2-in-1 Yada Yada (67 page)

The woman's lip curled again. “You all religious types?”

“Yep! That's what we was doin' when you came in the door— havin' a prayer meetin'.” Florida nodded at Denny and me. “At their house.”

Becky Wallace squirmed in her chair. “Guess I gave y'all some-thin' to pray about, huh.”

That's it? That's all she's going to say about what happened that
night?
I swallowed the sharp retort that rode the tip of my tongue.

“Yes. We did too. Pray for you that night, I mean. And ever since.”

Becky's mouth twitched. “Don't bother,” she muttered. “Ain't worth it. Save your prayers for that lady what got her hand cut.”

I noticed she didn't say, “. . .
for that lady whose hand I cut.”

“Oh, we prayin' for her too,” said Florida. “And her daughter.

They was all shook up.”

Becky shot us a wary glance. I could practically read her thoughts:
Knew it! Knew you guys are just itchin' to tell me how what
I done made you feel.

But nobody said anything more. Finally she seemed to slump inside her ill-fitting clothes. “Didn't mean ta cut that lady,” she mumbled, staring at the table. “Didn't want ta hurt nobody. Jus' . . . jus' needed money for a fix.”

“I know,” Florida said. “We all know that.”

We asked if she had family. She shrugged. “Somewhere. Ain't heard from 'em in a long time.”We asked if she had kids. Her eyes twitched. She gave a short nod. “Lil' boy. Don't know where he be, though. His daddy took 'im away from me. Said I wasn't fit.” Did she need anything? She shook her head. “Nah. What's ta need? I ain't goin' nowhere.”

The clock on the wall inched its way toward 1:00. My stomach was rumbling. Maybe Becky Wallace had missed lunch too. But if Avis were here, no way would she miss an opportunity to pray. Why not? I had absolutely no other idea how to end this awkward visit. “Could we . . . uh, pray for you before we go?”

That seemed to unnerve her. She stood up. “Ya can pray all ya want after ya get on outta here. I gotta go.” She started to leave, then she turned back. “Don't know why y'all come on down here, but I . . . I 'preciate it.” Without waiting for a reply, she strode quickly across the room, motioning to the guard to let her out the locked door.

And then she was gone.

30

N
one of us said much as we left the prison and climbed back into the car. I felt irritated that my mental image of Bandana Woman didn't stand up to the dull-eyed, pathetic creature we'd just left. But I didn't want to feel sorry for her.
Isn't some anger appropriate, God? After all,Hoshi's
relationship with her parents is a wreck now, thanks to B. W. If we're
going to actually relate to this woman, she needs to face that somehow.
With a twinge of satisfaction, I felt my level of anger—righteous anger, of course—nudge back up a notch.

She was so young, though . . .

“How old do you think she is?” I said to no one in particular.

“Dunno,” Yo-Yo said. “Maybe 'bout my age.”

“Which is?”

“Uh . . .” She paused, like she had to think about it. “Gonna be twenty-three in a week or so. Say, we gonna eat? I'm hungry.”

We found a McDonald's in the town of Lincoln and got milk-shakes to go with the sandwiches and apples I'd brought along. Got the coffee thermoses filled up again too.

Florida eyed the wheat bread suspiciously as she took a sandwich. “You got somethin' against white bread, Jodi?”

I stifled a snort. She probably meant that cheap spongy stuff in long “family-size” loaves that passed for bread in the grocery store. Might be good for
something—
like maybe caulking leaky windows in an emergency. I smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Flo. Just used what I had on hand.”

We munched in silence for a while before I noticed that Denny had not gotten back on the interstate. “Taking the back roads home?”

He shrugged. “Thought we might find a roadside stand that sold pumpkins.”

“They sell 'em at the
store,
Denny,” Florida said, her mouth full of sandwich.

Denny grinned. “I know, but it's kinda fun to buy them right off the farm.”

“Josh and Amanda still carve pumpkins? Them big kids?”

“Sure,” I piped up. “We do it every year.” Or was it Denny and me who carved the pumpkins now?

Sure enough, we saw a hand-painted sign boasting “Pumpkins, Apples, Squash.” Denny pulled into the farm driveway. “Pick out a pumpkin for Carla and the boys, Flo. My treat.” He eyed Yo-Yo. “You want a pumpkin? Take your pick.”

Yo-Yo got out of the car, taking in the rows and rows of pumpkins lined up on the ground like so many Munchkins from the Land of Oz with big orange heads and little green hat-handles, sorted by size behind signs that said, “Large $5, Medium $4, Small $3.” She jammed her hands in the low pockets of her overalls. “Never had an honest-to-God
real
pumpkin before.”

I stared at her. “Never?”

Yo-Yo shrugged. “My mom wasn't big on holidays. Maybe Christmas now and then—if she was sober.”

“What about birthdays? She made a cake, that kind of thing, right?”

Yo-Yo shook her head. “Nah, but it's okay, ya know. I try to do somethin' for Pete and Jerry when it's their birthday. But we never had a pumpkin.” She moved over to the rows of “Small” pumpkins. “If I get one, would one of ya tell me how ta, y'know, make it glow?”

I laughed, but I felt like crying.
“My mom wasn't big on holidays
. . .”
How much I took for granted! Never thought that some families— families I rubbed shoulders with—didn't even do
birthdays.
“Sure. Maybe we should have a pumpkin-carving party. You wanna, Florida?”

“Cool. I'll bring Carla. Chris and Cedric gonna think they too big. Can I have this big 'un here, Denny?”

“Yeah. They gotta be big for carving. You guys pick out three big ones. I'll go pay.” Denny headed for the outdoor counter.

“Pay for four, Denny!” I yelled after him. “I'm gonna get one for Chanda's kids too.”

As we pulled back on the road, Yo-Yo stared at the field next to the roadside stand, where pumpkins dotted the ground, still clinging to their sprawling wilted vines. “Huh. So that's how they grow.” It was a statement of wonder, like the way I felt watching Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on my TV screen.

We finally got back on I-55. Denny didn't ask me to drive, and I didn't offer. One of these days I needed to muster up the courage to drive at highway speeds again. But not today. Nobody talked much about our visit to Becky Wallace on the way home. Maybe we all needed to digest the experience for a while.

I stuck in a
Songs4Worship Gospel
CD and glanced back into the second seat as the Colorado Mass Choir filled the car with “Let everything that has breath praise Him!” I turned the volume down a notch. Florida was sleeping in spite of all that coffee; Yo-Yo just stared out the side window of the minivan, nursing her own thoughts.

An idea began to percolate in my head . . .

AS FAR AS I COULD TELL, our kids had handled the day pretty well. Amanda volunteered that she and Edesa had gone over to the Enriqueses' house to make “real” tortillas with Delores and Emerald.
And to see José,
I guessed. Yet did it really matter, if the whole family was together? What harm was there in that? Josh and Yo-Yo's brothers played video games, ate the two frozen pizzas I had in the freezer, cleaned us out of ice cream, and left all their dishes in the sink. So what else did I expect? Though I was a little rattled by the cigarette butts I found out by the garage. Who'd been smoking—Pete? Well, so did his sister-guardian. Not much I could do about that.

At Uptown Community the next morning, Florida got up during the testimony time and shared briefly about our visit to Lincoln Correctional, mentioning the robbery that had preceded it “at the Baxters' house.” I saw heads swivel as people looked at us, no doubt surprised that they were just now hearing about this. “That girl needs some serious prayer,” Florida said. “So I'm askin' the church to keep her covered. God saved me, so I know He can save her too. Pastor?” She handed the mic to Pastor Clark and started to sit down, but Pastor Clark motioned her to stay up front and asked Avis and Stu and the Baxter family to join her and be included in his prayer.

Funny. I hadn't really thought about asking Uptown to pray about stuff related to Yada Yada. For one thing, Yada Yada was women from a bunch of different churches—not really an Uptown thing. And prayer requests shared in the group were confidential. Yet maybe Florida was right. This was bigger than any of us, bigger than Yada Yada. My eyes misted as Pastor Clark prayed for protection, for healing of the experience, for Becky Wallace's salvation.

Well sure, let's pray for her salvation.
Just don't turn her back out
on the street, God,
I added as we sat down again.

Once back into the school week, though, I didn't have time to think much about Becky Wallace. On Monday I congratulated myself that my third-grade class was starting to gel. On Tuesday, Terrell tripped Darian as they came into the classroom, and the day seemed to unravel from there. Chanel was absent for three days, and we had to send a note home to all the parents that said, “A case of lice has been reported in your child's class, so please take the following precautions . . .” When Chanel returned with her head wrapped in a blue scarf, all the kids knew who the “case of lice” was, and I had to keep her in the classroom during lunch to prevent the inevitable meanness, in spite of the lecture I'd given the class on respecting others' feelings.

The week wasn't a total loss, though. I turned Christy James loose to plan our reading segment for the next couple of weeks, since that seemed to be of special interest to my student teacher. She started reading the story of Johnny Appleseed to the class, then she encouraged the students to write a poem using the letters of his name as an acrostic. The results weren't terribly creative, but some were pretty cute. Most of the kids seemed proud of their “poems,” decorating their papers with round red blobs that were supposed to be apples.

Hakim, however, just sat and looked at his paper, as if he didn't have a clue. My heart constricted. Why was written work so hard for him? He was obviously very bright—the balance-scale episode proved that. I motioned him to a table at the back of the room. He came reluctantly, like he might get yelled at. “It's okay,” I said. “Look, let's do it this way.” I covered up all the letters of the acrostic except for the J and asked him to make up a sentence beginning with that letter. “You tell me what you want to say, and I'll write it down,” I said. That seemed to make a difference. Working this way he finished the acrostic poem.

J—Just the other day
O—On my way to the store, I
H—Hollered to the old man
N—Next-door . . .

Not bad. It actually rhymed. “It's the written work that trips him up,” I murmured to Christy as we tacked the papers up on the bulletin board after school. “I wonder if he's ever been tested?”

On Friday, Christy brought a couple of bags of apples to class, a big plastic bowl, and a roll of paper towels and let the kids “bob for apples” as the last activity of the day. I should have advised against it, but I didn't want to squelch her ideas. The kids were already squirrelly, given that it was late in the school day just before the weekend, but it might have gone all right if Cornell hadn't started acting smart by rocking the bowl. Before we could stop him, the bowl tipped over, and we had water all over the floor—which meant a trip to the janitor's closet for a mop and bucket and a dozen disappointed kids who hadn't gotten to bob for apples yet. Ramón yelled at Cornell for ruining their turn, Cornell slugged Ramón, and we ended up having to send both boys to the office.

“Sorry, Ms. Baxter,” Christy said sheepishly as she gathered up the remaining apples and the bowl. (The paper towels had paid the ultimate sacrifice mopping up the floor instead of kids' faces.)

“Don't be sorry, Christy. It was a great idea. Next time we'll just nail down the bowl.” For a second there, I think she thought I was joking.

ON MY WAY OUT OF SCHOOL that Friday, I caught Avis on the fly and told her Yo-Yo would be twenty-three “in a week or so” but had never had a birthday party. “What do you think of celebrating her birthday Sunday night at Yada Yada? She'd really be surprised.”

“This
Sunday?” Avis frowned. “Well, okay . . . but Natasha's coming home from college this weekend—her high-school homecoming, I think—and Charette is coming up from Cincinnati with the twins. We're all going to the South Side to see Rochelle and the baby. I won't have time to plan anything. Not even sure I'll be at Uptown on Sunday. Might go to church with Rochelle.”

“That's okay. I'll—”

“Where would we meet?”

“Meet? I thought we agreed on Nony's at the last meeting. Haven't been there since August.”

“Yes, but Nony called me last night and said she and the boys are leaving for South Africa on Sunday. Not sure how long she'll be gone—several weeks anyway.”

Nony
and
the boys? I hadn't said anything to Avis about Mark's phone call to Denny. “Well, good for Mark.” Avis looked at me funny.
Oops! Did I say that out loud?
“I mean, good that our prayers were answered—you know, that they came to an agreement,” I amended hastily. I made a mental note to give Nony a call before she left.

But where to meet? Only about half the group was able to host a Yada Yada meeting. Stu lived too far away; Delores had too many kids . . . I shrugged. “Guess I'm next on the list, if it's not too soon after the . . . you know.”