Once Upon a Project

by Bettye Griffin

  “I think it’s terrible, what happened to your uncle, but it had nothing to do with me. Racism is still alive and well and living in America, but I’ll tell you this—I’m going to make it. One day I’m going to own my own restaurant. But I can’t fight your parents for you all my life, Pat. It would be too exhausting. If it pains you so much to go against your parents’ wishes, then I’m not the man for you. I just hope you meet someone they do approve of, or else you’ll wind up an old maid.”

  Pat sighed as she stared at the scrawled name on the RSVP list. Ricky did just what he said he would do. Five or six years out of college, he’d opened a luncheonette in an industrial area of the South Side, catering to the workers. Then he’d ventured out and opened the more upscale Nirvana. It was successful from the start. And she, of course, became just what he’d predicted: forty-nine years old and never married. Even her parents had given up hope of ever having a grandchild. How different things could have been if only they hadn’t been so unyielding . . . or if she’d permitted herself to have a backbone.

  Surely she and Ricky would have stayed together if they’d gotten married, like he wanted to. Unlike his first wife, she wouldn’t have felt neglected by Ricky’s long hours as a restaurateur. She had her own career to keep her busy.

  After law school she’d been hired by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, and still, after twenty-four years, she loved her work. Over the years Pat had declined many offers to join lucrative private practices. She’d make better money, sure, but she didn’t think she could stomach the clientele she would have to defend, like white-collar criminals who were guilty as sin or the no-good children of Chicago’s wealthy. Maybe her second-floor walk-up condo in a rehabbed eighty-year-old building wasn’t the fanciest place to call home, but it was hers.

  It still saddened her to think of what might have been if she’d held her ground to her parents’ objections. Surely her father would have come around. Would he really want to be estranged from her, his only daughter and soon-to-be only surviving child? He’d been the real holdout. Her mother felt a fear of the unknown, and history backed up her fears that black women who took up with nonblack men would only get heartbreak, fatherless babies, or both; but at least she was willing to let the relationship continue. The fact that she’d known Ricky ever since he was a toddler helped, even if Pat suspected that privately her mother hoped it was just puppy love that would eventually run its course.

  But the timing had been awful. Pat’s younger brother, Melvin, the real academic star of the family, had just been shot to death, caught by a bullet meant for a gang member walking a few feet in front of him. The murder broke all of their hearts, and for her parents it brought back memories of the killing of her uncle in Arkansas. This time it was poverty that had them trapped in gangland territory, not racism. But it hurt every bit as much.

  She’d told Ricky that it wasn’t the best time for him to ask her parents for her hand. But her father in particular began to treat Ricky with such open disdain that Ricky insisted he talk to him about his true feelings and intentions.

  “I won’t have your father thinking I’m only out for sex, Pat,” he’d said.

  Indeed, her parents had been shocked when Ricky told them he wanted to marry her. It put an end to the “He only wants one thing from you” argument she’d been hearing in recent weeks. But they quickly got over their astonishment. When Ricky promised them he would become a success and take good care of her, Pat’s father pointed out that there was little money in bussing tables. A clearly frustrated Ricky replied he wouldn’t be doing that sort of work after he graduated college. Before it was over there was shouting all around, and when Ricky’s mother found out, she came to the Maxwell apartment and demanded to know what made them think that her son wasn’t good enough for their daughter.

  The two families stopped speaking as a result of all the uproar. Three months later, Miriam Suárez closed on a modest house in Bridgeport and moved her family out of the projects.

  Once again, as she’d done hundreds of times before in the years since, Pat blamed herself for destroying her own future by not standing up to her parents.

  Chapter 5

  Late March

  Chicago

  Elyse fumed as she gripped the steering wheel. Franklin had canceled on her again. He’d promised her they would attend the reunion luncheon together; then, as she laid out his clothes, he asked if she minded terribly if they didn’t go.

  “My stomach really hurts,” he said.

  She didn’t swallow that for a second. He’d just gone bowling two nights ago and hadn’t said a word about tummy trouble. Now he had a hangdog look on his face like he wanted her to take him to the ER. “I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well, Franklin,” she said calmly. “Can I get you anything before I leave?”

  She enjoyed the shock on his face. “You’re going without me?” he sputtered.

  “Of course. If I don’t start going out by myself, I’ll never go anyplace at all, not with your track record. By the way, have you made an appointment to see the doctor yet?”

  “Uh, not yet. Elyse, I don’t think you should go down there by yourself. It isn’t safe. It’s not like you’re going to Lincoln Park like you did a couple of weeks ago. We’re talking about the South Side, and that’s not safe, even in the daytime.”

  “Stop acting like I’m going into a battlefield. There’s nothing wrong with the South Side. I’ll be fine.”

  He looked at her like someone had turned on an imaginary charm button. “I wish you wouldn’t go,” he said in his most beguiling manner.

  He gave off a sexy vibe, plus he looked devastatingly handsome, but with effort she stood her ground. “I’m going, Franklin.”

  Now he frowned, lines forming on his forehead. “Hey, what’re you complaining about? We went to the movie and to dinner the other week, didn’t we? Just like I promised.”

  “Just because you keep one promise to me doesn’t make your canceling on me again at the last minute okay. I’m going,” she repeated.

  He kept trying, right up until she left, to get her to change her mind, using everything he could think of to keep her home with him. Something in her snapped when he turned to guilt tactics, asking her how she could go out when she knew he wasn’t feeling well.

  “Please, Franklin. Don’t ask me to give up my life because of this imaginary illness of yours that doesn’t require medical attention because it only arises every time you and I have plans to go somewhere. You might be in your sixties, but I’m not fifty yet. I have no intention of drying up like a raisin just because you’ve become an old fart.”

  She saw him wince and instantly feared she’d gone too far. “I’m sorry, Franklin,” she said quickly. “That was mean. But you’re not being fair to me. If you don’t want to go anywhere it’s one thing, but when you try to stop me from going anyplace because you want to stay home—it’s not right. I’m going to do things with my life. I’m just hitting my stride, and I won’t be made old before my time. And I’m going to this luncheon.”

  She half expected him to call and plead with her not to go, but her cell remained quiet. Maybe she got through to him at last. Maybe he feared that they would grow apart if she started going out without him, and that their long-term marriage would unravel. Still, she’d heard people often became more sensitive when they grew older. Could it be she was being too hard on him?

  Just as Elyse felt herself softening, her resolve returned. If he thought they might grow apart, then he should do everything to fight it. Asking her to give up living so she could stay at home with him wasn’t the way. He needed to get up off his ass and come along with her, at least once in a while.

  Traffic was moderately heavy on this Saturday. Chicago winters were always cold, but this one had been snowier than usual. Today the mercury had climbed above fifty degrees, and everybody wanted to get out and enjoy the first glimpse of spring, knowing that it wouldn’t last. Springtime tended to be iffy in Chic
ago, and Elyse still carried her gloves in her purse.

  She found a parking spot in the lot, but before entering the landmark soul food restaurant she dialed home from her cell phone. She did want to apologize to Franklin for implying he was old and washed-up. He’d been her romantic hero when she was a young woman, and he still held her heart. She wished she could take back the words.

  To her surprise, the phone was picked up by her daughter. “Brontë! I didn’t know you were coming home.”

  “I didn’t know, either, Mom. I just decided at the last minute. There wasn’t really anything going on at school this weekend, so I figured I’d come home and sleep in my own bed. Maybe I’ll watch some movies or read a book or something.”

  Elyse chuckled. “You sound restless.”

  “Well, you’re not here, and Daddy’s lying down, so I’m just kinda hanging around.”

  Franklin was lying down? “Is Daddy all right?”

  “Yeah, he just said he was tired and he’d see me when he woke up.”

  “He was supposed to come with me today, but he changed his mind at the last minute. I’m down in Chicago, at a reunion of the projects I grew up in.”

  “The projects? Why bother?”

  Elyse could picture her daughter wrinkling her nose, and it annoyed her. “Because it’s a part of me, and because my friend who organized it wanted successful people to attend so she can make the point that not everyone who comes from the projects is a blight on society, that’s why.”

  “All right, Mom. You don’t have to bite my head off.”

  “You might find this hard to believe, Brontë, but I did have a nice childhood. My family didn’t have much money. The closest we got to eating out was take-out pizza, and we sure didn’t fly to Disney World for vacation like you and your brother did, but we had plenty of fun just the same.”

  “I get your point, Mom.”

  “Good. I just wanted to call to let your father know I arrived safely. You’ll tell him for me, won’t you?”

  “Of course. Have a good time with your friends, Mom.”

  “I will. Call if you need me for anything.”

  “Sure, but I doubt I’ll need to. What could go wrong?”

  Brontë was right, Elyse thought. She had no reason to worry. She’d been taken aback a little when Brontë said Franklin was lying down, but he was probably just using his free afternoon to get caught up on his rest. Franklin felt the way Brontë did, that the projects were best left to distant memory. So, to get out of coming to the city with her, he’d feigned illness again—the same old excuse he’d been using for months.

  Elyse dropped her phone in her purse and entered the restaurant. Pat stood at the entrance to the semiprivate room where the luncheon would take place, greeting each arrival personally and thanking the person for coming. Elyse hung back for a minute to watch her friend in action. Pat would have made a damn fine politician, Elyse thought. The woman had a real gift for people. And she looked marvelous in her red wool blazer, white collarless blouse, and black and white tweed skirt with touches of red.

  After a minute or two Elyse moved forward. She peeked into the room and was pleased to see it was already more than half full. “Good turnout, Pat,” she said after giving her friend a hello hug. “Congratulations.”

  “You don’t know how hard I prayed that it wouldn’t rain, or even snow.”

  “This late in March you’re probably safe, at least from snow.”

  Pat glanced over Elyse’s shoulder. “Where’s Franklin?”

  “Oh, he didn’t feel so well this morning, so he decided he’d better not make the trip. He wouldn’t want to cut my time here short because he’s in a hurry to get back home and lie down.” She shrugged. “You know how it is.”

  “Sure. I hope he feels better.”

  “Grace here yet?”

  “Are you kidding? That girl was late to her daddy’s funeral. Held it up nearly fifteen minutes, if I recall.”

  Elyse became aware of new arrivals standing behind her, waiting to speak with Pat. “I’ll just go in and take a seat. I can keep a lookout for Grace.”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  Elyse looked around the banquet room for a familiar face. She hadn’t set foot in the South Side in more than ten years, not since her parents retired to Tennessee. Lake Forest was maybe thirty miles north of here, but when a person no longer had ties to a neighborhood she had no reason to go there, even if she lived just five miles away.

  “Elyse Hughes! I’d know you anywhere,” said a deep female voice.

  She turned to see Minnie Johnson, who used to live on the ground floor of the building where she and her family called home for the first nine years of her life. Minnie was older than the other women present, probably in her mid- or even late eighties. An original resident of Dreiser, Minnie’s younger children had been in high school when the Twenty-Two Club trekked to grammar school.

  Minnie was one of those women who’d never seemed young, probably not even when she was young, but she didn’t seem to get any older, either. Elyse’s mother once told her, “Dark-skinned women like us can take years off our ages and everyone will believe us. The biggest advantage to being dark is you don’t show your age.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Johnson,” Elyse said now. “It’s nice to see you again. How are you?”

  “Oh, fair to middlin’. How do your parents like it down there in . . . where are they again?”

  “They live outside of Nashville, and they like it very much.”

  Elyse noticed that the women sitting with Mrs. Johnson had stopped talking to each other and were smiling at her. This clearly was the old-timer’s table. She knew Mrs. Johnson had continued to live in Dreiser until she reached the age where she could get into senior citizen housing.

  “Hello, Mrs. Brooks, Mrs. Suárez, Mrs. Graham.” She took a few minutes to answer their questions, which came at her like missile shots. Yes, she was still married. “It’ll be twenty-six years in June.” Yes, she had children—two, a boy and a girl. “Eighteen and twenty. They’re both in college.” And, yes, she still lived in the Greater Chicago area (which the locals knew stretched from northwest Indiana all the way to Kenosha, Wisconsin). Apparently that reply was too vague for the old ladies, for Miriam Suárez asked her outright what town she lived in. “Lake Forest.” Oh, how very nice. And what did her husband do? “He’s a software developer.”

  She tried to keep the annoyance she felt at answering one question after another out of her tone. The women’s knowing nods when she named the town where she lived made her feel almost embarrassed, and she felt grateful that no one could see her four-bedroom Colonial, which looked larger on the outside than it actually was. She felt like she was still shy little Elyse Hughes, harboring insecurities about her hair, her weight, and her abilities.

  In spite of her lack of confidence, the women’s questions and obvious surprise to hear she had done well bothered her. She knew they saw dollar signs when she said she lived in Lake Forest, which was home to many a corporate executive. They would never know that she and Franklin bought their home through luck and circumstance. Still, did they really expect her to tell them she lived in a project someplace else?

  She tried not to sigh as the rapid-fire questions continued. Yes, both her brothers were well. They lived out of state, one in Atlanta, the other in Nashville.

  She let out a breath of relief when Minnie Johnson’s sharp eyes caught sight of another victim, and she promptly lost interest in her. Elyse slipped away as Minnie leaned forward, her index finger bobbing up and down before she finally settled for, “I know you. I can’t remember your name, but I know you lived in Five.”

  Elyse turned to see whom Minnie was speaking to and broke into a smile, immediately recognizing the tall, fair-skinned woman with a liberal sprinkling of gray in her short, curly hair. Susan Bennett—her married name was Dillahunt—had actually shown up. Now, that was a surprise. Elyse had heard that a lot of people in the neighborhood still
remembered the big fuss with Susan and the Valentine brothers, even after more than twenty years. It had been the talk of the neighborhood for months, two brothers coming to blows on a public street over Susan’s affections. Their mother, Ann, had never forgiven Susan for driving a wedge between her two sons.

  Elyse was happy to see her old friend for another reason: now Minnie Johnson and company had someone new to pump for information. She continued moving toward the rear of the room, far from all the appraising stares and endless questions. No wonder this group sat close to the door. That way they could question every person the moment he or she stepped inside. She’d catch up with Susan later. Right now she was just glad to get away from these women who’d been on her like vultures on a corpse.

  Chapter 6

  Susan answered Minnie Johnson’s question. “I’m Susan. My maiden name was Bennett.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember,” Minnie said with a nod of her head. “Your mother’s name was Frances.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Still is,” she added with a laugh. She hoped that the forthright Minnie wouldn’t bring up the subject of her father, David Bennett, a white man who worked occasionally, drank all the time, couldn’t hold a job, and eventually was thrown out by a fed-up Frances. Susan wasn’t ready for her children to know the whole story about the grandfather they adored, who’d been sober for years now.

  Minnie peered at the two children hovering behind Susan’s tall frame. “These your grandchildren?”

  “No, Mrs. Johnson, actually they’re my children.”

  She noticed that Minnie didn’t look in the least embarrassed at her blunder, despite the mild rebuke Susan deliberately allowed into her tone. Instead Minnie leaned forward and peered at the youngsters over her bifocals. “Your kids, huh? How old they be?”

  “I’m ten,” the boy stated.