We got paid a dollar a basket. I did fifty-four baskets so I had fifty-four dollars. I didn’t think they paid enough cause I counted how many strawberries were in one wooden basket so I could estimate the total in all of my baskets. In the basket I used for the calculation, there were 175 strawberries, so I multiplied that by fifty-four baskets, which equaled 9,450 strawberries. My mind was going crazy with numbers. How many strawberries are in those little green containers in the supermarket? It couldn’t be more than twelve, and how much does a small container in the market sell for?
NanaAnna said her strawberries were natural, organic, and precious. She told us that other farms and farmers were spraying poison on theirs and selling them to innocent unaware families and people to eat. She said the chemicals on those other strawberries would kill people slowly as the cancer crawled and creeped, attached, grew, and then exploded in their insides. I never heard nothing like that before until today. On the walk back from the field through the woods to our house, I ate a pocket full of those natural organic precious bruised strawberries. They were the ones I chose and picked. It was the only food I had all day. They were the only natural organic strawberries I ever ate in my little life. Sweet and juicy, they tasted better than candy. I never thought nothing natural could taste better than candy.
Riot and I raced to the bedroom. We all three fought to get in the bathroom first. When we were cleaned up and wearing our second set of cheap clothes, NanaAnna called us out to the kitchen.
“Time to cook,” she said. “I’m a little hungry and you girls worked on an empty stomach as well.” Riot quickly agreed to cook, but NanaAnna rejected her.
“No, you sit down. Porsche is going to prepare lunch for the two of us,” she said.
Riot laughed. “I guess we’re gonna starve then,” she said, doubting me.
“She’ll do just fine,” NanaAnna said. “And I noticed that she won’t eat anything that anyone else prepares. So from now on, she can prepare the meals,” NanaAnna said softly. “We will gladly eat what her hands prepare for us.”
“It’s okay, you two can eat. I’m not hungry,” I said, declining the cooking offer.
“If you want to pay down your debt, you should accept every decent job and do it well,” NanaAnna said.
She was looking into me, and I was looking back at her.
“I’ll do it. It’s nothing,” Riot stood up volunteering.
NanaAnna touched Riot’s hand, saying, “No, I have something else for you to do.”
NanaAnna asked me, “Where is the journal I gave you?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“You didn’t look inside of the sack I gave you last night? The gifts that the sprits told me to give to you?” she asked. I made a face at Riot then ran to go search the sack that I had thrown on the floor in the closet without opening. I came back with two journals in my hands.
“Which one do you like best?” NanaAnna asked me.
“This one,” I pointed to the purple.
“Okay, so we’ll use the orange one for the recipes. I’ve never written any recipes down before for anyone. So, consider this an introduction to our friendship,” NanaAnna said.
“Thank you, but it’s only forty days and there are only thirty-six days to go,” I reminded her, Riot, and myself.
“Thirty-six days is more than enough,” she said as she wrote out a recipe for strawberry pancakes with maple syrup and beans. Then she handed me the journal. I liked pancakes and beans but not freaking together.
I was left in the kitchen alone, after she put a flame beneath the griddle, and left the soaking beans in a pot on the stove.
“Gather up your utensils first, then your ingredients. Once you have it all organized, begin cooking.” She placed one hand on my shoulder and left the kitchen confidently with Riot following behind her.
Standing at the center of a large pretty kitchen, in a long and wide wooden house covered with bricks, and ivy leaves, I felt panic. As I watched the flames crawling beneath the iron griddle and sprawled out slightly below the bean pot, I began to sweat some. Realizing I was left with fire, matches, gas, and an entire knife collection, a drawer filled with forks, spoons, and more knives, unlocked see-through cabinets packed with clay and glass plates, unlocked closets filled with foods of my choosing, I felt crazy and unfamiliar. As I looked up to the ceiling it seemed the whole room was swirling. I had never in my life cooked anything before, or received a cooking lesson even. The room spun a little faster. And no one would leave me with all these weapons alone without sending the guards, calling the police, or chaining my wrists and ankles together. Would they? I began to cry. I was alone, so crying was okay. Siri was walking up the hall towards me. It’s always okay for her to see me cry, I thought.
“Come on, let’s try,” Siri said. The spinning kitchen slowed down its spin.
“You can sit, I’ll do it,” Siri said. But I didn’t want to sit.
“Okay, we’ll do it together,” Siri suggested as she pulled over a footstool to stand on to see better. We made small piles of the seasonings because they were all in separate small glass containers. Me and Siri stuck one finger in each in every pile till we tasted seasonings that we both liked. When we agreed on four different tastes I put a tablespoon of each in the boiling beans. The recipe had said, “Season to your taste.” I added chopped onions, which Siri had trouble slicing with a butter knife. The strong onion sting made her spill tears silently.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I told her, of course. I chose a tomato and washed it then dropped it in the boiling beans. I figured the hot water would turn something so soft into liquid even if I didn’t chop it up. I considered adding garlic cause Poppa would’ve liked that taste. However, after wakening up the other day with garlic pieces all over my body and bed, I was all garlicked out. Me and Siri held up the sticks and leaves NanaAnna had left there on the counter. “Are we supposed to put those in the boiling bean water?” I asked Siri.
“I don’t know,” she responded. “Let’s smell them,” she suggested. Each stick and leaf had different smells. Siri and I each chose our favorite. Then we hesitated and put them back. “Flowers smell good, but we wouldn’t put flowers in our soup or food, right? So, let’s not put these sticks and things in either,” Siri said. So we didn’t.
Some of the pancakes were really big and others were really small. They all ended up crispy, cause the griddle grew hotter than hot while we were taking our time preparing the beans. None of ’em was burnt though. I had sliced the strawberries up and laid them nicely on the plate where I piled five pancakes each for the four of us, twenty all together.
“Four plates?” NanaAnna asked curiously.
“Everybody’s eating,” I assured her. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t, but after preparing my first meal ever, I was definitely going to test it out.
“It’s so good,” Siri said first.
“I can’t believe it,” Riot said, stuffing a forkful in her mouth, her second one.
“I can,” NanaAnna said. She was watching me eat. I felt a little uncomfortable but the sweet maple syrup—soaked pancakes on my tongue made me too happy to remember that I was uncomfortable.
“What about the beans?” NanaAnna asked me a little while later. She and Riot had eaten all of theirs but me and Siri didn’t.
“I eat beans, but not with pancakes,” I told her.
“Beans are protein and calcium. If you only have sugar, you’ll be out of balance. Protein gives you strength. Calcium is for your bones and teeth.”
“My bones are fine,” I said. “Thank you for caring about me,” I said politely.
“How much did you remove from my debt? How much more do I owe?” I asked straight-faced. I needed to know how much the cooking job paid.
NanaAnna paused. “Since you have turned me into a debt collector I’ll put a chart right there on the wall. We will keep track of every expense just like you wanted, and credit you for each thing that you agree to
do, just as you require.”
I agreed. I needed to keep count on everything in my life and on everything I owed and everything that was owed to me.
“Ivory!” Riot called me as I was leaving the kitchen.
“I fixed the tire on a little bike outside if you wanna ride it,” she said.
I looked at NanaAnna.
“How much for a ride, NanaAnna?” I asked. She took a good look and a long pause and a deep breath, then said, “A dollar a day.”
“No matter how long I ride it for or where I go?” I checked.
“You gotta stay on the reservation with it,” Riot jumped in.
“No matter how long and no matter how short. Even if you take for five minutes or five hours, it cost a dollar,” NanaAnna said.
“No problem,” I said.
I guess she didn’t know that paying was the only way I could ride without feeling like I was child without parents who loved me enough to keep me, and buy me a bike.
“School tomorrow,” NanaAnna said.
“School?” I repeated. Didn’t she understand our situation? I thought.
“Okay, learning tomorrow. First work, then learn, then ride the bicycle,” NanaAnna said, emphasizing each of her requirements.
“Okay, learning . . .,” I said.
“Thank you for the bike, NanaAnna. Riot, thank you for fixing the wheel,” I said as me and Siri were leaving.
“Thank you for the meal. You are a good little cook,” NanaAnna said.
The bike was old with a rusted fender. Colored pink with a white basket in front with plastic flowers woven on it, didn’t have a banana seat, back rack, or sissy bar. Where will Siri sit? I asked myself.
“I’ll run along the side,” Siri said.
I told myself I’d let her run on the side just for this time, but when we got back, I would look for a wrench or something to knock off the basket. Then Siri could sit on the front handlebars while I pedaled.
I took the trail on NanaAnna’s property that led right to the reservation. This way I didn’t have to go on any outside streets to arrive there. I was gonna peddle up and down all the back and side reservation roads to get familiar with the place. Between the housing area of the reservation, NanaAnna’s house, the strawberry fields, and the woods, I liked the wilderness the best, especially the dollhouse. Maybe I loved the dollhouse cause it was the first safe place for us in the middle of nowhere. I never knew that “nowhere” could look so nice. I loved the stream and wondered if it led to even more water, like a pond or something. I’m not an expert swimmer, but I can swim enough to have fun and not drown. I wanted to go back to the dollhouse, but I didn’t know how to get there.
Riding with a hot summer wind blowing onto my brown skin, I felt relieved like someone had taken one of the seven bricks off of my head. First I sat. Next I stood pedaling, still holding the handlebars. Then I stood with my arms spread wide out on each side, coasting. Rocking the bike like an acrobat is something we used to do back in Brooklyn.
“School kids . . .,” Siri said. I saw them walking casually like they didn’t have no worries, no bricks on their heads, no cages for them or missing parents or sisters. I kept going, noticing them noticing me. Siri was waving at them.
“We should’ve brought some water,” Siri said.
“We’ll head back,” I told her. I was just as thirsty as her, too. “Next time we ride, we’ll fill up the backpack with water and treats. We’ll ride until we’re exhausted. Then we’ll jump off and have a picnic!” I promised Siri.
Chapter 19
She was standing outside of NanaAnna’s, by the bushes that concealed the front door of the big beautiful brick place, covered with leaves, the good-smelling, wide house, with the wooden walls and floors. Soon as she saw me riding up, she closed the book she was reading and pushed it into her back pocket.
“I was waiting for you,” Riot said.
“I’ll run in and get me and Siri some water. Then I’ll come right back out,” I said as I got off the bike and sat it on the kickstand.
“I’m going into town. I waited so I could let you know before leaving out, just like we agreed,” Riot said.
“I’m coming,” I told her.
“Not this time. I’m going on a mission,” she said.
“A mission . . .?” I repeated.
“I gotta follow up on something and check something out,” she said.
There was a pause, just me staring at her and her looking away.
“You going by the casino?” I asked her.
“We’ll talk when I get back,” she said.
“Good, cause I gotta idea, a good hustle,” I told her, thinking of the possible profit on the cigarettes.
“Me too,” she said. “NanaAnna said we only got four more days left of the strawberry picking job, and that’s it till the next crop,” Riot informed me.
The figure $270 popped in my head. That’s five days of picking at fifty-four dollars a day. That’s the minimum I would earn picking berries. But I didn’t say nothing.
“Okay, when you get into town, see if you can ask around about the mall. They must have one, like a Macy’s or something like that. Eventually, I’ll have to get a going-home outfit,” I told her.
She laughed a muffled laugh. “Okay, Santiaga,” she said.
“You gotta get used to calling me Ivory!” I reminded her.
“Yeah, well, I’m not Ebony right now,” Riot said. “I’m going into town so I’m Rod,” she said. I looked at her. She didn’t have to tell me she was posing as a boy. I could always tell by the way she rocked her hair, and her stance.
“You really getting into this boy thing?” I said.
“This shit is serious,” Riot answered back swiftly.
“Which do you like best, being a boy or girl?” I asked.
“I like both,” she said, giving up a half smile. “Boys get more respect, especially from other boys. When I’m looking to make a few dollars, I can pick up an odd job faster and get paid more than a girl would get paid for doing the same thing. When I’m a boy, I can get girls to do whatever I tell em. When I’m a boy, I don’t have to worry about boys trying to fuck me,” she said. I smiled.
“At least not yet,” I told her. We both laughed. “And, you don’t seem to have no trouble getting girls to do what you want us to do. You have a whole army, the Diamond Needles, and you’re number 1,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but damn that was a lot of work! When I’m a boy, I can just tell a girl, ‘Come here,’ and she’ll come. When I’m a girl, I got to do a lot of talking and convincing. I got to answer a slew of questions. Just like when I’m kicking it with you, Porsche. You got a million questions. If I don’t answer them right, you start to distrust me,” she said and then silence fell between us.
“That’s right,” I told her, breaking the silence. “You gotta answer them right or I will start to distrust you. Why did you close that book and push it into your back pocket when you saw me coming?” I asked her seriously. She pulled the book out and showed it to me. I read the title: Four Arguments for the Legalization of Marijuana.
“Where did you get that?” I asked her.
“From NanaAnna’s library. It’s in the back room. You should check it out sometime,” she recommended. “See, the girls out here don’t care what I’m reading when I’m a boy. They just look up to me and think I’m about to be a successful businessman. But between girls, there is usually this layer of distrust. It’s hard work breaking through that and keeping girls tight and unified with one another. Porsche, me and you gotta get tighter, and more unified, okay?” she asked, her green eyes shining in the sunlight.
“Trust is feelings and actions stretched out over time. I think you can organize plans, actions, and girls or boys, or whatever. But no one can organize feelings. They just come when they come and grow little by little. As far as me, my feelings come very slowly, but then they grow so wild like the leaves that cover this house. And they grow roots so strong lik
e that tree right there, that probably been standing right there for more than a hundred years,” I said, without thinking.
“Porsche, you are a fucking pretty little girl,” Riot said suddenly. “And, it’s so much more than the way you look.”
She left.
“Should we get water from the stream or the faucet?” I asked Siri.
“Let’s go inside and use the faucet. I’m tired from running,” she said.
After drinking water from Siri’s palms, water that flowed from the faucet, we both lied down on our bed. Siri was curious about the sack. She began picking through it.
“Two journals, a pack of pens, pencils, cocoa butter, shea butter, three bags of almonds, three bags of raisins, peanut butter, a long heavy thick green leaf, a bag of beans, a stalk of corn, and some ‘feminine pads’?” Siri called out the names of each item. “That lady NanaAnna sure is strange,” Siri said. “Remember you gave her a list? She didn’t buy anything you asked her for.”
I looked in the bag. Siri was right. I didn’t ask for none of this stuff on my list.
“Take the envelope,” Siri said, handing me a pretty pink envelope.
I opened it. On the cover of the card was a pretty eyeball with long lashes. On the inside of the card was a handwritten letter with nicely drawn lettering. I read.
I gave my daughter Tallahee a journal to write in. She never did. I wish she had. Right before her thirteenth birthday she was killed in a car accident. If she had written in her journal before then, I would be able to hear her voice in her own words. I would know her thoughts and be able to hold on to her feelings for my lifetime. I would read and reread them every night. It would soothe me so much. Your life is an adventure and a journey. Your story may one day become the most valuable thing you have, other than your breath, body, and soul. Now, I am giving you a journal to write in. It is your choice.