Shasta looked me over. “You look like the good kid.” It was hard to tell whether that was a compliment or not. “Your kind makes it hard on the rest of us.”
“Thanks a lot.”
We laughed together, and I decided I liked her. She was easy to talk to and irreverent enough to be fun.
“I guess we’d better go. I don’t want to hold you guys up,” I told her finally.
I reached for Landon’s hand, but he twisted around and pulled away. “I wan-go da boys.”
“Landon, now!” For a half second, I sounded mortifyingly like Barbie. Jewel whimpered and tried to crawl out of my arms, like she always did when Barbie went haywire. She leaned toward Shasta, her fingers extending and closing.
“Ssshhh,” I whispered, bouncing her on my hip. “Landon, let’s go.” If I grabbed him now, he’d suddenly develop spaghetti legs and drop to the ground. I’d either have to leave him where he was or pick him up and lug him back in one arm, with Jewel in the other.
All of a sudden, I was sorry I’d brought them outside. It wasn’t worth it. With the sibs, everything ended in chaos sooner or later.
Shasta cut in before I could say anything. “Hey, hey, hey,” she soothed, bending close to Landon. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go on back home right now and then we can all get together later and play?” She twisted to look at me. “Once Benji and Ty get up from a nap this afternoon, we can meet at the park. Maybe your stepmom and your aunt could come, too. Shoot, I’ll even pack us some sandwiches and Kool-Aid and chips, and we can have a little picnic over there for supper. Cody’s tied up this evening, so he won’t be home. It gets lonely in the evenings.”
It occurred to me that I had no idea when Barbie was coming home or what shape she would be in. “I’ll probably have to see how the afternoon goes.” With Barbie, there was no predicting. “I need to run to Walmart later for diapers and things.”
Shasta’s eyes widened. “Oh, man, if you’re going to Walmart, can we ride along? I’m, like, running out of everything, and Cody’ll have the truck at his night job all the rest of the week. If I don’t come up with some Cap’n Crunch and Teddy Grahams soon, there’s gonna be a mutiny at our house.”
I laughed, because in the last week, I’d come to fully understand the value of bribery as a survival mechanism. “I’ll probably go after lunch.” An idea hit me unexpectedly, and given the fact that the alternative was to go home to the paint spills, Aunt Lute, and the sibs’ usual warfare, it seemed like a good plan. “You know what—let me run back to the house, grab my purse and my keys, and we can go now. We’ve got extra booster seats that were for the nanny’s car. I’ll throw in a couple.”
“Awesome. We never turn down a free ride to Walmart.” Shasta peered speculatively down the street. “The guys and I’ll walk on down to the church, check it out a little, and you can just pick us up there when you’re ready.”
“Sure,” I replied, realizing that, whether I wanted to or not, I was going by the breadline for a visit.
Chapter 17
Sesay
Too many people in the Summer Kitchen today. Around me, the room is like the cane farm. It smells of sweat, and breath, and labor. The people watch you with quick, sideways glances, and you cannot know which ones might tell
him
something they’ve seen. Which ones might say,
I’ve seen her ill in the mornings; a baby is on the way
, or,
She tucked bread into her pocket. She wraps it in rags and dries it in the ropes under her bed. On the day the fields burn, when the rabbits run from the fire, she plans to take her pack and run away, too.
You cannot know, with so many people around, which ones are loyal to
him
, or when
he
will come and take you back to the cane farm, or perhaps put you on the boat to drift out over the water again, or have the police throw you into prison. Any of these can happen to a thief, to someone who takes bread, who runs away when there is harvesting to be done, when she hasn’t finished paying for her bed and her meals.
I am a thief, after all. All the people in the Summer Kitchen must see it. We are so close together, packed in among these tables, how can they miss knowing?
But MJ has asked me to come again today. She found me outside her bookstore as I watched the Indian chief paint a picture of a warrior kneeling. The warrior’s head is tipped back, his face and hands open. I know without being told that he is praying. The sky has opened overhead, and he looks at the face of Father God.
MJ invited the Indian chief to come across the street to eat lunch with us, and he agreed. Now he sits opposite me, and he asks if I have animals in my pocket. Each day, he leaves paint by the door. Little tubes of paint, and I can choose any color I like. At night, when Teddy secretly leaves the shed behind the church unlocked, I slip inside. The shed has a light, and I can carve until my eyes grow so heavy there is only time to set down the knife and lay my head on my blanket. Straightaway, I am asleep, and there is no chance to wonder if tonight will be the night
he
finds me and takes me away. I do not think of the cane fields or smell burning, unless it comes to me in a dream. In the morning, I rise early and leave the shed before Pastor Al arrives to open the church. This morning, I saw him talking to Teddy by the shed. I think he knows someone has been in there.
There is a shed in the yard where Root and Berry play. I have noticed that it has no lock, and a light hangs inside. If Pastor Al locks the church shed, I will try Root and Berry’s shed, instead. I can go in like smoke, as quietly as little Peter Rabbit into McGregor’s cane field. I won’t steal anything. I will only do my work, and then sleep, and leave before the sun rises.
As I go, I will look in the window and watch Root and Berry asleep in their beds, and then I will leave a little carving for them. A rabbit, perhaps.
I take the animals from my pocket and set them on the table, and the Indian chief turns them over in his hand, then holds a hummingbird up to the light. The wings are so thin, the light almost shines through them. To make this possible, the wood must be very wet. “I could sell these,” he says. “They’re very nice.”
“Father sells them in the mission. Father Michael.” I add his name at the last. Sometimes names fly in and out like sparrows.
The Indian chief turns over the hummingbird, touches its stomach with his fingertip. “You don’t sign your work? You should always sign your work. And selling them in the mission store is one thing, but I have a friend with a folk art gallery.” He looks up and catches my face, his eyes quick as a cat’s paw. “Downtown, where people have real money to spend.” He glances at MJ, and a conversation passes between them without words, and then I know it is not an accident that they have brought me to lunch today. They have taken me here to ask about my carvings. They have been talking about me while I am not around. This worries me. The more whispers in the air, the sooner
he
will hear.
Perhaps
, I think,
I should take my pack and travel on to another place. Perhaps it is time. . . .
The idea presses hard in my chest, like a stone pushing my breath away. Another place, without a shed, without a light, without the Summer Kitchen where the woman will wash my clothing, and MJ’s store with all the books.
It’s hard to think about another place. I like this place.
“Do you ever work on anything larger?” the Indian chief asks, but I barely hear him. It’s raining in my mind, all the rivers running dark and murky.
“Larger . . . do you ever work on anything larger?” he asks again.
“Larger things are heavy to carry,” I tell him, and he laughs, as if he should have thought of that. Everything I have must be carried with me. You can try to hide your things, but the street people will find them.
“True enough,” he says, then strokes his cedar-wood chin. The lines around his mouth and eyes are deep furrows, as if he has been frowning for a long time. He tosses his head, and hair flows over his shoulder like black liquid. He is beautiful. I know why MJ looks at him as she does. “You could leave them in my studio,” he tells me. “Larger pieces, I mean. You could leave them there while you work on them. There’s plenty of room.”
He must be guessing that he has come too close to me all at once, because he eyes me for a moment and says, “Hey, no pressure, all right? It’s just that . . . well, I know what it’s like to be in a bad spot. When I got out of prison, someone helped me get off the streets. It made the difference, that’s all. Just because a person’s had a tough time doesn’t mean they don’t have something to contribute. I like your work. You create beautiful things.” He admires the hummingbird while handing it back, and for a moment, I feel beautiful. I am as beautiful as a hummingbird, with its fine wings and green feathers that catch the sun.
“My grandfather taught me,” I say. “A long time ago. In a far place across the water. The place I came from.”
MJ rests a hand on her chin. “Where do you come from, Sesay? I don’t think I’ve ever asked.”
“The gallery would probably want to know that,” the Indian chief says. “With folk art, the cultural tradition is important. Like with me, the fact that I’m Choctaw and I take on Native American subjects adds value, you know?”
Only some of his words make sense to me, but I nod anyway. Inside, the rock is so heavy in my chest, I can barely breathe.
If they know where you come from, they can send you back. Perhaps they work for
him
. Perhaps
he
is just around the corner.
I stand partway, the bench pressing against my knees as I look around the room. No one is there except men, and women, and families, bent over their plates taking in food as if it might run away before they can eat it all. I put my animals back in my pocket anyway. The Indian chief returns the hummingbird, but he seems to regret parting with it.
“I can bring a larger one for you,” I say, and sit down again. Later, I will go to the creek, where tangles of branches have been left behind by the floods. I will sort out one that is perfect for a hummingbird. If I have a place to carve tonight, I will breathe life into the wood.
“Awesome,” the Indian chief says. “I’ll look forward to it.” He stretches a hand across the table, the way men do when they have made a bargain. I am uncertain what to do. No one has ever held out a hand to me before. Even Michael at his Crossings Church is aware that people like me have learned to keep a distance. Yet, here is the Indian chief holding out his brown hand, open on the table with the palm up. I slide my fingers across and touch them to his, and his skin is warm. It feels strange. “It’s a deal, then,” he says, while still holding my hand. Then he lets go, as if he fears that too much of this will frighten me. He eyes me like I am a fish in a net, as he stands up and kicks one foot over the bench, then the other. “You know, you’re welcome to come use my studio anytime.”
I tell him I am grateful for the paint and the brush, and then he says he must go back to his work. He thanks me for the conversation, as if my conversation might be of value. I feel the stone lifting from my chest, air flowing in again. “You should tell your friends about the yellow houses,” I say to him. “They should be told.”
His face lengthens, and he nods. “MJ mentioned some things about Householders.” There is a look of pain in his face.
“It is a bad thing, those houses. People come to them smiling, and they leave weeping.” I have seen families in the mission who were in yellow houses. I have heard them curse those places.
The Indian chief nods again. “If Shasta and Cody would’ve given me some time, I could’ve asked around about Householders before they bought the place, but trying to hold Shasta back is like trying to stop a Mack truck with your bare hands, you know? She’s a trip. Anyway, they’re in the house now.” He shrugs, as if it is not his business to tell. He says good-bye then, and MJ watches him leave. She has a fond look in her eye, a love look.
“I could carve a passion box,” I say. “A passion box causes love to come about, if you put the hair of your desired one inside.” I make the motion of tucking a bit of hair into a box, and her eyes fly wide, like a startled doe’s.
“Are you talking about Terence and me?” She chokes as if she has swallowed the bag along with the tea. “He rents the back half of my building. That’s it. He only came over here today because he wanted to talk to you about your carvings.”
“I think he came because of you.” I am certain this is true. Why would anyone walk across the street for me?
MJ tells me we should finish our plates and attend to story time on the porch, and so we do. But in my mind I am thinking about the passion boxes. I am trying to remember—what is the pattern my grandfather painted? My grandfather carved many such boxes. He traded them to the man who passed by with the cart, but the passion boxes never paid for enough food, so there were always more to carve.
I can see my grandfather’s hands as we stand up. The girl with the beautiful hair, Cass, comes to take our plates. Today, she has a little girl trailing behind her, a mulatto girl with gray eyes. She hands a glass to the little girl and patiently says, “You can carry this, Opal.” Then to us she adds, “Was it good?” She smiles at MJ, then at me.
“Yes, very,” MJ tells her. “Are you coming outside for story time?”
“Who’s telling today?” Her eyes dart from one of us to the other, as if she cannot decide which would be better.
“It is MJ’s day to tell,” I answer, and give a tiny bird to the little mulatto girl. Her mouth opens into a circle as she touches it. “I have already told the story of Peter, the muck rabbit. How he escaped the man’s garden, but then he was almost lost when the cane fields burned. He ran with all the other muck rabbits. Everywhere there were men and boys with brooms and clubs and nets. But Peter was a clever rabbit. He ran back through the smoke and leaped the flames and escaped. Then he rushed home to his mother.”