Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl (33 page)

“Maybe after some time, she’ll think things over and reach out to you,” I say hopefully.

“Maybe,” Ms. Downer says, though from the tone of her voice, I’m not so sure she really believes this.

*  *  *

The day before I leave for Florida, the old lady invites me to spend the afternoon with her. The entire bus ride to her place, I keep hoping that maybe she won’t be the only one there to greet me when I show up. That maybe her daughter will be right by her side. But once I walk into her apartment, it doesn’t take long for me to realize that we’re alone. Ms. Downer seems to have made whatever peace she’s needed to with how things turned out. I guess I’ll have to make mine … but I’m still going to hope.

I look straight up
at the small coconuts in the tree that’s shading me. Daddy put a hammock up between two of these little midget palms. I’m not so sure how good an idea that is, considering how much it would smart if one of those coconuts got loose and came barreling down. I’m thinking concussion territory. But they’re the only two trees in the backyard that are sturdy enough to hold someone’s weight and spaced out the right distance, and I’ve been bouncing around for a month and a half and haven’t ended up in the hospital yet. Besides, the trees are so short, the coconuts wouldn’t have a very long distance to travel, so I’m sure that would cut down on the amount of cranial damage.

I like the way I feel when I’m laid out here, just swinging free and staring up at the sky. When the clouds shift a certain way, a little bit of the sunlight sneaks in through the spaces in the palm leaves and roasts whichever part of my body it happens to hit.

I can hear my baby brother crying from inside the house.
He’s pretty whiny and annoying, so I’m glad I’m outside. Sometimes when I’m nearby, Melba will try to get me to pick him up and rock him back and forth, and I end up having flashbacks of my time at Ms. Viola’s. I’ll do it every once in a while, but it’s pretty unsettling, because he’ll just keep crying and shaking and wheezing and convulsing. And I become convinced he’s about to explode in my arms like a human grenade. But he never does.

I hear Melba’s voice all calm and lilting as she sings him a little song. She has a strong Caribbean accent. When Boy George or Simon Le Bon or George Michael sing, you can’t even tell they’re British. I figured it would be the same for everybody. But when Melba sings her little lullabies or her mop-the-floor songs, there’s no mistaking that Trinidadian accent.

Daddy’s fiancée is a bit ditzy, but she’s nice enough. She’s always making coconut buns and cakes and trying to ply me with them. She’s pretty skinny herself, so I don’t know why she’s got this “fatten up Faye” obsession going on. But she’s convinced that, given time, she will have me as plump as a peach.

When I first got down here, I tried not to think about Mama. I just tried to focus on getting to know Daddy again, and his soon-to-be-wife. But I did find out Mama’s been going into Kings County every day for some retuning. Not my word. It’s what Daddy and Aunt Nola and Uncle Paul called it. “Retuning.” Makes it sound like she’s a guitar that needs its strings tightened. Anyway, she hasn’t been happy and is hoping these sessions will show her how to be.

I feel sorry that we’ve never had the kind of relationship other mothers and daughters have. It’s funny how I used to dream about a hurricane coming to New York and blowing her away, or a pterodactyl flying overhead and grabbing her in its talons and taking her off to the Land of the Lost. I should be shouting from rooftops now that I don’t have to be around her all the time, now that I don’t have to deal with her madness and her meanness. But I’m not. There’s not really happiness or sadness about this. I don’t know. It sort of feels like I’ve become one of those kids like Diane Jackson or Sheila Gray from school. One of those kids without a mother. Anytime someone would ask them about their moms, they would say she wasn’t around anymore, and it would always get all tense and awkward. Diane’s mom died, but everyone knew Sheila’s mom just got up one day, decided she didn’t want to have to deal with kids or a husband, or any responsibility at all, really, and just plumb took off. So everyone would try to avoid talking about parents and moms and Mother’s Day and stuff like that around them. Now I feel kind of like Diane and Sheila. Well, maybe not like Diane, since there’s no chance her mom will ever come back.

I’m relieved to be staying in a place where people talk and laugh at the dinner table and ask how my day was and really care to hear my answer. But the weird thing is, I feel a little guilty about being relieved. Still, it’s been so nice seeing my dad every day. When he was living with me and Mama, it would only be once or maybe twice a week that we’d all be able to have dinner together, since he was always
traveling around trying to make money playing his bass. Here I feel like I’m part of a real family. I feel like if I were to walk out into the street and get hit by a car, there are people who wouldn’t tell me it was my fault for causing the accident; people who would come running to the hospital to make sure I was okay, and maybe even bring me
Right On!
magazines and chocolates. It’s nice to know there’s someone out there who doesn’t blame me for the world being bad, or for the Son of Sam killing all those people, or for John Paul I dying after only a month as pope, or for all those folks in India being poor. It’s nice to not be blamed for someone having a bad day. It’s nice to not have to try to be invisible because I’m afraid if I make any noise it will remind that person I’m there and only make them angrier. It’s nice to not feel I have to whisper to myself to make sure my voice is still intact. It’s nice to feel that me being me, and me being alive, can actually make someone happy.

What all this means for me right now is that I have to decide whether to go back to New York in two weeks and move back in with Aunt Nola and Uncle Paul and keep going to Bishop Marshall, or stay here in Fort Lauderdale and attend the local high school. Daddy wants me to stay, of course. Part of me wants to, but I’d miss Keisha and the old lady. And this would be my third school in two years. Daddy’s already enrolled me, just in case, and I only have a few more days before I have to give him my decision.

As I watch a little blue-and-green hummingbird whiz about, I try to think of what the old lady said about forgiveness. Gosh, I haven’t spoken to her since I first got down
here. I’m going to have to ask Daddy if I can call her over the weekend. Anyway, it’s not that I can’t forgive Mama for being so mean to me. It’s just that I can’t forget how it felt to live with all that meanness. And I don’t ever want to know that feeling again.

I allow my eyelids to close for a few seconds. When I open them, Melba is standing over me holding my brother in one arm and a rectangular white box in the other.

“What’s in the box?” I ask.

“Don’t know. It’s not addressed to me. Came for you express mail,” she says.

“I’ve never gotten anything express mail. Hardly ever even get anything regular mail.”

“Want to open it together?” she asks.

“I’m good,” I say. That’s the other thing about Melba. She doesn’t really understand boundaries. I wait for her to head back to the house before swinging my legs over the side of the hammock and studying the box. It’s from a “W. Franklin,” but I have no idea who that is.

Once I get the sealed flap open, I notice a book. The front cover is made up of shades of gray, except for this one bright stroke of blue, the hat on a woman’s head. And even though it’s a sketch, I know who it’s supposed to be.
Lady in the Blue Fedora
is in black cursive letters at the top, with the words
The Disappearance of What Would Have Been a Hollywood Legend
at the bottom.

There is a sheet of typing paper folded over a white business envelope that has my name on it. I unfold the paper first. It’s a note from the archivist that reads:

But I’m totally confused, because I remember what the archivist had said about when the book would be made public. But if it’s an advance copy, does that mean it hasn’t been made public yet? Does that mean the old lady is still alive? I quickly flip to the first of two dedication pages.

There are only five words written on it:
Thank you, Evelyn. Bill Franklin
. But the next page contains a dedication from Ms. Downer.

I close the book and just stare at the envelope that has my name written on it. And even though it’s like a thousand and fifty degrees with swamp-like humidity, my hand starts to shake. So I take a really deep breath, lift the flap, and pull the letter out. And my eyes focus on this flowery cursive with big rounded letters.

I refold the letter and look up at the sky again. I don’t try to control the tears as they begin to fall. I don’t understand why things happen in life the way they do. Maybe it’s not for me to understand. But I feel as if I’ve lost the grandmother I’ve only begun to know. And not even thinking of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk can make me feel any better about this.

The colorful hummingbird flutters back over and hovers just above my head. And suddenly, the decision I have to make about going to school comes to me as clear as day. I’m going to go back to Brooklyn and move in with Aunt Nola and Uncle Paul to finish up my schooling at Bishop Marshall. That way, Mama can come visit me, and maybe we can get to know each other all over again. Maybe we can be friends. If it doesn’t work out, at least I gave it a try. But if it does work out, maybe I’ll finally have a real mother.

I can’t seem to stop looking at that hummingbird, and I find myself thinking back to some of the lessons we learned in religious studies class. If there really is such a thing as resurrection, I wonder if the old lady is somewhere in another dimension looking down at me. And if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I wonder whether she’s watching from a place even closer by.

“Ms. Downer?” I call out to the hummingbird. Its wings seem to flap even faster, and it shoots up into one of the palm trees.