Tangled Roots (2 page)

T
he Clark Literacy Center, where I’ve worked for the past four years, was housed in what used to be an elementary school. Clark Elementary School closed due to low enrollment back in the midseventies. Besides the ABLE/GED program that I worked for there was also an ESL — English as a Second Language — program, parenting classes, aerobics classes, and an after-school latchkey program.

We were well into the new school year. It was October and the leaves were beginning to turn. Fall is my favorite time of year. This school year, however, had a different feel to it. For one thing, my friend and coworker Bernie Gibson, our program’s tutor trainer and coordinator, had decided to take the year off to travel and pull herself together after experiencing some major drama in her life — a situation that I’d managed to get myself involved in. But that’s another story. Anyway, the woman who took her place had become a burr in my behind.

Noreen Reardon was a retired kindergarten teacher with the appearance of a sweet little old lady and the personality of a piranha. I was already getting complaints from the literacy tutors over Noreen’s “my way or the highway” working style. We were only a month into the school year and she and I had already bumped heads on several occasions.

I looked up from my desk, where I was grading some essays, and saw Noreen across the room laughing with Rhonda Hammond, our program’s math teacher. It seemed that Noreen had charmed everyone in the program except me and the literacy tutors that she trained and supervised. Everyone else thought that butter wouldn’t melt in the woman’s mouth. Well, we’d see about that.

“You want me to pass out those essays, Kendra?” asked Shanda Kidd. Shanda was a senior at Kingford College who’d opted to do her mandatory community service at Clark Literacy Center. In order to graduate, all Kingford College students had to complete eighty hours of community service.

“Yeah, thanks, I’m finished with these,” I told her, handing her the stack of papers. I looked around the room and smiled. Every seat was filled. Our enrollment had almost doubled since last year.

I watched Shanda pass out the essays and offer words of praise and encouragement to each student. The girl was a natural teacher; all the students loved her. However, she was a marketing major and had no interest in teaching as a profession. I was hoping her time at the center would change her mind. When she reached a young black man sitting in the back of the room, she bent down and whispered something in his ear. One of her braids fell forward and brushed his cheek. Timothy Milton looked up at Shanda and smiled. When they saw me watching they looked away, embarrassed.

I’d suspected that something was going on between them and didn’t quite know what to do about it. I’d known Timothy Milton since he was a little boy. His late father, Jesse Milton, had been my uncle Alex’s best friend. Jesse committed suicide five years ago, leaving a void in the lives of all those who had loved him, especially his sons’.

Timmy’s a former crackhead. He’d been clean for about a year now. I was happy when I found out that he and his mother had moved back to Willow from Detroit. Life in Detroit had not been kind to the Miltons. Timmy’s older brother, Dell, was in prison for armed robbery. Timmy had managed to turn himself around and was working towards his GED. He just needed to brush up on his geometry and he’d ace his exam. Alex had even given him a job at Estelle’s. Shanda, on the other hand, was bright, pretty, and a big flirt. It was none of my business but I couldn’t help but feel their involvement was going to end up with one of them getting hurt, probably Timmy.

“Kendra, you need to keep your workers on task,” said a prim voice. I hadn’t noticed Noreen walk up beside me.

“What?” I asked, not bothering to hide my irritation.

“That girl, Shanda. She shouldn’t be talking to the students. They’re here to study and she shouldn’t be distracting them with chitchat. Workers who can’t stay on task aren’t organized, which leads to wasted time. These students don’t have time to waste.” She looked at my barely organized desk and shook her head.

I looked up at her. She stood by my chair dressed in her gray tweed suit and black lace-up oxfords. Her white hair was pulled into a thick topknot that added two inches to her height. Big silver hoop earrings dangled to her shoulders and silver bracelets jangled at her wrists. She looked like a fortune-teller crossed with a librarian. I tried hard to contain my anger and smiled sweetly.

“Noreen, as you’ve so astutely pointed out, Shanda is
my
worker and if and when she does something inappropriate, which she hasn’t, I’ll certainly let her know. Now, why don’t you go back to
your
area and stop distracting me from
my
tasks.”

“Kendra, you would be wise to try and benefit from constructive criticism. It can only make you a more productive teacher and help your students,” she said, glaring down at me.

“Well, when you start signing my paychecks, maybe I will.” I tried to keep my voice even and a smile on my face so the students wouldn’t know what was going on.

“Stranger things have happened and I’d watch my step if I were you,” she said with a mysterious smile as she turned and walked away.

What the hell was that all about?

“I see you two are at it again,” said Rhonda, sitting down at her desk, which was next to mine. “You really shouldn’t let her get to you, Kendra. She’s a nice woman when you get to know her. She’s just from another generation.”

“You mean another planet, don’t you?” I hissed. “Planet Anal Retentus, you know the one, located just past Uranus and shaped like a tightly clenched ass!” I was more than a little put out that Rhonda was taking up for Noreen.

“She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want a friendly working relationship with me. The only time the woman speaks to me is when she wants to criticize me, Rhonda. She needs to chill and take care of her own business,” I whispered angrily.

Rhonda sighed and turned her attention to one of the students who’d come up for help. I needed to calm down so I took a break and went outside to the playground. While I was out there swinging on one of the swings, a few students came outside to smoke. Timmy was with them and when he spotted me, he came over and joined me. He was a good-looking kid, a little on the skinny side, but tall and handsome like his father had been. It wasn’t hard to understand what Shanda saw in him.

“How’s it going, Timmy?”

“All right.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“Fine.”

Sometimes pulling conversation out of Timmy was like pulling teeth. He was quiet but very observant, which he proved with his next question.

“What happened with you and ole girl back in the classroom?”

“Oh, just a difference of opinion. I need to stop letting her get under my skin.”

“You want me to beat her up for you?”

I looked over at him and saw that he had a smile on his face. I hoped he was kidding; with Timmy you can never tell.

“It’s nothing I can’t take care of.” But I couldn’t help but wonder what Noreen had meant by her last statement to me.

“I see you and Shanda have become friends,” I said casually.

“Yeah, she’s been tutorin’ me in geometry,” he said, looking down at his Nikes.

Yeah, I’ll just bet she has
, I thought, and looked away so he wouldn’t see me smiling.

“I just want to make sure I’m ready. You think I’ll be ready for the real test soon?”

The anxious uncertainty in his voice almost broke my heart. “The only thing you really need to work on is your geometry,” I told him honestly. “I’d like to see you score two hundred and fifty points on your next practice test. Once you’ve done that, you should be good to go.”

I was rewarded with a big smile that instantly eclipsed my encounter with Noreen and reminded me of why I loved my job so much.

Too bad I wasn’t able to hold on to that feeling after our staff meeting later that afternoon. Dorothy Burgess, the literacy program’s director and my boss, announced that she was taking an emergency leave of absence. Her elderly mother, who lived in Michigan, had broken her hip and needed someone to care for her. Dorothy would be out for at least six weeks, possibly longer. Because of her thirty years of teaching experience, Noreen Reardon would be in charge in Dorothy’s absence.

Oh, hell no!

“Kendra, you better not let that old white woman run you out of a job you love!” said my grandmother, Estelle Mays, over dinner that evening. I had stopped by to have a quick bite to eat with the woman I’ve always called Mama. Not Granny, Grandma, Grandmother, and certainly not Estelle…Mama. She wouldn’t answer to anything else even when her own children addressed her.

“I just know she’s going to try and make my life miserable.” I wound a forkful of spaghetti and took a bite, savoring the tomato and basil sauce. I’m a woman who enjoys her food.

“Can’t you talk to Dorothy about her? Tell her what’s been going on?”

“No, Mama,” I said adamantly. “She’s gone already, and besides, I’m not going to go whining to Dorothy over a clash of personalities. It’s not my style.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Your style is to say nothing, keep everything bottled up inside, and seethe in silence until things get so tense you’re ready to burst a blood vessel. You’re gonna end up making yourself sick if you don’t learn to express your feelings, girl.”

“Well, I don’t think Noreen would like how I express my feelings for her. It would probably involve me bringing a gun to work.”

Mama stopped eating, fork midway to her mouth, and stared at me in shock like I’d just sprouted an extra limb.

“That ain’t funny, Kendra. Especially in light of that poor girl getting shot Friday. And if I recall, it wasn’t too long ago that you were staring down the barrel of a gun. Don’t you let anybody hear you talkin’ like that either or you won’t have to worry about that woman at work ’cause they’ll fire your butt!”

She was right, of course, and I shut up and finished my food.

Later that night, I was soaking in a hot bubble bath when the phone rang. I reached for the cordless sitting on the floor next to the tub.

“Hello.”

“Hey, baby.” It was Carl. Things were looking up.

“Hello, there. I was hoping you would call. I miss you. How’s John?”

“No change. It’s not looking too good for him. I’m really worried about Monica. She’s a mess.” He sounded tired.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I wish I could be there with you.”

“Me, too. How are things going with you?”

“Just fine,” I lied. I didn’t feel like ruining our conversation by mentioning my problems at work. I knew that I should confide in him. The one sore spot in our relationship was my inability to share my problems with him. Carl had hinted on more than one occasion that he felt like I didn’t need him. It wasn’t true. It’s just that I’d never been good at crying on anyone’s shoulder.

“So, tell me how much you miss me,” he said. I proceeded to tell him in great detail, using my softest, sexiest voice and not failing to mention that I was wet and soapy.

“Damn, baby, I wish I was there,” he said breathlessly.

“And if you were here what would
you
be doing?” I asked. I lay back in the hot, fragrant water and let Carl’s deep, husky voice carry me away from my troubles.

W
ith Dorothy gone, Noreen took full advantage of her newfound authority. We were now required to give her copies of our lesson plans for her stamp of approval, which she only gave after lengthy revisions. She had weekly staff meetings planned. We also had a list of tasks we were supposed to complete during the two-hour break between the morning and afternoon sessions. Gone was the laid-back atmosphere we were used to under Dorothy’s supervision. Suddenly, Noreen didn’t seem so nice and old-fashioned to Rhonda. I was relishing this as much as I was resenting Noreen’s micromanagement. Rhonda also felt that she should have been left in charge since she’d been working at the center for almost ten years. But Dorothy was gone before anyone could protest her decision.

“Give a person a little power and they just don’t know how to act,” said Rhonda bitterly. We were cleaning out the supply closet, one of our tasks.

“What happened to ‘She’s really nice when you get to know her. She’s just from another generation’?” I couldn’t resist rubbing her nose in it a little.

“Oh, shut up,” she said, tossing an eraser at me and missing.

“Well, I’ll tell you this: Cleaning this closet out is one thing. But if she thinks I’m gonna start sweeping floors and dusting, she can forget it. Nowhere in my job description does it say I’m supposed to clean this place.”

“You got that right,” said Rhonda.

“Attendance seems to be down a little these past few days,” I commented.

In fact, I hadn’t seen Timmy Milton in class that morning, which really surprised me. He’d taken his practice test the day before and I knew he was anxious for his score. He’d scored two hundred and sixty-five points. More than the two hundred and fifty points that we required in order for students to take the real GED exam. Shanda had also been absent. I just hoped they hadn’t had a lovers’ spat and stayed away to avoid each other.

“Noreen’s probably scaring them away. Can you believe she’s trying to keep the students from interacting with each other and from talking to us if it’s not school-related? This isn’t kindergarten. These are adults. Next thing you know she’ll be trying to get them to take naps and have snack time,” Rhonda said.

We both laughed.

“Excuse me, ladies,” said a voice behind us. I turned around and found myself looking straight into the eyes of Detective Trish Harmon. Talk about someone I never figured on seeing again.

Trish Harmon and I had become acquainted several months ago during a murder investigation. To say Detective Harmon and I didn’t see eye-to-eye was like saying people in hell were a little warm and thirsty. Her mannishly short graying hair, severe black pantsuit, and neutral expression instantly brought back memories I’d been trying to forget about for months. I noticed what looked like a flake of dandruff on Harmon’s lapel. So, she was human, after all. Well, just barely. Her partner, Charles Mercer, was standing behind her. Detective Mercer was florid, overweight, terminally rumpled, friendly, and as opposite from his partner as he could get. I nodded at Mercer and received a smile in return.

As much as I wanted to ignore Trish Harmon completely, Mama’s a stickler for manners and I knew she would put a foot in my behind if she got wind of me being intentionally rude to a member of the law enforcement community. So, with great effort, I flashed a friendly smile at the odd couple.

“This is a surprise, Detectives. What can we do for you?”

It was Harmon who answered. “Miss Clayton, we’re here to ask you a few questions about one of your students. A young man by the name of Timothy Milton.”

“Timmy? What about him, is something wrong?” I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.

“When was the last time you saw Timothy Milton?” asked Mercer, walking up to stand beside his partner.

“He was in class yesterday morning.” I looked from one to the other but neither of them was giving away a thing.

“Was he in class this morning?” Harmon’s laserlike stare unnerved me.

“No, he wasn’t. Will you please tell me what this is about? Is he in any trouble?”

“We just need to ask Mr. Milton a few questions regarding a murder investigation. If you see him please have him contact us.” Harmon held out her card, which I snatched out of her hand — so much for my manners — then she turned and walked out of the room. Mercer followed her after giving us an apologetic smile.

“Boy, she has all the warmth and personality of a day-old corpse,” said Rhonda.

I didn’t comment. I was too worried about why the police were looking for Timmy Milton and why he hadn’t come to class.

I headed over to Estelle’s after I got off from the literacy center. I thought I remembered seeing Timmy’s name on the schedule for that afternoon. Estelle’s was bustling with its usual mix of students, staff, and faculty from Kingford College, each group keeping a watchful eye on the others. Secretaries took note of which administrator had how many glasses of wine with lunch; instructors noticed which students hadn’t come to their class but were hanging out at Estelle’s; and everyone watched who was there with whom. Since the day it had opened almost six years ago, Estelle’s was the place to be. What once was a dress shop and dance studio had been transformed into a stylish restaurant complete with exposed brick walls and black-and-white tiled floors on the first floor, and a bar that had live music on the weekends on the second. My uncle Alex had opened the restaurant after being laid off from his factory job after twenty years.

This afternoon, Joy Owens was hostessing. Joy was not the hostess with the mostess. If you were looking for service with a smile, Joy was not your girl. She was all of four foot eleven and looked like a kid. But Joy was twenty-one and a senior art major at Kingford College. She was very talented even though, to me, most of her work looked like something out of a schizophrenic’s nightmare. In fact, she had a new painting on display in the restaurant. This one showed a creature with the body of a winged, white horse and the head of a bull with a dead cat in its mouth. It was hanging, appropriately, in the men’s restroom, causing countless men who’d had one too many to miss the urinals as they stared at it. Alex was about to move it to his office because the cleaners were complaining about cleaning piss off the walls.

I watched Joy seat a young couple and waited for her at the hostess desk. She was walking with a slight limp, testament to a serious accident she’d had four months ago. She didn’t look pleased to see me waiting for her. But then again, Joy never looked pleased. She smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, cursed like a sailor, and had all the social grace of a doorknob. I guess you could say Joy had issues.

“Have you seen Timmy, Joy?” I never bothered with niceties with Joy.

“Nah, I ain’t seen the muthafucka. And if you see him, tell him to get his ass in here! I don’t appreciate havin’ to do his job for him!” She grabbed a rubber tub from a cart behind the hostess station and started busing a vacated table. I watched her haphazardly toss plates, glasses, and cutlery into the tub and halfheartedly wipe the table off, leaving crumbs and debris behind, and I cringed.

I walked back to the kitchen in search of Alex and encountered Grace Douglas, who cooked at the restaurant part-time, instead. She smiled when she saw me. Grace was a sweetheart most of the time but if you tried to give her grief, she’d cut you a new butt hole. She was the only person I knew who scared Joy.

“Hey, girl! What’s going on?”

“Nothin’ much, Grace. Is Alex around?”

“I think he and Gwen went to the market. Anything I can help you with?”

“Have you seen Timmy around?”

“Sure haven’t. Saw him in here last night, though, with some cute little black girl with braids. They looked real cozy.”

It had to have been Shanda. Maybe she knew where he was. I could have just called his house but I knew his mother worked third shift at a factory and slept during the day. I didn’t want to bother her, especially with something like this, until I had talked to Timmy.

“Do you know if he called in?”

“Not that I know of, honey. Is everything okay?”

I sure hoped so.

I headed over to the registrar’s office at Kingford College. I knew that Shanda lived at home instead of on campus. I didn’t know her address, but knew who could tell me. Myra Hampton was Gwen’s best friend and had worked in the records office at Kingford College for twenty years. If anyone could tell me where Shanda lived it was Myra.

Kingford College was a small liberal arts college with an enrollment of about fifteen hundred students. The tuition was so high it was no wonder Shanda lived at home. The records office was located in Tyler Hall, a gray three-story stone building that used to be the college president’s house back in the thirties. It now housed the records, counseling, and cashier’s offices.

It was a beautiful day, so I ditched my car and walked over to campus. Students were taking advantage of the sunshine and were camped out on blankets on the college green studying and socializing. I watched a group of students headed into Floyd Library, which was right next to Tyler Hall, and spotted Shanda heading down the library steps. I called out to her and she looked over at me for a second before turning on her heel and quickly walking off to the parking lot. I almost went after her but decided it might be better to try to catch her at home. She obviously wasn’t sick. So, why hadn’t she come to class and why was she avoiding me?

It had been a long time since I’d been in Tyler Hall but it hadn’t changed a bit. The same cracked blue linoleum on the floors. The same narrow halls and beige walls covered in bulletin boards, and the same smell of coffee, disinfectant, and stale cigarette smoke even though no smoking was allowed in any of the buildings on campus anymore. I found the records office and went in. Myra sat behind a long, age-scarred wooden counter and had the phone cradled against her shoulder as she frowned at her computer screen. When she looked up and saw me, she gestured for me to wait a minute while she ended her call.

Myra Hampton had been Gwen’s running buddy since high school. But where Gwen was statuesque, loud, and fun-loving. Myra was more reserved, petite, and almost prissy. She wore her hair in the same short, feathered seventies flip she had worn in high school. Gwen tried repeatedly to bring her best friend’s fashion sense into the nineties without much success. And if Myra knew Gwen let it slip to me that she had met her new boyfriend, nicknamed Bone, no less, through the prison’s pen pal Web site, she’d die of embarrassment.

“Well, ain’t this a surprise. You here to register for a class?”

“Oh, no. Not me. My college days are behind me and I want to keep them a fond memory.” I knew Carl’s mother had a different opinion but she could stick those graduate catalogs she was having sent to me up her behind.

“You still working at the literacy center?”

“Yes. Actually, that’s why I came by. I needed to ask you a favor. Is it possible for you to give me the address of one of the students here? She’s one of our volunteers at the center and I need to talk to her.”

“Sounds kinda serious. Who is it?”

“Her name is Shanda Kidd.”

“Shanda? What’s little Miss Perfect done?” Myra asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You know Shanda?” I was a sucker for good gossip and Myra looked like she could give good gossip.

“Not her so much as her mother. I went to high school with Shanda’s mother, Bonita. We used to be friends ’til she got involved with that church, Holy Cross. She changed after she started going there. Suddenly I wasn’t good enough for her. Got real uppity and would only spend time around people from her church. Even married one of the deacons. She never let Shanda play with other kids, thought she was too good to be around just any old kids. She was only allowed to be around relatives or kids from the church. You havin’ a problem with Shanda?”

“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to check on her. She wasn’t at the center today.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bonita talked her out of working there. I know she couldn’t be happy with Shanda being around people she probably thinks are sinners and losers. Here,” she said, handing me a slip of paper. “This is the address, but don’t be surprised if Bonita won’t let you through the front door.”

I went back to the restaurant to get my car and mooch a sandwich from the kitchen. Timmy still hadn’t turned up. Gwen and Alex were back from the market and arguing, as usual.

“Okay, Alex, if you want to serve your customers these little hard-ass plums, you go right ahead. Just don’t come cryin’ to me when someone sues you over a broken tooth!”

“There’s nothing wrong with these plums, Gwen. They’re for the plum sauce, not to eat as is. You’d know that if you knew how to cook.” Alex never raised his voice. He was much too laid-back for that. He managed to make his displeasure known by the way his nostrils flared. When he got mad he looked like a pissed-off horse.

“Well, I may not know how to cook in the kitchen, but I know how to whip up a feast for your skinny behind in the bedroom! And let’s see how long it is before you taste any of this again!” Gwen smacked her own behind and stormed out of the kitchen. None of us was fazed, especially Alex. Scenes like this were a regular occurrence where Gwen was concerned. I’d always thought Gwen would have made a great actress. She had an overdeveloped flair for the dramatic, not to mention enough clothes, wigs, and makeup to outfit an entire theater troupe.

“You working tonight?” Alex asked.

“Nope. Just came by to see if Timmy was around. You seen him today?”

“Why? Has he done something?” Alex had been more than willing to give Timmy a job at the restaurant provided he walked the straight and narrow. But if there were any indications that he was using again, he’d be out of a job. I didn’t know what was going on, so I kept quiet about the police coming to the center.

“No. He passed his practice test and I know how anxious he is for his score. I just wanted to let him know the good news, that’s all.”