How High the Moon Read online

  “Don’t you worry, I take care of myself!” I assured her.

  She put a hand on my cheek and smoothed my brow with her thumb. “You are a big girl.” She smiled.

  We turned off the main road onto a smaller, quieter street, took a few more turns, and soon found ourselves at Mama’s.

  “This is us!” she said.

  Her apartment building didn’t look like a place where people would live at all. It looked more like a mill of some kind. It must’ve been the size of five of our houses (at least!), all on top of one another. A giant brick square peppered with windows. She said that all those windows were to different people’s apartments. It was hard for me to imagine until I got inside.

  Turned out none of those windows I saw from the street belonged to Mama. Her apartment was on the back side of the building. Instead of just a regular window that looked out over the city, she had something called a fire escape—sort of a metal platform outside the window. Mama said it was in case there’s a fire in the apartment and it wasn’t safe to go into the hall, you could climb outside onto the fire escape, then take a short set of stairs down to the fire escape below, then take the next stairs down, and so on, until you reached street level. Mama’s apartment was on the fifth floor, so she’d have to do it a few times to get to the street.

  The apartment itself was small and didn’t have a lot of light. Faded velvet wallpaper covered the walls. There was an armchair to the left of the front door, and next to it, a closet. Another door, just past the closet, was open a little and I could see the white porcelain toilet with a small, pink rug in front of it. Henry and Myrna had both told me there’d be a flush toilet at Mama’s! I’d never seen one before. I could hardly wait to pull the chain above it and watch the water swirl down the porcelain hole.

  Tacked to the walls of the living room were posters. Brightly colored nightclub advertisements with bold images of singers singing, men blowing horns, and happy people drinking fancy cocktails just like they did in all them magazines Ben showed us. There was an ashtray on every surface, and a tiny kitchen off to the right. The whole place smelled a little like cabbage and cigarettes. I was tempted to open the window, but it was cold out. I turned to Mama in her pastel coat, looking like a pretty Easter egg. I guess I thought her home would be as lovely as she was. She smiled at me, then spotted a few crumpled clothes on the floor and began snatching them all up. With her laundry under one arm, she dramatically gestured to the sofa with the other. Set against a wall between the living room’s single window and a door that I imagined led to the bedroom, it was made up with lilac sheets, a black-and-white-plaid blanket, and a fluffy pillow.

  “My bed?”

  Mama nodded. I pulled off my hat, flopped down on the sofa, stretched out, and pretended to snore.

  “Daffy!” she said, laughing.

  I rolled over and let out a loud snort.

  Suddenly, I heard rustling through the bedroom door. I sat up and saw a tall colored woman in a black skirt and a tidy white blouse walk into the living room, smiling, but not showing any teeth. Her mouth was a small scarlet pillow. She had a large nose, like a man’s, and round, thick-rimmed eyeglasses.

  “Ella, hello,” she said, walking to the sofa. “I’m Helen. It’s so good to finally meet you. I’ve heard so, so many things about you. We’ve been very excited about your visit.”

  I’d never heard any mention of this Helen. I guess Mama could sense my confusion ’cause she quickly jumped in.

  “Helen is my roommate, baby. We live here together.” Mama walked to the couch and offered her hand. “C’mon, let me show you the kitchen and make you something.”

  Just a few minutes later I’d eaten two peanut butter sandwiches and drunk two tall glasses of milk. Mama watched, shaking her head.

  “My baby is growing fast!” she said, grinning. She called to Helen in the other room, “You see my big girl? I can’t believe how fast she gone and grown on me.”

  “Beautiful girl!” she replied.

  I wondered if Helen had any kids living down South with her folks. Maybe she was just rooming with Mama temporarily. Until her own family arrived and she could move into a place with them… and move out of me and Mama’s place.

  After a while, Mama and I went for another walk around the neighborhood to see the Christmas lights all lit up against the night sky. When we got back home, Helen was in the kitchen making dinner. I removed my shoes and placed them neatly by the door. Mama had tossed her wool coat over the back of the armchair and I could see one of her shoes, lying on its side in front of the chair, but couldn’t spot its mate so I set the lone shoe next to mine. I wondered if Granny had let Mama be so messy back in Alcolu. She sure wouldn’t have none of it from me.

  I laid my head down on the sofa, soaking up the delicious smell of the warm stew on the stove.

  My gaze drifted outside, to the brick building across the way. More little windows, each with a story inside. Heavy mustard-colored curtains framed that one window to the world outside and I couldn’t help noticing how ugly they were. Mama had better taste than that. Helen must’ve been responsible for those. Maybe she had something to do with those velveteen walls with nightclub posters tacked all over them, too. Maybe, but probably not. They were nightclub posters, after all. Surely they were Mama’s.

  I let my eyes close and filled my head with reflections of the past two days. The landscape rushing by through the train windows. Tall and skinny Gerald, the Pullman porter. Wide and round Miss Svetlana. Mama with her arms outstretched, so happy to see me. The dazzling Christmas lights that adorned the blaring streets of Boston. Helen.

  I didn’t know what to make of Helen. Her stew sure smelled good, though. Maybe Mama had her around ’cause she could cook. I didn’t know it then, but I wouldn’t get the chance to taste any till the next day. Shortly after I closed my eyes, I was fast asleep.

  I must’ve been real tuckered out from the train ride and all the excitement, ’cause I slept clear through the night! Mama got me up at six o’clock the next morning and made me an egg and toast. She put a few spoonfuls of Helen’s stew from the night before into a teacup for me, just to try it. Mama and Helen fussed about in the living room straightening pillows, emptying ashtrays, opening curtains.

  They had to go off to work at the Naval Yard. There was food in the icebox and a radio for me to listen to. Mama said they’d be back just after four and we could all have supper together.

  “I know it’s a mighty long time. You gonna be okay here all day by yourself, pumpkin? You got a book, right?”

  I nodded.

  “You get hungry, there’s more of that stew on the stove.” She swiped her lips with red and pulled on a pair of pretty white gloves. “Just don’t go snooping around through Mama’s stuff.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m perfectly fine.” I wanted to assure her that I was a big girl now. That I could handle being alone. But dang! Nine hours? What could I be expected to do with myself in a dinky apartment for nine hours?

  Mama kissed the top of my head and I imagined pieces of my hair sticking to her waxy lips.

  “I’m going to bring you home something special,” she said. Helen followed, giving me a short wave good-bye. I watched their shadows under the door move quickly away. Heard their voices trail off down the hall. Disappear. Then there was only the quiet of the apartment. I was alone. I listened a moment and the sounds of the city began to creep in. I smiled to myself. I was in Boston.

  The kitchen sink was empty and clean except for two juice glasses, lipstick stained, and each with a lick of brown liquid at the bottom. I lifted one to my nose and almost jumped back when I smelled it. It wasn’t clear as the moonshine Poppy’s buddy Pete made and shared with him but it was definitely whiskey of some sort. It nearly burned the hairs from inside my nose.

  I washed my breakfast dishes and went to the fire escape window to open it wide. The wild, brassy noise of the city poured inside. I climbed out and kept the window prop
ped open slightly with my book. I sat on the hard metal grating. I tucked my skirt under my legs to protect my thighs from its sharp cold.

  Everyone looked so busy. They all had something they had to do right now. Somewhere they had to be twenty minutes ago. It was too bustling for me. And too cold. After only a couple minutes I decided to go back in. Just as I was closing the window, my eyes caught movement. In the window of an apartment across the alleyway there was a man. A colored man. He had on a white shirt and dark tie and was drinking from a coffee cup as he walked from one room to another and out of my sight. But just as he disappeared, a colored woman in a pink dress and short cropped hair walked into view laughing. She was holding something in her hands, holding it out to him. Suddenly she turned and ran back the way she’d come, still cracking up. The man reappeared, smiling. She walked back to him and unfastened his tie, tossing it aside. In her hand was a new one.

  I couldn’t count how many times Granny had showed me how to tie a dumb ol’ tie. I couldn’t never get it right. Poppy and Henry had got to ducking me on Sundays before church, afraid I’d give ’em a hobo’s tie.

  The lady wrapped the tie around the man’s collar and expertly secured it to both their satisfaction. While she worked, he planted kisses on her forehead.

  I stepped to the side a little, out of eyesight, but I didn’t stop watching.

  They were talking through smiles. He smoothed her hair. Then they both got to talking to somebody I couldn’t see. A girl—maybe my age—approached wearing her dad’s suit jacket. She looked ridiculous. It was huge on her. They all thought it was very funny, but her dad pulled it off her and quickly finished getting himself dressed. Together, the three of them walked, holding hands, until I couldn’t see them anymore. I waited for them to return, but no one reappeared.

  While I’d thought about my dad, and who he might be, and while I’d longed to be living with Mama, I’d never given any thought to who we would all be together. Would we be like that family in the window? Laughing and being silly together? Walking hand in hand? It seemed nice, what they had. But it didn’t look like anything I could ever imagine having.

  Not only had I never known my daddy, I’d also never known my mama to have a special someone. It was hard for me to picture it. There was only one time I’d ever met a fella that she maybe liked. It was shortly after she’d made the move from Charleston to Boston. She’d found herself yet another job as a maid, but before long, she had also landed a job singing a few nights a week. She and another girl backed up a fella named Harold Cook. I must’ve been five when Mama brought Mr. Cook home so all of us could meet him. I still remember his sweet, powdery smell, and the tidy row of sweat beads across the top of his forehead. Sitting there grinning like a possum eating a sweet potato. He had more teeth in his mouth than anyone I had ever seen and his eyes closed when he smiled, which was a lot. He always seemed to have one hand on Mama. If he was standing behind her as she sat on the sofa, his hand was on her shoulder. If he was sitting next to her, he’d have a hand on her knee or would be holding her hand. But for all that smiling and touching and looking at my mama, I don’t seem to remember her ever looking back at him once.

  The manager of another nightclub came to see the Harold Cook show one night, heard my mama singing, and offered her her very own show. No more backup singer. She formed a band of her own and started wearing costumes with sequins and sparkles. Tiny glass beads were sewn all over her dresses so that when the light caught them, they’d twinkle like stars in the sky. Like my mama was an angel dancing high in the black sky. Catching the flickering of the stars in her dress.

  After Mama got her own show, I never heard any more mention of Harold Cook.

  Mama’s smile shines just as bright as the stars themselves. Everybody says so. And folks are always telling me that I have my mama’s smile.

  I wish I could sing. When I do, I try to open my throat wide and breathe deeply. I try to sing full-like. It’s what all the real singers do. But when I do it, it mostly just sounds loud.

  Myrna is in the church choir. You can barely make her voice out through everyone else’s, but still, when you do catch her clean, sweet voice in there you can’t help but smile. It’s so pretty. I love it when she sings around the house. If she’s cooking with Granny, she forgets herself, and Granny never tells her to stop. Nobody ever does. Instead, we all get real quiet, so as to better enjoy our very own radio.

  Seeing as nobody really knew Myrna’s parents, don’t nobody know where she got that gift. We don’t know if her mama had the gift of song, or her daddy, or if this is all Myrna’s alone. ’Cause sometimes, it’s just yours. There are some things that we just bring into the world that are uniquely our own. Granny says everybody’s got something. Myrna’s might just be her song. I don’t know what mine is yet. But I’m not worried. I’m only eleven.

  Sometimes I do wonder what I have that comes from my daddy, though. Maybe one day I’ll find out that I’m really good at chemistry. Or building things. I’m pretty good at math, but Mama says she was, too. Maybe I’m good in the kitchen on account of my daddy. Could be I have his hands. His feet. Not his eyes. I got Mama’s eyes.

  I reckon I got my skin from my daddy. I don’t have my mama’s skin. Mama has the smoothest, prettiest skin. It’s like chocolate candy. Creamy and smooth all down her arms and legs and on her pretty round cheeks. I’m more peanut colored. What some folks call “high yella,” ’cept I ain’t yellow at all.

  Away from the window, I started fiddling with the radio. It took me a while, but finally I found a clear song that I didn’t mind listening to. “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by those singing sisters. The song got me moving and I started having a good ol’ time dancing around the whole apartment. I danced back over to the window, looking for the happy family, but they weren’t there.

  When the song ended, I wandered into the bathroom and popped open the mirrored medicine cabinet. I inspected the bottles and tubes on the crowded shelves. There were all sorts of lipsticks, face creams, and hair oils in there. It was real messy. Some lipstick cases had lost their tops, and the oils and creams were all greasy around the edges of their jars. I recognized the Alka-Seltzer box. Poppy sometimes took those. He’d let me drop the big flat tablets in water and watch them fizz up.

  I held a dark glass bottle up to the light and could see that it contained lots of tiny white pills. The label was stained and half of it had peeled off. The writing was so small and the words were so big that I gave up trying to figure out what it said.

  I wanted to explore the rest of the apartment next. Mama said not to snoop, but it wasn’t snooping if I just wanted to take a look around.

  The closet near the front door was for coats. There were a couple of wool coats, and a couple of brightly colored rain jackets, and right behind them hung a silky, black fur coat. I ran my hands over the cool, velvety-soft fur. It had to be the softest thing I’d ever laid my hands on. I pulled the coat from its hanger, slipped my arms through the satiny lining. It was about ten sizes too big for me, I was swimming in the thing, but I still felt like a movie star. A movie star swaddled in the arms of a big ol’ mama bear.

  Toward the back of the closet, something shimmered and caught the light as I returned the fur coat. I pulled the heavy coats up to the front so I could get a better look. It was a dress. Long white satin with sparkly beading all over it. Next to it was a dress that looked like it was spun out of real gold. One long piece, no sleeves or straps. There were others, too. A shiny green dress, a lacy lavender number with a bow, and a black velvet one with what looked like a fur hem!

  I used the small stepladder that was leaning against the wall to take a look at the shelf over the coats. There were mostly boxes up there, but I immediately spotted an abandoned stuffed panda bear. He was pinned into the corner by a dusty shoe box and the red ribbon ’round his neck was only half tied, the satin faded. He seemed to have been completely forgotten.

  I lifted the lid to a shoe box, then s
topped a minute to listen for movement in the hall outside. I thought I’d heard somebody. I sure couldn’t have Mama walk in on me doing the very thing I’d promised not to do: go snooping around. She wouldn’t have no reason to be sore, though. It wasn’t like I was doing anybody no harm. Besides, the shoe boxes were filled with letters and photographs. I didn’t know anybody in the pictures and the letters were all made out to Helen Simpson, so I didn’t bother with them, anyhow. But when I went to put one of the boxes back I saw a record album in a brown paper sleeve. Mama had always been real clear about taking care of records. She was careful to always lean her collection upright instead of flat. The wide hole in the center of the paper sleeve revealed the record label. It was blue with silver writing. Unlike most labels that squeezed lots of credits into that little circle of space, this label only said:

  IT DON’T MEAN A THING

  (IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING)

  LUCILLE HANKERSON

  Then, in tiny writing at the very bottom it listed Platinum Recording Studios, Charleston, SC

  It was the original demo recording Mama had made! Just like the copy I had! I couldn’t understand why she had it up here, under all these boxes getting all dusty and possibly ruined. She must’ve forgotten where she’d left it a long time ago. Probably thought she lost it. And here it was, all this time! She’d be so pleased when I showed it to her later.

  I brushed the dusty edges where the shoe box hadn’t covered it, and then spotted something written on the lower right-hand corner:

  I believe in you.

  J.P.

  J.P.?

  I climbed down the ladder, taking the panda and the record with me. When I pulled the album out of its jacket, an envelope fell free. A letter. Barely that.

  Lucy,

  An elderberry blossom for an elderberry girl.

  J.P.

  Who was this J.P.?