Love Like Sky

by Leslie C. Youngblood

  “I believe her. I just didn’t want you to be angry at me instead of being happy Peaches was home.”

  “Lucinda coming isn’t the worst, Nikki. I still appreciate why you did it. But when she brings your bike back, I’ll tell her that I don’t even want to be on any team of hers.”

  “We’ll never see each other then. What kind of best friends will we be?”

  “The kind that spend the night and have emergency drawers.” I jumped up and opened one of my drawers and tossed everything in it on my bed. “All yours.”

  She flicked a tear away. “Thank you,” she said and smiled, but she couldn’t hold it long. “What if she’s lying again? Maybe she’s just using me like you said before.”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll bring it.” I immediately crossed my fingers, hoping she couldn’t tell I was fibbing. I sat back on the bed alongside of her, then reached over and hugged her. I didn’t think for two seconds that Lucinda would bring that bike to the party, or anywhere else for that matter. But I’d figure out how to make her do the right thing somehow. It wasn’t really big stuff like Tangie and Marshall would do, but somebody was taking advantage of my best friend, and who knows how many other kids, and I was gonna figure out how to do something about it.

  “Hey, what about you?” Nikki asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I came in, you said you needed my help, remember?”

  Nikki moved in closer, her eyes as big as gum balls. “Is it about a boy?” she asked.

  “Yeah, Tangie might be leaving the party to go meet one.”

  “She knows you know?”

  “Not really. She might suspect. But I don’t think she thinks I can figure it out on my own.”

  Nikki nodded. “We just need a way to keep our eyes on her.”

  Nikki and I paced in between my twin beds. We were in an all-out thinking contest. When one of us was in deep trouble—like the time Nikki took Jevon’s Beats without asking and someone stole them—we’d fall asleep thinking until one of us woke up with an idea.

  A couple minutes later, Nikki snapped her fingers. “I got it.”

  “Already?”

  “Stake her out.”

  “Hmm. Like police do when they’re trying to catch somebody?”

  “Duh, yeah!”

  “Don’t ‘duh’ me,” I said, but let it go quickly. I didn’t need to get into a back-and-forth with her. “That’s a good idea,” I admitted. “We’ll take turns watching her all night.”

  “She won’t suspect a thing.”

  “Well, just to be sure of that, you start off doing the staking, because she doesn’t know you know.”

  “On it! To make sure she doesn’t get out of our sight, we need Tammy on the case, too.”

  “Her mouth is too big,” I said, and put on my vest.

  “Did any grown-ups find out about the hospital stuff?” Nikki asked.

  “You’re right. She covered for us till the very end.”

  “That’s Tammy.”

  “Okay, so we got everyone staking, but what if Tangie tries to leave?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. But you have to be ready for her to be mad at you until you’re, like, thirty.”

  “I’ll take that over her getting in big trouble,” I said. “Tell me what is it?”

  She gulped in such a huge breath that I held mine waiting for her answer.

  “We’ll…We’ll grab her.”

  I froze solid, waiting for part two. But she just stared back at me. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Wait. That’s it? That’s your plan?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not like I had a long time to think. That’s it, unless you got something better.”

  “Guess you’re right.” Grabbing her didn’t seem like the best idea, but it beat doing nothing.

  I held out my hand. She grabbed it, held it tight. We have only two solid pumps, two claps, two backhand slaps, and then a thumbs-up. We hadn’t done our best-friend handshake in a while.

  At that moment it meant that we’d do whatever we could to stop Tangie, and, even though Nikki didn’t know it, that Ms. Lucinda Hightower was in trouble now.

  A few minutes later, Mama and Peaches came upstairs to check out my outfit and show off theirs. My vest had a long fringe, and I wore faded jeans that were chopped up at the bottom like cut-up strips of paper. All my rollers were out, and I patted my Afro until it looked like a chocolate lollipop.

  “You look hip, G-baby,” Peaches said, using Frank’s word.

  Peaches’s outfit was a dress with geometric shapes on it that matched her purse and the scarf she had tied around her head, which hung down her back. Her Afro wasn’t as thick as it would have been before she was in the hospital. But Mama had tried to make it real round anyway.

  “Not hipper than you,” I replied.

  If Peaches and I were “hip,” Mama was “out of sight” in her huge Afro wig. Mama was wearing a jumpsuit that hugged every curve but was wide at the legs. At the end of her sleeves and around her neck hung a bunch of feathers.

  “Everybody looks groovy, now let’s get on downstairs and do what, Peaches?” I said.

  “Get this party started!” she shouted.

  As soon as we got downstairs, we found Frank in the living room straightening one of the rug liners. But I think he was waiting to see Mama.

  “Umph! Ain’t I just about the luckiest man in the world?” he crowed.

  “What you mean ‘just about’?” She slapped his arm. He caught her hand and twirled her around, the feathers floating behind Mama like a bird.

  We weren’t downstairs five minutes before the doorbell rang, and a few of Mama’s friends came in with kids who knew Peaches. The little kids huddled around her for a moment, and I waited for her to emerge from them fully charged. But when they rushed to the backyard, she sorta lagged behind. Two of the girls slowed. As my heartbeat raced, I resisted the urge to go and swoop her up.

  “Wait for Peaches!” one of them yelled.

  “Be careful!” one mother shouted. She and the other ladies chatted on their way to the kitchen to drop off their dishes. I smelled everything from fried chicken to barbecued meatballs.

  “Is Peaches okay, okay?” Nikki asked.

  “Sorta.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t want Nikki to feel sorry for Peaches. She might think that I felt sorry for her when her asthma was acting up. “Mama said it may be a while before she gets all her coordination back and stuff.”

  “It’ll happen. Look at me.”

  “Uggh. Tonsillitis is not meningitis.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. But it’s still an operation, and I couldn’t talk. You remember.”

  “Yeah, okay. I got it. Thanks. Let’s focus on Tangie and you know what else.”

  “Lucinda?”

  “Yep.”

  “She said that she’d stop by but would only stay for a minute.”

  “Long as she has your bike, it doesn’t matter how long she stays. Just stand by the door and greet everybody,” I suggested.

  “Cool. Forget about Lucinda. Checking the door is the best way to keep Tangie in and strange boys out.”

  “Doubt he’d show his face here.”

  “Why?”

  “Frank won’t let him come over. He’ll park around the corner or something.”

  “How you know all that?”

  “Just do.”

  “When Tammy comes, we’ll give her all the info. One of us needs to keep watch outside, too,” Nikki said.

  At that moment, Tangie waltzed down the stairs looking like one of the girls from That ’70s Show, but prettier. The clinking of her beads blended in with the music. She was wearing a minidress with vinyl boots and earrings as big as training wheels.

  “Go ahead, girl. That’s how you do it!” one of Mama’s friends shouted.

  “You look marvelous, Tangie!” I said.

  “Wow! Like a movie star,” Peaches said, walking out
of the kitchen with Mama.

  Some song where the singer kept repeating “shake your groove thing” was playing outside. Mama walked back into the living room carrying a silver tray piled with cheese and Ritz crackers. Frank strutted over to her, set it down, and glided Mama to the middle of the living room to dance.

  Peaches pointed. “Look at Frank!”

  We’d never seen Frank dancing before. I guess that’s how he moves when they go out to do the “whole shebang.”

  Mama’s friends grabbed their dates and started dancing right next to her and Frank. Somehow, Nikki and I ended up on the floor with Peaches dancing next to Mama and Frank, too, and Tangie was left at the door greeting guests. I held Peaches as she swayed off beat with a few of her friends. But I still kept an eye on Tangie.

  Frank kissed Mama’s cheek. “Save me a dance later, beautiful. I got to go tend to the grill. Them ribs aren’t going to flip themselves.” He headed back outside.

  I glanced at the watch I’d put on just for the party. “It’s almost six thirty,” I whispered to Nikki.

  “We can’t let her out of our sight,” Nikki whispered back.

  I don’t know why, but I glanced at the door and expected to see Kevin.

  While I was dancing with Peaches, she stopped and pointed at the door. She didn’t even try to make her voice carry over the music. But her eyes shined.

  “Daddy, Daddy!” I shouted for the both of us, and through the door strolled Daddy in a silky gold shirt, bell-bottom pants, and platform shoes that made him seem eight feet tall. Unlike Frank, he didn’t have an Afro, but he was wearing a big, floppy hat. I scanned the room for Mama. If she could see him really trying to make us happy, maybe she wouldn’t be mad at him.

  “That’s a funny hat, Daddy,” Peaches said.

  “What?” Daddy said. “This was cooler than a Kangol back in the day. Called an applejack, Jack.” Daddy swooped Peaches up with one arm and drew me to his side with the other. Just behind him, Millicent waved to us. Her dress flowed down to her ankles with what looked like pieces of broken glass glued on it. She had a ponytail wrapped with gold twine, making it stand straight up on her head.

  “And my guest for the evening is none other than the soul-stirring, head-turning Ms. Nina Simone,” Daddy announced. Millicent pretended to hold a mic and then tossed her head back to belt out a song.

  “I can’t carry a note in a bucket,” Millicent said. “Unlike the High Priestess of Soul.”

  Grandma Sugar played Nina Simone’s music sometimes. Even the one about Mississippi that had a curse word. “Can’t shelter you from hearing every bad word, but you best not repeat ’em,” Sugar would say. Later, Grandma Sugar told me that in Bogalusa she couldn’t go to the same schools or even use the same restrooms as white people when she was a little girl, and Nina Simone had gone through the same thing. After that, I understood why that song used a bad word, even if I couldn’t repeat it. Then I thought of Marshall standing up for his classmate and wished Tangie could be with him somewhere she wouldn’t get hurt.

  “You sure look groovy,” Millicent said to me.

  “So do you!” I hugged her. A little part of me was hugging Nina Simone, too. And before I knew it, I said, “Thanks for helping get my sister to the hospital.”

  “That’s nothing to thank me for, Georgin—I’m sorry, Georgie. I appreciate it, though,” she said.

  “Where’s your mama?” Daddy said.

  “She’s in the kitchen. Want me to get her?”

  “Best not, with all she has going on. We’ll see each other soon.” I knew for sure that Mama could probably hear Daddy’s voice. And Daddy knew that Mama always says, “If I’m not doing ten things at once, I’m not getting anything done.” But I just let it go. Maybe just having them under the same roof would have to do.

  “Come see my friends, Daddy,” Peaches said.

  I started to go with Daddy and Peaches, but Nikki pulled the fringe on my vest. We eased back closer to Tangie, who was still standing at the door and talking on her phone.

  “You kinda lucky,” Nikki said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You have your daddy, stepmom, mom, and stepdad all in one house at the same time. When my mama’s sister tries to do that, she calls it World War Three.”

  “Well, it was almost that at the hospital,” I said. I didn’t tell Nikki that Mama may just be putting on that happy face for Peaches’s sake.

  There was a knock at the door. Nikki and I stared at it like the thumps were sounds we’d never heard. Tangie opened it.

  “Is that my oldest grandbaby?”

  “Sugar! Sugar!” I shouted.

  “Well, you are too hot to trot, Ms. Tangie,” Sugar said as she hugged her, then held her at arm’s length. “You got it going on, girl.”

  “You do, too,” Tangie replied.

  “I do all right,” Sugar said and laughed.

  “There’s one of my babies. Where’s the other one?” Sugar asked as we hugged.

  “Mama said you were already in Bogalusa,” I said, taking in the scent of her Wind Song.

  “I was, and I’m going back soon. But when Trina said there was a party in honor of my Peaches, you better believe I put the pedal to the metal.” She wore a cream-colored dress with a short cape with tons of sequins at the end of it.

  “Look at your dress, Sugar…. You’d win the best-dressed contest,” I said.

  “Yes, indeed! Diana Ross and Beyoncé better watch out.” Sugar put her hand on her hips. I put my left hand on my hip, too.

  “Stop acting like you got a shape, now,” Nikki said.

  Grandma Sugar laughed. “Don’t you worry, G-baby. You’ll have more hips than you know what to do with one of these days.” James Brown was wailing “Papa’s got a brand-new bag.”

  I looked at Nikki, and she rolled her eyes at me. “You still gonna be skinnier than me,” she said.

  “Skinny or curvy, you’ll both be fine as wine,” Grandma Sugar said, and snapped her fingers. “I love me some James Brown. Now where is Ms. Peaches? Where is my youngest grandbaby hiding?”

  “She’s outside with Daddy,” I said, but as I turned around, the back door opened and Peaches scurried into the living room. Sugar met her halfway and kneeled down in front of her like she would when she said a prayer.

  Peaches took both of Grandma Sugar’s hands and hopped right to the middle of the living room floor as James Brown now told everybody to get on the “good foot.”

  “Can I have everyone’s attention, please? Let’s make our way down to the basement.” Frank waved his long arms to the entrance to the basement. People chatted as they headed down the stairs. I waited for Tangie, then followed her. It was ten minutes after seven.

  Downstairs, the strobe light was flashing, and streamers were hanging everywhere. The Welcome Home, Peaches! banner Tangie and I made stretched along the wall.

  I had to admit that it was looking pretty spiffy, and I was feeling awful proud. So proud that it took Nikki two or three nudges of my shoulder before I could snap out of my trance.

  “G-baby, look,” Nikki whispered.

  There, inching along the wall like stuck-up snails were Lucinda Hightower and another girl.

  “That’s her cousin Rhonda.”

  Both of them had on ripped jeans and T-shirts that showed their belly buttons. Rhonda’s shirt had a glitter peach on it and Lucinda’s shirt said, How Bout No. If I was ever gonna be jealous of Lucinda, it was that moment. Mama wouldn’t think about buying me a shirt that sassy. Even Nikki had a Bye, Felicia shirt.

  I tore my eyes from Lucinda and tried to pay attention.

  “Let’s make sure the guest of honor is front and center,” Daddy said, and picked up Peaches.

  As people chatted, Mama strolled from Frank’s den, pushing a cart with a cake as large as a big-screen TV. It had Fourth of July sparklers on it, and the icing spelled out Celebrate Life! We Love You, Peaches.

  Everyone clapped. I looked over at Lucinda.
And her arms were folded like she had somewhere else to be. That made me want to go sock her. I know she saw me looking her way and acted like she didn’t. Nikki was next to me clapping until she noticed Lucinda wasn’t clapping and folded her arms across her chest, too.

  Ms. Cora was passing out red plastic champagne glasses that Mama had bought at the dollar store. Another one of Mama’s friends filled the kids’ glasses with sparkling apple juice.

  Mama cleared her throat and wiped her eyes.

  “Take your time, baby,” Grandma Sugar said.

  “It can’t get any more frightening than when a mother can’t make her child well. But thank God and all of you for your prayers and support. Peaches is getting stronger every day. And we can’t love her any more than we already do.” Mama raised her glass.

  “Hear, hear!” everyone cried, and tapped their glasses together like it was New Year’s Eve.

  Lucinda whispered in Rhonda’s ear as soon as Mama stopped talking. I would have given everything in my piggy bank to hear what she said. If it was one mean thing about Peaches or anybody else, I was going to snatch her lips off.

  Then suddenly, I realized: when Mama had started talking, Tangie had been standing at the bottom of the stairs. When Mama finished her speech, Tangie wasn’t there anymore.

  But just as I started to move, Mama stepped over from across the floor and stood in front of Daddy for the first time that evening. “The girls really appreciate you being here, George. Don’t you?”

  Peaches and I both nodded.

  “I’m just sorry there was any question that I’d come,” Daddy said.

  “I was out of line,” Mama said.

  “Same here. Should have called you first thing. You do a good job of making sure I know what’s going on with my girls.”

  “It was an emergency. Getting Peaches to the hospital was all that mattered.”

  “We good, Kat?” Daddy asked. Mama nodded, but her eyes searched the floor just like Nikki’s did earlier.