2
THE SUMMER ME
As soon as I left the gate, I glanced back and was happy to not see Mama waving me off like I was on my way to sleepaway camp. Aunt Vie’s house had a wraparound porch with ivory wicker rocking chairs with comfy cushions, a porch swing, and plants drooping with pinkish blooms. The porch was like an outdoor living room. Mama said my great-grandfather built it with money he earned working at the Great Southern Lumber Company. Grandma said that he built it with bricks so it would be harder to burn down if any of the white men in town thought he was getting “too uppity.”
The other houses on the street weren’t as big and were close together. Only a few of them had trees so big they blocked the sun. Most sat behind link fences burrowed into red dirt. A couple homes had netless basketball hoops at the end of driveways. Kids pulled them into the street when traffic was slow. At night I’d hear the bounce of a ball, the rattle of the rim, and that’s what I’d fall asleep to.
Aunt Essie said that during Hurricane Katrina, trees fell on houses and churches. And that some neighbors cut down trees on their property scared it would happen again. But Grandma said my great-granddad planted that oak tree in the front yard and if Katrina didn’t uproot it nobody was about to cut it down. Even the thought of Hurricane Katrina made me glance up to the sky and wonder why something so scary had to happen. I was a baby when Katrina hit. The only thing I knew about it at first was that it had the same name as Mama. Then I saw pictures of all the damage it had done and cried for people I didn’t even know. Mama said that’s okay.
As I walked, the scent of the paper mill reduced from old egg salad to a sweaty sock. But for the first time, it didn’t bother me one bit. I got to take in the town on my own, and if that stench was a part of it, bring on the funk. Odder than a paper mill that stunk up the town was the fact that Bogalusa, the entire state of Louisiana for that matter, doesn’t have counties like all the other states, it has parishes. The reason was complicated and had something to do with different sections of the town belonging to the same church and having the same priest, like a huge congregation.
My definition of parishes was fuzzy, but I loved the fancy-sounding name better than “counties.” I knew for sure that Louisiana had sixty-four of them, and I was smack-dab in the middle of Washington Parish for the first time on my own.
Everyone I walked past spoke or nodded. Nothing like Mama said at all. One lady stopped and said, “Now, just one second.” She carried a covered dish with a seafood aroma so strong it cut through the odor of the paper mill.
“You must be Elvie’s grandniece, G-baby.”
I wanted to say Georgie, but I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Corine. One of Vie’s longtime friends. I’m on my way there now. Girl, you couldn’t look more like your mama if you tried.” Mrs. Corine managed to fold her arm around the dish and grab my hand and twirled me like she wanted to dance. Everything my training bra held jiggled and the twisting turned my shorts to the most awkward angle. Then she lobster-clawed my cheek and pulled a hunk of it between her fingers.
“It’s good to meet you, ma’am. My mama is expecting you.”
“Call me Mrs. C, G-baby. You’re just as pretty as your mama was at your age. Would you look at this hair? As thick as Vie’s bowl of gumbo.”
I tugged at one of my twists. “Thank you.”
“What a dutiful daughter you are to come help your mama see after Vie.” I thought back to the way Mama monopolized Aunt Vie’s care, but I didn’t say that, of course. “I hope you’re having some fun, too, in ole’ Bogalusa.”
The way Bogalusa flowed from Mrs. C’s lips was completely different from the way I stressed each syllable—Boh-guh-loo-suh. Mrs. C’s way had a rhythm that sounded like some kinda dance they did in the old days. Let’s do the Bogalusa Boogaloo!
“Look at me, just holding you up.” Right after she pinched my cheek again, she waved to another lady across the street and I was on my way.
With each step, I wondered what task I’d do first at Sweetings. I bet the neighborhood kids stopped by for cake or a soda, or as Aunt Essie called sodas, a “cold drink.” Maybe I’d serve them. Maybe Aunt Essie would let me run the register. I’d tell her about my A in math and how I usually handle the money at all the bake sales for the step team Nikki and I belonged to, the Georgia Peach Jam Steppers.
I’m glad Mama mentioned the street name, because I was so lost in my thoughts that I almost walked clean past it. The stop sign was at the corner of our street, Fifth Street, and Columbia next to a fire hydrant. Then I remembered Mama saying, “It’s a left.” My stomach roller-coastered thinking of the possibility of getting lost. I could hang up the idea of even walking out on the porch alone. My nerves settled when I saw the sign that said Boga-Littles Day Care. And remembered that name from when Mama and I drove by the diner on our way to Covington. Thank you, Boga-Littles.
I walked like I was in the Olympic trials for racewalking, which Nikki and I couldn’t believe was a real sport. And it’s not as easy as it looked. Within a couple minutes, the diner was in sight. I stopped and wiped my forehead.
The standalone building had an emerald-colored awning with scalloped white edges. The front of the building held a huge window, but SWEETINGS FAMILY DINER written in block letters and a picture of a barrel of gumbo teeming with loads of shrimp and crab legs obscured most of the view inside the restaurant. Right outside the door, an A-shaped chalkboard listed the breakfast special: Fried Catfish or Whiting, Grits, Toast, Home Fries, Coffee, and Orange Juice. Grandma Sugar’s fancy cursive writing floated on the board like skywriting.
Even though I thought I’d given myself a minute to be what Daddy called the three Cs—“Cool, Calm, and Collected”—I opened the door with such force I almost fell in. Sweetings was like a classroom-sized gallery with pictures of ole-timey singers and musicians on the wall. They were all framed and had signatures scrawled across the bottom. And just like Otis Redding, whose “The Dock of the Bay” rang out, I’d heard of most of them from Grandma Sugar or Daddy. “This here is Bluesman food,” B. B. King wrote on his picture. He had his eyes closed, clutching his guitar, Lucille, with sweat rolling down his face.
Grandma Sugar and Aunt Essie were busy with customers. There was a small podium where guests stood who were waiting to be seated.
I waved to Grandma Sugar. She blew me a kiss back. “Be right there,” she said. I eased over to the side and continued looking at all the pictures of singers, musicians, and even some local activists. And the one Grandma Sugar called “The Queen of Soul,” Aretha Franklin, wrote, “Food for the Soul. Thank you, Ms. Vie,” her hair as high as Mama’s wedding cake.
Then someone said, “Are you here to pick up an order?”
When I turned to face the voice, my tongue flapped, but I couldn’t spit out words.
Her voice wasn’t high or squeaky but a little on the alto side, and her words were clear and pronounced like she was a teacher’s aide. I tried hard not to stare at her, not to notice what I couldn’t help but notice.
“Uhm. Uhm. I’m not a customer. I mean not a regular one. You’re Markie Jean?” The cowbell above the door dinged and two ladies walked in wearing scrubs. I hadn’t paid attention to the bell when I entered.
“Yep. Let me know if you need anything,” she said and moved on to the ladies. “Got your to-go orders coming right up,” she said and headed to the back.
Grandma Sugar sidled up and kissed my cheek. Aunt Essie caught a quick breather and waved.
“What took your mama so long? I’ve been telling her to let you come down here and work for a few days now,” she said and called for Markie Jean to join us.
“One oyster po’boy, one catfish, two orders Cajun-fried pickles. One slice of chocolate cake and one lemon. Thank you,” Markie Jean said and sat the order on the counter as Aunt Essie rung them up. Markie Jean hustled over, stuffing a tip in her apron pocket.
“Markie Jean, this here is my oldest gr
anddaughter, G-baby. You two about the same age, right?”
“Georgie, Grandma.”
“Sorry, honey. I remember you telling your mama and me that. But wasn’t it Gigi for a minute or two?”
“Yes, ma’am. But it’s just Georgie now,” I said, feeling my feet start to sweat.
“I’m right about y’all being around the same age?”
“Not so much. I’m twelve and a half,” Markie Jean said.
I stuck out my hand to shake hers. Markie Jean stared at it like I was holding a flopping fish. If it wasn’t for Grandma Sugar, I bet Markie Jean would have left me hanging. Finally, she shook it and I felt like the dorkiest girl in all of Bogalusa.
Unlike the Costco three-for-twenty short set I wore, Markie wore her apron over a T-shirt that had a faux bow tie and jean shorts that had a satin stripe down the sides like tuxedo pants. Tangie and Nikki would greenlight her outfit, even with the apron. Her skin was the color of those brown eggs that Mama bought from the farmers market. Her hair was thick like mine but in neat cornrows that let out into an Afro puff. It glistened like she’d just sprayed it with oil sheen. Her legs were sort of like mine. She’d seen action: scrapes, scratches, and cuts. Way more than the one bruise that I had on my knee from a run that went wrong.
But even though I tried to stop it, my eyes returned to her arms. One was long like mine, but the other didn’t come down all the way. When one of Aunt Vie’s friends who had a folded-up pant leg and empty space where a leg should have been had stopped by the house, I didn’t stare. I’d met older people without a leg before, but never a girl, especially a girl around my age, with a halfway arm.
“I’m almost twelve,” I said. When she caught me looking, I made eye contact with her and was pretty much too embarrassed to blink. She squinted, which said to me, “I saw you staring—don’t try to play it off.”
“Georgie started saying ‘almost twelve’ a month after she’d turned eleven,” Grandma Sugar said.
“I didn’t, Grandma.”
The cowbell rang, and three new customers entered.
“Pardon me, please,” Markie Jean said. She went over and escorted them to a booth. “Welcome to Sweetings Diner.” She wiped down the tabletop and seated the customers. Then she bustled back with water, complete with lemon wedges on the side, and took their orders, all like she was a real teenager with a real job.
There she was, not much older than me, dashing around the diner like she ran the place. I had to plot, plan, and unleash Daddy as my secret weapon to get out from under Mama’s thumb. As I stood there eyeing Markie doing the job that I thought I’d have this summer, I didn’t want to acknowledge the twinge of jealousy that made my skin tingle. Why was she allowed to work in the family diner and I wasn’t? For all the reasons I thought Mama wanted me to stay close to her since we’d been in Bogalusa, something told me the biggest reason wasn’t that big at all. She was strutting around with her Afro puffs and freedom, taking orders, collecting tips, and all with a triple scoop of confidence and attitude. Pretty much everything I thought I’d do at the diner. The person occupying my spot was Markie Jean: the summer me.
3
WHAT’S YOUR DEAL?
When the diner wasn’t as crowded, Grandma Sugar cleared off a booth herself and summoned me from my stool, which I slid back underneath a counter against the back wall. At the top was a signed photo of Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, next to that picture were the Supremes with Tracee Ellis Ross’s mama, Diana Ross.
“Georgie, you and Markie Jean come on over here now and sit down for breakfast.” She even went and brought us two glasses of water like real customers. She wiggled her fingers and Markie Jean took off her apron. Grandma Sugar flung it on her shoulder.
Since I was so upset with Mama, I’d picked over my breakfast at home, so I was hungry.
“Pancakes and sausage, okay?” Grandma said.
“Yes, ma’am,” we replied.
Markie Jean yanked a sleek phone out of her pocket and scrolled. I didn’t dare whip out my phone. It was so old that Nikki stamped its embarrassment level: Code Red. I busied myself reading the daily specials that were handwritten under the laminated tabletops.
“Your T-shirt is cool,” I said.
“’Preciate it,” she said and pretended to straighten her T-shirt’s faux bow tie.
A young woman with long, blue braids and a baby straddling her narrow hip walked in and looked at the menu. “Let me have two orders of shrimp and grits.”
“Toast or biscuit?” Grandma Sugar said. When it came time to pay, the girl was short and Grandma Sugar pulled out her coin purse and added what she needed. The emerald beads on the purse glistened.
Markie’s chuckle diverted my attention.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
She stared at her phone and chuckled again. “Nothing.”
A few minutes later, Grandma Sugar called “Order up!” as she waltzed over to our table.
The tray was above her head and balanced on her fingertips. She slid plates of pancakes, sausages, and grits in front of us. “Enjoy, and there is plenty more where that came from,” she said and strolled back toward the register.
After plopping her phone next to crawfish-shaped salt and pepper shakers, Markie took out a mini bottle of hand sanitizer and flipped the cap as she clicked her tongue. I didn’t want to stare again, so I watched her from the corner of my eye. She squirted a bit of the sanitizer on her little arm and then used it to spread the sanitizer around in her palm.
“This stuff lasts me twice as long. You know, with the one hand and all,” she said. “Want some?”
I pulled out the one attached to my purse strap. “Nah, I’m fine,” I said, unsure if I should say something about her one-hand comment.
Markie Jean tilted her head over her plate and sniffed. Then she leaned back, closed her eyes, and inhaled the aroma the way someone would do after smelling a rose. A second later, she leaned in again.
“Mmm, Double D smoked sausages are the best in the whole wide world,” she said, her nose almost touching them.
I sniffed but couldn’t match her enthusiasm. “They’re good.”
“They’re local. Made not even twenty miles from here. The plant cranks out about eighteen thousand pounds a day. Went there on a field trip last year.”
“How was it?”
“Hog heaven.”
She picked up the Double D and bit it like it was a carrot, then buttered her grits. Instead of holding the butter dish so it didn’t move, she pushed it against her plate to secure it. I pretended not to be impressed with the way she did most tasks with one hand that I did with two.
As I was thinking of something interesting or cool to say, she said, “So, G-baby, what’s your deal?”
“Georgie,” I said.
“Sorry, Georgie. Short arm. Short memory,” Markie Jean said and laughed.
“Forgetting stuff isn’t funny.”
“Who says it was?”
That ended our first attempt at conversation. I reread the menu a million times, people-watched, and she busied herself with her phone. As we were clearing off the table, Grandma Sugar said, “Let me get those,” and loaded the dishes on her tray.
“Thanks,” we said.
“What you want me to do first?” I said to either of them. Grandma Sugar scanned the diner. “It’s not that busy in here now. Why don’t you and Markie Jean go enjoy yourselves awhile…” She probably could see alarm in my eyes. I told Mama that I felt like I was grounded, but that wasn’t the same as really being grounded, which is where I was heading. “Don’t you worry. Leave your mama to me. You’ve been cooped up in the house enough.”
She reapplied her ruby lipstick and blew me a kiss and winked. Unlike Mama, she let me try on lipsticks so I could “find my color” when I was ready.
“Thank you, Grandma,” I said and would have hugged her neck if I wasn’t clenching on to a few cool points.
“Stop back later. If not, we c
an certainly put you to work tomorrow.”
Markie Jean checked her phone. “Well, in that case, laissez les bons temps rouler.” She strolled toward the door.
Grandma Sugar placed fresh napkins on the table. “You behave yourself, Markie Jean.”
“See you later, Grandma,” I said, and she winked. I didn’t repeat Markie’s phrase, but I’d been in Louisiana long enough to know what it meant: let the good times roll. I didn’t know what Markie had in store, but I didn’t care. This was the most freedom I’d had since I rolled into Bogalusa.
“Glad that the good aromas coming from the diner knocked out some of that paper-mill smell,” I said and tooted up my nose. We had to agree on that.
Standing outside under the awning, Markie Jean put her balled fist on her hip and puffed out her chest. As she took a deep breath, she lifted her chin to the sky.
“For me, there’s nothing like filling my lungs with the sulfuric fumes of our paper mill. Lets us know we’re home. Fresh air is overrated,” she said.
I tried not to breathe in through my nose. “I just know it stinks.”
“You haven’t been here long enough to appreciate it. Most Bogalusians know it’s the smell of moola. Keeps this town percolating.”
“Still stinks,” I said.
“Enough relaxing. I have business to take care of. You coming?” she said, already walking.
I didn’t bother asking where we were going. My only criteria was that it was not back to the porch. That meant the opposite direction of the stop sign at the corner of Fifth Street and Columbia. And away from my landmark of Boga-Littles. It was time to see more of the town. Neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes. I tried to not act like the open ditches on the side of some parts of the sidewalk weren’t a little scary. I could see the huge exposed pipes mixed with debris. What I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to topple over. I walked in a straight line like a tightrope.
“Guessing they don’t have gullies in Atlanta,” Markie Jean said.
“Probably, just not where we live,” I said.
Forever This Summer Page 2
