The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (3 page)

It was not until the policemen came and raked through the courtyard’s waste that Jamie could turn away. The policemen collected matchbooks, soda bottles, and empty brown paper bags, scraps of paper, and other possible clues: a jack of clubs playing card lying on a brown-stained sheet, and a ticket from Saturday’s Quick Pick Lotto. Jamie was still holding his
Peterson Field Guide
. He had no names for what he saw.

Laronne

These white girls, Laronne thought despite herself. These white girls think all they need is love.

When Laronne heard what happened, she made herself family. Laronne convinced the building super to let her up. “She’s my sister-in-law,” she said. “They were my babies too.” But she hadn’t had to lie. Laronne’s was the only contact name on Nella’s rental application, under “employer.”

“Maybe you can find something they couldn’t,” the super said.

In the four weeks since Laronne had hired her, Nella had always been on time. When she didn’t show up that Tuesday morning, Laronne called to find out what was wrong. Nella did not answer the phone.

Nella had seemed distracted the last few days. The baby—just six months old—wasn’t sleeping. And the boy, he wasn’t feeling too well. And Nella’s daughter—such a little lady—she was beside herself because there was no money to visit the amusement park before the summer’s end as Nella had promised. Laronne couldn’t make everything better, but she had fifty dollars to lend for the kids to enjoy the park’s big rides.

“I know you worry about them—new to the city and all—but kids can’t be cooped up watching TV all summer,” Laronne had said. “Go on, take this. And don’t worry none about when you get this back neither. Go and you and the kids have some fun.”

Laronne was happy to help. Over the years, she’d become quite the hen-mother to her employees in the community college library. When they had no place to go on holidays, she insisted they crowd her dinner table. A couple of times an employee had come to live with her just to get through a tight month. And her son had grown used to seeing piles of presents under the Christmas tree—all meant for his mother’s employees and their families.

Laronne’s husband sometimes chided her for getting too involved. “You’re the boss, not the mom.” But Laronne knew that her employees—mostly young mothers newly divorced working outside the home for the first time—were all working on a second chance. If she could do any small thing to help, she would.

Nella took the money and smiled. It was the same wide smile Laronne remembered when she told Nella she had the job.

“I am new in the city,” Nella said “I was thinking . . . I
thought—Roger always said it would be hard. America was not what I thought it was. Thank you. Thank you.”

Laronne laughed.

“Oh, child. It isn’t easy. Especially not this town. Can’t imagine picking it over where you’re from.”

In her first days at the job, Laronne learned that Nella had left Germany and her husband for a man, an American contractor she’d met at an AA meeting near base.

She fell in love the night he drove her home in his beat-up Benz after a group potluck, but got lost with the directions she gave. It was the kind of thing that could have set Roger into a rage. Why couldn’t she just learn to read a map? But Doug said they’d have to figure out a different way to get her home. He stopped the car, walked over to open her door, and said: “We’ll just navigate by the stars.”

Oh, these white girls,
Laronne thought.

Two weeks ago Laronne had found Nella in the bathroom curled into a ball, crying. She shook with every breath like a fist was opening up inside her.

“Laronne,” Nella had said, “I thought it was right. I do not know what to think. Feel.” Laronne had never been one to counsel or advise, but she saw that Nella needed some words, any words: “Just pay attention to what happens in here,” she had said, making a circle in the center of her chest with her hand. You can’t tell a grown woman what to do no way, she thought. “And take care of yourself and those kids,” she said. “That’s all you got to do.”

I
T WAS SLIGHTLY
before noon when the white man, with his bright orange hair slicked back, came into the library
with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, asking for Nella. This was the man Nella had left her marriage for?

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Laronne had said.

“Ma’am,” he said in a lowered tone. “I need to see her. To give her these.”

Laronne wasn’t one to be bullied.

“Sir,” she said with equal force. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. But maybe security can.” He stood there glowering at her for a moment before he stormed away.

Laronne could feel her heart quicken but more from anger than from fear. Nella’s got to handle her business, Laronne thought. But not here, and not on my time.

W
HEN LARONNE LEFT
a second message for Nella that afternoon, she hesitated for a moment, and then, instead of saying “How are you?” or “Can I help?” she said, “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow. We won’t be needing your services here anymore.”

What more did Laronne owe her? What more did she have to do?

I
T WAS A
gray August evening. It had been a wet August day. As Laronne stepped into the apartment’s light, shadows of the couch rose up on the walls. The large green couch, a bassinet, and a television were the only pieces of furniture in the room. There were no bookshelves or tables or decorations—just opened suitcases along the wall serving as makeshift dresser drawers and dozens of moving boxes, some unsealed, most of them full.

In the bedroom Laronne could see which child had slept on
which side. The girl had made a nightstand out of an empty box. Her pajamas were folded and tucked beneath her pillow. Her bed was made. Library books were stacked neatly by the mattress on the floor.

Laronne turned over the box that served as a nightstand and put the girl’s belongings inside. Three stuffed animals, a few sweaters, two pairs of pants, and a pair of dress shoes.

Everything would have to be packed away.

F
ROM THE KITCHEN
window Laronne saw the crowd that had gathered before the courtyard cordoned off by the yellow police tape. The crowd stared up in the air as if looking for signs. They drew lines in the air—flight patterns of a family that fell from the sky.

It was the Tuesday after Nella’s first payday and the cabinets were nearly bare. Laronne trashed a can of coffee, two white boxes of macaroni and cheese, a sweet cereal, and a dented tuna can. In the refrigerator was half a pitcher of orange juice, a baby bottle, applesauce, ketchup, and a box of the orange government cheese. Laronne threw it all away.

It was in the drawer by the stove she found a pad of paper, pens, uncut sheets of wallet-sized school photos of the boy and girl, scissors, and five ten-dollar bills paper-clipped together along with a note.

Dear Mrs. Warner,

Thank you for giving us the money to go to the amusement park. We are going next week. I can’t wait.

Love,

Rachel

Nella had paid her back.

Laronne retrieved the coffee can from the trash. She emptied out the grounds. With the scissors she cut a hole in the coffee can lid. Then she marked the can with tape
COLLECTIONS
and stuck the ten-dollar bills inside. This would be for the lone survivor, the girl.

Rachel

Aunt Loretta plays tennis on Sunday mornings with a possible lizard named Drew. “At least he ain’t funny, like that Nathan turned out,” Grandma says. “But he still keepin you away from the Word.” That’s Grandma’s way of yelling. She doesn’t make her voice go loud or hard, just makes the sounds go capital. “BUT, he STILL keepin YOU AWAY from the WORD.” Aunt Loretta never goes to church. Not since Uncle Nathan went away.

Grandma goes to the AME church every Sunday morning and sometimes Wednesday nights too to “lift up” one of the church ladies if someone’s sick. Today she’s giving Aunt Loretta the devil because she’s not going with us to raise up the Lord’s name.

“You’re the one that wants me married, Mama. You’re the one that made me play.” Aunt Loretta isn’t defensive when she says this. She talks with facts. She has a high school tennis trophy on her dresser from 1967 and a date with Drew to play.

Playing tennis is one of the things that goes in the white category, along with classical music and golf. Tamika said that in PE when Mrs. Karr was teaching us how to understand the score.

Tamika is no authority, but I noticed the other black girls agree. The only black people I’ve seen play tennis are Aunt Loretta and Pop. And they’re related to white people, to me. I don’t ever mention that I’m related to white people. And most of the time I try not to let the black girls like Tamika see me talk to Tracy, because Tracy is a white girl. And the way they say that—
white girl
—it feels like a dangerous thing to be.

But Grandma always wanted Pop and Aunt Loretta to know white things. Like when Pop wanted to be a musician. Grandma made him play the piano, when what he wanted to play was the banjo or harmonica. A piano is more white than a harmonica. I don’t know if it was a secret from Grandma, but sometimes Pop still played the harmonica too.

Grandma can’t argue with Aunt Loretta. She does want Aunt Loretta married. She does want her to have something more. But sometimes it seems that Aunt Loretta has a different more in mind than Grandma. Grandma’s more for Aunt Loretta is a good secretarial job, a husband, two children and a house nearby.

That kind of more doesn’t seem enough for Aunt Loretta and probably not for me.

Aunt Loretta’s boyfriend, Drew, is her new tennis partner. Drew is handsome and not a boyfriend that gives anyone looks. Drew likes Aunt Loretta because she’s 1) pretty of course, 2) a good tennis player, and 3) smart. I’ve never heard boys say this was a good thing before.

I like Drew because he is smart and he has a big, deep voice. He talks about “giving back to the community,” “uplifting the people.” He says the things he says over and over. He is very passionate the way he talks—more even than a preacher or a person running for president. Drew works downtown at the Salvation Army Harbor Lights Center. He is a drug and alcohol counselor. He says the same things Mor said. “Easy does it.” “One day at a time.” That kind of thing. It’s a code language. And I know what it means.

I also like Drew because he makes the happy in Aunt Loretta more visible. The bus driver, the mailman, even the grocery store cashier at Fred Meyer can see it. It’s not different for Aunt Loretta to smile—she does that all the time. It’s easy to smile just to make other people feel better. But when a person fakes happy, it has edges. Regular people may not see, but the people who count, they can see edges and lines where your smile ends and the real you, the sadness (me) or the anger (Grandma), begins. The lines and edges are gone from Aunt Loretta when Drew is around. And the picture of Uncle Nathan on the mantel is gone too—the one where he’s leaning into Aunt Loretta and it looks as if he can’t get the question off his face. That’s a good thing, I think. You shouldn’t hold onto things that give you edges. Now there’s more light inside Aunt Loretta, inside light that other people can see too.

A
T SCHOOL
I
HAVE
the best cursive handwriting, and I am learning more big words like
discombobulated
because Mrs. Anderson always says that.

“You’ve got me all discombobulated,” she says when she smacks the yardstick on Anthony Miller’s desk and breaks it in half. That makes Anthony Miller laugh even harder.

Today when Anthony Miller does the bump bump bump against my chair, I turn around and make my face very still. “I’m not going to tell on you,” I say to Anthony Miller, which makes him smile with dimples so deep they can hold new nickels.

“Sorry,” he says “for bumping your chair.” The space between his eyes seems smaller than before. His forehead squishes together. “Does it hurt?” he asks and his smile changes. I could look at the poster above his head on the back wall or at the blue-ink squiggles he’s made on his paper instead of the answers to the vocabulary test on the board, but I look him in the eye even though the blue bottle is open and the heat fills my face. “Not,” and my tongue is Robbie’s, “r-r-really.” I can’t stop the cry that wants to come. I haven’t. Anthony Miller’s eyes open wide like I’ve given him a special Christmas present.

I don’t like it when I surprise myself by crying. The only time I do it really is when I wake up from a nightmare like last night when Robbie was with me in my dream. He was Robbie but he wasn’t Robbie. He had black hair like matted yarn and big brown eyes (not green) that looked like buttons stitched on wrong. He smiled at me a little crooked, and I tugged at the edge of his mouth to get him to laugh. But his smile turned
into a thread in my hand. I picked at every loose thread, and then his face was empty. Only needle holes were where his eyes, his nose, his smile had been. There was no way he could cry or even scream. So I did.
Robbie!

Aunt Loretta always comes to check on me if she hears me scream in the middle of the night. “Poor thing,” she says. “It’s alright. Go ahead. Let it out.”

Sometimes Aunt Loretta seems more scared of my nightmares than me. Aunt Loretta says, “What happened to you, it was scary. It was a scary thing that . . .” She doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s hard to make sense of,” she says. “But you’re safe here.”

“Okay,” I say without disagreeing. I am what she calls “safe,” and to me I am what I call “waiting.” In my diary I keep counting the days. I am waiting for Pop to come back—for Pop to come get me and take me home. Not to Germany. Not to where we spent that summer in Chicago. Not Denmark where Mor said she’d never go again. Home—wherever Pop is—even if it’s just me and him.

The words on the board look fuzzy right now. If I concentrate I can copy down number 2
invade
and then number 3
invalid.
I am at
inundate
and Anthony Miller says, “Here,” and bumps my right arm making my
u
go jagged. He gives me a cafeteria napkin, crumpled from his pocket. It’s in my hand already when Mrs. Anderson comes toward Anthony Miller.