The Perfect Place

by Teresa E. Harris

  “What’s with her today?” Byron asks.

  “She’s on a mission,” I reply, and he laughs.

  “I heard she got into it with the sheriff.” He shakes his head. “Ms. Washington is all types of crazy.”

  The girl is hanging all over Byron just like Sasha was, only this girl is taller, more legs than torso, showing more skin than clothes. She’s wearing short white shorts and a red T-shirt with an elephant walking through a triangle on the front of it. Tiffany sizes her up.

  “You look different,” Tiffany says.

  “Different from what?” the girl asks.

  “Different from Sunday, I guess. We saw you at church,” I say quickly. “I’m Jeanie and this is my sister Tiffany.”

  “I’m Keyana, Byron’s girl,” she says, as if that’s part of her name.

  Tiffany is still staring up at Keyana, this time at the design on her shirt.

  “I’m a Delta,” Keyana says, pointing at the elephant. Tiffany gazes at her blankly. “It’s a sorority at Howard. We collect elephants for good luck.”

  “Oh,” Tiffany says. “Sasha collects jewelry.”

  “Who’s—”

  Byron breaks out into a fit of coughing. I grab Tiffany by the collar of her shirt and pull her away. “See you around!” I call out over my shoulder.

  “Get off me!” Tiffany rages.

  I don’t let her go until we’re inside Grace’s Goodies. Tiffany rubs her neck.

  “Sorry,” I say, but Tiffany won’t settle for anything less than a hit.

  “On the leg or the arm, not the face,” I warn her.

  She’s cocking her arm back to pop me good when Great-Aunt Grace emerges from the stockroom. “What are you two fools doin’?”

  “Jeanie dragged me here by my shirt and almost choked me to death.”

  “She was getting ready to tell Keyana about Sasha.”

  “Oh, that was Keyana Douglas,” Great-Aunt Grace says. “Thought I recognized her. She’s as big a fool as the rest of them.” Great-Aunt Grace pats her pants pockets, checking for her keys. “All right, now, listen to me and listen good: I got a calling that I just can’t ignore. So while I’m out, I’m trustin’ the two of you to keep my door locked this time.” She points at me. “You keep workin’ on them shelves. I’m gonna fetch you a face mask so you can’t use dust as an excuse.”

  Great-Aunt Grace bends to look beneath the counter for the face mask. Tiffany reaches over and pops me on the leg.

  “Ow! You happy now?” I ask, rubbing my stinging thigh.

  Great-Aunt Grace finds the mask and tosses it on the counter. “Well, come on and get to it, girl.”

  I trudge around the counter, snatch up the mask, and stop just inside the doorway to the stockroom, taking my sweet time putting the mask on.

  “Now, Tiffany, I got a job for you. First I want you to label something for me. Then I want you to straighten the racks.”

  Great-Aunt Grace comes toward me, stopping short of the entrance to the stockroom. She bends down over the box containing her security system and opens it. Everything inside the box is wrapped up in plastic.

  “Take this,” she says, shoving a tape at Tiffany along with a package of labels. “Put this past Sunday’s date on that. Write neat as you can.”

  Who in the world labels a blank tape?

  Great-Aunt Grace heads to the door. She stops just in front of it and stares out into the street. “Gonna be a storm,” she says, and over her shoulder to me, “Treasure, you got a job to do, so stop peekin’ around that corner and get to it.” She leaves, locking the door behind her.

  I stomp toward the shelves, but I’ve got no intention of cleaning a single one of them. I wait until Tiffany is busy with that label. Then I walk right over to the phone on the wall in the corner and rip the mask off my face.

  In all the time I’ve spent in this stockroom, the phone has never rung. Does it even work? It has to.

  I pick it up and hold it to my ear.

  It works.

  I picture the sign again. APARTMENT’S FOR RENT. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL BROWN & ASSOCIATES AT 973-627-3746.

  I punch in the number to Mr. Brown’s office. A woman answers on the second ring. “Brown and Associates, how may I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Brown, please.”

  “Is this his grandbaby?”

  “No. It’s Jeanie Daniels. He might know me as Treasure. My family and I used to live in Apartment 2F. Is he there?”

  “He is, but he doesn’t have time to be talking to kids.”

  I can’t give up now. “Please. Just ask him.”

  “Hang on.”

  The woman places me on hold, leaving me alone with a recorded voice telling me that Brown & Associates is a family-run business that’s been around since 1987.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Brown?”

  “Yeah. Who is this and what do you want?”

  “It’s Jeanie Daniels. I used to live in Apartment 2F. Remember?”

  “Yeah. Your mama skipped out on three months’ worth of rent, and sent me half of it about a week ago.” He pauses. “What are you, kid, like, ten? What’re you calling me about this for?”

  “I’m twelve, actually, and I’m calling because my father left us a few months before we snuck out—that’s why we didn’t have the rent money—and now my mother is trying to find him, but we’ve got nothing to go on and I was wondering—well, I was wondering if he’d called looking for us and maybe when he couldn’t get in touch with us at the old apartment, he called you and mentioned where he was and—”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “Listen, kid, I got work to do. When you talk to your mama, tell her—”

  “What about the mail?”

  “Huh?”

  “Maybe he wrote us. Where’s our mail from the past week?”

  “Still piled up in your box. I haven’t found another tenant yet.”

  I take a deep breath. “Do you think you could . . . check the mail for me and see if he wrote to us?”

  “Who do you think I am, kid? Some errand boy?”

  “Please. I’m begging you.”

  There’s silence on the other end.

  “Please,” I say again. “And if my dad did write to us, will you hold on to the letter for me? I’ll call back tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Do you know how busy I am? I’ll get to that mailbox when I’m free, and I’ll call you when I feel like it.”

  “But the mailbox is right in the building where you live. You just—please. If we don’t find him, we’ll be homeless.”

  Mr. Brown sighs. “All right, kid. I’ll check your mailbox today or tomorrow. Day after that at the latest. In the meantime, don’t be blowing up my phone, calling every hour on the hour. When I get your mail, I’ll call you. I have your number right here on my caller ID. Got it, kid?”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  Mr. Brown hangs up before I can say thank you or goodbye. I don’t care. He said he could get to our mailbox in a day; two, tops. I sit down on the cold stockroom floor, hope pumping like blood in my veins.

  Twenty-Four

  GREAT-AUNT Grace returns an hour later with her shopping cart full of plastic bags, all knotted at the top so their contents won’t spill out. What the heck is Great-Aunt Grace hiding? I stare at the bags, thinking I should have wished for x-ray vision when I was skipping stones at the lake.

  “What’s in them?” Tiffany asks.

  “Mind your business,” Great-Aunt Grace replies. For the remainder of the day she guards that shopping cart like it’s got bags of gold in it. When we get back to her house, she puts the bags in the hall closet.

  “No snooping,” she says, and starts fixing dinner.

  We don’t snoop, but we sure enough do guess.

  “Are there presents for us in the bags?” Tiffany asks.

  Great-Aunt Grace humphs. “Yeah, sure. And Mr. Shuffle will be makin’ breakfast in the mo
rnin’.”

  That might be an improvement.

  “Is it stuff for cleaning?” I ask. “This place could use a good scrub-down.”

  Great-Aunt Grace shakes her head. “Y’all just best forget about what’s in them bags if you know what’s good for you.”

  By the time we’re done eating and I finish the dishes, the storm Great-Aunt Grace predicted is brewing outside. I run upstairs to our room, put on my pajamas, and jump into bed. Tiffany’s right behind me. I’m hoping to be cutting z’s long before the thunder starts. I’m just closing my eyes, ready for a good, long sleep when—BAM!

  That’s not thunder. It’s the front door slamming, followed by a loud voice. Moon.

  He’s complaining, as usual, only this time at the top of his lungs. About cigarettes.

  I put my finger to my lips.

  “I’m on a spy mission. Solo,” I tell Tiffany. She pouts, but she stays where she is. I creep down the stairs, quiet as a mouse wearing socks. If I stand in the downstairs bathroom, I can peek out the door and see and hear everything going on in the kitchen, where Moon and Great-Aunt Grace are arguing.

  “How in the sweet name of Jesus can every single store sell out of the same cigarette at the same time? Good Lord, I need a smoke.”

  Great-Aunt Grace’s voice is calm. “Jesus and his daddy ain’t got a thing to do with cigarettes.” She’s doing something with sea-green yarn, crocheting what looks like clothes for a baby. She doesn’t look up from her work as she gums her gum.

  It’s after ten o’clock now, and I’m assuming all the stores are closed. Moon paces the floor like a caged animal. Something brushes against my heel. I almost yelp, then catch myself and cover my mouth.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  Tiffany says, “I’m on a solo spy mission too.”

  “Solo means alone.”

  Tiffany shrugs and then says, in a voice louder than a whisper, “What’d I miss?”

  My little sister is the Worst. Spy. Ever. “Keep quiet. And listen.”

  Tiffany scowls, but she does just that.

  Great-Aunt Grace is talking now. “Guess you’ll have to drive over to Moonachie tomorrow, or wait until they restock over here,” she says. “Lord knows when that will be. Maybe Monday?”

  “Monday is days away! Smokin’ is not a hobby for me, Gracie! It ain’t for you, either. Suppose I drive to Moonachie tomorrow, but what about tonight? I can feel the want down to my bones.”

  “Mmmm, is that right?” Great-Aunt Grace says. She still hasn’t looked up, but when she does, she says, “What brand is it you smoke again?” She puts her crochet down.

  “Biltons, woman, you know that. I tried some Marlboros today and they tasted like pencil shavings!” Moon makes a spitting sound, like he’s still trying to get that taste out of his mouth.

  “Pencil shavings, huh?” Great-Aunt Grace says.

  She puts down her crochet and, like a magician, pulls a pack of cigarettes from somewhere. Her bra? If so, I don’t want to know about it. But Moon wouldn’t care if she’d pulled that pack of Biltons from where the sun don’t shine. He holds out his hand for them.

  “What do we have here?” Great-Aunt Grace says, staring at the cigarettes as if they materialized from thin air.

  “Let me have ’em, Grace,” Moon says. He starts toward her.

  “Not until we work out a deal.”

  Moon stops midstep and stares at her. He holds up his empty hands as if to say, “I got nothing.”

  Great-Aunt Grace seems to read his mind. “I don’t want nothin’ material. Now, if you’ll recall a conversation we had this mornin’, before the girls got up, I told you in plain English not to smoke around my grandniece. I told you about her sickness. And what do you do while she’s sittin’ right at the table next to you? Light one up. You ask me what I want from you, and I want this: Never smoke around Treasure again.”

  “Grace, this is practically my house too—”

  “Never said it wasn’t. But that girl is my family and you best do right by her.” Pause. “There’s more where these came from, you know.”

  Great-Aunt Grace gets up and starts in my direction. I pull Tiffany into the darkened bathroom, but Great-Aunt Grace stops at the hall closet a few feet away. Then she heads back to the kitchen and sits down at the table again, at least half a dozen plastic bags at her feet. She reaches into one, pulls out a box, and waves it in the air. A carton of cigarettes. She rips open the box and pulls out a pack.

  “I’ve got more in that closet, just couldn’t carry ’em all out here to you.”

  Moon’s mouth falls open. “Gracie, why you got all them Biltons?”

  “Yeah, why does she?” Tiffany asks.

  “Shush!”

  “Wait a dang minute,” Moon says slowly. “You ain’t buy out all the cigarettes from all those stores, did you?”

  Silence from Great-Aunt Grace, and then an explosion from Moon.

  “Woman, you’re off your rocker, you know that?” He keeps wiping his brow until it looks like he’s going to wipe the brown clean off.

  “Yes, sir,” she says. “So if you want yourself a smoke tonight, you gonna have to get it from me. But I’m tellin’ you, you best take it outside, down the block, away from this house while Treasure’s stayin’ here.”

  Moon doesn’t say a word. He’s lost the battle; that’s plain to see. But the way he keeps opening and closing his mouth tells me he’s still trying to figure out a way to win. There’s no such thing as winning with Great-Aunt Grace, though, and he should know this better than anyone else.

  Moon holds out one hand to her for the cigarettes. Great-Aunt Grace pulls back.

  “Your word.”

  Moons sucks his breath in through his nose and blows it out of his mouth. “You have my word.”

  “Good. That’ll be eight-fifty.”

  Twenty-Five

  I still can’t believe Great-Aunt Grace stood up to Moon for me. No matter how many times I try to wrap my mind around it, I can’t.

  “Can you believe she did that?” I ask Tiffany, as we’re brushing our teeth the next morning.

  Tiffany rinses her mouth. Then she examines herself in the mirror. “When I grow up I’m gonna be pretty like Sasha.”

  “Yeah, okay. Can you believe Great-Aunt Grace did all that with Moon and the cigarettes for me? Tiffany, I’m talking to you.”

  Tiffany tears her eyes away from her reflection and looks up at me. “You’ll be smart like Keyana.”

  I screw the cap back on the toothpaste and wipe my mouth on the neck of my nightshirt. “I can’t be pretty too?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your hair is cuh-razy.” Tiffany darts out of the bathroom and into the hallway before I can pop her.

  She’s right, though: my hair is crazy. Dad used to say it’s because our hair, his and mine, is impervious to “doing”—unaffected by combs, brushes, blow dryers, and gel. No matter what you try, our hair will curl up and puff right back out. My throat tightens. It’s been only a day since I called Mr. Brown and asked him to check the mail. By tomorrow, he’s supposed to call me.

  What if Mr. Brown doesn’t find anything in the mail from Dad? What if Mom can’t find him at all? We won’t have anywhere to go and we’ll never be an aggregate again.

  I look at my reflection in the mirror, hair all over my head and eyes blinking back tears.

  Don’t give up hope.

  I reach into the cabinet above Great-Aunt Grace’s sink and find a hard bristle brush and a jar of Blue Magic hair grease. Then I get to work, slicking and brushing until I’ve managed to pull my hair into a ponytail. The front is laid down, but the back is still an explosion of unruly curls. I wipe my face on my nightshirt. My hair is impervious to doing, and from here on out, I’m going to be impervious to hopelessness.

  I wonder if I should thank Great-Aunt Grace. She’s sitting across the table from me, concentrating on her word find and chewing a wad o
f mint-flavored gum. If I thank her, though, she’ll know I was spying, so I keep my mouth 100 percent shut. I don’t complain about the dry scrambled eggs or crispy-black bacon, and when Tiffany and I are done eating, I start the dishes without being told to.

  I’m scrubbing bacon grease off of Great-Aunt Grace’s cast-iron skillet when the doorbell rings. Great-Aunt Grace goes to answer it. Tiffany slides into her empty seat and takes over the word find. When Great-Aunt Grace returns looking grimmer than ever, Tiffany says proudly, “I found three words.”

  Great-Aunt Grace ignores her and goes over to the refrigerator. She reaches up and takes down a small stack of rumpled papers. I recognize the one on top immediately: Eunetta’s reward poster for her missing pearls. Great-Aunt Grace takes out the most wrinkled one of all—Dot’s poster about her missing statue—and studies it.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, as I set the skillet in the drain board.

  “Dot came over, talkin’ about how Mr. and Mrs. Russell came back from Virginia Beach yesterday and found out someone broke in and stole some of Juanita’s jewelry. Askin’ me if I know anything about it. I swear that woman is as simple as they come. What am I gonna do with this junk?” Great-Aunt Grace jabs her index finger at the picture of Dot’s elephant statue.

  “Found another word!” Tiffany declares. She pumps her fist in the air. “Earth to Great-Aunt Grace, I found another word.”

  When Great-Aunt Grace’s gaze doesn’t shift from the flier, Tiffany gets up from the table and stalks over to her. “What’s that?” she demands to know, practically climbing up Great-Aunt Grace’s side to get a look. “Oh,” she says, losing interest almost immediately. She hops back to the table in full bunny mode. “Keyana likes elephants.”

  “What’s that, girl?” Great-Aunt Grace says.

  “Keyana likes elephants. She was wearing a shirt with an elephant on it when we met her. She said she thinks they’re good luck.”

  “Wait,” I say to Great-Aunt Grace. “You don’t think Keyana—”

  Great-Aunt Grace is already striding into the living room, Tiffany and me right behind her. She picks up her ancient cordless phone and dials a number.