When Did We Lose Harriet? Read online

  “Not going anywhere, Sis.” He sank back on his pillow in exhaustion.

  Maybe it was because I was so worried about him, but I crossed Rosa L. Parks Avenue three times before I realized it wasn’t a new street, just a new name for Cleveland Avenue. Trust city fathers. When they want to honor their cronies, they build arenas and new expressways. When it’s anybody else, they rename a street.

  The teen center, once I found it, was a small brick building that must have been a school before it got so old and dirty—or maybe that’s how it got so old and dirty. The curbs were dirty, too—as I discovered when I got Jake’s white sidewalls a tad closer than I’d intended.

  Inside, the building was dim and smelled of chalk, old lunches, and much-used bathrooms. The linoleum, which had once been either beige or gray, was now something in between, but somebody had repainted the walls bright yellow. Walking in from outside was like walking directly into the sun. A stuffy, poorly air-conditioned sun.

  While a door marked “Office” stood open, its lights were off and the room was empty. “Hello? Hello!” I stood in the center of the hall and called, feeling a bit foolish.

  “Hey!” A man hurried from the back of the building, wiping his hands on the seat of clean but well-worn jeans. “I was fixing a toilet. May I help you? I’m Lewis Henly, director of the center.”

  He was the handsomest black man I’d ever seen except in the movies, and he had a voice like honey—or maybe it was that wisp of mustache under his nose that reminded me of bees. He was around thirty, I figured. His hair was cut short, his smile was friendly, his jeans not only clean but starched and ironed. He was clearly surprised to find me standing in his hall, however. I guess he was expecting Jake or hoping for somebody younger, darker, and thinner. Nevertheless, I gave him my most charming smile. “I’m MacLaren Yarbrough, Jake Crane’s sister. I’m taking his place this morning.”

  He looked at my linen pantsuit, Laura Ashley blouse, purse and flats, and I could almost hear him totting up the price. He raised one eyebrow and waved a slender hand to indicate the grimy hall. “Not your usual part of Montgomery, is it?”

  That got under my skin. Jake and Glenna weren’t the only people in our family with a social conscience. “I have no usual part of Montgomery,” I informed him stiffly. “I live in Hopemore, Georgia, and I volunteered to take Jake’s place this morning because he had a heart attack yesterday and can’t be here. If you’ll just show me what to do—”

  “Jake’s had a heart attack? For real? How’s he doing?” While I described Jake’s condition, I had his undivided attention. His concern was so real, I forgave him his earlier unfortunate remark. “Jake’s one of our favorite volunteers,” he told me. “Tell him we miss him, and to get well soon. Now, shall I show you the ropes? Just a minute.” He went into the office and brought back a pink notepad, a battered black notebook, and a pen. “You’ll need these to answer questions and take messages. Other than that, all you have to do is talk to kids who come. Do you like teenagers?”

  “Not particularly,” I admitted. “I’ve always thought penguins had the right idea—put adolescents on icebergs to float away until they grow up. But I raised two boys and a lot of their friends, so I’m pretty good at not letting that show.”

  He threw back his head and laughed so hard I could see he had no fillings in his teeth. The way his laugh echoed also made me think the whole building was empty except for the two of us. “The kids will probably adore you,” he told me with another chuckle. “They suspect people who like them.” He opened a door and beckoned me into a large empty room.

  Joe Riddley always says I have the best imagination in the world, and maybe he’s right, but I wasn’t particularly thrilled to follow a man I didn’t know into a deserted room. Not one soul in the entire world knew where I was—except that female who’d called the night before, and I doubted she’d stir herself if I disappeared. However, when I give my word, I try to live up to it, so I followed him. The room was, if possible, even stuffier than the hall.

  “This is the lounge,” he said, flipping on three high ceiling fans that merely stirred the air like batter. “That scarred monument is your desk, and the black notebook contains answers to almost any question callers ask. If someone wants me, take a message. If they insist on talking to me, send someone to find me—our buzzer is broken. You shouldn’t have many kids. Our sports and vocational programs don’t start until one, and most kids don’t get up this early. But you may get a few who want to get away from bad home situations. A lot go down to the Y, of course, but a few hang out here. Think you can handle it?”

  I resisted the impulse to point out that I’ve put up with Joe Riddley for nearly forty-five years, raised two sons, am in the process of helping to raise four grandchildren, daily supervise six employees, and am still relatively sane. However, when he stopped talking and I looked around, I nearly turned around and went home.

  For one thing, the room had that stale ripe onion smell of too much sweat and too few baths. For another, it was filthy. The windows were grimy, cobwebs draped their tops, and the sills were gray with dust. The only furnishings were a few soiled, overstuffed chairs, two swaybacked sofas, and a battered wood desk. Behind the desk sagged the most uncomfortable looking chair I ever contemplated spending two hours sitting on. Beside the desk a wastebasket literally overflowed with trash, and the whole floor was littered with paper scraps and candy wrappers. Heaven knows and my friends agree I am no housekeeper, but I found that much squalor disgusting.

  Mr. Henly caught the expression on my face. “It’s pretty grungy,” he admitted. “We had a woman who used to clean, but she quit a while ago. I keep meaning to find somebody else, but I’ve been busy—”

  “I don’t want to insult you, Mr. Henly, but I am incapable of sitting in this room for two hours without at least picking up trash and dusting windowsills. Do you have cleaning supplies? I’ll ask some of the kids to help me pick up, sweep, and dust.”

  The twinkle in his eye made me think he wanted to burst out laughing, but he said, very politely, “If you find anybody willing to clean, ma’am, I can scare up a few rags and a broom. Now, I need to finish that toilet. The term ‘director’ around here means man-of-all-work.” He started out, then stopped. “Oh. If somebody tries to borrow money for a bus or a Coke, don’t lend it to them. Under no circumstances. Okay?” He waited for my nod, then left. I was on my own.

  I gingerly sat down on a chair as uncomfortable and cockeyed as it looked, and perused the black notebook. The center’s programs were heavy on basketball, volleyball, and car repair and light on academics, art, and music. A drum set, a few guitars, and an old piano would greatly improve the room I was in, and the kids could use a glee club, too. Just in time I remembered: I didn’t live in Montgomery. Good thing. I was about to ask that nice Mr. Henly if I couldn’t scout up a few instruments and help organize a musical production.

  “She doesn’t need to learn to say no,” Joe Riddley has been heard to growl more than once. “She needs to learn not to jump in with both feet before anybody even asks.”

  When I checked my watch it was fifteen minutes down, one-and-three-quarter hours to go, and drat! I’d forgotten to bring the morning paper. Without something to read, I’d be swinging from the ceiling fans before noon.

  I peered around and saw a bookshelf with one dogeared paperback, To Love or to Die, lying sideways. The cover showed a woman with a long skirt and very little bodice peering up at a darkened mansion. I would have preferred even a seed catalogue, but I’m not a fussy reader in a pinch. This was definitely a pinch.

  Inside, the owner had identified herself in adolescent curlicues: Harriet Lawson. Within five minutes I had slipped off my shoes and was deep into the adventures of Celeste Brexall. Ten chapters later, poor Celeste had already survived a shipwreck, a fire in her tower bedroom, and the unwelcome advances of Erik, the evil elder son of the family. She was about to fling herself into the arms of the good second son, when—r />
  “That Basil seems okay, but he’s not. He’s the bad ‘un,” said a cheery voice over my shoulder.

  I jumped halfway to the ceiling. When my heart rejoined my body, I took a deep breath and looked up into the face of a friendly brown whale.

  Actually it was a girl—she couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen—but she outweighed me by a good fifty pounds and wore her hair pulled into a spout on top of her head. She smirked. “Boy, you don’t notice nothin’ when you’re readin,’ do you? I come right through that door and walked straight over here, and you never even looked.”

  “Is this your book?” I hoped my heart would soon slow to its normal rate.

  “Nannh. I don’t like reading. It’s Harriet’s. A lot of foolishness, if you ask me. But Harriet told me what it’s about, so like I said, Basil’s the bad one. Celeste oughta been more careful.” She dragged a chair near the desk, draped a bare leg over one arm, and tugged down a purple T-shirt to cover kelly-green shorts. “My name’s Kateisha. What’s yours?”

  I hesitated, but I grew up calling black women by their first names. Fair is fair. “MacLaren. My friends call me Mac. And I was only reading until somebody came. I hope Harriet won’t mind my reading her book.” Still, I closed it a bit reluctantly. I’d known from the beginning that Basil wasn’t what he seemed—which romance writer besides Jane Austen creates bad men who are really bad and good ones who are truly good?—but I hated not knowing what Celeste went through before she found true love.

  Kateisha gave a grunt of disgust. “How can Harriet mind? She don’t come here no more. I ain’t seen her since…I can’t rightly remember.” In an abrupt change of subject, she demanded, “Where’s Mr. Crane? He ain’t coming no more, either?”

  “Oh, I do hope so—” I swallowed a frog that had suddenly jumped down my throat “—but he’s sick today, so I came in his place. I’m his sister.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. He’s had a heart attack.”

  “No, I mean for real you’re his sister? That’s cool. I got a brother, too. André. Call him Dré. I come down here this mornin’ so’s he can sleep.” Seeing my bewilderment, she explained, “We ain’t got enough beds to go around, so most nights he stays out, then uses my bed in the mornin’. But last night Mama put the TV in that room, so I can’t do nothin’ but hang out ‘til he wakes up. That’s why I come on down here early—to see what’s doing.”

  She pulled a pick from her pocket and began to lift the spout of hair several inches from her head, turning her head this way and that so I’d notice her earrings. “I like your earrings,” I told her obligingly. They were lovely—unexpected, in that place: delicate silver circles laced with silver spiderwebs and turquoise beads the size of pinheads, and with a tiny silver feather dangling from the bottom. When Kateisha tossed her head, the feathers danced.

  “They called dream catchers. Me’n Harriet got ‘em just alike.”

  She got up and went to look out the window. “Uh-oh. Here come Cowface and Deneika. I figured they’d be down early, since it’s Biscuit’s day.”

  Before I could ask what on earth she meant, two girls came in. One was beautiful—skin like caramels and eyes like violets. She was tall and slender, and swung her shoulders when she walked to show off high little breasts in a skintight pink knit top. Her denim skirt barely grazed her backside, and her legs were superb. I wondered how long it took to braid her hair in that intricate design of corn rows with silver beads worked in.

  Kateisha ignored her, and greeted the other—who was small, thin, and drab. “Hey, Cowface.” Her blouse was dingy and unironed, her running shoes full of holes, her hair thin and nappy, and her face golden, long, and thin. With those enormous soft brown eyes, she did, indeed, call to mind a worried Jersey cow.

  The tall girl looked around the room, passing over me like I wasn’t there. “Anybody seen Biscuit?”

  “Unh-huh—what’d I tell you?” Kateisha gave me a knowing look. “No, Deneika,” she said with elaborate patience, “we ain’t seen Biscuit since last week. But since he always he’ps Mr. Henly on Tuesdays, he oughta be here soon.”

  “Shut your mouth,” the girl said bluntly. She sauntered to the desk with a swing that suggested she knew more about human sexuality than most church delegates. “Who’re you?”

  “That’s Mac,” Kateisha answered. “Mac, this here’s Deneika and Twaniba.”

  Deneika wasn’t listening. She had wandered over to stare out the window with a hungry, waiting look. Kateisha joined her, again picking her hair. Twaniba (“Cowface”) slumped down on the sagging sofa nearest the desk and cast a shy look at the book. “You like readin’?” Her voice was little more than a murmur.

  “I sure do. Do you?”

  “No’m. That there’s Harriet’s book. She use t’read all the time, but we ain’t seen her since—I don’t mind when.”

  The phone rang. A cultured alto asked me to tell Lewis Henly privately—she stressed the word—that Eleanor would be by to see him at noon. Because the woman was so insistent that the message was private, I decided to leave the girls alone and deliver it myself. They’d be all right by themselves for a minute—or so I thought. I returned to find Kateisha and Deneika glaring at one another.

  “Get outta my face,” Kateisha barked, jaw clenched.

  “I was here first,” Deneika snarled. “You move your face.” She shoved. Kateisha shoved back. The taller girl sprawled on the floor with a display of bright red underpants.

  I hurried toward them. “Girls, Mr. Henly suggested that the first people here help me clean the room.”

  That certainly stopped the fight and got everybody’s attention.

  “Screwy Lewey said we should clean?” If I had suggested they learn to fly, Deneika couldn’t have sounded more astonished.

  “I ain’t much on cleaning.” Kateisha lifted one nostril in disdain.

  “It won’t be bad if we all work together,” I said cheerfully, not fooling a soul. “Kateisha, you go ask Mr. Henly for the supplies. You others start to pick up trash.”

  “Okay.” Even Twaniba’s voice was colorless. I wondered if she got enough vitamins.

  Deneika and Twaniba had each picked up about two slivers of paper by the time Kateisha got back carrying a stubby broom, a dustpan, a plastic trash bag, and three gray rags. I handed out supplies like a drill sergeant. “Twaniba, you dust windowsills and bookshelves. Deneika, sweep down cobwebs. Kateisha, go empty the wastebasket and come right back. We’ll have this place clean before we know it.”

  “What you gonna do?” Deneika demanded.

  “She can’t clean in them clothes.” Twaniba stroked my linen jacket sleeve with the touch of a butterfly.

  “If she ain’t cleaning, I ain’t neither.” Kateisha plopped heavily into a chair.

  “I’m going to clean,” I assured her, looking around for something I could do without getting filthy. “I’m going to pull out the sofas so we can sweep under them, then I’m going to clean out the drawers of that desk. They look like rats’ nests.”

  The girls wouldn’t have earned enthusiasm awards, but at least they went to work. After Kateisha bustled out importantly with a bag of trash, I grabbed one sofa to shove it away from the wall. It was heavier than it looked. “I can’t move this alone. Can somebody help me?”

  “I’m sweeping.” Deneika sullenly gave a cobweb a half-hearted swipe. Twaniba drifted over with her dust cloth and gave the sofa a gentle shove. It was like being helped by a wraith.

  “Never mind,” I told her. “Go on and dust. Kateisha and I’ll get it later. Let me give the cushions a good shake first.”

  I pulled out a seat cushion, and saw why the sofa was so heavy. Beneath the cushions was a hideabed mattress, littered with trash. Tossing off all the cushions, I cleared away several pieces of homework, a couple of wadded candy wrappers, and a filthy blue sweater. A book had fallen down behind, but in order to get my hand between the frame and the back to reach it, I’d h
ave to open out the mattress. Seizing the handle, I tugged.

  The bed unfolded with a screech to wake the dead. The mattress was spotted and stained, and as hard as it was to open, I suspected it had been donated that way. Joe Riddley has a theory that our heavenly mansions are furnished with duplicates of whatever we give to the poor. If so, the donors of that sofa might be in for a shock.

  Hoping I wasn’t picking up a disease I couldn’t get rid of—and that Mr. Henly wouldn’t appear while I was backside up—I belly-flopped onto the mattress and groped until my fingers grasped the book. Love Me Wildly, Love Me True. It was a hardback sister of Harriet’s novel, except this one came from the public library. It also had a fat white envelope stuffed between its pages in a way guaranteed to raise any librarian’s blood pressure.

  I rolled over and sat up, holding the book aloft. “Anybody recognize this?”

  Kateisha, coming through the door wearing a plastic bag like a stole, snorted. “What’d we be wanting with a book when school’s out? It’s probably Harriet’s. Or LaToya’s. They both nuts about reading.”

  Twaniba stopped her dusting and flapped her cloth, sending all the dust right back into the air. “When did we lose Harriet? Anybody remember?”

  Deneika set down her broom and scratched her neck with an elegant green and gold striped fingernail nearly as long as my little finger. “She come the last week of school, but I ain’t seen her after that. Maybe her auntie won’t let her come no more.”

  Kateisha stuck out her lower lip. “If she don’t want to come, it ain’t no skin off us.” She sounded oddly belligerent.

  By then, I had looked at the envelope. It was not only fat. It was also blank and sealed. I shoved myself up from the sagging mattress. At the desk, I sat with the envelope hidden in my lap, and gently slit it open. No matter what Joe Riddley tells you, I wouldn’t have done that if there’d been a name on it. I figured maybe I’d find a name inside.

  Instead, I found a colorful brochure for an acting school in Atlanta.