Last Summer with Maizon (2 page)

Margaret stared out into the growing night for a long time.

“You look like Mary and Baby Jesus,” Maizon yelled up. Li'l Jay started but didn't wake up.

“It's about time!” Margaret yelled back. In the near-darkness she could only make out Maizon's Afro and dark dress. She carried Li'l Jay to his crib, then ran to hide her diary.

“What'd you do to your hair? It's scary,” Maizon said when Margaret opened the door.

“Me?! Your grandmother's going to skin you alive when she finds out you left the house looking like that,” Margaret said. “And with her makeup and earrings too? Maizon, I know you've lost your mind!”

Maizon smiled and sauntered past her. She wore a red and black dress with a black and a red pocket on either side and a red tie at the collar. Her messy Afro looked strange against the two red circles she had blushed onto her cheeks. Huge gold-hoop earrings dragged down her ear-lobes and her black eyeliner was crooked.

She turned to give Margaret a better look and smiled, showing off.

“Margaret ... Margaret ... Margaret ...” Maizon said, dragging out the name in a phony, grown-up tone. “Are you so corny that you don't know this is what everybody's wearing in the city? Everybody! I'm
retro.”
She twirled again and pulled out a magazine she had tucked underneath her dress.

“Look!” she said, opening to a page and pointing to a picture of a black woman modeling an outfit identical to her own. “This is where I saw the dress first. My grandmother made this one exactly like it, and now I'm the first girl in Brooklyn to have it! You want me to ask her to make you one?”

“Nah, I don't really like it.” Margaret stared longingly at the black sleeves gathered around Maizon's wrists.

“You just don't like it 'cause I got it first!” Maizon declared. She went over to the refrigerator and looked into the fruit bin. “I hate pears,” she said, sucking her teeth and reaching for one.

“I don't like red and black together—especially in the summer when it's so hot outside,” Margaret said.

Maizon looked the pear over carefully. “This pear is all bruised up,” she said, taking a bite. “You should tell your mother to buy her pears at Ocasio's. They have the freshest ones. Jefferson Avenue Market has good apples, but their pears aren't so great.”

“My mother doesn't have time to shop, between working and worrying about my father and everything. Not everyone can sit around like your grandma and make dresses!”

Maizon took another bite and frowned. Margaret turned away from her and flipped angrily through the magazine.

“Well then, ask your mother to give us money and we'll do the shopping,” Maizon suggested.

“I don't like to ask her a lot of things because it seems like she's always crying. That makes me cry. And Li'l Jay's always crying!” Margaret yelled.

Maizon sucked her teeth again. “God, sorry I asked!” She stared at her pear. “Isn't your daddy getting any better?”

“They've gone to the hospital for tests. He's going to have to stay there. He looks skinnier too.” Margaret sat down and put her elbows on the table. Didn't Maizon understand anything?

“You gonna go visit him?”

“They said maybe I shouldn't go anymore because I get too upset. I always start crying. I hate the way those white sheets swallow him up. It scares me.”

“You want me to go to the hospital with you?”

Margaret nodded. “I do, but only family can visit him. If you could go, maybe I wouldn't start crying.”

“I wish the stupid hospital people didn't know your family. Then I could make believe I was your sister or something.”

Margaret got up again, took a pear from the refrigerator, and began cutting away the peel.

“Hey! That's the best part!” Maizon said, grabbing the peel. She tossed her core into the garbage can.

“I hate that part.” Margaret pushed the small green pile across the counter to her, glad Maizon wasn't mad at her for yelling.

“Where's Junior?” Maizon asked with her mouth full.

“One of these days my mother's gonna hear you call him that and kick you out of the house.”

“I know, but Li‘l Jay sounds dumb. No one calls your dad ‘Big jay.'”

“Yeah, I know.” She handed the rest of her peel to Maizon.
“Li'l Jay's
asleep.”

“Can you go outside?”

“Only if Ms. Dell and Hattie are there. Did you see them when you were coming upstairs?”

“No, but they're probably just waiting until it gets a little cooler out. Anyway, it's only eight-thirty.”

“Maizon, can you show me how to do that dance where we turn and go down and—”

“That dance?!” Maizon screeched. “Where have you been, Margaret? Under a rock? That dance has been dead for ages!”

“Oh, you ain't so smart, Maizon Singh!” she shouted. “You think you know everything, but you don't! You don't know anything!” Margaret screamed, running into the living room. She buried her face in one of the couch pillows and cried. After a moment, Maizon tiptoed in and sat beside her.

“I
'm sorry, Margaret,” she whispered. “Sometimes I act like I know so much.”

Margaret sniffed, angry at herself for being ready to forgive her so quickly.

“I gotta stay in this dumb old house all the time and take care of Li'l Jay while you get to go all around Brooklyn. I just sit in the window and watch everything go by. I wish my daddy wasn't so sick, so it could be like it was before. I don't know anything anymore!” She buried her head in the pillow again.

“There's this other dance, Margaret,” Maizon said. “I just learned it last week. I was going to show it to you. Honest!”

“For real, Maizon?” Margaret sat up.

“Yeah. It's not so hard, either.”

“How does it go?”

“I need the right music,” Maizon said, getting up from the couch.

Margaret went over to the stereo and looked through the stack of CDs beside it.

“I have this one,” she said, holding up a CD with a rapper they both liked on the cover.

“Yeah!” Maizon said. “The first rap on there is the one I learned it to.”

A long time ago, Margaret realized Maizon knew a lot more about things than she did. Now she wanted to ask her who had taught her how to do that dance, where she had learned. But the answers Maizon gave always made her jealous, so she didn't ask. Instead, she put the CD in and turned the volume down so Li'l Jay wouldn't wake up.

“First you move your feet like this,” Maizon said, clicking her heels together.

Margaret followed halfheartedly.

“Now put your arms out and move your shoulders. Like this.”

Maizon moved so easily, she didn't even have to listen to the rhythm. “Try it,” she said.

Margaret stood across from Maizon and tried to move like she did, but her feet got in the way of the rest of her and she stumbled. Maizon giggled and Margaret glared at her. Sometimes it didn't seem fair. Maizon had everything.

“Do it slowly at first.”

She slowed down a little and Margaret followed her.

“Look!” Maizon said. “You can do it almost as good as me!”

They played the song a few more times and practiced.

“I'm tired,” Maizon said when Margaret started the song for the fifth time.

“Me too.” She turned off the stereo and followed Maizon over to the couch.

“I'm sorry I made you cry before, Margaret.”

“You didn't make me cry,” Margaret said, leaning back against a blue corduroy pillow. “I did it to myself. I thought about sad things and just started crying.” That was almost true, she thought. And even if it wasn't, it sounded good.

“Sad things like what?” Maizon asked, curling up at the other end.

“Like not knowing things.”

“Yeah, that is pretty sad. Sometimes I wish we could be like Ms. Dell. People say she can see into the future because her eyes are such a strange shade of blue.”

“Her eyes
are
strange. I wonder why Hattie didn't get eyes like her mother.”

“Hattie can't ‘see' things the way Ms. Dell can,” Maizon said. “I heard she used to be able to. But after her baby died, she lost a little bit of her mind. That's why only Ms. Dell knows the future now. People say it's a special gift, direct from God to her.”

“Where do you think that little bit of Hattie's mind went?”

Maizon thought for a moment. “Maybe to heaven with her baby. Grandma says when you lose a baby, it's like losing a piece of yourself.”

“Ms. Dell takes good care of her.”

“Ms. Dell takes good care of everyone. That's why she's here. Once I heard Grandma asking her what brought her to Madison Street, and you know what Ms. Dell said?”

Margaret moved a little closer because Maizon's voice had dropped to a whisper. “What?”

“She said that space in her mind that tells her when things are going to happen said, ‘Ms. Dell, you better get yourself out of the South and come to Madison Street quick, 'cause that block is going to be needing you!'”

“For real, Maizon?”

Maizon nodded. “Yup. And when you got a gift like Ms. Dell's, you pass it on. Since Hattie doesn't have it anymore, Ms. Dell is going to pass it on to someone else. Sure hope it's me!”

“I don't know if I'd want to know the future. Sounds like it could get scary sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Maizon said. “But there are some things I wouldn't mind knowing.”

“Like what?”

“Like if I'm going to get into Blue Hill or not. I mean, how long ago did I take that test?”

“Three months and four days,” Margaret said.

Maizon glanced at her, surprised. “How can you remember that?”

“‘Cause it was the same day Daddy had the first heart attack, remember? I came home from school and you and Ms. Dell and Hattie were all sitting on the steps. That's when I knew something was wrong, because Hattie and Ms. Dell were baby-sitting Li'l Jay even though it wasn't Mama's work day. And then you were telling me how hard the test was but Ms. Dell told you to be quiet and let me go on upstairs.”

Maizon cut her off. “And then you went upstairs and your mama was there and she was crying, right?”

“Uh huh,” Margaret said softly, remembering seeing tears in her mother's eyes for the first time in her life.

“That's what I'm talking about, Margaret. See, like what if we knew things the way Ms. Dell does? We could change things. Make them not happen or happen.”

“I guess so,” Margaret said.

Maizon was thinking hard now. She furrowed her brow and pressed her palm against her mouth.

“Margaret!” she said all of a sudden. “Let's find out!”

“How?”

“Let's sneak the information out of Ms. Dell!”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Ms. Dell is too smart for that, Maizon.”

“We're smart.”

“Not smarter than Ms. Dell.”

“Come on, Margaret. Ms. Dell's been living downstairs for ten years. She sees and knows everything. Your mother tells her things she doesn't tell you. I bet my grandmother does too. Everybody trusts her.”

Margaret shook her head. “That's because she doesn't blab.”

Maizon folded her arms. “Forget it, then. We'll never know. When September comes and I go away, we won't be prepared for it. We won't be prepared for anything that ever happens ‘cause we won't know.”

“So?”

“So you want to never know anything?”

Margaret thought about the dance Maizon had just taught her. “I want to know some things.”

“Then let's go,” Maizon said, pulling Margaret's arm. “Let's milk them out of Ms. Dell.”

“I don't know, Maizon ...”

“Why not?”

“Maybe we're not supposed to know the future.”

Maizon got up quickly.

“Don't you want to know how your daddy is? How your daddy
really
is?”

“I don't know, Maizon.”

“I know how you feel, Margaret,” Maizon said softly. Margaret knew she was telling the truth. “It's like when you see a car accident and you really want to see who's inside and how bad they're hurting, but you don't want to look because you know looking might make you feel worse, right?”

Margaret nodded. That was exactly how she felt.

“But then you go away without looking, Margaret,” Maizon said in the same low voice, “and you spend the rest of your life wondering.”

“I guess,” Margaret said.

“Then come on.” Maizon ran to the window and leaned out. “They're out there now. Let's just sit on the stoop with them and try to get a little info.”

“What about Li'l Jay?” Margaret asked. She had to get out of this.

“What about him? He needs some air. He sleeps too much. And you know how crazy Ms. Dell is over him. We can plant him on her lap and”—she snapped her finger—“we're there!”

“I have to comb my hair.” In a second Maizon was behind her, wrapping it into a French braid.

“This hair sure is wild,” she said longingly. By the time she was done, Margaret had run out of excuses.

Maizon changed Li'l Jay's diaper while Margaret searched for her ribbon. Then they descended the six flights down to Ms. Dell and Hattie.

“I
was wondering when you two were going to bring your tails down here. Always up in that apartment messing around with I don't know what,” Ms. Dell said, putting her glass of iced tea down beside her before taking Li'l Jay from Maizon and sitting him on her lap.