by Neta Jackson
The doorbell rang again—Okay, this is it, I decided—and I dispensed candy to a Harry Potter look-alike and a ghost in a pillowcase with eyeholes. “Cute!” I said, waving to an adult standing out on the sidewalk. The ghost stood on my porch, pawing through his—her?—sack of goodies, trying to see what I put in there. “Go on, honey,” I urged, casting an anxious eye down the block. I wanted to get the porch light turned off and the pumpkin blown out before any late trick-or-treaters took it personally.
After darkening the front of the house, I hustled back to the computer wondering just what Nony planned to “do” about the AIDS crisis. I scanned the page on my screen trying to find my place. Ah.
As elsewhere, the poorest people pay more for less. Food prices are soaring in the Eastern Cape—a direct result of the political chaos in Zimbabwe, which used to provide one of our food staples: maize. Without their export, the price of maize has skyrocketed. And for South Africa’s poor, maize is the primary food that they buy. Can you imagine spending over 50 percent of your income just on food?
No, I couldn’t. Yet right now I was more concerned about Nony. Was Mark right to be worried that Nony’s heart would find reason to stay in South Africa? I read on.
But as always there is hope. This week the Sunday Times told a story about schoolchildren right here in Pietermaritzburg who collected 240 rand, or about thirty-three dollars, to help feed the Eastern Cape’s starving children. One boy gave his taxi money, which meant he had to walk forty-five minutes to get home. Another gave his birthday money. Many come from indigent families themselves. The children saw a need, set themselves a goal, and made personal sacrifices. These children are my heroes! And they give me reason to hope.
Love to all. I do so miss the Yada Yada prayer meetings.
Nonyameko
P.S. Marcus and Michael have their own new hero— Makhaya Ntini, a star player on South Africa’s cricket team! SA is playing a series of tests against Bangladesh here in Kwasulu-Natal, and everyone is as excited as if the Chicago Cubs were playing in the World Series. Not sure the boys are going to want to come home.
Ha! Denny and Josh would get a kick out of that. The Chicago Cubs in the World Series. Don’t we wish.
And then I read her last sentence again.
35
I called up New Message, wrote “Got Nony’s e-mail. How do we pray???” and sent it to Avis. Nony had sent her e-mail to the entire prayer group, so it wasn’t like telling tales. But it was a whole week till the next Yada Yada meeting, and I felt an urgency to be praying for Nony and Mark and their boys. I also felt perplexed. Maybe taking Marcus and Michael to South Africa was a mistake. I mean, a visit was great, but the boys couldn’t help picking up on their mother’s strong desire to return to South Africa to live.
I was still at the computer working on the letter to B. W. when Denny and the kids got back from the Hallelujah Fest. I handed Denny a printout of Nony’s e-mail. “Maybe you should call Mark; see how he’s doing.”
He read the note, nodded, then leaned close to my ear. “Guess who showed up to play keyboard for the Hallelujah Fest?”
Keyboard? Who played keyboard? One of Yo-Yo’s brothers? Florida’s Chris? Or . . . Duh. Of course. “José.” I sighed.
Denny waggled his eyebrows.
“Denny! You think this little romance is cute!”
He grinned. “Well, yeah, kinda. José is a neat kid.”
“But, it’s”—how did I say this without sounding narrow-minded?—“ complicated.”
He shrugged. “Love is always complicated.”
I sucked back a sharp answer. Huh. This wasn’t love. This was a teenage crush. I mentally rehearsed all the good reasons we should discourage this infatuation, wanting Denny to stand with me in a united front, but I knew that just before heading for bed was no time for an argument. Maybe I’d have to enlist Delores’s support.
I FINALLY GOT THE LETTER to Becky Wallace in Saturday’s mail, along with a birthday card for Adele I’d found at Osco Drugs. I’d vaguely wondered if I could do something with the meaning of her name, like I’d done for Yo-Yo, but the name Web site came up with: “Adele—a familiar form of Adelaide. Meaning: ‘noble, kind.’ ”Noble? Kind? Not the first words that came to mind when I thought of Adele. So much for name meanings.
So I’d stood in the card aisle at the drugstore for the better part of thirty minutes, wondering what kind of card you sent a person who’d basically shut you out of her life. I passed over “To a Special Friend” and “Funny, You Don’t Look Over the Hill,” and finally settled on a card with a Maya Angelou quote: “Women should be tough and tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives.”
“Yada Yada should’ve sent a card ‘From the Whole Gang’ and been done with it,” I muttered as I stood at the mailbox. Even signing it had been a problem. “Love, Jodi”? Didn’t think so. “ Your friend ”? Assumed too much. “Praying for you”? Too pompous. I’d finally settled for “Wishing you God’s best on your birthday—Jodi.”
Okay, God, You do the rest. I pulled open the yawning mailbox mouth, which gobbled both envelopes and practically smacked its lips.
It was the first Saturday of November, and hopefully parents were signing up for the midmonth parent-teacher conferences and report-card pickup at Bethune Elementary—first come, first served. Teachers didn’t have to be at signups; too often, parents wanted to start talking right then. Call-ins had to take whatever slots were left. I was tempted to phone all thirty of my kids’ parents and give them a lecture on the importance of parent-teacher conferences. After all, barely half of them had shown up for parents’ night in September. Made me so mad! How could the school do its job without support on the home front?
When I got to school on Monday and checked the sign-up lists, I was pleased to see twenty-plus time slots filled. I ran my finger down the list, sometimes having to check the “Student’s Name” column to figure out who was who, because last names didn’t always match. Ramón’s father—good. Ebony . . . Kaya . . . Hakim . . . Hey! Hakim’s mother signed up. There it was: Geraldine Porter. Hallelujah! But on second glance the signature looked kind of funny. I squinted closer. The cursive was obviously juvenile—not the bold signature Geraldine Porter had scrawled on her note.
I paused by Hakim’s desk while the class was doing silent reading. The third-grade reader sat closed on his desk, and he slouched in his seat. Like he was waiting.
“I see your mother signed up for the parent-teacher conferences, Hakim.” I smiled encouragingly. “Did your mother come in, or did someone else sign up for her?”
The dark eyes got wary. “She works Saturday. Sent my cousin.”
“Your cousin? How old is your cousin?”
Hakim squirmed. “She’s fourteen. They said it was okay.”
“It is! I’m just glad your mother is coming. I’m looking forward to meeting her.” Oh, right, Jodi. Like a toothache. I touched the reader. “Would you like me to read with you awhile?”
He shrugged, his eyes still wary. “You gonna tell my mama I’m doing bad?”
I wanted to hug him. “On the contrary, Hakim. I’m going to tell her how smart you are when Ms. James and I let you work the way you do best.” I tapped my head . . . and nearly fell over.
Because Hakim smiled at me.
HAKIM’S SMILE lifted me off my feet all day. Maybe I did like teaching at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary. Maybe I could make a difference with some of these kids. Not to mention that Hakim’s shuttered features—which usually kept you at a distance, like a barbed-wire fence around his soul—had been transformed by that smile. Today . . . the child radiated beauty.
I felt so upbeat that I made chicken cacciatore over fettuccini for supper, even dug out the half-full bottle of Chablis we’d hidden under the sink when my parents came to visit and added some to the sauce. Still some left—unchilled, but too bad—so I got out two wine glasses for Denny and me then gathered a bunch of candles, all different sizes, and lit
them as a flaming centerpiece.
“We got company?” Josh asked when I called for supper, lifting the lid of the serving dish. “Yum.”
Denny arched a questioning eyebrow. I could see him sorting through the possibilities in his mind. “Not our anniversary—we did that. Birthday? Did that too.” “Okay, I give. What are we celebrating?”
I laughed, ready to say “Monday,” when out of the blue I remembered. “It’s Adele Skuggs’s birthday!” I laughed even harder at the look on his face.
“Oh. Adele’s birthday. Balloons. Good cheer and all that.” He sounded very much like a two-legged Eyeore.
By now even the kids thought it was a hoot. We joined hands for the dinner blessing, which Amanda offered. “Thanks for the food, God, and whatever got into Mom to make her celebrate a birthday for somebody who’s not even here. Amen.”
When all our plates had been served, Denny lifted his wine glass to make a toast. “To Adele. May she . . .” He paused, searching for words. “May she ‘be anxious for nothing,’ ‘give thanks in all things,’ and experience a ‘peace that passes all understanding.’ And . . . I do mean that.”
We clinked glasses. Then I raised my glass again. “To Adele— noble and kind.”
Denny’s glass paused in midair. “Noble. And kind.” His expression begged for an explanation.
“That’s what the name Adele means: noble and kind.”
He grunted. “I think she missed her calling.”
“Or maybe that’s how God thinks of her,” Amanda said. Denny and I stared at our daughter as she nonchalantly shoveled in another mouthful of cacciatore.
Out of the mouths of teenagers, Lord . . .
I checked e-mail after supper while Denny and Josh did the dishes, which, I pointed out, shouldn’t be a big deal since I’d already washed the cooking pots. (Big brownie points for Mom.) I scrolled through the pileup in our Inbox. Squeezed in among a bunch of spam and a dozen messages for Josh or Amanda were two messages to Yada Yada. “Denny!” I called into the kitchen. “We really do need to set up individual e-mail addresses for the kids!”
“Yeah, Dad,” Josh echoed. “Ever heard about privacy?” Denny’s only response was a noncommittal grunt.
The first message was from Stu: “Did everybody remember to send birthday cards to Adele?” I rolled my eyes at the screen before hitting Delete. Yeah, yeah, we’re all grownups, Leslie Stuart.
The second was from Avis with “Re: Prayer for Nony” in the subject line: “Sisters, remember: we’re not God. We may think we know ‘what is best’ for Nony and her family, but let’s not get in the way of the Holy Spirit. We can certainly pray for unity of heart and mind for Nony and Mark, for safety for Nony and the boys, and that God will use this trip to further His purpose in the Smith and Sisulu families.” Then: “P. S. Next Yada Yada is at my apartment, right? Just checking—don’t want to clean house for nothing. Smiles.”
I snorted. Frankly, I doubted if a speck of dust would have the courage to settle on one of Avis’s spotless surfaces. As for the prayer focus, guess I needed to scrap the one I’d been praying: “God, get Nony home quick!”
I LOVED MEETING at Avis’s apartment. Just being there seemed to gather up all the loose ends flying around in my rather scattered spirit, knitting them for the moment into a warm, comforting shawl for the soul. Why Avis had that effect on me, I wasn’t sure, because at the same time the striking art prints on her walls, brimming bookshelves, stacks of Bibles and devotionals, and framed photos of her deceased husband and beaming grandbabies also seemed like a crossroads where past and present, the exotic and the familiar, work and worship, her world and my world met. And it was all good.
Not everybody made it to our first November meeting that second Sunday. Chanda’s kids were sick, and Delores had to work at the hospital. Rats. I wanted to talk to her about Amanda and José. But I was able to tell Yada Yada that I had written to Becky Wallace about adding Hoshi to her visitors’ list, and Avis once again prayed that Becky’s answer would be our answer. Carl had not come to Uptown with Florida the last two Sundays, even though Denny had invited him, and Florida didn’t even want to pray about it. “We pray about it, I go getting my expectations up,” she groused. “If God wants to get Carl to church, He can just surprise me.”
I wondered out loud whether anyone had heard from Adele. Did she receive our cards? “Yes,” Stu said, looking perfectly positioned for House Beautiful on Avis’s beige-and-black furniture. “I called her last Monday on her birthday. She said she’d received several cards from Yada Yada and to tell you all she appreciates it.”
I waited, but Stu was done. I’d been hoping that all of us remembering Adele’s birthday would break down the wall she had built around herself, and she’d say she was coming back to Yada Yada. But . . . Guess it was still good that we sent the cards.
We spent a lot of our prayer time praying for Nony, with Avis praying a long time “in the Spirit.” Frankly, it seemed appropriate to pray in an unknown tongue and let God figure it out, since we didn’t really know how to pray for Nony right now. We also gathered up other concerns, so I threw the upcoming parent-teacher conferences in the pot, being careful not to make Avis-the-Principal think Jodi-the-Teacher was too stressed out about them.
Yet I was. Last year’s fall parent-teacher conferences—my first at Bethune Elementary—had been grueling. For one thing, I’d felt very self-conscious, like a glaring white crayon among a sea of hues in a box of sixty-four Crayolas. Admittedly, most of the parents who showed seemed genuinely concerned about their children and expressed appreciation for anything that smacked of improvement. But I’d had three doozies: one father who showed up an hour late reeking of alcohol and got angry that I wouldn’t see him now; a Pakistani mother who couldn’t speak a word of English, so we ended up just nodding and smiling at each other and saying, “Good, good”; and another mother who kept complaining about “the neighborhood,” as if I was personally responsible.
I determined not to approach these parent-teacher conferences like the “old Jodi.” After all, my name meant “God is gracious,” and I had a new weapon: praise. So for the next few days, I kept the gospel and praise CDs going before and after school, focused on praying for each of my students by name as I walked to and from school, and as Wednesday dawned, even thanked God for whatever He brought my way that day.
Conferences started at noon, since we went till eight that evening. This was Christy James’s first experience as a student teacher with parent-teacher conferences, and she was a trooper. She even ducked out a couple of times to bring back fresh coffee and Krispy Kremes from the convenience store a block away, leaving the carrot sticks and apples I’d brought from home languishing in my tote bag.
No one had signed up for the 6:45 slot, which was strange since that was “prime time” for working parents, but I still had four more parents to go: LeTisha’s . . . Hakim’s . . . Chanté’s . . . and D’Angelo’s. Well, okay. All four had positive reports, as well as “areas that need improvement.” Since I had a breather, I ducked out into the hall to see if I could catch Avis. It might be helpful if she sat in on my conference with Hakim’s mother so I wouldn’t be the only one encouraging some testing. But Avis wasn’t in the office or in the hallways—she must be meeting with another teacher and student.
Shoot. I should have arranged this ahead of time. Okay, Jesus, guess it’s just You and me.
Both of LeTisha’s parents came to the conference, with LeTisha, which sent their approval rating on the Jodi Baxter Parent Scale right up to the top. I even told them LeTisha was living up to her name in the classroom: “joy.” The mother teared up at that and told me they’d almost lost LeTisha to a heart defect when she was a baby. “Baby, look at you now,” the father teased, chucking the embarrassed eight-year-old under the chin.
I was still smiling as they left. “You can send the next parent in!” I called after them.
Christy took LeTisha’s folder from me and handed me
the next folder: Hakim Porter. I barely had time to glance at my notes when I heard a boyish voice: “Hi, Miz B. Me an’ my mama came.”
I looked up to give Hakim a welcoming smile—and froze.
Standing before me was a woman I’d seen once before. In a courtroom at the Second District Courthouse. A woman who’d wanted to see me in jail.
Every inch of my body wanted to scream: How can this be? Because standing in my classroom was the mother of Jamal Wilkins, the boy I’d struck and killed with the Baxter car.
Recognition dawned on the other woman’s face at the same time. Her dark eyes narrowed. Her mouth drew tight, leaving room to spit out only one word: “You!”
36
Igroped for the desk behind me, trying to steady myself. Oh Jesus . . . Jesus! Help me! Hakim and Jamal—brothers? But the names! Porter . . . Wilkins . . .
“You!” The woman spat again, slicing into my jumbled thoughts with her sharp, piercing eyes. Hakim’s eyes pooled into confusion, swimming back and forth between us. His mother suddenly seemed to realize he was standing there and spun him around. “Go back into the hallway, Hakim!”
“But, Ma—”
“Now!” The woman thrust her finger toward the classroom door.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christy quietly lead Hakim out into the hallway, easing the door shut behind her. Oh please, Christy, go get Avis Johnson! Hurry!
As the door closed with a soft wheeze, Geraldine Porter swung her accusing finger into my face. “What kind of diabolical joke is this?” Her fury slashed at me, like barbed wire whipping in the wind. “You . . . you kill my son! You walk away scot-free! Now here you are, acting like nothing happened, messing in my family’s life, hiding behind a clever smokescreen—‘Miz B’ or whatever you call yourself.” The barbs melded into a sneer.
