The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Read online

  From the kitchen I can hear Aunt Loretta and her friend talking — as clearly as I can hear Grandma and Miss Verle.

  “You know I went to college. Just down to California. That’s as far as my imagination could take me then,” Helen says. “And then, you know, I loved it there. I wanted to see more. So for law school I went to Howard. I’m at a firm in D.C. So is my husband.”

  “That’s great,” Aunt Loretta says. “I knew you’d do great.”

  “Last I heard you and Nathan had run off and got married. You two were moving somewhere for him to play ball. And you know you hurt my feelings, right? I was supposed to be the maid of honor.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a special thing. We did it simple — at the courthouse.”

  “I bet Miss Doris was none too happy about that. She’d been wanting to fit you for a wedding gown since we were in seventh grade!”

  “Mama has her own ways,” Aunt Loretta says. “I think she was still glad I had a man and I didn’t run off alone, for some crazy other thing.”

  “Bless her heart,” Helen says laughing before her voice gets real soft. “Lolo, what happened with Nathan?”

  “He did play ball. I loved the time we lived in New York, the museums, the galleries, the energy. I worked up the nerve to take a couple art classes too. I was working up the nerve to maybe show some pieces — like to a gallery. But then Nathan and I — it didn’t work out.” Aunt Loretta’s voice suddenly sounds shaky and high.

  “I’m sorry,” Helen says.

  “You know how Nathan was,” Aunt Loretta says. “He kept being Nathan. He couldn’t help but mess around. Aunt Loretta pauses for just a second and says in almost a whisper: “Then he didn’t care what it was he was messing with. He messed around with it all — my friends, his friends’ wives, and then whatever, woman or man.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it all up.”

  There is a long silence, and I hope the teakettle won’t suddenly blow, so I turn the heat off before the water boils.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Aunt Loretta says. “How long are you in town?”

  “A couple more days. But you know my sister’s back living here now. She’s trying to get the Jack and Jill back up and running. That’s all you Miss Rose Festival Princess! It’s time we had some more black folks in this town doing something.”

  I carry in the teapot and cups on a tray, and Aunt Loretta turns as if she had forgotten I was there.

  “Aren’t you a dear,” Helen says and pats me on the shoulder. “Do it for this one here — she’s a Jack and Jill girl or a Links deb if I ever saw one. Make sure she meets up with the right boys.”

  Aunt Loretta takes the tray from me and sets it down. “Is that something you want to do Rachel? Have a coming-out ball?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Is it like a confirmation? In Denmark everyone has a confirmation when they turn fourteen. You wear a white dress like a wedding.”

  “Denmark?”

  “My mom’s from Denmark.”

  “That brother of yours was so fine,” Helen says to Aunt Loretta. “Figures some white woman would snatch him up,” she says laughing. “All those years, I was thinking I was going to be Mrs. Morse.”

  After Helen leaves, Aunt Loretta hardly says a word all through dinner and even when we clean up after dessert.

  “Aunt Loretta, are you okay?” I ask when she comes to say good night.

  “I’m fine, Rachel. Just fine.”

  But I can see she’s not, and for the first time I think that smiling Aunt Loretta has middle layers like me. Maybe she’s made herself into the new girl too.

  NO ONE EXCEPT Tracy knows that when the bus lets us off at Holy Redeemer after school I meet Anthony Miller in the empty vestibule. I wait inside, up fourteen steps. And sometimes I really believe that God is right there behind the large oak doors, because he’s sending Anthony Miller to me.

  It is cold in the vestibule, and empty and dark. The only light comes from the three stained-glass windows at the vestibule’s top nearly thirty feet high. The left window is a man kneeling with his hands in prayer. His eyes are open and looking up at an empty throne with a cross on top. The throne is bejeweled — that’s my new favorite word. It sounds like a command and has such long sounds it could go on forever. The jewels on the throne cast triangles of red, green, and blue light on the marble steps. On the days the bus driver skips the stop before Holy Redeemer where only one student gets off, the light will be just right and we can stand on the steps in those jewels. I can see Ojibway angles to Anthony Miller’s face in that light, but I don’t tell him that.

  In the middle window above the door is the other half of the chair and Jesus standing next to it. Jesus looks out of the corner of his eye toward the kneeling man as if he’s laughing at the man for bowing to the chair. I wonder whether that happens all the time: God stands to the side wondering why we keep asking for wishes to come true from empty chairs. The window on the right is the same size as the one on the left. It’s a picture of a long table with the food all gone and the chalices spilled over. But there is no spill. Maybe that is what the man in the left picture window is asking: Please don’t let us be thirsty.

  When Anthony Miller kisses me, I try not to sweat; I’m so happy. I don’t want to drown in this feeling. I feel light the way I did when Mor would hold me in her arms as we swam. This isn’t what Grandma means when she prays for the sick to be lifted up, but maybe this is what it feels like. We kiss until the light changes; that’s when people come into the church again. I like to have this secret. Anthony Miller is only for me. Inside.

  MISS AMERICA IS black today, and she has blue eyes. There is a small picture on the bottom of the newspaper’s front page. She doesn’t look black to me. Grandma picks up two newspapers to have one extra. She is happy that a black woman is the most beautiful woman in the world. And so is the grocery store cashier. It’s a new day, the grocery store cashier says. And I believe that I am supposed to be happy about it.

  The grocery store clerk is dark-skinned-ed, like Grandma and Aunt Loretta. Not Grandma nor the grocery store clerk look anything like the white-looking black woman with blue eyes who is the first black Miss America.

  And then I think: I could be Miss America if I got prettier.

  But I am going through an awkward phase Aunt Loretta says. My hair is short and frizzy. I cut the tangles right off my tender head one night with my science-class scissors. When Grandma saw me with this short, frizzy thing no one could call a hairstyle, she said, “What done got into you to cut the hair off your head?”

  I won’t be all nappy anymore. That’s what I said but only inside. Outside I just shrugged.

  AT THE AME ZION CHURCH, when we sing holiday songs, beneath my breath I sing the Danish words. The choir is so loud no one can tell that during “Silent Night” I sing stille and not “still,” hellige and not “holy.” I’m glad I remember these sounds. I have learned a lot of words since I came to Grandma’s. Dis, conversate, Jheri curl. There are a lot more. And sometimes I feel those words taking up too much space. I can’t remember how to say cotton in Danish or even the word for cloud. What if you can have only so many words in you at once? What happens to the other words?

  My friend Tracy sometimes makes me say Danish stuff to test me. Then she giggles and says, “It sounds like you’re talking Scooby-Doo language. Like I can almost understand.”

  “Well I can understand what I’m saying.”

  “Say some more.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like — I like kissing boys,” she says.

  Then we laugh because we do. Tracy likes a boy in our math class, but she says he probably likes me. His name is Jay. He has light brown hair that waves — not curls. There’s a difference. And really long eyelashes like a girl doll. I think maybe he is Jewish because his last name is Stein. I told Tracy that I know Jay doesn’t like me, for sure. He’s white. White people don’t think black people are pretty. Mostl
y it’s because of our hair. It works different. And it smells different with more lotions in it. Also, black women are not as pretty as white women. There are exceptions — Aunt Loretta, Miss America — but not many.

  FOR GRANDMA THERE’s a lot of church in Christmas. There’s a lot of church for her in most things. So when Aunt Loretta brings home the not real Christmas tree coated in fake snow, Grandma decorates it with a star on top, blue tinsel, and her angel ornaments.

  Grandma unwraps her ceramic angels one by one. They all kneel in prayer with their hands clasped together. They wear white robes and white wings. Grandma wipes off each one and gives their halos a good shine. Then she sets them on the coffee table so that they look like a choir lining up to sing.

  “Grandma, all of your angels are white,” I say.

  “Angels are angels,” Grandma says.

  “But they all have blue eyes and blond hair,” I say. Grandma looks at her collection then really hard at me.

  “Angels ain’t people,” she says. Then Grandma makes a humph sound and leaves the room.

  The Christmas tree is the background to all of the photos Aunt Loretta takes on Christmas Day. There’s the new girl opening presents; there she is saying thank you to Grandma with a big hug; she’s eating the pie Grandma made special; and there she is again saying good night in a brand-new nightgown. And the tree is always right behind her with Grandma’s angels and their bright white faces.

  That night when I close my eyes to sleep, Grandma’s angels are the only thing on my mind. The angels and me — we all line up for a song. We sing “Glade Jul.” Again and again. We let ourselves sing off key. We dance around the Christmas tree. The angels flap their wings, and then I see Mor — yes, it’s her. Right there in the second row. And Ariel. She’s there too with her smaller halo, and she sings too. And Robbie. He looks just like himself even though he’s wearing that white robe and fluffy white wings. Robbie flaps so hard he’s shaking his feathers free. Small and soft and white. The other angels flap just as hard. We’re in a blizzard of white. We sing all night. Until it’s time for a new day.

  AT SCHOOL EVERYTHING about black history you learn in one month. I already learned about most of the things in my other school. The main ones are slavery and how Lincoln made the slaves free, how there were different water fountains, and about Martin Luther King Jr. There are black women in history too — Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Phillis Wheatley. I hear the stories different now though. They make me think of the day that Pop was sad because the fastest man in the world had died, and the time that Mor and Pop said we were too young to watch the movie about slavery on TV. Whatever those things had to do with each other, I know now that they also had something to do with me.

  Brick

  Brick peered into several rooms before he found her. And then he stood by the door for a long while before the man in the military uniform by the girl’s bed noticed him.

  “You here for Rachel?” the man asked when he looked up, his voice trembling.

  “Yes, sir. My name is,” and he hesitated before saying, “Brick.”

  “Come on in. You can’t hurt her.”

  The man wore a dark blue military uniform, tie, light blue long-sleeved shirt, polished black shoes. There were five stripes like wings on his shirt sleeve. His hat was set on the rolling table by the girl’s bed.

  The deep purple that was the girl’s left side resembled a birthmark. A tube jutted from her mouth. Wires and machines hung above and surrounded her bed.

  “I was going to play for my girl.” The man took from his pocket a silver harmonica. He put it to his lips and played a sad-sounding song.

  The man played the tune once, then twice more. By the second go-through, Brick had perched himself on the chair next to the man. He closed his eyes.

  “Can I try?” Brick asked when the man was done.

  The man wiped the harmonica with a handkerchief.

  “Hold it like this,” he said and demonstrated for Brick. Brick held the harmonica to his mouth as the man had shown him. He blew. So much breath was in him his first note sounded like a horn.

  The girl’s eyes opened.

  Brick stepped back and knocked over the rolling table.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He repeated the words until he wore them down.

  The girl’s eyes closed as suddenly as they had opened.

  “It’s okay,” the man said, holding Brick. His hands were strong and calming. And then, as Brick gave a feather-light touch to press back, the man seemed to break. He took Brick in his arms and wept. When the man finally lifted his head from Brick’s shoulder, he said, “She’ll get better. She has to.” Then he stood soldier straight and shook Brick’s hand. “You can come back anytime.”

  BRICK VISITED THE next day again. The man was playing the same song when Brick arrived. Brick stood by the door until he was through. “Come in,” the man said when he noticed Brick. “I’m going to teach you this — one note at a time.”

  The man’s shirt was wrinkled. His scent from yesterday had doubled from heat.

  The man took a flask from the inside of his uniform jacket, which hung on the chair he sat in. He drank. “Okay, this is how it goes.”

  BRICK VISITED THE next day again.

  The man seemed to be waiting for him. He called him over to the chair by the girl’s bed, hoisting him onto his lap. “What do you remember of the song?” Brick took the harmonica from the man and played an unsteady tune.

  “Not bad. Not bad.”

  Brick played the tune again and again. The man sometimes stopped him to remind him of a forgotten note. Every few minutes the man drank from the flask, which he tucked into a duffel bag after each long sip. The man’s eyes were red today and heavy-lidded. Long circles stained his sleeves, and he had a spot on the front of his untucked shirt.

  The girl — half of her the color of red wine — breathed to the machine’s rhythm. The man and Brick sat silently watching her for many minutes.

  “She your girlfriend?” the man asked as he eyed Brick.

  “Huh?”

  “She your girlfriend? My daughter your girl?”

  “No, sir.” Brick took the question as an accusation. He wasn’t guilty and said so.

  “She’s too young for the boys. You understand, right?” Brick blinked. It was best to agree.

  “Let me ask you something.” The man paused, then coughed — the last swig from his flask had caught in his throat. “You ever been in love?”

  Brick’s face became a question mark.

  “It’s a bitch. What you’ll do. What you’ll need.”

  Rachel

  There’s nothing better than June because it’s the end of the school year and there’s nothing but summer for weeks. Except first it’s Race Day. It’s the end-of-the-year Olympics, and our class is Guam. Mrs. Anderson likes the way it sounds, and the other good countries are taken.

  I was the fastest girl in the fifth grade. Fifth grade. That’s when I ran faster than everyone except Eric Smith. The teachers called him Eric S. We called him Fast Eric. There was also Erik K. with a k. We called him Smart Erik. Sometimes when I used to run, I would think I could beat anybody — even Eric S. Sometimes I didn’t think at all. Just ran. And it felt good.

  I don’t know if I can beat anyone here.

  Today is Race Day and Tamika Washington looks at me. She been looking at me; she’s looking at me now and started a long time ago.

  But since I cut my hair Tamika Washington don’t be minding me much no more. Aunt Loretta says Tamika is jealous because her hair won’t grow. Now that my hair is shorter than Tamika’s she calls me Afro-head, because my hair curls up any way it wants and hers is straight and flat. I don’t understand why Tamika is looking at me that way.

  Tamika gets the other girls to look at me that way too. Tamika has a lot of friends: Tonya, Keisha, Sierra, and even Carmen LaGuardia. I have one girlfriend and a boyfriend. But my friend is white and my boyfriend is secret. I have n
o black friends.

  Black girls don’t seem to like me. Maybe there is something dangerous about me. Aunt Loretta says there isn’t. Good students aren’t always going to be popular with their peers. Those are her exact words. “You make them have to work harder.”

  I want to be a good student. I know how to do that. I think being a good student will help me in the long run. I think of the long run, the way that Aunt Loretta says it. Me, running, down the sidewalk past the old German dairy store and Emanuel Hospital, across the Fremont Bridge, and through the hills that must lead to somewhere. Aunt Loretta wishes she had thought about the long run, had studied more, gotten a better job and a husband different than Uncle Nathan that wasn’t so funny and didn’t have a special kind of disease just for men who are funny like him. You can get real sad later if you don’t think about the long run as open arms that will hold you.

  The race starts. I run. I run faster than Tamika. And maybe I’m going as fast as Eric S. would. I run and run harder. And I cross the finish line first.

  The medal ceremony is in the middle of the football field so everyone can see. I go to the center of the field. It is Carmen LaGuardia, the student class president, who gives me the blue ribbon and medal I will wear home that afternoon. I imagine how she will put the blue ribbon with the golden saucer-sized medallion around my neck. Gently, gently. Then smooth the front of my shirt with a long, soft stroke. She will take my hand and raise it in victory, and everyone will see that the beautiful Carmen LaGuardia is just like me. She is no longer one of the fifteen. And I will no longer count myself as one.

  These are the first words she says to me: “Mmmh, girl. You got them boys pantin with your titties all hanging out. Don’t try to steal my man with those.” Tamika is second place and bends at the waist laughing. She is still bent over when Carmen LaGuardia puts the smaller medallion around her neck and then gives her a high five. I don’t cry. I have the blue bottle. I make resolutions. I turn twelve next month. It’s Day 223. I’m the new girl. I must be the new girl. I will fill myself with the color blue.