How High the Moon Read online

  In Harvard Square, Mama, Helen, and I got sandwiches, potato chips, and coke from a funny little stand with a red, blue, and yellow sign that said LOU’S LUNCHEON. There was a picture of a monkey eating a hot dog, only it was really just his own tail in a bun. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to say about the food.

  We walked along the sidewalks, admiring the fancy shop windows. Each one insisted they could do Christmas better than the shop before. There were trees with sparkling silver balls, and praying angels hanging from ceilings, and presents with large red bows under trees. Smiling mannequin children wore flannel plaid and floral pajamas and held pogo sticks and dolls. Every display was like a slice of holiday magic. I could almost smell ham and pies baking.

  Back at home we’d be trimming the tree that Poppy’d chopped down for us. Granny had a box of tiny glass balls to go on the tree. Some were striped, some had polka dots, and my favorite had a silhouette of people ice-skating. There were also the ornaments we’d made and collected over the years. Granny had saved them all. One, just a blue star striped with tinsel, most of it having fallen off, I made when I was four.

  “Can we get our tree today?” I asked Mama. Maybe Mama and I could make, and start collecting, new ornaments.

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” she said.

  Mama and Helen walked me down toward the Naval Yard where they worked most days.

  “It’s right there.” Mama pointed in the direction of an enormous gray ship. I saw lots of folks in military uniforms and others in work clothes wandering around the area.

  “You built that?”

  As shipfitters, I knew that Mama and Helen worked building ships. With the war under way, most men had gone off to fight. That left lots of shipbuilding work that still needed to be done. Women (colored women included) stepped up and began filling the jobs the men had left open. I’d just never realized that the ships were so big! Bigger than our schoolhouse and then some. I couldn’t see how they possibly could’ve done that. How did they even know what to do?!

  When I asked about it, they both cracked up. Mama put her hands on her hips.

  “Yes, ma’am, we did build it! Had a little help along the way, but we worked on that ship and”—she pointed farther down the pier and I saw several more gigantic ships—“those, too. Crazy, right? Mama building ships!”

  I nodded, in absolute awe.

  “I thought you’d like it,” she continued. “You see, it’s not like we just showed up and started welding stuff. We got training. You’d like it, Ella. Working all that metal into something strong and powerful.”

  “Listen to you! Never heard you liking anything about ship fitting!” Helen playfully nudged Mama’s arm.

  “Well, what I like is sleeping in late!” She laughed. “Don’t like nothing that makes me get up ’fore I’m ready!” She linked one arm around mine and the other around Helen’s. “Let’s get moving. I sure don’t want no one from work to see me and get to chatting.”

  “Yes,” Helen said. “And I’m getting cold. You must be cold, too, Ella.”

  I nodded and looked away.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Mama added. “I much rather be in the club! Rather be singing any day of the week, instead of welding and grinding.”

  “I have no problem admitting I like the job. I find it satisfying.” Helen looked back over her shoulder toward the pier.

  My stomach started rumbling. I was already starting to get hungry again. And thirsty, too. When we came upon a water fountain, my mouth dried up even more.

  “Mama?” I asked. “Where’s there a Negro fountain? Is there one nearby?”

  “Oh, baby, if you’re thirsty, you can drink from that one right there,” she said.

  I shook my head. “Oh, no, it’s okay. I can wait.”

  “Wait for what? You can drink from that one.”

  “I don’t wanna get in any trouble.”

  “You’re in Boston, Ella,” Helen said, smiling.

  I didn’t know just what they meant, but I looked at the fountain again. There were no signs above it, or anywhere near it. It was just a gray stone fountain. Not FOR WHITES or FOR NEGROES, just for thirsty people. Still, I hesitated.

  “Now, you have to drink from that fountain.” Mama smiled and crossed her arms.

  I couldn’t help but grin a little as I walked up to it. I was still feeling almost like I was doing something I shouldn’t be. When I’d finished drinking, I almost stepped on a little white girl who was standing behind me waiting. But she didn’t say nothing. Didn’t even look at me. Just moved in to get her drink.

  Mama, one arm still around Helen’s, extended her free arm to me.

  “My big girl,” she said.

  And I felt like a big girl. Like a braver girl than I had been only moments before.

  ella

  I’d been staying with Mama and Helen for nearly three weeks. In that time, Mama had managed to get a few extra days off on account of the manager liked her and appreciated that she wanted to spend time with her visiting daughter, but a lot of the time, I whiled away the hours cleaning and prettying up the apartment, reading, dancing, playing with my corn husk dolls, and sleeping more than I was used to. I was happy to be there, but I was getting restless. I kept reminding myself that once I started up at my new school, Mama’s work schedule wouldn’t be a problem at all.

  I was getting used to Mama’s schedule and her habits. Days she worked at the Naval Yard, she usually finished up by four in the afternoon. But Mama was serious about her sleep. Most days, she’d get home, kick off her boots, and climb right into bed. She came to life at night, but I was sleeping most of that time. Instead, I’d try to keep her up so we could do stuff together in the evenings.

  “Mama!” I ran to her when she came through the door one afternoon and threw my arms around her. She put her arms around my shoulders, but didn’t wrap me tight.

  “How you doing, baby?” she said, finally peeling my arms off her so she could sit on the sofa and pull her boots off.

  “Let me help!” I knelt at her feet and tugged and tugged, but couldn’t get her boot loose.

  “Don’t. It’s fine,” she said. She crossed her boot over her knee and gave it a firm pull, releasing her foot. She freed the other one and then lay back, pulled her kerchief from her head, and scratched and scratched at her scalp. She sighed and seemed to sink into the sofa. With an arm across her forehead, she closed her eyes.

  “Want coffee? I’m making some,” Helen called as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “No,” Mama said. Eyes still closed. Frowning. “I’m gonna sleep.”

  “Christmas is so close, Mama. Can we get our tree?” It was less than a week away. Still, the words floated in the room. Mama didn’t say nothing. Only sighed, heavy and loud. Then she stood.

  “I’m gonna get some sleep, baby. Mama’s had a long day.” She touched my shoulder as she went, but didn’t look at me. The bedroom door closed quietly behind her.

  Aside from Helen’s careful puttering in the kitchen, the apartment was silent. The room got dark fast as the afternoon slipped into evening. I went to the window and watched the people bustle about, the streetlights come on, the cars slow down.

  Across the alleyway, the happy family pulled decorations from a large box. With each dangly ornament the girl removed from the puffs of pale tissue, her parents nodded in approval. Sometimes she’d unwrap one that made her jump or dance with happiness.

  I wondered if the girl went to my new school. If Mama had already enrolled me, we could’ve maybe been friends, and on Christmas Day we could show each other what we got and play with our new gifts together, like Henry and I always did. But now Mama said we’d have to wait until after the Christmas holiday when school was back in session for me to start up. I guess it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t have to do no schoolwork. Myrna and Henry sure would’ve been jealous!

  “That looks like fun.” Helen had come up behind me, and she rested a hand on my shoulder. Toget
her we watched the family decorate their tree, until she said, “We can’t let them have all the fun.”

  I turned to her, unsure of what that meant.

  “C’mon. Get your shoes on. We’re getting our tree.”

  Helen and I walked to the busy street a few blocks from Mama’s house. There was an open-air shop with rows of Christmas trees that had been chopped down, loaded on a truck, and brought into the city to sell to folks. Some of the trees were big, and some small. There were Christmas wreaths with big red velvet bows sewed onto them. And there were pinecones. Lots of pinecones. Pinecone owls, pinecone angels, pinecone reindeer, and pinecone elves.

  Helen grabbed ahold of a pine twig with her fingers, dragged her fingers down its length, and then put her fingers to her nose. “Mmm,” I heard her saying to herself.

  “Hi there, darling.” A grizzled white fella wearing suspenders over his plaid flannel shirt came up from behind. He held up a pinecone ornament that was made to look like a hedgehog, and was cute as the real thing. “Have a look at that. My wife, Edna, makes ’em herself.” He pointed to their truck parked on the street. Edna was inside, head buried in a pile of pinecones and scraps of felt.

  “It’s mighty nice, sir,” I said.

  The fella laughed a little. “Where you from, girl?”

  “Alcolu, sir. South Carolina.”

  “South Carolina? Is it cold enough for you here?” He laughed again and turned to Helen. “She visiting?”

  Helen nodded. “Your trees are quite beautiful,” she said to him. “You down from Maine?”

  “That’s right, ma’am. Enjoying the city, but looking forward to getting back to the farm, if I can be honest.”

  He’d called Helen “ma’am”! I’d never heard a white man call a colored woman “ma’am” before. And neither one of ’em seemed to have a problem with her looking him right in the face, talking direct-like.

  “You got a farm?” I asked, carefully looking up to meet his eyes.

  He smiled. He seemed happy to see my face.

  “We sure do,” he said. “You got a farm back home in Alcolu?”

  “Yes, sir, we do. My poppy takes corn and watermelon into town to sell to folks. Kinda like you do with your trees,” I said. I removed my glove and pressed my finger and thumb on a branch, pulling them along the length of it like I’d seen Helen do. I put my fingers to my face and inhaled the sweet, woodsy aroma.

  “So I’ll bet all this city bustling sure is exciting for you!” He straightened up and spoke to Helen again. “What can I do you ladies for?”

  Maybe this was why Mama wouldn’t come back to Alcolu. She was being treated so nicely by everyone, the thought of going back, where no one would call her ma’am, and where she couldn’t look white folks in the eye… maybe she couldn’t bear the thought.

  Helen settled on a smallish tree, full in the middle with long, wayward branches that looked like fingers expressing a thought. It stood about as tall as I was and would be easy enough for us to carry home together. She said that it was the perfect size for the apartment, but I knew that it really came down to what she could afford to buy. Mama would be tickled to death that we’d gone out and done this on our own.

  On the way home, it occurred to me that we didn’t have any decorations for the tree, but Helen said she’d already figured that out. She quickly ducked into a small store and came out carrying a brown paper bag.

  “We’re going to get a little creative on this here tree,” she said. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but before I could ask anything else she asked me, “You know any Christmas carols, Ella?”

  I sure did. We sang the whole way home.

  Inside, the apartment was black as pitch. There wasn’t a sound.

  We leaned the tree against the wall near the door.

  “Lucille?” Helen flipped on a lamp and walked to the bedroom, but she came back out just a moment later. “Funny,” she said as she went into the kitchen. She stopped at the counter a moment, then turned to me, a small piece of paper in her hand. “Well, seems your mama’s headed out for a bit.”

  “When she coming home?” I knew I was too old to be whining, but why was Mama out? I thought she had said she was tired.

  “I do not know, my darling. I do not know.…” I think Helen saw how sad I looked, ’cause she suddenly brightened and said, “Be a dear and fill a pot with water, okay?”

  When I went back to the living room with the pot, Helen was on the floor, securing our new tree into a metal stand near the window.

  “Thank you, Ella.” She filled the bowl of the metal stand with water, and then walked back to me, inspecting the funny little tree. “Well, this one is unique.”

  “It’s got personality.” I nodded.

  That night, Helen and I sang along to Christmas carols on the radio while stringing the popcorn and cranberries she’d picked up from the store on our way home, and cutting out snowflakes from multicolored sheets of hard paper. I made a cardboard star for the top of the tree, and we covered it in tinfoil.

  Together, we made chicken with rice and greens. We made a plate for Mama, covered it in foil, and placed it on the kitchen table for her. Helen didn’t seem to be concerned that it had gotten late and she was still out, but I couldn’t understand it. Where was she? Didn’t she know we’d be home waiting for her? Wondering where she was.

  Across the alleyway, the happy family’s tree lights glowed in the colors of a rainbow.

  I had been asleep awhile when I heard Mama come in. I kept my eyes closed as she leaned into the sofa, kissed my head, then stumbled to the bedroom.

  ella

  I woke up first on Christmas morning.

  Henry and I never could sleep in on Christmas. I always had the hardest time falling asleep the night before, and then, in the morning, Henry’s tiptoeing across his room to the hall—creak squeak creak—would make me jump right up. We’d creep into the living room, careful not to elbow any furniture or step on a loose floorboard, if we could manage. Someone was usually sleeping on the sofa at Christmas (Mama, Aunt Rhoda, or Uncle Teddy) so we had to be extra quiet.

  We’d go to bed, nothing under our lovely tree but one of Granny’s quilts wrapped ’round the bottom. But in the morning, there’d be presents. One newly arrived present underneath the tree for each of us. We’d take turns lifting and shaking them. Pressing our ears up close to them for any clues as to what was inside.

  It was usually Granny who appeared in the hall saying, “Now, now. Put that down.” Then she’d come over and pull us to her, kissing us and telling us how blessed she was for having such beautiful grandbabies. Granny made a point of reminding us that this wasn’t just a day for presents. It was Jesus Christ’s birthday and it was a day for all of us to be thankful for all that we had.

  I was thankful. Sure, Boston was different, but I was already catching on as to how to walk through the city streets, and the noise didn’t bother me so much anymore. I definitely liked being able to take a sip of water whenever I needed to and not having to search for a colored fountain. And Helen didn’t seem so bad. Most of all, though, it was just so good to be with my mama. I was thankful for that on this Christmas Day.

  I’d counted the presents before I went to bed, but in the morning, there were three new ones under the tree. There was one from Mama to Helen, and one from Helen to Mama, and a large present wrapped in red paper with gold reindeer was addressed to me from Santa. It was beautiful. I almost didn’t even want to open it up. The reindeer were sparkly gold silhouettes, and when you touched them you could feel the rough glitter on the paper. I traced my fingers over them, trying to brush up some of the sparkles, but none came off.

  I went to the window and looked out. It was almost a ghost town. Where there had always been so much bustling about, there was none. It was strange. Across the way, though, the happy family was up. Well, at least the girl was. I could only see the back of her, sitting on the floor facing her tree. Maybe she was praying. Soon her mama and daddy
would join her and the three of them would have the perfect Christmas together, surprising each other with special gifts and smothering each other with love.

  I wondered who my daddy was celebrating Christmas with. Did he have a wife now? A little boy or another girl? Was he missing Mama? Was he in California, or still in South Carolina, unaware that he had a little girl who was thinking about him this Christmas morning?

  “Merry Christmas!”

  Helen’s hair was tied up in a kerchief like she and Mama sometimes wore to the Yard. I could see the shiny bobby pins holding together her curls through the little hole on the top. She wore her glasses, but no makeup. Not even her red swipe across the mouth. I liked her better like this.

  “Merry Christmas!” I said.

  “Your mama’s getting up and will be out in—” Before she could finish, Mama came out of the bedroom, tying her housecoat.

  “Good morning, lovely girl! Merry Christmas,” she said. Her arms opened wide and I ran to her and filled them.

  I insisted on opening my present from Santa first. I tore through the sparkling reindeer to reveal a white box. After digging through layers of white tissue, I pulled out the most beautiful baby doll I had ever seen. She was a Bye-Lo Baby. I’d seen them in the department store windows in town. She looked real, with a wide, calm face, not silly and smiling like some dolls. Her dress was pale blue satin with creamy lace trim. She wore a matching bonnet, equally as beautiful. But the best part was that her complexion was close to mine. Not quite peanut, but not as peachy pale as most baby dolls. Her nose was wide and her lips were full. She didn’t look exactly like me, but she didn’t look like no ordinary white doll. She was different. She was special. I loved her.

  “Oh, you’re gonna have to name that baby. She’s so pretty!” Mama said.

  The blue satin gown caught the light and brightened everything around my new baby. I traced her smooth porcelain cheeks and then held her to my chest and squeezed her like she’d always been mine. Like she’d been long lost.