Born Blue (8 page)

"How old he be?" I asked when little Samson were gone from the room.

"He's three. His birthday was last week He's full of mischief, that one, but very bright."

"You think Harmon be bright?"

Mr. James smiled and I saw his big white teeth. I had forgot about his big teeth. "Yes, Harmon is a smart boy, too," he said. "They're different, though. Harmon gets As, sometimes Bs, in school. He studies hard, but he's got a head for the arts and he's more spiritual. That Samson's going to be a scientist or a doctor. He likes puzzles and machines and computers. He's very curious."

I could tell how Mr. James were proud of both his boys, 'cause of the way he puffed up his chest and held his head so high up, and I thought how I wished someone be talkin' proud 'bout me like that. Then right away I thought how I hated Harmon. Were just this mean thought that come and fill my head, and the sad other thought went away.

Mr. James were starin' at me funny through his glasses, and I knew he had asked me something that I didn't hear.

"What?"

"I said, 'How about you? What do you like?'"

I sat up straight, actin' proud for my own self, and I said, "Singin'. Ain't nothin' better I like than singin'. I gonna be a singer like the ladies, Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald and Aretha Franklin and them. You know them?"

Mr. James laughed, and his laugh sounded like everything else in that house—happy, like music.

Before he could answer me, I asked him if he be related to Etta James, 'cause I always wanted to know.

He said, "No, but I've seen her. I heard her sing years ago. Is she your favorite?"

"Yes, sir. I sing most like her, I think. You really met her? What were she like?" I moved closer to him and touched his arm. He didn't seem to mind, so I touched it
t
⁷
again. I wanted most to touch his eyes 'cause they what seen Etta James, but I were scared to do it. I were 'fraid he smack my hand away.

Mr. James said, "I didn't meet her, really. I just heard her sing."

"Same difference," I said. "If you watchin' her and hearin' her sing, you meetin' her. Wish I was alive back when she were singin'."

Mr. James took his arm away and blinked at me. "But she's still singing," he said. "She's still recording. Didn't you know that? Sometimes she even comes down here, to Muscle Shoals, to record her music."

I couldn't take in what he were saying to me. "What? What you say?" I asked. I stood up.

Mr. James nodded.

"She—she still livin'? She still alive? She singin'? Etta James? Etta James who sing "Stop the Wedding" and "Baby, What You Want Me to Do?" and "Tell Mama"?
That
Etta James?
My
Etta James?"

Mr. James laughed and nodded again. He nodded, and were like magic what it do to me. I just crumpled to the floor like all my bones gone soggy and couldn't hold me up no more. I cried. I cried with my face to the floor, and Mr. James tried to lift me up, but I be too limp for him to get a good hold of me. It seem to me that all my life my body been stiff with a kind of fear, a kind of waiting for something. It filled up my insides, that fearful waitin', but when I found out Etta James still be livin', my whole insides changed, everything round me changed. I could feel it. All the sharp edges of myself turned soft. It felt like the floor beneath me wasn't there no more. Felt like I were floating, and when I lifted my head to look at Mr. James, he were floating, too, first here, then there, floating.

Mr. James got down on the floor with me, and 'cause he so tall, it were a long way to go. He patted my back and said, "Shh," and "Shh," and after a while, I stopped crying and I sat up and I got a smile on my face.

Mr. James said he would find out if anyone knew when Etta James would be recording in Muscle Shoals again, and maybe he could take me up there.

I wiped my eyes. "Up where?" I asked. "Where be Muscle Shoals?"

"Muscle Shoals? It's right here in Alabama," he said. "Didn't you know that? It's up in the northwestern corner of the state, near Florence. Ever hear of Florence?"

I shook my head and my head were floating and so were Mr. James. We just kept floating.

"Muscle Shoals is famous. A lot of big hits have come out of there."

"Etta James in Alabama? For real? How you know that? How you know 'bout Etta James?"

"I did some legal work for a friend of mine who records up there. He knows her. He's a fan, too."

Etta James alive and singin' in Alabama! I weren't floating no more, I were spinning!

I KNEW IF ETTA JAMES
could come to Alabama and record her music, then anything be possible. I could for sure become a famous singer my own self someday. I figured I could go to Muscle Shoals and sing for Etta, and she would help me get famous.

Mr. James said he wanted to talk with me about something else, but I couldn't hear nothin' 'cause my head so full of Etta James. I kept asking him questions. I wanted to find out everything he knew 'bout her and 'bout Muscle Shoals and her coming there and when he gonna find out if she coming again. "Maybe she through comin'," I said. "Maybe we missed her forever. How do you know we ain't missed her? You ain't makin' this all up, are you?"

Mr. James answered my questions, but he said he wanted to talk to me about something else. I weren't listenin' 'cause I didn't want to stop spinnin' and I knew
what he wanted to say were serious, 'cause his voice were serious, and if I listened, the soft, fuzzy, happy feeling inside me would go hard again.

Finally, he took my hands and said, "Leshaya, please listen to me. We've got a social worker coming to the house in about a half an hour, and I think we should talk about it before she gets here so you know what to expect."

I pulled away from him and stood up. "You just said you was gonna take me to see Etta James. You just said it! Now you sayin' you givin' me away. You givin' me back to Patsy and Pete. Well, I ain't goin' back there to that ol' stink house. I'm goin' on. I'm leavin', and I can get to that Muscle Shoals on my own, 'cause I got money."

Mr. James got up off the floor, holding on to his back like it hurt to unfold hisself. "Leshaya, you won't be going back to Patsy and Pete, I promise you," he said.

"A promise don't mean nothin'."

"It does in this house," he said, and the way he said it, I believed him. I sat back down at the kitchen table, a nice, fat round table made of real wood that wouldn't give way when I dug my fingernails into it.

"Leshaya, they'll probably assign you a caseworker. Someone who will look after your interests. Someone just for you, who can see that you get the best possible care with the best family for you."

"But you the best family. You the best family I ever
seen. You be like
The Cosby Show
family. You ever seen
The Cosby Show
on TV? You be like that And Harmon be here. He my only brother I got."

Mr. James nodded. "That's nice that you think of us that way, Leshaya. Let's just wait and see what the social worker has to say. Then we can go from there."

Mr. James talked smooth and real careful like that.

I didn't say nothin'. I looked round for something softer to dig my nails into besides the table. Weren't nothin' but my plate from breakfast with a orange peel on it I got digging at that and Mr. James stood up and said, "Let me clear that away for you."

I watched him take my plate to the sink. He acted like he a woman the way he do the dishes and fix me breakfast. Daddy Mitch never touched a dish 'cept to throw it.

"How come you ain't at work? Don't you go to work?"

"Yes." Mr. James laughed. "I go to work. I'm a lawyer. I have my own practice." He finished rinsing the plate and set it in the dishwasher. He turned round. "I'm lucky. I have two offices, one downtown and one here at home. Today, I'm at home so I can be with you and Samson."

"Oh. So you got any more bread?"

"Sure." He got out the loaf of bread and set it on the table. "Have all you want. I'll get you some milk to go with it."

I smiled and dug my hand into the bag and pulled out a slice. I pulled off the crust and ate it. Then I rolled the
rest of the bread up into a ball and dropped it into the sugar bowl they had sittin' out on the table.

"Oh!" Mr. James said, like he just touched something that give him a shock. He quick set down my glass of milk and reached for the sugar bowl. "We don't want to do that," he said.

"Yes, we do," I said back. "You ever suck on a ball a sugar bread before?"

Mr. James sat down with the bowl still in his hands. "Other people will want to use this sugar," he said.

"They can. I weren't gonna take it all. Go on, you have that piece and I'll make me another one. I can eat bread all day long."

"No." Mr. James set his hand down on mine that were already in the bag. "You have this one and I'll make my own."

"Really?" I took my bread ball out of the sugar and popped it in my mouth, and I were smiling so wide were hard to keep my bread tucked into my cheek.

Mr. James said, "Now, to really make this tasty, I'm going to spread some butter on mine."

"Butter! You'll ruin it!"

Mr. James had this teasing kind of look in his eyes, almost sneaky-looking the way he grinned and shifted his eyes while he were making his bread ball. He spread it thick with butter, tore off the crust, rolled it into a ball, and dunked it into the sugar. Then he popped it in his mouth, and I waited for his reaction.

"
Mmm,
delicious!" he said, and his mouth were still
chewing on the bread. He finished swallowing all of it and rubbed his hands together. He had skinny strawlike fingers.

"I haven't had sugar in years. That was superb. You're a good cook, Leshaya."

"But I didn't make it, you did."

"Ah, but you came up with the idea. That's more important."

I smiled and felt giggly inside myself. I made more bread balls and ate them. Mr. James said one be his limit, and he didn't have no more. He said I got a bottomless pit for a stomach the way I could put away all that bread and sugar. He let me eat all I wanted, so I kept eating. Then I saw my glass of milk just sittin' there gettin' warm, and I knocked it over on purpose. It got all over Mr. James's pants, and he sprang up from the table.

"You did that on purpose!" he said, and his brows was pulled tight together, he were so angry.

"No, I didn't It a accident, I swear."

Mr. James clenched his face hard, so his jaw muscles poked out his face. His voice sounded choked when he spoke. He told me to get the sponge and clean up the mess while he changed his pants. And I did like he said, smiling to myself, 'cause he didn't hit me or nothin'. Were just like I be Samson or Harmon. Just like I be his own girl.

THE SOCIAL WORKER
come, and she were a skinny white lady with a nose that turned up so much, every time I looked at her I could see straight through her nose holes to the inside of her nose. I couldn't keep my eyes on nothin' else when I looked at her, so I looked at the kitchen table and felt myself go hot in the face like I were blushing about it.

Mr. James went to check up on Samson and left me alone with the white lady. She wanted me to tell her my story of how I come to be at the Jameses' house and how my life been goin' so far.

I told her my life been goin' okay, but now I wanted to stay with Harmon. I wanted to live with his family. She kept writing stuff down on the paper she had on a clipboard, shaking her head and lifting it to look at me a second, giving me a shot of her nose insides, then back to the clipboard. She said to me, "Naturally, it's best if you live with a family of your own race."

I nodded. "That's right, and they my own race. My daddy were African American. My mama said so, so that's okay. You gonna be my caseworker?"

"Probably," she said, like she didn't care one way or 'nother.

"You gonna put me in a foster home and visit me all the time, like Doris?" If she been Doris I wouldn't mind seeing her every month, but this lady didn't look like she liked people at all. I thought seeing her all the time would be the worst kind of torture and I wouldn't take it if she said yes, but she didn't answer me. She shifted in her chair and wrote something down on her board. Then she said, "Why don't you let me talk to Mr. James now, okay?" She said it like I been keeping her from talking to him or something.

"I don't care," I said. "Do what you want."

I got Mr. James for her, and he told me to stay in the playroom and play with Samson while he talked with the social worker, but I didn't. I figured any child who got a whole playroom full of toys all to his own self didn't need nothin' else, and I wanted to listen in on what they sayin' to each other.

I snuck along and got myself to the bathroom just out from the kitchen and heard the social worker saying, "I can take her today and place her in a foster home, Mr. James, or you could act as a foster family—for a while at least, give her some time—then we'll find a more permanent solution for her. I have to tell you, though, she's almost thirteen years old and she looks much older. There
aren't too many people out there wanting to adopt a child that old. The best we can really hope for is a foster home willing to take her indefinitely. And I think we'd better find her birth mother and take some legal action there. Leshaya said that the couple she lived with are already in prison. I'll look into that, too." Then the lady lowered her voice and I had to step out of the bathroom and peer into the kitchen to hear what she say.

"I should add that it's obvious from the lack of feeling expressed when she talks about her past that she's become quite detached from her situation—possibly an attachment disorder. Typical in her situation, though."

Mr. James shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I follow you."

"Just keep your eyes open," the social worker said, tucking her clipboard under her arm and lifting up her head like she just the smartest thing in the world. "She's likely to steal things, possibly set things on fire. I've seen her type before. And keep an eye on your little one. Children like her don't care who they hurt to get what they want." She turned to leave and I popped back into the bathroom.