Where Do You Stay (6 page)

Tom has taken off the boards so there's no door there, just a doorway. “Welcome,” Ginny says, ushering me into Miss Myrtle's house. I can't believe I am actually inside. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. “It'll take some elbow grease, Jerome,” she says, “But this is one beautiful building.” She points to the staircase. “Marble,” she says.

“Mr. Willie told me.”

She looks at me sideways. “You mean Wilson?”

I nod.

“He told you that?”

“Yes, ma'am. He was a good friend of Sharon's. She used to live here a long time ago.”

I start coughing from all the dust. Ginny hands me a mask to wear over my mouth and nose. “Here, this'll help a little,” she says. Then she gives me a block of wood and a piece of sandpaper. “Have you ever sanded before?”

I shake my head. I'm not sure if I can talk with this mask on.

She wraps the wood with the sandpaper and moves it up and down on the wood floor. “Make sure to follow the grain,” she says. She smoothes a spot. “See the lines,
how they go this way? You have to sand with the grain or you'll scratch the wood.”

“Yes, ma'am.” My voice is muffled.

“No ‘ma'am,'” she says.

“Yes, Miss Ginny.”

“Just Ginny, okay?” Even with the mask over her mouth I can tell she's smiling by all the little lines around her eyes. “I'm going to work in the other room. You call me if you need anything, okay?”

I nod.

“Any questions?”

Suddenly there's something I have to know. “Is there a piano in here?”

“A piano, did you say?”

“Yes, ma'am, I mean Ginny.”

“I haven't seen one,” she says. “But that doesn't mean there isn't one in here somewhere. We haven't explored the half of it yet. Some of the back rooms are still locked.”

“There used to be a piano,” I say.

“I see.”

“Mr. Willie used to play it. A while back.”

“We'll keep an eye out for it,” she says.

“There are some sculptures too. Bach and Brahms.”

“Is that right? We'll look around.”

I sand with the grain.
Busy hands heal a broken heart
, Mama said.
You don't see me sitting idle, do you, Jerome. You don't
see me sitting around and waiting for things to happen.
The only place Mama ever sat for longer than a meal was on the piano bench.

I wipe away the dust with my palm. Mama had a smooth wooden bowl on the dresser that Daddy gave her for her birthday. When she was getting ready for work, I sat on the bed holding that bowl, feeling the inside and the outside as smooth as skin.

I stand up straight and look around. The ceiling is really high and there are designs carved into the woodwork. Me and Mr. Willie will put the grand piano in here. The chairs can go in a semicircle around the side of the room. Or maybe long straight rows would be better.

“Finished?” I jump.

“I didn't mean to startle you,” Ginny says, touching the wood floor where I sanded it. “Nice job. It looks professional.” She hands me ten dollars. “Thank you, Jerry. You are a big help.”

I put the money into my pocket. I'm not Jerry, I'm Jerome. Jerome William Mason. I'll show Mama I have a real job now. No, not Mama, not anyone. I'll save my money until I can buy my own piano. I'll look in the newspaper for an estate sale. People are dying all the time, and some of them have pianos to sell, I know that.

Mr. Willie is still not back. What if he decided to leave now that Ginny and Tom bought the mansion? Maybe
he's already found some other place to stay. Maybe he won't even come back to say good-bye.

Business to attend to, he said. He didn't say work to do or a job on the other side of town. I stand in front of the carriage house and my breathing feels tight. Suddenly I have to know if Mr. Willie has already moved out.

I open the door. Beethoven is there on the small shelf. The bed is made. The container I brought the chili in is empty and washed. Mr. Willie's shirts are hanging on the hooks. I pull the door shut. He would tell me if he was leaving. I know he would.

I dig up the dirt around the carriage-house door and plant the four o'clock seeds all around.

Aunt Geneva tells me to put on a button-down shirt because we have an appointment with a lawyer.

“What appointment?” I ask.

“Hurry, Jerome.” She hands me a light blue shirt that's too tight across my stomach. “The lawyer might charge us if we're late.”

“Can I come?” Monte asks.

“We won't be long,” Aunt Geneva shouts over her shoulder.

I look back, and Monte is standing in the doorway looking so small and skinny. Uncle James is asleep. Damon is who knows where. Aunt Geneva is hurrying me along. The bus pulls up just as we get to the stop, and we find two seats near the front.

Aunt Geneva puts her arm around my shoulders. Then she looks at her watch. “We should be just on time.”

“Why are we going to a lawyer?”

“To help us make things legal.”

I stiffen.

Aunt Geneva looks out the bus window. “You know, Jerome, you are a blessing to us. Monte smiles every time he looks at you.”

“Not Damon,” I say.

I can feel the sweat from her arm on my neck. “That has nothing to do with you.”

“I don't know,” I say.

Aunt Geneva sits up straight. “I don't want you thinking like that, Jerome. Damon was going his way long before you came to stay with us.”

We're passing the fried-chicken place with a smell that makes my stomach queasy. Aunt Geneva takes some papers out of her purse. I see Mama's name on the top.

“What's that?” I ask.

“It shows the date that Sy—that your mama passed,” she says.

“May twenty-eighth,” I say.

“I know,” Aunt Geneva says. “But they need an official record.” She clicks the purse shut.

“Official record to know that Mama died?”

Aunt Geneva takes a deep breath. “We need it so that Uncle James and I can officially adopt you.”

Adopt like at the animal shelter. Adopt a kitten. Adopt a puppy. Give it a home. Everything is going by so fast out the window, the White Castle and the Quik Stop and the playground. The bus jerks to a stop, then starts again, making my stomach come up to my throat. What if I throw up on this bus?

I push myself against the window where the air conditioning is coming out. “What if I don't want to be adopted?” I ask.

Aunt Geneva pushes back against the seat. I know she's thinking
I can't believe Jerome said that.
“It's what your mama wanted,” she says.

I close my eyes. Did anybody ever ask me?
Just put on this shirt, Jerome. Hurry. We have an appointment with a lawyer.
“Mama never said a thing about anybody adopting me,” I say.

“Shhh, Jerome. Your mother and I talked about it way back before she ever got sick. Before we had children even.” Aunt Geneva takes a tissue out of her purse. “We promised to look after each other. And that includes you kids.”

Tears are running down my face and snot too. Aunt Geneva offers me a tissue but I don't want it. I want to get off this bus and find Mr. Willie wherever he is. We'll play duets, that's what we'll do, in the front room of the big mansion. We'll play for money and sandwiches and peaches. Mr. Willie listens when I talk and says
I see your point, Jerome,
like Mama used to.

“If it's not legal, somebody could come along—you never know, Jerome,” Aunt Geneva says. She is opening and shutting her purse, fiddling with the papers. I look out the dirty window. We are passing the City Garden Center. Me and Mama went there to get plants for our garden, some perennials for along the side of the house. Year after year they came back, getting so big we had to divide them. I start moving my fingers on the bus window. The right hand crosses over the left, back and forth, moving faster and faster. The bus stops at the corner and an old man gets on.

“I want Mr. Willie to adopt me,” I say so loud that the
lady in front of us turns around.

Aunt Geneva acts like she doesn't hear. “Your mother was my sister,” she whispers. She dabs at the tears on her cheeks.

I want Mama to be sitting here beside me. We could be heading downtown to the main library like we used to every Sunday. We could be picking out books and music and movies for the week. “I want a piano,” I say finally.

“Someday, Jerome.” Aunt Geneva takes another tissue out of her purse.

The bus pulls into the last stop at Government Square. We get off and cross the street to the courthouse. Inside are two marble staircases. We take the one on the left up to the second floor. “Room 201,” Aunt Geneva says.

We have to wait a long time for our turn. People are coming and going. I could run fast down these stairs and out the door. But where would I go? Aunt Geneva asks me if I'm hungry.

“No, ma'am.”

She hands me a peppermint anyway. “Helps the time pass,” she says, unwrapping one and putting it into her mouth.

Mama liked mints too, the real hot ones that take your breath away.

When we finally see the lawyer, he says Aunt Geneva needs some other papers like her birth certificate and
her marriage certificate to Uncle James. “Nobody told me to bring all that,” Aunt Geneva says.

“Getting adopted is a process,” the lawyer says. “We have to make sure everything is in order.”

She makes another appointment for next week. The lawyer smiles at me with his big white teeth. “Don't worry,” he says. “It'll all work out. We just have to take it step by step.”

I want to tell him I'm not worried at all. It's not me that started this whole thing in the first place.

Aunt Geneva stands. “Thank you,” she says, ushering me out into the hallway.

On the way home on the bus, Aunt Geneva falls asleep. With her eyes closed like that she looks a little like Mama. Same tall forehead and broad nose. But her mouth and chin are different.

Mama talked things over with me, big things and small things and everything in between.
Jerome, should I take that other job over in the nursing home or stick with what I have? Should we plant purple hostas on the side of the house or white ones? You're the one with the good eye, Jerome. Thank you, Jerome, you are a big help, you know that?

The bus stops suddenly. Aunt Geneva opens her eyes for a minute, then closes them again. She never tells me a thing.

Monte is up by the carriage house. “Where were you?” he asks.

“Downtown.”

“Doing what?”

“Visiting a lawyer.”

“What for?”

I don't answer.

“That lady was here looking for you,” Monte says.

“Ginny?”

“Skinny white lady,” he says.

Maybe she came to tell me she found the piano in there, or the sculptures or something. I start running up toward the mansion.

“Can I go with you?” Monte asks. “No.” My voice is sharp.

“Why not?”

Monte is always following me everywhere, talking the whole time. What's he doing up here at Mr. Willie's place anyway? He's got his own mom and dad and his own brother.

I stop to catch my breath in the doorway. Ginny is there with a mask on. She pulls it off her mouth. “Good
afternoon, Jerome,” she says. “I was looking for you earlier.”

“My cousin said.” I stand there, waiting. “Did you find it?”

She pulls her eyebrows together. “Find what?”

“The piano.”

“Oh, the piano. No. I doubt there's anything as big as that in the back room. Tom is still trying to find the keys.”

“Did you check the basement?”

“No piano down there,” Ginny says. “I was wondering if you'd like to help me sand the front room.”

My back is tired and I have a blister on the palm of my hand. But it's my only way to get inside the mansion. And if I don't find Sharon's piano, I'm going to have to buy my own.

“Sure. I can help,” I say.

She hands me the wooden block, sandpaper, and a mask. “Tom says we should start in the middle and work out.”

Ginny pulls her mask back over her mouth and nose. I put mine on and crouch down next to her. I take short strokes with the sanding block because the grain is going in all different directions. The floor is made out of small pieces of wood in a pattern, dark, light, dark, light. This must be the mosaic Mr. Willie was telling me about. I clean off the wood with my sleeve so I can see what I'm doing. Small flowers, that's what it is, like dogwood blossoms all over the floor. Me and Mama planted a dogwood
tree in the back corner of our yard, the white kind she liked so much because the blossoms look like they're floating.

Tom is in the hallway talking on the phone. “Yes, we need a dumpster. The biggest one you have. Make that two. One needs to go right next to the mansion. The other one goes next to the shack near the street.”

I stop sanding for a minute. What shack is he talking about? He is discussing the price with the man. Finally they settle and Tom hangs up.

“When are they coming?” Ginny asks.

“Next week or the week after that.”

Ginny is sanding away. “This floor is gorgeous,” she tells Tom.

He whistles through his teeth. “Must've been a lot of work to cut all these small pieces.”

Tom goes out to work on the front porch. But I need to know about the shack. “What shack did he mean?” I ask Ginny.

She can't understand me, so I take the mask off my mouth.

“Where is the shack?” I ask.

“Why, over there by your vegetable garden.” She smiles behind the mask. “I'll make sure nobody tramples on your plants.”

“Are you going to fix up the shack?” I ask. But Ginny can't hear me with all the banging. I shout, “Are you going to fix up the shack?”

“It's too far gone,” Ginny says.

•

I sit by the door of the carriage house and wait for Mr. Willie. I have to tell him about the dumpster. I have to let him know. And I have to tell him about the lawyer, too. I'll ask him if he would be so kind as to adopt me.

Heat waves are rising off the blacktop, making everything all wavy. A mirage. That's what Mama called it when we looked down the road on a hot day and it looked like water but there wasn't any. A mirage can make you see anything, like now I see Mama in our garden with a scarf on her head and I say
It's too hot
, so she takes it off for all the world to see her baldness. A policeman stops and says
Is everything all right
, and I say
Yes, we're fine. Just fine.

I lean back against Mr. Willie's wall.
Shack. Put the dumpster by the shack.
That way when they tear it down, they won't have far to carry the rubble. Two dumpsters, biggest ones they have. I close my eyes and then my fingers start moving, fast, up and down, a mazurka by Chopin, dance music, Mama said. Fast and crisp.

I wait for a long time, but Mr. Willie does not come home. The sun's so hot. I stand up and get the hose and water the four o'clocks and the vegetable garden. I spray water on my face and take a long cold drink.

The bag of cement is leaning against the front door. I dump some cement mix into the bucket, add a little water, and stir it around with the trowel. Then I start putting stones on the wall the way I've seen Mr. Willie do it, bigger ones near the bottom. You have to work fast
before the cement sets. My part doesn't look as good as Mr. Willie's, but it's standing pretty solid. If we can get this wall done, they'll see the beauty in it. Nobody would tear down a wall like that.