The Perfect Place (11 page)

Eunetta is sitting in the front row. She stands up and addresses the congregation. “As Pastor Burroughs says, the Lord always makes room for one more.”

What about two? I chance a look at Great-Aunt Grace. Is she still trying to send us to that camp? My eyes find Pamela again. It's like I can't stop myself. And I can't stop myself from looking for Jaguar, too. I see the back of a head of a girl who could be her, sitting in the first pew, and another in the fourth. I'm not sure, but I start sweating all the same.

“Now, let's get down to business. I'd like to welcome you all back to another Sunday at Mount Holy Baptist Church,” Pastor Burroughs shouts. “For those of you who couldn't make it, well, the Lord knows who you are.”

Laughter rings out. “Amen,” says one of the women with the stupid hats in the pew in front of us.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, you know that we have been victims here in Black Lake. Victims of self-righteousness and greed.”

I can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure Pastor Burroughs cast a look in Great-Aunt Grace's direction when he said “self-righteousness.”

“Many of us have been robbed.”

“Amen!”

“Burglarized!”

“Yes, Lord!”

“Stupefied!”

“That word doesn't really work in this context,” I whisper to Tiffany, but like everyone except me, she has her eyes on Pastor Burroughs. Everyone else, that is, but Byron and his girlfriend. He's staring at the floor. She's staring at him.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of the congregation, we will not be defeated by the plights of our community. No. We will rise above them, in Jesus's name. Amen.”

“A-
men.
” The stupid-hat woman again. I have a feeling she's going to be saying that a lot today.

“Like Jesus, we will turn the other cheek, but like God, we will strike the thief down.”

I find Great-Aunt Grace among the ushers. She watches Pastor Burroughs, her face stone. Pastor Burroughs wipes his forehead with a handkerchief he's pulled from his breast pocket. He's just getting warmed up. I can tell. “We will not falter; we will not cower. Because the Lord stands behind those who stand up in the name of righteousness. Yes, Lord. God-ah has our backs. Can I get an ‘Amen'?”

“Amen!”

“I say, can I get a ‘Praise the Lord'?”

“Praise the Lord!”

The whole church is alive now. It's like a pep rally, feet stomping, folks standing up and shouting. And the pastor jumping around the stage, stretching God's name to two syllables, screaming loud enough for the heavens to hear. They can't possibly keep this up for four hours. But they do. Two women faint and have to be brought back with fans and ice water.

Tiffany and I have only been to church a handful of times. Dad says he can get his dose of God without being preached at, thank you very much. But the energy at Mount Holy Baptist is nothing short of electric. Both of us are on the edge of our seats. The pastor calls for a song, and everyone stands up. Neither Tiffany nor I know the melody, but we get to our feet and clap along with the rest of the congregation anyway.

The words to the song say something about living your life in God's light. There are too many people for the singing to be in tune, and the choir, full as it is of old ladies, sounds like a bunch of goats. But the song and the clapping and the foot-tapping are enough to make me feel all tingly inside.

Once the singing is over and we take our seats again, the pastor wipes his brow and says, “Let us bow our heads in a final prayer.”

All around me, heads go down.

A while back I prayed once—just once. The way you're supposed to. I clasped my hands, got down on my knees, and looked up to the sky. I did all that when Dad left the first time and Mom seemed to lose her mind, mad enough to slam the kitchen cabinets one minute and crying her eyes out the next. I asked God to send Dad back to us right away, and he did. But it was two weeks later. Now it's been months, and I can't sit around waiting for God to pay attention again.

I poke Jane in the back. Her head snaps up.

“I need you to tell me where my father is. Right now. Please.”

I'm speaking just lower than a whisper, but the woman next to Jane looks at me and puts her finger to her lips.

Jane shakes her head, her back to me. “I said, not here.”

“Please. It's a matter of life and death.”

Jane breathes in through her nostrils and then out through her mouth. “Look, it doesn't work like that. I can't tell you where your father is.”

“Well, can you look into the future and tell me when he's going to come back so we can be a family again?”

“Psychic predictions cost five dollars.”

“I left my money at home.”

Jane turns around in her seat and looks at me. “Guess you better join in on this prayer, then.”

The woman beside Jane looks about ready to explode. She shushes me again, but I act like I don't notice.

“Please,” I say to Jane. “I'll pay you later. I promise.”

Jane says nothing.

“I wouldn't lie in church.”

Jane considers this. Then she faces front, closes her eyes, and bows her head, looking for all the world like a woman deep in prayer. She turns her head slightly and says quietly to me over her shoulder, “It seems you've spent some time being jerked around by things you can't control. You're unhappy now, but you gotta be willing to make sacrifices. Happiness doesn't come easy, Lord knows that's the truth, but you gotta hang in there and fight for it. And you can't go giving up hope, either. If you do, it's like giving up the will to go on.”

The prayer comes to an end, and people raise their heads and slowly begin to stand. One of the women next to Jane clears her throat and with a toss of her head indicates the line of people waiting to file out of the pew. Jane heaves herself up, adjusts her hat and her bosom, and starts for the stairs.

I stop her with my hand on her arm. “What about my father? Is he in my future?”

“Happiness is. Take that for what it's worth.”

Jane removes my hand from her arm and goes on her way, leaving me with hope in one hand and happiness in the other.

F
OR
the rest of the afternoon, Jane's words tumble around my head like they're doing cartwheels, backflips. I feel like I could do the same. Like I could fling my inhaler aside and run three whole miles without stopping. Even cleaning shelves at Grace's Goodies after church can't bring me down.

“Girl, what you grinnin' about?” Moon asks when I go out to the front to find out where Great-Aunt Grace put the pine-scented cleaner. “You been at it since I picked y'all up.”

Great-Aunt Grace looks over at me. “Must've been the service. The Lord does work in mysterious ways,” she says. “You'd know that if you came to church every once in a while.”

Moon's smile slides off his face.

The door swings open and Terrance walks in. I turn on my heels and return to the stockroom and go to the shelf where Great-Aunt Grace told me I could find the cleaner. Soon Terrance appears in the stockroom too. He stops beside me and starts moving boxes around.

“I thought you weren't coming back while I'm here.”

“I thought you were sleeping when I said that.” He eyes me. He's wearing a T-shirt with a planet on it, or maybe an atom. “I left my sketchpad here. Have you seen it?”

I shake my head and take the cap off the cleaner. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Terrance check shelf after shelf until at last he says, “Don't worry, I found it,” and pulls his sketchpad from behind a box of Skittles. At that moment Great-Aunt Grace shouts, “Terrance, Treasure, get out here!”

As we hurry to the front, I trip over a huge cardboard box sitting right in the entrance to the stockroom. Terrance trips over me, and together the two of us are sprawled on the floor behind the register, a tangle of arms and legs. Tiffany bursts out laughing.

“Shut up,” I snap, but she's too busy laughing herself stupid. I glare at her as Terrance gets to his feet. He holds his hand out to help me, but I get up on my own, rubbing my throbbing knee.

“Why is that box there, trying to kill someone?” I ask Great-Aunt Grace, who's bent at the waist, peering at something on the shelf below the register. I peek over her shoulder. She's working the dials on a safe. She pulls it open, takes out an envelope, and pushes the safe closed. Then she stands and turns to face me.

“What, girl?”

“That box you left right in front of the storage room”—I point down—“almost killed me.”

“And me,” Terrance adds pointedly.

I ignore him. “What's in it?”

“My security system.”

The front of the box reads Ironclad Surveillance and has a picture of a complicated-looking camera on it. I look around for a camera, but I don't see one anywhere. Then I realize that the box hasn't even been opened.

“Y'all gonna stand there and look at it, or y'all gonna move it?” Great-Aunt Grace says.

We're still standing over the box, eyeing it. Terrance uses the toe of his sneaker to nudge the box into a corner.

“Good. Now, Moon and I are runnin' to the bank so I can unload some cash in the depository box,” Great-Aunt Grace tells us.

“Are we gonna watch the store?” Tiffany asks eagerly.

“No,” Great-Aunt Grace says flatly. “I'm gonna lock the door while I'm gone and put a sign up sayin' I'll be back in twenty minutes. Don't let anybody in, don't eat any of my candy, and if you want to keep your fingers, you won't touch my register.”

Terrance pipes up, “But I'm not—”

Great-Aunt Grace turns to go, but not before giving each of us a good hard look. I can hear the keys in the lock a second after the door closes behind her.

“—supposed to be staying,” Terrance finishes weakly. He heaves a sigh. “Guess we may as well work on the shelves, since I'm trapped here.” Neither of us moves in the direction of the stockroom. I take Great-Aunt Grace's seat in front of the register. Terrance leans against the counter and flips through his sketchbook.

I watch people pass by. There isn't a one of them who doesn't stop and peek into the store. That includes Jaguar and Pamela, who make eye contact with me and take their sweet time moving on.

“What's the deal with those two?” I ask.

Terrance looks up from his sketchpad, just missing them. “What two?”

“Never mind.”

Tiffany hops down from her stool and goes over to the shelves of candy. She holds her chin in her hand as she ponders. After careful consideration, she plucks a box of Mike and Ikes off the shelf and returns to her seat.

“Jeanie, pay for these,” she says, and rips open the box of candy.

“You can't boss me around,” I tell Tiffany. Terrance is doing a pitiful job of trying to hide a smile.

Tiffany pops two Mike and Ikes in her mouth and closes her eyes, to savor the taste or to completely ignore me. I take seventy-five cents from my pocket and place the coins next to the register. Just then there is a knock on the door.

“We're closed!” I shout.

With the glare from the sun, I can see only the outlines of two people. They knock again. And again. I start for the door.

“You're not supposed to open it,” Tiffany says to my back.

I unlock the door and open it just a crack. “We're closed.”

“Says who?” comes the voice of a girl.

“Uh-oh,” Terrance says, but it's too late.

The door is shoved open. I have to jump back to avoid a blow to the face that would have knocked me out cold. Jaguar enters, followed by Pamela, both wearing tiny khaki shorts. Back in Jersey, girls called those shorts “poom-pooms.”

“Hey, weirdo,” Jaguar says. Pamela says nothing. She stays by the door and keeps glancing into the street.

Jaguar pushes past me and proceeds to size up the goods, stalking around like a lioness on the plain. “Oh, hey, Yuck Mouth,” she says to Terrance, as she inspects the rack of candy closest to the register. “Hmmm, what am I in the mood for today?”

“I
said,
we're closed.”

Jaguar stops and looks at me. She turns her body first, places her hands on her hips. Her head whips around last. Mom calls this “attitude stance.”

“What did you say?” Jaguar asks.

I bring myself up to my full height, which makes me an inch taller than she is.

“Pam, did you hear all that attitude?”

Pamela drags her eyes from the street and comes to stand beside Jaguar. No matter how straight I stand, I'll never be as tall as Pamela. Jaguar walks right up to me until she's standing so close the toes of our sneakers touch. I stare into her flame-colored eyes and then into Pamela's dark, murky ones.

“We didn't hear you. Right, Pam?” Jaguar says. “Would you mind hitting rewind?”

I take a step back. Jaguar steps forward. So does Pamela.

“I said we're closed.” I'm stuttering so bad I sound like a CD skipping. “The woman who owns this store went out and said she'd be back in twenty minutes. There's a sign on the door. Ms. Washington left it,” I add, in case they fear the wrath of Great-Aunt Grace like anyone with sense should.

Pamela falls back, just a little. But not Jaguar. “Ms. Washington? You mean your kin? Everyone knows you're related to her now, so quit fronting, and everyone thinks she's a big old thief. So there.” Jaguar turns and gives her poom-poom-clad butt a smack. “Now, shut up while me and Pam do what we came to do.”

I shut up and watch as Jaguar grabs up a huge handful of candy from one shelf and dumps it on another. She does that over and over again and mixes everything around with her hands, until almost nothing is where it should be. Then she takes a pack of Starburst for herself. At Jaguar's urging, Pamela takes a Hershey bar.