The Orange Houses (13 page)

“Oh God, Jimmi, please, no.” Mom took his hand.

“By now I recognize him. He's that old dude works folks outside the supermarket with a beggar's cup, way lost junkie. The nurse come up to him, tell him she gonna call security if he don't leave, she warned him the last time, ‘No more methadone for you tonight,' like that. He ain't listening to her, his eyes on me as he's backing away. I'm yelling at him, ‘Yeah, course she's legal,' but it's too late. He's nodding, sad eyes desperate, on a scramble for the exit. He's one of them dudes always dialing 555-TIPS for reward money to raise cash for a score.”

NaNa said, “Mmm. God save us. Mmm.”

“Help me, Mik.”

“Jimmi.” Mik wiped the sweat from his face.

“Get me out of here, kid. Set me free.” His eyelids fluttered. “If . . . I'm riding my skateboard, banging my sweet chords, rappin' like a street lord, Lord my sweet Lord, I ain't
ig
nored, this day a blue day, the essence of a true day, I'm riding, I'm riding, I'm flying . . .” He drifted to sleep.

 

That Friday was the day before what she was told would be her last time with Fatima. She had pled guilty and agreed to immediate expulsion to avoid fines and prison time.

Mik gathered the kids from the VA class and more than a few vets at the hospital basketball court. “We're gonna make a nice good-bye for Fatima. Something that'll last a while for when y'all shoot hoops, help you remember her maybe.” She drew outlines onto the wall with Magic Marker and directed everyone where and how to fill them in. After a while the kids had to leave, but the vets stayed until the mural was done just before midnight. Mik had taken pictures of the kids and vets painting the wall. After everyone was gone, she took pictures of the finished mural.

She went home and downloaded the pictures. The hours passed too quickly as she cropped and printed the photos and pasted them into a book. She wrote captions beneath the photos, highlights from the students' good-bye notes.

Some time after dawn, Mom's hands rested on Mik's shoulders.

“Ready?”

Mik didn't say.

The walls were painted glossy yellow, the chipped floor tiles too. The room was too big for the small table and two chairs. The sun shined hard through big windows. She squinted south through the glare. Behind the office buildings was the Statue of Liberty.

Fatima could see no more than the tip of the torch, washed out against the too blue sky.

The door opened. The guard explained that she could see only one visitor at a time. Mom came in, said, “Oh girl—”

“Mom, this is nothing, what will happen next,” Fatima said. “Please, do not worry.”

“But what will you do?”

“I have so many friends, Mom. They in the camps will rejoice at my homecoming. With the sign my sister Mik taught me, they will ask me to lead a new school. There are many who will be eager to know what I have learned here. This is a remarkable opportunity for me. I will send you many letters and tell you of my progress.”

“Fatima, my child.”

Mik took out her old aids, put in her new ones. She didn't turn them on.

Mom came out looking weary, but she straightened up with a bright face when she saw Mik. She nodded that Mik should go in.

Fatima waited by the window. “Sister Mik.”

Mik nodded.

Fatima signed, THANK YOU FOR BEING MY FRIEND.

Mik pushed the photo book across the table. The guard had checked it for weapons, razor blades.

Fatima opened the book. She took in each picture, each student's good-bye. She turned the page to the last photo, a wide-angle shot of the mural. Newsprint people strolled amongst stars and planets. It lit Fatima up. “What do you call it, this fantastic dream?”

Mik clicked on her new aids. There was a hum, distant plane noise. Closer was the sound of breathing, Fatima's, hers. “If an Ocean.”

Fatima sized up the photo of the painted skyscape, nodded. “Good.” She hugged the book to her. “I must ask you a favor.” Fatima's voice was softer and more delicate than Mik would have imagined.

Mik nodded.

“Every Third?”

“I went by twice, waited, he never came.”

“He must be hiding in the weeds. Try the cat box. Put a few paper mice in it. He likes to bat them around. He will come to you. The cold is upon us. He knows it is time to come inside. Mik, I figured it out. The project Jimmi said we were working on? The most beautiful thing in the world? He meant friendship. Sister, this is a lovely country. You have peace here. One needs only a little food, a warm place to sleep and dream, and someone with whom she can share a laugh. I was most fortunate to know these three beauties. They will last forever.” She worked up her fantastic smile. “Besides, I will be back.”

“Promise me.”

“I have a present for you too.” She slid two tiny silver suns across the table, rays curled. “Earrings, but you will need to put them on posts. I was not allowed to have metal in my room this morning. They are only folded Wrigley's wrappers, but do you like them?”

Mik held them to her lobes. “How they look?”

“Now they are pretty.”

The door opened. “Sorry, but it's time.” The guard stepped outside, left the door open.

“Sister Mik, when I was a child, my mother took us on a long journey and we swam in the Nile. The winds blew the grasses for miles, and from the grasses a little bird sang my name. I have known such things, just as I know we will see each other again, okay? I will come back with my sister, and we will get all that paint from the ghost house and paint the street a rainbow.” She laughed as she signed HELLO, GOOD-BYE, I LOVE YOU. She hugged Mik quickly, broke away and left the room fast without looking back.

Out of Newark, the plane flew east. She imagined her sister welcoming her at the camp gates, her arms wide, fists raised in unbeatable glee.

Over the PA system, the captain said, “If you look to your left, you'll see the Statue of Liberty facing us.”

Fatima watched until the plane was closest to Liberty, and then she closed her eyes so her Mother of Exiles would never fade into the distance.

She studied what she and Fatima had painted over the abandoned garage. Already the taggers had hit Liberty with a beard and turned the torch into a screw you salute.

 

She found the key under the mat but didn't need it. Fatima had left the door open.

She readied the cat box with paper mice, threw in some cheese. At sunset the rickety cat came back. He bunched himself between Mik's feet. He made weak attempts to scratch her but gave up fast and let himself be put into the box.

Mik looked around the room for anything else she should take. Fatima had nothing, only the newspaper dolls.

Mik left and left the door open for the wind to take the dolls.

On the way home she passed the bodega. FOR RENT in the window, the joint was stripped. The only trace of Joe Knows was the store's sign, Tranquilito's. Somebody was taping flyers to the glass: DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU COULD MAKE 5-10K/MONTH WORKING AS AN INFORMATION SPECIALIST FOR THE US DEPT OF IMMIGRATION?

Downhill by the highway an old woman sold newspapers from Fatima's spot.

 

The next day Mik went to the hospital. Jimmi was AWOL.

She convinced Gale to go with her down into Jimmi's cave. Their flashlights found Mik's phone but no sign of Jimmi.

She tried the VA. “Nope,” George, the head volunteer dude, said. “Hey, you did a good job that time, with the kids. How'd you like to take over Fatima's class?”

Mik stuck her hands into her back pockets, shrugged. “Sounds good.”

 

The next Wednesday she was hanging with Gale in the school yard. She scratched her arm where Shanelle cut her. Sha was back in juvie for aggravated assault. The Gang Intelligence Unit had busted up her crew. She wouldn't be bothering Mik anytime soon.

“Any word from Fatima?” Gale said.

“Phones are all messed up over there. She'll write soon. She will.”

Gale nodded. “You all right?”

“Better when I'm around you.”

“That sounds like a marriage proposal,” he said.

“In your craziest dream.”

“That's right.”

The rain stopped at twilight. Mom took the ice packs off Mik's ears, pierced the lobes and helped Mik get Fatima's earrings into the holes.

Mik checked herself in the mirror, the twin silver suns at her cheeks. “Big ears I got,” she said.

“You're beautiful,” Mom said.

She went to show NaNa, but she was asleep on the couch.

Mik went to her room, sat cross-legged on her bed. She thumbed through the pictures on her phone—goofy snaps of Fatima on the Statue of Liberty ferry.

Outside the window, thunderheads kicked across the sky as fast as the cars on the highway.

The cat's purring was nice in her new hearing aids. Across the breezeway some old dude was playing sax in his kitchen. Folks argued, TVs screamed commercials, police helicopters chucked. The world was loud, no doubt about that. She thought maybe she could get used to it.

Mom watched her from the door.

“Yo, Ma, you think you can see your way to playing that guitar?”

To tune it took a minute. Mom dropped her hand and a fuzzy chord, winced. A few minutes later she was strumming. She didn't sound great. She sounded good.

Tamika Sykes heard it clearly: laughter, her mother's, her own.

Laughter out on the strip, a lone voice . . .

Down in the street, his filthy clothes rippling in the wind, Jimmi Sixes wandered into the courtyard on shaky legs, his face scabbed. He laughed at the night. “The highway's clanging, wind's fingers jangling, people be moving, everybody grooving, all the world flowing, hush-n-rush blowing, I-87, road to all heavens, freeway lights passion, cars trucks flashing, sound of waves crashing.” He clapped his hands, yelled to no one, “Yeah, baby. That's how we bang it out here in the Orange Houses.”

“I better call the ambulance.” Mom put the phone to her ear. “How that Jimmi does go on and on.”

“Yeah,” Mik said. “Will you listen to him?”

Kate, for your kindness, generosity, vast knowledge, the most gorgeous notes and your all-around magnificence. You are too wonderful, and I am too lucky to get to write for you. Thank you for taking these stories—and me—under your wing.

 

Lauri, aka Ms. Amazing, for your remarkable and formative notes and for making Dial such a beautiful place to be. You are too good to me.

 

Shelley, Liz, Alisha and Jess for the time you took to read drafts and give brilliant notes; Regina, Jasmin and Kristin for your absolutely inspiring work; Steve, Scottie, Emily, Julianne and Donne for backing the book; Penny, Michael, Anne and all the great folks at Text for your enthusiasm.

 

Kirby, consigliere and true pal, Richard Abate, Mike Harriot, David Vigliano, Lynn Pleshette and Rowan Riley.

 

Scott Smith, the most awesome writer, mentor and generous soul.

The lovely Nan Mercado, Richie Partington, David Levi than and Angela Carstensen for all you do for YA readers.