Page 48 of It's Me They Follow
The phone rang, but it was distanced and muffled like it was underwater.Brrerrrnnnng.
Her bedroom walls were still painted electric blue to match her bedspread and what she imagined as the ocean floor. Their grandmother hadn’t touched her perfectly made-up bed;even her pillows were how she’d left them—two pillows on each side of her full-sized bed. Her stuffed mermaid was still in its place between the pillows. Colorful and iridescent mermaids were everywhere she looked—statues, paintings, books, art. Their grandfather had managed to find her mermaid everything, including the light fixture, rug, drapes, and night-light. Mermaids had helped her feel safe when they’d first come to live with them, so he gave her mermaids every day.
Brrerrrnnnng.The phone rang again, but even more distant now.
Her desk and bookshelf were painted blue and covered with posters of Sonia Sanchez quotes and August Wilson photos. They didn’t make posters for playwrights, so their grandfather had paid to get them made for her. She had a Walkman with a Jill Scott CD beside it. It was like seeing herself grow over time but also remain the same. ReadingThe Adventures of Fathead, Smallhead, and Squareheadin the closet in the late eighties. Writing letters to herself in the early nineties. Homework on her beanbag in the late nineties. Never sleeping in her bed in 2000. Instead, she’d started to make a bed on the floor of her closet so she could read and write at night by candlelight without being caught.
Her grandmother had ordered her a box set of sixteen thick leather journals and her own quill and ink pad. She told The Shopkeeper to “write the future, write until you feel healed.”When she opened her closet, it was just as she’d left it all those years ago. She sat down cross-legged on her makeshift bed of sheets and blankets. She lit the altar candle with her favorite metal lighter, which still lay beside it. Their grandfather had built hidden shelves into the closet walls. In them were rows and rows of her journals. She’d started writing the future as a little girl when they first came to live with their grandparents. It was the only way she could deal with the present. She picked through herself over the years. Love letters and heartbreaks, crushes and friends, dreams and aspirations.
MEET SONIA SANCHEZ
MEET SONIA SANCHEZ
MEET SONIA SANCHEZ
One notebook said repeatedly for pages.
That was how she’d ended up moving to Philly.When I grow up, I want to open a bookshop in Philly.When I grow up, I want to write a book.When I grow up, I want to be in love. When I grow up, I want to love ME. When I grow up, I want to be a matchmaker. She picked a journal up and put it down as she traveled back in time on her own memory lane, one journal at a time. One notebook was spread open and face down on her makeshift bed. It still had a blue pen tucked into the spine. She picked it up.
The phone ringing was light but still there.Brrerrrnnnng.
Welcome home, the journal read in her own handwriting.
It gave her chills, and she put it back down for a second.
It was as though she’d left herself a note.
She picked it up again.
We aren’t here to judge you; sometimes it takes us longer than expected to find our way back home. I know you’re looking for ME, who is also looking for you. You will find each other in due time.
Today you get a chance to choose how soon.
Choose wisely.
Signed,
Yourself!
PS: Take these sheets and blankets down to your sister, or she will kill you. She’s about to have a baby.
Brrerrrnnnng.The ring returned, louder and more demanding. But thankfully, it snapped her out of it. She put the journal back, face down, in its spot. And even though she didn’t want to leave her things behind, she grabbed the sheets and blankets and towels and ran downstairs.
Brrerrrnnnng.She ran past the phone, hopping over their grandmother’s mess. She caught a quick glimpse of a photo; it was the same picture ofa group of grandmothers that ME’s aunt had with the same group of women all dressed alike—her literary society. A mustard-colored teapot sat atop the worn and dirty stove. Heaps of dried food were caked along the surface of the walls. Oil splatter decorated every empty wall space. The cluttered kitchen was a maze of dirty dishes, broken plates, old newspapers, and other shrines to their grandfather. Boxes of the books he’d collected for The Shopkeeper over the years were piled high upon one another.
The sunroom door was dilapidated and creaky, but the sun was still rising and filling the room with pinkish blue light. The Shopkeeper took deep breaths to let the fresh Down South air fill her lungs. Their grandmother’s rocking chair moved back and forth in the middle of the room beside their grandfather’s empty recliner. It still made her heart sink. His cup was filled with hot tea. Under their grandmother’s chair was an axe to “‘cut’ the pains of birth.” Their grandmother rocked in the chair, rubbing her stiff knees.
“And that’s why we burn the chicken feathers,” their grandmother spoke out loud to herself. She was barefoot. Her feet were covered with life and scars, corns and calluses, bunions and bruises. She was ending a story and staring out at the forest past the clothesline with longing in her eyes as she started another story. “Now, one time I was delivering,and the baby came out fully born but in a bag, like they were never born at all.” The elder woman cackled and rocked like she was talking to her husband. She paid no mind to Elle’s contractions coming every three minutes. “We call them mermaids. This one was born that way.” She pointed at The Shopkeeper, who had never heard that story about her birth before. “They say those babies have second sight.”
Brrerrrnnnng, the phone rang. It was driving The Shopkeeper a bit crazier each time it rang, but no one else seemed bothered. She couldn’t shake the thought that it was ME calling and she was missing him because their grandmother wouldn’t let her answer his call.
“Can I take it off the hook, then?” she asked their grandmother, annoyed.
“You”—their grandmother clapped along with her words—“have a job.”
Sister gripped the side of the pool and bent over in an agony that brought her to her knees. The pool was filling up fast. She had already changed into an all-white robe and wrapped her head in a white towel. She handed The Shopkeeper a robe to put on as well. The Shopkeeper immediately felt her ears get hot and her palms start to sweat. She was overheating.
Their grandmother stood with her cane, which The Shopkeeper thought she might use to pop her, but instead, she balanced on it and began throwing herbs from her bra into the blow-up pool.The water danced with the yellow of ragwort, the red of trillium, and the green of sweet flag floating on its surface.
