Finding Someplace (11 page)

Her fingers were turning numb inside the black-and-white-striped stretchy gloves she wore. She couldn't get used to the cold. Everything up here was so different! She looked up to see the redbrick elementary school building looming against that dingy sky. Across the park next to it, two half-grown kids were wallowing in the snow, whooping and laughing.

Rainbow colors were all she could make out through the fogged-up windows of the Hillside school cafeteria, where the little kids waited to be picked up. The door flew open and Jazz flew out.

“Snow again!” She was as thrilled as those kids in the park. Reesie smiled but didn't show any teeth. Hers were chattering anyway.

“Yeah,” she answered. “So, what trouble did you get into today?”

Jazz grabbed her hand, and Reesie felt a funny little flutter inside. It was nice to be around little kids.

“No trouble. I made up a new song!”

Jazz was dancing in the snow, using her footprints to make swirls and loops. She was always dancing … or singing.

“Booonie! Booonie Girls! Aunty Jean and you make two! Boo—”

Reesie loved being a “big sister,” but she wasn't feeling Jazz's little song. They really
weren't
the Boone family anymore, with Daddy still in New Orleans four months after he promised they would be together.

Jazz stopped, swung her braids, and put her hands on her hips.

“You're mad. You're not my make-believe sister anymore?”

Everything she'd let build up inside shook Reesie at once: fury, confusion, and shame. She looked away from Jazz so she wouldn't explode.

“Yes,” she finally said. “Yes, I'm your make-believe sister.”

“Still?” Jazz managed to skip ahead a few paces.

“Still,” Reesie said, pulling her house key out. “But you know, I'll be going back home one day.”

“To New Orleans?” They shook their boots off on the steps of the wide yellow house.

“Yes. To New Orleans.”

Jazz shook her head, and the tassels on her striped elf hat swung around her head. “Noooo…,” she said slowly. “There's no more New Orleans!”

Reesie wasn't about to argue with a six-year-old, and she wondered if maybe Jazz was right. What if home wasn't really home anymore?

She blinked at the wreath her mother and aunt had made of huge scarlet poinsettias and hung on the dark-wood-and-stained-glass front doors. Snow had blown across the porch, almost covering something lying near the tiny potted Christmas tree by the mailbox. Jazz bent to pick it up.

“Ree-see Boo-ne,” she read out loud proudly. “You got a package!” She shoved the brown-paper-wrapped rectangle at Reesie, then stood on her toes to get the rest of the mail from the box.

Reesie unlocked the front door and almost tripped over the stuffed animal zoo scattered in the front hall. She peeled off her layers, dropped them at the foot of the stairs, and glanced at the return address on the box. Her heart sped up. It was from Daddy!

She ripped and tossed paper on her way to the living room, glad that Jazz had made a beeline for cookies and milk.

A leather, emerald green sketchbook was tucked between sheets of green tissue paper. Reesie slowly thumbed through the pages. They were all blank, big enough for design sketches on one side with space for fabric swatches and notes on the other. She closed the book gently.

Though she loved her art class, no one in it knew she wanted to become a fashion designer. And she couldn't remember the last time she'd sewn anything or drawn even a stick figure wearing clothes. How did he know?

A smaller box of colored pencils had fallen onto the cushion beside her … and there was a note.

Reesie—Thought I'd get a head start on the Christmas shopping. Hope you can use this. Show me some outrageous design when I see you on Christmas Eve!

Love, Daddy

Reesie crumpled the tissue paper in her excitement. He was coming!

Keys jangled in the kitchen door. Reesie had forgotten that her mother was working an early shift this week. The door opened and slammed. There was more banging, of groceries heaped onto the counter, then keys smacked onto the table. Reesie rushed in the direction of the sounds.

Her glowing, grinning face met her mother's scowling, vexed one. Jazz hopped off her chair and danced around the two of them, humming her new Boonie Girls tune.

“Guess what?” Mama sucked her teeth as if
she
were the middle-school student.

“Daddy's coming for Christmas!”
mother and daughter both said at once. Then, in stunned silence, they each took in the other's reaction.

“Ho, ho ho!” Jazz sang out loud, but changed her lyrics. “Boonie Girls glad and mad!”

 

Chapter Seventeen

Reesie's Christmas spirit continued to rise. The next day, her mother agreed to allow her to go shopping with Dadi at the mall. Then Aunt Tish, who had won quite a few awards for her television acting, had intervened at school to get Reesie's phone back. More important than any of that—most important—was the text Orlando had sent while her phone was locked away in Worthy's room.

B N NJ @ XMAS!

That afternoon, Reesie showed Dadi the message before she bit into a Jamaican patty in the food court. It was the closest thing she'd discovered to a Louisiana meat pie.

Dadi sat across from her, peppering her with questions. With her mouth and hands full, Reesie couldn't answer her friend right away.

“I bet you can't wait! What are you going to do? When's he getting here? Where's the first place you're going to take him? When can I meet your boyfriend?” Dadi stared at Reesie with her eyes twinkling, propping her skinny olive elbows onto the table. “You
must
miss him like crazy.”

“Felicidad, I told you that Orlando is not my boyfriend!” Reesie washed down the last of the flaky crust with orange soda.

“But it's
amazing
that your boyfriend is coming all the way up here to
see
you!” Dadi hadn't touched her cheese fries yet, but Reesie knew she'd scarf that order down and then get another, because according to her, a dancer's metabolism made her hungry all the time.

“He's not my boyfriend.”

“Well, he kissed you.”

“In the middle of a hurricane when he was out of his mind looking for his brother! It was a freak-out kiss.”

Since Orlando had never mentioned it, Reesie found it hard to convince herself now that he'd meant anything by the kiss, although he hadn't failed to text every day since he'd found her, and even called when Dr
é
and Tree had hitchhiked their way to Texas.…

“Reesie, are you listening to me? You never listen to anybody. Maybe that's why you haven't made more friends at school.” Dadi was inhaling her last two fries. “I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but sometimes you're out there … like, not
here
, where the real world is.”

Dadi's comment irritated Reesie a little, and that tiny spark of anger made her want to talk.

“It was my birthday that day, you know? Birthdays won't ever be the same for me.”

“Wow.” Dadi stopped chewing. “You mean the Katrina day? You never said!”

“Yeah. Maybe the problem at school is y'all don't understand what the real world is!”

Dadi pouted and crossed her arms. “I'm included in that? I thought we were friends. You never told me
anything
, except about your boyfriend.”

Reesie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She was grateful that a loud family with rustling shopping bags hustled into the booth next to them.

“I was with my neighbor. She's, like, eighty. She was making—made—my birthday cake. And Orlando's brother showed up—”

“Wait! The one he was looking for when he kissed you?” Her voice got louder, and a girl near their table snickered. Reesie made a face, but now that she'd started talking, she didn't want to stop.

“Yeah. We got through the hurricane okay, but the flood started after. The water inside the house was almost as high as the ceiling. We went up into the attic, and then chopped a hole in the roof to get out.”

Dadi's eyes were wide.

“We sat up there all night, till some fishing guys rescued us in their boat.”

“On a
roof
! Was it scary?”

“Yeah.”

“Then everything was okay?”

“Not even. Some soldiers took us to the Superdome.” Reesie blew out a long breath. Nope, she wasn't going that far. “I can't even—anyway, Miss Martine—my neighbor? Something happened and she got sick. These soldier guys just took her away.”

“But where? What happened then?”

“I don't know. We still haven't been able to find her. My dad found me—” Reesie decided to leave another part of the story out. “And we didn't have a home to go back to, so my mom and I came here. Dad's a police officer, so…” Reesie shrugged.

Dadi shook her head. “I saw that stuff on TV, but I never thought…”

“Nobody thinks much about New Orleans except folks from New Orleans,” Reesie said, pushing her chair back. “I don't want to talk about this anymore. I need to find my daddy a Christmas present!”

Dadi grabbed her purse. With a wide grin, she flipped the mood.

“Okay. Got any great ideas? How about a G.I. Joe?”

“What? You are so silly!” Reesie was glad to smile at Dadi's little joke. She'd done well in her choice of a new friend.

“Oh! Oh!” Reesie pulled Dadi into a music store. “I know what to get both of my parents!”

“What?”

Reesie made for the old-school funk aisle and rifled through the CDs.

“Listen. You have to hear a sample. Is this song perfect, or what?” She shoved headphones onto her friend and watched Dadi's face as she pulled one of the earbuds to her own head.

“It's Parliament, from the seventies,” Reesie said, singing along. “‘I just want to testify … what your love has done for meeee!' They love this. I'm gonna get them both the same CD!”

“Your cousin is rubbing off on you!” Dadi said.

The girls laughed. They were still humming and giggling when they rushed outside a little later to catch their ride with Reesie's mom.

“Well,” her mother said, eyeing Reesie in the rearview mirror, “I'm glad you can find something to laugh about!”

Reesie rustled her shopping bags and tried hard not to roll her eyes. That might only pull a detention in Worthy's world, but in Jeannie's world? Trouble with a capital
T
.

“What do you mean?” Reesie asked calmly.

“Mr. Worthy called for a conference. You skipped a
detention
yesterday?”

Dadi dropped her head and started humming something more like a death march. Reesie pursed her lips together, knowing that her mother wouldn't say any more until she'd dropped Dadi off. The car was filled with icy silence all the way back to town. Dadi mouthed the words
good luck
when she got out at her house.

“Now, Teresa…”

“Mom, I—”

“This school rebellion thing has gone far enough. No colleges or fashion schools are going to take a first look at Ds.”

“Mom, that's years away! And—and it's just hard, okay?”

Her mother screeched to a halt in Aunt Tish's driveway and turned around in the car.

“I already made the conference appointment. And I have arranged for you to see a psychologist.”

Reesie forgot herself completely, and yelled, “A
what
? Now I'm crazy?”

“Teresa Arielle Boone, do not speak to me in that tone. You've got to deal with whatever happened and then move on.”

Reesie gasped in disbelief. How could her mother say such a thing? She angrily fumbled for the handle and threw the door open.

“How come this is about
me
?” she continued yelling, hoping that the neighbors would hear. “You and Daddy haven't moved on, you just moved apart! If you're looking for who's crazy, I'm not the one!”

“Reesie! Teresa!” Instead of going inside, Reesie stalked off. Halfway down the block, fresh snowflakes blew against her face, and she stopped. Slowly, she turned back.

Should she pretend to be her old self, a “good girl,” just to get through the holidays? Daddy was coming, and Junior and … Orlando.

She watched the snow, backlit by a streetlight, tumble to Earth with amazing perfection. Nobody had ever told her how blindingly bright the new clean snow could be, even at night. She had to admit that it made everything look beautiful. It was like a scene from a movie. Orlando would get a kick out of falling snow.

Reesie shook her head and sighed, trudging back up the driveway. It was time for a serious conversation with her mother.

“Mom? We need to talk.” Reesie's voice sounded formal and stiff, even to her own ears, when she entered the kitchen. Somehow in the last few weeks she had stopped calling her mother
Mama
, the New Orleans way. Now she said
Mom
.

“Jeannie, let me handle the stove,” Aunt Tish said, looking at Reesie curiously.

“Don't let it burn!” Reesie's mother said, handing her sister the spoon. Aunt Tish bowed dramatically and made a face, but Reesie didn't smile the way she usually would. She stepped into the dining room, where her mother was standing, her arms folded.

“Mom, I'm sorry.”

“For the detention, or for being rude in the car?” Mom raised her eyebrows.

“Both, I guess.” Reesie took a deep breath. “When you said I should move on … I—I can't!”

“Reesie—” Mom's face softened, and she dropped her arms. Reesie took a step back in case her mother was about to hug her. She couldn't take that, not yet.

“I
can't
move on, 'cause I feel like I'm waiting on something! I don't know how to explain it. All this time, since Katrina, I've been waiting. Waiting to sketch and sew again. Waiting to see if this thing with Orlando is anything.…”