by Neta Jackson
My heart practically surged up into my throat. Hakim’s mother! I picked up my pace to get out of sight before the woman saw me. She must be here for the meeting with Avis and the social worker. Why hadn’t Avis warned me? But . . . at least she came. Yes! I breathed, as I slowed to a normal pace for the half-mile walk back to Lunt Avenue. Thank You, Jesus!
I COLLECTED THE TAKE-HOME folders the next morning. Parents were supposed to sign and return the reports. As usual, half of them would dribble in next week. But Hakim’s was back. Curious, I pulled out his report card. Had he given it to his mother?
Must have. There was her signature: Ms. Geraldine Wilkins-Porter. Period. No comments. Oh well. At least she hadn’t followed through on her threat to transfer him to another school. That alone was no small miracle.
This Friday evening—unlike the previous week—we were back to catch-as-catch-can for supper. Denny had a seven o’clock game, Josh had stayed at school for a debate team practice, and Amanda was getting picked up to babysit the Reilly twins.
“Oh! Mom?” Amanda yelled, just as the doorbell rang—her ride. “Can you take me down to Edesa’s tomorrow morning? I’m supposed to get a fitting for my dress for the quinceañera.”
“Wait! Tomorrow?” I trailed her into the front hall as she bundled into her hat and jacket. “I can’t. I promised Stu I’d drive down to the prison tomorrow—Florida and Yo-Yo are going too, so we need a bigger car.”
Amanda looked at me, stricken. “Mo-om! I have to get a fitting or Edesa can’t keep sewing!” She yanked open the door, filling the entryway with cold air. “Oh, never mind. I’ll take the el.”
“No! I don’t want you traveling to the west side by yourself.”
“Oh, great. So now what am I supposed to do? You just said you’re taking the car all day.” She rolled her eyes big-time. “That . . . that robber person is more important to you than I am.”
I pushed the door shut, choosing to ignore that last remark. “Amanda, calm down.We’ll figure out something. We can . . .” My brain scrambled. Send Josh with her? Ask to borrow Stu’s car? No, wasn’t going to go there. “We’ll drop you off on the way and pick you up on the way back.”
She considered my offer. “Guess so. Just don’t leave so early, like you did last time.” Then she was gone.
I locked the door behind her and leaned against it—and that’s when it hit me. Not only was Amanda’s quinceañera only two weeks away, but Peter Douglass and Avis were coming to lunch after church this Sunday! I hadn’t sent out invitations, hadn’t planned refreshments or decorations for the party, hadn’t shopped for food for Sunday—I must’ve been crazy to agree to drive all the way to Lincoln this weekend!
BUT THERE I WAS, pointing our Dodge minivan down I-55 the next morning after dropping Amanda off at Edesa’s apartment around nine o’clock. The fitting wasn’t going to take long, so it surprised me when Amanda didn’t balk at not getting picked up till three or four. She’d tossed off something about José teaching her the traditional waltzes. “Josh has to learn them too,” she had said. “All the chambelanes do.”
“Whatcha groanin’ about, Jodi?” Yo-Yo’s voice from the front passenger seat broke into my thoughts.
“I groaned? Oh, dear.” I was hugging the righthand lane, going five miles below the speed limit. Car after car pulled around me and passed. I didn’t care. It was my first time driving at highway speed since before the accident. “Just thinking about all the stuff I have to do to get ready for Amanda’s quinceañera in two weeks.”
“What’s that you sayin’, Jodi?” Florida called out from where she and Stu took up the bench seat behind me. “Speak up so we can hear ya. Y’all decided ta do that quinceañera thing? How come we jus’ now hearin’ about it?”
I did groan this time. “That’s the problem, Flo—I haven’t even had time to get out invitations, and it’s two weeks from today! And I have no idea what to do about food, except—Yo-Yo! Could I order a cake from the Bagel Bakery? A big one?”
“Just send out e-invitations, Jodi,” Stu tossed in. “I could show you—or even do it, if you want.No big deal.”
Now that sounded hopeful. I opened my mouth to say thanks, when Stu added, “Besides, it’s too late for snail-mail invitations. Should have done that two weeks ago.”
Arrgh. Why did she always have to stick it to me?
Get over it, Jodi. She’s right, you know.
“I know,” I said glumly. “But thanks for the e-invitation idea. Might save my butt.”
“Well, I knew somethin’ was up,” Yo-Yo said, “ ’cause Amanda called Pete and asked him ta be one of her ‘chamber-somethin’s’ for a big party.”
I tore my eyes away from the road and gaped at Yo-Yo. “Really? Amanda asked Pete?” My eyes went back to the road, which stretched out on either side of the median like twin lizard tongues, sucking up car bugs. “I wonder how many escorts she’s asking?”
Yo-Yo shrugged. “Dunno. Pete seemed pleased, though . . . Huh. Lookit that. Everything looks so dead. Not like last fall when we came down. That was boss.” Yo-Yo, who’d never been out of Chicago in her twenty-three years except for the eighteen months she’d spent at Lincoln Correctional herself, gazed hungrily at the flat, frozen farmland on either side of the highway. Probably why she liked to come on these junkets to visit “our thief ”—just to soak up a little open space.
“You inviting Yada Yada to Amanda’s party?” Flo asked. “ ’Cause if you are, I’m cookin’.”
“Of course Yada Yada’s invited!” I sputtered. “Just haven’t got there yet. But I was just gonna have, you know, cake and punch—”
“Aw, Jodi.You need real food for a party! Let me round it up.”
“And a piñata,” said Stu. “Gotta have a piñata for a Mexican fiesta. The kids’ll love it!”
“Stu! We’re trying to keep expenses down.” But I felt a flutter of excitement. A piñata! What a great idea!
“Pooh. They don’t cost much. It’ll be my birthday present for Amanda’s fifteenth.”
I giggled. “Fifteen-and-a-half, you mean . . .”
By the time we pulled off the highway and rolled up to the guardhouse of the state women’s prison, Stu, Florida, and Yo-Yo practically had the entire quinceañera planned—and jobs for everybody from Avis to Adele, even though they didn’t know it yet.
18
After two previous visits to Lincoln Correctional, I was no longer surprised at the drill. We had to shed our coats and purses, dig stuff out of our pockets, and put it all in a locker. A female guard examined our shoes before letting us put them back on, and then there was the pat-down. Stu pressed her lips into a thin line as the guard told her to stand with feet apart and arms out straight, running an electronic wand up and down her body.
“You flying standby?” I said, trying to lighten things up. Stu said nothing.
We found an empty table in the gray-on-gray visitors’ room and prepared to wait. Yo-Yo slid into her customary slouch; Florida—who said she was trying to cut back on cigarettes—kept up a tap dance with her painted fingertips. Stu tried to look relaxed, sitting in the molded plastic chair with one pant leg crossed casually over the other. But I could tell from the constant movement of her hands—winding a strand of long hair around her finger, picking at a spot on the table, brushing nonexistent lint from her fine-knit sweater set—that she was anything but.
My attention was distracted by voices at the table behind us. “—’cause it’s too crowded. Talkin’ ’bout early parole—for sixty, maybe a hundred! Hear that, baby? Mama might be gettin’ out early.”
I shifted in my seat, hoping I wasn’t being obvious but wanting to see who was talking. A thirtyish brown woman with a young child on her lap leaned toward an older woman, graying, tired, across the table. A couple of other kids squirmed in the plastic chairs.
I was so busy eavesdropping, I jumped when a familiar voice said, “Hey. Didn’t know you guys was comin’ so soon.”
Becky Wallac
e, midtwenties, lean and wiry, stood with her fingers shoved into the front pockets of her tight jeans, her hair tucked inside a red bandana tied snugly around her head. The bandana startled me, because standing in front of us was the spitting image of the junkie who had terrorized the prayer group at knifepoint that night—tight jeans, jean jacket, red bandana—except no wraparound shades to cover her gray eyes, and the sallow skin had regained some healthy color. “Bandana Woman,” I’d called her, till we learned her name.
Yo-Yo unfolded herself and grabbed a nearby chair. “Hey, Becky. Sit.”
Becky acknowledged each of us as she lowered her lean body into the chair. “Yo-Yo . . . Flo . . . Jodi.” She looked Stu up and down. “You Leslie Stuart? The one who wrote me?”
“That’s right.” Stu stuck her hand across the table.
Becky pulled her fingers out of her jean pocket and shook Stu’s hand, squinting her eyes as though trying to recall Stu’s face. “Was you at that prayer meetin’ I busted up?”When Stu nodded, Becky cussed under her breath. “Huh. Don’t remember—just that squinty-eyed lady I cut up . . . an’ the big lady with the red ’fro, scared the hell out of me . . . an’ that Denny guy who got me on the floor.” She glanced around the room. “He ain’t with you guys this time?”
“Not today. He’s a high school coach—got basket-ball games today.” I smiled. I’d have to tell Denny he was missed at the prison.
Becky shifted nervously in her seat, eyeing Stu again. “So. You said somethin’ in yo’ letter ’bout wantin’ ta help me talk to my baby? How can ya do that?”
Stu was transformed. She leaned forward, forearms on the table, her hands clasped. “I just got rehired by the Department of Child and Family Services, the Rogers Park office. Don’t know if I can get assigned to your case, but I could ask for it—if that’s all right with you. But even if I don’t get the case, I could check out that phone number you were given and see why you haven’t been able to make contact with the foster parents. I’ll try to set something up.”
Becky’s eyes locked on to Stu’s for a long moment before her eyes fell. “I’d like that. Like that a lot.” A tear slid down her cheek, which she brushed away impatiently, as if angry at the weakness it showed. “Hey, wanna thank you guys for sending me all that fancy hand cream and stuff for Christmas. That was nice, real nice.” She gave a little laugh. “Made my day, no joke.”
“Coulda used some of that nice, smelly stuff when I was in the joint,” Yo-Yo complained good-naturedly.
“You could use some of it now.” Florida picked up one of Yo-Yo’s hands across the table. “Look at your hands! So dry they gonna fall right off.”
Yo-Yo grimaced. “Can’t help it. Gotta wash my hands practically ever’ thirty minutes at the Bagel Bakery.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” I said to Becky. “Stu picked it out, but it was from all of us.”
A long, awkward silence yawned between us. Florida tapped. Not knowing what else to say, I asked about the early paroles. “Is it true?”
Becky shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. At least that’s the rumor goin’ around. They gotta do somethin’—this place is way over the population limit. Makes for trouble . . .” Her eyes shifted away from us. “A lot of trouble.”
“What about you?” Stu leaned forward again, as if interviewing a prospective client. “Could you get an early parole? Plead hardship! You’ve got a toddler who needs his mother.”
“ ’Fore he forgets you’re his mama,” Florida muttered under her breath.
“Me?” Becky snorted. “Ain’t nobody likely to give me early parole—not with a violent conviction.” She wagged her head slowly. “Stupid. So stupid . . .”
Yo-Yo spoke up. “Tell us about your little boy. Andy—ain’t that his name? How old is he?”
Whether or not Yo-Yo intended to pull the conversation out of its downward spiral, it worked. Becky lifted her eyes. “Andy? Yeah, he’s two—named after his daddy. Got a head full o’ black curls, big brown eyes. His daddy’s black. Don’t know what he saw in me, but we sure did make a pretty baby.” She laughed, but without real mirth. “Big Andy and I was together for a couple of years—thought we might get married when lil’ Andy was born, but”—she shrugged—“didn’t happen. An’ then the drugs got bad—real bad.”
“Do you have a picture?” Yo-Yo seemed genuinely interested.
“Nah. Wish I did. By the time I got busted, I was zoned out.” Her shoulders sagged. “Cain’t blame nobody but myself. Somebody else raisin’ him now. Just wish . . . just wish I could talk ta him now ’n then, so he don’t forgit me.”
“That much is going to happen,” Stu said firmly. “If I have to stand by the phone myself.”
MY STOMACH WAS GROWLING by the time we collected our stuff and drove out of the prison parking lot. “At least we get to leave,” I murmured, heading into the town of Lincoln and the closest food. “Can’t imagine being locked in there for years.”
Stu and I voted for Subway, but Florida and Yo-Yo saw a sign for Hardee’s Big Burgers. So Yo-Yo flipped a nickel and the sub sandwiches lost. “Don’t take it so hard, Jodi,” Yo-Yo snickered. “You won’t die from fast food just once.”
The food was actually tasty, and I was glad we opted to eat in rather than do the drive-through. It was a good time to debrief from our visit—easier to talk facing each other than lined up in the car talking to the windshield. “Funny what she said about wanting to work in the prison garden come spring,” I said, trying to keep all the fixin’s inside my charbroiled chicken sandwich. “I mean, hard to imagine a hip-hop street person like Becky wanting to grow things.”
“I like her!” Yo-Yo announced. “I mean, she’s workin’ on her GED, workin’ in the kitchen, readin’ books—says somethin’ about the lady.”
I smiled at “the lady.” Becky was probably all of two years older than Yo-Yo. But I agreed with her. Becky Wallace off drugs had a lot of drive—hustle, Florida called it—to make something of herself. She was even likable, which was an odd way to feel about the person who’d terrorized your family and friends only a few months earlier.
The wind was kicking up as we got back in the minivan with four coffees-to-go, and the clouds looked heavy, like a big belly about to pop. “Say a prayer, sisters,” I muttered. “I really don’t want to drive in a snowstorm.”
I meant just sending up the silent kind, but Florida—who had taken over the front passenger seat—belted out, “Okay, Lord, You heard my sister here. She don’t need ta be drivin’ in no snowstorm today, ’cause we all wan-tin’ to get home safe to our families. You’re a big God, and we know this is nothin’ for You. Just hold off on the snow, all right?”
Well, amen. Sure hoped God didn’t mind being bossed around by Florida. I pushed the speedometer up to the speed limit, more anxious about getting caught in a snowstorm than driving seventy. Stu and Yo-Yo were talking to themselves in the middle seat, so I told Florida that Avis had actually agreed to come to Sunday lunch at our house tomorrow—with Peter Douglass.
“You go, girl! Somebody gotta find out whassup with them two. Avis better hold on ta that man, all I can say. Hey—where’s Yada Yada meeting tomorrow night?”
“Avis’s apartment.” Stu answered from the middle seat.
“Odds gotta be somebody’s birthday,” Yo-Yo added. “We got twelve women an’ twelve months.When’s your birthday, Stu?”
“March.”
“What about you, Florida?”
No answer. Florida was looking gloomily out the window. “Flo!”
“Awright! Next week. But . . .” She turned and glared at all of us. “Don’t nobody go doing any birthday thing for me. I’ve had it up to here with birthdays for a while. Jus’ let me pass this one by in peace.”
I glanced in my rearview mirror and caught Stu’s eye. Not likely.
“Hey, rest area,” Florida announced as a blue and white sign flew by. “Take a pit stop, Jodi. I’ve been good long enough. I really do need a cig.”
&n
bsp; No snow so far, but the wind was bitter. I was glad to get back in the car and kept it running while Florida and Yo-Yo hunched up in their jackets and burned down a cigarette each. When they climbed back in, Yo-Yo said, “Did we really jump in Lake Michigan on New Year’s Day? Glad it wasn’t no day like today!”
I couldn’t resist. “Speaking of getting wet in Lake Michigan . . .” I glanced over my shoulder at Yo-Yo. “Have you thought any more about baptism since the last time Yada Yada met?”
“Ha. Not till the weather warms up.”
That got a laugh from all of us. “But seriously, Yo-Yo,” I pressed.
“Huh. I dunno. Don’t think I’m good enough yet.” She tapped the package of cigarettes tucked in the bib of her overalls. “Still smokin’ these things, for starters.”
Florida twisted as far as her seat belt would let her. “What’s that got ta do with it?”
I saw Yo-Yo shrug in the rearview mirror. “Well, you know, being holy an’ all that—no offense, Florida. But, you know, goin’ public . . . Pete an’ Jerry gonna laugh their heads off, ’cause they know I’m no saint.”
“It’s not about being a saint, Yo-Yo,” Stu said. “It’s just a declaration that you want to be a Christian.”
“You been baptized?” Yo-Yo asked.
“Well, yeah—when I was a baby.”
“A baby!” Yo-Yo sounded shocked. “They dunked you under when you was a baby—with no say-so about it? What if you drowned?”
Stu laughed. “Not ‘dunked.’ In my church they baptized babies by sprinkling them.”
“Get outta here!”
I was just as surprised as Yo-Yo—not that some churches baptized babies, but that Stu said “in my church.” What church was that? In the nine months since Stu had introduced herself in that first prayer group at the women’s conference, I had never heard her talk about “her church.”
Her family either.
19
Amanda was so high when we picked her up on the way through the city—at the Enriquezes’ house in Little Village, not at Edesa’s—that she babbled nonstop all the way home. “You should see the dress Edesa is making me, Mom! The skirt has all these layers that flounce and sway, kinda white but it shimmers pale blue—and the dance Jose taught me is so much fun! The guys are gonna wear white dress shirts and black pants—does Pete have a white shirt, Yo-Yo? . . . Florida! I haven’t asked Chris yet if he’d be one of my chambelanes—an escort, ya know. Do you think he’d be too embarrassed? I know he’s a good dancer—he’d pick up the traditional waltz in a minute . . .”