The Pact (12 page)

Indigo

Hotter
than July.

That was the name of the Stevie Wonder album Daddy used to listen to when I was a little girl. He had it tucked away in a cabinet that he called his “old-school cabinet.” I couldn’t even imagine it being hotter than July as I wiped sweat from my face and sipped an ice-cold bottle of water to cool down. I sat in a lawn chair next to Nana, who was singing and popping her fingers to the sounds of Lakeside, an old-school group that was performing onstage.

“Hey now,” she said, and moved her shoulders to the music.

I was tired of listening to old-school and wished that Alicia Keys would hurry up and appear. The radio stations had been hyping up the event all day and had even interviewed her twice on the radio. I’d been waiting for her performance all day. I was hot, and tired of hearing Uncle Keith and Cousin Benny sing the words to every song—off-key. Sabrina had said that she would meet us at Washington Park hours ago, but she hadn’t shown up yet, and I was starting to wonder if she was going to show at all. At least if she was there, I’d have someone my age to hang out with. Anything was better than listening to Little Keith ask me a million questions about stupid stuff and pester me to play catch with his football.

Alicia Keys finally took the stage, dressed in a skintight pair of silk shorts and high-heeled shoes. She began dancing around and clapping her hands in the air. The crowd followed her lead and started clapping, too. I stood up, just so I could see past the people who were standing in front of us, but it was hard. By the time Alicia started playing the keyboards and singing, I was in a better mood and had a better view of the stage. When she asked us to put our hands in the air, I did just that. And when she sang “You Don’t Know My Name,” I knew all the words and sang them right along with her. I even began to move my hips.

“You having fun now, Indi?” Uncle Keith asked.

“Yes, I am.” I smiled at him.

“That Alicia Keys knows she fine as she wanna be,” Cousin Benny said, and then looked over at his wife to see if she’d heard him. She had, and she rolled her eyes.

“Behave, Benny,” Nana said, and then wiped sweat from her forehead and sprayed Off! on her bare legs.

“What’s up, good people?” Sabrina asked as she walked up from behind, Brittany attached to her hip, sucking on a cherry Popsicle. “Hey, Nana.”

Sabrina leaned down, baby and all, and kissed Nana’s cheek.

“Hello, sweetie,” Nana said, and for the first time that day she seemed tired.

Sabrina looked fly in her denim shorts and red tube top. She wore red sandals and had a new set of microbraids in her hair. She smelled like the fragrance counter at Macy’s, and a fresh Coach bag hung from her shoulder.

“Hey, Indi, what’s going on, girl?” Sabrina asked.

“What took you so long?” I asked. “I been waiting for you all day.”

“I had to wait for Dugie to bring me the car,” she said. “Alicia Keys is doing her thing up there. Check her out!”

“I’ve been waiting for Alicia Keys all day, too. I was tired of listening to old-school.”

“Well, the party has arrived.” Sabrina sat Brittany on a blanket in the grass. “Come on, Cousin Keith, let’s dance.”

Uncle Keith and Sabrina started dancing to the music, and it was the beginning of a long day at the park. The fireworks show was the finale, and when it was over, we started packing up blankets, coolers and picnic baskets and headed home.

I was glad to be home; my tank top was stuck to my body from all the sweat. It was nice to step into Nana’s and enjoy the air-conditioning. I ran upstairs to my room and checked myself out in the mirror just to see how many shades darker I had become over the course of the day. My neck was sunburned and stinging a little bit. I needed something to rub on my skin, some type of ointment to soothe the burn. I knew Nana would have something in her medicine cabinet—a special cure.

“Nana!” I yelled as the bare bottoms of my feet felt the cold hardwood. “Nana, you got something for sunburns?”

I peeked into her bedroom. She wasn’t there, and the bed was completely made. Halfway down the stairs, I could smell something cooking. Wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it smelled like barbecued ribs being warmed in the oven. I hoped she had a couple of bones in there for me, because I was hungry, too. I went straight for the kitchen, and Nana was nowhere in sight. I stood there with my hands on my hips for a moment, trying to figure out where she might be. I checked the family room and the front porch. No Nana.

“Nana!” I called out again.

Uncle Keith had dropped us off in front of the house, and we’d climbed out of his old Chrysler carrying lawn chairs and leftover food. He’d said that he was going to drop Little Keith off at home and that he’d be back shortly. Nana and I never held our breath for Uncle Keith to come home; we were usually both asleep by the time he finally made it. We always knew when he was home, though, because the next morning there would be dirty dishes in the sink and all the food from dinner would be gone. There was never any hope of leftovers when Uncle Keith was around.

When I didn’t see Nana on the front porch, my heart started beating fast, and I got a little scared. I walked slowly back into the house and stopped in the foyer, thinking about where she might be. I walked back into the kitchen, looked in the oven. Just as I’d thought, she was warming some ribs. I looked out the back window and thought I saw someone lying on the lawn in the backyard. I wondered who it could be as I slowly opened the screen door. I froze when I discovered that, in fact, it was Nana on the lawn. The laundry she’d been pulling from the clothesline was on the ground with her.

I rushed over to her, tears threatening to fill my eyes and my heart pounding out of control.

“Nana!” I screamed.

She never budged.

“Nana!” I screamed again, and then fell to my knees beside her. “Nana, wake up!”

I was afraid to leave her, but knew I needed to get to a phone quickly. I had to call 911. By the time I’d reached the kitchen phone and punched in those three numbers with trembling fingers, there were tears all over my sunburned face.

Marcus

There
were so many people at the park Mom and I had to push our way through the crowd. We strolled past the vendors who were selling their framed art and handmade crafts. There was an artist who offered to draw a sketch of every passerby, and I told Mom that we should have a portrait done. She agreed, and we sat still while he sketched us, capturing every bump and bruise on our faces. When he was done, he turned the portrait around and allowed us to check it out.

“I think it’s very nice, Marcus. What do you think?” Mom asked.

“Dude is good.” That was all I could say.

He had captured us to perfection, from the dimples in Mom’s cheeks to the waves in my hair. He was definitely an artist, and I wondered why he peddled his work at places like a Fourth of July music festival instead of in an upscale art gallery where he could get paid what his art was worth. He rolled the portrait up and secured it in a cardboard tube, and Mom handed him a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

“Maybe we’ll get it framed,” she said, and led the way to the next vendor.

We got as close to the stage as possible and laid our blanket out on the ground. There was a group onstage performing Kool & the Gang’s old-school song “Get Down On It.” Mom instantly started singing along and swinging her hips to the music, her dress swaying to the beat. Everyone around us was singing along and dancing, too.

“Come on, Marcus, dance with your mama!”

I danced but wasn’t quite sure how to dance to that type of music. I just followed my mother’s lead and moved to it. When she went all the way down to the ground, I went down, too. Before long, we were moving to the same rhythm—Mom and me. She could dance a little bit, had rhythm, and I was surprised. She was in her own little world, and I couldn’t remember ever seeing her this way—actually having a good time, without a care in the world. Whenever I thought of my mother, I thought of a workaholic, with papers spread out all around her. She never had time for fun, because she was always rushing to get back to work.

Pop had always taught me that a hard day’s work was good, but you always had to make time to relax and have fun. He said it was okay to do something silly once in a while, just as long as you didn’t spend your life being silly. That must have been where he and Mom bumped heads, because she wasn’t usually able to relax and have fun. They didn’t see eye to eye. Maybe that’s why their marriage didn’t work out. She was so serious all the time, and meanwhile, her life was passing before her eyes.

I was tired, and collapsed onto the blanket. Mom continued to dance as the band played Cameo’s “Word Up.” She started doing a dance called the Hustle with a group of people her age. The way they were all moving to the same rhythm, the dance reminded me of the Electric Slide. I sat there for a couple of minutes until I caught the moves, and then I got up and started doing it, too. If anyone could do the Electric Slide, it was me, and the Hustle was nothing more than an old-school Electric Slide, in my opinion.

“I can’t believe you’re not tired,” I said to Mom.

“Boy, I could dance all day long if I wanted to.” She laughed. “Back in our day, Rufus and I could tear up a dance floor.”

I tried to imagine my father seriously busting a move, and I couldn’t. The times I’d seen him dance were rare, and only after too many beers. His stomach hung over his belt now, and if he wasn’t stretched out underneath his pickup truck and covered in oil, he was lying back in his recliner in the family room watching the game. He loved listening to old-school music. In fact, every time he set foot in my Jeep, he changed the station and sang the words to every song on the radio. But dancing? I couldn’t see it.

“You talking about
my
father? Rufus?”

“The one and only, baby. Rufus was a good dancer,” she said, still moving to the music. “Of course, that was when he was much younger and a few pounds thinner.”

“Yeah, you haven’t seen Pop in a minute. He’s got the Dunlop.”

“The Dunlop? What’s that, Marcus?”

“You know, his midsection looks like a Dunlop tire.”

“Marcus, you are so silly.” She laughed so hard she ended up finally collapsing onto the blanket.

I sat down beside her and popped the top on a can of Cherry Coke.

“You want one, Ma?” I asked.

“Gimme a bottle of water, baby.”

By the time the sun had set and darkness approached, the show that I’d waited for all day began. Mom and I already had the best seats in the house as the fireworks bolted across the sky, making either a whistling noise or a loud pop. I looked over at Mom, who was smiling and enjoying the show. She hadn’t looked at one stack of papers for at least four hours, and I was glad.

By the time we made it home, it was late, and I just knew Mom would rush to her bedroom, change into her pajamas and pass out for the night. She stood thoughtfully in the middle of the floor.

“We can still throw those steaks on the grill if you want to, Marcus,” she said.

“I’ll get the fire started,” I said, and rushed out onto the patio before she changed her mind.

I stood on our patio next to the grill, got it fired up while Mom marinated the steaks in her special spices. By the time she brought them outside, the grill was hot and smoke filled the air. The steaks sizzled when she placed them on the heat. It didn’t take long for them to cook, and before I knew it, she was pulling the meat off with tongs. She quickly tossed a salad and warmed some French bread in the oven.

We sat down at the dining room table, said grace and then dug in. We ate and discussed our Fourth of July tradition—a tradition that had begun that day.

“What are your thoughts about a person shooting an M-80 on the Fourth of July?” I asked.

“What are you talking about, Marcus?” she asked. “I think a person who shoots an M-80 on the Fourth of July is breaking the law. Why do you ask?”

I dug into my pocket and pulled one out.

“Marcus, what are you doing with that?” Mom eyeballed the firework.

“It’s a Fourth of July tradition to pop at least one M-80 before the night is over.”

Mom shook her head. “Go ahead, just make sure that nobody sees you,” she said.

I grabbed a book of matches from the kitchen drawer, stepped out onto the balcony. Looked toward both ends of the parking lot, just to make sure nobody was outside watching me. I lit the stem of the M-80, threw it and covered my ears as it exploded with a loud
bang!

“Give me one of those, boy.” Mom stood in the doorway.

I dug into my pocket and handed her an M-80. She lit it, threw it into the air and covered her ears. This went on until all twenty of them were gone. She lit one and then I lit one, and each time, we covered our ears and ducked just in case somebody was trying to figure out where the explosions were coming from.

When I stretched out across my bed for the night, I had to smile at the thought of having such a good day with Mom. I’d made her happy, and that made me smile. I grabbed the Kimani TRU book I’d been reading, opened it up to the page where I’d left off and read until I could no longer hold my eyes open. The Fourth of July had new meaning.