by Neta Jackson
“Eight months. Or thereabouts.” Edesa kissed the top of the baby’s soft black hair. “Her mother was a drug addict, and she never actually told us a birth date. Josh and I are adopting her. Takes a long time, though.” She made a face at me. “Too long.”
Well, okay. That was a successful fishing expedition.
“This is our multipurpose room.” Edesa swept a hand around the large, bright room. Several women of various ages and colors were looking at magazines or talking in “seating groups” created by overstuffed chairs and small couches draped with colorful covers. A large woman—Mexican maybe?—hovered over a cabinet by the wall, pumping hot coffee from a large carafe into an over-size Styrofoam cup. Two young women barely out of their teens played cards at a table along the opposite wall.
“Yeah,” fussed a voice, lounging somewhere within the cushions of the closest love seat. “An’ Edesa been sayin’ for months we gonna rename this room. Sheeze Louise! What kinda name is ‘multipurpose,’ I axe you?”
Edesa laughed. “Okay, Precious. Show yourself. Have you seen Lucy?”
A dark face appeared over the back of the love seat, a woman I guessed was somewhere in her thirties. Rows upon rows of tiny braids clung tightly to her head and hung down to her shoulders. “Take a guess where Miz Lucy’s at! Down in the kitchen, eatin’ breakfast leftovers. . . . Oh, ’scuse me.” The woman hopped up, came around the couch, and held out her hand to me. “Name’s Precious McGill. Didn’t mean to be rude.”
I shook her hand. “I’m Gabby Fairbanks.”
“What are you doing here?” Edesa asked her. “You don’t usu-ally come till three.” She turned to me. “Precious is one of our volunteers. She and her daughter Sabrina help supervise our after-school program—such as it is—three days a week. We need more tutors.”
I blushed slightly. I’d assumed she was one of the “residents.”
“Girl, ain’t no school today, an’ ain’t no after-school program, neither. It’s Good Friday. An’ Jewish somethin’ too—oh, yeah, Passover. Wait till Gracie starts school. Then ya gonna be scrambling’ for child care two, three extra times a month ’cause it’s this or that holiday again. Equal opportunity religious holidays, ya know. Can’t ya hear them kids downstairs?”
Now that she’d mentioned it, I did hear muted squeals, thumps, and the general hubbub that goes along with kids at play coming from below.
Edesa made a face. “Speaking of Good Friday, I’m supposed to lead a Bible study on those scriptures in a few minutes, and I was giving Mrs. Fairbanks here a tour. Could you . . . ?” She looked hopefully at Precious.
I almost said, “Please. Just call me Gabby.” But I gave up. Did I have “Mrs. Fairbanks” tattooed across my forehead or something?
“Oh, sure. Got plenty of time till I need to throw lunch together. Fillin’ in for Estelle today.” Precious reached for Gracie. “Gimme that baby too. She need changin’ or anything?”
And so Gracie and I were both handed over to Precious McGill, who cheerfully chatted nonstop as she showed me the toddler playroom populated by two toddlers and one mother on a cell phone, a schoolroom with two computers (deserted), a small TV room with a news station blabbing away to no one, and a small prayer chapel, all on the first floor. On the second floor, six medium-sized bedrooms held four bunks in each, plus showers, bathrooms, and a small central lounge. I felt embarrassed peeking into the sleeping rooms when someone was there, even though the doors were open, and Precious didn’t bother to intro-duce me to anyone. She just said, “Hey there,” or “Say hi to Tanya, Gracie,” waving the baby’s hand.
My tour guide did a quick change of the baby’s diaper, using a stash of disposables in the second-floor lounge. Then we headed for the basement, where we peeked into a large recreation room. A handful of kids ranging in age from maybe six to eleven were sprawled in the beanbag chairs, watching cartoons, though a teenage girl and a little boy were playing foosball. Precious poked me. “That’s my Sabrina over there, getting whupped by little Sammy.”
The lower level also boasted a well-equipped kitchen and dining room, and that’s where we found the old woman I’d met yesterday, hunched over a paper plate, wiping up the last drips of syrup with a rolled-up pancake.
“Someone to see you, Miz Lucy . . . Nice to meetchu, Miz Gabby. I’m gonna go catch Edesa’s Bible study while I have a chance. Don’t get to sit in too often, ’cause I’m usually waitressin’ at this café, but this week they give me Friday off. Come on up later, if you want.” And Precious disappeared up the stairs with the Baxter baby.
Lucy looked up at me with her watery eyes. “Humph.” The old woman finished mopping up syrup, coughed a couple of times into a napkin, stuffed the last bite of pancake into her mouth, then looked up at me again. “You gonna jus’ stand there? Go on. Siddown.” It was the same raspy voice. “You hungry?”
“No, I’m fine.” I pulled out a molded plastic chair and sat. “I . . . I just came to see if you made it okay to the shelter last night. I was worried about your cough. And . . .” I felt my face flush. “I wanted to apologize for my husband’s rudeness yesterday. I didn’t know he’d be home.”
Lucy just stared at me again. She was wearing different clothes than yesterday, a pair of yellow pants, gym shoes with no socks, a large white T-shirt, and a brown, nubby-knit cardigan. Her frowzy hair looked as if it had been washed. Good. At least she’d gotten a bath and clean clothes. And food. I smiled inwardly.
Finally she spoke. “Yeah, well. He can’t help it. I shoulda known better’n ta go up ta that fancy penthouse wit’ you.” She coughed and cackled a laugh. “Man, that was some highfalutin place you got there. Ain’t never seen one o’ them. An’ that bath-room smelled mighty good. Didn’t have no bathtub in it, though. You must be payin’ through the nose for that place, an’ they don’t even put a bathtub in there?”
I laughed, feeling more at ease. “Don’t worry. It has two more bathrooms with bathtubs and showers.” I didn’t mention the Jacuzzi tub. “But I’m sorry the situation was awkward. We just moved here to Chicago, and my husband was entertaining his new business partner. And then we come in, all drippy wet, and me barefoot, bleeding on the rug . . .”
Lucy grinned, showing a few missing teeth. “Heh-heh, gotta admit. The look on they faces was priceless.” And then she laughed, a series of snorts and guffaws, punctuated by a few more raspy coughs. I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh too. It was funny. I just hadn’t had anyone to laugh about it with yet. Until Lucy.
After a few moments, she wiped her eyes with a well-used napkin and struggled upward out of her chair. “Well, I’m goin’ upstairs to sit in somethin’ more comfortable than this plastic chair. You comin’?”
I followed her up the stairs to the main level and into the multipurpose room. Edesa had pulled several of the couches and chairs into a bigger circle, where she sat with a Bible open on her lap, talking earnestly to a group of five or six women. The baby was nowhere to be seen; Josh neither. Maybe he had Gracie in the toddler playroom while Mommy taught the Bible study. That’s sweet.
Lucy sank with a wheeze into an overstuffed chair outside the circle, feigning disinterest, but I noticed she sat close enough to hear what Edesa was saying. I did too.
“. . . no accident that Jesús”—she pronounced it Hesús—“was celebrating the Passover feast with His disciples that night, the day we now call Good Friday. For centuries, this Jewish feast had commemorated their deliverance from bondage in Egypt, that old, old story when Moses told the Hebrew slaves to put the blood of a lamb on their doorposts, and the angel of death would pass over them when he saw the blood . . .”
Something stirred in me. Good Friday. I hadn’t thought much about it for years—not since that knucklehead, Damien Spencer, superstar youth leader at Minot Evangelical Church, had married me right out of high school and then dumped me two years later. I refused to go to church after that, even though it upset my parents. In fact, I’d been pretty mad at God all thr
ough college—until I met Philip. And then it seemed my storybook dreams were all coming true, and God just didn’t seem important anymore.
Oh, sure, our names were on the membership roll of Briarwood Lutheran Church, and Philip and I took the kids to church on Christmas and Easter—even sometimes in between, especially when my parents came to visit—because that’s what the good, solid, God-fearing Fairbanks family had done for generations.
But it’d been a long time since I’d thought much about Good Friday. Philip said he didn’t understand people who acted all gloomy and sad, as if Jesus had just died that day, and I kind of agreed with him. Christians believe He’d risen from the dead two thousand years ago, right? Why not skip right to Easter, with its joyful resurrection music and traditional brunch and egg-rolling races on the church lawn? So that’s what we did.
But all that was yesterday. Today we were in a new town, a big city where we didn’t know anyone, didn’t have anyone to impress, didn’t even know where the churches were. Where would we go to church Easter Sunday? Did it even matter?
I almost wanted to laugh. Or cry. Here I was, sitting in the multipurpose room of a homeless women’s shelter in Chicago, with the only “friend” I’d met so far, listening to a twenty-some-thing black woman with a Spanish accent talk about Jesus and the angel of death and why the Jewish Passover was important to Good Friday—and for some reason I didn’t understand, I was hanging on every word.
“. . . and now Jesus, the Lamb of God, was about to sacrifice Himself and spill His blood to deliver all of us from death. He broke the bread that night and said, ‘This is My broken body.’ He filled the cups with wine and said, ‘This is My blood,’ fulfilling the true meaning of this Passover feast, once and for all.”
“Sounds gory ta me,” Lucy muttered loudly.
Edesa grinned. “Sí. You’re right, Lucy. Jesus’ death on the cross wasn’t pretty. But He took the punishment for our sins so we don’t have to be separated from a holy God, either in this life or when we die—oh, praise You, Senõr!”
To my surprise, the pretty young woman got choked up and had to grab a tissue and dab her eyes. After a moment she recovered and ended with a short prayer. The few shelter residents who’d attended the Bible study just got up and wandered away, although one pole-slim woman went up to Edesa and said, “That was good. Real good. Thanks.” And then, “Is it time for lunch yet?”
“Lunch is in half an hour!” Mabel Turner’s voice chimed in from the back. “Tina, Tanya, Carolyn, and Lucy . . . you’re on setup and serving.” She glanced around the room. “Where’s Carolyn? Would someone remind her she’s on setup? . . . Thanks, Tina.”
I made a few mental notes: Tina was the big Hispanic, Tanya was the tall, skinny black woman who seemed to be Sammy’s mother, Lucy was Lucy, didn’t know who Carolyn was.
“Hey, I got this cough,” Lucy growled. She hacked a few times to prove her point. “You don’t want me coughing all over the food, do ya?”
“Hmm. All right. Cleanup instead.”
“Humph.” Lucy made her way toward the stairs to the lower level without a backward glance at me.
I looked around for Precious, but she must have slipped out to start lunch. I made my way over to the director and smiled. “Like summer camp. Everyone has chores?”
Mabel arched an eyebrow. Her skin shimmered like polished oak, with just the right amount of blush and burgundy lipstick for a businesswoman. “No to summer camp. Yes to daily chores. One of the rules. Everyone needs to contribute in some way to their room and board while they’re here.”
I nodded in the direction of Edesa Baxter, who was gathering up her Bible and notes. “You have a Bible study and an after-school program . . . I didn’t realize a homeless shelter had activities.” I gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Guess I assumed it was just a bare-bones bed-and-breakfast for the homeless.”
The director shook her head. “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Fairbanks—Gabby—we’d like to do more. Manna House has only been back in operation since last Thanksgiving. And it’s a long way up from the streets to a productive member of society. Even when the women are getting off drugs, learning how to work the system, getting some job training . . . there’s a lot of downtime. Hurry up and wait. What I’d really like to find is a program director to give our residents life skills and enrichment experiences. But . . .” She shrugged. “We can’t pay much, so it’s hard to find someone qualified.”
I nodded my head and smiled like a robot. But all over my body, nerve endings jumped to life like a racecar with all pistons firing.
Program director? That’s me!
chapter 5
I opened my mouth and then closed it again like a stupid gold-fish. Don’t be a nut, Gabby! I told myself. You don’t know anything about homeless women or what they need. Not to mention Philip would never hear of it. Ignoring the voices in my head, I opened my mouth and blurted, “Program director? I’d like to hear more—”
“Mabel? Mabel Turner! Phone!”
The young woman manning the reception desk overrode my tentative inquiry. Mabel headed swiftly for her office off the foyer, calling to me over her shoulder, “Please feel free to stay for lunch, Gabby. We enjoy visitors!” And she disappeared through the swinging doors.
I stayed, hoping I’d get a chance to speak to the director again. But I felt awkward, standing in the lunch line in my Calvin Klein capris and Esprit hooded sweater, along with women who had probably never seen the inside of Nordstrom’s or Marshall Fields. I said hi and smiled at some of the kids, but they were more intent on filling their paper plates with taco salad and tortilla chips, and balancing large plastic glasses of Hawaiian punch. I noticed that most of the other women left one or two seats between them, eating without much conversation.
When I got to the counter, a middle-aged white woman, who was serving the taco salad—hairnet covering her hair, plastic gloves on her hands—looked me over, frowning. “You just come in today? Did you sign in with Ms. Turner?”
Precious, bustling back and forth behind the counter, came to my rescue. “This is Miz Gabby Fairbanks, Carolyn. She’s a visitor. Friend of Miz Lucy’s.”
“Oh really.”
I could tell she believed that. Lucy had been first in line and was already in a corner of the dining room, shoveling in mouthfuls of salad and washing it down with punch.
I bypassed the red punch for a glass of water instead, wondering where I should sit. Well, darn it, I came to see Lucy, so I was going to sit with Lucy. I sat. We ate. The silence was punctuated only by the sound of crunching chips, slurps of punch, and the occasional raspy cough.
Might as well try to get better acquainted. “The people here seem to know you, Lucy. Have you been here before?”
I got The Look. Okay, dumb question.
“Have you lived in Chicago most of your life?”
This time I didn’t even get a look. Lucy got up abruptly and headed for the counter, returning a minute later with another glass of punch and a handful of oatmeal cookies, which she held out to me with just one word: “Nope.”
“Nope?” Oh, right. Her reply to my question about living in Chicago.
“Thanks.” I took a cookie and nibbled the edges.
Guess I wasn’t going to get much with yes and no questions. I wanted so much to ask about her story. Lucy couldn’t have been homeless her whole life! How did she end up on the street?—or to be more exact, under a bush in the park along Lake Shore Drive? I looked at her rough, wrinkled skin and wondered what she’d looked like as a girl. Had she been married? Did she have any children? If so, how could they let their mother end up like this?!
Lucy stood up, piling my paper plate on top of her own. “Huh. If ever’body cleaned up after themselves, wouldn’t be no need for a cleanup crew. Well, thanks for comin’ ta visit me. If I don’t see ya again, been real nice.” She turned away.
“Wait. Lucy. I’d, um, I’d like to see you again. If I came back—”
�
�Nah, don’t bother. If it don’t rain this weekend, I’ll prob’ly be outta here.”
Boldness took over common sense. “But what about that cough? You really ought to get medical help.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Lady . . . Gabby . . . whatever you wanna be called. I been takin’ care of myself ’fore you came along, and I intend to do just that after you leave. But if it makes you feel any better, the nurse comes here ever’ Wednesday, an’ I’ll probably let her fill me up with that red stuff an’ a bunch o’ pills, if it ain’t gone already by then. Satisfied?” And she stalked off with our paper plates and plastic glasses.
My face burned. I felt like shouting after her, “Well, good for you!” But it was obviously time for me to leave. Mabel Turner hadn’t shown up during lunch, and asking about the program director job was a dumb idea anyway.
I waved good-bye to Precious behind the counter and scurried upstairs as quickly as I could, now eager to be gone. I’d overstayed my welcome as it was. Should I call a cab? Or just walk? It hadn’t seemed that far. Maybe the receptionist had a map and I could figure it out . . .
Luckily for me, she did. But while the receptionist—who looked slightly Asian to me, but mixed, yes, definitely mixed—was pointing out the location of Manna House on the map, in the neighborhood just north of Wrigley Field, a male voice said, “You leaving now, Mrs. Fairbanks?”
I turned. Josh Baxter stood behind me, holding the baby. “Yes. I’m trying to figure out if I can walk back to Richmond Towers without getting myself lost. It’s not that far, is it?” I pointed out the area on the map.
“Mm-hm, about two miles straight up Sheridan Road. But I was just outside; I came back to get an umbrella. Could rain any minute. Hey, Gracie and I are going to catch the northbound El up to Rogers Park. If you don’t mind riding the El, I could tell you where to get off. It’s just a couple of stops north.” He grinned and waved the umbrella. “Besides, we’ve got cover.”