by Janet Walker
Chapter Forty-Five
KEEPING THE SECRET
Tracy emerged from the cafeteria kitchen, tray of food in hand, and immediately heard someone call her name. She looked in the direction of the voice and saw Patricia Butler swipe a hand through the air in a beckoning motion. Pat was seated at a table with Evelyn Dent, Toni Christian, Sandra Butler and Wanda Carver. Tracy walked over to them, face burning with shyness, but pleasant warmth filled her chest because she, Tracy Sullivan, a sophomore, had been summoned to a table of senior Grace Girls—and the junior Wanda, who was an honorary senior. Tracy could feel the eyes of other students on her as she strode toward her teammates and selected the chair beside Co-captain Pat. Dent, the captain, sat on the other side of Pat. Across the table were tall Toni, elegant Sandra, and little Wanda, whose chair was directly across from Tracy’s. Tracy sank into the chair, uneasy. She knew that even though Wanda was not mean or unkind to her, the junior was not happy to have been replaced by Tracy in the starting lineup. And while Wanda continued to dart about the gym and locker room, playing practical jokes on others, Tracy sensed there was something different about the little girl, an element of quiet in Wanda’s demeanor that did not seem present the first day of school, when Wanda, as Splotch Eye, had interrogated Tracy with restless impunity on the bleachers.
“Whassup, Baby Girl?” greeted Pat with loud friendliness.
Tracy sensed the mood of the seniors. They were happy to see her. “Hey,” she said, and Dent, Toni and Sandra responded warmly. Wanda didn’t speak but smiled dubiously at Tracy.
“Uh-oh, here come the superstar,” teased Toni, which elicited smiles of agreement from the others.
Tracy blushed. “Not me,” she denied.
“Yeah, you!” insisted Pat.
Dent, on the other side of Pat, bent forward and looked down the table at Tracy. “You did do good Wednesday, Tracy.”
“Yep, we probably wouldn’t have won without you,” said Toni.
“Yeah yeah yeah, we know all that,” said Pat impatiently. “What I wanna know is, what happened with you and Miz Grace?”
Tracy froze, couldn’t speak, her heart pounded. How did they know she had spent the weekend with Miz Grace? It was supposed to be a secret! Miz Grace had made her promise to keep it a secret, and she had, she hadn’t told anyone at Beck, so how had they found out? “What?” she asked dumbly.
“What you mean ‘what?’” said Pat. “Miz Grace took you home after the game Wednesday night, right?”
Tracy relaxed, almost sighed with relief. They didn’t know! “Oh, yeah,” she said and chuckled weakly.
“So, what happened?” Sandra asked before sliding a fork full of food between her lips.
Tracy glanced at Wanda, whose mouth was frozen in an odd smile and whose large brown eyes, one surrounded by paleness, were fixed intently on Tracy as she waited for a reply. The lie tumbled clumsily from Tracy’s mouth.
“Sh-She just needed to talk to my aunt about my grades.”
“Your grades? Damn, Baby Girl, you that dumb?” teased Pat with a frown.
“You told us that on Wednesday,” said Toni. “We want to know what happened. Did she go in your aunt’s house, talk to her at the car, or what?”
Tracy remembered Wednesday night, when she and Miz Grace sat in the Jag in front of Aunt Madge’s house and talked, and felt a pinch of panic in her belly—the lying was not getting easier. “Um, she just, um, we—she came inside. But she didn’t stay long.” She intended that to be the end of it, but they were silent, waiting for more. Tracy’s face burned and she stammered, “She…told my aunt I…need to study more. In English. So I could stay on the team.”
“You failin?” Dent asked.
“No, I got C’s, but…my, um, English teacher told Miz Grace I didn’t do good on the last test.”
“Oh, Miz Grace will stick her nose in your business if you play ball for her,” assured Sandra.
“Yup,” said Dent. “She serious bout grades. She uh bench you in a minute if she don’t like yo pote card.”
Toni looked across the table at Tracy with interest. “I’m still surprised she let you ride in her car.”
Tracy returned Toni’s look. The food in her throat was suddenly hard to swallow.
“Yeah!” agreed Pat robustly. “I know for a fact she always been funny ’bout that car. Wouldn’t let nobody ride in it!”
“Yep. And I heard she get it detailed every day,” shared Toni.
“And doesn’t like people touching it,” said Sandra. “And I always want to tell her, ‘Miz Grace, my mama got a Jag, so it ain’t no big deal to me!’”
The others chuckled but Tracy was silent. She knew Miz Grace did not wash her car every day and had not seemed concerned at all about Tracy’s getting into it, or touching it, this weekend.
“Last year,” continued Pat in her animated manner, “this girl name Tammy Cole—she graduated now, you remember her, Dent?”
“MmHm.”
“Tammy Cole and this other girl were walking home after practice one day, and it was ’bout to rain. You could tell it was ’bout to pour down ’cause the clouds were dark—purple—you know how it get right before it storm. Anyway, Tammy Cole and the girl were walking down the street, through the neighborhood, ’bout to rain, and Miz Grace pull up beside ’em in her Jag, let the window down—you know, press the button, slide it down on the passenger side, so they think she ’bout to ask them to get in—and she said, all nice and sweet, ‘It’s about to rain. You girls better hurry up and get home.’”
All six girls laughed, Pat releasing guffaws, Tracy chuckling softly.
“Not ‘Can I give y’all a ride home’ but ‘Y’all better hurry up and get home!’” Pat added. “They her Girls, all right, but I bet she was gonna let their behinds get wet that day!”
More laughter.
“That’s Miz Grace,” confirmed Sandra.
Pat sobered and looked at Tracy approvingly. “Guess that mean you special, Baby Girl.”
“Either that or you just need to fail a class,” said Sandra. She looked at Wanda sitting next to her and teased softly, “Hear that, Wanda? Bring home an F and you get to ride in Miz Grace’s Jag.” Sandra and the other seniors chuckled.
Wanda cut her eyes at Sandra and sucked her teeth. “I don’t make F’s,” she retorted, which brought out more laughs.
Tracy glanced searchingly at Wanda’s face to see if the girl’s remark was intended as an insult for Tracy, but Wanda would not return the look.
“But really,” said Pat seriously, addressing Tracy again, “Miz Grace like you—we can tell. And that’s cool, you know, ’cause I understand: You ah’ight, Baby Girl. You gotta sweet personality and you good on court, and Miz Grace all about winning. So I understand why she like you.”
Tracy smiled meekly at Pat. “Thanks,” she said shyly. There were no murmurs of agreement from the other girls at the table, and Tracy felt that, especially with Wanda present, Pat’s compliment was bad timing.
“Now,” continued Pat, “if you was some sarcastic hoochie like Sandra, I could understand why Miz Grace wouldn’t let you ride in her car.” The others laughed.
Sandra pointed her fork warningly at Pat, pretending to be offended. “Oh I know Creole Lady Marmalade ain’t calling me a hoochie!”
Again, the group laughed, but even as they did so, Tracy could see in Wanda Carver’s expression a meek sadness that made Tracy regret the amusement around them.
