The Other Half of My Heart (20 page)

T
he next day, Grandmother Johnson kept Minni and Keira busy practicing for the pageant. In the morning, she drove them to a community center where she had reserved the stage for Keira to rehearse her tumbling routine. Fortunately, Keira’s gymnastic costume had passed inspection. Grandmother Johnson had also agreed to the skirt and blouse Minni had picked out for when she would sing. Or at least attempt to sing.

They sat in metal folding chairs on the gym floor, watching Keira leap, flip and dance to her music, a house version of Beethoven’s Ninth. She was brilliant. Even Grandmother Johnson applauded at the end.

Back home, Minni stood by the piano, wincing as Grandmother Johnson stumbled through the accompaniment to the sparrow song. “Who’s going to play piano for me at the pageant?” she asked when they were done.

Grandmother Johnson closed the sheet music and took off her glasses. “It’s against the rules for anyone to be onstage with the girls—”

“You mean I’ll be singing without music?” This would be even worse than having Grandmother Johnson’s awful playing.

“I plan to record myself, once I get it down a little better. You will sing to the tape.”

“Oh. Okay.” Minni felt a terrible case of laryngitis coming on. She was almost positive it would strike early Sunday morning.

After lunch, Grandmother Johnson told them to put on their gowns, and they walked around the living room with books on their heads. Minni felt ridiculous. Not only did her book keep sliding off, her toe snagged the hem of her dress, causing her to lurch every once in a while. Why was she
balancing
a book when she could be
reading
it? “Chin up, Minerva,” Grandmother Johnson instructed.

Then they ran through their personal introductions again—without the tape recorder, thankfully—and finally they were done.

Or so Minni thought.

“Our final preparations for the Miss Black Pearl pageant address the issue of
character building
.” Grandmother Johnson led them to the long cabinet near the back door. She pulled out her gardening gloves and some small digging tools. She placed them on the counter, then pulled down a bottle of sunscreen.

“We get to write a story?” Minni asked with a burst of excitement.

“No. Character as in integrity and a commitment to hard work.”

They looked at her blankly.

“Your mother hasn’t taught you the definition of character? What
is
she teaching you out there?”

Important things
, Minni thought. Like how to see the beauty in a sunset and pull out a sliver without it hurting. How to take leftover rice, an egg and frozen vegetables and fry it all up into a whole new meal. How to turn empty containers into bird feeders, pen holders and soap dispensers. How to enjoy people and art and life.

“Character is the strength to make the right choice,” Grandmother Johnson said. “As that meddlesome woman at the Black Pearls of America headquarters pointed out, it is the most important attribute for a Miss Black Pearl to possess.”

Minni wanted to ask how much character it took to nail a bag of dog poop to your neighbor’s door, but she decided Grandmother Johnson might not appreciate the question. Minni sure would love to hear her answer, though.

Grandmother Johnson handed Keira the bottle of sunscreen. “Now, put this on.
Thick
. You don’t need to be getting any darker.”

Keira scowled.

Minni gasped. How could their grandmother say something like that? Especially when she was just as dark as Keira—darker, even?

And yet she had done it before, hadn’t she? On her last visit to Port Townsend, two years ago.

Suddenly it all came back—the comment before
spending time on the beach, the eruption between Mama and Grandmother Johnson, Keira and Minni wondering what was going on. Grandmother Johnson had left early the next morning, cutting her stay by two days.

“You too, Minerva. I don’t want you showing up to the pageant pink as a Christmas ham.”

Keira rubbed on some lotion, then shoved the bottle into Minni’s hands and stomped outside.

Grandmother Johnson stood over Minni, pointing to spots she’d missed. Eventually Grandmother Johnson took the bottle, squeezed a mound into her palms and slathered the smelly stuff all over Minni’s face, neck, ears—even
behind
her ears. Minni felt as
oiled
as a Christmas ham.

Grandmother Johnson applied lotion to her own face and arms, pulled down a straw hat with a broad brim from the hook near the back door, then told Minni to follow her. She took them to the flower bed alongside the house and showed them which plants were weeds and which to leave alone.

She handed Keira a forked digging tool and Minni her gardening gloves. “You’ll have to work out who gets these. I’ve only got one complete pair left. We seem to have a glove snatcher in the neighborhood. And whoever it is, is very good. The last time, I hadn’t looked away for two seconds and the glove was gone.” She put the hat on Minni’s head and marched back to the house.

A few minutes later they heard her plunking on the piano, practicing her accompaniment.

Keira started to yank on a stem.

“That’s not a weed. That’s a flower,” Minni said, pulling off the ridiculous hat and tossing it to the ground.

“So?” Keira answered.

“She told us to leave those alone. Remember?”

“She meant
that
one.” Keira pointed to a spreading plant with tiny lacelike leaves—clearly a weed. “Not this one.” She ripped the long-stemmed yellow flower from the ground.

“Don’t! She’s going to be mad.”

“Not with you, she won’t. She never gets mad at you.” Keira yanked another of the yellow flowers.

Minni felt herself crumbling like a sand castle under the waves of her sister’s anger. “If you hadn’t noticed, she’s making me do the exact same work as you.”

“Yeah, but who got the gardening gloves?”

Minni shoved the gloves at her sister. She didn’t care about sticking her hands in dirt. “I was going to give them to you all along.”

Keira growled and threw down the gloves. “You’re Little Miss Perfect with the perfect grades and the perfectly good hair. Apparently now you have the perfect
skin
, too!”

Minni’s body tingled all over, as if someone had taken one of those wire brushes used for scraping peeling paint to her arms, legs and face. She dropped to her knees and pulled out weeds as fast as she could. She couldn’t help the color of the skin she’d gotten. It hadn’t been her choice.

She dug her hands into the ground, letting the deep brown get under her fingernails. Mama always told them there were no ugly colors, but Minni knew differently.
Her skin was the ugliest color she had ever seen.
Buttermilk ugly
.

When she had a pile of weeds the size of a molehill, she dumped them in the waste bin, then turned to her sister. “Don’t follow me,” she said, feeling cross. She walked down the front steps, turned at the elm tree and marched down the sidewalk—all the way to the corner store, where she bought herself a soda, guzzled it right on the sidewalk for anyone to see and belched as loudly as she pleased. After that, she went back in, bought a soda for Keira and returned to Grandmother Johnson’s.

When she got there, Keira was sitting at the bottom of the cement steps, far enough down that Grandmother Johnson wouldn’t be able to see her if she looked out the front window. “Where did you go?” she asked.

Minni held out the soda.

Keira kept her hands tucked under her arms. “No, thanks.”

Minni sat on the step below her sister. “Please, Keira…I can’t help the things she says.”

“You didn’t exactly speak up and tell her she was wrong.” Keira’s eyes flashed. “And after I shared how I feel at school sometimes. I never should have told you!”

The words sliced Minni’s heart, sending shooting pains down the insides of her arms. Her eyes prickled with tears. She set the bottle next to her sister, trying to get Keira to look at her. When Keira refused, Minni trudged up the steps, just in time to see the gray, one-eyed Billie Holiday slink away with one of Grandmother Johnson’s gloves.

“Hey!” Minni shouted, and ran after the animal, but it raced around the corner of Miss Oliphant’s house and disappeared under the back porch. She looked for a way to follow the cat but didn’t see a hole large enough to crawl through.

A knock from inside the kitchen window made her jump. She looked up. Miss Oliphant! Around her grinning, ghostly face hung five or six brown, shriveled spheres with squinty eyes and crooked smiles.

A chill ran down Minni’s spine. She stood to run, but Miss Oliphant was already at the door. “It’s hotter than a grease-poppin’ griddle out here. Too hot to be weeding flower beds, if you ask me. I bet you could use some lemonade.”

Minni’s muscles were taut. Her throat constricted. She glanced toward the front yard and steps, but Keira was out of sight.

“What’s wrong, child? Cat got your tongue?”

No, my grandmother’s glove
, Minni thought, but she didn’t say anything—just stood there frozen between this woman she wasn’t sure she could trust and her best friend–sister who had never gotten as angry with her as she had been back there in the flower bed. Minni’s eyes welled with tears. She looked quickly toward the old apple tree, blinking and hoping the woman hadn’t noticed.

“Come on in and give those arms a rest. You can fetch your sister if you want.”

Minni glanced toward the front again. Miss Oliphant knew Keira was her sister? Had Grandmother Johnson told her about them? Or could she actually tell? And when had
she seen them together? Probably that day on her front porch…

Minni shook her head. “That’s okay.” Then she thought of the MLK monument—the smooth, calm water flowing over Miss Oliphant’s name. The woman continued to gaze at her. “Well, maybe—for a minute.” Minni felt pulled forward, as if she were the ocean and the woman were the moon.

The kitchen was bright and cheery, with light blue walls, gleaming chrome on the appliances, and white cabinets. A shiny silver toaster sat on the counter. Everything was spotless and well ordered. “May I use your sink?” Minni asked.

“Of course.”

Minni washed her hands, then joined the woman at the table in the breakfast nook, trying not to stare at her cloudy eye or look at the heads hanging from the light fixture overhead. A stack of gingerbread squares sat on a plate on the table.

“So, Minerva has you out there weeding her flowers,” Miss Oliphant said, setting a glass of lemonade in front of Minni. Minni’s belly was already full from the soda, but it wouldn’t be polite to refuse the lady’s generosity. “It’s kind of you to help your grandmother like that.”

Was Miss Oliphant aware of other ways they had “helped” their grandmother, such as with the bag of poop?

“Just so you know, I don’t hold you responsible for the shenanigan she pulled the other day.”

Minni looked up. Could the woman read minds, too?

“You don’t?”

“Of course not. I saw you on my porch, of course, but as soon as I took down that bag I knew who was really behind it. That grandmother of yours is one feisty woman. When she thinks she’s right about something,
no
one can stop her.”

The description actually sounded a lot like Keira.

Keira
. Minni looked into her lap again, not wanting Miss Oliphant to see the hurt in her eyes. Her sister had accused her of not speaking out, not standing up for her, and she was right—Minni had failed her. Her face grew warm with shame.

“Is something the matter?” Miss Oliphant asked. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem a bit downcast.”

Minni shook her head.

Miss Oliphant pushed the plate toward her. Minni raised her eyes just enough to see the thick, moist-looking squares. The bread’s warm, gingery smell made her mouth water. “It’s a few days old now, but it’s still delicious, if I do say so myself. And I do.”

Minni reached out and took a piece. She licked her lips, then bit into the soft bread. The spicy, sweet taste spread across her tongue. She couldn’t not smile.

Miss Oliphant put a piece of gingerbread on a napkin and set it in front of her. “For your sister.”

Minni set the rest of her piece on the napkin. The sweet treat was incredibly delicious, but it was hard to enjoy it fully knowing how things were with Keira. “She’s mad at me.” Minni looked out the window. That bird with the yellow head was at the feeder again.

“Oh?” Miss Oliphant sat quietly. Minni appreciated the silence. She watched the bird peck at the seeds and then fly away. “And why is that?” Miss Oliphant asked.

The question stopped Minni. She didn’t know exactly. Or maybe she was just too ashamed to say. But somehow, sitting there in Miss Oliphant’s presence, she felt it was okay to try. “I didn’t tell our grandmother she was wrong about something.”

“Mmmm. That can be a hard thing to do, standing up and speaking out for what’s right. Especially when you’re up against something—or someone—much bigger than yourself.”

“
You
did it,” Minni said. “We read on the MLK monument that you were a…a ‘champion’ civil rights leader.”