Yolonda's Genius (7 page)

“Better take the case,” said the man to Andrew. He held out a small black box. His smile was serious, and Andrew immediately trusted him. He could feel his head begin to come down to him again.

“What's it for?” Andrew asked.

“It'll protect your instrument — like a house around it — keep it from getting broken.”

“Oh,” said Andrew. His instrument. He took the case, opened it, and carefully placed the shiny Marine Band harmonica in its velvet bed. The lid snapped when he closed it. Safe.

On the bus as they headed home, Yolonda said, “Look, I don't have this all figured out yet, Andrew.” She sighed.

Andrew waited.

“But you're
supposed
to have a harmonica. Maybe God decided it. Maybe your genes did the deciding. Maybe the stars. Who knows?” She chewed her knuckles.

“Maybe just Daddy,” offered Andrew, who could barely recall a large shape hovering over him. He'd been told where the Marine Band harmonica came from.

“Yeah, maybe just Daddy,” said Yolonda. “Momma doesn't know you are supposed to have a harmonica. I thought she did, but she doesn't. She loves you, but she doesn't see that you're a genius. That takes a rare mind — to detect genius.”

The bus rumbled on and Andrew waited for what Yolonda would say next. He knew Yolonda was very smart. Apparently a genius was a good thing to be.

“I don't have this figured out yet, Andrew,” repeated Yolonda. “Maybe you shouldn't play the harmonica at home when Momma's there. No, that's not right. Play it whenever you have to.”

What did she mean? Did genius have something to do with secrets? Would he have to be brave?
He held the Marine Band harmonica in its case gently in both hands. His instrument. In his head he heard the sound bravery made, but he was afraid to play it.

Aunt Tiny was coming! Oh, the glory of it! Yolonda helped her momma lug Tiny's special chair up from where it was stored in the basement. They had to push the love seat against the wall to make room. The chair was so huge that it made even Yolonda seem small when she sat in it.

With all the excitement of Tiny's coming visit, their momma didn't notice Andrew's harmonica at first. He didn't wear the new one in his back pocket all the time. Sometimes Yolonda heard him playing it in his room — just a bar or two of something. He carried it to the breakfast table in the
morning in its case. Once, a week or so after its purchase, Andrew took it out and blew briefly into the warm kitchen a sound like the chair scraping when it was pushed back from the table. Yolonda stopped her spoon of cereal halfway to her mouth. Waited. But their momma was caught up in her morning flurry, and the harmonica didn't seem to register in her mind as she tore out the door.

That evening, though, as their momma was frying chicken at the stove, it must have worked into her brain — Andrew and the harmonica. She went straight to Yolonda where she sat doing her homework at the dining-room table.

“Where did Andrew get the harmonica? Yolonda Mae, answer me!” Yolonda had thought it all out beforehand. “A music-store guy, you know, at Stellar's — that big store. He heard Andrew play and he gave us a deal on the harmonica.” After all, it was pretty much the truth.

Her momma's mouth dropped open with a faint pop. “Say what?”

“This guy really knows music.” The truth, too. “He really thinks Andrew's a genius.” Stretching the truth only a little. That's enough, Yolonda warned herself. Any more information come out, I might have to tell an out-and-out lie. Or the real whole truth. Her momma wasn't ready to take in the whole truth — about the Dudes and all. Who
knows what countrified place she'd want to move to next.

Yolonda's momma, hands planted on her hips, looked square at Yolonda. “How's that again?”

Yolonda calmed her face into innocence. “I took some money from my savings, Momma. And money from Panda-bank. I took Andrew to Stellar's. I thought the music store would cheer him up.”

Her momma frowned.

“They had this harmonica there — a Marine Band. Just like Daddy's,” Yolonda added slyly.

Her momma's face softened. “Well,” she said, “I have missed Andrew playing his odd little music.” She smiled. “Hope he takes better care of this one.”

Yolonda took a deep, soundless breath. The crisis of disobeying had been averted, and she felt momentary relief.

But in the week that followed, her excitement about Aunt Tiny's visit was darkened by a bad feeling that hung over her like a poison cloud. She was not living up to her role as Andrew's protector, the brilliant young girl who could recognize genius. True, she had given the Dudes a pounding, and now, she noticed, they seemed to have moved their base to the park across the street. Yolonda knew they didn't want any more skir
mishes calling attention to their activities.

Kids at school now eyed her with careful respect. Sometimes she could tell they discussed her in small, whispering groups. A couple of guys had elbowed her knowingly in the hallway, admiration half-concealed in their faces. “Way to go, Yolonda.”

Yolonda had just nodded modestly. Her sixth sense told her not to brag. No good keeping things stirred up. No good pushing the Dudes into retribution. But driving off Romulus Foster and his henchmen hadn't done a whole lot for Andrew. She had failed her little brother. She had failed herself.

Although Andrew now had a harmonica, he didn't use it the way he'd used the old one. He kept it in the case most of the time, sometimes jammed into his pocket. When he did take it out of the case, his playing sounded tentative. Some mornings Yolonda would hear his waking-up song on the pipe, but it was not the same sweet, clear greeting. There was something ragged to the sound.

He's ruined, she caught herself thinking. Because of my not tending to business, Andrew has been ruined forever. She pushed the idea from her mind. How could a genius get ruined?

Aunt Tiny was someone she could tell about
Andrew being a genius — about true genius rearranging old material so that it became new. Her aunt might know how to bring her brother back, make his music pure again. But should she tell about how she'd forgotten him for a whole afternoon? Tiny thought Yolonda was near to perfect. Would she be disappointed with her?

Aunt Tiny was a power. She owned three famous hairdressing salons in different parts of Chicago. They were called Trend and they specialized in elegant, time-consuming styling and classic cuts for African-American hair. Black women and men from all over Chicago and its suburbs flocked to her salons. “Goin' to get me a Tiny,” they said. Beautiful hair models wearing Tiny's far-out hairstyles were featured in
Ebony
and
Mirabella
and
Vogue
. “Hair by Trend” said the ads. Even the opulent Oprah was rumored to have visited the main Trend salon on Michigan Avenue.

Aunt Tiny used to say she was a Black American businesswoman. Now she referred to herself as an “African-American entrepreneur.” She always knew the latest style in clothes, hairdos, and the words to call yourself by. “Tell the truth,” Aunt Tiny was fond of saying with her famous roll of her eyes. “I
set
a lot of the style. That's how I know it.” And she would laugh her rich, buttery laugh, a sound good enough to eat.

“No,” she had told Yolonda on the phone a month or so ago, “I don't want the piano back. It's yours to keep. I got a new one — a white one; big, grand. One of these days I'm gonna find time to play.” Then her laughter had bubbled up. “First I gotta find time to
learn
to play.”

Aunt Tiny could only play “Chopsticks.” And a few jazz chords. But she had always owned a piano, Yolonda knew, even before she began to make lots of money. That's why Yolonda was given piano lessons. “Got this big machine in my apartment,” Aunt Tiny had said years ago when Yolonda was only seven. “Somebody got to play it.”

Yolonda had played it. She had taken lessons every other afternoon from an old man Aunt Tiny had hired.

For a while, back in Chicago, Yolonda had dreamed of becoming a great concert pianist. But her spirit didn't love the motion. She had become expert enough to play a little Mozart for Aunt Tiny. Mozart was the only classical composer Aunt Tiny knew and liked. She would listen to Mozart in between Stevie Rae Vaughn and Sarah Vaughan and Eubie Blake, complaining sadly, “They're all dead as Mozart now.”

Yolonda's Mozart, these days, didn't sound like much. So she began to practice the piano frantically. She worked on the Mozart piece with the two
horrible trills, trying for the ease she'd felt with Andrew sitting next to her weeks before. She also thought she might play entrance music when Aunt Tiny walked through the door, she wasn't sure what. Should she go with Momma and Andrew to meet the plane? Or stay home and prepare for the grand welcome?

One afternoon, Shirley came by, blue eyes jumping expectantly. Yolonda stood at the door, torn between getting back to the piano or maybe going to the playground with Shirley. Then she saw the old knotted clothesline Shirley had looped jauntily across one shoulder. That girl just wouldn't be discouraged.

“Where're you going? Mountain climbing?” Yolonda made her voice thick with sarcasm.

“Yeah,” said Shirley. “I'm going to climb Mount Double Dutch. Wanta come?”

Pretty good, thought Yolonda. But she said, “No. I've got to practice the piano.”

“Oh,” said Shirley sadly. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“That's no double-Dutch rope anyhow, that raggedy thing. Mess your timing all up. You'll fall right off Mount Double Dutch, Miss Shirley-girley. Besides, I have to practice a whole lot.”

Shirley paused. “I can get us a better rope.”

“Have to be a whole lot better than that thing. And you need two ropes. Regulation size.”

“Oh, I can get that,” said Shirley. “Easy.” She turned and walked back down the sidewalk, the old rope unwinding from her shoulder and dragging behind.

Yolonda felt suddenly deserted. Lonely.

“Wanta Coke?” she called after her.

“No,” said Shirley. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait up,” hollered Yolonda. She made herself walk slowly after Shirley, as if she didn't care all that much. “I do have to practice. My Aunt Tiny's coming next week on Friday and I have to play for her. Come on, have a Coke. I have some innermost thoughts to tell you.”

“Yeah?” Shirley brightened. “Okay. What're friends for anyway?” She followed Yolonda, dropping the rope beside the door.

Yolonda popped the bottle caps from two cold Cokes and poured them fizzing over ice in two of her mother's good glasses. They sat at the kitchen table and Yolonda told the whole story about the Dudes and Andrew's harmonica. Shirley gasped and
oh
ed. When Yolonda dramatized her face-off with Romulus Foster, her friend clapped and squealed.

“Just don't mention it to anyone — how I whipped Foster's butt.”

Shirley got very quiet.

“I'm trying to let it die down. Don't want to have to repeat my performance.”

Shirley looked at Yolonda soberly. “I heard some gossip at school. Someone said you had a knife. Somebody else said you did karate you learned in Chicago. What you're saying's true, right?”

“Why would I lie?” said Yolonda — then caught herself. She
had
lied about double Dutch. She had told her mother near lies about Andrew's harmonica. “A knife is a stupid thing. Anyway, you can ask that Stoney Buxton guy.” She looked into her Coke and poked the ice with her finger. “He saw the whole thing. He tells me to my face, he says, ‘Girl, you are really something.'”

“Oh, no!” said Shirley. “What'd you say?”

There was time for a couple more Cokes while Yolonda told Shirley about Stoney Buxton and his good arm muscle and repeated everything he'd said to her plus a few things he hadn't said but she hoped he had been thinking. And then they talked about other boys in school — the cool ones and the nerds and the hateful ones. And, before they knew it, it was six o'clock and Yolonda's momma was driving into the garage. Yolonda hadn't gotten to the “innertmost” part yet, the part about Andrew's dying genius. And she hadn't practiced the piano at all.

“I really have to practice tomorrow,” she told Shirley at the door. “Aunt Tiny will be here next week. She's sort of famous. She knows Oprah Winfrey personally.”

“Wow!” said Shirley. “I'd sure like to meet her.”

“Maybe,” said Yolonda casually. “It depends on our schedule. She'll probably want to do our hair ‘n' all”

The admiration and hopeful envy on Shirley-whirley's face enlivened Yolonda. Watching her friend walk home dragging her raggedy rope, Yolonda told herself she would get up early to practice the piano before school.

Even though Yolonda's Aunt Tiny was really her father's sister, Yolonda's mother and Tiny acted like actual sisters. Still, Yolonda was sort of surprised when, the following week, her mother turned giddy with excitement. Yolonda hadn't thought too much about it before, but her mother didn't seem to have made many friends in this town — not any that she'd noticed anyway. Why, she's lonesome, thought Yolonda in surprise — a grown woman. The night before her aunt's arrival, Yolonda baked a cake and her momma decorated it with flowers and
TINY
spelled out in red frosting.

Yolonda decided to go to the airport to meet Aunt Tiny when she saw that her momma had filled the car with balloons.

“Won't Tiny be surprised?” her mother cried excitedly. She is acting like a kid, thought Yolonda,
but the balloons had made her own choice easy. It would be so much fun to greet her aunt with a fistful of balloons.

“You and Andrew can carry most of them, and I'll hold a few, too,” said her mother “Tiny will love it.”

In the lounge at the airport, they watched through a wall of windows as Aunt Tiny eased her great bulk out of the door of a small commuter plane and down the fragile-looking steps. How gloriously she filled the doorway as she entered the waiting room, bracelets jingling and scarves flowing in many shades of purple.

The great woman laughed her delicious laugh when she saw the balloons thumping delicately together in their bright bouquets. She took them all in one plump, beautifully manicured hand. From her finger winked a huge amethyst ring.

“They had to sit me in the three seats at the back o' that itty-bitty airplane,” she bragged. Her face was as smooth and round as the balloons and perfectly made up. Yolonda hugged her, and she smelled as rich and warm as ever.

Then Yolonda pushed Andrew forward to enjoy the treat of Aunt Tiny's hug. Tiny pressed Andrew against her side and stroked the top of his perfect little head. Andrew's hand reached for his back pocket and stayed there, cupped around the new harmonica wedged in its case.

“Got to get me a bath, Josie,” said Aunt Tiny to their momma. She fanned herself with the current copy of
Ebony
. Above her, the balloons danced slowly to the movement. “Will your tub fit me?”