The Other Half of My Heart (29 page)

Grandmother Johnson’s eyebrows pinched together tightly, but, amazingly, she didn’t protest. Instead she grabbed a handful of spoons from the hutch in the corner, mumbling under her breath.

Everyone sat at the table, Grandmother Johnson at one end and Mama at the other. Keira and Daddy sat across from Minni and Gigi.

Minni couldn’t believe it was possible for her to feel this way about something Grandmother Johnson had cooked, but she was pretty sure this banana pudding with vanilla wafers was the best thing she had ever tasted. She finished hers quickly, then held the dish under the table so Banjo could lick it clean. The ferns in the window seat caught her eye. They looked much healthier than when they’d arrived. Maybe buttermilk was good for something after all.

They talked and laughed about the pageant, Keira and Minni filling the others in on all the behind-the-scenes drama. Gigi and Grandmother Johnson wanted to know
every
detail. Grandmother Johnson even seemed to forget that Banjo was there. Minni was dying to tell them what a terrible person Alisha was—how she had tripped Keira and
the mean things she’d said—but Keira never uttered a negative word about her, so Minni didn’t, either.

Grandmother Johnson sighed. “I am just so
proud
of you!” She squeezed Keira’s hand, which rested on the table.

Keira smiled. “Thank you.” She slipped her hand out from under their grandmother’s and put it in her lap.

Something bothered Minni about Grandmother Johnson’s praise of Keira. And it wasn’t jealousy. It was the fact that she hadn’t seemed so proud before—before she won Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America.

“You
both
were something else,” Daddy said, shaking his head.

“You sang beautifully, Minni,” Mama said.

“Exquisite!” Gigi agreed. Her spoon clanged against the glass dish as she scraped every last bit of pudding from its sides. Grandmother Johnson frowned at Gigi’s behavior.

Minni looked at Keira. Was this when Grandmother Johnson would finally ask about what had happened to her piano accompaniment?

Gigi’s scoured dish thudded on the table. She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Minerva, that was the best darned banana pudding that has ever passed my lips! If I cooked, I would ask for the recipe. But, as I say, why slave over a hot stove when there’s a Country Kitchen Buffet just ten minutes away?”

Grandmother Johnson’s prune lips twitched, then curved into a small smile. “I appreciate the compliment, Gretchen.” Her eyebrows pulled together sharply as she turned to Minni.

Uh-oh
, Minni thought,
here it comes
.

“I
told
you you could sing. But what on God’s green earth was that horrible racket on my tape?”

Minni looked to Keira for help.

“How did those people botch up my recording? They only had it in their possession for a short time, for heaven’s sake.”

Keira’s eyes popped open.

Minni choked back a laugh and accidentally sucked some saliva into her windpipe. Grandmother Johnson really didn’t
know?
Minni coughed so much, she had to hand Banjo to Gigi and excuse herself from the table. She hid in the bathroom with a pink towel pressed against her face until all her coughing and laughter were gone.

She wiped her watering eyes with the towel. How could their grandmother not know the source of the tape’s sound? Was she
that
blind to herself?

When Minni returned, Grandmother Johnson was going on about Alisha’s grandma. “That Ernestine Russell thinks she’s so high and mighty—she and all her progeny. She’s always putting on airs, bragging about her talented and beautiful granddaughter. We shut her up good tonight, didn’t we?” She smiled at Keira. “I have to say, child, you really surprised me with your superior performance—so articulate, vivacious and well put-together. Stunning, really. You came across
so
intelligently, Keira!”

What?
Surprised? She really hadn’t thought Keira was capable of it!

“That’s because she
is
intelligent, Mother,” Mama said, not sounding very pleased.

Keira’s mouth scrunched to one side. She didn’t seem too happy about Grandmother Johnson’s “affirmations,” either.

Minni’s fingers throbbed. She looked down. She hadn’t realized how hard she was squeezing her hands together.

Yes, Grandmother Johnson was proud of Keira now that she had made her look good in front of Ernestine Russell and others. But what about when she had a fit about her grades? Or when she thought Keira’s hair wasn’t good enough the way it was? Or when she told her she didn’t need to be getting any darker? Had she been proud then?

The need to speak pressed against Minni’s voice box.
Speak up, Minni. Now or never. Tell her she was wrong
.

She had sung before hundreds of strangers. And she had promised her sister that whatever happened, she was with her.

She swallowed. “Have you always been proud of Keira?” she asked quietly. She lifted her chin and raised her voice. “Or is it only now, because she won?”

The room fell silent.

“W
hat?” Grandmother Johnson’s stare bore down on her. “How could you—?”

Mama interrupted. “Perhaps you should consider your response before going further, Mother. Frankly, I’m interested to hear what you have to say.” Mama turned to Minni. “Why do you ask, daughter?”

Keira gazed across the table. The light in her eyes encouraged Minni to continue.

“Well, because sometimes, well, sometimes it doesn’t seem like you
are
proud of Keira”—she looked into their grandmother’s eyes—“just the way she is.”

Grandmother Johnson’s face turned hard. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about. Of course I’m proud of her. I’m proud of both of you.”

Daddy’s arm rested on the back of Keira’s chair. Minni
wanted to run around the table into his safe embrace, but there was no hiding now. Daddy nodded just a little—enough to embolden her to press on.

“Then why do you think my hair is perfectly good, while Keira’s needs to be straightened to be pretty?”

Mama cleared her throat.

“And why did you say Keira didn’t need to be getting any darker? What’s wrong with having dark skin?”

Mama drew in a sharp breath. “I swear, Mother—”

Daddy put a hand on Mama’s arm. Keira’s lips stretched into a satisfied, closed-mouth smile.

Grandmother Johnson sat straight, gripping her armrests. Everyone stared, waiting to hear what she had to say for herself. “There’s nothing
wrong
.…It’s just, there are certain realities…” Her eyes bounced around the table. “It’s—it’s hard to explain,” she faltered.

“Try,” Mama said, her voice more forceful than usual.

“They’re too young.”

“Not too young to have noticed.”

Their grandmother looked defenseless, almost small, as if she had shrunk in her chair. She even looked a little scared. “Grandmother Johnson,” Minni began, “your skin is just as dark—darker—”

Grandmother Johnson cut Minni a look that stopped her from saying more.

Gigi’s chair creaked as she shifted in her seat.

Grandmother Johnson fidgeted with her cloth napkin, rubbing it between her fingers. It took a long time for her to speak. The silent tension was growing unbearable.

Grandmother Johnson’s cheeks and shoulders sagged. She took a deep breath. “I will never forget the first time I came into Raleigh with my grandmother. I was seven—I had only been living with her a few weeks. Uncle Booker took ill and for one reason or another, no one else was available to watch me….” She trailed off, as if trying to remember where everyone had been. “So Grandma brought me along with her to Old Man Buchanan’s.

“When we transferred to the city bus in Raleigh, the driver was cordial and polite. He even addressed my grandmother as Missus Harris. It stood out to me because white people
never
called black people missus or mister. And then he saw me—hiding behind her dress folds, clinging to her skirt, and the expression on his face…well, it was clear as day.”

Grandmother Johnson’s eye twitched and her cheek trembled.

“All the times she had ridden his bus on her way to work, he had thought my grandmother was a white woman. The white people on the bus stared as we walked by, headed toward the back. They glared at my grandmother as if she were a murderer. And I realized—she had sat next to some of these people. They had likely rubbed shoulders. And now, because of me and my dark skin, she had been exposed. There’d be no more sitting in the front of the bus, or on the ground floor of the theater, or walking through front doors, or drinking from the fountains with the cold, clean water.” Grandmother Johnson hadn’t stopped fiddling with her napkin.

Keira watched their grandmother closely. Her eyes contained a mixture of curiosity and compassion.

Chills ran down Minni’s arms. To have all those people staring at you like that. To have them think you were dirty, undeserving, less than.

Had the wrong in the world gotten inside Grandmother Johnson and caused her to think those people were right?

For the first time she could remember, Minni felt truly sorry for her grandmother. “Isn’t it possible your grandmother
wanted
those people to know she was black?”

“Most certainly.” Grandmother Johnson finally unclenched her napkin. She set it on the table and sat up straight. “As I told you before, she was a black woman all her life—and proud of it. But she admitted to me when I was older that she had periodically used her looks to enjoy some of the privileges whites enjoyed all the time. She liked feeling as if she were putting one over on people—subverting the system, so to speak, in her own private way. Her employer knew her race all along, of course.” Grandmother Johnson gazed into her lap. “She assured me she didn’t mind one bit relinquishing those occasional comforts, but still, it was hard to accept—the reality that your skin color could determine your material well-being and others’ treatment of you.”

She looked at Keira. “You know I don’t believe in playing the victim, but people still make those judgments to this day. Life
is
harder for darker-skinned women. We need to work harder to prove them wrong.”

Minni wanted to protest—things were totally different
from when Grandmother Johnson was a girl. America had elected a black president, even! Yet Keira had said herself that she felt her skin color had affected how their teachers perceived her intelligence. And of course there was the dress shop. Minni could never forget that.

Nor could she be silent any longer.

She’d come this far—she might as well go all the way. “Wouldn’t it be better to try to change people’s wrong views, instead of trying to change Keira?”

Grandmother Johnson shook her head. “These views have been in place for hundreds of years. They are not going to change in your lifetime. Keira is not too dark, but there is no reason for her to get any darker. That was all I meant by my comment.” She looked at Keira again. “In all I’ve ever said or done, I was only looking out for your best interests.”

“Well, I think brown skin is beautiful,” Minni said. “No matter how dark.” She almost added that she wished she were brown, too, but stopped herself, thinking of what Miss Laverna had said about loving one’s skin, the body’s largest organ.

“Me too,” Daddy said.

“Me three,” Gigi said.

“Make that four,” Mama added.

Banjo barked as if agreeing with them all.

Grandmother Johnson pressed her lips together, then rose and began to clear the table. She walked into the kitchen.

Keira came over to Minni and held out her fist. Minni smiled and pressed her knuckles against her sister’s. “Together,” Minni whispered.

G
igi offered to help Grandmother Johnson in the kitchen while Mama went upstairs with Minni and Keira to pack their things and Daddy took Banjo for a walk.

Minni asked Mama if she could run next door to say goodbye to Miss Laverna. “Of course,” Mama said, “but quickly. It’s getting late.”

Minni slipped out the front door and across the yard. She climbed Miss Laverna’s front steps. Billie Holiday meowed in greeting. “Hi, kitty.” Minni stooped to pet the cat. She glanced up at the big purple door. The nail was still there. Miss Laverna had hung a beautiful wreath of dried lavender.

Minni stood and knocked. A few moments later, Miss Laverna opened the door. She was wearing plain clothes this time—a lime-green T-shirt and tan pants, not the fancy lavender jacket from the pageant or an African-printed gown. “Well, hello. I’ve been thinking about you. You and your sister did a wonderful job tonight.” She stepped back and beckoned Minni with her hand. “Come in, come in.”

“I can’t stay. I just came to say goodbye. And to thank you.” She gazed into the woman’s face. When it came to standing up for what was right—or having a beautiful heart—it didn’t matter what color your skin was.

“Whatever for, child?”

“For showing me how to be myself.”

Miss Laverna’s good eye twinkled. “I’ve got something for you.” She walked to the cabinet in the living room, took Sophie down and pulled another wisdom doll out of a drawer. She came back and held out Sophie. “Something to remember me by.”