Stateway's Garden Page 14

  “Don’t go, Tracy,” he mouthed without a sound releasing. He repeated the words but they were barely audible: “Don’t go, I need your help, don’t go back.”

  “All right!” Tracy shouted it suddenly as if he were actually replying to him, even though, with the distance between them, he hadn’t heard a word Jacob said. “But you gotta tell me why I’m over here. ’Cause like I said, I’m not watching anybody’s kids.”

  Jacob had never experienced the kind of relief he felt when he saw his brother’s legs appear in the hall, looking like a clumsy superhero with no cape, shoes still untied, small dark hands with scarred knuckles at his sides, and the shadow once hiding his body being erased inch by inch.

  “Stephanie’s pregnant,” he said in the same weakened voice.

  He made certain to stand up straight as he talked, emulating the perfect posture of the soldier he visualized his brother always being. He’d been told by the men around the buildings that he should be proud of the day some woman told him of her pregnancy, he’d accomplished what was assumed a miracle, something making him a man. Tracy’s quiet and long distance in the hall was a fence between him and that pride. The two of them were staring at each other. Jacob watched Tracy’s slow and consistent breathing and tried to do the same. His remained chaotic: in-in-in-out, in-in-in-out, in-in-in.

  “Did you tell Mother?” Tracy asked him.

  “Nah.”

  “Does Laney know?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t think so, I hope not.”

  “So, you told me first?”

  Jacob examined him in the distance. Tracy took the moment in, selfishly knowing he was finally privy to something of his brother’s that was all his own. For some reason, he couldn’t taste it as he always thought he’d be able to. He now knew what was the most important thing about his brother in this moment. It should have validated him, made something whole. He grew frustrated instead.

  “Why you go and get her pregnant?” The resentment in his voice made him sound foolish.

  “Is you slow?” Jacob’s eyes bunched. “Come on, be for real.”

  The elevator door opened again, although Tracy had been standing away from it for nearly ten minutes. They both responded to the loud sound of the door this time, each looking at the light shining from inside, revealing a path in the hall where they stood rigidly, and no longer shivering from autumn wind without jackets. That elevator held different meanings for them: For Jacob there would be loneliness, the inevitability of facing this pressure while standing alone, of facing Stephanie without excuse. However, the elevator would give Tracy the opportunity to laugh at his brother, to feel better than Jacob and at last for good reason. He could simply escape, maybe even make it back to his building with enough time to check the mail, greet his mother if she hadn’t arrived, and explain Jacob’s mistakes with Stephanie to her while chuckling the entire time. Tracy looked at the elevator like there was a man standing there, a man with a grown-folk beard like Teddy Pendergrass, blackened hat with a shiny patent-leather bib, silently mouthing to him, “Next stop, first floor.” He watched another moment. The elevator appeared to be waiting. Another few seconds. Then one more. He thought he may have even heard the elevator-man say the doors were closing. He glimpsed back to his brother, who was no longer looking at him. By then, Jacob was standing directly in front of Stephanie’s door. And Tracy swore he heard the deadfall of those elevator bricks on his brother.

  * * *

  “TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED,” Solane said from the kitchen. She was facing the sink with her back turned. “What’s going on with y’all?”

  Stephanie didn’t inhale in an attempt to respond. They both ignored the sounds of the voices in the hall, pretending they were simply cracks of wind coming through a window. Solane turned the water faucet on again and began clanking dishes from one side of the sink to the other. Those loud noises ironically soothed her, releasing ounces of worry that continued to pour into her mind. But the clamor of plates and pots and glasses had the opposite effect after a few seconds. They were crowding her thoughts and discharging fears she didn’t know she’d previously had. She grew impatient standing there, banging the pots louder in attempt to control Stephanie’s attention. Even with the water running noisily in the sink, nothing worked. She turned the faucet off.

  “I’m waiting for you to tell me what happened.”

  “You’re not my mother, Lane.”

  Solane turned back to the sink in a quick and precise movement. Using both hands, she slowly reached for the faucet handles. She then placed her hands on the edge of the sink and stared at the water spilled along her T-shirt. “I never said I was your mother.” She removed her hands from the sink and began stretching her shirt.

  The voices in the hall had stopped. Stephanie noticed immediately. She felt eased, thinking he had left and she could then figure out everything with no opinions from others. She stood up and slowly slid to the door, using her feet as the conductors of sound. Had she heard anything she would’ve immediately gone back to the couch. There was nothing. She leaned against the door’s framing. A few moments passed. More relief. She turned left and saw her sister there, right there, not a foot away, face-to-face, teeth compressed so tightly that air couldn’t pass. Stephanie assumed she was still doing dishes in the kitchen. She saw the water splashed on Solane’s shirt, nearly to the neck, then looked down at Solane’s hands as they dripped onto the concrete of the floor, mixing with its dust, two or three drops at a time. She thought she saw mud piles forming.

  “I said, tell me what’s going on.” Solane’s lips didn’t even move. Her voice was more controlled than she’d held it before.

  “I don’t need your help.” Stephanie wanted to instantly take a step backward, to create some reactionary distance. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “You were sure cuddled on that damned couch like you needed my help.”

  Hearing that pressed Stephanie against the wall. She felt she’d been hit with a punch before putting up her guard. In the seconds passing, she needed to counter, to throw something back at her sister, incisively, something sending Solane back to the corner of their mid-voiced tension.

  “Just leave me alone,” Stephanie said. She felt the doorknob at her side, pressing against her hip. She then gripped the concrete pillar next to the door for balance and took a sharp breath. “Worry about your kids. I’ll worry about mine.”

  Solane heard her. She couldn’t help but hear. She tried to block out the two sentences, wishing the water on her hands was a much stronger solution, maybe an extinguisher from the building’s hall, anything that could calm those words that continued playing. But it became a combustible, an antonym, and she felt that with the slightest wave of her hand she’d ignite something landing with such force on her sister’s cheek that it would turn her a different color. She grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt, clenching and crumpling it into her fists. She may have opened and closed them five or six times before calming. Stephanie realized she’d received no counter. No reply at all. She couldn’t even hear her sister’s breathing any longer. Stephanie tottered her head slowly left; it had the unsteadiness of a baby’s. Solane closed the distance. She was directly in front of her again, newly nose to nose. Stephanie could still hear water dripping from the sink. Only it wasn’t water from the sink. Those were her sister’s quarter-dried hands, releasing what essentially was gasoline. Drip. Quiet. Drip. Quiet. Drip. Its repeat was a countdown timer.

  Solane parted her lips but her teeth were pasted. The tip of her nose had sharpened. “How far along are you?” she asked. “And just know, I’m only gonna ask you once.”

  * * *

  “MAYBE YOU SHOULD KNOCK?” Jacob said, facing the door. He didn’t turn to look at Tracy standing nearly four feet behind him, directly on a line. His words bounced from the metal surrounding the door and punched Tracy in the ribs.

>   “Nope.”

  “She’ll answer for you, they like you, come on.”

  Tracy didn’t move. Through the gate in the hall, which enclosed the porch, he was able to see the ten flights to the ground and was rethinking his decision to allow the elevator to leave without him.

  “I can’t,” he finally replied. He turned his head right, longing for air at the other end of the hall. “Nah, there’s no way I’m knocking.”

  “Please, Tracy, just pretend like you came to see the kids, like you wanted to say hi or something.”

  “At nine o’clock at night?”

  Jacob was silenced by his brother’s response. He repositioned himself in front of the door and analyzed the chips of paint missing along its frame. He took three fingers and trailed them like rivers on a map. “We should go, yeah, we should just go.” He said the words to the door. Another bouncing blow to Tracy’s ribs. But Tracy didn’t reply. And Jacob didn’t want to turn and see him gone. He stared more intently at the door, knowing that in the breath of pause, Tracy had pressed the elevator button and hopped on in silence, or flew down those ten flights as only fourteen-year-old legs could. Tracy didn’t owe him to be there anyway. Most times, Jacob pretended not to know him when they’d see each other around the buildings. But something was happening and he couldn’t force himself to shift and see what he assumed was an empty space. Initially, he thought it was him finally admitting a love for his brother, but that wasn’t it. There was a trust overwhelming him, maybe even an admiration, and ultimately a torrent of resentment. He’d never previously allowed any envy of his brother to surface. Unlike his, Tracy’s face appeared to hardly need lotions, blemishes disappeared almost immediately, and, most important, people seemed to like Tracy with minimal effort on his part. Tracy was the responsible one, and Jacob couldn’t admit that he was jealous of his brother being there to greet their mother when she came home, there to hold a black briefcase with nothing inside, even to pick up mail and be the first person conversing with her upon building’s entry.

  “I can hear somebody talking,” Jacob said, trying to break the silence.

  “I think you should just knock on the door, Jacob,” Tracy answered. Jacob blinked a few times. He had to regain a rhythm to his breathing. In his mind, Tracy’s voice sounded somewhat deeper. There were no cracks. Its tone seemed to dominate the hall. “Jacob, just knock on the door.” The words lifted Jacob’s right arm, yellowish-pink hands hiding the ash on his skin from dry autumn air. He hit the wood five times, each echoing the first. He tensed, then quickly jumped back. He was preparing for a salvo of sharp objects to fly out. Tracy bumped him slightly and moved to his side. They were standing next to each other, shoulders forming a straight line, with Tracy on the right.

  “I never told you, but I had a dream you got Stephanie pregnant.”

  “Thanks for telling me now, yeah, really appreciate that.”

  Tracy ran his hands up and down his arms, then turned to his brother, lips nearly touching Jacob’s earlobe, and whispered, “Why’s she not talking to you anyway? What did you say to her?”

  * * *

  “YOU STILL DIDN’T answer my question,” Solane stated. She remained in the same position by the door, green T-shirt dripping gasoline. She was inhaling and exhaling visibly. Stephanie bent her knees slowly, not taking her eyes from her sister’s. While nearly in full crouch, she scooted away. She reached for the red plastic chair next to the window, grabbed its back, cupped the lip, turned it in reverse. She made certain to remain in full view of Solane. She then sat down, her chest against its backrest, and eased herself into the plastic, moving as though she expected it to somehow bruise her. As she sat there in silence, mulling her response, she felt herself assuming the weight of pregnancy. She leaned her head left against the wall, cheek pressed directly to the concrete. No longer could they hear anything outside. Solane wasn’t even listening, though. She took a couple of stomps toward Stephanie and noticed the bright light of the lamp with no shade shining into Stephanie’s face. Solane clenched the bottom of her shirt. The veins in her wrists filled with blood with each grasp and release.

  “I don’t want to repeat what he said to me,” Stephanie finally replied. “Don’t make me.”

  “I didn’t even ask you what he said.”

  “Look, I’ll handle it. I’ll handle things, Lane.”

  “You’re not quitting school, Stephanie. So you can get that outta your mind right now.”

  “I’m not you…” Stephanie’s voice trailed off at the end of the sentence. She held her knees in her hands.

  “I never once said that.” Solane made a half circle and bolted to the kitchen. Moving to the sink, she ran the cold water over the fronts and backs of her hands. It cooled her entire body. Her elbows were resting on the edge of the stainless steel sink.

  Stephanie’s eyes widened as her sister walked away. “Lane, I didn’t mean it like that. You know what I mean.” Stephanie sat upright with the back of the chair concealing her upper body. “Lane,” she called again softly. Solane didn’t respond. Her forearms were pressed into the edge of the sink, hands dangling loosely in the basin. “Lane!” No reply. Although they were probably six feet apart, Stephanie was now yelling at her sister as though she were ten flights down, standing in a bomb site of grass below. “Lane, just say something. You always got something to say.” Each time she called that name with no answer she was more alone. The cold water smashing into the bottom of the kitchen sink had detached her sister, creating a barrier. How dare she turn her back on me, Stephanie said to herself. I watch her kids every week and don’t ask her for a dime. Anything else comes up, I do that too. Stephanie looked Solane up and down, scanned her body completely for the weak spot where she’d lunge. She softened, though. Couldn’t help it. Because there was the three-line part she’d shaved in the back of her sister’s head last Saturday, the one Solane begged her to do in an attempt to resemble MC Lyte. Stephanie always practiced the latest hairstyles on her. She tried to suppress that Saturday memory, the warmth of whom she never acknowledged as her best friend, Solane sitting in the very same chair, exact position, hot curling irons smelling the room, wearing a similar pair of homemade, scissor-cut blue shorts, with them both giggling and goofing and talking in ways Stephanie could never get the silly girls in school or anywhere near her age to do. She used her right hand to grip the side of the plastic. It braced her. In her mind, she’d just clicked a seat belt. “He said…” She paused, waiting for her sister to react, for her to remove the roadblock of noise from sink water. “He said…” She hesitated again, straining further. She sat in the chair as though it were a roller-coaster ride. The water continued running, its racket disturbing everything. She inhaled. “He said, You can’t be pregnant, you gotta do something, I don’t want to disappoint my mom, you gotta do it!”

  After Stephanie uttered the sentence with enough rapidity to dry her mouth completely, she allowed the chair to consume her. Her arms were at her sides. She thought of her palms. There was no sweat. She opened and closed her hands repeatedly, rubbing her thumbs on the insides. Still nothing. While in self-analysis, she didn’t even realize that the water was slowly being turned off.

  * * *

  JACOB LEANED AGAINST the gate in the hall and put his fingers through the holes. He allowed them to remain there, fixed in place. He then looked down and clenched the metal of the gate. He saw an empty potato-chip bag on the ground and kicked it to the wall. “I asked her a bunch of times, she said she didn’t know how far,” he said to the concrete.

  Tracy was standing to his left side, tucked into a corner. He put his hands in his pockets. “She didn’t take one of those tests?” he asked.

  “Knock again for me, Tracy, please just knock, they might open the door for you.”

  Tracy used his back muscles as a pole vault to launch himself from the wall. He nearly lifted from his feet.
>
  “I don’t hear any talking,” he said, and walked to the opposite side of Stephanie’s door. The door to another apartment was there. He looked through the gate, which gave view of the windows alongside the building. “I can see the window open. They probably can hear us talking out here.” He remained a moment and didn’t remove his hands. “Okay, I’ll just knock for you. But she’s not coming out here after what you said.”

  Before Tracy made it to the door, Jacob had released his hands from the gate, the bottom of his long-sleeve thermal shirt moving with the wind, and began banging on the door with the open part of his hand. The sounds came more as thuds than knocks. Tracy walked up and stood to his left.

  Jacob turned to him. “I can’t tell her.”

  “Mother?”

  “She gonna be really really mad at me, I can’t.”

  “I won’t say nothing.”

  “What you think I should do?” Jacob faced the door.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll be okay with it.” Tracy pulled his right hand from his pocket. He lifted it to knock on the door but didn’t. “Yeah, I think you should tell her,” Tracy continued, then rested himself against the gate to the right of the door.