Chapter 25
Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.
—1 Timothy 5:10
It was the Monday before Thanksgiving. Zynique was still working for Madame Perry while putting her money away to be able to get her own place and, someday, her own dance studio. That’s why Zynique hadn’t been like a lot of her friends, most of whom had gone off to college. Zeke and I tried to convince her she should at least look at going to college while she worked. But her reasoning was that people generally went to college to obtain a career. What she wanted was to have her own studio, giving people an opportunity to experience the art of dance in the way that she had. She felt she was learning all she needed with Madame Perry while being paid.
Zynique had even convinced Madame Perry to start a class for senior citizens. It had turned out to be a marvelous idea, one that brought even more revenue to Madame Perry’s studio and a lot of joy to a group that was excited about being able to stay in shape in this way. It was a win-win situation for everyone.
Zeke told Zynique it had been dumb of her to give Madame Perry that idea. He felt she should have saved it for her own studio. Zynique merely waved him off.
“Madame Perry is a wonderful person, Daddy. She’s pouring everything she has into me. I’m glad I can do something in my own way to repay her.”
“You are doing something,” Zeke said, turning up the bottle of soda he was drinking. “You’re working there, giving her the benefit of your knowledge and energy. Didn’t you say she had cut back on her hours, essentially putting you in charge of her entire operation?”
“Yes,” Zynique said, almost beaming at the mention of that.
“Well, frankly, I think the woman is a pretty smart cookie. She gets you to do most of her work while she sits back and gets to rake in the big bucks.”
“Well, I think it’s wonderful what Madame Perry is doing for Zynique,” I said, adding my two cents. “Most folks don’t want to share the knowledge of what they know with anyone else. Especially if they know you’re doing or planning on doing what they’re already doing. They view competition as a threat. Trust me, I know. That’s why I’ve had such a hard time with my business. No one wants to help me. In fact, there are those who are trying to devise ways to pull me down.”
“Crabs in the barrel,” Zynique said.
I pulled back and looked at Zynique. “What do you know about crabs in a barrel?”
She beat the table with her hands as though it was a drum. “That’s what Madame Perry calls it. She says our people especially are great about being crabs in a barrel.”
“What does she mean ‘our people’?” Zeke said, setting his empty bottle on the counter right there at the trashcan.
“Oh, Zeke, don’t act like you don’t know what she’s talking about,” I said, getting up and throwing his empty bottle in the trash as I gave him “the look” which didn’t mean anything to him anymore. “You have a bunch of crabs in a barrel and as soon as it looks like one is just about to make its way out, the others reach up and pull it back down with them. That’s what a lot of us do to each other. We’re all stuck in a bucket that won’t allow us to get anywhere. And when someone sees someone else about to escape, instead of the group helping that one out, which would make it easier for that one to reach back and pull others out, they all reach up and pull the one almost out back down with them.”
“That’s exactly what Madame Perry said,” Zynique said. “I think that’s why she works so hard to help me. She says she might not have gotten out of the bucket, but if she can boost me up and over the top, maybe I can cover a lot more territory, more than she ever could.”
“Well, personally, I believe Madame Perry just got her a good hustle going on.” Zeke was now fixing himself a bowl of strawberry ice cream. “You watch, Zynique. When you get ready to spread your wings, she’ll probably be the main one there with the clippers, ready to ground you.”
“You don’t know Madame Perry at . . . all,” Zynique said.
Zynique’s cell phone began to ring. It really didn’t make sense to me that she’d gotten one. I knew everyone seemed to be getting one, but I didn’t see something like cell phones achieve-ing a critical mass. Why would anyone want to pay for a phone you carry around when you have a phone already at home?
Zynique answered her cell phone. All of sudden, she started to shake her head, crying, and yelling, “No! No! Oh God, please no!”
“What’s wrong?” I said. “Zynique? What’s the matter?”
She waved me to be quiet until she was finished. When she hung up, she came over and fell into my arms. “It’s Madame Perry,” she said, finding it hard to get the words out.
“What about her?”
“She’s at the hospital. That was her neighbor. He said she had my number posted to call in case of an emergency.”
“Is she going to be all right?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He didn’t know. He just said she called him and the phone suddenly went dead. He ran over there and when he got there, she was lying on the floor. He called for an ambulance and they’ve taken her to the hospital. He said she was asking for me.” Zynique placed her hand over her mouth as the tears continued to come.
“She was asking for you?” Zeke said.
“Mother, I have to go see her. I need to leave now. Will you drive me?” Zynique’s hands were shaking.
“Of course I will,” I said. “Let me run and get my purse.” I turned to Zeke. “Do you want to go with us?”
“Nah. You two go on.”
I was hoping he would go. It would have meant so much to Zynique if he had.
We got to the hospital and found where Madame Perry was. They had her hooked up to a breathing machine. When she saw Zynique, she tried to raise her hand but could only manage to point her index finger. Zynique rushed to her side and took her hand.
“You’re going to be okay,” Zynique said. “You just need to rest. They’re going to get you all fixed up again. I know they are. And don’t you even think about fighting the nurses and doctors. They’re going to have you back on your feet and dancing again before you know it.”
I looked at Madame Perry. Her eyes seemed to be pleading for me to come closer. I walked over and stood next to Zynique. Madame Perry began to move her eyes, as though she was trying to point them at the mask that covered her mouth.
“You want them to take that off?” Zynique asked.
Madame Perry nodded.
“I think she wants to take that thing off,” Zynique said. “I think she wants to tell us something.”
Madame Perry nodded again.
“Let me find a nurse,” I said, then quickly left the room.
Just as I made it to the nurses’ station, a patient’s alarm must have gone off because a group of them jumped up and started running. It was then that I saw them rush into Madame Perry’s room. I ran back there as well. Zynique was standing to the side now, crying. I went over to Zynique and gathered her in my arms. We stepped farther out of the way so we wouldn’t hamper any of their efforts. A doctor and three nurses were frantically working on her. I didn’t want Zynique to be there for this; I didn’t want her to have to witness what was going on. But Zynique refused to leave.
* * *
Madame Perry died that night and her son, the only child she had, scheduled her funeral for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which happened to be one day after Zynique’s nineteenth birthday.
I was working full throttle, assembling sprays and floral arrangements for the funeral.
According to Zynique, Madame Perry had prearranged pretty much everything, so there really wasn’t a lot for her son to have to do except execute what she’d put in place. And as only Madame Perry could do it, she’d left specific instructions that all of the flowers her family would be purchasing for her home-going celebration be bought from my place of business, The Painted Lady Flower Shop.
The dance studio was already closed for the week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Madame Perry believed in family and that family should have time to spend and to be able to celebrate together.
Zynique was having difficulty pulling herself together after her beloved friend and mentor’s death. I asked her to come and help me with the tons of orders I’d received. Honestly, I truly needed the additional help even though a month earlier I’d hired Mia (a lovely mother of two) to work for me part-time. Mia desperately needed the money, but she also wanted to be home when her two children got home from school. I needed a little help, but I didn’t need anyone on a full-time basis. So this arrangement worked great for both of us.
Zynique needed something to occupy her mind. I felt she would appreciate being able to help put together the many flowers that had been ordered to pay tribute to Madame Perry.
Madame Perry was loved by so many. It was standing room only at both the wake and the funeral. At the funeral, Zynique wanted to say something during the time where people were allowed to speak for two minutes if anyone so desired. I didn’t think it was a good idea, believing Zynique would break down as soon as she opened her mouth.
But she ended up surprising me. Zynique stood, took a deep breath, and began to tell people what an awesome person Madame Perry was and the many young women’s and girls’ lives she had changed just from them being at the dance studio and in her presence. She then proceeded to tell those in attendance something she hadn’t even voiced to me.
“That night, right before she died, she called me to her side,” Zynique said. “My mom had just left out of the room to go find a nurse. Madame Perry wanted to say something, but she had a mask over her mouth that kept her from being able to speak where she could be heard. Well, anyway, as I said, my mom had gone to ask a nurse about taking it off for a minute to see what Madame Perry was trying to say. So Madame Perry and I were there alone.” Zynique paused for a few seconds.
“That’s okay, baby,” an older woman yelled out from the audience. “Take your time. Take your time. We understand. We all understand.”
Zynique smiled, and I could see her actually swallow before she began to speak again. I was praying hard for my child. She continued. “Madame Perry couldn’t speak, but she used all she had within her to lift her hand and wave it in the air. Next, she placed her hand on her heart, then, with every fiber within her, she placed her hand on my heart.” Zynique stopped again, looked up, and shook her head.
Zynique leveled her head, nodded a few times, then scanned the audience. “I knew what Madame Perry was saying without her having to utter one word. You see, I began working for Madame Perry a few hours a day after school when I turned seventeen. She really didn’t need my help, not really; she just knew how much I wanted to do what she was doing someday. So she paid me to teach me what she knew. I didn’t get it at seventeen; I got it when I began working for her full-time at age eighteen. Madame Perry was paying me hard-earned money to teach me what she knew. That’s something to think about. So Madame Perry would drop little nuggets for me to put aside.
“One of the things she would always say about praising God was: ‘If I couldn’t say a word, I would just wave my hand.’ Well, that’s what she was telling me when she raised her hand the night she died. She was going to praise God somehow, anyhow. And the part where she placed her hand on her heart then placed it on mine? She was simply saying, ‘I love you.’ ” Zynique paused, then quickly nodded. “So I’m telling each of you right now: Madame Perry loves you. And I’m thankful to God that He allowed someone like her to cross my path. Thank you.”
Zynique sat down to thunderous applause even though it was a funeral. I held her as she cried. As people stood and spoke of Madame Perry, I was reminded that this wasn’t a funeral as much as it was a celebration of a wonderful spirit’s life who had walked upon this earth. It made me want to do even more for God’s Kingdom and His people.
At the gravesite, Claude, Madame Perry’s son, made sure that Zynique got both a white and a red carnation from the standing spray he’d continually expressed to me was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen when it came to flowers. It just so happened to be the one Zynique and I gave extra special attention and love to. It was the one from our family; the one with a small heart made up of vibrant red carnations inside of a larger white heart created with a combination of white carnations, Monte Casino, and white button pompons. A heart within a heart.
“Madame Perry will never really die,” Zynique had said when we were discussing what we were going to make her from us. “Because I will always carry her heart and a part of her inside of my heart.”
I thought it was beautiful that Claude wanted to be sure Zynique had something like that to keep.
“We’ll put it in plastic and put it in the Bible,” I said when we got home. “That will press it for you and you’ll be able to keep it forever.”
Zynique leaned over and hugged me; she wouldn’t let go. “I love you, Mommy. I really do.” She was really crying now.
Holding her tight like I had when she was a little girl (and glad that she let me be there for her during this time, instead of going off somewhere to herself as she’d been known to do), I said, “I know you do. And I love you, too, baby. I love you, too.”