The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond (9 page)

A
fter dinner that night, Mom showed up at my door and said, “We're going shopping, V . . . c'mon.”

“Shopping?” I love shopping. I grabbed my pack and off we went.

“Does Roxanne live in a house or an apartment?” I asked as we climbed in the car.

“A house. In an older, very charming, interesting neighborhood,” Mom said as we pulled out of the driveway.

“Good interesting or bad interesting?” I asked. “Is Roxanne poor or something?”

“No, it's a very nice neighborhood, mostly black. It used to be the center of a lot of African American cultural life in Los Angeles. It's the house your father grew up in. It isn't modern like ours, but . . . she's hardly poor.”

Remembering the price tags I'd seen on her artwork, I said, “I didn't think so, because her paintings sure cost a lot.”

“But some artists only sell a few paintings a year,” Mom explained.

“Then maybe we should buy one of her paintings,” I suggested.

“Maybe we should.”

“Just not that labyrinth mind one . . . it was scary.”

Mom laughed and said, “I always looked forward to seeing his family's home, but it was never to be. He said he'd practically grown up in an art gallery. I'm glad you'll get to see it.”

“Maybe you will, too, someday,” I told her.

“Maybe,” she replied.

At the mall, I got to pick out two dresses and a new bathing suit and a purple tank top with matching shorts. I love purple. Then we went to the shoe store and I got new sandals.

“Are you buying all this stuff for my trip? I'm only going to be gone for a week.”

Mom took my hand. “I want it to be very special for you, V, that's all.”

So do I.

T
hough being in charge of a hotel seems like it would be fun, whenever I go to the airport, I begin to think working there would be okay, too, especially if I got to fly to a lot of different places. And when I say fly, I don't mean being a flight attendant, I mean being a pilot.

I knew there were female pilots because we'd taken some flights where a woman was the captain, and I'd been on others where black men were the pilots, but I'd never seen an African American female pilot.

“Are there black women who fly planes?”

“Of course,” Mom replied. “Remember that book you read about the pilot Elizabeth Coleman?”

I did. “But that book was about almost a century ago. I mean black women who fly planes now . . . and big planes that carry lots of people, not little airplanes like in that book.”

“Oh, you mean commercial pilots.”

“I suppose . . . I was thinking flying airplanes might be cool, and I was just wondering if they would let me become that or not.”

Mom's face got the insect-sting look and she abruptly stopped walking, so I stopped with her. “They? Who's they?” she asked.

“The people in charge of stuff. I mean, for a long time they didn't let black people do certain jobs even though they were smart enough. Remember why Martin Luther King and his friends had to march to Washington and stuff? And it's a whole new century and all Yaz talks about is being the first African American female to win an Olympic ice skating gold medal. Mr. Kilroy says that after all these years she should at least be the second or maybe even the third. He says certain things are different if you're black.”

“Certain things are different if you're black,” she repeated, but it wasn't a question.

“Yep, like Yaz's mom is always telling her she has to work harder at ice skating because of her color. She's says there's still prejudice, but most people try to pretend there isn't. And I think maybe she's right, because sometimes people look at me and you funny, but mostly older people. So I don't want to try to be something if I'm going to have to work harder because I'm black.”

“Violet Diamond, haven't I taught you that you can be anything you want to be? And I'm certain there are African American female commercial pilots. There have to be. You can research that on your computer when you get back home.”

At that point, Mom took my hand and we started walking again toward the terminal.

“Or maybe I can look it up online when I'm with Roxanne. She has to have a computer, right?”

Again, Mom stopped walking, and this time she kind of yanked my hand. I felt like a dog on a leash. “I think you should call her a grandmother name instead of Roxanne. It doesn't sound very respectful.”

“Hmm . . . I think I'll figure that out with her. I mean, I know I don't want to call her Gam, and Grandma doesn't really fit her. I'll let you know when I get back. Can we go now before I miss the plane?”

Roxanne Diamond was waiting at the security checkpoint. Unlike the greeting we got at the gallery, Roxanne rushed over, smiling. “I thought maybe you weren't coming.”

“My mom wouldn't do that. When she makes a promise, she always keeps it,” I proudly told her.

“That's good to know,” Roxanne replied.

Before we got in the security line I hugged my mom tightly and I grabbed my carry-on case.

“I'll take good care of her,” Roxanne promised my mom, patting her shoulder. They both had tears in their eyes.

Just as we got to the terminal, a last call to board for Los Angeles came over the loudspeaker. “That's our flight,” Roxanne said.

I scurried toward the doors that led to the plane. “C'mon, Roxanne!” I yelled.

E
ven though she was my grandmother, because I'd only met her twice before, it was like being with a stranger.

Sitting in the seat beside me, Roxanne kept staring at me.

When is this plane going to take off?

“I'm not trying to be impolite, but you're sort of making me feel like a zoo animal,” I whispered.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered back.

The engine began to roar and the pilot started talking and when the flight attendants gave their safety talk, I memorized the exits.

“Do you think it'd be fun to fly a plane?” I asked her.

“It's lots of fun, Violet,” she replied.

“No way . . . you flew an airplane?”

“Yep. I took a few lessons in a two-seater plane a long time ago.”

I studied her face to see if she was lying and decided she wasn't. “Wow. Did you get a pilot's license?”

“No, my uncle had been a Tuskegee Airman and he used to take me up with him when I'd go to visit him during the summer. So I suppose flying is in my blood.”

“A real Tuskegee Airman, seriously?”

No wonder I like airplanes. It must be in my blood, too.

“So you know who they were?”

I nodded. “Of course, we learned about it in school. I even know about Elizabeth Coleman, the first black woman to get an international pilot's license, because I bought a book about her at the book fair.”

“I see,” she said.

“So is the Tuskegee Airman guy still alive?”

“Yep,” she replied. This was the second time she'd said it. And I thought I was the only person who said
yep.

“Do you think maybe he'll take us flying?”

“His flying days are long gone, Violet . . . He lives in Memphis with his daughter, and he's almost a hundred years old and in a wheelchair.”

Right then, the plane started moving and soon we were ready for takeoff. Faster and faster it went until finally we were off the ground. “This is my favorite part,” I told her.

“Mine too.”

I gazed out the window at the city below, and soon we were soaring. I love soaring.

During the flight, I started the what-name-I-should-call-you conversation.

“Mom thinks I should call you a grandmother name instead of Roxanne,” I confided.

“What do you think?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “Don't know. Did you know that Roxanne means ‘star'?”

“Yep.”

“Do you always say
yep
?”

She smiled and nodded.

“Because I do, too . . . anyway . . . back to what I should call you.”

“I did a little digging and came up with the name Bibi. What do you think of that?” she replied.

“Bibi?” I'd never heard anyone call their grandma that before. “How do you spell it?”

“B-i-b-i. It's Swahili for ‘grandmother,'” she replied.

“Swahili?” I'd done some research about Swahili, and this seemed like a good time to impress her. “There are only five countries where Swahili is the official language. TDUCK.”

“TDUCK?” Roxanne repeated.

“Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, the Comoros, and Kenya. TDUCK.” The pleased look she gave me let me know I could instantly add her name to my
people who think Violet Diamond is incredibly smart
list.

“You're very smart, aren't you? Your dad was very smart.”

The last time she'd talked about my dad, it had made her cry. Quickly, I made a silent prayer-wish that she wouldn't start boohooing, and when I glanced up at her face, her eyes were dry.
Whew.

“So what do you think about calling me Bibi?” she asked.

“Bibi,” I repeated. Just saying it made me smile. “I like it a lot.”

And so Roxanne Kamaria Diamond became my bibi.

• • •

The landing was very un-smooth. The plane skidded and did a couple of hops in the air, and I held my breath.
Please let me live,
I thought. Finally, we came to a stop and I breathed.

“That was a really bad landing,” I told Bibi as we gathered our things.

“Really bad.”

“Don't worry, Bibi. I'll do a better job than that when I'm a pilot.”

T
here was one thing I had to do as soon as I got off the plane—buy postcards, because I'd promised Athena, Yaz, and Daisy. And if I didn't mail them by at least tomorrow, I'd probably be back home by the time they arrived, and that seemed silly.

“I have to buy postcards before we leave,” I told Bibi. “Is that okay?”

“Of course, Violet,” Bibi said as she reached in her purse and took out her wallet.

“It's okay, I have my own money,” I told her, and when I made a beeline to one of the stores, Bibi was right behind me.

Before long, I'd picked out five postcards and a refrigerator magnet. I held up the magnet of the Hollywood sign for Bibi to see. “It's for my mom.”

“I'm sure she'll like it.”

We loaded onto the shuttle bus that was going to take us to the parking lot where she'd left her car, and on the way I noticed a building that looked like a flying saucer had landed in the middle of the airport. “What's that place?” I pointed. “It reminds me of the Space Needle.”

“That's called the Theme Building. It was built in 1961, if I remember correctly. There's a restaurant inside.”

“Can we go there now?” I pleaded.

“I think you need reservations, but I'll call and see,” Bibi said, and reached for her cell phone.

Reservations? That spelled probably expensive. I remembered what Mom had said about some artists not making too much money and said, “Never mind.”

But she was already talking on the phone, and whoever was on the other end must have given her good news, because she got a big smile on her face and said, “The name is Roxanne Diamond. Thank you so much. Yes, fifteen minutes.”

“Lucky us. There was a cancellation,” Bibi told me, and the next thing I knew we were skedaddling off the bus. Towing our suitcases, we took the elevator up into the saucer.

I don't know about Bibi, but I felt pretty excited. Some of the food on the menu was the usual fancy-schmancy restaurant stuff, but then I saw just what I felt like eating, an extra tasty spicy cheeseburger. And that's what I ordered, along with fries and a big glass of lemonade.

Bibi ordered a Cobb salad and mineral water, and for dessert we shared a chocolate lovin' spoon cake, which tasted so good, I wished we'd ordered two.

I watched her as she pulled out her purse to pay the bill and was glad that we look alike, that our skin is almost the same color, that her eyes are as brown as mine. There would be no question marks in people's eyes today.

And as we got up to leave, a smiling brown-skinned man, lady, and girl about my age came in and were led to their table. I heard the girl call the man “Daddy.” The smiling man was holding his daughter's hand.

I wish my daddy was with us.

And he would kiss my forehead the way her daddy just did.

And look at me with love in his eyes.

“Can we go there again?” I asked as Bibi and I climbed back onto the shuttle bus.

“Los Angeles is a big place and there's lots to do, Violet,” she replied.

“Like Disneyland?”
Please please please.

“Like Disneyland.”

“Tomorrow?”

She shook her head. “Tomorrow is Sunday.”

“So?”

“Tomorrow we'll go to church and then we'll have the Diamond Family Sunday Feast,” she informed me.

The way they always do when I get nervous, my insides got squiggly. “Huh? There's more family? But Mom told me there was only you.”

“Same as my mother, I was an only child and what distant family I have left on her side is in New York City.”

“New York City? Can we go there? I really want to go there bad. It's number one on my list of places I want to go to.”

“Someday, Violet . . . but about Sunday dinner,” Bibi explained, “I'm talking about your grandfather's family.”

“But my grandfather's dead, isn't he?”

“Yes, he died years ago, but a few members of his family live in Los Angeles and we take turns hosting the Diamond Family Sunday Feast. Tomorrow's my turn to cook.”

“Will other kids be coming?”

“Only one.”

“My cousin?” I asked.

Bibi answered, “Yep.”

“Awesome.”