DECEMBER 20, 2005
“Miss Boone. I would love to add another new piece of technology to my collection,” the sarcastic voice said from the front of the classroom. “Bring it.”
Reesie was more angry than embarrassed as she took her time getting up from her desk. She’d only been shutting her new cell phone off. And it was clear that this Mr. Worthy had it in for her anyway. Every time she’d opened her mouth in his class, he had that smirk on his face like she couldn’t speak English or something.
One of the other kids had told her that it wasn’t her New Orleans accent, really—that he was just mean—but she didn’t believe it. She eased out from her chair, and low-level whispers and a few snickers followed her to the front of the room.
Nothing had gone quite right in the three months since she’d come to Montclair, New Jersey. Sure, this middle school was pretty cool, and it was actually fun living with her aunt, uncle, and little cousins. Jazz, the six-year-old, even called Reesie her “big sister.” But her father was still in New Orleans, her mother was still barely speaking to him, Junior was in college, and their home had drowned along with everything they owned.
Sometimes, like now, she wanted to scream to the world, Do you know what I’m dealing with? But that seemed so unlike her real Reesie self. Sometimes, like now, she didn’t even know if that Reesie existed anymore. So she went through the motions.
Worthy gave her his famous withering stare when she made eye contact with him at his desk. Annoyed, she dropped her phone with a clatter, just out of reach of his open hand. She knew he would take points off her already low algebra grade, but it was hard to care.
“Well, we don’t tolerate that attitude here, Miss Boone. See me for detention this afternoon.”
Reesie kept cool as she walked back to her seat and slouched in it, but her conscience was screaming and hollering. Another detention! Her mother would lose it. And who was supposed to pick up Jazz from school now?
Reesie violently flipped open her notebook, telling her righteous self that she might get away with it, since Mama and Daddy weren’t exactly standing together on very much these days. She sighed and began to copy the freakishly long equation from the chalkboard, frowning with forced concentration. The bell rang before she could get everything down. On cue, Mr. Worthy turned and wiped the dry-erase board clean. Just for spite, she thought, scrambling to gather her things so she could make it to Art I on time.
The art class was a welcoming world for her. It was the one place where she most remembered her old life—the best parts. They were drawing still lifes for this unit, and when her pencil touched paper, she was in the moment. Lemons in a silver bowl, a blue glass vase beside it, a red cloth draped behind. There was nothing before or after, only what her eyes saw and what her brain created in the moment.
The period was over before she knew it.
Heat was blasting in the hallway, which seemed to have shrunk as it filled with preteen bodies, voices, and smells. She got a momentary dizzy, stomach-tightening feeling that took her back to the Superdome on that awful day. This was almost too much for her to handle. She quickly squeezed through to the staircase, hurrying to her locker. It was practically empty. She stood for a moment, mentally ticking off the textbooks she was using as a side table in her room: history, earth science … and yes, algebra. At least she could make an attempt at the homework.
Was she going to the detention? Not.
She heard two or three hi’s from girls she passed, and got four or five what’s-up nods from boys as she hustled her way toward the side doors. There was no sign of Felicidad, Dadi, the only girl she’d met on her first day who’d actually not asked her a question about New Orleans. Reesie was willing to be friends with her for that reason alone. She remembered that Dadi, a fierce dancer, had a tap class after school on Tuesdays.
Maybe she should call Ayanna, or Orlando.… One touch of her jacket pocket reminded her that one, she didn’t have a phone, and two, they were hundreds of miles away. Orlando was still in Houston, but they were closer friends than ever, even if they hadn’t ever talked about that kiss. Ayanna, on the other hand, was getting slower and slower on picking up now that her family had decided to stay in Atlanta.
Reesie sucked her teeth in disgust.
She pushed out of the heavy steel doors, and her foot sank into snow. She hated snow. She lifted her face to the gray-blue sky, feeling the big wet flakes on her eyelashes and lips, almost like rain.
Almost like water, she thought, as she slogged her lime green, fleece-lined boots through it. In one movement, she tugged at the straps of the stiff purple backpack that she despised, and hunched her shoulders to wade through the soft ankle-deep snow. Almost like water.
And then, predictable as always, everything came back to her. Those memories that hid in the shadows when she tried to sleep. Those vivid thoughts that hung like bats in the back of her mind during algebra. Those memories that kept her distant from nearly all these supposedly good kids in this good school in this good New Jersey town.
She stomped along the unshoveled sidewalks. The trees arching over her hung heavy with icicles from a freeze and then a thaw a few days before. The different-colored houses she passed all wore holiday decorations, wreaths and lights strung across Victorian porches. Some even had stupid-looking inflated snowmen or reindeer in the middle of their front yards.
It was supposed to be the happiest time of the year, right?
Her fingers were turning numb inside the black-and-white-striped stretchy gloves she wore. She couldn’t get used to the cold. Everything up here was so different! She looked up to see the redbrick elementary school building looming against that dingy sky. Across the park next to it, two half-grown kids were wallowing in the snow, whooping and laughing.
Rainbow colors were all she could make out through the fogged-up windows of the Hillside school cafeteria, where the little kids waited to be picked up. The door flew open and Jazz flew out.
“Snow again!” She was as thrilled as those kids in the park. Reesie smiled but didn’t show any teeth. Hers were chattering anyway.
“Yeah,” she answered. “So, what trouble did you get into today?”
Jazz grabbed her hand, and Reesie felt a funny little flutter inside. It was nice to be around little kids.
“No trouble. I made up a new song!”
Jazz was dancing in the snow, using her footprints to make swirls and loops. She was always dancing … or singing.
“Booonie! Booonie Girls! Aunty Jean and you make two! Boo—”
Reesie loved being a “big sister,” but she wasn’t feeling Jazz’s little song. They really weren’t the Boone family anymore, with Daddy still in New Orleans four months after he promised they would be together.
Jazz stopped, swung her braids, and put her hands on her hips.
“You’re mad. You’re not my make-believe sister anymore?”
Everything she’d let build up inside shook Reesie at once: fury, confusion, and shame. She looked away from Jazz so she wouldn’t explode.
“Yes,” she finally said. “Yes, I’m your make-believe sister.”
“Still?” Jazz managed to skip ahead a few paces.
“Still,” Reesie said, pulling her house key out. “But you know, I’ll be going back home one day.”
“To New Orleans?” They shook their boots off on the steps of the wide yellow house.
“Yes. To New Orleans.”
Jazz shook her head, and the tassels on her striped elf hat swung around her head. “Noooo…,” she said slowly. “There’s no more New Orleans!”
Reesie wasn’t about to argue with a six-year-old, and she wondered if maybe Jazz was right. What if home wasn’t really home anymore?
She blinked at the wreath her mother and aunt had made of huge scarlet poinsettias and hung on the dark-wood-and-stained-glass front doors. Snow had blown across the porch, almost covering something lying near the tiny potted Christmas tree by the mailbox. Jazz bent to pick it up.
“Ree-see Boo-ne,” she read out loud proudly. “You got a package!” She shoved the brown-paper-wrapped rectangle at Reesie, then stood on her toes to get the rest of the mail from the box.
Reesie unlocked the front door and almost tripped over the stuffed animal zoo scattered in the front hall. She peeled off her layers, dropped them at the foot of the stairs, and glanced at the return address on the box. Her heart sped up. It was from Daddy!
She ripped and tossed paper on her way to the living room, glad that Jazz had made a beeline for cookies and milk.
A leather, emerald green sketchbook was tucked between sheets of green tissue paper. Reesie slowly thumbed through the pages. They were all blank, big enough for design sketches on one side with space for fabric swatches and notes on the other. She closed the book gently.
Though she loved her art class, no one in it knew she wanted to become a fashion designer. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d sewn anything or drawn even a stick figure wearing clothes. How did he know?
A smaller box of colored pencils had fallen onto the cushion beside her … and there was a note.
Reesie—Thought I’d get a head start on the Christmas shopping. Hope you can use this. Show me some outrageous design when I see you on Christmas Eve!
Love, Daddy
Reesie crumpled the tissue paper in her excitement. He was coming!
Keys jangled in the kitchen door. Reesie had forgotten that her mother was working an early shift this week. The door opened and slammed. There was more banging, of groceries heaped onto the counter, then keys smacked onto the table. Reesie rushed in the direction of the sounds.
Her glowing, grinning face met her mother’s scowling, vexed one. Jazz hopped off her chair and danced around the two of them, humming her new Boonie Girls tune.
“Guess what?” Mama sucked her teeth as if she were the middle-school student.
“Daddy’s coming for Christmas!” mother and daughter both said at once. Then, in stunned silence, they each took in the other’s reaction.
“Ho, ho ho!” Jazz sang out loud, but changed her lyrics. “Boonie Girls glad and mad!”