The Summer Kitchen (14 page)

The other two kids were on my steps before I could say,
Stay where you’re at. I’ll bring it over there.
They hadn’t ever come over on our steps before. Now they’d probably be over here all the time. Opal scooted behind me and about pulled my shorts off, peeking around my leg.

I handed the kids a couple of napkins. “Here. You have to wipe up first.” The kids frowned at me, then wiped their hands with the napkins while the oldest girl wandered on over, dragging her sneakers on the asphalt. She stopped at the bottom of the steps, and I didn’t tell her to come on up. I reached in the bag instead and took out a sandwich, and the littlest kid tried to snatch it out of my hand. He still had snot strings hanging down his face. “Oh, no way.” I pulled the sandwich back. “You have to wipe your face, too. That’s just nasty.”

His chin started to quiver like he was gonna cry. I guess he thought I was teasing him with the sandwich. No way was I gonna wipe that kid’s face for him, though, no matter how much Mama and Jesus talked in my head. Finally, his sister grabbed the napkin, swiped it across his face, and then threw it on the ground. I handed the kid the sandwich, then gave one to the middle brother, and then to the bratty girl.

I set the bag by the door to save the rest. No telling if that lady really would come back with more tomorrow, and I still didn’t know how me and Rusty were gonna buy enough food for all week. The extra sandwiches were what Mama would of called
a godsend.

The kids plopped down on
my
steps, and the next thing I knew, we were having a picnic. Opal let go of my shorts and went and sat down next to the littlest boy, who was about her size. She had her knees folded out to her sides and her hands between them, so that she looked like a squashed frog. She watched him eat like it was real interesting. He finished his whole sandwich and then licked the jelly off the plastic wrap. Then he licked his fingers and looked at my sack.

Oh, man.
I started counting the sandwiches in my head.
Ten to begin with. Opal and me ate most of three. I gave three to the kids. If they all took another one, that’d leave . . .

Math wasn’t my best subject back in Mrs. Dobbs’s class, but even I knew that’d leave one sandwich, and Opal’s part of a half that was wrapped up on the counter inside. Not even enough for breakfast tomorrow. We’d have to eat some of the food me and Rusty were gonna buy tonight. . . .

Man.
I knew what Mama and Jesus would do, but they weren’t the ones who’d got stuck listening to Opal whine about being hungry all day yesterday. I didn’t want to end up back in that shape again.

The bigger boy finished his sandwich and eyed the bag. “I wanna ’nother one,” he said.

I thought about telling them the bag was empty. I
wanted
to tell them it was empty.

He dropped his wad of plastic wrap on the step, which was rude. Opal picked it up, then twisted around and climbed up the steps. She opened the bag, put the plastic wrap inside, and pulled out another sandwich.

“Opal, don’t . . .” It was too late. Opal was already headed over to him. She tripped and about gave him a peanut butter and jelly hairdo before she fell down hard and hit her knee. He leaned over and ripped the sandwich out of her hand while she was trying to get up. I wanted to smack him, even though he was only about five or six. Opal didn’t cry. She just stuck her finger in her mouth, then pulled it out and rubbed it over the little bead of blood on her knee. I had to give her credit for being tough.

“Just a minute, Opal,” I said, then went inside and got a wet napkin with a little soap on it. When I put it on Opal’s knee, she acted like nobody’d ever done that to her before, ever. “Hold it on there a while.” I started to get up, because the kids were in the sandwich bag, but then I just left it be. They each had another sandwich, which would still leave one for me and Opal tomorrow, if the sandwich lady didn’t come back.

One of the girls from the apartments where the Mexicans partied at night walked by carrying a baby. She didn’t look more than about fifteen, but I’d figured out that baby was hers. She had a husband or a boyfriend, and I was pretty sure they were straight out of Mexico. He’d go across the street every day and hang around the parking lot waiting for the contracting vans to come by and offer straight-cash jobs. Rusty didn’t like it when people hired parking-lot help. He said the illegals worked so cheap, they made it hard on everybody else. I didn’t mind the Mexicans so much. On weekend nights, when they were partying down there, it sounded like they were having fun, and they always waved at us and stuff, and they never locked their kids out all day.

The Mexican girl looked surprised to see us on my steps. She didn’t say anything, just gave us a curious look, her eyes big and dark and her long black hair swinging from side to side across her hips as she passed. She was pretty. It seemed like a girl that pretty wouldn’t have to come across the border and live in a crappy apartment. She could of been a movie star someplace.

As soon as the next-door kids finished their sandwiches, they lit out like rabbits. When I picked up the bag, I figured out why. Someone must of stuffed the extra sandwich in their pants, because the sack was empty. Quick as we got to the land of plenty, Opal and me were back to nothing.

Brats.
I didn’t say it, because I didn’t want Opal to know those kids did a mean thing while she was being so nice to them. I grabbed my book from inside, and Opal and me headed out. By the time we’d walked a couple blocks down the street, I’d cooled off a little. Maybe those kids needed an extra sandwich more than Opal and me did, and besides, I
had
promised the sandwich lady that I’d give food to the kids. I’d ended up keeping the promise, even if part of me didn’t want to. Mama would be happy.

At the little white church across from the Book Basket, the gardener guy was pushing a lady in a wheelchair down the sidewalk. She was telling him what to do with the flower beds, I guessed, because she’d point and he’d nod. I’d seen him there before, working in the memory garden or trimming the bushes by the door. He always waved at me, but the first few times I acted like I didn’t see him. He was, like, really big, and you could tell by the way he moved around that his elevator didn’t go all the way to the top. He was stuck somewhere around halfway up, like a big ol’ kid. We had a few like him in my school back home. I never thought much about how they’d be when they got to be old, like forty or something.

While Opal and me walked closer, he left the wheelchair lady in the shade. The pastor dude came out of the church to talk to her, and the big guy went to work by the pole sign out front. He waved when he saw Opal and me, and I waved back at him. Today, he was digging some plants out of the flower bed and putting them in plastic pots he had in a box.

“Hi-eee!” he said, and sat back on his heels, and smiled at us. He picked a flower and held it out to see if Opal would come get it. I knew she wouldn’t. She stopped on the sidewalk and looked at him.

“She’s afraid of people,” I explained. “She doesn’t . . .”

Opal took a little step toward him, then she stretched as far as she could, anchoring herself on my arm like she was trying to reach over a big pool of water. Her fingers opened and closed. She couldn’t get to the flower, but she wanted it.

“Here,” I said, then pulled her back and took the flower for her. “Thanks,” I told the dude, and he ducked his head and did a kind of honk-honk laugh that was funny.

I put the flower in Opal’s hand. She rubbed it against her nose and said, “Mmmm,” and the man honked again.

“Say thanks, Opal.” I waited for Opal not to say anything, and then we crossed over to the Book Basket. All the way there, she kept looking back at the man, and just before we walked in, she turned and waved at him.

In the Book Basket, MJ was behind the counter with an African-looking twisty turban on her head. She was wearing a long loose shirt with giraffes around the neck and down the front, and about eighteen strings of wooden beads. There was never any telling, any day you went in, what she’d have on. One day she’d be dressed like a black Mother Goose, because she’d been to some school reading to the kids, and the next in a fluffy dress like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, and the next a pioneer suit, like she’d just come off a wagon train. Today she looked like the ambassador from Zimbabwe or someplace.

Like usual, she was typing on her computer behind the desk. It was an old one—so old the screen was all green print. “Well, hello there!” she said. “You haven’t been by in a couple days. I was beginning to wonder about you.” MJ always sounded real proper. She talked like she was reading a storybook, even when she was just shooting the breeze.

“Been busy.” Before Opal and Kiki came, I’d gone in the Book Basket, like, every day the doors were open, and sometimes more than once. I could trade books and kill time hanging out between the cases, looking at pictures and reading. MJ didn’t seem to mind, and it beat sitting home alone in the apartment.

You could get lost in MJ’s store. It had rows and rows of book-cases. The shelves were stacked so full they sagged in the middle, which was probably why your first book was free, and then after that you could come in and trade for another anytime you wanted. I was smart about it. I picked out a really big, fancy first book. On my next trade, it was worth two regular books, so I came out pretty good on the deal. I had credit for an extra book anytime I wanted it, but mostly I just got one at a time because then I could go back to the store more often.

I couldn’t figure out how MJ made any money in her store, but when the shop was closed, she went around and told stories at schools, so I figured she made a living that way. She was fun to talk to, and it seemed like she knew just about everybody that came in. One time, the little gangbangers even wandered through, and she knew all three of them. She told them they needed to bring their old books by and trade them off. She asked about their families and school and stuff, and they hung around a while talking to her. I stayed back in the bookshelves where they couldn’t see me.

MJ homed in on Opal right away. “Who have we here? A new customer?”

“This is Opal,” I told her, and MJ said Opal was cute, and I was proud in a strange way, like Opal was mine or something. I told her Opal was my cousin. “She likes books,” I said. “I thought she could, like, use my credit and get one.”

“No way,” MJ answered, and I was disappointed. Then MJ smiled and said, “First-time customers get a free book of their own. That’s the deal. Let’s see what we have for little girls who like books.” She held her arm out over the counter, and Opal moved from my hand to hers, and they headed toward the front window, where the picture books were. I went back to my section and picked out
Black Beauty
and a book about a kid who finds a magic door in his cellar and ends up in a secret world. With Opal in the apartment, I figured two books might be a good idea.

“
Black Beauty
again?” MJ asked, when I came up to the counter to cash out. “Didn’t you just read that?”

I watched her ring up my trades.
Black Beauty
was hardback, so I thought she might tell me it was too much. “My mama and me used to read it.” It was a second before I clued in that I’d bloopered. “I mean, we still will, again, but she’s been sick. That’s all. I don’t need for someone to read to me anymore anyway.”

“Well, of course not.” MJ smiled and handed the books across the counter, her eyebrows slanting upward into her funny African hat. “And here’s Opal’s first book.” Leaning far over the counter, she stretched a picture book down to Opal.
Billy and Blaze.
I figured Opal picked it because it had horse pictures in it.

MJ leaned on the counter with both elbows. “What else can I do for you girls today?”

“Nothin’,” I said, but I was hoping she’d tell a story. MJ knew great stories from all over the world. “You been somewhere telling stories today?” I squinted one eye at the turban on her head.

She laughed, her teeth a wide white line between her dark lips. “I have. It’s World Heritage month, so I’ve been to the festival downtown. I’ve been sharing stories from Africa.”

“Cool.” I hovered there a minute, because that was usually all it took to get MJ going.

She pretended to think, and then sure enough she started into a story. “I’ll tell you a folktale from Ghana. I learned this from Ifeoma, a nurse who lives nearby. She came to this country from Africa, and as soon as she has enough money, she’ll return to Africa to bring her son here.”

“Cool,” I said. “I bet he misses his mom, being way over there.” I knew just how that boy must feel, only my mom was even farther away than Africa.

“I’m sure he does.” MJ swirled her hands over the counter, then spread them out, like she was drawing a picture to start the Africa story. “Once, a large frog and a small frog were hopping along the road. They came to a little village, and the large frog said, ‘Let’s go into the village. There is a market on the street, and we will have an easy meal of all the bugs there.’

“The small frog wasn’t certain this was a wise idea. ‘There are many dangers in the market,’ he told his companion. ‘What if we should be trampled by people, or run over by a cart, or captured by some child and put into a box?’

“ ‘Pah!’ said the large frog. ‘You worry too much. Come along. We’ll have an easy meal.’

“The small frog, being small, was afraid to have his friend leave him, so they hopped along to the market, and straightaway found a crate with flies buzzing around. ‘Let’s hop up there and eat some delicious flies,’ said the large frog, and so they did. But the crate was very tall and they could not see that it lacked a solid top. When they jumped onto it, they fell straight into a large pot of cream, and try as they might, they could not get out of the pot.”

MJ made the motions of the frogs swimming.

Opal said, “Uh-oh,” and tried to crawl up my leg.

I picked Opal up so she could see better when MJ went on with the frog story. “ ‘Oh!’ said the large frog. ‘Whatever shall we do now? You should have warned me of this. You said we may become trampled, or run over, or put into a box, but you said nothing of falling into a bucket of cream! Now we are trapped.’