Lady in the Lake(14)
But when I didn’t show up on January first to eat with my family, no one paid any mind. They knew the life I was living. “Flighty,” my father would say to my mother. “She is a flighty girl and I have to blame you for that, Merva.” Even on a humdrum Saturday night, I would have worked or had a date. Sometimes I worked and had a date. No crime in that. Obviously, I would have gone out on New Year’s Eve, no matter how late I worked. It had been an unusually fine day for December, a finer one still for January, topping sixty degrees.
It was, as it turned out, excellent dying weather.
When did my family think to ask after me? I had been there two days earlier, to see the boys. And although I had showered them with gifts at Christmas—because I could now, I had resources—I brought them more toys on the twenty-ninth. I never came to that house empty-handed. Toys for the boys, food for Mama—hams and roasts, things she seldom allowed herself, shopping the bargains at the no-name grocery store in our neighborhood. That night, I brought her a jacket of mine I knew she liked. I would have given her cash money, too. But my father wouldn’t allow that. He said my money was dirty, that he didn’t want it. He said that I should be saving it, so I could take my boys back.
He wasn’t wrong. But it’s a temptation, being paid in cash. It doesn’t feel real, exactly, especially if one’s other bills are taken care of. Except for my share of rent to Latetia, of course, and I never worried too much about that. If I ran short, all I had to do was cry a few pretty tears. And, sure, I spent a little on myself. Not as much as people think—my nicest clothes weren’t new, but good as. Better, I think, because the beautiful clothes in my closet arrived with histories. Any man can buy a woman clothes. My main man was taking a risk when he gave me something.
Are you really missing if almost nobody misses you? I was dead, but being a ghost comes with fewer privileges than you might expect. I couldn’t see my family, couldn’t linger in their rooms, much as I yearned to. Besides, if I had been given the right to haunt someone, I wouldn’t have chosen my family. They deserved better than my sad little ghost, hanging around, full of self-pity.
The mild weather quickly ended, the weather turned bitter, followed by that blizzard at month’s end. It was only then that anyone began to take my mama seriously. There had been rumors that I had gone to Florida, along with Latetia, who ran away to Elkton and eloped on New Year’s Eve. She cabled me that she was moving to Florida with her new man, but the cable sat, unread, in a pile of bills and junk shoved under the door of our place on Druid Hill Avenue. The landlord discovered it when he came by on January 15, to complain about not being paid. He was ready to put all our stuff on the street, but my mama made good on my portion, ransomed my possessions, the ones worth keeping. She bundled up my beautiful clothes and took them back to my family’s place. She wanted so to believe that I would wear them again.
The Afro-American ran the first piece about me on February 14. Happy Valentine’s Day to me; my mother loved me enough to convince people that I hadn’t just walked away on my own. The police began to ask questions, if only out of respect. The last anyone had seen me for sure was heading out on December 31—early January 1, actually—for what I told everyone was going to be a big, big night.
Tommy, who worked the bar at the Flamingo, even remembered my last words: “They say whatever you’re doing on January first is what you’ll do all year. I don’t need to eat any black-eyed peas to know that 1966 is going to be a great year.”
You could have read all of this in the Afro-American, Maddie Schwartz, but I’m guessing that you don’t make a habit of reading the Afro.
March came in like a lion, they still hadn’t found me, and the daily newspapers still hadn’t written a word about me.
Tessie Fine—she was missed right away. I know, I know: she was only eleven. And white. Still, it did not escape my attention that her disappearance was noted almost immediately. You certainly noticed. That was your first taste, the little girl. You’re a morbid one, Maddie Schwartz.
Again, I have to ask: are you really missing if nobody misses you?
The Schoolgirl
The Schoolgirl
I can’t believe I end up fighting with the principal on my eleventh birthday, but I am one of the best students at Bais Yaakov and I like to argue. I’m good at debating. I’m good at everything. I am furious that I will not be publicly called to the Torah in front of my friends and family. I want a bat mitzvah, but modern Orthodox families like mine only allow boys that. Some of the Conservative families will throw parties for the girls, as for Reform—no one cares what the Reform families do. My parents say the Reform aren’t really Jewish.
“This is pride,” Rabbi tells me. “This has nothing to do with your life as a Jew. You yearn to show off. That is not the point of a bar mitzvah.”
It isn’t the first time I’ve been warned about pride, so I have an argument ready. “I am proud of being a Jew, yes. And the boys are proud, too. Even though most of them do not read Hebrew as well as I do.”
“You need to cultivate modesty, Tessie.”
“Why?” I stamp my feet, enjoying the hard sound of the taps that my mother puts on the heels so they’ll last longer.
“The Torah tells us . . .” I’m not really listening to Rabbi. I am readying my own argument. The beauty of the Torah is that you can always find what you need to win an argument.