The Other Half of My Heart

by Sundee T. Frazier

  Their grandmother was also extremely precise.

  Mama put her drink on the counter and grasped the phone with her hand again. She stood silently, looking out the window over the sink. When she turned, the skin between her eyebrows was wrinkled. She pinched the bridge of her flat, triangular nose, the way she often did when talking to her mom. “We’ve already discussed this. I agreed to let them participate when they turn twelve. They just turned eleven.” Mama reached for a cookie. Normally, Mama didn’t eat junk food, but Grandmother Johnson, a large woman who liked to throw her weight around, often drove her to do things she wouldn’t normally do.

  “Black Pearls of America is a fine organization. I was a part of it. Yes, I know the girls stand to gain by participating. But why—”

  Keira came running down the hall in her socks and slid into the kitchen. “Is she talking about the pageant?” she asked Minni excitedly. She’d pulled her thick, tight curls into two pompons, like Mickey Mouse ears. Afro puffs, they called them in their house.

  Minni shrugged. She hoped not. They’d been hearing about Miss Black Pearl Preteen since they were six. From Grandmother Johnson, of course—not Mama so much, although she had competed in Miss Black Pearl of America as a teenager.

  “Okay. All right. I’ll think about it and get back to you tomorrow morning. Would you like to talk to the girls?”

  Keira and Minni shook their heads vigorously. Minni’s scraggly, wavy hair, which she tended to wear in two low ponytails with wispy bangs, flickered at the corners of her eyes like flames.

  “Yes, they heard your message.” Mama paused. “Don’t worry. If I agree to this, and that’s a big if, I’ll tell them all about it.” Another pause. “Oh, they’ll be prepared, all right. Believe me, if there were anything I’d want, it’d be for them to be prepared. Goodbye, Mother.” She turned off the phone and handed it to Keira.

  “Is it about the pageant?” Keira asked, handing the phone to Minni. Minni returned the phone to its place.

  “Mother says the Black Pearl organization is struggling financially and they may not be able to continue the preteen division of the competition after this year. She wants you to come for this summer’s program so you don’t have to wait until you’re thirteen.”

  Minni’s heart sank.

  Mama muttered to Daddy, “As if that would be the worst thing in the world.”

  In a flash, Keira was at Mama’s side, pulling on the crook of her arm. “Can we please, Mom? Can we, can we?”

  “I don’t know if I buy it,” Mama said, leaning against the sink. “Black Pearls of America is an institution in the black community. They’ve been going strong for over sixty years. They say they’re not exclusive, but it’s always been a club of rich, successful families—and social climbers, like Mother. They should be rolling in money. In fact, I seem to recall reading they bought a new headquarters building—some old plantation in Raleigh—just a few years ago.”

  “Maybe they overextended themselves,” Daddy suggested.

  “Who cares?” Keira cried. “Mom, we have to go!”

  Minni stood on Mama’s other side. “What about our camping trip with the troop?” Keira might not have liked camping in general, but even she looked forward to their annual Girl Scout getaway because it meant another opportunity to earn a badge.

  “That’s not until August,” Mama said. “The pageant is next month.”

  “But—the animal shelter! I’m volunteering there three days a week starting next month. Remember?”

  “You’d only be gone ten days,” Mama said. “I’m sure the shelter would let you start when you came back.”

  “But I don’t want to start when I come back. I don’t want to go anywhere!” Minni slumped against the counter. “Especially not to compete in a dumb pageant.”

  Keira rushed to Minni and grabbed her hand. “It’s not just a pageant, Skinny! It’s a scholarship program. I’ve looked it up online. You could win money for school!”

  Minni’s stomach churned at the thought of having to perform in front of hundreds of strangers. What in the world would she do for a talent? Somehow she didn’t think dog impersonations would go over very well with a bunch of rich, successful people.

  She looked at Keira. “You really want to stay with Grandmother Johnson for ten whole days?”

  The last and only time they had visited North Carolina they had been six years old. Minni still remembered the sour taste of the buttermilk Grandmother Johnson made her drink when she complained of a stomachache. Minni had been sure their grandmother’s awful cooking had made her sick in the first place, and she didn’t understand in the least how drinking something even more awful was supposed to make her feel better.

  “As long as we’re there together—yes!” Keira lowered her voice. “Come on, Minni. We won’t let her get to us.” She hugged herself and twirled, shouting, “We get to be in a pa-geant! We get to be in a pa-geant!” She bounced around the kitchen. The Afro puffs bounced along with her.

  Minni climbed into her chair and covered her ears.

  “Slow down, missy. You seem to be forgetting that you had a previous commitment for this summer as well.” Mama’s hand was on her hip.

  Keira’s bounce went flat. Her forehead wrinkled.

  “Tutoring?” Mama reminded her.

  Keira frowned. A few months ago, she’d been diagnosed with severe dyslexia. If it hadn’t been for Mama fighting with the school for its lack of intervention earlier, Keira might have been staying in fifth grade. Instead, Mama and the school had agreed on a summer tutoring plan to help her catch up and get prepared for next year.

  “Maybe now would be a good time to tell your mother,” Daddy said. “Didn’t she help kids with reading challenges in her classroom?”

  Mama crossed her arms. “It’s hard to imagine her doing so with much tolerance or compassion.”

  Keira’s face lit up. “I know! Minni can tutor me while we’re there. We’ll read together every night.”

  Minni looked at Mama and shook her head. Of course she wanted to help her sister however she could, but not by being her tutor. She already felt guilty that Keira struggled so hard with reading while she zipped through books.

  “Come on, Skinny,” Keira pleaded with puppy-dog eyes. She squeezed Minni’s arm. “You tutor kids in reading all the time at school and at the library.”

  “That’s different. They’re not my sister.”

  Keira ignored her. “I’ll help you get through the pageant, and you can help me with reading. I don’t care what I have to do.” She grabbed the slim Jefferson County phone book and thrust it into the air. “I’ll read anything!”

  Daddy chimed in again. “You know, it might not be such a bad thing for them to spend some time with your mom…without you.”

  Minni was starting to feel outnumbered.

  Mama raised an eyebrow. She looked a lot like Grandmother Johnson when she did that, although Minni would never dare mention it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I just mean it might be a different atmosphere.” He folded his arms and gripped his large biceps. “A little less…hostile.” He looked at Mama sheepishly, then moved to squeeze her in his arms. “Who knows? Maybe they’d see sides of her that are harder for you to see, being her daughter and all.”

  Mama pulled away. “Shoot, I’ve known that woman since the day I was born. Believe me, I’ve seen all the sides.”

  Daddy grabbed her hand. His voice took on an edge of excitement. “It’d be good for them to learn more about your family, and I bet Minerva has some great stories in that steel-trap mind of hers. They’ve certainly heard plenty from my mom about their German-Irish roots.”

  Uh-oh. He was using the roots argument. Mama’s weak spot. The last time Mama’s best friend had visited from Atlanta, Minni had overheard Mama say she was worried her daughters weren’t learning enough about their black roots, getting enough exposure to black people, but she had a hard time imagining leaving this community,
where her art had actually grown a following. “I think about moving the girls, and then the summer comes around and it’s like Port Townsend turns into New York City. That’s how good the arts are here,” she’d told Denise.

  Denise told Mama to move them to Atlanta. “There’s a whole lot more black people down there than in this Podunk town where there’s approximately two. They’d buy your art.” Denise saying two and not three had made Minni wonder about herself again, whether she was actually black, since there were at least Mama, Keira and her. But she never said anything because Mama was not a big supporter of listening in on conversations that were none of your business.

  Daddy munched on another cookie. “Your mother may not be the first place you’d vote to send them, but at least you know she’s not going to let them just do whatever they want,” he said through a mouthful of crumbs.

  That was the understatement of the year.

  “Really, she’s not that bad.” Munch-munch.

  Mama put her hand on her hip. “You seem to be forgetting what she thinks about you—not ‘good enough’ for her daughter because you never went to college? Remember that?”

  “They’ll be having fun and making friends.” Crunch.

  Keira leaned into Daddy, looking up at him with an appreciative smile.

  Daddy put his arm around Keira and returned the grin. “And—not that we would ever ship our kids off for our convenience—but you’ve been saying you need to get some concentrated time to work. You know that commission for the Seattle Public Library you were thinking about going after?”

  Daddy was really making his case. If Minni didn’t speak up soon…

  Mama inhaled deeply. She looked back and forth between them, then blew out her breath. “I don’t know.

  Maybe…”

  Keira hollered with glee and grabbed Daddy around the middle, then scooted to Mama and hugged her, too. Minni’s hands hung limply at her sides. Ten days of her summer—more like two whole weeks when you counted the preparation they’d have to do—down the drain. She had thought she had a whole year to figure out how to get out of this pageant thing. Keira was the performer—the one who loved the spotlight—not her.

  “I can’t!” Minni cried.

  Mama, Daddy and Keira stared from the other side of the island.

  “I can’t get up in front of a bunch of strangers and talk and dance and walk around in a silly, frilly, long dress.” Her stomach quivered at the thought.

  Mama put out her hand. “Come here, Little Moon.”

  Minni slid off her chair and walked over. She let Mama put her arm around her. “What do you always say is the best thing about your name?”

  It was the only good thing about her name. MLK. “I share initials with one of the greatest people ever to live.”

  “That’s right. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And who do you say you want to be like when you grow up?”

  “Dr. King.”

  “Dr. King spoke to hundreds of thousands of people, you know.”

  “Not in a silly, frilly, long dress, he didn’t.”

  Mama and Daddy laughed.

  Minni crossed her arms. “Anyway, that’s not how I want to be like him. I just mean I want to make the world a better place for everyone to live.” Which, of course, meant animals, too. “That’s all.”

  “Oh, that’s all, is it?” Mama smiled, revealing the gap between her two front teeth. Her widely spaced, round eyes were the color of root beer in a glass held up to sunlight. Tiny raised moles dotted her gingery brown cheeks. “That’s enough, baby. But do you think maybe, just maybe, to accomplish your goal of a better world for all, you might need to speak up occasionally? I mean, in front of other people?”

  Minni did not appreciate how Mama was taking her dreams and aspirations and twisting them into the reason she needed to compete in a stupid pageant. She looked away.

  Keira grabbed Minni’s hand. “Come on, Skinny. It’ll be fun.”

  “It will be for you. You’re a natural.” Minni’s eyes stung. She was going to cry. “I’ll be lucky if I don’t trip over my own feet!” She pulled away and fled down the hall, brushing a hot tear from her cheek.

  Chapter Three

  In their bedroom, Minni’s parakeet, Bessie Coleman, fluttered her wings and flew to the cage door. Minni fell on her bed, her back to the bird. She gazed at the mural of Mount Rainier Mama had painted on her wall. Daddy had climbed the mountain on his fortieth birthday. Minni planned to make it to the top long before she got that old.

  The wooden floor creaked as someone stepped into the room. The bed dipped under Daddy’s solid frame. Daddy was as tall and strong as a hundred-year-old pine tree. His arms were the branches to which Minni always escaped whenever she was afraid or unsure.

  His heavy hand rested on her arm. “Where’s my girl with the sense of adventure? The one who wants to climb Mount Rainier and learn to fly an airplane? The one who wants to roam the jungles of South America and observe animals in their natural habitats?”

  “I still want to do all those things,” Minni mumbled.

  “But you’re scared to be in a pageant where you have the opportunity to meet other girls and have some fun? Maybe even win some scholarship money?”

  She turned her head to look at him. “I’m not scared—”

  Daddy stroked his stubbly chin and nodded his strawberry blond head. “I see….”

  “Okay, maybe I am a little, but I just don’t see the point in spending a bunch of time doing something that I’m not going to be any good at.”

  Daddy’s eyes widened. “Whoa! Wait a minute. Did you really just say what I think you did?”

  What had she said wrong? She was just being honest.

  “Did you know you would be the school spelling bee champion before you competed?”

  “Yes,” Minni said. “Well, I thought I could be, anyway.”

  “Okay, did you know your poem would win a state honor before you wrote it?”

  Minni rolled onto her back and crossed her arms. “I’m not going to win anything in a pageant. I’m sure of that.”

  “What if the point isn’t to win anything? What if the point is to prove to yourself you can do it and learn something from the process?”

  Bessie Coleman whistled. “Daddy’s cool!” the bird said.

  “Hey, whose side are you on?” Minni scowled. Daddy came into their room every day to reinforce that phrase, which Minni didn’t mind—she wanted her parakeet to learn as many words as possible—but right now, her pet was just trying to get her father’s attention, and that was annoying.

  “You know, when I was a kid, I never won a thing. Not a spelling bee title or an award for a poem. Heck, I didn’t get a single A my entire time in school, not even in metal shop.”

  “Not even in gym?”

  “I missed too many days. I never liked school. When Keira was diagnosed with dyslexia, I realized why. Did you know I’ve never read an entire book?”

  “In your whole life?”

  “In my whole life.”

  Now that Minni thought about it, she’d never seen Daddy with a book in his hands. Not even a magazine. “But didn’t you have to read to get your pilot’s license?”

  “I did like Keira and memorized the important words. Mostly I just listened to the instructors and the other guys in the program, and I watched carefully what they were doing. I learned by actually flying—first the simulators and then the real thing.”

  “Does Mama know?”

  “She does now—since we found out what Keira’s been dealing with. But I’d never told anyone before then. I was too embarrassed. Proud—and stubborn—like your sister. Your mom just figured I didn’t like reading because I’m more of a hands-on kind of guy.”

  Minni considered Daddy’s face—his sparkling sky-blue eyes under reddish blond eyebrows; his skin, pinkened from the sun and covered with so many freckles it looked as if he’d gone dune-buggy riding wearing goggles and everything except the circles around h
is eyes was dirt-speckled; his nose, long like Keira’s, except Daddy’s was bent from a break he’d suffered playing Rollerblade hockey; and his closed-lip smile, warm and kind. “Daddy? If I do the pageant…will you read a book?”

  Daddy’s eyebrows pulled together. “Hmmm. I’d have to think about that. I’m not sure I could hold up my end of the bargain.”

  “Me either. I really don’t like talking in front of people.”

  Daddy put his hand on her crossed arms. “But…I’m willing to try.”

  Minni pushed herself up, feeling suddenly excited. “I know! I could help you—like Keira wants me to do with her.” She grimaced, then quickly brightened again. “We could read it together!” She grinned.

  Now Daddy showed his straight, white teeth. He and Keira had the same perfect smile, while Minni had gotten Mama’s crooked teeth. She would probably be fitted with braces later this year, just as Mama had been as a girl. “Only if you pick the book.”

  Minni hugged Daddy’s tree-trunk middle.

  “But make it a good one. Maybe something with pirates, or airplanes. Not too many fairy princesses or silly, frilly, long dresses. Deal?”

  She squeezed him harder. “Deal.”

  “Love you,” Daddy said.

  “Love you,” Bessie Coleman twittered.

  “Love you, too,” Minni replied.

  Chapter Four

  The next day, Mama called Grandmother Johnson and told her Minni and Keira were coming. Grandmother Johnson would pay for the plane tickets as a birthday present and arrange the flights. They’d leave in a week and return approximately ten days later. Just like that, it was done.

  “Okay,” Mama said, after hanging up the phone. “Let’s see what we have to do to get you girls ready for this pageant.”

  The three of them went to Minni and Keira’s bedroom, where Keira had the Black Pearls of America Web site up in a matter of seconds.

  The pageant had grown since Mama’s day. They now had one contest for preteens aged eleven and twelve, another for girls thirteen to fifteen, and another for girls sixteen to eighteen, the age Mama had been when she had competed.