Driving up the hill past J House, Andy turned into the parking lot that would house the market in the morning. She wasn’t sure what had possessed her; she had plenty to do at home. She parked the car and entered the shelter through the side door, almost wishing she hadn’t, when she heard the laughter and screams of the children. Whoever had built this church must be turning over in his grave at the thought of children running and shouting in what had been the sanctuary. She heard Roger cheering them on. Church on Sunday, gymnasium on the weekdays, multipurpose all the time. She waited while Celia spoke with one of the younger girls.
“But if Hope ain’t here, who’s gonna help me with my English?”
“Don’t be lookin’ at me.” Celia shook her head. “Maybe Mr. Roger … ” She turned her head and saw Andy instead. “What do you know about English?” Celia’s hair stood out as though she’d been tearing at it.
Andy handed Celia the blazer she’d found at a secondhand clothing store. “Writing or reading?”
“Both,” Celia said, looking the jacket over admiringly.
“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been in school, but my youngest daughter just went away to college. I helped her some.”
“Good. Would you help Tasha here?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Ah, well … sure.” She shrugged. Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. She hadn’t planned on staying. On the other hand, she had asked what she could do to help.
“Natasha Woods, meet Ms. Andy Taylor. Tasha’s gotten back in school since she came to us and is hoping to graduate.”
“I go by Tasha.”
“I go by Andy. What do you need?”
“I wrote out this paper, but I don’t do good with grammar, punctuation, that kind of stuff.”
Andy turned to Celia. “Where can we work? I can’t hear myself think in here.”
“Hope and me usually go in her ’partment,” Tasha said.
“So go.” Celia made shooing motions.
“Where’s Clarice?”
“Helping in the kitchen. Teaching tonight’s cooks how to make meat loaf. That woman is one fine cook.”
Andy was glad to hear Celia say something nice about Clarice. She turned back to her pupil. “Do you have your paper here?”
“I’ll get them. Meet you there.” Tasha started away and stopped. “Hope usually brings sodas and cookies or chips.”
Andy nodded, then slowly turned her head toward Celia, eyes narrowed. “How did I get into this?”
“You walked through that door. This is life here at J House. You never know what’s going to happen next.”
“I should have kept on driving up the hill. I need to finish getting ready for tomorrow.” Andy made a face and sighed. “Okay, I guess I can do an hour.”
“An hour is about all that child can handle.” Celia winked. “You got a big heart, Andy. You just trying to hide it.”
“Well, I’d better take my big heart in there and find the sodas and chips.” She swung her purse over her shoulder. “Give that blazer to Julia,” she called back. “It’s for her girls.”
As soon as Andy started down Union, she could see the trucks lined up to get into the parking lot. Starshine was handing out numbers on cards, designating parking places.
“I thought I was early.” Andy paused to greet the smiling hippie.
“You are, and so are they.” Starshine indicated the line of cars and trucks with a nod.
“You know where Roger is?”
“Most likely setting up the coffee and elephant ear stands.” Starshine handed out another numbered card and pointed toward the parking space.
“Thanks.” Andy hurried across the fast-filling parking lot to find Roger.
“Hey there, glad you made it,” Roger greeted her as he adjusted the shade umbrella for the elephant ear cart. “Have you got the change?”
“Yes.” She showed him a bank bag stuffed with coin rolls.
“Good. Do you think you can work this booth with Celia?”
“Sure. How’s Hope this morning?”
“Climbing the walls. She wants out.”
“I can believe that.”
“Who’s going to sample the first elephant ear this morning?” Celia asked, holding one up with the tongs she used to turn the fried dough.
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” Andy dug in her purse for money. “But you better put lots of cinnamon and sugar on it.” She glanced around the grounds. “When do you let the customers in?”
“Eight,” Roger said. “You’re ready to go now. Good luck. Make a million.”
Andy walked around behind the cart. “How come you’re already frying?”
“So I know I’m ready. I always have to get a few ahead, or I’m behind all day.”
“Story of my life, it seems. What do you want me to do?” Andy asked, then remembered that those were the same words, or at least half of them, that Clarice had said to Celia.
“You can wait on the customers. I’ll do the frying.”
Julia came over, sniffing the air. “That smells so-o-o good, but don’t offer me one. Deep-fried foods do a number on my stomach.”
“So what’s your job today?” Andy asked.
“I’m going to sell coffee.” She glanced around, a smile warming her whole face. “I never thought I’d be doing anything like this. Somehow this doesn’t fit the image of a successful family-law attorney.” She laughed, obviously enjoying her own humor.
Andy had to admit she did look a little like a fish out of water. But then others were probably thinking the same thing about her. “Are you feeling anxious to get home and back to work?”
She shook her head. “No. Not at all. And the scary part is, if I weren’t so worried about Cyndy, I think I might actually like it here. But I am worried.” Her smile turned to a frown.
“I’ve walked most of the streets of San Francisco and utterly failed in finding Cyndy. Why is it I can help solve other people’s problems, and yet my own life is in total disarray? I just don’t get it.”
“Join the club,” Andy said, chuckling beneath her breath.
“Your life is in disarray? I don’t think so. You have a great life, a loving husband, three kids on the track to success, a booming business. Where is the failure in all that?”
Having learned her lesson with Clarice, Andy thought about what she was going to say before she said it. “You’re right. I guess I’ve just been away from home too long. I’m not big on traveling. And I really don’t like cities all that well.”
“As I see it, we’re all sort of traveling right now. You, me, and Clarice.”
The morning passed swiftly, slowing down after the first crush and then picking up again as late risers came by.
“You sell lavender tea?” An Asian woman stopped in front of Andy.
“I—Well, yes, but how did you know? You have the spring roll cart, right?”
“Yes, I am Mai. Hope is my friend. She tell me about you. I would like to buy some of your tea for my restaurant. You come to my restaurant? I make you good meal.”
“I’d love to.”
“Best in North Beach, maybe whole city.” Mai gave a slight shrug. “You send tea, yes?” She handed Andy her business card, then shuffled off. Andy looked at the card and was glad to see an e-mail address. Once she got back to the house, she would send Mai the link to her Web site so she could order what she wanted.
Andy leaned against the cart. “My feet are killing me.” She looked at Celia, who, as always, was wearing tall, spike heels. “How can you wear those things all day long?”
“I dunno. Been wearin’ them since I was a kid.”
Andy couldn’t bear looking at Celia’s shoes, so she turned around and indulged in a little people-watching. She had never seen such a diversity of nationalities, incomes, ages, languages, clothing, and hair styles. She dropped her gaze as two teens with spiked hair in fluorescent stripes of green, pink, and blue Walke
d by.
“You’re staring,” a voice whispered into her ear.
Andy jumped. “Julia, you scared me half to death. Are you finished selling coffee?”
“Yep. Clarice came by and said she’d finish up. Nobody wants coffee much now anyway. It’s too late in the day.” Another group of teens walked by. Their faces were painted black-and-white. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d recognize Cyndy if I saw her. She has the thickest, most glorious blond hair. I always thought she could be a hair model, but she blew that off. Wanted the big screen.” Her voice dropped. “Like so many others. When I think of her being on the streets, I … I … ” Julia huddled into herself. “I get angry one minute and want to cry my eyes out another.” She stared straight ahead. “How could she do this?”
“I don’t know.” Andy collected the money from another sale. A woman walked by holding a pumpkin. “Celia, have you ever carved pumpkins here at J House?”
“No. Whatcha thinkin’?”
“Well, what do you do for Halloween?”
“We have a party, don’t do no trick or treating like I did as a kid.” Celia handed out two more orders.
“We need to have a pumpkin carving party here.”
“Now?” Celia counted out change.
“No, but sometime the week before Halloween.”
“That’s next week.”
“Oh, you’re right. Well, how about if I buy the pumpkins and the candles, and we’ll have at it. How many?”
Celia wrinkled her forehead. “Ah, maybe seven kids.”
“What about some of the girls? Will they want to carve?”
“I don’t know. We ain’t never done such a party.” Celia handed off two more ears.
“You’ll help, won’t you?” Andy turned to Julia.
“I’ll bring the apple cider and doughnuts. No Halloween party is the same without those.”
“We could fry our own doughnuts.” Celia pointed at the fry wagon. “Got to be outside, but … ”
“Why not?”
“We better ask Roger.”
“Right.”
“Okay, you guys, man this, and I’ll go pumpkin shopping.” Andy grabbed her purse.
“Check with Alvarez. He had a whole pickup full.”
“Where?”
“Over by the back fence.”
A bit later Andy returned to her stand with two bags of fruit and veggies, then off she went, only to reappear with a pumpkin under each arm. “He’s leaving fifteen by the back door, and Roger gave a thumbs-up.”
Roger came from out of nowhere and tapped Julia on the shoulder. “Come with me for a minute. There’s a possibility that Cyndy … I mean, just come and see.”
Julia’s face paled.
Andy grabbed her arm to steady her. “Go on, it’s all right,” she assured her, giving her a gentle push toward Roger. “Please, Lord, let it be Cyndy,” she whispered as Julia walked away, then disappeared into the crowd. “Wouldn’t it be something if it was Cyndy?” she said, talking more to herself than to Celia.
Minutes later, Julia came back. The look on her face announced the outcome. “It wasn’t her, although she did look a lot like her. I have to give Roger credit for trying.” She sank down in the chair next to the cart. “Why doesn’t God answer our prayers? Bringing her back to me would be such a simple thing.” She stared at the cracked asphalt beneath her feet. A dandelion raised a lone yellow face to the sun.
How long had it been since she’d carved pumpkins? Once, years before, she’d gone to her sister’s house and made Jack-o’-lanterns with her nieces and nephews. Surely, that had been a much quieter event than this. And far less messy.
“I want a jagged smile. You ever cut one of those?” Cassandra, one of the girls who also attended Julia’s classes, gave Clarice a hopeful smile.
“I think the one I did had two teeth. Why don’t you draw it on and see how you like it.”
“Like, yeah, cool idea. Or should I start with the eyes?” Cassandra studied her pear-shaped pumpkin. “I never knew the insides of a pumpkin could be so gross.”
“It’s just stringy pulp that holds the seeds together.”
“I know, but still … ” Cassandra headed to the supply table and got a pencil.
“You know, I saw some pumpkins that had been hollowed out, and then only the skin was carved. Seems easier and looks wonderful.”
“Like, what do you mean?”
“Well, see how Alphi has the eyes cut out on his?”
“Yeah, in triangles.”
“Well, this is more like etching.” The girl looked at her with one eyebrow raised, clearly not getting it. “Why don’t you just draw a face on very lightly, until you get what you like? I’m getting me a pumpkin.”
“Awesome, Mrs. C.”
While Clarice checked out each of the remaining pumpkins, she thought about the name the girls had given her: Mrs. C. When she shuddered at Ms., they opted for Mrs. and C for Clarice, a mark of honor. It surprised her that she and the girls got along so well. Was it because she’d ended up at the shelter and didn’t go home to someplace else every night? The night before, one of the girls had come and sat on her bed, just needing to talk. They’d gone down to the kitchen so as not to disturb the others, and Clarice mostly listened until one o’clock in the morning. I can’t believe this, she’d told Herbert. You know, honey, I’m even beginning to talk like them. Their own life had been far simpler, and hard work never hurt anyone. Gave them less time for mischief, too. She glanced around the bustling room. With Hope in the hospital and Julia with a speaking engagement, she’d figured Andy would help out, since this was her idea. But Martin had finally come home, so Andy had called and asked if could she beg off. So far, she and Celia were doing fine. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time.
Clarice chose a pumpkin about the size of a flattened soccer ball and brought it back to the table by Cassandra.
“What you think?” The girl, whose black hair was showing brown at the roots, nodded to her drawing on the pumpkin.
“Cool. Fun face.”
Cassandra stood with her knife, chewing on her bottom lip.
“What’s the matter?”
“What if I make a mistake?”
“Hey, it’s only a pumpkin. You could always turn it around and start over. Or work the mistake into the face like you meant it.”
“Right.”
“Just stab it somewhere. The hardest part of carving a pumpkin or anything else is always the first stab.” As if she were a master at pumpkin carving.
Cassandra made a face herself and rolled the pumpkin on its back to have a better angle for cutting. She started with an eye and inserted the knife, sawing as she moved it deeper.
“That’s the way.” Clarice cut the top off of hers and took an ice-cream scoop to the insides, dumping the innards on a paper. Roger had decreed that all pumpkin seeds be saved and washed, to be roasted for the Halloween party. Clarice wasn’t too sure about eating pumpkin seeds, but then there were a lot of other things she’d tried in California, some good, like guacamole, and others not so good. Menudo and sushi were not high on her list of edible foods.
“You makin one too, Mrs. C?” Alphi stopped to watch her.
“Guess you can’t keep an old horse out of the ring.”
“Huh? You ain’t no horse.” He gave her one of those grownups-are-weird looks.
“Just a saying.” Clarice picked up the pencil Cassandra had used. “Are you done with yours?”
“Uh-huh. You need some help?”
“Not really. I’m going to try something different.” She drew eyes curved over fat cheeks, eyebrows, and smile lines at the sides of the mouth, then erased some lines and finished with earrings dangling from ears.
Alphi shook his head. “That no Jack-O’-lantern.”
“Wait and see.” Clarice transferred her drawing to the pumpkin, then stood there studying it.
“The first stab is always the hardest.” Cassandra’s grin drove right in
to Clarice’s heart and took up residence. So what if this girl looks like something out of a horror movie, with her black makeup and fingernails and hair? There’s someone real inside.
Clarice let out a breath and picked up the knife. After a few cuts, she realized she would have to make a groove along her lines if she was to get the effect she wanted. As an eye took on shape, both Alphi and Cassandra sighed. “Cool.”
By the time she finished, several others had gathered to watch,
“You’re an artist.” Celia crossed her arms and flicked one fingernail against her teeth.
“No, just patient.” Clarice finally made the final cut and laid the knife down, dropping her shoulders at the same time. She stretched her neck, angling her head from side to side.
Celia stepped behind her, pinching and rubbing her neck and shoulders. “You too tight, woman, you relax.”
Warmth flowed into Clarice’s neck and shoulders, up over her head, loosening her scalp. She sighed. “Ah, Celia, I didn’t know you had magic in your fingers.”
“No magic. Hope say I got holy hands. Hard to believe there can be anything holy in this sister, but if it makes someone feel better, Lord, let these fingers work.”
“You need a candle in your punkin so’s we can light dem all.” Ophelia pulled at Clarice’s sleeve.
“I got one.” Alphi set a votive candle by Clarice’s hand. “Want me to put it in?”
“Of course.”
“Everyone has a candle?” Cassandra went around checking them all. “Yup, they do.”
“Okay, light the long candles and use them to light the pumpkin ones. Then, Alphi, you turn out the lights.”
Several of the girls lit white tapers and walked around, lighting each pumpkin. The tops were set loosely back in place so the candles could burn.
Children and adults alike “oohed” as the faces came alive, but when Alphi threw the switch, a universal breath of delight circled the room. Lit by the pumpkin faces, eyes gleamed, and one little girl clapped her hands over her mouth.
Saturday Morning Page 24