2-in-1 Yada Yada (26 page)

Florida turned down Denny's offer to walk her and her boys to the el. “We'll be fine—don'tcha worry none. Delores, Edesa, and Emerald have to catch the train, too.” She patted him on the arm, like some granny thanking an overzealous Boy Scout. “But that's very sweet, Denny.” Florida cast me an impish eye. “Better hold on to your man, Jodi Baxter. Ya don't want ta train 'im this well then lose 'im to some hungry hussy.”

Everyone in earshot laughed as Denny turned red . . . but remembering the comment later, it seemed an odd thing to say, teasing another woman that she might lose her husband to some “hussy.” I mean,
ouch.
After all, we didn't really know everybody's story in Yada Yada when it came to men. Who had fathered Chanda's three kids? Had Adele ever been married? Ruth was on number three! Even Avis's love life was still a mystery.

Not that I was worried about Denny.

Avis was the last to leave, cradling her empty pan. “You two need any more help cleaning up?”

“Nah. We'll just let Willie Wonka lick the rest of the dishes.” Denny's smirk lasted only a brief second. “But seriously . . . what happened in there? Ben heard his wife wailing, and I practically had to tackle him to keep him from ripping in there.”

Avis leaned back against the porch railing and nodded at me to go ahead. Briefly I tried to tell Denny how Florida's search for her missing daughter had stirred up a lot of painful memories for Ruth, who'd been a foster parent wanting to adopt, but the child had been taken away from her. “When Stu showed up and said that Carla had been found—”

“Found!”
Denny's jaw dropped. “Florida's daughter has been found? Why didn't you say something?”

Avis shook her head. “Sorry. We couldn't. The kids came back, and Florida didn't want to get Chris and Cedric's hopes up before she could check it out. And since it's a holiday weekend, she's going to have to wait till Tuesday.”

“Whew.” Denny sank down onto the top step. “That's huge. But what about Florida and Ruth? I can only imagine . . .
sheesh.”

I hadn't even had time to process for myself what had happened in my living room. Part of me wanted to just
think
about it for a while before trying to explain it. But Avis was studying a jet's contrail overhead, as though waiting for me to respond.

“Well, yeah. They both felt pretty raw . . . but Avis kept us from making it a ‘foster care issue' and focused on what Ruth and Florida both needed in the painful situations they're in.”

Avis shook her head. “Not me. That was God, no doubt about it. If I'd stopped to think about it, I would have hightailed it before putting myself between two she-bears with their fur up!”

Okay, so God deserved the credit. But I'd been awed by the simple truth Avis had spoken into the group, diffusing Florida's pointed challenge
(“Does that make us enemies, Ruth?”)
and enabling the rest of us to love both of them.

We had cried and prayed and hugged each of them and prayed some more. But the best moment for me was when Ruth reached out her hand to Florida and said,
“The wall I put between us . . . I
am sorry. Can you forgive?”
And Florida, hesitating only a moment, had said,
“Guess I'd be poundin' new nails into the cross if I didn't
forgive you, after all the forgivin' God's had to do for this sinner.”
And she'd taken Ruth's hand and pulled her into an embrace.

We
really
had started having church then, but a few minutes later the kids arrived back from the lakefront, barging through the front door—all nine of them—and then standing in the doorway gawking at their mothers praising and crying and praying. Chanda had gotten so excited she'd started jumping up and down.

I'd reluctantly peeled myself away from the “party” and shooed the younger set toward the kitchen, where I let them dig into Stu's lemon bars and told them to hustle out to the backyard. When Avis closed out Yada Yada ten minutes later and we drifted toward the back of the house, the lemon bars were gone. Only crumbs.

Didn't matter though. We'd been having a feast.

EVEN AVIS WAS GONE NOW. We let Josh drive Amanda to youth group at church, and Denny bagged the last of the trash while I put away leftovers and filled the dishwasher.

“So, did I overhear Yada Yada deciding to get together regularly after this?” Denny asked, lugging a bulging plastic trash bag through the kitchen, followed by an ever-hopeful Willie Wonka, who so far had not gotten to lick any dishes.

“Uh-huh. Chanda complained that not everybody got to share stuff for prayer today, so couldn't we meet again real soon? Several folks work on Saturday, so we're going to try every two weeks on Sunday—like five to seven. Might visit each other's churches now and then, too.” I noticed Denny's puckered lips. “What? Will the car be a problem?”

His lips unpuckered. “Nope. Gotta get the kids to youth group but . . . okay, I kinda hate to give you up Sunday evenings when the kids are gone. Especially now that summer's just around the corner. That's been our special time, walking to the lake, stopping for coffee . . . you know. But if it's just every other week . . .” He shrugged. “Guess I can deal with it.”

I followed him out the screen door as he headed for the trash can in the alley. I probably should have talked it over with Denny first before agreeing to meet with Yada Yada on a regular basis. But I'd been so glad the others wanted to, I hadn't even thought about it. I think everybody realized we couldn't “yada yada” in
either
sense—“becoming known” or “giving thanks to God by praising”—unless we actually met face to face.

“Bring that recycling bin, will ya?” Denny called back over his shoulder.

I bent down to pick up the blue recycling bin on the back porch, overflowing with empty liters of pop and tin cans . . . and two brown bottles. Beer bottles. So my eyes hadn't been fooling me when I'd looked out the screen door. I looked after Denny, who had disappeared behind the garage. Should I—?

I felt torn. I didn't really want to get into a fuss with Denny after such an amazing afternoon. On the other hand, I couldn't just ignore it, could I? There they were, sitting right in the recycle bin. And I had specifically
told
Denny I didn't want any beer at this party.

I picked up the blue bin. We met on the sidewalk as he came back toward the house. I stood in the way.

“Denny? I thought we had an understanding—no beer at this party.
Especially
at this party.” I held out the recycling bin.

Denny puckered his lips again and looked aside, as though studying our neighbors' fence. For a moment I thought he wasn't going to answer. But he turned back, his gray eyes flickering with ill-concealed impatience. “Jodi, I will tell you exactly what happened. But I'm getting tired of you questioning me like I'm a sneaky teenager.” He took the recycling bin and walked it out through the back gate, then came back empty-handed.

“Ben Garfield came to this party. Remember Ben? Short Jewish guy who likes his beer.”

I felt annoyed at his smart-aleck tone but kept my mouth shut.

“Mark and Ben and I are making small talk in the backyard while you and . . . and your Yada Yada thing”—he waved his hand in little circles toward the house—“go inside and do your stuff. And Ben asks, ‘Say, Denny. Got any beer?' Just like that. And as it happens, I
do
have some beer. It's sitting out in the garage where my wife hid it. I didn't bring it up, I didn't put it out, but the guy asked for it. So what was I supposed to do, Jodi?”

This time I was the one who studied the neighbors' fence.

Denny shrugged. “So I told him, yeah, but it's not cold. Thought that might be the end of it, but Ben says, ‘Stick a couple in the ice chest, will ya?' So I went to the garage, got a couple of beers, and stuck them in the ice chest. For Ben, Jodi.”

Okay, so it wasn't Denny's idea. I should have dropped it right there. But I still felt betrayed. “What about Mark?”

“What about Mark?”

“What's Mark going to think? You didn't offer him one, did you?” My voice was rising and my temperature, too, imagining Mark telling Nony on the way home that Jodi's husband kept a stash of beer in the garage. “What about the kids? Did they see you drinking?”

Denny's eyes darkened, and he put his hands on his hips. “Last question, Jodi.
Ben
offered Mark one of the beers and Mark said, ‘No thanks.' Simple as that. And yes, Ben was still drinking the second beer when all the kids came back. Nobody blinked an eye. Now . . . are we done here?”

No,
I thought,
we're not done here. This wouldn't even be an issue
if you hadn't bought those six-packs in the first place.
But Denny had already gone back into the house.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN a pleasant, peaceful Sunday evening after successfully pulling off Florida's sobriety party turned instead into Denny and me giving each other the silent treatment. I felt discouraged, like walking on a treadmill and getting nowhere. We had to talk about this sometime. What was with Denny, anyway? Why couldn't we talk about it without him getting all huffy? Or maybe I was the one who got huffy. But he
knew
this was a sore point for me. My parents would think we were on the road to perdition if they ever knew we had beer in the house with their grandchildren.

With Denny nursing his anger in front of the living room TV, I cast about for something to keep me busy. I supposed I
could
get a head start on those annoying construction-paper flowers to decorate my classroom for Parents Day . . . or make some baked beans for the picnic we'd been invited to tomorrow afternoon by some Uptown families who were barbecuing at Lighthouse Beach. But I didn't feel like it. Tomorrow was soon enough.

Ah. I spied the overflowing hamper in the bathroom. Hadn't touched the laundry all weekend. The perfect mindless task. Maybe I'd even do the kids' laundry—they deserved
something
for being such great party hosts for the Yada Yada kids all afternoon.

Dragging the laundry baskets from each bedroom into the dining room, I started sorting, wishing I was sorting wood and metal so I could drown out the canned TV laughter from some dumb “reality show” in the front room. I threw dark wash-and-wear into one pile
(bam! bam!
they'd go) . . . light-colored stuff into another
(crash!)
. . . bras, slips, and blouses into a cold-water pile
(bang!)
. . . jeans with sweats
(boom!)

— Okay, I was angry. But the afternoon felt spoiled, like the yellowed underarms of my favorite white T-shirt. I tossed it in the pile of light stuff. There were other things I'd really wanted to tell Denny about what had happened that afternoon, like discovering that Florida and I had run into each other (almost literally!) twelve years ago. That still boggled my mind.
Couldn't
be just a coincidence . . . could it? I mean, not if I truly believed God was in charge of all our comings and goings. So what did it mean, that Florida had come back into my life, a totally changed person?

I tossed a pair of Josh's sweatpants onto the pile of jeans then picked them back up to remove a paper sticking out of one of the pockets. Why couldn't he remember to empty his pockets before he threw his clothes in the laundry? How many times had we had to tape dollar bills together or iron school papers—or worse, ruined a whole load with a renegade ballpoint pen?

I yanked the folded paper from the pocket and unfolded it. Stylized yellow butterflies rode a swirl of brilliant colors from top to bottom, advertising something about a “Teen Rave.” What in the world was a teen rave? Sitting down on the floor in the middle of the piles of laundry, I studied the copy separated by the lemon yellow butterflies. “Teen Club! . . . Dance! . . . Alcohol Free! . . .No One Over 17 Admitted! . . . Fun! . . .Teens Only! . . . Rockin'! . . .”

I looked at the sweatpants. Josh had been wearing those sweats when he and the other kids went to the lake this afternoon. Did he actually think we'd let him go to a teen dance club? “Alcohol free” sounded good, but “No one
over
17 admitted”? What—no chaperones? Red flags went up all over the place with
that
little tidbit. Where did he pick this up, anyway?

Stomping feet on the back porch brought Willie Wonka's nails clicking down the hallway from the living room toward the back door. Couldn't have heard it—must have felt the floor shaking. The dog paused, confused by the piles of laundry between him and his goal, then he executed a few awkward leaps and met Josh and Amanda at the back door.

28

W
onka!” Amanda draped herself all over the chocolate Lab, just like she'd been doing ever since she was a three-year-old.

“Hey,Mom.” Josh paused at the doorway between kitchen and dining room. “Doing laundry? On Sunday?”

I waved the flyer at him. “What's this?” I pasted on a smile.

“Oh. That.” Josh shrugged and started to pick his way through the piles of clothes on the floor. “Just something Pete gave me.”

“Pete?”

He sighed patiently. “Pete Spencer—Yo-Yo's brother.”

“Yeah,” Amanda butted in, holding one end of Willie Wonka's old knotted play sock and pulling him into the dining room, his teeth clamped on the other end. “Pete asked Josh and me to go to this teen dance club thing next weekend. He said it's really fun . . . no alcohol allowed . . . a place high school kids can go to have fun.”

My anxiety level pushed up into the orange zone. Amanda had been invited, too? She was only fourteen!

“Josh, hold it.” My son was about to disappear down the hall toward his bedroom. “It says ‘No one over seventeen allowed.' That means there's no adult supervision.”