gotta take off from work, go all the way down to the south side, just to get my own property back. Humph.” She started to leave.

  “Adele, wait! I’m sure the officer on the phone told me we could pick up our stolen property here. Let me see what I can find out.” I headed into the revolving door, not even waiting to see if my dad was following.

  Two white officers sat behind the long desk that cut kitty-corner across the airy foyer. Signs that said, “Do not enter beyond this point” stood at either end of the long slab, prohibiting access to the rest of the building without authorization. One officer was talking to a young couple filing an accident report. The other one looked up. “You being helped?”

  “Not yet.” I stepped up to the counter, gave my name, and stated my business. I was aware that my father had come in and was standing beside me.

  The man nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You’ll have to pick up your stolen property at Twenty-Sixth and California. That’s where they keep evidence till after a trial—”

  “I know.” Stubbornness gave me courage to plunge ahead. “But there was no trial. The perpetrator pled guilty and was sentenced inside of two weeks. I was told the stolen property hadn’t left this station, and we could pick it up here.”

  The officer frowned. “Do you have the case number?”

  I dug in my purse and pulled out a scrap of paper. “Here.”

  The man scribbled the case number on a piece of paper and left the room. I turned to see if Adele was still waiting and realized she had come back into the station and was standing a few feet away, watching. I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile.

  A month ago, I probably would have gone over to chat with Adele while we waited. Though after what she said when I called earlier this week, I didn’t think she felt like “chatting” with me. I kept my eyes forward and waited for the officer to return.

  The man eventually came back with a metal box. “You are?”

  “Jodi Baxter.”

  “ID?”

  I dug out my wallet.

  The officer consulted a list, opened the box, and handed me a stiff plastic Ziploc bag. “Here you go.”

  I smiled. My wedding ring. Safe and sound.

  Then I remembered Adele. “Sir? My . . . friend had her property stolen at the same time.” I motioned to Adele. “Adele Skuggs.

  She’s on that list.”

  “ID?”

  Wordlessly, Adele handed over her driver’s license, her eyes smoldering.

  The man fished through the plastic bags in the box and handed one to Adele. “Will you both sign this release that you have picked up your property?” He handed a form to each of us.

  Adele scrawled her name with one of the cheap pens lying on the desk and threw it back down. Then she jabbed a forefinger at the officer behind the desk. “You wouldn’t listen to me, would you?

  How come I couldn’t get my property till these white folks show up? Huh?”

  Adele did not wait for an answer. She whirled around and made for the revolving door, pausing only long enough to nod at my father and say, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jennings.” And then she was gone.

  I was so startled I barely remember walking back to our parked car. Once inside, however, my father did not turn on the ignition. Instead he looked at me. “Jodi? I think there’s a lot more to this than you’ve let on. What’s going on?”

  The voice in the back of my head nudged me again. Trust your parents more, Jodi. I hesitated. Where in the world would I begin? It was all so . . . so complicated, with the Yada Yada Prayer Group getting robbed at my house, including Adele, and how frightening it was, and feeling so violated. But even before that, the day at the beauty shop when MaDear accused Denny—on top of all the trauma surrounding the accident that had killed Jamal Wilkins, the haunting nightmare that still plagued my sleep . . .

  I took a deep breath and opened my mouth, but instead of words, an involuntary sob escaped from my throat. And then tears. Suddenly I was sobbing in my father’s arms. Wee
ks of pain and loss, fear and frustration, guilt and remorse came spewing out like the discharge hose of my washing machine, spraying water everywhere through the wire mesh lint trap left too long, full of crud.

  28

  I watched my parents’ Buick head up our one-way street, hoping they’d find their way out of the city without any traffic tie-ups. Never could tell, even on a Sunday. They’d decided to leave right after church, not even taking time for lunch, so they could get to Des Moines before dark. “Call us when you get home. Promise?” I’d said, sounding—good grief!— just like my mother.

  Denny and the kids headed back inside, but I stood out on the sidewalk until their car disappeared. This is good. We have the rest of the day for some downtime, to get ready for next week. I lingered on the porch steps. All in all, it had been a good visit. I was glad they had come. I’d wondered how they’d react to worship at Uptown Community, which was pretty tame compared to the churches I’d visited with Yada Yada but probably still a stretch for my parents, who’d been in the same church, singing the same hymns, accompanied by the same upright piano for the past forty years.

  My dad seemed to hit it off with Pastor Clark—they were about the same age—and my mom kept making a fuss over Florida’s kids. Too much fuss, if you asked me. Like she was trying too hard. “I just love how they do little black girls’ hair, don’t you, Jodi?” she’d said while I mentally willed the ground to open and swallow me. Or her. Momentarily, anyway.

  But lots of Uptown people greeted them after the service, giving me a chance to grab Florida for half a minute. “Flo! How’s Carla doing?”

  Florida shrugged. “We hangin’. She visited her foster parents yesterday—part of the deal set up by DCFS. When they brought her back—oh, Lord. What a scene! Was afraid the neighbors would think we were beatin’ the life outta her, she screamed so.” She pressed her lips into a tight line. “Just keep prayin’ for us. We gonna make it, though.”

  Now I sank down on the front porch steps, remembering my own crying jag in my dad’s car outside the police station yesterday. To my surprise, he had pretty much just listened as I dumped everything into his lap. “Guess you can tell Mom too,” I’d snuffled, finally blowing my nose, knowing my face was probably red and blotchy. I knew I couldn’t do it again. As it was, I felt like I’d just turned my insides out inside that car.