The Penny (15 page)

“Baby girl,” he said, while I cried for myself and for Eddie Crockett’s music and for Aurelia and because I didn’t know if my mama or daddy ever really loved me. “I don’t know what you been doing.”

And Eddie Crockett, with his wounded arm, said, “Have you forgotten that there’s just hurts you got to give over to the Lord, child? Because if you don’t figure out how to do that, a body bigger than the whole world still won’t be big enough to hold it all in.”

Chapter Seventeen

I
thought the first day of school would never get here. Now that the morning had arrived, the rubbery smell of my new book satchel filled the air as I stood on the front steps, watching the buses pull up. I waited for Aurelia, terrified that she wouldn’t talk to me.

When I laid eyes on the low-slung building that morning, it seemed to have diminished in size. The grass in the schoolyard poked up in patches as iffy as fur on a mangy dog. Summer flowers that still bloomed in clumps beside the flagpole would be trampled by our horseplay within three days’ time.

One new portable building had been set beside the others, its aluminum glinting bright beside the more weathered ones. A teacher stood on a chair outside her portable classroom, washing windows.

I saw the roof of the Ville bus coming as it slid behind the fence that separated our sidewalk from the long row of multiple-family dwellings behind it. I heard the engine shuddering as the bright egg-yolk-colored bus swayed stiffly around the turn. The monstrous flat face of it aimed straight at me with its grinning chrome grill, the headlamps like two colorless, knowing eyes.

The fender was about to swing up over the curb when the bus driver honked at me to get out of the way. I jumped two steps back, stumbled up over a third. For a few breathless seconds, the bus idled without opening its doors.

I was still waiting for the Ville kids to unload from the bus when Rosalyn and Cindy came from the opposite direction and shoved their way past me.

“What’s the matter, Jenny?” Rosalyn said, low enough so only I could hear. “You waiting for the rest of your class to get here? Heard you’re wanting to go to school in the portables this year. Heard the only friends you have go to class in those buildings.”

It would have been the perfect chance to haul off and belt Rosalyn with my satchel. But the bus doors pleated open and the Ville students started hopping off. They didn’t jostle me the way Rosalyn had done. Their tight-knit groups parted respectfully around me, giving me a wide berth, although they didn’t make any sign of noticing I was there.

“Aurelia?” I looked everywhere for her, but she wasn’t there.

The driver leaned forward and tipped his hat to me. “You waiting for Aurelia Crockett to get off this bus, you going to be standing here all day. Darnell bought himself a car, and they be arriving to school in style.”

No sooner had he said that then a black rattletrap Ford pulled up behind the bus. Daddy’s favorite saying about Fords came to mind: F.O.R.D. Found on Road Dead. I could see Garland’s nose pressed against the glass. When the door opened and Aurelia climbed out, she looked first-rate.

She wore a pair of new Buster Brown saddle shoes and a skirt I recognized from last year, only her aunt must have sewn trim on it because it had a ribbon now that dressed it up. She wore her hair slicked down with gel and a white plastic bandeau. Aunt Maureen hadn’t let her wear gel in her hair before. She wore a necklace of white beads as big around as Superman marbles.

Aurelia made a fine fashion statement, which is what everybody tried to do on the first day of school.

“Well, woo
woo,
” I said, desperate to make her glance in my direction. “Don’t you look nice?”

“Come on, Garland,” she said. “We don’t got all day for you to be scared about school. You take ahold of my hand now.”

I remembered that Garland’s birthday had come and gone. He must be starting kindergarten in the portables with the rest of them.

When Garland saw me standing on the steps, he wrenched loose of Aurelia’s hand and ran over.

“Miss Jenny,” he said, lifting his palm up so I could see what was in it. “Look what I brought to the first day of school.” He unclenched small, sweaty fingers and showed me the penny in his hand.

“That the one I think it is?”

“The same one I picked up the day you went to church with us,” he said. “You saved yours. I saved mine, too. You remember?”

“Yep, I do. I remember lots of things.”

But Garland must have caught me looking at it like I had no faith in it anymore. He tightened his grip around his penny again and shoved it inside his pocket.

“I brought it because this is my first real day of school,” he insisted. “I wanted to have it with me after everything you said.”

My reply sounded empty even to me. “Well, good. You hold on to it now.” I raised my gaze to see Darnell behind the wheel, his arm extended across the front seat, watching us.

“You save up your box money for that car?” I asked, trying with everything I could to be friendly and erase the disapproval in his eyes.

I’d forgotten that Darnell wouldn’t be coming to our school this year. I’d have no chance to redeem myself with him. After he dropped these two off, he was moving up to high school.

“Hey.” He said the word sharp, meaning he wanted to talk to Aurelia and not me. “You going to be okay?”

“You get on out of here,” Aurelia hollered, waving him off. “You’re going to be late like the rest of us.” Then: “Garland, come on.” When Aurelia reached for Garland’s hand again, she made a point of not meeting my eyes. She gave me plenty of space, just the same as everybody else.

“I saw your daddy,” I said.

Long ago, when I’d tried to revive that redbird, I had held it in my grasp and rolled drops of water down its face, trying to make it move again. Instead it lay against my skin with its eyes clenched shut, its body dry and stiff. Aurelia’s voice held the same dryness, the same stiffness, when she spoke now.

“I know. He said you came over. Seems funny you feel like you can walk into my house any time you want to, but when I want to bring news over to your place, I got no right.”

“You should have called, maybe.”

“See, that’s what I mean. Come on, Garland. We got to go.”

All this time, I’d been picturing how I’d keep Aurelia arguing and eventually I’d wear her down. I’d bring her around to my way of thinking. But what I hadn’t imagined was the way it would wrench me inside, like I was falling down a well and there was nothing to stop me at the bottom, seeing Aurelia so hurt.

Once, I’d peered into a church window made to look like a dove’s wing. Once, I’d thought Jesus could be more than just a doe-eyed picture I’d seen hanging in that foyer at Antioch Baptist Church on my way in. I’d seen the image of wheat in the window, a shape that pointed me to the wheat on the copper penny I held tight beneath my thumb. When I’d listened to Aurelia’s preacher, I’d thought Jesus would come out swinging and throwing punches and wrestling the devil to the ground on my behalf.

But I’d given Jesus plenty of time to prove himself just the way that preacher said he’d do. As far as I could tell, Jesus had never even gotten started.

What difference did a penny make when I kept hurting everybody I loved this way?

“Go ahead.” She made me so frustrated, I wanted to shout,
You ever think there might be a reason I did what I did?
But it was easier to hide behind being irate. “I sure don’t care.”

I saw her lay her hand against Garland’s shoulder to hurry him along.

“That’s right,” I said louder. “You go on inside.”

I saw Garland’s head twist, saw his dark eyes search for my own. I narrowed my brows and glared fiercely at him. That was the last thing I needed, some little kid making me feel bad. Which doubled my aggravation, remembering how Garland had shown the penny to me in his sweaty palm. Now that I sneered at him, he scurried to his cousin’s skirt in fear.

Darnell still hadn’t driven away from the curb. Aurelia ignored me, but Darnell didn’t. I saw him reach for his car handle. Any second he would unfold himself from behind the steering wheel of his rattletrap and come after me.

“You bothering my cousin for kicks? You don’t talk to her, you hear me?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere, Darnell?” I said with my fists half clenched at my sides. “You don’t scare me.”

“You mess with my cousin—” Darnell revved the engine on the Ford and from the way it clanked beneath the hood, it sounded like it was about to fall out. I saw him spit out the window and knew good and well what that meant. I’d seen him spit plenty when we’d arm wrestled in the Ville. He spat when he got mad. Darnell uttered the words just the same as when my elbow was planted on the porch table and he had my fingers in a vise and he thought he could slam my wrist down easy. “You’re declaring a war you can’t win.”

“Too bad.”

“You hurt her good.”

“Well, maybe it’s her own fault for letting herself get hurt by the breeze blowing the wrong way.”

When Aurelia finally piped up behind me, her voice sounded as thin as a reed on the Blue Notes’
oboe, ready to snap.

“Stop it, both of you! You’re scaring Garland. He don’t know what to think, the two of you talking that way.”

Darnell spat again.

“Darnell,” Aurelia said.
“Go on.”

Class must have already started. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I remembered hearing the bell ring. The doors to the portables had been firmly latched. Aurelia struggled with the unwieldy screen and managed to get somebody to unlock the door. She stuffed Garland inside, her backbone set straight as one of those broom handles they used to play games in the street.

“You said you were my friend,” I accused, “but I guess it’s plain you don’t care that much about me,” which made Aurelia wheel on me so fast that I got dizzy.

“You expecting me to say you’re right so you can feel good about yourself? Well, you’re expecting wrong.”

I dropped my satchel, just stood there on the sidewalk.

“What is wrong with you, Jenny? What is
wrong with you
? One minute you’re shoving us away and building brick walls around yourself so you won’t get hurt. Next minute you’re expecting us to be so perfect to you. There’s no way we can do it.”

“There is
nothing
wrong with
me,
” I lied.

Aurelia went on inside then, but Darnell revved his engine again. When he did, he made such a racket that our principal finally came to investigate.

“What’s going on out here?” Mr. Lancaster demanded.

I remember thinking two things when Mr. Lancaster came: (1) It was only the first day and I’d already made a mark for myself, just as sure as Aurelia had made hers with her saddle shoes and gelled hair; and (2) If Daddy got a call that I’d been out here shouting, he’d wipe the smile off my face with the back of his hand and then some. I was going to get it.

I’d lost Aurelia for good. I felt like I’d lost everything.

But Mr. Lancaster didn’t notice me. He kept glaring at Darnell like a pit bull. Without taking his eyes off the ramshackle car, Mr. Lancaster snapped open his watch and held it so he could see its hands clicking slowly around in circles.

“Miss Blake, is this boy bothering you?” which struck me as odd because he’d called me by name and he knew Darnell just the same as he did me. Darnell had been one of his students last year.

I stared daggers at Darnell, but he didn’t return the challenge. He just waited, looking at me. Then it must have hit him for sure because I saw him get scared. That’s the minute I realized what I could do to him.

Daddy had put the meanness in me. The malice rose in me so fast I didn’t see it coming. I could say one word and end it right here. I could pay Darnell back for every time he’d looked at me like I wasn’t good enough to be seen in his neighborhood. I could pay him back for every time he’d glared down his nose at me, every time he’d tried to keep Aurelia from me because he thought it was my fault he couldn’t try on a hat at a gentlemen’s shop or buy a soft drink at a soda fountain.

He’s acting out-of-place to me,
I could have accused. And it wouldn’t have been far from the truth. My word against his to Mr. Lancaster and I could have gotten Darnell into plenty of trouble.

He knew it, too. I saw a muscle flinch in his jaw. He just sat there in his car waiting for me to turn against him.

“You don’t know a thing, Darnell,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“You don’t know a thing about what’s going on with me. The more you keep acting like you do, the dumber you seem.”

“So, why don’t you tell me?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? If it’s so important that it ruined your whole life, then why don’t you tell me?”

I jammed my new satchel up beneath my arm. His daring me to speak felt especially dangerous. Daddy’s words whispered their ominous threat; he had warned me, and I knew clear down to my soul that he meant it.
You breathe a word to anybody about what goes on in this house and you’ll stir up trouble for the whole family.
“I wouldn’t tell you anything if I
had
to, Darnell.”

Yet one angry challenge from Darnell and here I was, perilously close to blurting everything out. Darnell stared me down, daring me to try to explain my deeds and my dark feelings when even
I
couldn’t say where they had come from. It terrified me that he could make me even
think
of saying something.

“Miss Blake?” Mr. Lancaster persisted. When the principal grasped my shoulder this time, I recoiled, feeling Daddy’s control over me, feeling encroached upon, not wanting any man to invade my space. The principal raised his brows at me in surprise.

“Miss Blake, you need to get to class. If you don’t, you’ll be marked tardy.” I saw Darnell turn his attention to the road straight ahead. He stared at the spot where the two lanes converged into a point on the horizon, and re-curled his fingers around the steering wheel.

“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s my friend. He isn’t bothering me.”

“I’m not any friend of yours.” Darnell flexed his hands against the steering wheel again.

“Miss Blake, I don’t think I need to remind you that this sort of behavior isn’t appropriate.”

The principal exhibited the clicking hands of his watch to Darnell. “You see the time on this watch? If you’re not gone in three seconds flat, I’m calling the police. I will not have a kid like you hanging around, disrupting the Harris campus.”