The Other Half of My Heart (13 page)

“Okay. Guess you’re not there. Talk to you later.” Her voice faltered, as if tripping on a crack in the sidewalk. “Say hi to Bessie Coleman for me.”

She came out of the stall. Keira took Minni’s hand and peered at her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Minni nodded. She washed her hands quickly, trying not to see her red hair or pale skin in the mirror.

At the table, the waitress was setting down their food. Keira slid into the booth behind her French dip sandwich. When the waitress left, Grandmother Johnson turned to Minni. “Never mind that ignorant Hogg-Graff woman. She’s obviously blind if she couldn’t see the black in you.”

Minni studied the pickles on her plate. “Yes, ma’am.”

“My grandmother was as fair-skinned as any white person, and she was black all her life.”

Minni looked up at the mention of her great-great-grandmother, who had also been a Minerva—another
reason Grandmother Johnson had insisted that her eldest granddaughter receive The Name. Minni didn’t remember ever hearing about the woman’s skin color. “Your grandma looked white?”

Grandmother Johnson pursed her lips and nodded. “But as the saying goes, ‘One drop of black blood…’”

“Could we see a picture of her?” Minni asked.

Grandmother Johnson glanced at her food, then rubbed at a spot on her blouse just below the hollow in her neck. She pulled out her rectangular gold locket and released the tiny latch. It popped open.

Minni and Keira leaned across the table to get a better look.

Maybe the black-and-white photo accentuated it, but this lady definitely looked more white than black—possibly part American Indian, with her squared-off jaw and high cheekbones. Thick black bangs swept across her prominent forehead, and a perfectly round mole nuzzled the front edge of one of her dark eyebrows. There wasn’t a hint of a smile anywhere on her face.

Minni sat again, wondering about this great-great grandmother she had never met but who apparently had been of enough importance to Grandmother Johnson that she wore her around her neck.

Their grandmother returned the locket to its place beneath her blouse. “She was a strict woman, and
proud
. Oh, was she proud. Made most of her clothes, and she was always dressed to the nines.” She rested her hands on either side of her plate. “She raised me in church, taught me about
saving money, wouldn’t even buy a
thimble
on credit. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today had it not been for this lady.” She touched the spot on her chest again.

Minni and Keira glanced at each other. Minni knew what her sister was thinking. She was thinking the same thing.
Am I glad I never had to meet her!

“She was a domestic worker all her life—spent thirty years cleaning the very home I live in now.”

“She used to clean your house?” Keira asked.

“It wasn’t mine then, of course. Or hers. It belonged to a white man—Old Man Buchanan. Buck, she came to call him. She took the bus twenty miles from Durham to Raleigh and was his live-in housekeeper five days a week. They had a rather unconventional arrangement. He was a widower without any children. When he died, he willed her the house. When she died, it became mine.” She sipped her iced tea. “I went to live with her in Durham when I was seven.”

Minni felt her forehead bunch. “Where were your parents?”

Grandmother Johnson’s lips pursed, and for a moment Minni didn’t think she would answer. “My father disappeared mysteriously when I was only two. My mother was sure there was foul play—whites angered by my father’s unwillingness to submit to the laws of the day. I’ve been told he was quite the rebel. Then my mother died suddenly, and my grandmother took me in. My grandfather had already passed on.”

“Oh,” Minni said, because she didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t known any of this family history.

Grandmother Johnson laughed suddenly, loud and harsh, almost like a bark. “Seemed like no matter how tall I got, my grandmother was always taller. I finally realized she was buying higher heels to stay ahead of me. I don’t think she gave up until she was seventy-one. I was eighteen and starting college at North Carolina State.” She gazed out the window next to their booth. “I loved her as if she were my mother. That is what she was, after all.”

Thank goodness nothing had ever happened to Mama and Daddy. The thought of having to live with Grandmother Johnson for good made Minni feel fidgety inside, as if a colony of red ants were swimming in her bloodstream.

“When she got sick, I wanted to quit school and care for her full-time, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She was always pushing me to excel academically because
that
, she said, would be my ticket to independence. I can hear her voice as if she were sitting right here. ‘Minerva, you’re not a natural beauty, but you’re
smart
, and you’re going to use that brain of yours to get ahead. You’ll be a domestic worker over my dead body.’”

“How did your mom die?” Keira asked.

“Oh, now, we don’t want to get into all of that.” Grandmother Johnson opened an orange plastic vial from her purse, shook out a small pill and swallowed it with a sip of iced tea. She lifted a forkful of tuna salad. “Now eat up. We have some serious work to do before this
pageant
begins.”

Minni took a bite of hamburger. They had learned more about Grandmother Johnson in the last five minutes than in the last five
years
. She thought of the whirling sprockets in Gigi’s clock. Was it possible that being in North Carolina might actually help her understand better the complicated inner workings of Grandmother Johnson?

B
ack at the house, the chair was still toppled in the yard after the run-in with the dog and their hasty departure. Minni offered to get it.

She stopped next to the chair and glanced over her shoulder. Grandmother Johnson shooed Keira inside. Minni tiptoed across Miss Oliphant’s dry grass to her front walk.

The bag was gone. The porch had been swept. The food dishes sat full and ready to welcome more strays.

The nail still poked from the door—a sharp reminder of the awful thing they had done.

Something nudged her leg and she jumped. A gray cat rubbed its head against her calf. “Oh! Hello there.” Minni bent over and stroked the cat’s side. Its left eye appeared to be sewn shut, but the other shone a brilliant green, the color of algae.

The big purple door creaked open.

Minni froze, barely breathing. Someone stepped onto the porch. “I see you’ve met Billie Holiday.”

Minni looked up into the powdery, pale face of an old woman. Laverna Oliphant? Two gray braids sat pinned atop her head like a bird’s nest. She wore a knee-length purple and white tunic made of swirly African-looking fabric. Intricate woven white appliqué bordered the neckline.

“She’s had some hard knocks, but she’s a fighter. And a sweetie. That one there’s as sweet as sweet tea.”

Billie Holiday…
She was a singer Mama listened to when she painted.

“I’ve taken a special liking to her, I suppose partly because of her bad eye.” The woman pointed to her own right eye. It was cloudy and near-white, as if covered with a thin layer of opal. “Together, though, we’ve got a perfectly good set.”

The cat climbed the steps and snaked around the woman’s skinny ankles and sandaled feet. She lifted the cat in her arms. Did she know who had put that nail in her door? Had she seen them?

“I…I have to go,” Minni stammered, backing away.

“You’re Minerva’s, aren’t you?” The woman beckoned with her hand. “Come on in and have some homemade gingerbread. We’re neighbors now and neighbors should get to know each other.” Her thin lips stretched into a smile.

Minni recalled the gingerbread scent she’d smelled the previous evening. Hadn’t the old woman in “Hansel and Gretel” made gingerbread?
Out of little boys and girls?

“Thank you, but I really have to go. My grandmother
will wonder what happened to me.” She turned and ran, then realized she’d forgotten the chair, went back and picked it up, and ran again as fast as she could manage.

In the kitchen, Grandmother Johnson popped up from behind the open refrigerator door, holding a carton of buttermilk.
Drat
. “What in the world took you so long?”

Minni tried to hide her huffing. “Sorry.”

“All right, then. Go sit at the table.” Grandmother Johnson moved toward the three glasses on the counter.

Keira sat at the table looking disgusted. Apparently she already knew what was coming.

“I met the neighbor—Miss Oliphant,” Minni whispered, setting the chair down.

Keira’s eyes got big, but there was no time to talk about it now.

Grandmother Johnson set a glass in front of each of them, then sat at the end of the table. “Drink up. You need something to settle your stomachs after that lunch.”

“But I’m so full,” Keira complained. “If I drink that, I’ll explode!”

“Has anyone ever told you you can be quite dramatic?” Grandmother Johnson took two small capsules with a sip of buttermilk, then shook out two antacid tablets from a plastic bottle and popped them into her mouth as well.

Minni smiled, remembering Mama’s comment that Grandmother Johnson should have gone into theater. Their grandmother was apparently unaware of her own drama queen tendencies.

“Now we must discuss your talent performances.”

Keira sat up, excited. “I’m doing a tumbling routine. It’s one I’ve done before, so it’s all worked out. I designed my costume myself. Mom sewed it for me.”

The wrinkles around Grandmother Johnson’s mouth deepened again. “I’ll need to see the outfit to make sure it is appropriate.”

Keira’s eyes narrowed slightly—probably not enough for Grandmother Johnson to notice, but Minni could tell that her sister was annoyed.

“And you, Minerva?”

“I’m not doing the talent competition. It’s optional.”

Grandmother Johnson shook her head. “Oh, no, no. That will never do. You must maximize your chances of winning. You will enter a talent. I expect you can sing?”

Minni shook her head quickly—she could never stand in front of a crowd and sing. The only person who ever heard her sing was Keira. And not very often. Mostly Minni sang to the ocean.

“What are you good at, then?”

Thanks to Daddy, she was good at playing poker, but she wasn’t about to say that. This past year, she had discovered she was pretty good at badminton, but she had no idea how to turn that into a stage performance, particularly by herself. And she’d already ruled out animal impersonations. She shrugged.

“There must be something you’re good at. What about the clarinet—weren’t you taking lessons?”

“I stopped.”

“And your mother let you, of course.”

“I wasn’t very good, and I wasn’t enjoying it.”

“Enjoyment comes from mastery. It’s difficult to improve if you quit. So what do you enjoy?”

“I like to read.”

“Well, that’s good, but you can’t just stand on the stage and read to yourself.”

“Minni doesn’t like to perform in front of people. It makes her skin get blotchy.” Keira set her elbows on the table.

Grandmother Johnson frowned and shook her finger at Keira’s elbows. “Everyone gets nervous in front of a crowd, but it’s a fear that must be conquered if you want to succeed in life.”

Keira crossed her arms over her stomach. “When she gets that kind of nervous, it makes her pits stink.”

Grandmother Johnson took a deep breath. “That’s why people wear antiperspirant.”

“It also makes her butt sweat. Do they make antiperspirant for that?”

Minni giggled.

“That’s enough,” Grandmother Johnson said sharply.

Minni bit her bottom lip.

“Well, I, for one, refuse to let your abilities go to waste.” Grandmother Johnson’s stomach grumbled as loud as an elephant warning its herd. She stood quickly. “I will be back momentarily. Your buttermilk should be gone by the time I return.”

No problem there
, Minni thought.

“And if you think you can get away with emptying your glasses in the kitchen sink, you underestimate me. If you
hadn’t noticed, the floor creaks.” Grandmother Johnson rushed to the bathroom. The floor groaned under her heavy steps.

“Hand me your glass,” Minni whispered as soon as the bathroom door had shut. She turned in her chair and poured both glasses into the ferns in the window seat.

When Grandmother Johnson appeared, Minni and Keira sat quietly behind their drained glasses. Minni’s hands were folded properly in her lap.

Grandmother Johnson glanced at the table, then walked to the piano in the living room. “I’ve decided. You will sing. Just as your mother did when she competed for Miss Black Pearl.” She flipped up the lid, pulled out the bench and perched on its edge.

When neither Minni nor Keira moved from her seat, Grandmother Johnson eyed them over her shoulder and cleared her throat. Keira rolled her eyes at Minni and they trudged to the piano.

Grandmother Johnson picked out a piece of sheet music from a stack on the piano, opened the folded paper and leaned it against the stand. She put her fingers on the keys and started to play. The notes came out jerky and with a lot of pauses, as if she were an out-of-shape person trying to talk while walking up a long, steep hill.