P.S. Be Eleven

  I knew the best way to get my sisters moving. I said, “Beat you down to the car!” Then I took off.

  Behind me was the scuffle and clomping of shoes. We came bounding toward Big Ma on the porch. She yelled, “Stop that running like a band of gypsies!” We didn’t care. We circled her, and hugged her, and said our good-byes.

  Vonetta didn’t say she was sorry but she did hug and kiss Big Ma good-bye.

  Mrs. was still in her housecoat. It was eight a.m. If Big Ma had a word or two to say about how late Mrs. slept on Saturday mornings, she kept it to herself. Instead, Big Ma said, “Keep an eye on my girls.”

  Mrs. said she would.

  And then more hugging and kissing went on until Big Ma said, “Let’s stop all this carrying-on, making a grand Negro spectacle for all these folks hanging out their windows.” But no one watched out the window or watched TV more than Big Ma. Before she got halfway to the car, she told us to keep the Lord with us, night and day. Then she said, “Every good-bye ain’t gone.”

  Fern said, “Surely ain’t.”

  Then Pa drove Big Ma into Manhattan to catch the Greyhound.

  Merry Like Christmas

  I, for one, was glad for the Christmas break and that we wouldn’t return to school until after the New Year had begun. No one at school could stop talking about the Jackson Five concert, and I was tired of hearing about the songs, the steps, the costumes, and the screaming over Jermaine and Michael. At least they didn’t say how dreamy Jackie and Tito were. I would have died on the spot.

  Pa and Mrs. tried to make a merry Christmas. Pa had Johnny Mathis singing Christmas carols on our deluxe stereo. Mrs. made the kind of biscuits that pop when you twist the can. Not the kind you set on the windowsill to rise the night before you bake them. That was all right. Her biscuits still smelled doughy and buttery and would go great with cheese grits and sausage. While I got the grits boiling, Mrs. kept saying, “No, darling. Christmas is for kids doing kid things.” But once I had the cheese grated and the sausages dancing in the frying pan, she was anxious for a taste.

  Mrs. meant well, but she didn’t understand. I had to make the Christmas cheese grits. I wanted something to taste merry like Christmas morning in Big Ma’s kitchen.

  There was no need to guess which gifts under the tree were from Cecile. Each gift was wrapped in brown paper decorated with either green or red movable type. JOY and VONETTA was printed on the smallest, round gift. MERRY and AFUA was printed on the long, rectangular-shaped gift. PEACE and DELPHINE was printed on the book-shaped gift.

  Vonetta pouted because hers was the smallest. That pouting didn’t last long when she ripped up JOY and found a gold compact mirror decked in jewels. She fell in love with the jewels and the mirror just like Cecile knew she would.

  “Open mine.” Fern held out her gift to me.

  “You can open it,” I said.

  “I don’t want to tear the part that says ‘MERRY.’ Like some people I know.”

  “Baby,” Vonetta said, without ungluing herself from her mirror. She had smiled ten different ways before her mirror.

  “Open it,” Fern told me.

  I felt Mrs. looking on. As nice as she was, she would have offered to unwrap the paper for her new “baby,” or, as liberated as she was, she would have told Fern to open it herself. I took the brown package and began to pry the tape off the edges. Fern stood over me, breathing hard. Waiting. Once the largest piece of tape was peeled away, Fern snatched the gift from my hand and finished the tape on the ends.

  “Tinker Bell!” She held up a case of white pencils from Disneyland with the tiny fairy painted on each pencil.

  I was also careful with my wrapping paper. I wanted to keep every green letter whole. I knew Cecile had sent me a book, but I was anxious and hoping I hadn’t already read it.

  “What did Santa bring you?” Pa asked.

  My gift from Cecile was a secondhand copy of Things Fall Apart. I raised it up to show him.

  “That looks grown,” Pa said.

  “It’s fine literature,” Mrs. said.

  “Still looks grown.”

  I read the note from Cecile.

  “‘I know you’ll read this now, but wait two years. Fourteen is a good age to read this book and sixteen is even better. Delphine, you are smart and you are hardheaded. Merry Christmas. Your mother, Cecile.’”

  Pa had put together a dollhouse from a kit for Vonetta and Fern to share. The dollhouse was grand, made of metal, and had white aluminum siding on the outside. It had two floors but no staircase. The decorations, the fireplace, rugs, windows, and curtains were all painted on the metal floors and walls. The dollhouse also came with two plastic bags. One bag contained pieces of plastic furniture. The other bag, a tiny pink family ready to move in. Vonetta named them the Taylors, but Fern renamed them the Nixons.

  Mrs. threw her hands over her mouth but still managed to laugh out loud. “Get it?” she asked.

  “No,” Vonetta said. “The Nixons. That don’t make no kinda sense.”

  “In the White House,” Fern said.

  Even I didn’t get it right away, but I eventually caught on.

  Then Mrs. said, “Your dad wanted to build a dollhouse.”

  “I built up this house,” he said. “I can build a bitty dollhouse.” That’s a pa. Not a dad or daddy.

  Vonetta pulled herself away from her mirror and said, “We like this store-bought house better.”

  “Surely do!”

  “Fern,” Mrs. said. “What’s with this ‘surely this’ and ‘surely that’?”

  Vonetta, Fern, and I gave one another a look, then started:

  “It’s just something she says.”

  “Like Big Ma says . . .”

  “Greedy like a gobbler.”

  “And untrained chimps.”

  “It’s just a thing Fern says.”

  “Because it’s Fern’s thing.”

  “Surely is.”

  And without a beat or a signal we went from rat-a-tat-tat to the Isley Brothers’ song “It’s Your Thing.” We even threw in “surely do,” in place of the background “doo-hoo-wops.”

  Mrs. liked the green silk scarf we gave her and modeled it like she was showing off a mink coat on Let’s Make A Deal. We’d bought the scarf at the church bazaar for thirty-five cents, brought it home, and hand-washed it. I ironed it and then we sprayed it with perfume Big Ma left behind.

  We gave Pa a wrench from the church bazaar. He already had wrenches, but that was the only thing he would have found useful. And we had to talk the seller down from a dollar to sixty cents.

  Mrs. gave us each a new dress and a poster of the Jackson Five to hang in our rooms. We screamed as if Jackie, Tito, and their brothers were standing in our living room. Pa said she spent too much money on the dresses and scolded her for bringing those teenage hoodlums inside his house. But I caught him winking at her. Sometimes I didn’t know what to make of my father.

  Mrs. disappeared into the kitchen and then returned with the telephone receiver, its long, coily cord stretching into the living room. She was smiling like she had a surprise of her own and waved the receiver around. “This is my real gift to you,” she said. “Talk as long as you want.”

  Pa said, “Now hold on a minute, Marva honey.”

  “It’s Christmas, Louis sweetie.” She handed the phone to me.

  Cecile’s was the first voice I wanted to hear. But I couldn’t see how Mrs. would know to call the phone booth at Mean Lady Ming’s Chinese takeout and tell the first person who answered to run and get Cecile. Nor could I see Cecile standing outside Mean Lady Ming’s phone booth at five o’clock in the morning Oakland time to wish us a merry Christmas.

  Twelve makes you know better than to wish for things that only eleven would wish hard for.

  From the fussing sounds coming out of the receiver, I knew it could only be Big Ma. We could all hear the fussing and we hollered and screamed until Pa said, “All right, girls,” in his firm voice. Then
we kept it down to hopping like holy rollers, excited to take our turn on the phone.

  “Merry Christmas, Big Ma!” we all shouted.

  “Merr Christmas,” Big Ma said. No merry. Just merr.

  “Did you get the gift?” I asked.

  Around me my sisters called out:

  “Did you like it?”

  “I picked it out, Big Ma.”

  “No. I did.”

  “I did.”

  “Delphine, you’re hogging up the phone.”

  “Surely hogging it up.”

  I had no trouble hearing Big Ma. She spoke loud into the receiver as if the cord wasn’t long enough from Autauga County, Alabama, to Brooklyn. I could hear that she was happy and sad, even with my sisters yelping and Johnny Mathis caroling. I could hear her missing us and missing Uncle Darnell.

  Real

  Mrs. told me to try on her royal blue coat, a winter coat with rabbit fur around the collar and cuffs. I slid my arms into the sleeves. Vonetta and Fern couldn’t stop stroking the collar and cuffs. They play-fought over who got to model the coat next, neither of them realizing the gray-and-white fur belonged to a real rabbit. I knew. The fur looked too real, unlike Lucy’s pink-dyed jacket that once seemed both dreamy and mod to me. And to Frieda.

  “Too grown,” Pa said.

  “Dear, she’s shooting out of her winter coat,” Mrs. said.

  “She needs a coat for a girl,” Pa said.

  Pictures flashed in my mind of shopping for school clothes with Big Ma. Running into Lucy. Lucy picking out my first really nice jumper. Lucy telling me to watch Hollywood Palace that night. I missed her. And Frieda. We all made up a long time ago but it was never the same.

  “I had it tailored to fit,” Mrs. said. “Turn around, darling.” Mrs. had a way of not hearing Pa that made me want to smile. It was the way Pa used to have with Big Ma.

  “She’s a little girl,” Pa said.

  Vonetta scrunched up her face. “Little?”

  “She needs light blue, purple. Pink.” Pa was pulling colors out of his head. “Those are nice colors for little girls.”

  “Popsicle colors!” Fern said. “And sherbet.”

  My sisters and I laughed at Pa’s Popsicle colors, but Mrs. didn’t. She said, “I guess it’s settled. After we get home from work tomorrow, we’ll pick up the girls and run downtown to Macy’s, then Gertz to shop. They have a wide array of coats for little girls with all of those Popsicle colors you love. We’re bound to find something just right for Delphine. And on sale.”

  Mrs. had done Pa the way I did Vonetta and Fern. Her words—“wide array,” “Macy’s,” “Gertz,” “shop,” and “sale”—made Pa stutter.

  “N-now, hold on, Marva, honey. L-let’s wait a minute. We can’t just burn through money.” He said that last part without stuttering.

  Mrs. gave Pa soft doe eyes that made Vonetta and Fern giggle. “Don’t we want our girls to be warm for the winter?” she asked, but she wasn’t really asking a thing. “Come on, Louis sweetie.”

  As if we picked up the signal from Mrs., we all sang, “Pleeease.”

  Pa looked both fit to be tied and ready to laugh. I knew he missed having Big Ma on his side of things. He shook his head and said, “My girls. My girls.”

  In the morning, I stepped into Mrs.’s royal blue coat, now mine, and buttoned its big, round buttons. My arms glided down the sleeves that stopped just over my wrists, like a coat sleeve should. I walked out with my sisters into a whole new year, the rabbit-fur cuffs and collar looking smart and snappy. Once I felt that fur protecting me from the cold, I knew I’d never wear my old coat again. I pulled the fur collar up against my face. I never knew anything could feel so nice.

  The sky was a perfect blue, but everywhere else you looked, snow had covered rooftops, parked cars, and driveways. Even the Arabian Knight of Herkimer Street was powdery white. I squinted, blinded by all the snow. The sun had baked a slick ice over patches of sidewalks, so we tried to step on only the snowy, crunchy parts. We were nearing Bedford Avenue when a clump of snow fell from a tree branch and hit the top of Vonetta’s cap. I brushed the snow off of it and we crunched snow and slid along until Fern stopped.

  “Look!” Fern said. “Uncle D!”

  “Where?” Vonetta asked. Three licks of Wanda the Good Switch hadn’t done Vonetta any good. I could hear her still wanting to give our uncle a piece of her mind. Or at least punch him one.

  Fern pointed her mittened hand toward the redbrick castle. The armory. “There!” Then she pulled down the scarf wrapped around her mouth and hollered, “Uncle D! Uncle Darnell!”

  “Is that him?” Vonetta asked.

  I cupped my hand over my eyes to fight snow blindness. It only took a second. I put my hand down and shook my head no. The man Fern thought was our uncle was a soldier in a green army uniform. From a distance I could see that he was too big and looked nothing like our uncle.

  Vonetta rubbed her gloved fists around and around. “Just wait till I see him. Just wait.”

  The auditorium roared with kids waiting for the bell to ring. Vonetta and Fern didn’t bother with so much as a “See ya, Delphine” once we got inside. They hurried to the front and middle rows where second- and fourth-grade classes sat. I didn’t have far to go. The sixth-grade classes sat in the back rows, nearest the exits.

  I plunked myself in the aisle seat on the third to the last row in the middle section. That was where the girls in my class sat. Rukia and Evelyn moved down toward me.

  They said their hellos and I said mine.

  “Nice coat,” Evelyn said, reaching over to pet the cuff.

  A skull-capped head turned from the boys’ row in front of us. It was Danny the K’s head. He said, “Is that your invisible mama’s coat?”

  I wanted to say, “It’s my stepmama’s, for your information,” but my mouth stopped before it opened. Stepmama.

  “Why do you wanna know?” Ellis Carter spoke up, then turned to glance at me. “You wanna wear Delphine’s pretty blue coat?”

  “Oh, snap!” Ant said loudly. “Elly May Clampett snapped on the K.”

  There was a huge boy ruckus. They pulled off their knitted skullcaps and slapped one another upside the head with them. The boys all laughed and snapped on Ellis and the K, but mostly on the K. Then a PTA volunteer headed up the aisle toward them and the ruckus quieted.

  I squirmed in my seat, wondering what had just happened. Did Ellis Carter snap on Danny the K? For me?

  While the boys, mostly Ellis, took shots at Danny the K, Frieda rose up from her seat next to Lucy and made a motion to her like, “Be right back.” She squeezed past all the girls already seated until she stood in the narrow space between me and Rukia and Evelyn. Rukia and Evelyn moved one seat back to let Frieda sit next to me.

  I thought she was going to start talking but she didn’t say anything. Then she ran her fingers around the cuff. “That feels real,” she said.

  I said, “It is.”

  On Atlantic Avenue

  To Cecile

  3 × 1 = 3

  3 × 2 = 6

  3 × 3 = 9

  3 = US

  Afua + Vonetta + Delphine

  1 = You

  Cecile

  3 × love

  4 U

  Happy Valentine’s Day!

  It was Fern’s card, but we all signed our names.

  Even though our house is only blocks away from the school, Pa led me around to the front passenger side of the Wildcat, jammed the key in the door lock, and told me to get in. The seat covers were cold when I slid over to unlock the door on the driver’s side. I was glad to have my royal blue coat, fur and all.

  Vonetta and Fern stood in the doorway, watching. Mrs. appeared and shouted, “Delphine! Wait!” She had something pink and square in her hand. Pa yelled, “We don’t have time for that. She’ll get it later.” Pa’s lips tightened. “That woman.”

  “Get what, Pa?” I asked.

  “Some mail I picked up. It’l
l be there when you get back.” He said it like, “Case closed.”

  I sat back while Pa revved up the Wildcat. On top of butterflies, on top of wanting to go to the dance and not wanting to go alone, I was anxious about what would be waiting for me when I got back.

  Papa looked grim, like he was driving me to the state prison, so I didn’t press him on what Mrs. had waiting for me. Then I smiled. Big. It was a valentine. Of course it was! I almost didn’t care who it came from. A kitchen-printed card from Cecile. A Jesus card from Big Ma. Even a dime-store card from Uncle Darnell, wherever he was. No matter what happened at the dance, I still had a valentine card to come home to.

  Vonetta, Fern, and Mrs. huddled in the cold and waved from the door as if I was going to a ball far, far away, but the truth was, they’d still be able to see the Wildcat when we got to the school. The headlights came on and the Wildcat shimmied out of the parking space.

  The dark arrived early. It always did that time of year. By six o’clock it seemed like midnight. The insides of our car hadn’t warmed up yet but it didn’t matter. We’d be there in less than two minutes. I turned the rabbit-fur collar up around my face, against the chill, and wrapped my arms around my waist for the butterflies. We were a block away. I saw kids walking up to the school in pairs and in groups. Some got out of cars. No one walked alone.

  Pa and I sat at the stop sign. When it was safe to cruise ahead, Pa put on his blinkers and turned left toward Atlantic Avenue. He pulled the car over but kept the engine running.

  He waited for the Atlantic Avenue El train to pass overhead, and told me, “You don’t have to go to this school dance.”

  Mrs. had straightened my hair with Big Ma’s hot comb and gave me a flip bang. When I whipped my head to face him the bang was full of bounce and poked me in the eye. I brushed it to the side.

  “Papa . . .”

  “It’s just you and me, Delphine. We can see whatever’s playing at the RKO Theatre. Get a bag of popcorn. Some Good & Plenty. Like before.” He drummed his fingernails against the steering wheel.