by Justin Sayre
“She’s very independent. And smart. Sophie gets straight A’s,” Auntie calls out.
“Course you do, girl. What you want to do when you’re grown?” Chantel asks me.
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“Well, you got time. And if you can’t decide, you can come here and take Kendra’s job. At least you’d keep that book organized!” Chantel says loudly, less to me than to Kendra. They start to bicker and fight a little, but it’s all a game they play with each other. Both of them are smiling the whole time.
“All right, Sophie, girl, look,” Chantel says as she turns the chair around and lets me see. I look like a completely different person, but I recognize myself. It almost seems like more of me than I’m used to. My hair is bouncy and alive, the braids tickle the back of my neck like rain. They wave and move in pieces and as a whole, and I love all of it. It’s better than I could have imagined, and everything I wished it would be. It’s beautiful and for the first time, I feel like I am too.
CHAPTER 12
Sunday morning I go into the bathroom and still can’t believe that it’s me looking back from the mirror. My new hair is so beautiful, I can’t stop looking at it and swinging it around my smiling face. I stand in the bathroom for a solid fifteen minutes, just grinning at myself in the mirror, before Auntie yells up to me.
“Sophie, are you almost ready to go?” Auntie calls from the hallway.
“Go where?” I ask, stopping, a little embarrassed at what I’m doing. But I know she can’t see.
“Girl, now, I told you I was taking you to church, and I meant it. I need to stop by my apartment and get my hat. It’s going to take at least an hour on the train. Are you ready?”
“I can be,” I yell back, almost hoping that she’ll say never mind, but knowing she won’t.
“Well hurry, please! I want to get to the church in time to get a good seat.”
“Are there good seats in church?” I smile at myself in the mirror again, thinking she’s obviously making a joke, but the look on her face when she enters the room lets me know right away that she isn’t.
“You need to get ready, that’s what you need to do. Questions you can save for the train. Now come on, please!” Auntie Amara says, shooing me away with her wide hands.
“I have to email my father,” I say quickly, hoping that maybe this will get me out of it. But she just sighs and stops.
“I forgot. Well, make it quick so we can go,” Auntie says, talking to herself on her way down the stairs to the kitchen where I can’t hear her anymore. But then she turns around and yells again. “Oh, and don’t mention your mama being away, all right?”
Why is she worried about this? Why would he care that Janet is in Paris? I mean, if anything, he’d probably like to be warned that she’s in the same city, but he likes to fight with her just as much as she likes to fight with him, so why not tell him and not give him another reason to be disappointed in me if he finds out on his own? I want to ask Auntie about it, but I don’t know if she will even tell me, so I race to my room and get on my computer.
My father lives in Paris, and I don’t really see him much. We don’t visit. We mostly email and Skype every couple of weeks, and my father and I play a delicate game with each other. It comes out of the fact that I don’t really think we like each other much. So in every conversation we have or email we send, we both try to trick the other into something. I’m usually the one with more to do, convincing him that everything in the house is perfectly fine and that Janet is great. He usually doesn’t believe it and then he goes into his things that he knows are just untrue, like how I should come and live with him or how much he misses me. Neither of us believes what the other is saying, but we are willing to go along with the lie as long as we can both feel like we tried to have a relationship with each other. We probably both have a hard time with it.
Since today is just an email, I have a much easier task. When he responds, that’ll be when the real trouble starts. Auntie Amara calls up the stairs to remind me that it’s getting late, so I end the email with a half-hearted mention of my class project about family. Heritage. He’ll like that. He’ll want to teach me some more French, which means an hour on Skype of him correcting my pronunciation and rolling his eyes at how I can’t even speak the language he speaks every day.
Auntie is getting anxious downstairs, so I hurry to get a look together as quickly as I can, but I don’t know what you’re supposed to wear to church. I’ve never been. I’m guessing a dress, so I pick out a floral one with green tights. I throw on my fuzzy pink cardigan and black shoes, guessing that should be a church look, but I’m not sure. I add a few bracelets just to see some of my story and run down the stairs. My braids bounce with every step down to Auntie and make me smile all over again.
Auntie waits at the bottom of the stairs and looks at me, but she doesn’t smile. I hope it’s just that she’s too nervous about the trains and getting a good seat to notice my outfit and doesn’t just plain hate it. She rushes me out the door and straight down to the subway. It isn’t almost until we cross the bridge that she says anything about it at all.
“You look good. You do well, little miss.” She smiles as she picks fuzz off my shoulder. Just as we cross into Manhattan, four boys get onto our car and yell, “What time is it? It’s showtime! What time is it? It’s showtime.” They clap along as they ask people to move away from the poles so they can dance. This happens a lot on the train, and usually I try not to pay attention, but for some reason Auntie nudges me to look, so I guess I have to.
The boys start to dance and flip on the standing poles and handrails above our heads. They’re actually really great. One boy throws his legs up in the air and catches his feet on the ceiling rail. He’s popping his shoulders the whole time and making his way down the aisle, fist-bumping with anyone who’ll pay attention to him dangling in front of them. Auntie does, and just to please her, I do too. The boy makes a big deal of me, fanning himself and making a kissy face right at me. I turn away because I know he’s kidding, but Auntie gives him a look that almost makes him fall off the rail. When each of the boys has danced, they go around and collect money, and Auntie hands them a five, still giving the upside-down boy from before a look. She smiles at me, though, so I feel fine.
Auntie Amara was right, we’re on the train almost an hour. We have to transfer to another train until we get up to 125th Street and Broadway in Harlem. It’s so awful to say, but I’ve never been to Auntie Amara’s apartment. I start to feel weird about it, I mean, we live in the same city, and getting from Brooklyn to Harlem is a super-long ordeal, but it’s not impossible. It seems silly that I’ve never been here before.
We walk the two or so blocks to her apartment. Auntie’s apartment is the complete opposite of my house in almost every single way. Janet likes everything white and spare. She likes things to be put away. Surfaces, walls, even her bed is white and empty. Auntie’s apartment is stuffed to the brim with colors and pictures. Hundreds of photos, masks, beads, and all sorts of stuff cover the orange-painted walls in the hallway, and the purple ones in the living room and green ones in her bathroom. It’s a full house and it feels like that even though it’s been empty since she’s been staying with me. I look through as many pictures as I can take in while she rushes to get her church hat from the bedroom.
“Can I borrow some of these for my class project?” I ask from the hallway.
“Sure,” she says as she comes back from the bedroom, with her big swirling hat on. With one hand, she pushes me into the hallway, grabbing her pocketbook and keys and locking the door. She doesn’t say anything else about it. For now, she’s saving her breath, we’re in a hurry to get a good seat.
Auntie walks ahead of me for the next five blocks to an old stone building. Lots of women with great big hats like hers are piling inside, so I know we’re in the right place. I follow behind her until we get to the
doors and an older woman stops us both to say hello.
“Well, Amara, who’s this little lady with you?” the older woman says, taking my face in her hand. She’s gentle, I can feel it through her hand on my face. I smile at the thought, which I guess makes it less weird to be touched by a total stranger.
“Mrs. Threadgood, this is my niece, Sophie,” Auntie says, standing behind me.
“Look at this face. Pretty like this must make the Lord happy for all his good work,” Mrs. Threadgood says, laughing with Auntie as if I wasn’t even there. “You ready to hear the Word today, child?”
“Yes,” I answer, having no idea what she is talking about. She smiles and walks with us into the church. It’s already filled with people. We get seats a few rows back from the front, and while Mrs. Threadgood and Auntie talk about people they know, I look around. Unlike me, everyone seems happy to be here, but I guess it’s growing on me. Church seems like a special place, and anyone who comes is special just for being there. It’s hard to describe, but even though I’ve never been before, I start to feel part of it too.
Then the choir of about twenty-five people, all dressed in robes, comes in from the side door and stands up on the front stage. The room changes almost immediately. It’s about to begin, and everyone knows to start to pay attention. A small woman holds her hands up to the choir, and they begin to sing in one big voice. Sharp, precise words that thank God for his love, and when the drums start in, and the guitar and the piano pick up, we’re all involved. Everyone starts to stand and clap along. Even Auntie claps along, singing all the lyrics, which she already knows. She waves to me, telling me to clap, which I do, but by the time I catch on to the lyrics, the song is almost over. Music continues throughout the rest of the service.
Then the preacher comes out and begins to talk in a loud and raspy voice. He stops and starts in the weirdest places, but the music plays along with him and the people shout, responding to him, egging him on to say more. People in their seats call out as he speaks, agreeing with him when they do and laughing when he makes them think about something they hadn’t thought of before.
“And that’s the point. That’s the point of it right there,” he says, and starts in again. “We can’t just love this part of him, or that part of her, even though that would be easier. Wouldn’t it? I’d love to love just bits of you all, believe me. But my God, and my heart, ask for more than that. They ask me to take in more, to extend my hand farther out, past where it is convenient, past where it is easy, farther out not to where it is comfortable but to where it is needed. And who calls me? Who pulls me out, farther and farther and farther on? Who?” The crowd is agreeing with him louder and louder, calling him to tell us who, even though they know it too. When he finally says the name Jesus, the whole room erupts in shrieks and applause. Even Mrs. Threadgood raises her arms up and yells, “Praise Him!” to me and everyone around her. Auntie smiles at me but doesn’t say anything. I think she’s hoping that I’m not bored and that maybe, just maybe, I’m liking it. I smile back to let her know that I am.
When the reverend finishes he sits down, even with the crowd still yelling for him. The choir woman who conducted before gets up and introduces her granddaughter. A small girl in a pinkish dress comes out, acting more afraid than I think she’s ever been in her life. She is going to sing her first solo today. Everyone in the room is waiting. It’s like we all know, before she opens her mouth, that she’s going to be wonderful, or at least we’re all wanting her to be. I know I do.
“Precious Lord, take my hand.” Even in the first phrase, her voice is perfect. People around me all start to nod, happy that they were right. Or maybe because they know her, or because they believed in her and they want everyone to know just how much. Ladies in big hats call out for her to sing. Sing! And she does, and we lean even farther forward in our seats, just trying to hear more from this voice singing for us. When she sings about being tired, weak, and worn, I hear the words for the first time, but know in my bones what they mean. I know what that feeling is, and she does too. When she asks the Lord to take her hand, I don’t know why, but I start to cry. Not an ugly cry but tears that brim out of the bottom of my eyes and drip down my cheeks while I smile. It’s like the tears didn’t want to miss out on this moment either.
Auntie sees me and draws me close to her, patting my shoulder and rocking me to the music as the choir starts to join in behind the girl. When the song is finished, the whole congregation cheers for her in one loud voice. I’m screaming to her myself. She smiles a nervous but a happy smile, probably glad that it’s over with, but I hope she knows how well she did. I want to tell her if she doesn’t. I feel in a strange way very close to her now.
After the service, Auntie has coffee in the basement with all the ladies. Everyone treats her like a sister. Most of them actually call her that. I don’t talk much to anyone. I’m not rude, I answer when anyone talks to me, but I keep looking for the girl who sang. I want to tell her how wonderful I thought she was while I have the chance, but she never comes down.
When it’s time to go, Auntie has to say about a thousand goodbyes before we can actually leave. Walking back to her apartment, Auntie holds my hand. It’s beginning to feel so right with her. We don’t say much to each other, but we are fine with the silence. We stop at her apartment so Auntie can change.
“How did you like church?” she calls from the bedroom.
“It was great,” I yell, looking at the beads on her wall but keeping my hands behind my back the whole time.
“I saw you catch the Spirit today.” She laughs.
“I just loved that song so much. That girl.”
“Oh yes,” Auntie says, coming around the corner. “Her grandmother was proud of her today.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Do you always go?”
“As often as I can, I do,” Auntie says. “I like to see folks, and the music is good.”
“And God?” I say, I don’t know why.
“Well, that’s a different matter altogether.” Auntie smiles as she enters the living room. “You want to try on those beads? You keep looking at them.”
I don’t know what to say. I feel caught and embarrassed. But without even stopping, Auntie walks to the wall and takes these beautiful pea green beads and puts them around my neck.
“I got those in The Gambia. They look good on you, girl,” she says, turning back to the kitchen to open up some of her mail. I start asking her about Gambia. She’s been so many places, some of which I’ve barely heard of, and she knows all these people, none of whom I know. I’m flooding her with questions but, rather than getting annoyed with me, she just answers and seems happy to do it.
“This is Sonia Sanchez, she’s a poet and activist.” They spoke at a conference.
“This mask came from Botswana.” She went there in 1991 for the first time. She wants to go back. She has pictures of her trip somewhere in a box.
“This is Angela Davis.” She’s Auntie’s hero and friend.
There’s a small black-and-white photo of two little girls in pretty white dresses and gloves. As soon as I point to it, I know who it is, but I want to hear Auntie tell me.
“That’s me and your mama, going to church.” She laughs. “I hated it then. But our mama made us go every Sunday. Dressed up like dolls. On our best behavior, or else. Even God couldn’t help us out of the trouble we’d be in if we embarrassed our mama at church.”
I look closely at my mother’s little face. She’s not smiling, and you can tell she doesn’t want to go, but Amara is holding her hand, like she held mine today. She seems a little happier about it. We have that in common.
“It’s the thing about church. I go mostly because I know my mama would want me to. She didn’t expect us to believe, and I don’t think either of us ever really did.” Auntie smiles at the picture and a little at me. “But going to church is part of our history, it’s fami
ly without the blood but with all the rest. With all the love when it’s good, and all the silliness when it’s not. That’s all there, too, isn’t it? It makes you feel good to be part of something.”
I look at my mother’s small face and say yes.
Auntie Amara grabs a small bag and a photo album from her room, brushing me out into the hall as she locks the door and walks us out to the street. It’s so fast, we’re almost at the subway before I realize I still have the beads on. I stop cold, thinking I have to take them back right now. I’ll break them or lose them or something. I panic a little bit and tell Auntie that I can run them right back, but Auntie holds my hand and pulls me toward the train. “Keep them, baby. They suit you.”
CHAPTER 13
I wear Auntie’s beads to school, because they go with my look, or I want them to. I want them to be part of my story. I actually design my whole look to match them. I love them so much. They’re so precious. Maybe too precious. All day I worry about breaking them or losing them. Mr. Gennetti sees them during class while he’s telling us all about the pyramids. He flashes a smile at me that makes Amy and Kara both cough a little because it’s not them. But it does nothing for me. When school gets out, Allegra’s already waiting for me by the double doors like she has something big to say to me. At least I think that’s it, she’s never waited like this for me.