Between Madison and Palmetto (4 page)

Maizon raised an eyebrow. “You sure you're okay, Margaret?”

“Yes already!” Margaret said. “Can't a person get sick without the world stopping?”

“What's your problem? I just asked a question.”

“And I just answered it. I ate soup. It made me sick. I threw up. Case closed.”

Maizon shrugged and walked across the living room. Mrs. Tory had painted a new picture, from a photograph. In it Maizon and Margaret had their arms thrown across each other's shoulders. They were smiling out at somebody, looking away from the camera. Maizon couldn't remember who it was they had been smiling at.

“This is from the photograph Hattie took that summer before I went away,” Maizon said.

Margaret came over and stood beside her. She took Maizon's hand in her own and nodded.

“That was the best summer, Margaret,” Maizon said softly. “It was like everything was perfect. Look how happy we were.”

Margaret stared at the painting a long time. Mama had painted it perfectly. The picture had been taken at the very beginning of the summer before Daddy got sick. Before Maizon heard that she'd been accepted at Blue Hill. It had seemed like the whole summer was stretched out in front of them; like someone had handed them their whole life on silver platters and said, “Go have a good time with this.” But then, maybe a month after that picture was taken, Daddy got sick and it was like that same someone returned and snatched the platter back.

“Do you feel okay to go over to Caroline's?” Maizon asked, squeezing Margaret's hand.

Margaret nodded. Maizon was staring at her in a way that made it seem like her friend was looking right through her. She stared back at Maizon a moment, then dropped her gaze. They stood like that for a while, in front of the painting, until Maizon let go of her hand.

“Did you make yourself throw up, Margaret?” she whispered.

Margaret swallowed. She had never lied to Maizon. She couldn't look at her now, and stood there staring at the floor.

“Some people do that,” Maizon said. “I was just—I was just wondering if you ... you know, were you doing that too—because it's not good for you. It messes you up inside.”

“That soup was fattening,” Margaret said. “Hattie makes it too rich.”

“But you're not even a little bit fat. You're perfect. I wish I looked like you.”

“I am not,” Margaret said. “I'm getting fat all over.”

“Margaret!” Maizon grabbed her shoulders, making Margaret look up into her eyes. “You're perfect.”

Margaret pulled away. “We should go,” she said, walking over to the couch for her coat. “Put your shoes on, Li‘l Jay. You're going down to Ms. Dell's.”

“Dell's house. Dell's house!” Li‘l Jay sang, pulling his shoe onto the wrong foot.

When Margaret looked over at Maizon, she was still standing there, her hands hanging at her sides, looking helpless. That wasn't like her.

“Do you do that a lot, Margaret?”

“I don't want to talk about it, Maizon. It doesn't matter, okay?”

“It does matter.”

Margaret shoved Li‘l Jay's shoes onto the right feet and lifted him off of the floor. “Get your jacket,” she said. “Maybe Ms. Dell will take you outside.”

Li‘l Jay ran into his bedroom.

“Look, Maizon,” Margaret said. “I only do it sometimes and I still eat healthy stuff most of the time. I'm only going to do it until I feel good about my body, okay? Right now, I feel crappy.”

“But you look good, Margaret!”

“But I don't like the way I look. That's what matters, Maizon. How I feel, all right? Not how you feel about how I look or how Ms. Dell or Hattie or Mama feels. How I feel.”

Li‘l Jay ran back into the living room, pulling his coat on.

Maizon shook her head, then hit the side of it as though she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“When I was at Blue Hill, there were girls who wouldn't eat or they'd eat a whole lot and then go puke somewhere, and I was thinking,
Oh, man—don't you girls know that you're not even close to being fat?
I was thinking, Wait till I
get back to Brooklyn and tell Margaret about this—then we can dog them together and talk about how stupid it all is.
But here I am, and here you are doing exactly what those girls were doing, and it's like I'm right back there. You're the last person in the world I thought would be doing something like this, Margaret.”

“Margaret sick....” Li‘l Jay whispered, his eyes widening.

Margaret pulled him close and hugged him. “No, I'm not, Li‘l Jay,” she said. But Li'l Jay began to cry. Margaret felt her stomach flutter and, looking up at Maizon, knew her friend was thinking the same thing. Because of his gift of clairvoyance Li‘l Jay knew something they didn't.

“No, Li‘l Jay.” Margaret kissed him. “I'm not sick.”

6

B
y Friday the snow had melted and now the gray slate sidewalk was crossed with shadows of brownstones. It had been a week since Maizon and Margaret had spoken. Margaret wouldn't return her phone calls. On the school bus, Margaret spread books on the seat next to her own and made it seem as though she were too busy with schoolwork to talk. But they would have to talk soon. The play was scheduled for the middle of March and they needed to rehearse.

Home, Maizon thought to herself, making her way slowly down Madison Street. She sighed. Ms. Dell would say it was something in the air that made everything seem so crazy. “Home,” she said out loud. This is not how she remembered it.

A wind, too warm for February, blew her hair across her eyes. It was long now, almost as long as Margaret‘s, and according to her grandmother, nappy as the day is long. But Maizon liked it this way, tangled and kinking down against her neck. Ms. Dell had offered to pull a hot comb through it, to straighten it out a little, but Maizon had refused. When it was wet, she braided thick plaits all over her head and let it dry this way. Then she brushed it loose and usually pulled it to the back of her head with a black ribbon. Maizon took a deep breath. The air smelled clean, like spring. She hugged herself as she walked, and squinted up into the sun. “Home again, home again, jiggety-jig,” she whispered to herself, remembering the way Grandma used to make her giggle by saying this phrase over and over as she pulled on Maizon's toes.

Maizon let herself into her house and shook herself out of her coat.

“That you, Maizon?” Grandma called from the living room.

“Who else?” Maizon answered back.

“Come in here. I want you to meet somebody.”

Maizon made her way to the kitchen first and grabbed a handful of peanuts from the dish on the counter. She had a quick image of Margaret leaning over the toilet making herself throw up and put some of the peanuts back. They had never gone this long without talking before. Maizon couldn't help feeling like she had come home to a Margaret she no longer knew. Before, she could talk to Margaret about anything. Now, it seemed they were so careful around each other; like they had to think a whole lot about something before they said it.

On her way into the living room Maizon passed a huge duffel bag leaning against the dining-room wall. She heard a man's voice, smooth and even, then her grandmother's voice, rising above it. Maizon closed her hand over the peanuts nervously and stepped into the living room.

The man sitting on the couch across from her Grandma's chair seemed familiar. He was tall and brown-skinned with black hair that looked as though it had been sprinkled with salt.

“Hi, Grandma,” Maizon said, unable to take her eyes off the man. He sat with his legs crossed at the knee, swishing a cup of something between his hands. He seemed fidgety.

“Maizon?” His voice was hoarse and deep. Maizon took a step back without thinking and looked at Grandma.

“Maizon ...” Grandma began slowly. “This is your—”

“I know,” Maizon said softly.

He had left her at Grandma's when she was a baby, but she would know him—in a hundred thousand people she would know her father even though she had only seen pictures. He smiled at Maizon now, but Maizon couldn't fix her mouth to smile back. They were suspended for a moment; him smiling uncertainly, Grandma looking on with no expression, and Maizon with her mouth partially open, unable to take her eyes off him.

He took a deep breath. “You've grown up,” he said, letting go of a proud laugh. “Look at you.” He leaned toward Maizon and she stepped back even farther. Just as quickly as his laugh had come, it was gone. He leaned back again, a hurt look moving up into his eyes. “I want to tell you things, Maizon....” His voice broke on her name. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Maizon shook her head. She wanted to touch him, to see if she could feel any realness there. This was a dream, she thought. A dream, a dream. She swallowed and moved closer to Grandma.

“Maizon ...” Grandma pulled Maizon to her. “Cooper wanted to see you. He's come a long way....”

Cooper. Cooper Devalle Thompson. There was a time, before Grandma adopted her, when she had been Maizon Thompson. There had been a time before all of this when she had been somebody else's child beside Grandma's. When she had belonged to Cooper Devalle Thompson. Such a beautiful name. She let it move over and over in her mind. Still, standing there, Maizon couldn't bring herself to say the name out loud. She had never said it out loud. She had never called anybody Cooper Devalle Thompson. She had never called anybody “Daddy.”

“How far did you come?” she asked him now, unable to break her gaze from his eyes. They were so like her own: brown, slanted, with dark heavy lashes.

Cooper looked thoughtful, his thick brows wrinkling across his forehead. “Was in California for a time. Then Seattle. Went up to Vancouver for a while.” His voice was deep and flat, uninflected. Maizon wanted there to be more life to it. She had imagined he'd be so full of life. She had imagined a TV dad who would bound into a room and swoop her up into the air. That was a long time ago.

“California's three thousand miles away. The only way it'd take you this long to get from there to here is if you walked,” Maizon said. “Real slowly.” Her own voice sounded unfamiliar. She was suprised at how controlled it was. “Did you walk?”

Cooper looked down into his cup. He was grinning. Maizon's stomach dipped. If someone had said this to her, she would have grinned too. “Didn't walk,” he said. “Hear you've been doing some traveling yourself—”

“You left me with Grandma after Mama died,” Maizon cut him off. “Mama died having me. She died at the hospital and they gave you the baby and you gave the baby to Grandma. I'm hers. I don't have anything to do with you. I don't know you. I don't want to know you.”

Cooper was staring at her now, his eyes filling quickly. Maizon had never seen a man cry. There was a knot in her stomach like a tiny ball of hate. But when she saw his eyes fill, she felt the knot melting a little. She couldn't get over his eyes. It was as though she were looking into a mirror and seeing her own eyes in somebody else's face.

“You can't have me back,” she said.

“Maizon ...” Grandma began.

Maizon took a step away from them and glared at Grandma. “I don't care. I don't want him in my life.” She turned back to Cooper. “You missed it. You missed my whole life!” She was yelling now, her voice filling the large living room. “My life is over now and you missed it. You missed everything.”

She remembered the peanuts, growing sweaty in her hand. She didn't want him to have her eyes. “I don't want you in my life! Why'd you come back anyway?”

“Maizon ...” he was saying, but Maizon wasn't listening. She was raising her hand in the air and flinging the peanuts. Aiming for those eyes. Then she was backing up and running, back through the kitchen, past the long hallway, and out the front door. Then she was running again, as hard as she could, her breath burning in the back of her throat. Running down Madison Street, past it, farther and farther, taking the streets without looking for cars. She couldn't stop. As long as her feet kept propelling her, she wouldn't stop. She wanted to get far away. As far away as she could.

At the corner of Irving and Decatur, Maizon stopped, gulping for breath. It had started raining again, hard cold drops that made her realize she had left the house without a coat. She shivered and sniffed. It had gotten cold suddenly. Very cold—as though Cooper himself had blown in on an icy chill. She wrapped her arms around herself, coughing up sobs. Tears skirted her cheeks, mingling with rain. Maizon couldn't remember feeling this lost before. I
won't let him take me away,
she thought to herself, staring out onto Irving Avenue. There were no cars and the neighborhood seemed deadly silent, as though it was waiting for something to happen.

7

M
aizon gone!“ Li‘l Jay said, running into the room.

Margaret glared at him. “Yeah, she's gone home. I just got off of the school bus with her. And you're gone too.” She took his hand and led him downstairs. Ms. Dell opened the door and smiled.

“Gone,” Li‘l Jay said.

“Can you watch him while I get some work done?”

Ms. Dell took Li‘l Jay in her arms and pressed his cheek against hers. “I was just thinking about him. Just thinking I'd like some company.”

Margaret kissed them both and bounded upstairs again, locking the door behind her before going to stand in front of the full-length mirror.

Scowling, she turned from side to side. Nothing had changed in the week since she had started her diet. She had read somewhere that a body could exist on grapefruit and water for weeks at a time and had eaten them for a week. There were still a couple of grapefruits stuffed in her dresser drawer, but the thought of having to eat even a tiny piece of another one made her sick now.