Forever This Summer Read online

  Toll signs for the Causeway appeared. Twenty-three miles of nothing but bridge and water. After Mama paid the toll, Lake Pontchartrain spread out around us. Unlike when we crossed it the first time, the more I stared at the water, the more my stomach twisted with fear. The water was calm, beautiful, but in the pictures… Hurricane Katrina had turned into a monster. Is that what it was like for Aunt Vie? Was forgetting things not a big deal at first and then it came on like a hurricane that washed away the memories of so many things she loved? I quick wiped tears away.

  We didn’t say anything for a while. My stomach felt like it does when I’m swinging too high and afraid the chain will break.

  Then as if Mama knew I needed to hear her say something, or maybe it was her needing to say something, she turned down the music and sighed. “Aunt Vie was the first person to drive me across the Causeway. You’d never know it now, but your grandma was scared to drive. Aunt Vie took me to her favorite restaurant in New Orleans, Dooky Chase, once or twice a month. She modeled Sweetings after it. Sometimes her best friend, Ms. Hannah, would go with us.”

  I straightened up in my seat. And turned directly to face Mama. She glanced at me quickly and returned her eyes to the road.

  “You knew Ms. Hannah back then?”

  Mama chuckled. “It wasn’t like dinosaurs were roaming around, you know.” Mama shook her head and smiled but it only lasted a second. “We’d eat, shop, and just enjoy the day. Those two have been friends since I can remember.”

  “But Aunt Essie and Grandma Sugar don’t like her,” I said.

  Mama knew I must have heard what Aunt Vie said right before she slapped Mama, who she thought was Aunt Essie. “You’ve never liked her. You never understood our relationship.” But I didn’t want to make Mama sadder than she was already feeling inside.

  “It wasn’t so much Hannah than it was the times.”

  “Her being mixed, biracial,” I corrected.

  “Yes,” Mama said, without asking me how I knew that. “Maybe if she’d had a Black mama and white daddy, folks would have lived with it. Keep quiet about it like they do. But Ms. Hannah’s mama was white and her daddy was Black. That didn’t sit right with the white folks in Bogalusa, especially the menfolk, one bit.”

  I forced myself to swallow. “Did anything bad happen to her daddy?”

  “Before I was born, he went missing.”

  “Like Emmett Till, Mama? Think something bad like that happened to him?”

  In my mind Lake Pontchartrain was raging again. Mama’s hand left the steering wheel and found my knee. Even though she didn’t approve sometimes, Daddy talked to me about Black people who were victims of hatred. He had their names on a board in his office: Emmett Till, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown. Those are the ones I could remember because I saw them on the news. Daddy said he never wanted me to see that picture of Emmett Till without him or Mama there so he showed me himself. He didn’t keep that picture on the board, though. But the one when Emmett Till is alive and smiling. I waited for Mama to sugarcoat things, like Daddy accused her of sometimes.

  We both checked to see if Peaches was still sleeping. “Yes, baby. Ms. Hannah’s daddy was never found, though. But that’s what most Black people in Bogalusa believe, that someone… killed him.”

  Neither one of us wanted to say more about that. I didn’t want to start crying, so I envisioned Emmett Till and everyone else, including Ms. Hannah’s daddy, living their life in heaven. That helps, sometimes.

  Mama hummed along with the music and I glanced out at the water. I took a deep breath and refocused on my plans. “Mama… if Aunt Vie and Ms. Hannah were close, you think that Ms. Hannah was close to Markie, too?” A cloud of seagulls floated above the water.

  “I wouldn’t see why not. If she wasn’t, it was probably due to Ms. Hannah’s people. The ones we know anyway. Why do you ask that?”

  The squawking of the seagulls mixed with the radio as I tried to think of what reason to give. My stomach flip-flopped, scared to say anything that would give Mama more reason to keep Markie and me apart.

  “Think she’d know how to find Markie’s mama?”

  “No. I doubt that very much. If Aunt Essie doesn’t know, why would Ms. Hannah? Is that what Markie’s been saying?”

  “Not really,” I said, trying to back out of it. “I just thought it just now. Why doesn’t Ms. Hannah come around?”

  “Aunt Essie said she came by when we were in Covington. She has this notion of taking care of Aunt Vie out at her farm. Of course, Vie’s sisters aren’t open to it.”

  “Why?” I said and cringed at how much like Peaches I sounded.

  “Maybe they are scared of being cut off from her. As you heard, the relationship between all of them is tense. And what I say wouldn’t carry weight against her sisters. We all just want what’s best for Auntie,” Mama said.

  There were so many other things I wanted to ask that my feet were tapping on the floorboard like a woodpecker. But I saw how Mama’s hands were back to gripping the steering wheel. I didn’t want to upset her more than she already was.

  Mama reached to change the station but decided against it. “I’d just about give anything if I could be sure that Aunt Vie knew that I was here.”

  I thought of Mama styling Aunt Vie’s hair in the Bantu Knots. The way she leans on Mama when they’re walking a little more than she leans on her sisters. Maybe they don’t notice it, but I do.

  “I think she knows, Mama,” I said.

  “I hope so,” she said.

  “When I sat out on the porch with her the other day, I thought she remembered me. You know, really remembered, like when you told me she used to sing “Georgie on My Mind” but she was remembering Markie. She loves her. And I think Markie loves her, too.”

  “That may be so, baby. Let’s let Aunt Essie and Mama figure out how they want to handle things. Best we stay out of it. Neither of us really know Markie.” I felt a kick to the back of my seat. And I told Mama that Peaches was up. Mama nodded.

  Peaches caught the tail end of the conversation. “I don’t like Markie.”

  “You don’t know her,” I said.

  “She’s bossy,” Peaches said.

  “You have a good nap?” Mama said, adjusting the rearview. “And hush up about who you don’t like.”

  “Okay,” Peaches said, leaning toward the window. “But she’s a meanie.… Daddy loves this bridge, Mama,” Peaches said.

  “So do I,” Mama added.

  We exited the Causeway and rode for a couple of miles.

  As I looked out the window, some of the land around us was vacant. And then vibrant buildings appeared, some painted purple, others bright orange. The colors so vivid it was like the paint was still wet. A few of the buildings were old and others were new with fancy shutters and iron railings. A memory of Katrina flashed. That news footage of everything underwater. There were people holding signs saying Help Us as they stood atop roofs with water up to their knees. I looked up like I expected to see the ghosts of them there. Daddy said that reporters even called residents refugees when New Orleans was the only home they’d ever known.

  “Is this the French Quarter, Mama?” I asked as we searched for a place to park.

  “Not quite. It’s the historic area called Tremé. This restaurant hasn’t been opened long. A friend of mine suggested it. She’s going to meet us here in a bit. Haven’t seen her much since college.”

  I thought about the way I was feeling and said, “It’s probably hard for anyone who lived here not to still be sad about Katrina.”

  “That’s that bad hurricane with your name, Mama?” Peaches said.

  After a quick rearview glance, Mama said, “Yes, baby. Most of the people here had to rebuild their entire lives.”

  Mama veered into a parking lot that had a low fence around it. There wasn’t anyone taking money or anything like in lots in Atlanta. Mama eased into a numbered space. Once the three of us were out, we walked up to
what looked like a huge, gray mailbox and Mama got a ticket. We both took Peaches’s hand and made our way across the street to Ray’s on the Avenue. There was a flurry of fried chicken and fish aromas mixed with some vegetable that I couldn’t distinguish. I almost expected Aunt Essie or Grandma Sugar to come stepping out.

  Inside, Ray’s wasn’t as big as the diner. There were several square black tables with a tiny candle in the middle of each, and chairs were along the wall underneath a counter like the ones at our diner for people to sit, drink coffee, or read the newspaper.

  “Good, they’re not here yet,” Mama said.

  “She’s bringing someone with her?” I asked.

  “Oh, no… no. I meant she’s not here,” Mama said and looked behind us. “Just excited to see her, that’s all.”

  A waitress rushed over to us. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Ray’s. Will you be dining in or is this to go?”

  The waitress’s gap-tooth smile was welcoming. At the end of her left eyebrow was a tiny hoop earring. Six earrings of varying sizes lined each ear. If it wasn’t impolite to stare, I wouldn’t have taken my eyes off her. She was like one of those drawings where you see something new every time you look.

  “We’re dining in,” Mama said.

  The waitress told us we could seat ourselves.

  Mama headed for a table in the middle that sat five anyway. When we were seated, the waitress hustled over and brought us huge menus as big as coloring books.

  “May I get you ladies some cold drinks?”

  “Do I have to have water, Mama? Can I get a soda?” Peaches said.

  “Let me bring watah for everyone and I’ll come back and take the orders.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Mama said.

  “Be back in a second, beh-bey.”

  The way she said “baby” was like a song I wanted to sing out loud. I heard a few people say it before, but it wasn’t the long and slow way she said it, like that last note you don’t want to end.

  As we looked at the menu, Mama checked her phone again. Then she turned up the volume and sat it on the table instead of inside her purse. Something was up. She never did that. Phones were a no-no on the table. She and our stepdaddy, Frank, agreed with the phone rules. Daddy, not so much. Now that I think about it, it was odd that this friend of Mama’s didn’t invite her over to her house.

  Not long after the waitress had returned with our waters, she was back to take our orders. After going around the table, we’d decided on Ray’s Soul Platter: fried fish, shrimp, and chicken wings, hushpuppies, and bread. We ordered a bowl of Ray’s Famous Gumbo so we could compare it to Aunt Vie’s. The waitress hurried away and reappeared with a basket of cornbread muffins, and we started munching.

  “Peaches, I asked Georgie this already. Do you think you can make it in Bogalusa for a couple more weeks?”

  “But what if I miss Daddy too much?” she said.

  “We’ll work something out,” Mama finally said. “Your daddy suggested we video call. You know what that is, right, Georgie?”

  “It’s how one of my friends communicates with her dad overseas. And how we have author visits. I tried to get you to download one of the apps on our home computer when Daddy…”

  “When Daddy what, Georgie?” Mama said.

  “When he moved to North Carolina. You know… before he came back to Atlanta.”

  “It’s okay to say it, baby. Things are much better now. We weren’t in—”

  “A good place,” I said aloud, though I hadn’t meant to.

  “Guess we say that a lot,” Mama said but didn’t smile. She glanced at her phone again.

  We all stopped talking for a while and chomped on muffins. Mama’s phone rang. “You girls stay right here. I need to step outside for a moment.”

  When Mama left, Peaches said, “G-baby, you think that if Daddy and Mama Milly have a new baby they’ll let the baby come live with us for a little while? I mean just for a weekend, like we do at Daddy’s?”

  “I don’t know about that. She’ll be a new mama and want the baby around her all the time. We can probably go over there and stay.” That seemed to be okay with her, for now.

  Mama was still away when the waitress returned with our food.

  Once the waitress laid out our spread, Peaches immediately stuffed two shrimp in her mouth. “That’s it. Let’s wait for Mama to say grace together,” Georgie said.

  Mama was acting strange. She had a surprise for us all right, but I was starting to believe that it wasn’t a friend of hers, but somebody we knew, too—Daddy. That could be what this was all about. She’d called Daddy to meet us to give me another talking to about getting in trouble. Why wouldn’t she just say it? Guess the surprise would be for Peaches. It just meant another lecture for me.

  When Mama sat down, we blessed the food and officially started eating. She motioned for the waitress, who scurried over with a pitcher of lemonade in one hand and water in another. Her three-finger New Orleans Saints ring sparkled against the pitcher. That was Grandma Sugar’s favorite football team.

  “Refills?” she said.

  Peaches nodded immediately, taking advantage of Mama’s relaxed mood. And after the Causeway conversation, I was happy she didn’t seem as sad.

  “More for you, young lady?” the waitress said to me.

  “Yes, please,” I said, while expecting to hear Daddy’s voice any minute. Even though there was a lecture coming, I was still excited to see him.

  “Oh, can you bring back a menu, please?” Mama said.

  Okay, that meant just Daddy, no Millicent.

  “Coming right up,” the waitress said.

  “My friend is just having dessert. I’m sure she’ll want to show us around a bit. And I want us back on that Causeway well before dark,” Mama said to no one in particular.

  “I don’t wanna drive in all that water in the nighttime, Mama,” Peaches said, chugging more lemonade.

  After the waitress cleared some of our plates, Peaches and I made our way to the restroom.

  When we got back to the table, Mama wasn’t there. The waitress came over and said that she’d be right back, then she handed us dessert menus. We barely finished the Soul Platter and deemed Aunt Vie’s gumbo the winner of the gumbo battle, although Ray’s was, as Mama said, “nothing to sneeze at.”

  I couldn’t resist banana pudding topped with homemade vanilla ice cream.

  “You think you want to share one with me, Peaches? I bet it’s huge.”

  “I want my own,” Peaches said.

  Seconds later, Mama’s back. “Ahem. Ahem. We have company coming.” Mama raked a flyaway piece of hair into her messy bun and smiled.

  “We don’t see nobody, Mama,” Peaches said.

  I didn’t take my eyes off the doorway. And—believe it or not—in walked Nikki. I hit my knees against the table, almost knocking over my lemonade. Mama was still standing as I ran over to meet Nikki before she could even get halfway to us. I wrapped my arms around my best friend.

  “How did you get here?” I said.

  “Our mamas worked it out for me to ride with my cousin who goes to Xavier.” Then she leaned in and whispered to me, “You almost messed it up if you would have snuck out again and got caught.”

  “So glad you’re here. Need more help,” I whispered. “Tell you more later.”

  “I’m ready to jump in,” Nikki said.

  Mama didn’t know it yet, but she’d just helped me shift my plans into high gear. Not too sure if Nikki would vibe with me trying to help Markie find her mama, but if there was anyone in the world with the skills to pull off a talent show, it was Nikki Denise Shepard, aka Know-It-All Nikki, the best dancer in all of Sweet Apple and maybe even one of the best in the entire city of Atlanta.

  The three of us working together might be filled with a little drama or, okay, a lot of drama, knowing Nikki and Markie. But my confidence that we could get this done was one hundred and ten percent. And like what I thought was a sign when I read
the word “vacuum” at the car wash, there was another sign. On the wall of Ray’s, right above a poster of a band, was that phrase Markie said the first day I met her: laissez les bons temps rouler. That was my clue, maybe for today anyway, to forget about the challenges waiting for us across that Causeway, enjoy my best friend, and let the good times roll.

  15

  ME TOO, SUN

  The next morning, sun freckled in through the lace curtains, dotting along the floor and walls. Newspapers hitting porches and walkways sounded like footsteps. And grumbling engines headed to work mixed with the whistling of birds. I’d woken up to those sounds for more than two weeks now. For a moment, I almost didn’t recognize Nikki across from me in the twin bed. I flung the cover back and rubbed my eyes.

  “’Bout time,” she said, unwrapping her silk scarf from around her micro braids.

  “How long you been up?”

  “Just for a few minutes. Trying to figure out why it smells like rotten eggs in here.”

  “The window is open. I told you about the paper mill already. It’s always worse in the morning,” I said.

  “No shirt, Sherlock,” Nikki said and I giggled.

  “Are they tight?” I said, remembering the time I helped put beads on Tangie’s braids.

  “They’re loosening some.” She scooted down and faced me, resting her hand on her chin.

  “You said you had something to tell me, but you fell asleep,” I said.

  She stretched toward the ceiling. “It’s about your boyfriend… Kevin?”

  “Stop calling him that.… Okay, how about ‘almost boyfriend,’” I granted.

  “Almost” really isn’t a thing, but whatever. “Sure you want to know?”

  I bit my lip. Whenever Nikki started anything with “Sure you want to know,” it was something that I didn’t want to know.

  “Let’s hear it,” I said.

  “I saw him two days ago walking with Lu Lu. Your archenemy.”