Last Summer with Maizon (3 page)

Maizon caught Margaret's eye and winked.

Ms. Dell was a big woman, and her flowered cotton housedress stretched tightly across her fleshy thighs.

“We just sit and wonder about things,” Maizon said.

“What do two eleven-year-olds have to wonder about?” Hattie asked incredulously.

“Same thing as a nineteen-year-old,” Maizon said.

Hattie smirked and her high cheekbones jutted up toward her eyes. Her skin was dark brown like her mother's and looked smooth under the yellow streetlights.

“I know you two got something up those sleeves, 'cause there ain't no time Frick and Frack get together—winter, spring, summer or fall—that they don't have something planned. Always something up those sleeves.” Hattie leaned back and winked at her mother. Her brown eyes were always sad, which made her look like she was about to cry even when she laughed.

“Hattie,” Ms. Dell said, bouncing Li‘l Jay on her knee. He squealed and drooled onto his pajama top. “You remember when Margaret first moved around here and Maizon come around in her Indian outfit talking 'bout she heard there was some new girl on the block with a ‘forked tongue'?”

“Yeah, I remember. And Margaret peeping out her window scared as I don't know what.” Hattie laughed.

“I wasn't scared,” Margaret said. “I just couldn't come outside.”

“You girls gonna miss each other when you're no longer together,” Ms. Dell warned.

Margaret felt Maizon's elbow in her side.

“No longer together?” Maizon said too innocently. “Where are we going?”

“Wherever,” Ms. Dell said. “Everybody's got to go somewhere.”

“Margaret's not going anywhere!” Maizon stood up, threw her head back and shouted, “Margaret and Maizon! Friends forever!”

“Girl, stop all that shoutin' and set yourself down. It's not Margaret going anywhere. She's gonna take care of her mother—” Ms. Dell stopped abruptly and stared down at the pavement.

“How do you know, Ms. Dell?” Maizon asked quickly. “What do you mean Margaret has to take care of her mother?”

“I don't know anything, child,” Ms. Dell said, rubbing Li'l Jay's head. “Don't listen to me talking outta my hat.”

“You do know,” Maizon accused. “You have those eyes. People say, Ms. Dell ... they say you know.”

“You heard her, Maizon,” Hattie said. “She said she doesn't know. Let it be already.”

Maizon turned to Hattie. “But we need to know. We have to know what's going to happen.”

“Why?” Hattie asked. “Why do you need to know
everything
, Maizon?”

Maizon glared at her. Margaret knew she only tolerated Hattie because she was Ms. Dell's daughter and Hattie only tolerated Maizon because she was Margaret's friend. “So we can plan for it. For whatever.”

“When it happens, you'll know,” Hattie said, and they both knew that meant the subject was closed. Margaret sighed, relieved. She had always liked Hattie.

The stoop grew quiet. The smell of rain was in the air and Margaret listened as a low roll of thunder rumbled above them.

“We blew it,” Maizon whispered. Margaret nodded. “We could have milked her if Hattie wasn't around.”

Ms. Dell shifted Li'l Jay and took a long sip from her frosted glass. Her blue eyes wandered slowly from Maizon to Margaret.

“I know what they have up those sleeves, Hattie. They're on an information hunt.”

“Not gonna find any 'cyclopedias over here,” Hattie said, tight-lipped.

Maizon yawned and turned to Margaret.

“We gonna go shopping for school clothes tomorrow?”

Margaret nodded.

“School clothes? In July?”

Margaret leaned against Hattie's shoulder. “We want to get the same outfits, and if we wait too long, we won't be able to find two of everything.”

“Yeah,” Maizon said, “we're going to tell people we're cousins.” She turned to Ms. Dell. “If I don't get into Blue Hill, we're going to be in the same class!”

“Oh, you will?”

“Yeah, Ms. Peazle's,” Maizon said, wrinkling her nose. “I hear she's a biddy!” Maizon raced down the block before Ms. Dell could scold her. She stopped a few houses down.

“Call me tomorrow!” she yelled, then waved and continued down the block. Margaret watched her turn into her brownstone.

Ms. Dell looked up at the sky and whistled. “Gonna come a hard rain. Gonna last a while too. Better get those rubbers out if you planning on doing some walking tomorrow.”

A yellow cab pulled up to the curb and Ms. Tory leaned forward to pay the driver. From what Margaret could see, her mother looked worn and tired. Margaret's heart leapt.

“Gonna learn about strength this summer, Margaret,” Ms. Dell said softly. But Margaret was off the stoop and halfway to the cab by the time Ms. Dell got the words out.

I
t rained all week. On Sunday, as Margaret dialed Maizon's number, her fingers trembled. The phone rang three times before Maizon picked it up.

“He had another one,” Margaret cried into the phone. Her voice sounded tight and unfamiliar.

“Another what? Who?”

“Daddy! He had another heart attack. Mama just left. Maizon, I'm scared.”

“I'll be right over. Look out the window till I come, okay?”

Margaret was silent. Her heart had constricted into a tiny knot at the center of her chest.

“Okay, Margaret?” Maizon said again. She sounded scared.

“Mama said go stay with Ms. Dell and Hattie until she gets back,” Margaret said mechanically. Everything seemed unreal, like it had happened a long time ago to somebody else.

“You can't see the bridge from Ms. Dell's window, Margaret. That's the only way not to be scared. Just watch the trains. I'll be right there. You want to talk to my grandmother until I get there?”

Margaret shook her head. She couldn't bear the calm sound of Grandma's voice right now. It would make it all too real.

“I'll go get her ...”

“No,” Margaret said quickly. “Just come, Maizon. Just you. Hurry.”

Margaret hung up the phone and walked slowly over to the window. Although it was only eleven in the morning, the clouded-over sky made the day dark. The empty lot on Palmetto Street looked like a black hole big enough to swallow whole anything that came close enough. Margaret wondered when she had been this afraid.

The bridge was dimly lit and seemed to sag beneath the load of the drizzling rain. No trains were in sight. Margaret leaned against the window and thought about waking Li'l Jay.

“What if Daddy dies?” she said out loud. She saw clearly the picture on the mantelpiece behind her of her mother, father and herself before Li'l Jay was born. They were sitting beneath a tree in Prospect Park and her father had a puppet on his hand. She closed her eyes and saw her father's hand. It was big and dark and strong. There were a million wrinkles on the palm. A hand like that couldn't die, she thought. She felt it brush the hair away from her eyes. She felt his chin resting on her head, then felt a cold spot again where it had been. The chill made its way to her bones.

Margaret opened her eyes and saw Maizon's green poncho halfway down the block, then heard Ms. Dell opening the front door and Maizon's footsteps on the stairs. She waited by the door until Maizon darted in.

“You okay?” Maizon asked, pulling out of her poncho.

“Yeah ...” Margaret's eyes were red-rimmed from crying. She wanted Maizon to hold her while she cried, but they had never done that.

“Did you hear anything from anybody?”

Margaret shook her head and sniffed. Maizon followed her to the couch. Her sneakers made squishing noises. She sat on the small patch of rug in front of the couch and began to untie them.

“They're soaking wet.” She peeled off one yellow sock, then the other one, and draped them from the coffee table.

“Ms. Dell was right,” Margaret said hoarsely. “She said it was going to rain hard for a long time and it's been raining for a week now.” She slouched further down into the pillows. “You ever feel alone, Maizon? Like there's nobody left in the world but you that matters?”

Maizon played with the toe of one sock. “Sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I don't really matter, because if I did, my mother wouldn't have died and my daddy wouldn't have left me.”

“But you have your grandmother ... and Ms. Dell has Hattie and Hattie has Ms. Dell and Mama has Daddy.”

“You have your father and your mother and Li'l Jay. You have a whole normal family!”

“Just ‘cause it's whole doesn't mean it's ‘normal.' Last year we did a project in social studies on families, and my teacher said there were all kinds of families and it's not right to say only some things are normal and all other things aren't. Anyway, Daddy's sick and Mama works and Li'l Jay's too little. He can hardly talk. That leaves me. And sometimes I wish I had a grandmother all to myself or Ms. Dell all to myself or Hattie even. Just someone all to myself. I feel so stretched out. Like I'm broken in a million pieces or something.”

“What about me, Margaret? You have me. We're best friends, remember?”

“You're going to go away.” Tears slid down her face and Margaret wiped them away with the back of her hand. “And my daddy's going to die.”

“Margaret, don't say that. Maybe I won't go away, and your daddy's not going to die.”

Margaret stared at Maizon for a moment, then closed her eyes. There was too much uncertainty in Maizon's voice.

“You falling asleep?” Maizon asked.

“No.”

Maizon came over and sat beside her.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking at the colors I see on the inside of my head and trying not to think of Daddy.”

“What colors?”

“Grays and blues and greens.”

Maizon leaned back and closed her eyes.

“I see yellows and browns and reds. It looks like the fall. Since we're special, we probably see colors no one else in the whole world sees.”

“Uh huh,” Margaret said.

“Margaret? I'm starting to see some blues too.”

Best friends should always see the same things, Margaret thought, reaching for Maizon's hand. For a long time they sat in silence. Margaret heard Maizon snoring softly beside her. In a little while, she, too, dozed off.

When Ms. Tory walked in late in the afternoon, they jumped. Her face was ashen and streaked with rain. Her eyes, slanted like Margaret‘s, were now puffy and swollen. Margaret's eyes rested on her mother's mouth. It was pulled into a tight, solemn line and for a moment she thought her mother was angry, but then she realized it was something worse than anger. Much, much worse. Li'l Jay began to cry in the next room and Maizon left to quiet him.

“How's Daddy?” Margaret asked, afraid to look at her mother's eyes. If she did, she knew she would see that the worst was happening.

Ms. Tory sank to the couch and pulled Margaret to her. She held her tightly and cried into Margaret's shoulder. “I tried to call you, sweetheart. I wanted you to see him before ...”

Margaret knew then that her father would not be home again. A lump rose in her own throat. Tears pushed against the insides of her eyes. “No, Mama,” she whispered.

“I wanted you to see him before he died, Margaret. But when they pressed that ... that mask against his face I knew it was too late.”

“Please, Mama,” Margaret begged, holding on to her mother's sleeves. “Tell me he didn't die, Mama, please!”

“I don't know what's going to happen to us now, Margaret. I just don't know.”

Margaret felt her father's hands on her shoulders. A warm breath brushed against her forehead. She swallowed. “We're going to be okay, Mama,” she whispered. Her voice was small and uncertain. “I promise, Mama. We're going to be okay.”

W
hen Margaret walked into Li‘l Jay's room, the rain was beating out a soft one-two against the pane. Night was coming on quickly and thunder cracked across the sky. Maizon was sitting on the floor beside Li'l Jay's crib. Margaret tiptoed over and kneeled beside her.

“I should go home, I guess,” Maizon said, starting to rise. She had been crying.

“My daddy died today,” Margaret whispered. She opened her mouth and closed it, then turned to Maizon and tried to speak again. “Died,” she said, and in the crazy night air of the rainstorm, the word had a strange echo to it. She stared into Li'l Jay's crib. His thumb crept slowly to his mouth and soft sucking sounds mingled with storm.

She pressed her face against his crib. “Daddy died today,” she said again. “He's not coming home.”

Margaret knew she was trying to make sense of the words, rolling them around on her tongue until they found a place to settle in her brain; a place where they'd become real.

“Margaret,” Maizon whispered, “my grandmother said when people go to heaven, there's a rainbow when they smile.”

Margaret stared at her as though she were just realizing Maizon was in the room. She got up and walked slowly over to the window.

“You see anything, Margaret?”

“No, nothing. Not even a little blue,” Margaret said.

“It's too dark out,” Maizon whispered.

“Maybe he's not smiling, Maizon. Maybe it still hurts.”

“Maybe he hasn't gotten there yet. Heaven's a long way away.”

“You think so?”