The Other Half of My Heart

by Sundee T. Frazier

“He’s working at it. How about you, Keira? Are you reading every day?”

  Minni chimed in. “She’s doing great.” They hadn’t read yet today, but they still had time. Tonight they would read the Dr. King book instead of Black Beauty.

  They said their goodbyes. Minni rolled onto her back. She was still in shock. Yes, Grandmother Johnson was a pain at times, but she had been in the actual presence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Minni opened her eyes the next morning, bright light streamed into the attic. She looked at her watch. Seven a.m. Pacific time. It was ten o’clock and Grandmother Johnson hadn’t woken them?

  “Keira! It’s ten already.”

  Keira pulled the blankets over her head. “So? Leave me alone.”

  They had stayed up late the night before, reading. Keira had gotten really caught up in the stories of teenagers who had been jailed for marching like Dr. King.

  Minni listened for their grandmother’s clip-clopping shoes or some indicator of her presence below. Nothing.

  Minni’s chest constricted. What if their grandmother’s health complaints weren’t minor after all? What if they were something serious and she’d…No, it wasn’t possible.

  She crept downstairs and tiptoed toward their grandmother’s closed bedroom door. She imagined the woman lying lifeless on her back, one arm dangling over the side of the bed. She put her ear to the door and listened. Silence. Her heart thumped steadily in her chest. She turned the knob slowly, holding her breath. Creak.

  The covers lay flat and smooth, tucked crisply around fluffed pillows. Not a wrinkle in sight. Minni exhaled.

  She went to the dining room, where bowls of bran had already been poured, with sliced prunes on top. A note leaned against the fruit bowl in the middle of the table. Gone to a meeting of the Oakwood Preservation Society. See you at noon. P.S. Eat the bananas. They’re going bad.

  Going bad. They were long gone. Minni was pretty sure these were the same bananas that had been here when they arrived. She called Mama and got her banana bread recipe.

  A while later, Keira shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. “What smells so good?”

  Minni handed her a slice of banana bread on a plate. She’d known the aroma would get her sister out of bed.

  Keira took a bite. “Mmmm. This is delicious.”

  Minni started to wash the mixing bowls and measuring cups. “Wasn’t that totally amazing, what we learned about Grandmother Johnson yesterday? I still can’t believe she actually met Dr. King.” She looked at Keira out of the corner of her eye. “And all that stuff about integrating a white school.” She paused. Would Keira tell her what she’d been thinking as they’d listened to their grandmother talk about her past?

  Keira concentrated on her bread, still chewing. “I know how it feels.”

  “What?”

  “Being the only one. I mean…I could relate.”

  Minni knew Keira meant the only brown one. She wanted to be able to say, “Me too,” because she didn’t like the idea of her sister feeling alone, but that would sound ridiculous. Not to mention, it wasn’t true. “Do you feel like you’re being watched all the time, like Grandmother Johnson did?”

  “No, not really—I don’t know.” Keira shrugged. “It’s more like…sometimes…well…it’s just that sometimes I look around and everyone has this shiny, silky straight hair and light skin, and I feel wrong. Like there must be something wrong with me because I look so different.”

  Minni kept her eyes on the suds—the white suds that almost blended in with her white skin. She wished so badly she could tell her sister she understood, but how could she when apparently she was a part of the problem?

  “You’re a good listener, Min. Thanks.” Keira put her plate in the dishwater. She peered at Minni. “You know I never feel that way around you.” She threaded her arm through Minni’s and pulled her down so she could kiss her cheek. “Right?”

  Minni was quiet.

  “Right, Skinny?”

  “Okay.” She glanced at Keira, then back at the water.

  Keira grabbed a handful of bubbles and smashed them onto Minni’s face.

  “Hey!” Minni yelled, scooping up more suds and blowing them at her sister.

  Then they were running and shrieking, first around the kitchen and then around the house, every once in a while returning to the sink for more ammunition, until they collapsed on the couch, panting and laughing in a wet, sudsy embrace.

  By the time Grandmother Johnson returned, they’d thrown the bran cereal and prunes into the trash can and covered them with coffee grounds, dried off from their water fight, and dressed for the day. They’d also eaten about half the banana bread.

  After eating a piece herself and murmuring her approval of Minni’s baking, Grandmother Johnson opened her desk drawer and pulled out a portable tape recorder. “Have you been practicing your personal introductions?”

  Minni had written hers out at home and hadn’t looked at it since.

  “Of course!” exclaimed Keira, who’d committed hers to memory. Keira had a memory like digital tape. It had to be strong, since her reading wasn’t. Sort of like how a blind person develops a superpowered sense of smell and can identify people by their individual scents.

  Grandmother Johnson turned The Eyebrow to Minni, who looked at the crumbs on her plate. “Uh-huh,” she murmured.

  “Good.” Grandmother Johnson clip-clopped into the living room. “But as there’s no such thing as too much rehearsal”—she set the tape recorder on the coffee table—“let’s do some more.”

  Keira traipsed behind. “Actually, you can peak early if you practice something too much. Coach told us that.”

  “Coach?”

  “My gymnastics coach, Ron.”

  “Ron? Your mother allows you to call your instructor by his Christian name?”

  “That’s what he wants us to call him. Ron or Coach.”

  Grandmother Johnson shook her head, muttering to herself. “Well, perhaps your coach’s rule about practicing too much applies to the execution of physical maneuvers, but never to elocution. Please come here.”

  “Electrocution?” Keira’s nose wrinkled.

  “Elocution. The art of effective public speaking. Minerva, pray tell me, why are you still in your chair?”

  Minni shuffled into the other room.

  “We will record you performing your introductions for the purpose of evaluation. Critical analysis of one’s faults and weaknesses is the most effective way to improve oneself. And improving oneself is of utmost importance in improving one’s station.” Grandmother Johnson pointed to the area in front of the wall of books. “Minerva, you may start.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “Now?”

  “No, tomorrow. Of course now!”

  “Uh, I’m not really ready. I mean, I have an introduction but it’s not memorized.”

  “Did you write it down?”

  “It’s in my backpack.” She started toward the stairs.

  Grandmother Johnson held out her hand to stop her. “If you wrote it down, the words are here.” She tapped Minni’s head. “You just need to access them.” She nudged Minni toward the bookshelf.

  Minni glanced at Keira, who looked back at her with an expression that said, You can do it. Show her.

  Minni’s armpits tingled. She ransacked her brain for the introduction she had written, but all she could come up with was “My name is Minni King,” and something about flying.

  Grandmother Johnson pressed a button on the recorder and its wheels started turning. The machine made a little clicking sound.

  Words flew through Minni’s mind, but not the ones she was supposed to be saying. A line from a poem she wrote…Keira’s voice saying, You can do it, Skinny!…Her own voice pleading, Please let me get my paper!

  Grandmother Johnson turned off the recorder. “It is much better to fail insi
de the four walls of one’s own home than on a stage in front of hundreds of people. Would you not agree?”

  Minni nodded.

  “Then you must at least try. You’re with family here, remember?”

  Minni nodded again. Family. She had written a line about Mama and Daddy, and about Keira being her best friend.

  The recorder’s wheels clicked.

  “My name is Minni—”

  “Minerva,” Grandmother Johnson corrected.

  Minni clenched her teeth. “Minerva…,” she mumbled.

  “Speak more clearly,” Grandmother Johnson ordered.

  Minni took a breath, lifted her chin and raised her voice. “…Lunette King. I am eleven years old and going into the sixth grade at Crawford Elementary School, home of the Fighting Crabs.”

  “You don’t need to tell them your school mascot.”

  “I thought it was an interesting detail.”

  “Proceed.”

  “I have lived in Port Townsend, Washington, since the day my sister, Keira, who is my best friend, and I were born in the back of our daddy’s plane—”

  Grandmother Johnson shut off the recorder. “You certainly will not say anything about that!”

  “But it’s memorable.”

  Grandmother Johnson peered at her over the rims of her eyeglasses. “It’s common, is what it is.”

  “It’s not common! I bet no one else in the pageant was born in an airplane. Except Keira, of course.”

  Keira smiled.

  Grandmother Johnson huffed. “That’s not what I meant. I meant…Oh, never mind. Get your speech. I will read it and make changes and then we will recommence with this exercise.”

  Minni headed toward the stairs.

  “Telling the judges you were born in an airplane! Where’s your sense, child?”

  Minni’s choice of details might not have pleased their grandmother, but at least for now she had gotten out of having to practice her speech, and that was good enough for her.

  Keira’s elocution was perfect, but of course Grandmother Johnson-Payne-in-the-Butt had to find some little thing to correct. She told Keira she sounded like a toy wound too tightly. She needed to slow down and “e-nun-ci-ate.” Keira did what Grandmother Johnson asked, but it made her sound stiff and unnatural. Not like herself at all. More like Grandmother Johnson.

  After Keira had done it Grandmother Johnson’s way, Grandmother Johnson just nodded curtly and said, “Fine.”

  The lack of praise didn’t seem to bother Keira, but it made Minni mad.

  Over lunch, Grandmother Johnson fixed her introduction, and a couple of hours later Minni had learned it well enough to say it into the tape recorder—with far too many ums and uhs, according to their grandmother, but at least she had done it.

  That night, Keira sketched while Minni lay on her bed, reading her MLK book out loud. Keira had convinced her that after four days in a row of working hard at sounding out words, she needed a break.

  Minni lingered on the final page—sad that it was over, sad that he was gone, but inspired, too—by his courage and by the assurance that she could read the book again, as many times as she wished. She closed the book and looked up.

  “Thanks, Skinny. That was great.” Keira’s eyes gleamed. “Now, are you ready for a drawing lesson?”

  Minni shrugged. She drew even worse than she sang.

  “We’ll draw her.” Keira pointed to the floor and then flipped the page in her sketchbook. Minni got up and sat next to her, smiling in anticipation.

  Keira drew Grandmother Johnson bent over a steaming pile of dog poo with her mouth turned down in a scowl and her fingers pinching her nose.

  “Let me see the pencil,” Minni said. She reached for the spiral-bound book and put it in her lap. She wrote “Grandmother Johnson-Payne-in-the” and drew an arrow pointing to her behind. They laughed.

  Keira drew another picture of Grandmother Johnson asleep, her huge feet sticking out at one end of the bed and a string of “z’s” coming out of her nose at the other. A dribble of saliva dripped from her open mouth.

  “Girls!”

  Keira shoved her sketchbook under her pillow.

  “Lights out!”

  Minni pulled the string on the lightbulb and crawled into her bed. A while later, as she listened to Grandmother Johnson’s log sawing, an idea sprang into Minni’s head. A deliciously wonderful and sneaky idea.

  She rolled over to tell Keira, but she knew from her sister’s deep breathing that she was already asleep. She’d save it for tomorrow night. Keira was going to love this one.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The next day, Grandmother Johnson kept Minni and Keira busy practicing for the pageant. In the morning, she drove them to a community center where she had reserved the stage for Keira to rehearse her tumbling routine. Fortunately, Keira’s gymnastic costume had passed inspection. Grandmother Johnson had also agreed to the skirt and blouse Minni had picked out for when she would sing. Or at least attempt to sing.

  They sat in metal folding chairs on the gym floor, watching Keira leap, flip and dance to her music, a house version of Beethoven’s Ninth. She was brilliant. Even Grandmother Johnson applauded at the end.

  Back home, Minni stood by the piano, wincing as Grandmother Johnson stumbled through the accompaniment to the sparrow song. “Who’s going to play piano for me at the pageant?” she asked when they were done.

  Grandmother Johnson closed the sheet music and took off her glasses. “It’s against the rules for anyone to be onstage with the girls—”

  “You mean I’ll be singing without music?” This would be even worse than having Grandmother Johnson’s awful playing.

  “I plan to record myself, once I get it down a little better. You will sing to the tape.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Minni felt a terrible case of laryngitis coming on. She was almost positive it would strike early Sunday morning.

  After lunch, Grandmother Johnson told them to put on their gowns, and they walked around the living room with books on their heads. Minni felt ridiculous. Not only did her book keep sliding off, her toe snagged the hem of her dress, causing her to lurch every once in a while. Why was she balancing a book when she could be reading it? “Chin up, Minerva,” Grandmother Johnson instructed.

  Then they ran through their personal introductions again—without the tape recorder, thankfully—and finally they were done.

  Or so Minni thought.

  “Our final preparations for the Miss Black Pearl pageant address the issue of character building.” Grandmother Johnson led them to the long cabinet near the back door. She pulled out her gardening gloves and some small digging tools. She placed them on the counter, then pulled down a bottle of sunscreen.

  “We get to write a story?” Minni asked with a burst of excitement.

  “No. Character as in integrity and a commitment to hard work.”

  They looked at her blankly.

  “Your mother hasn’t taught you the definition of character? What is she teaching you out there?”

  Important things, Minni thought. Like how to see the beauty in a sunset and pull out a sliver without it hurting. How to take leftover rice, an egg and frozen vegetables and fry it all up into a whole new meal. How to turn empty containers into bird feeders, pen holders and soap dispensers. How to enjoy people and art and life.

  “Character is the strength to make the right choice,” Grandmother Johnson said. “As that meddlesome woman at the Black Pearls of America headquarters pointed out, it is the most important attribute for a Miss Black Pearl to possess.”

  Minni wanted to ask how much character it took to nail a bag of dog poop to your neighbor’s door, but she decided Grandmother Johnson might not appreciate the question. Minni sure would love to hear her answer, though.

  Grandmother Johnson handed Keira the bottle of sunscreen. “Now, put this on. Thick. You don’t need to be getting any darker.”

  Keira scowled.

  Minni gasped. How could
their grandmother say something like that? Especially when she was just as dark as Keira—darker, even?

  And yet she had done it before, hadn’t she? On her last visit to Port Townsend, two years ago.

  Suddenly it all came back—the comment before spending time on the beach, the eruption between Mama and Grandmother Johnson, Keira and Minni wondering what was going on. Grandmother Johnson had left early the next morning, cutting her stay by two days.

  “You too, Minerva. I don’t want you showing up to the pageant pink as a Christmas ham.”

  Keira rubbed on some lotion, then shoved the bottle into Minni’s hands and stomped outside.

  Grandmother Johnson stood over Minni, pointing to spots she’d missed. Eventually Grandmother Johnson took the bottle, squeezed a mound into her palms and slathered the smelly stuff all over Minni’s face, neck, ears—even behind her ears. Minni felt as oiled as a Christmas ham.

  Grandmother Johnson applied lotion to her own face and arms, pulled down a straw hat with a broad brim from the hook near the back door, then told Minni to follow her. She took them to the flower bed alongside the house and showed them which plants were weeds and which to leave alone.

  She handed Keira a forked digging tool and Minni her gardening gloves. “You’ll have to work out who gets these. I’ve only got one complete pair left. We seem to have a glove snatcher in the neighborhood. And whoever it is, is very good. The last time, I hadn’t looked away for two seconds and the glove was gone.” She put the hat on Minni’s head and marched back to the house.

  A few minutes later they heard her plunking on the piano, practicing her accompaniment.

  Keira started to yank on a stem.

  “That’s not a weed. That’s a flower,” Minni said, pulling off the ridiculous hat and tossing it to the ground.

  “So?” Keira answered.

  “She told us to leave those alone. Remember?”

  “She meant that one.” Keira pointed to a spreading plant with tiny lacelike leaves—clearly a weed. “Not this one.” She ripped the long-stemmed yellow flower from the ground.

  “Don’t! She’s going to be mad.”