Pieces of Why (2 page)

F
IRST THING
I did once I opened the front doors of the church and stepped inside was to look for Keisha. Ms. Marion called us the Two Musketeers, which was odd since everyone knows there's supposed to be three of those, but Ms. Marion was like that, always making things out the way she wanted them to be.

“You looking for the other Musketeer?” Ms. Marion called when she saw me peering around the sanctuary.

I nodded.

“She's over near the risers.”

“Thanks,” I said, slipping away as quickly as I could. I found Keisha standing tall with her arms crossed, staring down Mary-Kate Torelo, one of the few other white kids in the choir. Mary-Kate was one of the girls who'd joined last month after we'd performed at the Presbyterian church uptown. There were three of them: Mary-Kate, Amber Allen, and Faith Evans. All three wore the kind of designer clothes
you could only get if you were rich. They had long, spiraling hair, and they always had their nails done with decals and sparkles. Everyone knew their moms made them come, swept along by Ms. Marion's vision. But we also knew they hated every minute here.

“I'm telling you,” Mary-Kate was saying, “that song wasn't even a gospel song when it was written, it was—”

Keisha cut her off. “Please,” she said, “don't tell
me
about gospel.”

Keisha had dark brown skin, and she usually wore her hair styled in dozens of long braids pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing tight, curvy jeans and a fitted pink T-shirt that said
DON
'T MESS WITH THE PRI
NCESS
—advice that Mary-Kate should have taken.

“You're not even African American,” Keisha said, jutting out her hip. “White people don't know a thing about gospel.”

Mary-Kate's eyes flashed. “That's racist,” she said, even though it was obvious Keisha had only said it to bait her.

Keisha rolled her eyes. “No, it isn't,” she argued. “Gospel is part of my heritage. I think I'd know if—” She stopped mid-sentence when she spotted me. “Tia! You're here!” She sprang over and wrapped her arms around me, nearly knocking me to the floor.

Mary-Kate scowled, ignoring my presence. “So if gospel is your heritage,” she said to Keisha, “then why don't you have a problem with Tia singing the lead on ‘I Know'?”

She meant because I was a skinny white girl with brown hair, dark brown eyes, and skin about as pale as a person's could be. Keisha didn't even pause.

“Because Tia does gospel the way it's supposed to be done,” she said. “No one in the world can belt it out like she can.”

Best friends are allowed to fudge the truth.

“Tia's voice is
okay,
” Mary-Kate said, “but I could sing the lead just as well. In my last choir, I was always the soloist. Everyone knows Ms. Marion plays favorites and that's why she chose Tia. Again.”

At Mary-Kate's church, I'd performed a song called “A Note to God” that Ms. Marion and I had been working on during my private lessons. It wasn't usually part of our program, but Ms. Marion thought the Presbyterians would like it. Afterward, Mary-Kate's mother had sought me out to tell me how moved she'd been by my performance, while Mary-Kate had tried to murder me with her glare.

“If you hate it here so much—” Keisha started, but she never had a chance to finish because that's when Ms. Marion called us to begin rehearsal.

“C'mon, children,” Ms. Marion coaxed in her thick accent. “Y'all take your places on the risers.”

Ms. Marion was originally from one of the parishes outside the city—Metairie or Slidell, I could never remember
which one. She didn't talk like New Orleans folk, smooth and neutral with just a hint of the south. She talked like a large, Southern woman, proud and loud.

Keisha gave Mary-Kate one last stare before pulling me onto the risers. We couldn't stand next to each other because Keisha was a soprano and I was an alto, but Keisha and I watched out for each other, so she wasn't about to leave me alone with Mary-Kate.

“Remember, children,” Ms. Marion said, “you are the living, musical embodiment of Martin Luther King's dream. Make me believe it!”

As we took our places, Ms. Marion started us humming, but we were flat. We practiced in Ms. Marion's church because it was free space, but it was hot—steaming even—and the lazy ceiling fans barely made a difference. No matter how hard Ms. Marion waved us on, the Rainbow Choir swayed half a beat too slow.

Everything was heavy.

“I know y'all can do better than this,” Ms. Marion chided. “Y'all can
be
better than this.” Ms. Marion's voice took on the singsong cadence of a preacher. “I
know,
” she said, “don't I just know, don't I just
know,
don't I just know?” She raised one eyebrow before turning the singsong into a song-song, filling in the first words of the song we'd been practicing. “I knooooow.”

She stomped one foot, shaking her arms in the air. Ms. Marion was a drama queen. In the back row the tenors started laughing and the altos covered their mouths with their hands. Ms. Marion grinned through the heat, and a bead of sweat ran down her plump cheek.

“Don't I just knoooow,” she sang, stretching those words like a siren call. Off to one corner, the preacher man nodded and said “Amen, sister” as he gathered the hymn books off the red velvet pews.

“C'mon now,” she said, and some of the parents clapped and whistled, cheering us on.

“Sing it, children,” said old Nana Whiskers, who always came to practice even though no child belonged to her.

Ms. Marion sang, “Don't you just knooow?” turning it into a question as we hummed in the background. Then she made it a command. “Tell me if you know.”

“I know,” we sang in answer. Ms. Marion let our words come out loud and quick, then cut them off with a swipe of her fist.

“Do you
know
?” she asked again.

“I know,” we answered.

I snuck a glance behind me. Keisha lifted her chin like she did when she was ready, Tallulah Jackson wriggled her hips, and Tyrone Sanderson stomped in rhythm to the drumbeat. Even shy Kenny Lin, the Korean tenor with the stutter, smiled in anticipation.

“One more time,” Ms. Marion prodded.

“I KNOW.”

Now we had it, and our words filled the small sanctuary.

“Tia,” Ms. Marion said, nodding at me. I took a step forward so I was standing front and center and inhaled a deep breath. This was my moment.

I reached down inside, found the music waiting, and let it loose.

“I know that the Lord is good, that the Lord is good, that the Lord is good. That's what I know.” My line soared above the choir, and I swear I felt my heart expand.

I sang like a magician pulling scarves from my sleeve. More and more scarves until it didn't seem like there could be any left. They flew up and out, every one connected to the last in a flurry of color. I sent my cool, bright sounds into the thick June air, letting the scarves weave their way through the rafters of the old church.

That's how it was that night.

The sound coming out of me was so loud, the preacher man stopped what he was doing and shut one of the big leather Bibles with a thump. Keisha's mom, Ms. Evette, sat in the first pew rocking baby Jerome back and forth. She was a large woman with close-cropped hair and beautiful high cheekbones, and her eyes were shut in appreciation. I heard her murmur
hmmm
and Jerome pointed at me with his chubby baby fingers. Old Nana Whiskers watched him and laughed like a hyena.

The sound was still coming, sucking up every scrap of breath, and behind me the choir lent their voices. They didn't sing, but they let me know they felt it too.

“All right.”

“Uh-hu
h.”

“Go Tia.”

I barely heard them. They were far, far away. Right then I didn't care about anything but my song soaring through the air. I didn't care that I was a twelve-year-old girl who didn't match the size or shape of a great singer. I didn't care that my father was in prison, and me and Ma barely scraped by. I didn't care that I was at church on a Thursday evening instead of home watching TV. I didn't even care that my own mother had never once come to hear me sing.

In that moment, nothing else mattered, so I let the sound pour out.

“I knooow,” I sang, pushing the volume louder and fuller than I ever had before. “I knooow,” I repeated, letting the spirit take over.
“I know, I know, I know, I kn
ow
.”

Everyone was clapping, hooting and hollering, lifting their hands in praise. Ms. Marion stomped her feet and the preacher man yelled, “Hallelujah!”

The sanctuary was filled with celebration. Power pulsed around me, and I sucked it inside, filling my lungs to their fullest, ready to let loose the next phrase.

Ms. Marion laughed, shaking her head and
stomping her feet, and Jo Jo Lawsen held up her open palms in praise. “I believe,” she cried from the second pew. “Oh Lord, I believe.”

And in that moment, so did I.

Until the sound of gunshots shattered the air.

O
NE MINUTE
I was singing loud and strong, pulling out the scarves, reaching for everything I knew was inside me, and the next moment the sound of gunfire pierced through the sanctuary. I'd heard gunshots before from far away, but these were right outside and moments later they were followed by a scream so horrible, it coursed through my body.

The sound stopped in my throat. It was a sharp stop, as if a faucet got turned off quick and hard. My chest constricted as the pastor and several of the parents who'd been watching rehearsal ran out of the building.

“Call 911!” someone yelled.

“Get the children downstairs!”

“Toil and trouble,” old Nana Whiskers moaned, rocking back and forth.

Some of the sopranos started to cry as Ms. Marion and Ms. Evette herded us off the risers. “Downstairs, everyone,” Ms. Marion shouted, signaling for us to go to the basement,
where the adult choir stored their robes. All the kids were pressing together on the staircase, and I tried to reach Keisha, but she was too far away. My knees shook and I thought I might fall.

When we finally made it downstairs, I felt sick to my stomach and too hot in the heavy air. I was straining to find Keisha, but it was Kenny Lin who came up beside me. I didn't know Kenny very well, but he reached out and took my hand. I wanted to cling to him the way I'd clung to a float one time when I'd nearly drowned in the YMCA swimming pool. Now I felt that same blind panic, and Kenny was the only life ring around.

“It'll be o-okay,” he said, working hard to get the word out despite his stutter. He held my hand for a long time, and I was surprised he didn't let go. His hand felt warm and smooth, and every time I started to tense up, he squeezed lightly as if to remind me he was there. No other boy would've done that, and I wasn't sure if I should thank him or try to pretend it was no big deal, but before I'd decided, there were footsteps on the stairs.

“Police are here,” one of the parents hollered. “They said we can bring 'em back upstairs.”

That should have been a relief, except now there was even more chaos as everyone tried to get up the stairs we'd just come down. In the crush, Kenny's hand dropped away from mine and we were pushed apart. When we reached the
top, all the parents who'd been watching rehearsal were waiting and they scooped up their children right away, hugging them tight.

I couldn't help wishing someone was there for me.

“Don't leave the building,” Ms. Marion yelled. “Everyone stay inside until the police say it's safe to go out.”

I looked around for Kenny and saw his rumpled figure beside Mark Whitmore. My face flushed when he caught my eye. I'd never held hands with a boy before.
Wh
y had he helped me?

Everyone was asking about what happened, and finally the pastor came back in from outside, and the look on his face was so full of horror, I knew that someone must have died. There was blood on his right hand, a thin streak from the thumb to the wrist, and I couldn't stop staring at it. He wiped it off right away, but the image was branded in my brain.

“The devil is roaming,” he breathed. “Oh Lord . . .”

He mumbled a prayer as Ms. Marion hurried down the aisle with the other adults. They met him by the door, talking in hushed voices, and I saw Ms. Marion's hand fly to her mouth. I strained to hear what they were saying, but it was impossible over the sirens.

Eventually, Ms. Marion came back, frowning and pushing us toward the risers.

“Come on, children,” she said, “we're going to sing the darkness out. No use standing around here letting evil
devour us. Might as well keep busy until the police say it's okay to leave.”

“What happened?” Keisha asked, her voice rising above the babble.

“Nothing y'all need to worry about,” Ms. Marion said. “You're safe, and that's the important thing.”

“Did someone get hurt?” Mary-Kate demanded.

Ms. Marion nodded. “Yes, but they've been transported to the hospital and they'll be given the best possible care.”

“I want to go home,” Amanda Chen said, starting to cry again.

“Now, now,” Ms. Marion chided. “Let's focus on something else. Your parents will take you home very soon, but until then you're all safe. I promise.”

That was a lie. Around here, safe was a wish, not a promise.

“Come on. Places, children. Take deep, supported breaths. Everyone breathe together now.”

We trickled back onto the risers, and Ms. Marion tapped one finger against her music stand. “Let's pick up where we left off. From the top.”

It didn't seem right to pretend as if nothing was wrong, but I could hear my mother's voice:
Lik
e it or not, life go
es on, Tia Rose
.

“Tia,” Ms. Marion said, nodding for me to step forward.

I relaxed my jaw, trying to remember the way I'd felt
before everything shattered, but my face was flushed and blotchy. I pictured the blood on the pastor's hand, and my stomach flipped like an undercooked pancake.

“Let's try to add more soul this time,” Ms. Marion was saying. She was stalling, trying to settle us down, so I breathed deep. The bass section squeaked out a
hmmm,
but the choir didn't sway. Sweat trickled down my forehead, and the world began to tilt.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fill my lungs.

Ms. Marion leaned forward. “Tia? You okay?”

I meant to say yes, but I fainted instead.