Florida hijacked Josh-of-the-raggy-jeans to take Chanda’s kids home after the service, but I made a separate trip later that afternoon with my pan of lasagna, foil-wrapped garlic bread, a salad—did Chanda eat salad? —and a few chocolate-chip cookies I’d left at home on purpose. When I arrived at the Georges’ new home in the quiet neighborhood straddling the Skokie-Evanston border, the steel gray Lexus was parked out front, a parking ticket decorating the ndshield.
A short woman with straight black hair pulled back from a pale, round face opened the door after I pushed the doorbell. “Uh—” I glanced at the house number. This was the house Chanda had moved into,wasn’t it? But just then Cheree poked her braided head around the strange woman and yelled, “Mama! It’s Ms. Baxter!”
The woman smiled, took the food from me, and disappeared.
Chanda was propped up like a queen in the living room, surrounded by pillows, a puffy comforter, and empty glasses with straws, watching TV sitcom reruns. She turned the volume down with the remote and fanned herself with the TV guide. “Oh, t’ank you, Sista Jodee. Hope all dat cheese don’t give mi gas.What’s dat? ” She pointed at the parking ticket I’d brought in. “Oh! Dat make mi so mad! Dis neighborhood don’ want dem ‘outsiders’ parking here, so all up and down dis street, all de cars need a special resident permit. But does dis lady look like she can run down to city hall an’ get dat permit? Humph!” Chanda fanned faster.
I pulled up an ottoman, trying to ignore the annoying drone of the TV. “Why don’t you just put the car in the garage, Chanda? ”
“Oh, dat. Dat be full of boxes still.”
The woman at the door turned out to be a nanny-housekeeper Chanda had hired for a week—a sweet Romanian woman named Yohanna who barely spoke English, which I thought was hilarious, since it was sometimes hard to understand Chanda’s mix of Jamaican patois and black English. I could just imagine them trying to communicate by pointing, nodding, and inflection. But when I used the half bath off the kitchen fifteen minutes later, Yohanna had the girls setting the table and Thomas was doing his homework at the bar counter.
Talk about serendipity. Chanda the housecleaner now had her own household help! I had an idea Yohanna wouldn’t be going any-where at the end of the week.
Chanda was perfectly willing to give me a blow-by-blow complaint about her hospital stay—soggy food, bossy nurses, medication at midnight—but seemed to be avoiding the obvious. “Chanda,” I finally interrupted. “What is the doctor saying about the cancer? ”
Her face fell, like a glob of silly putty that suddenly lost its shape. Her eyes puddled, and I handed her a couple tissues. “Oh, Sista Jodee.Why God be mad at me? Dey saying mi got to have dat radiation. Is all mi hair going to fall out? Mi tought all dat lottery money make ever’ting work out good for we.” She wagged her head, trying to stifle the wail I could see building up. “What mi do wrong, Jodee? Eh? Eh”
Wrong? I had my own opinion about the statewide lottery, preying mostly on the people who could least afford to sink hundreds of dollars into those weekly get-rich-quick tickets. Except that, whoopsy-daisy, Chanda actually won. What was that all about, God? But who could argue with Chanda being able to take her kids to Disney World or buying her own home for the first time in her life? Things other people, lots of white people, did all the time without batting an eye.
I licked my lips and chose my words carefully. “I don’t know if you did anything wrong, Chanda.That’s not for me to say, anyway.” OK, OK, so I was thinking it.New Jodi responses took time. “But if you think this cancer is about God punishing you for something—nope. Don’t believe it.” I reached out and took her plump, manicured hand. “God never wants somebody to have cancer. He’s not like that. Ever. But God will use things like this. To get our attention, maybe. To teach us something. To cut through our headlong dash through life. Maybe give us a course correction.” Definitely how God had used that car accident on me. “Want me to pray? Let’s pray that you’ll hear God’s still, small voice speaking to you during this time.”
“Yes, yes,” she sniffled. “Dat be a good prayer. You pray, Sista Jodee.”
“Sure. Wait a sec.” I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. How could anyone hear God’s still, small voice with all that racket on?
MONDAY I HAD A NOTE in my office mailbox that two of my students—Jessica Cohen and Caleb Levy—would be absent that day for “religious reasons.” I checked the school calendar. October 6. Yom Kippur.
Huh. Last year Ruth had invited Yada Yada to attend one of the Jewish high holy days that Beth Yehudah—the Messianic congregation she attended—celebrated in the fall. I had dragged Denny to a Rosh Hashanah service last year, choosing the festive Jewish New Year over Yom Kippur, the more somber Day of Atonement.
But Ruth hadn’t said anything about inviting us this time. Didn’t I tell her last year that this year I would attend Yom Kippur with her, find out what it was all about?
Guess she had other things on her mind.
So did I, frankly. The conversation I’d overheard in the bathroom Sunday morning niggled at me. The nerve! Talking like that in the bathroom like a couple of teenagers,when anyone could have overheard them.
Oh, I realized, as I went out on the playground and brought my third-grade class inside at the morning bell. Maybe they were just a couple of teenagers.
Grace, Jodi.Grace,whispered the Voice in my spirit. Love covers a multitude of sins.
Well, yeah. And to tell the truth, maybe I needed to talk to Josh about those raggy jeans on Sunday morning. If New Morning thought dressing up a bit more on Sunday morning was a sign of respect, weren’t we supposed to be culturally sensi—
“Ow! Ow! My eye!” The screech of pain was so high-pitched I was startled to see Bowie Garcia, a toughie if there ever was one, holding his eye and hopping up and down by his desk. Standing two feet away, a braided and beaded Carla Hickman clutched a pencil in her fist, glaring at the boy jerking like a puppet in front of her.
“She stabbed me! Ow! Ow!” Bowie howled.
“It’s my pencil, an’ he tried to grab it from me.”
Oh Lord.Help me here! I told Carla to sit and don’t move, while I tried to assess the damage. “Bowie! Stand still. Let me see your eye.” I peered closely. A small graphite dot, like a stray black freckle, decorated Bowie’s eyebone below his eyebrow, just millimeters from his eyeball. I blew out a sigh of relief. No real harm done.
But it might have been.
I told my class to sit at their desks and be quiet or there would be two extra math pages for everyone if I heard even a squeak. Alerting the teacher next door that I had to leave my classroom, I marched Carla to the office. “He started it,” she pouted, pulling back on my hand until I was practically dragging her. “Why only me in trouble”
“I will deal with Bowie later,” I said, sitting her down in the time-out chair in the school office. “Grabbing is one thing. But poking someone’s eye with anything is very, very dangerous.”
Carla folded her arms across her tiny chest and stuck out her bottom lip. No penitence there. I wanted to shake the stubborn snippet. But I simply left the office, then leaned against the wall in the hallway. To tell the truth, I could use a time-out myself, give myself time to think. Lord, how do I handle this? Teachers were supposed to report to parents any hitting or violent behavior and ask for a parent-teacher meeting.
Not exactly a call I wanted to make to Florida. Last time she practically laughed when I told her Carla had given that kid a bloody nose.
But I tried to call her from the office before I left school for the day; only got Cedric. “Nah, Miz Baxter, Mama’s not home. She workin’ double shift now.”
“Oh.” Double shifts? What was that about? “Who’s taking care of Carla”
“Me an’ Chris—till Daddy gets home anyway.”
I called the Hickmans later that evening, got Carl this time, who said Florida wouldn’t get off until eleven. “You say the boy’s OK? He sounds like a bully to me, but . . . Can’t you just handle it, Jodi? Do what you need to do . . . I know Flo don’t got time for a parent-teacher meeting, not till we get this bill from the city paid off.”
If I’d been talking to Florida, I would’ve asked, “What bill from the city? ” But I just said, “Sure. I’ll handle it, Carl. Don’t worry about it,” and hung up. Only later that evening,while waiting at the back door for Willie Wonka to finish hs final “business” of the day, did it hit me.
Bill from the city.Of course. For the cost of cleaning off that alley wall Chris had tagged.
I DIDN’T WANT TO ASK FLO how much the city was charging them for the alley cleanup, but it worried me all week. Hundreds? Thousands? How did the city expect a kid like Chris to pay that off? It got dumped in the parents’ lap, that’s what, which made sense theoretically—but it killed me to think of Florida working from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. five or six days a week. Might kill her was more like it.
Seemed like the rest of us should help somehow. I wasn’t sure where an extra hundred bucks would come from, but Denny did get a raise with the AD position this fall.Would a hundred dollars even make a dent? We’d need to multiply that somehow, but I wasn’t sure Florida would want me calling around, drumming up money. The Hickmans had their pride. Especially Carl.
I was so caught up with the Carla problem and mulling over our church merger that the call from Ruth on Thursday surprised me. “So are the Baxters coming Saturday or not? ”
“Coming where? What are you talking about, Ruth? ”
“To our Sukkoth celebration. Ben was supposed to call you.”
“Um, not to my knowledge. Maybe he talked to Denny. You know how guys are about messages. Sukkot is . . .? ”
“Sukkot, Jodi! The Feast of Booths.What, you don’t know your Old Testament? First Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for our sins. Now we are rejoicing that God has been with us while wandering in the wilderness, living in tents. Seven guests we must have—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. You Baxters make four, and Yo-Yo and the two rascals make seven.”
I wasn’t sure I was following all this, but I finally figured out she was inviting us over Saturday evening, the first day of the Feast of Booths— “To party!” I heard Ben yell in the background.
It didn’t take much to convince Denny to give up a Saturday evening “to party” with Ben Garfield. The kids were another story.
“Mo-om!” Amanda wailed. “I love Mr. and Mrs. Garfield, don’t get me wrong. But hanging around with your friends on a Saturday night—sheesh, Mom!”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Do you have other plans? ”
“Well, no, but . . .”
Josh, however, did have other plans. “Sorry,Mom. Can’t do it.”
“Why? Another overnight at Manna House? ” Ouch. I immediately regretted the two imps of sarcasm that snuck into my tone.
Josh hesitated, trying to read me. “No. But I already told Sue—”
Sue again. “Oh.Well, just thought it could be fun. Pete and Jerry are coming.” Unless Yo-Yo was having this exact same conversation with her two half brothers.
“Oh.” Josh made a face. “Well, sorry about that. But . . .” He shrugged.
But Amanda’s ears picked up. “Pete and Jerry? Hey, Mom, if Josh isn’t coming, can I invite José? ”
SO THERE WE WERE, seven honored goyim sitting on the deck behind the Garfields’ modest brick bungalow, eating chicken schnitzel and potato knishes, talking and laughing under a plastic tarp that had been strung up over the deck to represent the temporary “booths” or “tents” of the wilderness. Strings of tiny white lights were wrapped around the deck railings and strung overhead under the tarp, making this “festival of booths” festive indeed.The October weekend weather cooperated beautifully, hitting a high of seventy-eight degrees that afternoon, and cooling off to the midfifties as the sun went down. The four teenagers—Pete and Jerry Spencer, seventeen and thirteen respectively, and Amanda and José, both sixteen—lolled about in the tiny backyard, holding their plates of seconds and thirds in one hand and kicking around a basketball, brought by Pete in the unrequited hope that there would be a hoop in the alley.
“You guys sleepin’ out here on the deck tonight? ” Yo-Yo looked at Ben. “Mr. Hurwitz said lots of Orthodox Jews live out in their booths all week—what? ”
Ben was eyeing Yo-Yo from beneath scraggly white eyebrows. “Do I look like a Boy Scout, Yo-Yo? And can’t you just see the Queen Elizabeth here” —he jerked a thumb in Ruth’s direction— “docking up in a deck chair? ”
Ruth rolled her eyes and passed the last of the schnitzel right past Ben, dumping it on Denny’s plate. “Eat, eat, Denny. You’re skin and bones.” To which Denny laughed and gave her a big smackeroo right on the cheek.
It was good to see Ruth and Ben having fun. “Here’s to Indian summer!” I lifted my glass of iced-tea-from-instant-powder (good thing she didn’t invite Florida!) and clicked Yo-Yo’s glass.
Ben lifted his bottle of beer and waggled his eyebrows. “Cheers.”
Ruth pushed back her chair. “Hot weather we don’t need. Hot apple crisp we do. No, no, don’t get up. I can bring it.” No one had moved a muscle to get up, but we did break into mutual chuckles as she waddled herself and her “cargo” through the back door.
Yo-Yo, slouched on a deck chair in the inevitable denim overalls, was chatty tonight; she seemed pleased to be invited to a grownup function and to be sitting with the adults. “Yeah, Becky’s doin’ good at the Bakery. Real good. For some reason she hit it off with Mr. Hurwitz, ’specially after Stu brought Little Andy by the Bakery one Sunday when she was takin’ him home. Man! The fuss they made over that kid. Now Becky can do no wrong. She’s Lil’ Andy’s mama, and that’s that! . . .”
We kept talking, but it seemed to me that Ruth was taking a long time bringing out that apple crisp. “’Scuse me,” I said, getting up from the deck table. “I’m going to see if Ruth needs any help.”
But when I’d picked my way through the mudroom—full of coats and old shoes, shelves of canned goods, and gardening tools—and peeked into the kitchen, Ruth wasn’t there. “Ruth? ” I called, heading through the narrow kitchen into the dining room. “Ruth”
She was sitting on a straight-backed chair in the dining room, one elbow on the table, her hand supporting the weight of her head. The other hand clutched her side.
“Ruth!” I was at her side in two strides. “What’s wrong”
She turned and looked at me, eyes glittering with pain. “Pain . . . my side . . .my head . . .”
“Ben!” I screamed, running back through the kitchen. “Dial 911! It’s Ruth!”