Summer in the City

by Fracaswell Hyman

  As the train sped along, I looked at the people around me. First, I looked for a Transit Police officer, but I didn’t see one. Mom had told me a long time ago, when I first started walking to school on my own, “If you ever get in trouble, Mango, or feel afraid, look for the people who will help. There are always people around who are willing to help.” So I looked from face to face, but most of them were looking down at their devices, listening to music with their eyes closed, reading books, or just staring off into space. I couldn’t tell which of them would want to help. These New York City faces were different from the faces of people where I came from. These seemed to be in a hurry, tense, wary.

  As the train continued, people got off and I was able to get a seat. I recognized the stops in Brooklyn: Borough Hall, Nevins Street, Atlantic Avenue . . . I was feeling pretty confident. But after Atlantic Avenue, the next few stops were unfamiliar. Franklin Avenue? President Street? Sterling Street? I’d never seen these stops before. I stood up and wobbled across the car to check the subway map.

  The map was a series of different colored lines that crisscrossed and zigzagged over the five boroughs of New York City. Between the moving train and all the colors, letters, and numbers, I couldn’t figure out where I was.

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. A lot more people got off when the train stopped at Church Avenue. I needed to find a kind face, the kind of kind face that would want to help.

  To my left, there was a group of really tall teen boys. A couple of them were tossing a basketball back and forth across the aisle. Maybe they were a basketball team. They didn’t look menacing, but they didn’t look helpful either. To my right and farther down, there was an elderly lady with blue-tinted hair. She was clutching a canvas shopping bag on her lap and seemed to be smiling to herself. She had on a hat with a little net that covered the top of her face that reminded me of the old-fashioned lady from the airplane. I decided that she looked like a person who’d want to help me.

  As I slid into the seat beside the lady, the train lurched, making me bump into her. High-pitched barking came from the canvas bag, followed by the head of a snarling Chihuahua! I screamed. The old lady screamed. The doors slid open, and the woman trotted off the train, yelling, “Stay away! He’ll bite you! Stay away!”

  I clutched my chest it was racing so fast. The basketball guys started laughing at me, barking and imitating the old lady. I realized I really sucked at finding a kind face that wanted to help. An announcement crackled from the speaker. “The next and last stop is Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn College. Last stop on this train. Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”

  Brooklyn College . . . that sounded familiar. I wondered why and then I realized that was where my mother had gone to college!

  A calmness came over me. I ignored those boys’ mocking laughs down at the other end of the car. I had a connection to this stop. This was a place that had been important in my mother’s life, and now, that’s where I found myself going. I knew what I needed to do. I would get off, leave the train station, and call Mom. She’d give me directions to get back to Aunt Zendaya’s. Or I could call Aunt Zendaya and she would come and get me!

  The speaker crackled, “Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn College. This is the last stop on this train.” I got off and headed up the stairs to the exit.

  Coming up out of the subway, it felt as though my eyes weren’t big enough to take in all the activity going on around me. Buses were rolling by, cars, taxis whizzing past, bicycles dodging in and out of traffic, horns blaring. There were shops everywhere—retail stores, restaurants, fruit and vegetable stands, food trucks. Songs in different languages blasted from speakers in front of the different storefronts. People, mostly black and brown, hurried this way and that, carrying packages, pushing children in strollers. Students headed to and from the college, some on skateboards, scooters, or bikes. I turned around in circles, trying to take it all in.

  I looked at the intersection where so many people were crossing the streets in different directions or waiting for the lights to change from red to green. This is the place where my mother’s life changed! I had to call her, not just to help me find my way back to Aunt Z’s, but I needed to share this moment with her. To tell her I was here, and I could feel her presence with me.

  I took out my phone and pressed the home key to make it light up, but it didn’t. I pressed again. Nothing. I tried to turn it off and then on again. That usually worked when something weird was going on, but it didn’t respond—it was just plain dead. Then I remembered face2facing with Izzy and the low battery warning. I completely forgot to charge my phone when I got back to rehearsal! Now here I was, stranded, with a phone I couldn’t use!

  I felt tears welling up inside me, but no—I was not going to cry at this huge intersection with hundreds of people rushing by me. Think, Mango, think! There must have been some way to contact people before there were cell phones. Of course–a phone booth! Wasn’t there one on every corner? I looked around, but there was not one phone booth in sight. Where did they put them nowadays? I began to walk down Flatbush Avenue, looking all around me. I had to find one before it got dark. I was doing my best to be brave, but it was way harder to be brave as it got dark.

  After walking three blocks, I still couldn’t find a phone booth, and it was getting close to twilight. I stopped on a corner for a minute, trying to calm myself, when I heard Bob Marley’s voice. He was singing “Three Little Birds,” Dada’s favorite Bob Marley song, and mine. I loved the way it made me feel everything was going to be all right.

  I continued walking down the street, trying to figure out where the song was coming from, and found a West Indian bakery. I walked toward the music and as I got closer, the smell of beef patties beckoned me inside—it was as if I were at home. Looking up at the menu, I saw they had patties, oxtail stew, brown stew fish and turn cornmeal, jerk chicken and jerk pork, escovitch fish, plantain tarts, stew peas, bun and cheese, ackee, and saltfish . . . all foods I loved, and that my Dada cooked for me. I couldn’t help it, tears began to fall from my eyes—big, bowling-ball-size tears of relief.

  There was a woman behind the counter, stout but fit, with kind brown eyes and a warm smile. She looked at me and said, “What wrong, child? Why ya cry fa?” Her accent made the tears fall even faster. She was from Jamaica, no doubt about it. She was Jamaican, just like my Dada.

  The woman came from around the counter, sat down at one of the few tables, and patted the seat beside her. “Come here, gal. Come tell Miss Clover what a gwan?”

  I sat beside her and spilled everything that had happened since Zippy let me get on the wrong train. Miss Clover said, “If you want to get to Bergen Street, you have to take the 2 train, not the 5. Me can’t believe that gal would send you off on the wrong train like that.” She pulled out her phone. “Let’s call your auntie, so she can come fetch ya.”

  Unfortunately, I never memorized Aunt Z’s phone number. It was programmed into my phone, so I didn’t think I had to. Wrong! But I did know Dada’s and Mom’s phone numbers by heart. I gave her Dada’s number, because Mom sometimes had a hard time understanding a thick Jamaican accent, especially when she was upset—as I knew she would be when she found out what had happened.

  Miss Clover dialed the number and put her phone on speaker. Dada picked up immediately. “Hello?”

  “Allo?”

  “Hi, Dada.”

  “Mango? Are you okay? Whose phone is this? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine, Dada. I’m with Miss Clover at her bakery.”

  “What? We been worried about you! Your aunt called and said you were late and she couldn’t get you on the phone and that gal that take to you rehearsal not answering her phone or returning messages. Who is this Miss Clover?”

  “Me is Miss Clover. This my bakery. The child come in frazzled, yes. Tears roll down she face and she tell me about this hard-rice-cookin’, duck foot heifer who let her get on the wrong train and make she get lost!”

>   In the midst of all my drama, I couldn’t help but laugh at Miss Clover’s description of Zippy. It was a real insult to a Jamaican if you couldn’t cook your rice right.

  Dada asked, “Mango, how did you come by there?”

  “I heard Bob Marley singing, and I smelled food just like you cook at home. It made me feel like I had found someone who would want to help me.”

  Miss Clover hugged me to her bosom. “This a brave and smart lickle girl you have here, suh.”

  “Yes, me know. And me very proud of she.”

  Miss Clover gave Dada the address of the bakery, so he could let Aunt Zendaya know where to pick me up. He also suggested we not tell Mom about what happened just yet. He would break it to her gently, later, when she got home from work. “You know your mother. She grow wings and talons and fly up there and give that Zippy gal what for.”

  “I know, Dada,” I giggled.

  While I waited for Aunt Zendaya, Miss Clover stuffed me with the best Jamaican food I’d had, next to Dada’s. I told her about the Yo, Romeo! and why I was in New York. She was very impressed. As customers came through, she would point to me and exclaim, “Me got a movie star at me table, eating me food!”

  When Aunt Zendaya arrived, she couldn’t resist eating whatever was vegan on the menu—the stew peas and plantain tarts were her favorite. She bought a bunch of our favorites to take back with us.

  When we got back to the apartment, I was so tired and full of good-good food, I crawled into bed without even taking my clothes off. But I did remember to plug in my phone to charge it. I wouldn’t be caught unprepared again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Mom Blasts Off!

  In the morning, as I was getting ready, I went over my route to get to rehearsal. I was a little worried about doing it alone, but I had learned my lesson yesterday—always be aware of where you’re going and how to get there. There would be no more getting on the wrong train ever again!

  I picked up my phone and turned it on, one hundred percent charged. That was another lesson yesterday’s experience taught me—always keep your phone charged! When my phone was back on, I saw I had a series of missed calls from Mom. Uh-oh. I figured I’d better get this over with now, so I face2faced her.

  “Mango!”

  “Hi, Mom. Sorry I didn’t answer your calls last night.”

  “That’s okay, baby. Zendaya told me you were fast asleep, and after your ordeal, who could blame you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. That Zipper girl, she better thank her lucky stars that I wasn’t close enough to snatch her bald-headed!”

  Uh-oh. That was an example of her Brooklyn coming out. “Mom, relax. It’s okay.”

  “Oh, honey, it’s better than okay. After your father told me what happened, I called Mr. Bob and gave him a piece of my mind he will never forget.”

  “But he didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Yes, he did. He told us we could trust that spiteful sister of his. I want her fired.”

  “Mom, you can’t do that!”

  “I told him to fire her or else I was coming up to New York to bring you home today.”

  “Mom, I have a contract. . .”

  “I have a contract, too. I’m contracted to keep you safe and not leave you in the hands of fools. That’s my contract, and there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna break it.”

  Wow, Mom really was on the warpath. I had to find a way to calm her down. “Mom, I’m okay. Really. I took your advice and looked for someone to help, and I found her—Miss Clover. And I got off the train at Brooklyn College, because I remembered what you told me about running track there and the place where you had the accident. It felt like you there with me, and it calmed me down.”

  “Aw, baby, you know I will always be there for you, whether I know I’m needed or not,” Mom said. “I called that Miss Clover and thanked her and told her if I ever get back to Brooklyn, I’m gonna hug her neck.”

  I laughed. “That’s nice, Mom. Um, is Bob really going to fire Zippy?”

  “He said he’d talk to you about it before making a final decision, but I hope he does.”

  “But she’s his sister, Mom.”

  “Yeah, well . . . I guess I know what it’s like having a butter-headed sister, but still, well, since it was an accident.”

  “What was an accident?”

  “You two getting separated in the crowd. She swears it was an accident.”

  Zippy said it was an accident? She was trying to cover her tracks and save her job! I mean, who smiled and waved at someone they just accidentally separated from? But if I told my mother what had really happened, my phone might explode, so I said, “Okay. I have to get ready to go to rehearsal. I can go on my own now.”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You sit tight. Mr. Bob said he was sending . . . um . . . somebody with a strange name, but he promised me he or she was way more reliable than that Zipper or whatever her name is.”

  “But Mom, I know the way!”

  “Don’t 'but Mom’ me, unless you want me to come up there and get you today.”

  I sighed. “Ooookay. Bye, Mom.”

  “Bye, honey. I love you.”

  “Love you back.”

  I hung up and started to get ready, wondering who my new escort would be. Maybe it was Roz, the actress who was worried she was too young to play my mother. I kind of hoped it wasn’t, but she’d still be a lot better than Zippy.

  I was about to take a bite of one of the plantain tarts we brought home last night when the buzzer rang from downstairs—a half hour earlier than Zippy’s usual pickup time. It wasn’t the signal she had come up with, so I buzzed whoever it was in, and waited to open the door to my Mystery Escort.

  I was tugging a scrunchie on my hair to make my daily Afro puff when there was a knock at the door. Aunt Zendaya, her hair bonnet lopsided on her head, looked up sleepily and asked, “Who’s that knocking?”

  “Must be my new escort.”

  “Oh yeah, your mama told me somebody new was coming today.”

  I went to the door, opened it, and to my surprise, there stood Acorn! Aunt Zendaya screamed and dove under the bedclothes. I almost laughed, but I was more shocked that Acorn was there. I said, “Hi. What are you doing here?”

  Acorn smiled, puzzled, “Didn’t you get my texts?”

  “Uh...no.” Then I remembered I had turned my phone off the night before.

  “After the drama of last night, I volunteered to take Zippy’s place. But it would mean leaving earlier every day and staying later . . . if you don’t mind.”

  From under the covers we heard, “She don’t mind.” Aunt Zendaya peered out, adjusting her bonnet. “Do you, baby?”

  I smiled. “Nope, I don’t mind at all.” The day was starting off pretty good. Even though I had to go through getting lost in Brooklyn yesterday, today I had the escort I wanted, so all’s well that ends well!

  Acorn and I chatted on our way to the subway. “I hope I didn’t embarrass your aunt.”

  “Maybe a little bit, but she’ll get over it, I’m sure.”

  “How sure?”

  “Very. She likes you.”

  He beamed. “Really? You think so?”

  Uh-oh. Maybe I had said too much. I was not supposed to get involved in grown folks’ love lives, but it seemed like the feelings were mutual, so I said, “I know so. She had a million questions about you. Questions I couldn’t answer, because I don’t even know you that well.”

  His entire face lit up. “I have a million questions for her, too.”

  As we waited on the subway platform, I said, “My mom is really mad at Zippy, but I hope she doesn’t get fired.”

  “I know Bob and Larry take your safety very seriously. Perhaps that is what she deserves.”

  “But she’s Bob’s sister and she has a lot of friends in the show. If she gets fired over this, I’m worried everyone will hate me.”

  “They were not
hired to love you. Don’t let worry drain your creative energy. I’ve worked with Zippy before. She’s what you call a 'pot stirrer.’ Soon enough everyone will recognize her for who she is. Don’t trouble yourself about her or anyone—the universe will handle it.”

  The train came, and I thought about what he said all the way from Brooklyn into Manhattan. Being a part of this show, even all the way in New York City, Off-Off-Off Broadway, it wasn’t much different than middle school. Some people liked you and some didn’t. Some were bullies and you just had to learn to handle them, be strong, and trust yourself. So, I made up my mind to focus on the work, not on Gabriel Faust and Zippy. I determined to be the best Juliet I could be. Even better than before. Everything else would take care of itself.

  I took out my phone and sent a text to myself:

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Un-ZIPPY-ed

  It was nice getting to rehearsal early. I helped Acorn set up the room, and then I had time to stretch, warm up, and review the dance steps we’d learned the day before. I felt ready to face whatever came my way. I still had a few minutes before the rest of the cast arrived, so I went to the ladies’ room to put on some of Aunt Zendaya’s lipstick.

  I thought I was the only one in the restroom when I entered, but as I was leaning toward the mirror to put on my lipstick, the door to a stall opened, and guess who stepped out?

  “Mango.”

  “Zippy.” She went to the sink, turned on the water, got some soap from the dispenser, and started washing her hands. “That’s a nice shade of lipstick. What’s it called?”

  I side-eyed her and said, “It’s called lipstick.”

  “Hmm. Okay. I guess you’re mad at me.”

  I didn’t say a word but kept calmly putting on my lipstick.

  Zippy went on talking. “Seriously, though, I feel terrible. I worried about you all night. I . . . I . . . it was an accident, I swear!”