The journals. I was too excited about seventh grade last night to think much about them, but I do want to read them. I’m about to tell her I need to drop my bag at home and call Dad to let him know where I am when I notice the strange car in our driveway. But it’s not actually strange. I know that car.
“Can I take a rain check?” I ask, suddenly wanting to sprint the rest of the way home.
“Yeah, sure.” Edie glances at our house. “Whose car is that?”
“Denise and Tim’s.”
“Who are they?”
My feet feel like they’re going to shuffle away without me, but I keep walking next to Edie. Try to play it as cool as she would.
“Family friends.” I stop. I don’t know how much I want to get into this right now. It’s not always easy to explain Denise. Sometimes other people don’t make it easy. But I look over at Edie, who hasn’t ever judged me or made me feel weird about anything I’ve told her. “They’re, um… Denise is my birth mom… the surrogate for my dads. And she’s married to Tim. They live in L.A.”
“Oh.” Edie’s eyes go wide as we stop in front of her house. But not in that annoying way, like some people look when I tell them something about my life. That’s always when the string of questions starts. Edie just looks like she’s happy that I told her. “How long are they visiting?”
“Denise will be here for a while, but Tim has to go on location for a movie he’s working on.” I adjust my backpack strap on my shoulder. My toes are positively itching to run across the street. I flex them in my ankle boots. “You can meet her sometime. But I’d better get home to say hi.”
“Okay, yeah. See you tomorrow morning?”
“Bright and early,” I say before I finally stop fighting it and tear across the street, my backpack thumping against me as I run.
I kick off my boots at the front steps, push the door open, and—
Nobody’s here.
“Hello?” I call out. “Dad?”
Nothing.
“Elliott?” I say next, even though I know he’s still at school.
Where are they? Did they go somewhere without me? I pad barefoot across the living room and that’s when I hear the voices. They’re out back.
I hurry to the door and step outside. Dad, Denise, and Tim are sitting under the paper lanterns, glasses of wine and water and a giant cheese board sitting in the center of the table.
Dad looks up at the sound of the door. “There she is! Were your ears burning? We were just talking about you.”
I shake my head, suddenly shy. It was exciting to think about Denise coming, but now that she’s here, what if it’s weird? I’ve never lived with a pregnant person before. I’ve never even lived with a woman.
But as soon as Denise turns and I see her big, warm smile, I feel okay. Happy to see her. She stands and I bound down the porch and across the small yard to hug her. She pulls me tight and all I can smell for a few moments is patchouli and oranges.
“Look at how big you are!” she exclaims, holding me at arm’s length. I wonder if she’s just saying that. Being back at school confirmed that about 75 percent of the girls in my class are wearing bras now because they need to. Not just because they don’t want to look like babies. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much, Alberta.”
“I missed you, too,” I say, trying not to stare at her belly. Denise is wearing a flowing red caftan with white flowers that looks like it’s draped over a beach ball.
“Hey, kiddo,” Tim says, wrapping me in a hug of his own. Tim is quiet but kind, and he’s so sweet to Denise in a way I’ve never seen the boys I know treat any girls. Not even the ones with girlfriends. He’s always making sure she’s comfortable and that she doesn’t need anything, and I can tell by the way he looks at her that he really loves her. It’s the same way Dad and Elliott look at each other, sometimes for no reason at all.
We sit down, me taking the empty spot on the bench next to Dad. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“We didn’t really know, either,” Denise says, glancing apologetically at Dad. “Surprise.”
Tim sighs. “The film’s production timeline got moved up, so I have to be in Vancouver by tomorrow.”
Vancouver. “You’re going to Canada?” I know it’s just up the coast from here, but it’s still another country. That sounds so far away.
“Yeah, right before I’m about to pop out this baby.” Denise taps him on the cheek with a long fingernail. “I’ve been dying to go on one of those trips with him. Vancouver looks gorgeous.”
“Hey, we could always have a little Canadian-American baby if you want to take a chance,” Tim says with a smile.
“Nope, this baby is going to be California through and through. Just like their mama.” Denise rubs the bump under her caftan, then rests her hands on top of it. She looks at me. “How was your first day? I can’t believe you’re in seventh grade already.”
“It was good,” I say. “Except I don’t have any classes with Laramie.”
“What about Edie?” Dad asks, popping an olive into his mouth.
“We have three together.” I reach for a piece of manchego and a few green grapes from the cheese board.
“Well, that sounds like a pretty good trade-off.” He turns to Denise and Tim. “Edie is the daughter of the woman I was telling you about earlier. She and Alberta became fast friends. We’ll have them over for dinner soon so you can meet them, D.”
Elliott comes home early and we go out for Thai food. I don’t think he and Denise stop talking the whole time. They were best friends on the commune. He met her first, and Denise says the three of them were inseparable once Dad showed up. It’s weird to think there was ever a time they didn’t all know each other. I’ve always only had one best friend, but I wonder if Laramie, Edie, and I will ever be that way. Inseparable.
When we get back home, I head to my room to do my homework before bed, leaving my dads, Denise, and Tim to sit in the living room, remembering old times. I’d rather be with them, but at least I’ve heard most of those stories before.
There’s a knock on my door just as I’m finishing the reading for science. I say come in, and I see Denise’s stomach first, then the rest of her.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to say good night,” she says, resting her hand on her belly.
“Oh, I’m not going to sleep yet.” I look at the clock. It’s only eight thirty. I still have another hour. Elliott and Dad tacked on another half hour to my bedtime this year. Privileges of seventh grade.
Denise laughs. “No, I meant I’m going to bed. This baby and I are exhausted.” She lingers in the doorway for a few seconds, and I think maybe she’s waiting for me to officially invite her in.
“Do you want to sit down?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind. But just for a few minutes, or I might end up falling asleep here.” She eases herself onto the end of my bed.
I swing my desk chair around so I’m facing her.
Denise glances at my science textbook. “Homework on the first day? Seventh grade is no joke.”
I sigh. “You’re telling me.”
“But you like it?”
“Yeah, I think so. Maybe.”
“Seventh grade isn’t easy,” she says. “There’s something about being your age.… Now, it’s been quite a while, but I remember it felt like everything was so different all of a sudden. Like I was going to school with all the same people, but something had changed that I couldn’t put my finger on.”
I nod, surprised that she just said exactly what I’ve been feeling for a few weeks now. She hasn’t even been here a day. I haven’t seen her in months.
She spreads her palm over my duvet. “I hope it’s okay that I’m staying with you all for a few weeks. You have a lot going on, with just starting school.”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Denise smiles as big as she did when I first saw her this afternoon. “Good. I am, too. And I know you have better things to do than han
g out with me and my giant belly, but I hope we can spend some time together.”
“Me too,” I say, shy again. I look at her stomach instead of her face when I ask, “What does it feel like?”
“Being pregnant?” She laughs. “A whole lot of things. I had a tough first trimester. A lot of morning sickness. It’s mostly just uncomfortable now. But I like knowing there’s something—someone—growing in there. And sometimes the baby kicks, which is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“Did I kick you?”
The question comes out before I even realize what I’ve asked. My neck turns hot. I wish I could take it back. But when I look at Denise, she’s wearing a soft smile.
“Yes, you did. And I thought it was just as amazing. Maybe even more so, because it was the first time I ever felt it.”
I’ve seen pictures of Denise when she was pregnant with me, but sometimes it’s still hard to believe I came from her. I feel a ping of warmth in my stomach that she remembers what it was like.
She yawns, her mouth so wide I can see all her molars. “Okay, that’s my cue. Time for me to hit the sack.” She uses one hand to push off the bed while holding her stomach with her other arm.
“Good night, Denise.”
“See you in the morning, sweet girl.” She kisses the top of my head before she leaves, closing the door softly behind her.
Tim heads out so early the next day that I’m not up in time to say good-bye.
But I wake up for a few moments before he leaves. I hear gentle scurrying around the house: sleepy toothbrushing, zipping bags, and whispered conversations. My window faces the street, so when Tim is getting ready to drive off, I hear that, too.
“You’ll take good care of my girl?” he says, his voice floating through my open window. He sounds more serious than I’ve ever heard him.
“I’m not a girl, I’m a woman,” Denise gently reminds him. “And I can take care of myself just fine.”
“Well, we’ll be here in case you need any help,” Dad says. Even without looking, I can tell he’s smiling.
Elliott’s voice comes next: “In other words, we got this.”
I snuggle back under the covers.
LIVING BEINGS
A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER, ONCE DENISE IS MOSTLY settled in, I go to Edie’s house after school.
We’re sitting in the attic with a tray of snacks between us. Ms. Whitman is trying out recipes for the B&B, so it’s all breakfast foods: honey muffins, eggs Benedict, blueberry scones, and a breakfast lasagna that I can’t decide how I feel about.
Two stacks of Constance’s journals are lined up next to the tray. I’ve only read a few entries, but I can already tell her stories are going to be a lot more interesting than most of the books on our reading list this year. I’m not sure our English teacher knows there were books published after 1985.
“So I think we should divide them up and each read them on our own,” Edie says, popping a bit of muffin into her mouth. “Then we can reconvene and tell each other what we found.”
I take a sip of orange juice from the tall glass on my side of the tray. “But we might miss something if we read separately. Unless… I guess we could take notes.”
Edie wrinkles her nose. “I am not taking notes, Alberta. Don’t we already have enough homework?”
She’s not wrong. This was only our third day of school and I’m pretty sure I’ve already done more homework for seventh grade than in the whole first month of sixth.
“Yeah, but how else will we keep track of what’s going on in her life?”
She taps her finger against her temple. “I can keep everything up here. Craig says I probably could’ve gotten into his fancy gifted school on my memory alone.”
“What if we read them separately and I write it all down?” I suggest. “You won’t have to do anything except read. Which we already want to do.”
“Fine,” Edie says after a moment. “But I’m not going in order.”
We agree about that. There have to be at least twenty journals here, and the pages are so old that some of the ink is faded and hard to read. Not to mention Constance’s loopy writing. We learned cursive in school, but not many people use it except to sign their names. I can barely even read Elliott’s signature when he signs my permission slips.
Edie pushes one of the stacks of journals toward me. I figure that’s our cue to begin reading, but as soon as I open the one on top, she starts talking.
“Today, someone asked me if I’ve ever seen somebody get stabbed,” she says slowly.
My head whips up. “What? Here?”
“No, when I lived in New York.”
Oh. I guess that makes more sense, but it’s still a ridiculous thing to ask. The thought never even occurred to me when I met Edie. “Who said that?”
“Fletcher.” She waves her hand like he and what he said are not important. But she’s staring at the set of journals without blinking. “People really don’t know anything about New York, huh? It’s not some awful place where everyone’s terrible all the time. I love New York like it’s…”
“Like it’s what?”
She shakes her head. “Never mind. It’s dumb.”
But I won’t let it go. “What were you going to say?”
“I love New York like it’s family. It’s home. I miss it. And I hate when people say stupid things about it. People who’ve never even been there and only seen it in gangster movies.”
“People can be really rude around here,” I say. “A lot of them haven’t been out of the state… or even the area. They don’t know any better.”
That’s what Dad tells me sometimes when I complain about the things people at school have said to me. It doesn’t usually make me feel much better, though. I don’t feel any better saying it to Edie, either. And what’s the excuse for someone like Nicolette? She and her family go on a huge trip to Europe every summer, and it’s like she has a bag full of stupid things that she’s just waiting to whip out at any moment.
“I guess,” Edie says. But she doesn’t look convinced.
My stack of journals is from different months in 1955 and the beginning of 1956. Not necessarily in order, but not too far apart, either. I don’t know if Edie separated them that way on purpose, but I like it.
Edie and I ended up talking more than reading, so I stuffed my half of the journals as carefully as I could into my backpack to take home. I was glad I only had to walk across the street. The extra weight was heavy enough on my shoulders to slow me down.
Dad and Denise were just heading out to the market when I got home. They asked if I wanted to go with them, but I chose homework. I want to save the journals to read before bed, and I don’t want to have to hurry through my other reading right before.
Now, as I’m finishing the take-home quiz for history, the smell of dinner wafts through the house. I breathe it in, wondering what they’re making, when I freeze. Is my nose broken? I smell boiling potatoes, and Dad’s favorite herbs—thyme and rosemary—and… meat?
When I get to the kitchen, Denise and Dad are standing over the stove, laughing about something. And cooking a steak.
“What are you doing?” I don’t mean to sound so accusatory. But as much as Edie couldn’t believe I’ve never had meat, I can’t believe it’s being cooked in our house right this minute.
They both turn around. Dad looks guilty.
“It’s all my fault,” Denise says right away. “I wasn’t planning to eat meat while I’m here, out of respect for your home, but the baby wants what it wants.”
I think back to the other night, when we went out for Thai food. Tim ordered yellow curry with chicken, but she had a vegetarian dish, same as me and my dads.
“I should’ve warned you, Alberta,” Dad chimes in. Then, looking at Denise: “This is the first time we’ve ever cooked meat in the house.”
Denise lifts the edge of the sizzling steak with tongs and peers on the other side. “Which is exactly why I br
ought my own pans and utensils.”
“You did?”
She looks back at me with a smile. “I’m not trying to contaminate anything. The smell is strong enough. I know how serious vegetarianism is for you guys.”
Still, I don’t know how she can eat a steak and not feel bad about it. When I first asked about meat and where it came from and why we didn’t eat it, Dad and Elliott showed me a short video for kids that explained everything. We talked about it afterward, and when they asked if I had any questions, my first one was if the part about animals having feelings was true.
“It sure is,” Elliott said. “Their feelings and brains might be different from humans, but they still have them. They’re living beings, and your dad and I think we should respect that.”
I look across the room now, where Dad turns up the fan on the stove hood and slides the patio door wider. I’m not judging Denise for eating meat—most of my friends do. I’m just glad Dad and Elliott aren’t going to start, too. That would be another big change around here all within a couple of weeks, and I’m not sure I can handle that right now.
October 31, 1955
I must admit, I was dreading this day for weeks. Mama never liked Halloween. She called it the devil’s holiday… but then it never took Mama too long to attribute anything to the devil.
Oh, how I miss her.
Mr. Graham only started his new job at the California School of Fine Arts, but I suppose artists are more understanding, because he was able to leave early to take the children trick-or-treating. I helped them get dressed in the costumes Mrs. Graham spent the past week sewing, and there was only one minor crisis.
Betty didn’t want to wear her bunny costume because Mrs. Graham forgot to make a tail. Well, it was too late to get out to Britex and back for the tulle, so I became crafty. I glued together a handful of Mrs. Graham’s cotton balls that looked quite convincing, if I do say so myself. Betty and Mrs. Graham were delighted with the fluffy new tail. Crisis averted! Mrs. Graham told me she wasn’t sure how they’d ever get along without me.
The Only Black Girls in Town Page 8
