“So, how’s classes going this year?” she asked, splitting her sandwich onto two pieces of paper towel.
“Hard. Really hard.”
“Ha! Then the real work begins in high school. You settled on your choices yet?”
“Um, sort of,” I said, trying to pace myself. I didn’t want to be too pushy and only use her for information. “I got to write an essay and stuff.”
I bit into my half of a sandwich. Ma told me to never take food from strangers, even folks from school, but Ms. Valente was good peoples. I trusted her.
Ms. Valente grinned and took a sip of water. “Well, I can tell something’s on your mind. You want to spit it out or do I have to offer you my whole sandwich?”
She always had a way of cutting to the chase. “Naw, you can eat.”
“Good! ’Cause I’m hungry,” she said, biting into her half with a sly grin.
“I’m . . . just wondering if you ever found out anything about Monday?”
Ms. Valente stopped chewing and swallowed hard. “Wait. Wait. Wait! Monday’s still not in school? And you haven’t heard from her?”
“Naw. Did you?”
She dropped her sandwich, shoving back her chair. “We’re going to the office.”
Ms. Clark, also in the middle of lunch, tried her best not to roll her eyes as we entered.
“Yes, Ms. Valente, how can I help?”
“Remember a few weeks ago, I followed up on a student?” Ms. Valente said, tapping on the desk. “Monday Charles? Have you heard anything about her?”
Ms. Clark lazily pushed a few buttons on her keyboard. “No student by that name enrolled this year.”
“Yes, we established that the last time,” she said.
“Ah, right! Tried to call a few times. Phone is out of service. Social worker filed it with CFSA to follow up.”
Ms. Valente blinked, leaning in as if she didn’t hear her right. “But . . . that was weeks ago,” she challenged. “Anybody stop by yet?”
“What’s CFSA?” I asked.
Ms. Clark raised an eyebrow at Ms. Valente, tipping her head in my direction. Ms. Valente winced. “Um, it stands for Child and Family Services Agency.”
My tongue went dry and I backed away to keep from asking the million questions roaming around my head without a place to land.
“I know they were going through some reorg after the mayor took office,” Ms. Clark added.
“Social worker?” Ms. Valente asked, flustered.
“She had a family emergency but will be back next week.”
“Anyone else to take her place while she’s gone?”
“Not at the moment.” Ms. Clark sighed. “But you know she’s on it!”
Ms. Valente rubbed her temple. “Thanks. I’ll shoot her a note to follow up.”
Ms. Valente gave me an uneasy smile as she led me out into the hallway. “Let’s go finish our lunch.”
“Why does Monday need a social worker?” I asked after a few quiet steps.
“Some families . . . just need a little help.” Ms. Valente forced another smile. “I’m sure everything is fine. Sometimes, it boils down to miscommunication. Wires crossed, missed emails, stuff like that. Adults don’t always know how to play nice in the sandbox together. When the social worker comes back next week, she’ll stop by and talk to Mrs. Charles. They’ll take it from there. I know you’re worried about your friend, but let’s not fret about it for now. Okay?”
I tried not to let my imagination run wild, but a picture started to emerge. All it would have needed was a little color to fill it in and make it clear. When I think of social workers, I think of kids being abused. And Monday wasn’t abused. She would have told me.
Right?
The After
When you think of dance, I bet you think of colors like cotton-candy pink and glittery snow white. Not me. I think of gray, silver, smoky charcoal, the shadowing of a number-two pencil. The simplicity can be so beautiful.
I try to look like shadows on a page when I dance. Imagining myself the color of rocks at the bottom of the river, every movement casting a ripple behind the next. The few seconds before I leap off the floor and arch my head back, I’m a perfect summer rain cloud.
“Nice soft arms, Claudia,” Ms. Manis said from the corner. The studio felt massive with just the two of us. So much room to twirl and fly without worrying about bumping into the girl next to me. I could close my eyes and just exist.
“Come, let’s chat,” she said, and I skipped across the floor to join her by the sound system. “Now, my dear, it’s time to talk about the piece for your solo performance. I don’t know what the other girls have told you, but the reason why I personally select the song for your pieces, rather than letting the students decide, is because I believe in challenging my students. Pushing them out of the box they choose to stay in. Students nowadays will pick songs you hear over and over again on the radio. Songs you know inside out. But the songs I pick for you have an edge that only you can dance to. Now, close your eyes and listen to chords, the words, the melody.”
A piano started, strong, steady, beautiful keys. Adele’s unmistakable voice cooed out the speakers. “All I Ask.”
“It’s a slow song,” I said, my eyes fluttering open after the second verse. Most of last year’s jazz solo performances were fast-paced. Only the ballet dancers kept to the slow stuff.
“Yes. This, being your first solo, I picked a piece that has a mix of grace and fire. Trust me, it’s perfect for you. Perfect for healing. Listen to it a few times and become familiar. You’ll soon see yourself in the song.”
I swallowed back my disappointment. No way I could do the moves Monday and I created to a slow song. Unless she came back and we came up with some new moves.
We wrapped up the lesson and I headed for the locker room, slamming right into High Bun.
“Oh shit,” she said, slipping off her jacket. “You scared me. I didn’t think anyone else was here today.”
She yanked open a free locker, stuffing her book bag and boots inside.
“Uh, hey,” I mumbled.
“Megan,” she said slowly, as if reminding me. “Claudia, right?”
“Um, yeah.”
“You have solo lessons today?” she asked, stretching into a long-sleeve off-the-shoulder top. “Me too. Did she give you your song yet?”
I nodded, forcing myself to speak. “Yeah. It’s an Adele song.”
“Oh! That should be pretty,” she said, grabbing her shoes and leg warmers out her bag. “Well, later.”
“Yeah, later,” I croaked out, watching her switch away.
The Before
Two Sundays went by before Ma made good on her promise. After church, we drove straight to Monday’s complex and parked in front of her house. The big tree stood almost naked, seeming bigger and scarier than before. Or maybe it was the house. Though no different from the identical ones beside it, something about Monday’s house made you want to put on an extra sweater just looking at it.
Ma must have felt the chill too as she peered out the window from the driver’s seat, her foot hovering over the gas. She sighed and pulled out her cell phone.
“Hey, baby. Yup, we’re outside Monday’s house. . . . Just letting you know . . . Okay . . . Yup, yup. Yup, I know. . . . Okay, love you too. Bye.”
“Why’d you call Daddy? He already knew we were coming here today.”
Ma’s face tightened with a closed-lip smile. “It’s just good for people to know where you are. You know, just in case. Breadcrumbs, Claudia.”
She never felt safe by Monday’s. Even when Daddy drove with his glock under the seat, she felt uneasy. Daddy was away that weekend and she had to keep her word, especially after I lived through that party. She flung the car door open, locking it twice behind us. Our heels clicked up the sidewalk as the wind rained dead leaves down on us.
We paused for a moment when we reached the door, and Ma scanned the block once more before knocking. A curtain flapped in
the upstairs window.
“Monday?” I mumbled, and Ma looked back at me.
“What did you say?”
“Who is it?” Mrs. Charles barked, and the hairs on my neck stood up.
“Patti? It’s Janet,” she said, as if already tired from the conversation.
The heel of my flats rubbed against the crack in the concrete that I’d tripped over the last time I had come. Blinds shifted in the upstairs window. Someone was watching us. Maybe it was Monday, locked up in her room. I tapped Ma’s arm, afraid to look away in case I missed her face appearing.
“What? What is it, Claudia?” Ma asked, before we jumped at the clicking locks.
Mrs. Charles yanked the door open halfway and stood in the frame, her face stuck in a scowl, eyes squinting from the sunlight. My stomach clenched.
“Yeah,” Mrs. Charles snapped.
Ma nodded, taking in her sweatpants and baggy yellow shirt.
“Hey, Patti,” she sighed. “How you doing?”
Mrs. Charles’s eyes narrowed. She glared at me, eyebrow rising, then glanced back at Ma. Her face brightened but somehow still seemed malicious, like a blackened sun.
“Well, look at y’all in your Sunday best,” she said with a raspy laugh. “I didn’t know Christians did door-to-doors. I thought that was just Jehovah’s Witnesses. How you doing, Janet?”
Ma painted on a fake smile. “Blessed. And you?”
Mrs. Charles shrugged, her lips turning up. “Oh, you know. Keep on keeping on, I guess. You heard about them trying to kick everybody out around here? They want to bulldoze the whole neighborhood and build condos for white folks. People already started getting them eviction notices.”
“I heard,” Ma said. “Pastor is talking about forming a coalition. Get folks involved.”
“Hmph. He ain’t my pastor. Probably get involved so he can put money in his pocket.”
“Patti, you know he ain’t like that. He’d give his last dime to help the community. Even to you.”
She cut her eyes. “Well, if your savior pastor don’t get involved, I don’t know how they expect me to raise my beautiful, smart children living on the streets. And you know they about to close down Jak and Co.”
“Really?”
“The landlord gone and doubled the rent. Been working there almost fifteen years. Trying to find another job but these white folks just don’t want to hire a black woman. They don’t want me to keep a roof over my children’s heads. They just want my home.”
Ma nodded as if she understood. With a sigh, she wrapped her arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer. I snuggled next to her coat, inhaling her perfume, feeling safer.
“Well. We just stopped by ’cause baby girl here been missing her friend.”
“Really?” Mrs. Charles chuckled. “Well, I told Claudia last time she stopped by that Monday is by her daddy’s.”
I flinched. Ma gave me a look that could’ve burned all the hair off my head. I should have known Mrs. Charles would rat me out.
“Oh. She didn’t tell me that,” Ma said between her teeth.
“You know how kids are,” Mrs. Charles said with a husky laugh. “Or kid. Since you only could have one.”
A hard sucker punch right to the gut. Ma held her breath, her hand gripping my shoulder.
“Well, we better be going, have to start dinner soon. Give our best to Monday, will you? Maybe she can give us a ring sometime.”
“Of course. I’ll tell her you dropped by.”
My flats scraped against the concrete as Ma dragged me back to the car. Once inside, I was met with the death stare.
“So you think you’re grown now and can go wherever you please,” she snapped. “Just wait until I tell your father about this!”
“But Ma—”
“DON’T say another word until we get home! Can’t believe you got me out here looking foolish in front of that woman.”
I slumped in my seat, kissing my TV time good-bye, and peered out the window. Mrs. Charles watched us from the doorway, a smile spread across her face, nasty like mustard.
Ma didn’t tell Daddy about me sneaking over to Monday’s house. She liked using him as a threat. Instead, she made up her own punishments—like helping her prep for Thanksgiving dinner. Family always came to our house for Thanksgiving, since Ma really knew how to throw down. Fights have popped off over her stuffing. Between Daddy’s five brothers and sisters, we can have close to forty people in the house at once.
Anyway, my punishment: clean the house from top to bottom, then assist her in the kitchen as her sous chef. Doesn’t sound that bad, but if you saw the amount of sweet potatoes I had to peel, green beans I had to snap, celery I had to chop, and greens I had to wash (TWICE!) in a burning-hot kitchen, you’d know why it was torture.
When Daddy came home from his last delivery before the holiday, we were on day three of punishment, and I was up to my braids in shredded cheese. Daddy kissed Ma as she stood at the stove boiling cranberries for the chutney.
“Ladies! You’ve been busy I see. The place looks good,” he said with a grin, stealing a carrot stick from the strainer. He knew if I was in the kitchen helping Ma, I must have done something wrong.
“Yes, your daughter has been an excellent help,” Ma said, glancing over her shoulder at me.
They continued talking about Thanksgiving plans, the uncles and aunties coming over with my cousins. Most of my cousins were in college, married and/or pregnant with second cousins. I never had a bunch of kids my age to play with, but Monday had always filled the void. I was the last baby in Daddy’s family. They thought he would never get married. He says he was just waiting for Ma.
I could barely lift a hand to wipe the beads of sweat off my forehead, my arms weak from grating while another three giant blocks of sharp cheddar waited for me. Monday would’ve been drooling over the mountain of gold. Felt strange, her being with her daddy, and not here in the kitchen, helping us. She never really talked about her dad. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time Monday mentioned him. He’d left for good right before little Tuesday was born. So I couldn’t understand why Monday would live with him now. And why wasn’t April with him too? And why did they have a social worker?
“Baby, you know Tip Charles, right?” Ma asked, not looking up from the pot she stirred. My hand slipped and brushed against the metal.
Daddy grunted. “Tip? Tip from high school, Tip? Yeah.”
“You still keep in touch with him?”
He frowned. “That fool? Janet, why you asking about him? Of all people.”
Ma shrugged. “Patti said Monday was with him.”
My back straightened. Daddy noticed and arched an eyebrow at Ma.
“And?”
“And,” Ma said, facing him before glancing at me, “we wanted to check.”
“Check on what?”
“On Monday. To see if she’s . . . alright. That’s all. Since we’ve known her, that girl ain’t never spent no time with her daddy. And we haven’t heard from her in weeks.”
Right then, I knew Ma didn’t believe Mrs. Charles’s story about Monday. Even though she was still mad at me, it felt good to have her back on my team.
Daddy sighed. “Janet, it’s their family business. It ain’t none of ours.”
“But we—”
“Just stay out their drama, will you?” he sighed. “I don’t wanna get mixed up in their mess.”
Ma smiled, doing her best to play it cool, but I knew her temper was growing steadily. The tapping of her foot, her tight smile . . . I wanted to warn Daddy, but I knew it was the only way to Monday.
“Baby, Sweet Pea is just missing her friend. Ain’t nothing wrong with calling the man so she can talk to her friend.”
“I ain’t got the man’s number. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“But maybe you can get it.”
“Well, why didn’t you get the number from Patti?”
Ma slammed down her dish towel on the counter. “Because
I’m asking you to get it, Gerald! You think I didn’t think of that before? Do you think I ain’t got no sense myself? I’m asking you, my man, to talk man to man to that little girl’s daddy, and you sitting up in my kitchen questioning me about it. And what I look like going around here looking for some other man’s number? You trying to make me look crazy or something?”
A whole frozen minute passed before Daddy cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. Ma didn’t get upset too often, so when she did, you knew she meant business. With her hand on her hip and her neck rolling, it always surprised me how such a loud voice could come out of such a little woman.
Daddy sighed, rubbing his head. “Aight. I’ll ask around. See if I can get his number.”
Ma exhaled and returned to her pot, smiling over her victory.
One Year Before the Before
The early-morning sun gleamed off the snow-covered streets as I heard something tap against my window. Melting ice, I thought, and didn’t pay it no mind, until it hit harder, trying to break in. I climbed out of bed, wondering why the squirrels wouldn’t let me have my rest, reaching the window just in time for another pebble to bounce off the glass right in front of my face and glared down at the sidewalk below.
“What in the hell?”
I tiptoed past Ma’s room, ran down the stairs, and snatched the door open. Monday stood shivering with a dizzy smile.
“What you doing here?” I shouted under my breath.
She slipped inside, closed the door behind her, and yanked off her wet sneakers. I spotted my denim jacket under her thin black peacoat.
“I knew you’d be up and I couldn’t wait. I have to tell you something!”
She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the kitchen.
“Girl! You’re freezing,” I said, wiggling out of her icy grip and shaking free of the chill.
“Shhhh! Keep your voice down.”
“Well, why you so cold?”
The corner of her mouth pulled up. “’Cause I’ve been out all night.”
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