One True Friend (4 page)

12 noon
Tuesday
July 14th

My Dear Amir,

I was so happy to get your letter. Before it came, I was bored to tears. The only interesting time in my life is on Saturdays, when I work at the Beauty Hive, and on any day that I get a letter from you. I have a Suggestion for Today:
Think Only Positive Thoughts: My Letter Will Find My Aunt. My Aunt Will Find My Letter. I Will Live with My Aunt and My Sisters and Brothers Happily Ever After.

You're not thinking straight—you're bugging. Why do you say your memories are useless, Amir? There's no such thing as a useless memory. Maybe you just don't want to remember things because they make you sad. Anyway, I'm glad you finally made copies of your letter and sketch. I don't know why grown people always want to be in our business. It's not like you're doing anything wrong—just trying to get some information.

Your family was different, especially from the Smiths, but I think that was a great thing—putting on family plays. Maybe that really was your family's way of having devotions. That could never happen here, unless we played church. My mother and father would preach, and me and Gerald
would be the congregation—nodding and saying amen

I don't have much news, because I lead a very dull life Here is my typical boring day:

9:30
A.M.

Take Gerald to the library for storytime and pick out a book for myself. Yesterday and today I ran into Charlene in the library. She brought along her baby sister, Claudette. Charlene and I picked out books together. She likes to read, too.

10-10:30
A.M.

Walk home real slow so that Gerald will think we've been outside for a long time.

10:30-12
NOON

Let Gerald overdose on kiddie shows while I read, and then we eat lunch. My mother calls up on the telephone to make sure everything is okay.

12:30-1:30 or 2
P.M.

If I'm lucky, Gerald takes a nap and I either read or look out the window. There's always something interesting to see on 163 rd Street, even when it's too hot to be outside—kids playing in the fire hydrant; Yellow Bird and them playing serious basketball with a bottomless milk crate tied to the lowest rung on the fire escape of my building (that milk crate is the tackiest thing you ever saw); Lavinia and the twins walking up and down and back and forth trying to look cute, or jumping double dutch.

2-3
P.M.

Gerald wakes up and whines about going outside. So I read to him, and that keeps him quiet for 15 minutes. Then we sit on the fire escape, but he's learning that sitting on the fire escape is not the same thing as going outside to play.

3:30
P.M.

My mother comes home from work and tells me that I can go and play until suppertime. I go, because if I don't, she'll start questioning me about why don't I want to go outside, did I argue with my friends? Then she'll say that I'm moody and that's why I don't have any friends. When I go outside, Lavinia and the other girls are there either sitting on the stoop gossiping or jumping double dutch. They're still going to be in the tournament in the fall. (Yellow Bird told me.) They don't say anything to me, and 1 don't say anything to them. We make one another invisible. I walk around the corner like I really have somewhere to go. Me and Bird are still okay with each other. He said that he was going to write you a letter. However, I'd advise you not to hold your breath waiting.

4:00
P.M.

I go back upstairs and help with dinner. My mom's so tired that she doesn't ask me why I came upstairs so soon. She needs my help. I know she suspects that I've fallen out with my friends. Any day now I'll get a lecture.

6:00
P.M.

My father comes home from work and we eat.

That's the story of my interesting life. I don't even keep a diary, because I'd be writing the exact same thing every day. I wouldn't even have to write anything. Just put in a new date and write "Ditto"—except for Saturdays at Miss Bee's.

I've thought of another thing I can do for you since I have so much time on my hands. I can look up florists and find out who sells red geraniums. Then I'll ask whether a woman with children used to come into the store to buy geraniums. What do you think of that idea?

Also, why did your parents move so much? Were you guys moving when your parents had the car accident? Was Ronald an infant when all of this happened? I don't mean to be nosy—just wondering. Guess I need to get a life. Bye for now.

Friends 4

v

e

r

Doris

P.S. Amir, please draw me a picture of the lake where you spent July 4th. Put Ronald in the picture, too. I want to see whether he looks like you. I miss your stupendous drawings.

Amir put the letter from Doris into his backpack. He took out his sketchpad, sat down on the bed, and recalled the deep blue-gray water of the lake and the fat white clouds floating like sailboats across the sky. He promised himself that he'd buy paints or colored pencils when he got his first paycheck.

He re-created the fluffy clouds that seemed as though you could curl up inside them. As his pencil moved quickly over the page, another image formed in his mind, and he began to draw a woman with a wide smile and deep dimples on either side of her chin. He heard his father's voice.
Darlin', you just smiling to show off them dimples.
Amir sketched in another face inside the swirl of clouds—a young man, with a narrow face and large, full eyes.

Suddenly Ronald burst into the room. "Amir, Mama says it's time to eat."

"Wait a minute. Look at this."

Ronald's eyes darted to Amir's sketch.

"Who's those people?" he asked, practically leaping on the bed.

Amir hesitated. "Our mother and father."

Ronald frowned. "That don't look like them."

"It's
our
mother and father," Amir said.

"It don't look nothing like them. I don't think you draw so good."

"I mean
our
—yours and mine."

Ronald stared at Amir blankly; then, before Amir
could stop him, he snatched the drawing out of Amir's hand and dashed out of the room.

"Wait, Ronald," Amir called, running down the stairs behind him.

Amir heard him shouting, "Mama, Papa, look what Amir did. He drew a picture of you, but it don't look nothing like you."

When Amir reached the kitchen, Ronald was waving the drawing like a banner. Alvin and Grace Smith both looked confused. Then Mr. Smith grinned as he took the drawing from Ronald. "Oh, man, this is great, son." He held the sketch at arm's length. "Look at this, Mama. The boy's got talent. Look at how he captured your beauty, Peaches."

Mrs. Smith giggled. "You go on with your foolishness." She looked over her husband's shoulders. "This is beautiful, Amir. You have a gift." She shook her head in disbelief. "You're so young to be able to draw like this."

"But it don't look like you," Ronald insisted.

Mrs. Smith's eyes clouded behind her glasses as she glanced at Amir and then turned away. "Artists can draw people to appear any way they want to, Ronald."

Amir said nothing, but his face burned with anger.

Mr. Smith, still holding the drawing at arm's length, smiled. "I like it. It looks just like me. What I like about it most is how young Amir made me look. So can I keep it now? I want to show those young scamps at work how good my son made me look."

Amir averted his eyes. "I'm not finished with it yet, sir ... I mean Mr. Smith ... I mean..."

"Amir, I told you about that sir business. I don't know why you—"

"Come on, food's getting cold," Mrs. Smith interrupted gently. "Let the boy finish his drawing." She took it out of her husband's hand and gave it back to Amir.

After supper was over and he'd helped clean the kitchen, Amir went outside to the backyard, where Ronald and Mr. Smith were playing one-on-one basketball.

Mrs. Smith stepped outside, too. "Alvin, you have no business stepping so high around this yard with Ronald," she said. "You won't be able to move a muscle tomorrow morning."

"I'm beating this kid, Grace," he said, huffing and puffing. "You know I was a star in high school."

"You'll be a fallen star, trying to keep up with a seven-year-old."

Ronald laughed. "Hey, Papa, look at this move." He dribbled around Mr. Smith's legs and threw the ball so that it hit the backboard and spun around the rim of the basket before falling inside.

"Look at this kid!"Alvin shouted.

Ronald, grinning proudly, threw the ball at Mr. Smith. "Come on, Papa, let me beat you again."

Amir went inside the house and ran upstairs. He took Doris's letter out of his backpack and reread it before answering.

July 18th

Dear Doris,

Tonight I'm feeling like you. You are the only true friend I have, and the only person I can talk to. I'm beginning to think that it was a mistake to come here. I should've just stayed in the group home. I try to fit in, but I don't, which doesn't make sense because the Smiths do everything to make me fit in. I try to be myself like I always used to be, but "myself" doesn't feel right anymore. I haven't felt like a part of things since I left you and all of my friends in the Bronx. Also, Ronald is not the way I thought he'd be. He acts more like Mr. Smith. Neither one listens when you try to explain things to them. They're both excitable.

Ronald did something this evening that made me so angry, I had to keep reminding myself about how he once was a little baby we loved so much. If I didn't think about that time, then I'd almost hate him. I was trying to draw the lake for you, but it turned into a sketch of my mom and dad.

Ronald showed it to the Smiths, and Mr. Smith thought I'd drawn him. He looks nothing like my
dad. I felt like snatching the picture out of his hands and tearing it up in his face. But I couldn't do that. It would have hurt his feelings, and it would have been a mean thing to do. Mrs. Smith, though, thinks about things, and she knows it wasn't her and her husband.

I went outside thinking that maybe I'd try to explain things to Ronald again. He and Mr. Smith were playing basketball, and they both looked so close and seemed so happy, like a real father and son, I didn't feel like I should stay. And I knew if I stood there and kept watching, sooner or later Mr. Smith would say in his loud voice, "Come on, son, why don't you play some ball?"

He'd try and make me play, and Ronald would look at me like I was weird. I'm like a person who's nowhere, dangling in the middle of nothing.

But I will try and think positive, Doris. Getting the names of the flower shops would be impossible, though it's a good idea. I keep thinking that the last place we lived in was Manhattan, but who knows, it may have been Brooklyn. We moved around a lot since my dad was a musician and worked in different places. He wanted us to be with him wherever he made music. Ronald was very young when my parents had the car accident, and we had just moved.

Maybe I'll get some news soon. I made five more copies of the letter and the sketch the other day and
sent them out. I think you'd make a good reporter. You ask a lot of questions. I don't mind.

Love,

Amir

PS. I'll try again to draw you a picture of the lake. A real nice one.

THE BRONX NEWS

Issue #1

Editor, Star Reporter, and Owner,

DORIS WILLIAMS

Wednesday, July 22nd

TODAY'S WEATHER. The Bronx is hotter than the Sahara Desert

EDITORIAL. One Girl's Opinion

Be glad that you do not have any friends They're a pain most of the time. They do not want you to have your own opinion about things, or your own thoughts and ideas. You can't be yourself around them but have to follow whatever they do. They even want you to like the same people they like. They will spread lies and gossip to turn your mind sideways so you think stupid thoughts like they do. Without friends, I'm free to be me.

Of course, everyone should have one true friend that you could trust with your life. It doesn't matter whether that one friend is far away and you don't get to see him in person. That's your "soul friend" and the only friend you really need. The rest are just acquaintances (people you know who don't get on your nerves) or nuisances (people you know who get on your nerves).

PERSONAL

Amir, you are truly an extra-nice, kind, wonderful human being. If I were in your sneakers, and the Smiths mistook themselves for my parents, I would have blurted out, "They're not you!" But it was nice of you not to bust everyone's bubble when they're so happy. It was only a case of mistaken identity. Just explain to Ronald that the sketch was his real mother and father. But are the Smiths fakes? To Ronald they're real as rain.

At least they're not mean to you. Why would you want to be in a group home again? Remember you said you always had to figure out ways to keep the ruffians from bothering you? At least you don't have that problem at the Smiths'. If, however, you move to a group home in the Bronx, then that would be another story. Then you wouldn't be dangling. Your two feet would be on the ground in the Bronx. My advice to you is to stay positive. Send more
letters out. Say over and over: My letter will find my aunt. My aunt will find my letter.

LATE-BREAKING NEWS

By D Williams

Charlene is becoming a very nice acquaintance of Doris's (see definitions in editorial column). They met again in the library today. "I hate double dutch," she told Doris, who was shocked. "My sisters are obsessed," she said. (She uses very big words.) The next shocking thing is that she likes to come to the library to read, because her sisters annoy her and she can't read at home. She and Doris love the same book, their all-time favorite,
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
It reminds Charlene of her grandparents down South.

Trouble in the playground again—teenagers caught selling drugs, allegedly. Charlene's sisters were on the 6 o'clock news. Not for being in trouble but for being in the background with a bunch of other kids, jumping up and down and making faces at the camera while the reporter talked about what had happened in the playground—part of a report on drugs in the city.