Between Madison and Palmetto

by Jacqueline Woodson

  “Figured I’d get it over with.”

  “Well, don’t just sit there looking, Margaret. Help me unpack this stuff.” Mama began taking the food out of the bag. “Got these cupcakes you and Li‘l Jay like. Figured I’d make tacos for dinner.”

  Margaret eyed each item Mama handed her to be put away. Everything seemed to be so fattening. She carried a half gallon of ice cream and a container of milk over to the refrigerator.

  “How was your day?” Mama asked, bending beside her to place a container of orange juice in the refrigerator. “Wait a minute! How come this turkey is still here?”

  Margaret glanced at slices of turkey wrapped in plastic. She couldn’t think of an answer. She had meant to throw the turkey away before Mama saw it. “I took something ... else for lunch today.” She ducked past Mama and headed back for the groceries.

  Mama turned. “What?”

  “Huh?”

  “What did you take, Margaret?” Mama’s voice was firm.

  “Grapefruit,” Margaret mumbled.

  “What else?”

  Margaret didn’t want to lie. She hardly ever lied. But she didn’t want Mama to be mad either.

  Mama came and stood in front of her, her arms folded. Margaret stared at her feet. “Nothing,” she said softly.

  Gently, Mama raised Margaret’s chin, forcing Margaret to look her in the eye. They had always been close, but now, looking up at her, Margaret saw the confusion in Mama’s eyes. A confusion that hadn’t been there before. Margaret reached for a bunch of celery, but Mama caught her arm and stopped her. “Think we need to talk,” she said, putting an arm across Margaret’s shoulders and guiding her into the living room.

  “Sit down,” Mama said. Margaret sat down on the edge of the couch. Mama sat down beside her.

  “What’s going on, Margaret?” she asked softly. A tiny crease ran across her forehead. Margaret stared at it to avoid looking her in the eye.

  “Nothing. I just wanted grapefruit. Can’t I take grapefruit for lunch without everybody going crazy?”

  “Everybody’s not going crazy, Margaret. Just me. I’m your mother and I have a right to go crazy when I think something’s not right with my child. Understand?”

  Margaret nodded.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed food I planned for you to eat left in the refrigerator. I figured I’d ignore it and see if you started eating.”

  “I eat at Ms. Dell’s.”

  “And throw it up,” Mama said.

  Margaret sat upright. How did Mama know that? How else? That bigmouthed Li‘l Jay.

  “I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Margaret.” Mama took both Margaret’s hands in her own. “I know you’re worried about your body growing too quickly. I see the way you’re walking and covering yourself up.”

  God, Margaret thought, are there any secrets around here?

  “I’m getting fat.”

  Mama squeezed her hands. “Do you think I’m fat?”

  Margaret shook her head. “Of course not. You’re perfect.”

  Mama pulled a photo album from beneath the coffee table and flipped through it.

  “Remember her?”

  Margaret nodded, staring at the picture of Mama. She must have been twelve or thirteen, but already her body seemed to be spreading in every direction.

  “My body did the same thing yours is doing. But I caught up to it.”

  “What if I don’t catch up, Mama? What if I look like Ms. Dell or that big woman down the block? I just don’t want to be ... fat, Mama....”

  “You won’t get fat, with as much running around as you and Maizon used to do. Why don’t you join a team at schoo!—”

  “I can’t play sports,” Margaret said. “Maizon’s the athlete. I’m just spastic.”

  “Why don’t you run, then? Just do a couple of laps around the park?”

  “I don’t even have running shoes.”

  “I’ll buy you running shoes.”

  “I need a running outfit,” Margaret said quickly. “I can’t run looking corny.”

  Mama smiled. “Okay, if I buy you a running outfit, will you promise me you’ll run instead of doing this crazy stuff with your diet?”

  Margaret was hesitant. “I’ll ... try.”

  Mama looked stern all of a sudden. “Tonight we’re going to sit down and have a normal healthy meal—you, me, and Jay. I want you to eat everything I put in front of you. You understand?”

  “Yes,” Margaret said.

  “Saturday, we’ll go shopping for your running outfit.” She took Margaret’s face in her hands again. “God, you’re so beautiful. I wish you could see how beautiful you are.”

  “You’re my mother, of course you’re going to say that.”

  Mama smiled and shook her head. “You’re not fat.” Her eyes, behind the glasses she had just started wearing, were sadder than Margaret ever remembered.

  “I’m just going to diet for a little while, Mama. Just until—”

  “You’re not dieting!”

  “You just want me to be fat! You don’t care! Ever since Daddy died, you don’t care about anything but yourself!”

  Mama was silent, her face flat and empty. Then, slowly, she shook her head. “I love you, Margaret.” Her voice was small and pained, as though someone had punched her.

  8

  They had been searching for a half hour before they found her, huddled underneath the awning of Ocasio’s Grocery Store.

  “Maizon!” Margaret called, running from the car with Maizon’s coat. “You’re all wet.” She draped the coat over Maizon’s shoulders. “Are you crazy?”

  “Who’s in there?” Maizon asked, eyeing the car suspiciously.

  “Your grandma and Mama.”

  Maizon didn’t move. “I don’t want to go back home. Did you meet him?”

  Margaret nodded. “He seems nice.”

  When Margaret and Mama had gone to Grandma‘s, Margaret couldn’t believe her eyes. Mr. Thompson looked so much like Maizon, it was eerie. Her heart dipped when Grandma told her who he was.

  “I’m not going back,” Maizon said. “I want him to leave.”

  Margaret looked nervously toward the car. Mama and Grandma were watching them. “You should give him a chance, Maizon.”

  Maizon eyed her. “Why?”

  “Because you have a father,” Margaret said. “I’d give anything to have my daddy back.”

  Maizon sighed, pulling the coat closer to her. Cold rain still blew hard around them. “He can’t just leave and come back again. You don’t do that.”

  Margaret nodded. “He could’ve never come back.”

  “Yeah, right. I wish. He probably thinks I’m famous or rich or something. He probably heard I was a movie star.”

  Margaret giggled. “He probably thought he saw you getting an Academy Award.”

  Maizon let a small smile crease the corners of her mouth. “He probably read somewhere that I got a Nobel Peace Prize.”

  “Boy, is he going to be disappointed.”

  Then they were laughing, and with her arm draped over Maizon’s shoulder, Margaret led her back to the car.

  “Sorry,” Maizon mumbled to Grandma, leaning to kiss her on the cheek.

  “You had me so worried, Maizon!” In the backseat Grandma pulled Maizon close to her, cradling her head.

  “I don’t like to be surprised like that,” Maizon said.

  “And you think I do?” Grandma laughed. “When I opened the door to Cooper, someone could have blown me over with a weak breath.”

  “Shouldn’t have opened the door,” Maizon mumbled.

  Grandma squeezed her shoulders. “He just wants to get to know you, Maizon.”

  Maizon sat up. “And then what? He goes away again?”

  “If you want him to,” Grandma said.

  Maizon stared out of the window and sighed. “I don’t know what I want.”

  In the rearview mirror, Mrs. Tory caught Maizon’s eye and wink
ed. “Does anybody?”

  9

  Care to join us?“ Ms. Dell asked. She and Hattie were sitting in lawn chairs at the top of the stoop. Li‘l Jay, bundled in a snowsuit, was playing with a doll at their feet, twisting the head around and around.

  “It’s not the season,” Maizon said.

  “It’s freezing out,” Margaret said, pulling her books closer to her chest.

  Ms. Dell laughed. “A little cool air never hurt anyone.”

  Margaret sat down next to Li‘l Jay. Maizon shrugged and sat down beside her.

  “Wasn’t hard to talk you into it,” Hattie smiled. She handed over a thermos. “Hot chocolate.”

  Maizon took a swallow and held the thermos out for Margaret.

  Margaret eyed it. “No, thanks.”

  “Drink it!” Li‘l Jay demanded.

  “Shut up,” Margaret scolded. But she took the thermos from Hattie and took a small swallow of hot chocolate before handing it back.

  “Good girl.” Li‘l Jay smiled. Margaret stuck her tongue out at him. He was a pain but she loved him. She couldn’t help it.

  “So what you two know good? That handsome Cooper still around, Maizon?”

  Maizon eyed Hattie. They had never really liked each other. Ms. Dell had said it was because they were too much alike, but Maizon couldn’t see it. Hattie was a little too man crazy for her liking. “Cooper is too old for you.”

  Hattie smirked, raising her eyebrows. A long time ago, Margaret and Maizon had agreed that Hattie had the saddest eyes of anyone they’d ever met. But lately Hattie had a way of making her eyes light up. Most of the time when you looked at her now, the sadness was nowhere to be found.

  “Are you a one-girl matchmaker?”

  Ms. Dell and Margaret laughed.

  “He’s around,” Maizon said, then stared out over the block. When the wind wasn’t blowing, it wasn’t so cold after all.

  “Any idea how long he’s staying?”

  Maizon shrugged. Cooper had been here a week and a half. Grandma had given him the room down the hall from Maizon’s. The room had been Grandma’s sewing room for a long time, but now Cooper had moved the sewing machine and all of Grandma’s sewing stuff to the basement and had brought a bed and dresser upstairs. Those two items had been down there so long, Maizon didn’t even know who they belonged to. Reluctantly, Maizon admitted to herself that Cooper was a good cook. Although dinner was often awkward, filled with too much silence, Grandma seemed to be happy that Cooper was back and Maizon couldn’t help letting a little bit of the happiness rub off. Cooper always had a joke for the dinner table, and that seemed to help get rid of some of the tension.

  It was strange having a man around the house. He was always fixing something: “That chair could use another nail, don’t you think?” and Maizon would nod, even though she had not really noticed the way the chair wobbled until it was fixed. A week and a half, and still she couldn’t get used to the idea that this man was her father.

  “You still getting those good grades, Maizon?” Cooper had asked yesterday.

  “Yes.”

  Cooper had looked lost for a moment, as though he wanted her to volunteer more information, give them something to talk about.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  We’re strangers, Maizon realized. Even though they shared the same blood, had the same eyes, they were strangers.

  “You have your mother’s hair, you know?” Cooper had said, eyeing Maizon’s braids.

  “Grandma told me I did.”

  “It’s nice.” Cooper stood with his hands in his pockets, rocking from foot to foot like a little boy. “Guess I’ll go get some air. You want to walk?”

  “No, thank you. It’s too cold.”

  “Well, then. I guess I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “See you later, Cooper.”

  It was not supposed to be like this. This isn’t how it had been when Maizon imagined him coming back. They would hug for a long time then Cooper would tell her about her mother and his mother and where he had been. He would give her presents and take her around to his friends, saying, “This is my daughter, Maizon, I’ve been telling you about.” They would walk down the block holding hands and everyone would say, “There’s Maizon and her dad.”

  “How’s your grandma getting on?” Ms. Dell asked now, interrupting Maizon’s thoughts.

  Maizon smiled. “Beat her at checkers four times last night. She’s waiting for a rematch.” Now, like always, Grandma was being patient, giving Maizon and Cooper space, she had said, to get to know each other. “You have to give him a chance,” Grandma had said to Maizon over checkers. “Everybody deserves a chance.”

  Maizon moved closer to Margaret and put her arm around Margaret’s shoulders. “What do you think?”

  “About what?” Margaret asked.

  Maizon shrugged. “You know. About everything?”

  A garbage truck barreled noisily past. Li‘l Jay waved and two garbagemen waved back.

  “Garbagemen coming three times a week now,” Ms. Dell said thoughtfully.

  Margaret eyed the truck as it turned the corner, heading toward Palmetto Street. The landlord had posted a sign saying he would be increasing everyone’s rent by twenty dollars a month. Mama had been relieved that that was all it would be increased, but Ms. Dell and Hattie would have to scrape for it, with Hattie in school and Ms. Dell living off Social Security. Margaret wished again she had twenty dollars to give them every month.

  “We’ll get by,” Ms. Dell said, and Margaret jumped.

  Ms. Dell grinned. “Sorry. Your thoughts were coming on pretty strong there for a moment.”

  Margaret reached up and grabbed the hand Maizon had draped across her shoulders. “I think you should give Cooper a chance. He seems nice. Did you ask him why he left you?”

  Maizon picked up a pebble and pitched it into the street. “He said he had been scared. Said he didn’t know the first thing about raising a little girl.”

  “Wouldn’t you have been scared, Maiz?”

  “Yeah. I guess. Babies freak me a little anyway ... all tiny and helpless.”

  “Then you should believe him.”

  “I’d believe anything that man said to me with his fine self.” Hattie laughed.

  Maizon rose. “I just had the most horrid thought. What if Hattie and Cooper got married and Hattie became my mom?”

  Margaret and Ms. Dell laughed.

  “I’d tear into you like Forty Going North,” Hattie said. “You could use a good spanking.”

  Maizon slapped her cheek lightly. “I’d rather eat raw meat than be related to you.”

  “I’d rather eat a live cow,” Hattie said.

  They went back and forth for a while before Margaret realized something. Over the months, Hattie and Maizon’s cold war had dissolved into a friendly dislike of each other. They sat close to each other now and even, on occasion, touched. Margaret shook her head. Ms. Dell had been right. They were a lot alike and would probably be pretty miserable if each didn’t have the other in her life.

  10

  Cooper?“ Maizon said, sitting across from him at the kitchen table. It had been a week since she had talked to Margaret about her father. She had been thinking. Maybe Margaret was right. Maybe all Cooper deserved, all anybody deserved, was a chance.

  Cooper was working a phone jack, his hands busy twisting the colored wires. When Maizon called his name, he stopped and looked up at her, all eyes and ears as though he had been put on this earth to listen to her. Maizon felt her stomach flutter. My father, she thought. That man’s my father.

  “Are you going to come to my play?”

  Cooper nodded. “If you want me to.” He stared at her so long, Maizon felt uncomfortable. “I just want to look at you sometimes, Maizon. Sometimes, I can’t believe you’re real, my daughter, my Maizon.”

  Maizon swallowed. “I’m nobody‘s,” she said.

  “Of course you aren’t. Nobody’s but your own.” Cooper clasped
his hands on the table.

  “What have you been doing, Cooper? All those years you were gone away when you didn’t even write or call to see if I was still alive?”

  Cooper was thoughtful. “I was looking for something. I was walking this world trying to figure out who I was in it. I was trying to forget you existed.”

  Maizon felt herself growing angry. She pressed her hands together under the table and looked Cooper in the eye. “How could you want to forget me?”

  She saw the muscles jump in Cooper’s neck. Ms. Dell had said that’s where men show their pain. She had said, never trust a man in a turtleneck. But Cooper was wearing an oxford shirt, open at the neck. A white oxford shirt, khaki pants, and penny loafers with no socks.

  “Sometimes,” Cooper said softly, “you have to try to forget people you love just so you can keep living. Some days I would think of you and all of a sudden, the day would stop and I couldn’t do anything but sit and remember the baby you were and remember your mama. I’d get all caught up in the sadness.” He shook his head. “I’d just sit there crying for hours and hours and hours.” Cooper swallowed and stared down at the table. “I couldn’t hold on to jobs. Would get a teaching job one week and the next I’d have a thought of you and your mama and I wouldn’t show up for work for days at a time. Couldn’t tell them I was sick. And how do you explain to somebody who you’re trying to appear stable in front of that you’ve been grieving for over twelve years?”

  When Cooper looked up, his eyes were wet and dark. Maizon turned away from him, feeling her own eyes fill up.

  “Why didn’t you come home, then?”

  “I wanted to. I just wasn’t ready.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for you to come home now, Cooper.”

  “I know,” Cooper said, his voice breaking. “I know.”

  11

  The bridge,“ Li‘l Jay said. He had pulled a chair over to the living-room window and now stood on top of it, his face pressed against the pane.

  Margaret sat on the window ledge beside him. In the distance the Williamsburg Bridge loomed brightly out of the darkness.

  “You think I’m fat, Li‘l Jay?” Margaret asked.