"He didn't pick it out. He just paid for it," I said, "in more ways than one."
She paused and then she broke into a real laugh. I had to laugh too.
She stared at me a moment.
"You laugh like him," she said.
Her face grew serious, pensive, and then she smiled.
"This could work out," she said. "Come on. Let's get you a taxi. I'll have the car come around for you about ten tomorrow morning."
She confirmed the address.
"This is one of those developments, those lowincome projects, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said.
"I don't blame your mama for wanting to get you out of there. If I was in her shoes, I'd probably do the same thing or try to. I don't know if I could have pulled it off like she did. She's a tough lady."
"Yes, she is," I said.
"I want to get to know you, Rain. I never be the mother she was to you, but I hope we can be friends at least," she said. She looked back at the department store. "This was fun."
"Fun? I thought it was work," I declared and she laughed again. Then, impulsively, surprisingly, she hugged me and quickly got me a cab.
After I got in, I looked back and saw her disappearing down the sidewalk. I took a deep breath. The day had been a whirlwind and it had left me twisted and confused inside. I felt dizzy, twirled about in a kaleidoscope of emotions, attracted to my real mother and repulsed by her almost at the same time. She was so beautiful and confident and alive. I wanted to be like her, yet I hated myself for not wanting to be like Mama. Like some rubber band, I was stretched to the point of breaking, but I already knew that Mama was going to be the first to let go.
Mama wasn't completely sure it would all happen the way she had planned it, however. She was waiting for me when I returned home. She had gone to work as usual, but had come home early.
"Where are your things?" she asked the moment I came through the front door.
"There was just too much, Mama. She decided to have it all packed into luggage and put in the car coming for me tomorrow. You won't believe how much she spent, how much we bought," I said breathlessly.
Mama sat at the table while I catalogued it all from start to finish, barely pausing to tell her about having coffee in the cafe and discussing my real father. She listened with a half smile on her face, her eyes dark and sad at times, and happy for me at others.
"Good," she said when I finished. "She's doing the right thing. Good."
"I don't think she has the happiest family, Mama," I told her, and described some of what my mother had told me about her daughter Alison and her sister Victoria.
"Every family, rich or poor, has problems, Rain. It's just easier to handle them when you don't have the rest of it to worry your head over like we do. Well," she said rising, "I'll see to supper. Your brother's going to come home with- a big appetite. He's put in a long day today. He doesn't want to leave Slim with anything undone. If only his father had half his sense of responsibility, we wouldn't be where we are," she moaned.
I set the table and then went into my room to complete my packing. I wasn't going to take much, I thought, but every time I debated over something, I ended up deciding it belonged with me. Mama worried that I was taking too much.
"You don't want to go and bring a lot of old clothes and things to a new life, honey. Just leave it be. I'll give some of it away. I already have most of Beni's stuff packed to give to the thrift store for charity."
I reconsidered and took out nearly half of what I had packed. In the end I had only one suitcase and a small bag to take with me.
"I wish I had more to give you, honey," Mama told me.
"You gave me more than my real mother could ever give me, Mama. Money can't buy what you gave me and still give me," I reminded her.
She smiled and hugged me and then we finished preparing dinner and waited for Roy. He came home about a half hour later than usual.
"I worked as fast as I could," he said, "but we got interrupted a lot today with minor repairs."
"Just wash up, son. We've got everything warm and ready," Mama said.
It didn't occur to me until he came out and sat across from me that this might very well be our last dinner together for a very long time, maybe ...forever. Whatever appetite I had, evaporated. I picked at my food.
"We all have to wipe the sad faces off," Mama declared. "We're all going to do something better, hear. It's going to be all right. No one's saying goodbye forever. Don't make me feel like I'm not doing the right thing," she pleaded.
Roy smiled.
"It's not that, Mama:' he said looking about our rundown apartment, "I'm just going to miss the roaches and the noise so much."
Mama laughed and I smiled. It broke the cloud of doom that hovered over us and we talked with more energy and excitement about the things we were planning to do. Then Roy said he had heard
something about Ken.
"Charlie over at the Big Top Hamburger said he saw him the other day with Greasy Max and Dudley. He said they looked like they were planning
something he called not kosher."
"He'll end up like his brother," Mama predicted, "in some lockup." She shook her head. "Sad to see it happen. You kids can't remember him the way he used to be, maybe, but there was a time when he was full of hope and strength and just bursting with good energy. I suppose that's what attracted me to him the most," she thought, "his beautiful dreams. I couldn't imagine someone with so many good dreams not making at least one come true.
"Be careful about your dreams," she told us. "When they get too big, dump them."
"I don't plan on dreaming much in the army, Mama," Roy said laughing. "I'll be too tired."
"You'll dream," she said. "And you'll make yours come true."
None of us wanted to go to sleep. We were afraid of the dark, of our own thoughts, and especially of the morning. Mornings were always beginnings to me before this. Now, morning was an end.
About an hour or so after I went to bed, I heard my door open and looked up to see Roy standing beside me. He was so quiet, I thought for a minute that I just imagined he was there. Then he knelt and took my hand in his and held it for a long moment.
"Don't fall in love with anyone too fast, Rain:' he begged. "One day I'll come strutting into your life again and I'll be different. I'll be older, a man, and you'll think of me as someone else, just like I told you you would."
"I won't fall in love with anyone fast," I promised, "but you promise me that you won't stop yourself from falling in love with someone else, Roy. This is too high a mountain for us to climb and it just might not be meant to be."
"I'll always love you, Rain, and it will always be more than the love a brother has for his sister." He was quiet for a moment and then he looked up through the darkness and added, "Maybe that's why I hate Daddy. He brought you here and he made you my sister. It was wrong and it wasn't natural. He put us in this place."
"We might never have met otherwise, Roy," I pointed out.
"Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there is something magical about people who really fall in love. Maybe they can't help it from happening. Just don't forget me," he said. "Twirl that ring from time to time."
He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. A moment later he was gone. It had happened so fast, I couldn't be sure I hadn't just dreamed it.
In the morning, by the time I rose, washed, dressed and came out, Roy had already left for work.
"He didn't want to say any more good-byes," Mama told me.
"Was he all right?"
"He was fine. Don't worry none about that boy," she said proudly.
She and I ate breakfast, although I couldn't swallow much. We watched the clock and when it drew close to ten, I got my suitcase and bag and she and I went out to the front of the Projects.
It was a cloudy day with rain threatening from the northwest so the wind was stronger. My hair danced around my face. Mama embraced herself. We both gazed at the street, the traffic and
the noise. We saw a homeless man crawl out from under a bench and start pushing his grocery cart full of dirty bags down the sidewalk. In the distance a siren wailed.
"You have to feel good about leaving this hell hole," Mama said. I knew she was trying to keep up her determination and keep the tears down. I nodded. "It's a good chance, Rain. You'll make me proud, I'm sure. I only wish I could have done more for Beni."
"I know, Mama, but don't blame yourself for that."
"And don't you blame yourself. You had nothing but love for your sister. You hear me, Rain? Don't carry away any more baggage in your heart, honey. Don't let anything stop you from becoming something."
"Okay, Mama. When are you going to Aunt Sylvia's?" "In two days," she said.
"You're really going, right?"
"Of course I'm going. You've got the address. You write and-I'll write back," she promised.
Suddenly, like a black shark, cruising in the sea of traffic, the limousine emerged. It was such a rare sight in this neighborhood, there was no doubt in our minds who it was for. It pulled up in front of us and the driver got out quickly.
"Rain?" he asked. He was a man about fifty with thin, graying hair and friendly blue eyes.
"Yes," I said.
"Let me take that for you," he said reaching for my suitcase and bag.
Mama came around to the trunk of the limousine and saw all that had been bought for me the day before. She gasped for joy, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Just look at all that. You're going away like some princess," she said.
"I don't feel like a princess, Mama."
"That'll change," she predicted. "Okay, don't keep the man waiting here. Get along with you. It looks like it might rain any moment."
"Mama..."
"It's going to be fine, honey. It's going to be real fine. I'm giving you back, but I'm not giving you away, darling. No sir, no ma'am," she recited.
I hugged her tightly, so tightly I know she thought I would never let go.
"Go on," she whispered, her voice raspy. "Get what's coming to you, child. Go ahead."
I pulled back. Her face was locked with all the determination her little body could muster. It was cruel to linger.
Into the limousine I went and the driver closed my door. Mama stood on the sidewalk, smiling through her tears. I pressed my face to the window and then we started away. She held up her hand, watched me for a moment and turned to go back into the building.
As we rounded the corner, I looked to my left and I was sure I saw Roy standing there just behind a car, his face soon lost in the darkness that dropped from the thundering clouds rolling in.
Seconds later, the neighborhood and the only life I had ever known was behind me and I was on my way.
10
No Turning Back
.
Once when I was in the fourth grade we had a
terrible fire drill at school. The principal had bawled out the student body--just a week before because we took too long to evacuate our classrooms and the building and there was a great deal of talking.
"This time it was just a drill," he warned, "but next time it could be for real and if you take as long as you did this time and make as much noise, some of you will surely die."
I didn't think he wanted to put panic in our hearts so much as he wanted us to take it all more seriously. Nevertheless, when the alarm rang the next week, there was an air of frenzy. Someone swore she smelled smoke. The next thing I knew, we were all rushing out and our class ran smack into another class in the hall. There were two classes already crowding behind them. The orderly way we were supposed to exit broke down when another student cried, "It's a real fire!"
The kids around me screamed. My heart felt like it had melted in my chest. Someone pushed someone else and then all of the classes began to run toward the exit despite the protests of our teachers. I was numbed. Panic had put glue on the bottoms of my sneakers so I didn't move fast enough. However, the momentum was behind and around me as waves and waves of swinging arms and legs rushed by. Bodies pushed on mine and I found myself being carried along, moving fast whether I wanted to or not. We burst out of the building like drowning people gasping for air. I have never forgotten my sense of
helplessness, my inability to oppose the power that was sweeping me along.
It was just how I felt in the limousine as the world I had known fell away behind me. Once again, I was being carried along, swept away, rushed over highways, unable to stop. In a real sense, I thought, I was escaping a burning building, a fire. At least that was what Mama truly believed. I saw the relief in her eyes when the door of the limousine was closed and I was sealed in this plush vehicle that moved with the glitter and sharpness of a needle through the shroud that had once covered me in this city.
The driver said little to me during the trip. About an hour after we were on the road, he asked if I wanted to hear any music. He explained that there was a radio above me on the ceiling of the limousine. I wasn't in the mood for music so I just thanked him, and I didn't push any buttons or turn any knobs. He glanced back at me once and then ignored me until we were closing in on what would become my new home. He muttered, "Not much longer now."
Instead of bringing relief, his words sent a finger of ice sliding down my chest, between my breasts and over my ribs. I tightened my arms around myself and sat frozen in the corner of the limousine gazing out the window. When the driver had left the main highway and we were moving through the countryside, I began to see the large estates with beautiful grounds. It was hard to believe that a single family owned so much. The houses looked larger than embassies. Everything was clean and spankingly new, the hedges and flowers brilliantly dressed in their greens and reds and yellows. The water gushing from magnificent fountains sparkled like liquid diamonds in the late morning sun. Uniformed gardeners and grounds people manicured the landscaping. They resembled an army out to conquer ugliness. The opulence was so great it frightened me. Anyone could take one look at me. in this setting and know I was an immigrant from poverty, fleeing the dirt and the crime. They'd wonder how I ever got here.
Fear actually made my teeth chatter along with the electric chills in my bones. This was a horrible mistake, I kept thinking. I should go back and I should return all the beautiful things my real mother had bought for me. I was too awkward, too unrefined. I would be a total embarrassment to my real
grandmother and she would send me packing almost minutes after I had arrived.
Convinced of the impending disaster and full of dread, I found it hard to breathe when the driver finally announced, "We're here!"
He turned up a long circular driveway toward another one of those large houses I had seen along our route.
This mansion was two stories with four large, tall columns holding up a front-gabled roof that made the house look like a Greek temple. This impression was reinforced by the stone steps running the width of the entry porch.
The lawn and gardens seemed to go on forever to the right and to the left. I saw a three-car garage on the left with what looked like a vintage Rolls Royce parked in front. Someone had just washed it. The hose and the pail of soapy water were still beside it.
The driver got out and then opened my door. "This is it," he said with a small smile. I stepped out slowly and looked up at the house.
There was a breeze, but nothing moved, not even the leaves on the small trees or hedges. Everything was so still, I felt as if I was about to enter a painting. Suddenly, a cloud slipped over the sun and a dark shadow washed across the front of the mansion. On the second floor, a curtain moved, but I saw no face. The driver began to unload my luggage.
"You can go on inside," he said. "I'll bring everything."
I had half expected the front door to open and my grandmother to step out, anxious to greet me, but there wasn't any sign of life. Even the birds that flitted from tree branches to fountains and benches seemed to keep their distance, eying that front door nervously.
/> I started up the steps. The stone looked pristine beneath my feet. I imagined the steps were swept and washed as vigorously as the very floors inside. I found no doorbell button, just a brass knocker in the shape of a ball hammer with a brass plate beneath. I let it fall once and then, thinking it wasn't loud enough of a knock, did it again, holding it back and pushing it down so that it sounded louder.
Moments later the grand door opened and I was facing a maid who looked no more than twenty, if that. She had short blond hair trimmed with precision to the length of her ear lobes. It was brushed straight and sat over her temples and forehead like thin wires, devoid of softness, dry, almost painted on. Her eyes were a dull brown set back too far from the bridge of her nose. She squinted as the cloud moved off the sun and some light was reflected off the cold white stone floor of the portico. I didn't imagine she was outside much. She had a pale complexion with a prominent birthmark on her narrow forehead.
Her apron was knee length over a dark blue skirt and her blouse was buttoned tightly at her neck. She was small busted, but somewhat wide in the hips. Sad and dumpy, she looked like someone destined to go unnoticed, to be forever a menial servant. The reality of her situation had planted a dark depression in her eyes. I imagined a smile was as rare as a diamond in her life. She glanced at me and then shifted her body to look at the limousine and driver.
"You're Rain?" she asked. She seemed surprised. What had she been told? I wondered.
"Yes."
She grimaced as a look of annoyance and disgust washed through her face.
"This way," she said and turned her back on me quickly.
I hesitated. This was my greeting? I glanced at the driver who was starting toward the steps and then I stepped into the large, long entryway with creamy marble floors. To my right was a tall, wide mirror in a rich oak frame. It nearly reached the ceiling. On my left was a matching oak antique table with what looked like a pewter vase now full of jonquils.