by Pamela Morsi
“I didn’t have a good figure to begin with,” she said. “I’ve always been fat.”
“I think we now call it ‘traditionally built’.”
“Traditionally built? I like that.”
“It’s from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Have you read it?”
Darlada shook her head. “I never even heard of it.”
“I’ve got the first two books,” Calla said. “I’ll loan them to you.”
The young woman seemed momentarily surprised and then happily agreed. “I guess that’s what people who read stuff do,” she said. “They loan books to each other.”
Landry arrived looking both handsome and at home. He was charming to the ladies, including Darlada, whom he recognized from school. Eunice was giving him a down-the-nose eagle eye, but he made no attempt to disguise his feelings for Calla. In fact, he kissed her hello. It was just a peck but spoke volumes about their relationship.
“Jazleen said you were dating Miz Calla,” Darlada said. “It’s a good idea.”
“I think so, too,” Landry told her.
Calla wasn’t sure that Eunice agreed, but at least as a guest in Calla’s house, she kept her opinion to herself.
They took their places around the table, and Calla offered a prayer with a depth of thankfulness that she hadn’t felt in years.
As the food was consumed and appreciated, the conversation gained momentum. Gerty Cleveland talked a little louder than necessary and frequently asked to have things repeated, but no one complained about it. She and Mrs. Gamble took turns telling Darlada about their childbirth experiences and both managed to entertain and enlighten without scaring the teenager.
Landry talked to Nathan about his college admissions and even dragged Jazleen into the conversation.
“It’s not too early for you to be thinking about college.”
She looked shocked. “Me? Go to college? I’ll be lucky if I finish high school.”
“It doesn’t take luck,” Landry assured her. “It just takes time and self-discipline. My impression is that you’ve got your share of both.”
Jazleen didn’t deny it. Calla saw that as hope.
The cranberries were passed. The gravy was ladled. The stuffing was served and the succotash spooned. When the last fork was laid down, Calla urged everyone to keep talking as she cleared the table.
Darlada followed her into the kitchen carrying a stack of dishes.
“You don’t have to do that,” Calla insisted. “You’re a guest. Go enjoy yourself.”
“I wanted to help clean up—as a kind of thank-you for inviting me.”
“I was happy that you could come,” Calla said. “And I’m so glad that Jazleen thought of it.”
“She’s good, you know,” Darlada said. “I mean, I know being Nathan’s mama and all, you probably worry about who a girl is. But I know Jazleen is good.”
“Thank you,” Calla said. “It’s nice to hear that.”
“When I read my potato chips poem,” Darlada said, “our group leader was real supportive of it. I am the worst poetry writer in the book group and I know it. But Lyssa told me that what is important is what I have to say, not how well I say it. Jazleen—her poems are way better.”
“You write poetry in the group?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. We all do. That’s what our journals are mostly full of. We read what other writers write and then we try to express our own feelings in our own words.”
“That’s a great thing,” Calla said. “I wrote a poem or two when I was young. I still feel close to those words, even though that was a long time ago.”
Darlada nodded. “You should ask Jazleen to read you her poems. She can express herself real good. Sometimes she seems all closed up. But when she writes, it’s like a flower just opening right up.”
“Maybe I will,” Calla told her.
She sliced the pies and cake and allowed Darlada to help carry them to the table. After pouring cups of strong coffee for everybody, Calla gratefully settled back into the discussion around the table.
“Do you think you’ll put in a garden in the springtime?” Mrs. Gamble asked Landry.
“I’m thinking about it,” he said. “Nothing like snow on the ground and a cold wind blowing outside to put my mind to thoughts of fresh tomatoes and snap beans.”
There was more talk about the weather, the neighborhood, the future. It was late by the time everyone was talked out. Gerty Cleveland, Mrs. Gamble and Eunice made their way home. Jazleen and Nathan decided to walk Darlada home and Landry stuck around to help with the cleanup.
“I think everything went well,” she told him.
“It was the nicest Thanksgiving I remember in a very long time,” he told her. “It was great that you included the Gambles. I know they’ve been spreading gossip about us, but I really did my best to charm them.”
“If they weren’t charmed, then they must be excellent actresses. Mrs. Gamble thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. And Eunice, well, I’m afraid you missed your chance there. She had her eye on you.”
“Really?”
“You never noticed?”
Landry shook his head dramatically. “Once I caught sight of you, I was blinded to all other women.”
Calla slapped him with a dishtowel. He took it from her and began drying dishes.
“It was good meeting Jazleen’s aunt,” he said. “I really try to get to know the families of my students. Sometimes it’s not possible.”
“What about Darlada’s family?” Calla asked.
“Nothing much to speak of,” he answered. “She’s living in a kind of halfway house for expectant mothers. She’ll be able to stay there a few months after the baby is born, but ultimately she’s going to have to find some different kind of arrangement.”
Calla nodded. She told Landry what Jazleen had said about Darlada’s poem.
Landry sighed heavily. “That’s one of the realities of the lives of these girls. Often they do find themselves all alone in a very scary world. I think that’s why the book group helps so much. They find out that their experience is not unique to them. And they can talk about it with other girls who have been in the same place.”
“It’s really interesting that they write poetry,” Calla said. “I always thought that poetry was like a pipeline to the deepest interior of the soul.”
Landry raised his dark eyebrows and grinned at her. “Now that’s a very vivid image,” he said, reaching over to snake an arm around her waist. “Is that how I get to the deepest interior of your soul?”
“You said you wrote poetry in school,” she reminded him with a flirtatious grin. “You might have to hone your skills again.”
Landry stood behind her at the kitchen sink and wrapped both arms around her tightly. He leaned down to bury his chin into the crook of her throat.
“I’m always willing to try,” he said. “My Calla has a house on Canasta. Falling for her, I could not have done any faster…”
Chapter Six
It felt as if the Thanksgiving dishes were barely put away before the festive lights of the Christmas season started showing up in the neighborhood. Calla had never been much of a holiday decorator, but this year she found it fun to integrate the season into the book group’s refreshment table. And the girls seemed to appreciate it, oohing and ahhing over little Santa Bear cookies and candy canes. School, of course, would be out for winter vacation. That meant three group meetings cancelled.
“I don’t know if I can live without book club for three weeks,” she heard one girl comment after a session.
“I know what you mean,” Calla heard Jazleen reply. “Being here, being with all of you—I look forward to it all week long.”
Inside her head, Calla was doing a goal line celebration. If Jazleen loved book group, she would not be dropping out to sit at home and watch daytime TV.
Nathan said as much one evening at dinner.
“Jazzy’s really liking her classes and makin
g friends and her grades are good for starting so late in the semester. I told her she could probably get Mr. Sinclair to give her a transfer back to high school with me.”
“Really?”
Nathan nodded. “She wasn’t interested. Jazzy says she likes the teachers and students where she is. It’s going to take an extra year for her to graduate. And she said since I’m going to be gone off to college anyway, she thought it might be good for our relationship to have our own lives.”
He said the last line with such incredulity that Calla couldn’t help but chuckle. “I think your baby is growing up,” she teased.
She may have been joking, but it was easy to see that for Jazleen, something had changed. The singular focus on Nathan and the raging jealousy had disappeared. And in her relationship with Calla, the anger was gone.
Calla decided to ask the girl about it.
“What made you decide that you weren’t angry with me?” she asked. “My involvement with the book club or dating Landry Sinclair?”
They were sitting in the warm kitchen on a blustery winter evening. Nathan had gone to a basketball game with a couple of friends. In the past, Jazleen would have tagged along, but she’d finally become secure enough to let the guys go without her.
“Nathan always talks about you like you’re so perfect. I’m not so perfect.” She shrugged. “I guess you wanting Mr. Sinclair, that made you more human.”
“I am not perfect,” Calla said with incredulity. “I can’t imagine Nathan thinks that.”
“Well, maybe he never used that word,” Jazleen admitted. “But when he’d talk about you, even if he was complaining about something, it was obvious that he respected you and that he knew that everything you did, you did because you love him.”
“Of course I do,” Calla said. “He’s my child.”
“See, that’s what made me mad.”
“What?”
“That confidence that it’s nothing unusual. That doing what’s best for your child is what mothers do. That it’s proof of loving their child.”
Calla nodded.
“The backside of that for me was that my mother didn’t look out for me, she didn’t do what was best. Does that mean she didn’t love me?”
Calla didn’t know what to say.
“I know the truth,” Jazleen said. “I know that she did love me. At least at one time she did. And the way you are, it just…it just made me think that I might be wrong, or that you would say that I was wrong or…or I don’t know exactly what, but comparing you to my mama, it just made me mad.”
“I’m sorry you felt that way,” Calla said.
Jazleen shrugged. “And the weird thing was, I wasn’t really even aware of what was going on in my head all the time. It’s like I didn’t stop long enough to think about it and figure out what was going on there.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“Then I wrote a poem about my mama and how I felt about her and how angry I am at her,” Jazleen said. “It just felt so good to say it. And once I could say it, it’s like I finally know that I can handle it.”
“That’s wonderful, Jazleen.”
“Would you like to hear it?”
“Your poem? Yes, I’d love to. Darlada says you’re the best poet in the whole book club.”
Jazleen waved off the compliment. “There’s all kinds of different writers in the group. I have lots of vocabulary, more than a lot of the girls. But some of them have a richness or a deepness that I can’t come close to.”
“Still, I’d like to hear your poem.”
Jazleen nodded and went to the living room where she’d left her book bag. A couple of minutes later she was back with her book group journal. She set it on the table in front of her and began leafing through it. Calla knew that she was being offered a trust that was rarely given. She silently vowed to always deserve it.
“Here it is,” Jazleen said. “I call it The Gift from God.”
She glanced up at Calla, who gave her a reassuring nod.
“I am the gift from God
That’s what she told me.
I believed it.
I love you. I need you. I don’t regret you.
That’s what she told me.
I believed it.
Then the day the choice came
Between the dealer and the daughter.
It was the dealer who got deference
And the daughter who got done.
Damaged.
Damn you.
How could you?
I am the gift of God
Given to pay down
Debt on a dirty drug deal.
You better believe it.
Some gifts get tossed.
Even a gift from God.
But inside my mama, hidden
By the glaze from a needle,
Is the love she bears for me always.
I still believe it.”
Calla didn’t know what to say. She got up from her chair and went to kneel next to Jazleen. She took the young woman in her arms and held her tightly. Sometimes only words could express and sometimes words were unnecessary.
Spring finally came to Canasta Street. The Carnaby children played stickball in the street. Old Mr. Whitten snored in the sunshine on his front porch. And the dirty gray snow that had been part of the landscape for so long magically retreated for another year.
Nathan prepared to cross the stage as a high school graduate. Calla would be there as she’d always imagined, but she would not be alone. She’d have Landry on one side and Jazleen on the other. Nathan got a full-ride scholarship to Northwestern, which was everything they had hoped for. Jazleen, too, now had college as her goal, but it would take another year at least.
Darlada had her baby, a healthy little girl. Surprisingly she’d moved in with the Gambles. Mrs. Gamble had suffered a fall late in the winter and Eunice realized that she needed help. Bringing Darlada and the baby into their household was like a tonic to the older woman and a breath of freedom for Eunice.
Early one morning Landry came knocking at Calla’s door. She was still in her bathrobe and her hair was in a towel.
“Come outside,” he said.
“What?”
“I have something to show you.”
“Let me get dressed.”
“No time for clothes. You’ve got to come right now.”
Calla followed him down the porch, out through the gate and around the fence to his backyard. There in the small plot of ground, just poking their little green shoots out of the brown earth, were the bulbs he had planted.
“It really happened,” she said. “After all the cold, dark waiting, there are really going to be full-grown flowers here.”
Landry nodded. “And I want us to be together when our daffodils all come into bloom.”
He held her hand in his and pulled her closer. “Calla, you are the most stately flower in my garden. I don’t think it would even be a garden for me without you. Do you understand my meaning? It’s pretty muddy here, but I’ll drop down on one knee if I have to.”
Calla smiled. “I understand your meaning, Landry. And my answer is yes!”
Dear Reader,
Karen Thompson was not looking to change the world. A stay-at-home mom with a desire to do work she liked on her own schedule, Karen utilized her education and love of books by becoming a professional book group leader. She loved her job and was having marvelous success. Her work was personally fulfilling and she was completely satisfied with the direction of her life.
Then one day a person in her group suggested that the power of the book club was such a wonderful thing, wouldn’t it be great if they could find a way to share it with at-risk young women in the city’s urban core?
Karen thought that was an interesting idea, but she didn’t feel qualified. She wasn’t a social worker. She wasn’t a youth counselor. She wasn’t a survivor of a depressed inner city community. She wasn’t young and she wasn’t a minority. Surely, she wasn’t the p
erson for the job.
For a year, she went on with her day-to-day life as the idea percolated in the back of her mind, calling her, pushing her.
Finally, she decided to do one group. Just one group, she assured herself, just to see if the concept was even feasible.
That first group was almost an homage to her own career. She remembered how she got started: How alone and isolated she’d been as a young mother, and how desperate to think about something besides babies and diapers and the cost of the light bill.
Her first group was entirely made up of teenage moms. Many, including Karen, worried that they might not have any interest at all in reading, writing or each other.
From that very first day, Literature for All of Us changed lives. To hear Karen talk about it is like listening to the witness of a miracle. Reading stories, responding to the themes presented and talking about how they pertained to their own lives had the power to alter the young people’s perception of themselves and the world around them. “Their self-esteem and self-confidence went up.” Using the literature they read as a model, Karen asked them to write poetry about themselves. “At a difficult time in their lives…they wrote the truth…and realized how much strength they had.”
Today, in collaboration with alternative high schools, GED providers and after-school programs, the organization carries the book group model to young men and women in underserved neighborhoods impacted by poverty, violence, gangs and drugs. More than half of their clients are pregnant or parenting teens. The program not only enriches their lives, but allows them to pass on the gift of family literacy to the next generation.
