Love Like Sky

by Leslie C. Youngblood

  “You need to mind your business,” Lucinda shot back.

  “Georgie is my sister, Nikki is her best friend, so this is my business.”

  “Whatever. You probably just want to try out, too.” Lucinda turned to Nikki. “Don’t think that bike is worth four headaches.”

  “Oh, is that what you think?” Tangie said.

  Tangie took a scrunchie from her wrist and put her hair in a ponytail, beads and all. Then she whipped her hoodie over her head.

  “You’ve done it now,” Valerie said as she held Tangie’s phone. Peaches eased up to me just in time.

  “What’s happening, G-baby?” Peaches asked.

  “Just watch,” I said, and pulled her close.

  Tangie looked over her shoulder. And before any of us could speak, she floated through the air, her body a perfect arch.

  “She can fly,” Kevin mouthed in awe.

  She backflipped two times. Stopped. Then she did that move from that old movie, The Matrix, that looked like her back swept the ground. Like a stop sign, she held out the palm of her left hand, then let each finger fold down individually until a current of electricity hit her wrist, ran along her shoulders, and ended in the fingertips of her right hand. Her clap was loud before her knees hiked up to her chest, and every time her knee went up, she’d clap underneath. I started to clap along, feeling the rhythm, but didn’t want to miss a move.

  “All right! All right!” she shouted.

  “All right! All right!” we shouted back. She clicked her heels. And stood soldier-straight with her hands along her side. Moving her head in quick, sharp turns, she surveyed her surroundings again, and sprung her hands over her head, clicked her heels again, and took to the air. Her body curved like a capital C during each of the two backflips before landing right in front of Lucinda, nearly nose to nose.

  Lucinda didn’t move, and her eyes were wide.

  “Dang, she’s good,” Rhonda said to Lucinda, though we all heard it.

  “Whoa! Was that my baby?” Frank shouted as he approached us. He put his hand on Tangie’s back and pulled her close. “Tee, you don’t know how good it is for me to see you doing what you love…. You know…”

  “You don’t have to say it, Daddy, I know,” Tangie said.

  I felt a tickle in my throat and hoped that I didn’t cry because I knew what he meant, too. Morgan. Morgan would be so happy to see her fly.

  “Teach me, Tangie! Teach me,” Peaches said.

  “Soon. Real soon,” Tangie said.

  “Trina sent me out to get you girls for the pictures. Glad to see you doing your thing, baby,” Frank said, and kissed her forehead.

  “All of these girls will be on the Woolfolk BGC step team next year. Just showing them a few moves,” Tangie said.

  “Well, who better. You were captain! Y’all come in for pics when you’re done.”

  “Go in with Frank, Peaches. We’ll be there in just a second.”

  After Frank and Peaches left, Tangie folded her arms and stepped closer to Lucinda, who still hadn’t spoken. “Ms. Jerilyn, you know, the coach, has been after me for months to come back as her assistant. This team gives everyone a fair shot and they do not like bullies. This is what will happen: That bike you have. Get it back to Nikki ASAP. If you don’t, I promise you that you won’t dance one minute with that team. Are we clear?”

  “Yes,” Lucinda said. Her eyes looked like they could still see Tangie in the air.

  “I wanted to call Ms. Jerilyn and have you banned from the team, but Georgie convinced me not to. Shouldn’t you have something to say?”

  “Oh,” Lucinda said.

  I tensed up then. Tangie was pushing it. But maybe she knew Lucinda better than I did, because Lucinda glanced at me and didn’t even roll her eyes.

  “Thank you,” Lucinda said.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. Uggh, where was my cool? Wasn’t I supposed to say something like, “I hope this teaches you a lesson”?

  “Nikki, if it’s not back tomorrow morning, call Georgie.” Tangie reached to Val for her phone. “I got Ms. Jerilyn’s number right here. Don’t give me a reason.”

  Tangie turned to me. “Dad said the photographer is here, we should go in.” She whipped around and all the beads on her ponytail snapped like a hundred fingers right in Lucinda’s face.

  We walked through the door, and I went up to Peaches right away. “Think Tangie will dance again for us?” she asked, and leaned into me.

  “I think she will,” I said.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, but the zest she had before was gone.

  “Where’s all the excitement you had a few minutes ago? Everything okay?”

  “Nothing’s the matter,” Peaches said, which is what she says when something is “the matter.”

  Before I could get to the bottom of it, Mama waved at us. “G-baby, you and Tangie get in this picture, please. I don’t think I’ve had one picture with all my girls this entire evening.”

  “Why don’t the four of you stand in front of that window? Those mauve drapes make a good backdrop,” the photographer said. She wore jeans and a blue T-shirt with Click Chick written on the front with gold glitter. Since Mama called her at the last minute, she could only schedule one hour.

  “Yeah, that looks good,” Frank said.

  “Don’t you go anywhere. I want you in here next,” Mama called to him.

  I was glad that Tangie didn’t mind Mama calling her one of her “girls.” Seemed like everyone followed the photographer, because more guests crowded into the living room, including Grandma Sugar. After the photographer snapped a few shots, the front door opened, and Daddy and Millicent came back in.

  “Looks like we got inside just in time.” Daddy made an imaginary camera with his hands.

  “Mama, can the whole blended-up family be in the picture together?” a small voice piped.

  Everybody laughed.

  Maybe she’s just a little drained.

  “Y’all heard the guest of honor. George, you and Millicent get over here,” Frank said, and moved the coffee table back. “Peaches wants the ‘whole blended-up family.’”

  “We can do that,” Daddy said to Frank, and they shook hands and bumped shoulders. Not a full hug, but something close to it. Mama and Millicent didn’t do as much; smiling at each other was enough.

  “That includes me, too,” Sugar said, tiptoeing over and making us laugh even more.

  Peaches was the smallest, so she posed in the front, then I stood next to her and wrapped my hand around her shoulder. Tangie looped one arm with mine and the other around on Peaches’s shoulder. Sugar stood next to us. Mama and Frank were next to her, then Daddy and Millicent were on the other side of me.

  “Can’t get a better family shot than that,” Ms. Cora said.

  “Wouldn’t happen in my house,” another friend added, and laughed.

  “Is that ‘Disco Lady’?” Sugar asked. “That DJ is going to have to play that one again once we finish up here.”

  “You got it,” Frank said.

  “Tighten up just a bit,” the photographer said.

  Standing around us were Kevin, Nikki, Tammy, and Valerie, and I couldn’t wait to get them all together in a picture, too. I didn’t see Lucinda and Rhonda. Maybe their ride finally showed up. Nikki’s lips were flapping a mile a minute. She was yapping to Kevin and Tammy one second and laughing so hard that she was holding her stomach the next.

  “Here we go,” the photographer said. “On the count of three.”

  “Just a moment!” Mama said. “Everyone say ‘Bogalusa’ instead of ‘cheese.’”

  “You got it,” Click Chick said. “On the count of three, everyone. One…two…three.”

  “BOGALUSA!” we all shouted, and even Peaches pronounced it right this time.

  “One more,” the photographer said. “Pull in closer on each side…. A little closer…Everyone huddle together. Good!”

  As she adjusted her camera’s lens, Tangie whispered in
my ear, “Thanks again for helping me, Georgie. Would have been a lot worse if I had to call Dad. You’re a great li’l sister.”

  “No biggie,” I said, hoping my eyes didn’t get all teary. “Thanks for helping with Lucinda.”

  “I know girls like her. Insecure mostly,” she said.

  Insecure? Lucinda? I couldn’t wrap my mind around that.

  I pulled Peaches in closer. She smiled along with everyone else, but it was sorta like Kevin’s smile, with sadness lurking underneath.

  “Okay. On three…One…two…three!”

  Tangie’s arm tightened around my shoulder, and she leaned in until her cheek pressed against mine. As soon as the photographer snapped a few more shots, everyone started talking and taking pictures with their phones, but I linked my hands with Peaches’s and we made our way toward the living room door.

  I opened it and we walked out to the porch, closing the door behind us.

  “If you’re tired, guest of honor or not, everyone would understand if you’re ready for bed.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what? Bogalusa?”

  “No. I heard something bad.” I bit my lip to keep from pressing her. “I wasn’t ’posed to hear it.”

  Maybe someone had said something about her being slower than everyone else now. How could I protect her in Bogalusa, if I couldn’t even protect her at home? There was a break in her heart that I might not ever be able to fix.

  “You can tell me,” I said. It didn’t seem as though Mama and Daddy had fallen into a shouting match. But when things were bad between them, they’d do it in grocery stores, movies, doctor’s offices, no place was off-limits. “Was it Mama and Daddy?”

  “No.” She frowned and twisted her lips.

  I bent down until we were eye to eye. “What then?”

  She looked down, then back up at me. The puffy cheeks were slimmer now, but I planted a kiss right in the middle, just the same. “You can tell me anything, right?”

  She nodded and her eyes welled with tears. “One of the grown-ups told another one that everybody was getting along ’cause I was sick. And that it wouldn’t stay that way.”

  I almost wanted to know which one said it, but it didn’t matter. I wiped her tears with my thumbs just as they fell.

  “They were just talking, Peaches. That’s what grown-ups do sometimes. They say things they don’t really mean for us to hear.”

  “But is it true?”

  I took her hand and led her to the steps and we sat down, the music from the backyard thumping like a heartbeat.

  “Want me to be honest with you, right?” She nodded. “Well, maybe a little of it is true. Everyone is on their best behavior now, but Mama, Frank, Daddy, and even Millicent were trying before you got sick, right?”

  “Mama and Daddy were mad at the hospital. They didn’t think I could hear them, but I could,” Peaches said.

  “But they’re here now, right?”

  “Yeah. But they never all got together before.”

  I put my arms around her and pulled her close. “Grown-ups are human, too. It takes time to figure stuff out.”

  “Am I still sick? That’s why I can’t do stuff like before? Not even the Dougie or the Nae Nae?”

  “You’re getting stronger every day. You rather be getting stronger here than in that hospital, right? Anyway, when you are up to it, we’re doing our own dance, remember?”

  “Yeah. The Georgie Peaches.”

  “You got it! The Dougie and the Nae Nae are old anyway.”

  Then she leaned even closer to me. The coconut oil Mama smoothed in her hair scented each breeze.

  “Tangie told me a secret.”

  “She did?”

  “She said I could tell you if I wanted.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What is it?”

  “That you tried to help make me not be sick no more.”

  “We all tried to help.”

  “She said you were gonna give me a blood confusion.”

  I giggled. “It’s called a blood transfusion, silly.”

  “You wasn’t gonna be scared to give me your blood?”

  “A little, but I would have done it anyway.”

  “’Cause you love me.”

  Her smile lit the night brighter than the twinkling stars. Peaches hugged me real hard, and I felt jumbled up inside. Hugging Peaches made me happy, but a part of me wanted to cry. I couldn’t help thinking about how much Tangie must miss her little sister and hoped when it all got too much for her, so much that she might not even be able to talk about it with anyone, she could feel her hug from heaven.

  I knew that our “blended-up” family wasn’t going to always be like the party tonight. But I was Peaches’s big sister, just like Tangie was mine, and I prayed that I’d always be there for both of them the best I could. Mama and Daddy hadn’t said anything to me, but I knew there was something going on with Peaches that maybe could never be fixed. But I bet Tangie would give anything to have her sister with her, even if she wasn’t the same as before.

  I tilted my head to the east and west, and listened to the music vibrate and the voices dance around. The door opened.

  Tangie called, “G-baby and Peaches, let’s get a pic with my phone.”

  “Sure,” we said together as we stood up and Peaches led me inside.

  But before entering the house, I glanced up one more time.

  “We’ll love her…like sky,” I whispered, and wished for the wind to whisk my words straight up to heaven.

  To reach this point, I followed Morrison’s instructions to write the book that I’d always wanted to read, along with Baldwin’s wisdom on “endurance,” and Thoreau’s advice to “Live the life you’ve imagined.” I thank God for allowing me to see this day, and the Revered Dr. Richard Douglass and Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church for keeping our family in prayer.

  I thank my editor, Laura Schreiber, for the joy in your voice when you talk about Love Like Sky and my agent, John Rudolph, for that one “yes.” My mother, Daisy Mae Raby, and the man who became Dad, Winston Raby, for your unconditional love and letting me come back home—it made all the difference. My grandparents: Ike Shepard, for his strength; Lillie Mae Shepard, who said, “You can be anything you want to be”; and my grandmother, Idella Cook Shepard, even though we never met.

  Of course, my siblings: Jerilyn P. Harris, my first and closest friend; Randall J. Raby, Winston Raby, and Isaiah Raby, who kept my lights on and the landlord at bay, with special thanks to Winston for understanding when I said I didn’t have a “Plan B”; and the sibling to whom I dedicated Love Like Sky—a senseless act of violence took him away from us in the physical, but never in the spiritual—Samuel C. Griffin. To Nikkol and Khaylin Harris, and my g-niece, Melody: Auntie hopes you all see my love for you in this work; and my brother-in-law, Reginald B. Harris, one of the best fathers I know.

  The host of family who supports me no matter where I am in the world: countless cousins, including Shannon D. Shepard; Christopher, Isaac, and Dale Williams; Patrice and Velika Harris; Lily Shepard, and Tiscur Taylor. The Elzeys, Rabys, Thomases, Bridgeses, Cherrys, Amigers, and Thompsons. My aunts and uncles: Jeanette and Haywood Thomas, Jean and Terry Williams, Janice and Cee Harris, and Curtis and Barbara Shepard. Cousins, great-aunts and uncles: the Sampsons of Bogalusa, LA, especially the late Uncle McClurie Sampson, who was a two-term councilman in Bogalusa and President Emeritus of Louisiana Municipal Black Caucus Association.

  The love and support of my circle of friends is boundless. To thank each one is a book in itself, but I have to mention: Laverne Butler Dutkowsky, Patricia Elder, Valerie McGrady Blake, Erica McNealy, Angela Ray, and Eric Hodge. Thanks for every memory and for keeping me sane.

  Thank you, Laura Pegram, Kweli Journal, for your belief in Love Like Sky and your advocacy for writers of color; Marita Golden for mentoring and believing. The Hurston Wright Foundation. 2014 Yaddo artists, especial
ly Kirk Shannon-Butts. To everyone in the Morris Brown College legacy. My alma mater, Georgia State University, especially Dr. John W. Holman. The professors and students at the University of Ghana at Legon.

  Terry Kennedy and the late Jim Clark of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, MFA program. UNCG MFAers. Everyone at Rochester’s Writers & Books. Rochester Public Libraries, especially the Arnett and Phillis Wheatley branches. The Magees of Mt. Olive, Mississippi. Adeyemi O. Makinde. Michelle Denise Commander. Dr. Shirley Hanshaw. Duru and Ouanza Ahanotu. Marva Gardner. Scot Brown. A. Van Jordan. Tyehimba and Kelly Jess. John Dalton. Pastor Tacuma and Dr. Michelle Johnson, for being among the first to love G-baby and Peaches, and for preordering Love Like Sky for your students. Belinda Carmichael. Ashley Craig Lancaster. Kim Bowman. Diane Watkins. Robin Haten. Jackie Parks. Mrs. Odessa and the late Charlie McGrady. The Reverend Frederick Robinson, who introduced me to Coltrane. Valerie Boyd, who read my early stories. Tayari Jones for kindness and advice. Shay Youngblood, Terry McMillan, and Bernice L. McFadden for opening doors. Angela Johnson, Renee Watson, Jacqueline Woodson, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Nikki Grimes for priceless blueprints. Pat Lottier and my former coworkers at the Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine, including Renita Mathis and Adrienne S. Harris. Tokeya C. Graham. Kenny Jean. Jennifer Pittman. The staff, professors, and students of Lincoln University, past and present. Dr. Ann Harris. Lekan Oguntoyinbo. Greg Brownderville. Dr. Anita Lael. Kathleen Woodruff. Carol Taylor for initially reading and editing Love Like Sky and other manuscripts. Tracey Baptiste and Savvy Thorne. The Same Page and Go on Girl! book clubs.

  Jevon T. Rice, for loving me and reading pages during the hardest time of my life.

  Rochester, NY, for welcoming me back, and Atlanta, Georgia, for showing me many sides of life and giving me more friendships than I can name.

  I know I’m forgetting several key people, but it’s my head, not my heart—and another reason I’m thankful for other novels to come.

  LESLIE C. YOUNGBLOOD received an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She’s been awarded a host of writing honors, including a 2014 Yaddo’s Elizabeth Ames Residency, the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize, a Hurston Wright Fellowship, and the Room of Her Own Foundation’s 2009 Orlando Short Story Prize. In 2010 she won the Go On Girl! Book Club Aspiring Writer Award. A former assistant professor of creative writing at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, she has lectured at Mississippi State University, UNC-Greensboro, and the University of Ghana at Legon. Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and raised in Rochester, she’s fortunate to have a family of natural storytellers and a circle of supportive family and friends. Love Like Sky is her debut novel.