Z. Packer - Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

“You don’t want it?”

She shook her head no. It was empty.

Then Mrs. Hedy began to weep. “Octavia,” Mrs. Hedy said to her daughter without looking at her, “I’m going to sit with Mrs. Margolin. All right?”

Arnetta exchanged seats with Mrs. Hedy. With the two women up front, Elise felt it safe to speak. “Hey,” she said, then she set her face into a placid, vacant stare, trying to imitate that of a Troop 909 girl. Emboldened, Arnetta made a gesture of mock pride toward an imaginary sash, the way the girl in full uniform had done. Then they all made a game of it, trying to do the most exaggerated imitations of the Troop 909 girls, all without speaking, all without laughing loud enough to catch the women’s attention.

Daphne looked down at her shoes, white with sneaker polish. I opened the journal she’d given me. I looked out the window, trying to decide what to write, searching for lines, but nothing could compare with what Daphne had written, “My father, the veteran,” my favorite line of all time. It replayed itself in my head, and I gave up trying to write.

By then, it seemed that the rest of the troop had given up making fun of the girls in Troop 909. They were now quietly gossiping about who had passed notes to whom in school. For a moment the gossiping fell off, and all I heard was the hum of the bus as we sped down the road and the muffled sounds of Mrs. Hedy and Mrs. Margolin talking about serious things.

“You know,” Octavia whispered, “why did we have to be stuck at a camp with retarded girls? You know?”

“ You know why,” Arnetta answered. She narrowed her eyes like a cat. “My mama and I were in the mall in Buckhead, and this white lady just kept looking at us. I mean, like we were foreign or something. Like we were from China.”

“What did the woman say?” Elise asked.

“Nothing,” Arnetta said. “She didn’t say nothing.”

A few girls quietly nodded their heads.

“There was this time,” I said, “when my father and I were in the mall and—”

“Oh shut up, Snot,” Octavia said.

I stared at Octavia, then rolled my eyes from her to the window. As I watched the trees blur, I wanted nothing more than to be through with it all: the bus ride, the troop, school — all of it. But we were going home. I’d see the same girls in school the next day. We were on a bus, and there was nowhere else to go.

“Go on, Laurel,” Daphne said to me. It seemed like the first time she’d spoken the whole trip, and she’d said my name. I turned to her and smiled weakly so as not to cry, hoping she’d remember when I’d tried to be her friend, thinking maybe that her gift of the journal was an invitation of friendship. But she didn’t smile back. All she said was, “What happened?”

I studied the girls, waiting for Octavia to tell me to shut up again before I even had a chance to utter another word, but everyone was amazed that Daphne had spoken. The bus was silent. I gathered my voice. “Well,” I said. “My father and I were in this mall, but I was the one doing the staring.” I stopped and glanced from face to face. I continued. “There were these white people dressed like Puritans or something, but they weren’t Puritans. They were Mennonites. They’re these people who, if you ask them to do a favor, like paint your porch or something, they have to do it. It’s in their rules.”

“That sucks,” someone said.

“C’mon,” Arnetta said. “You’re lying.”

“I am not.”

“How do you know that’s not just some story someone made up?” Elise asked, her head cocked full of daring. “I mean, who’s gonna do whatever you ask?”

“It’s not made up. I know because when I was looking at them, my father said, ‘See those people? If you ask them to do something, they’ll do it. Anything you want.’”

No one would call anyone’s father a liar — then they’d have to fight the person. But Drema parsed her words carefully. “How does your father know that’s not just some story? Huh?”

“Because,” I said, “he went up to the man and asked him would he paint our porch, and the man said yes. It’s their religion.”

“Man, I’m glad I’m a Baptist,” Elise said, shaking her head in sympathy for the Mennonites.

“So did the guy do it?” Drema asked, scooting closer to hear if the story got juicy.

“Yeah,” I said. “His whole family was with him. My dad drove them to our house. They all painted our porch. The woman and girl were in bonnets and long, long skirts with buttons up to their necks. The guy wore this weird hat and these huge suspenders.”

“Why,” Arnetta asked archly, as though she didn’t believe a word, “would someone pick a porch? If they’ll do anything, why not make them paint the whole house? Why not ask for a hundred bucks?”

I thought about it, and then remembered the words my father had said about them painting our porch, though I had never seemed to think about his words after he’d said them.

“He said,” I began, only then understanding the words as they uncoiled from my mouth, “it was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free.”

I now understood what he meant, and why he did it, though I didn’t like it. When you’ve been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others. I remembered the Mennonites bending the way Daphne had bent when she was cleaning the restroom. I remembered the dark blue of their bonnets, the black of their shoes. They painted the porch as though scrubbing a floor. I was already trembling before Daphne asked quietly, “Did he thank them?”

I looked out the window. I could not tell which were the thoughts and which were the trees. “No,” I said, and suddenly knew there was something mean in the world that I could not stop.

Arnetta laughed. “If I asked them to take off their long skirts and bonnets and put on some jeans, would they do it?”

And Daphne’s voice, quiet, steady: “Maybe they would. Just to be nice.”

AS PASTOR EVERETT MADE the announcements that began the service, Clareese Mitchell stood with her choir members, knowing that once again she had to Persevere, put on the Strong Armor of God, the Breastplate of Righteousness, but she was having her monthly womanly troubles and all she wanted to do was curse the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized, who’d decided that the Sisters had to wear white every Missionary Sunday, which was, of course, the day of the month when her womanly troubles were always at their absolute worst! And to think that the Brothers’ Church Council of Greater Christ Emmanuel Pentecostal Church of the Fire Baptized had been the first place she’d looked for guidance and companionship nearly ten years ago when her aunt Alma had fallen ill. And why not? They were God-fearing, churchgoing men; men like Deacon Julian Jeffers, now sitting in the first row of pews, closest to the altar, right under the leafy top of the corn plant she’d brought in to make the sanctuary more homey. Two months ago she’d been reading the book of Micah and posed the idea of a Book of Micah discussion group to the Deacon Jeffers and he’d said, “Oh, Sister Clareese! We should make you a deacon!” Which of course they didn’t. Deacons, like pastors, were men — not that she was complaining. But it still rankled that Jeffers had said he’d get back to her about the Micah discussion group and he never had.

Clareese’s cross-eyes roved to the back of the church where Sister Drusella and Sister Maxwell sat, resplendent in their identical wide-brimmed, purple-flowered hats, their unsaved guests sitting next to them. The guests wore frightened smiles, and Clareese tried to shoot them reassuring looks. The gold-lettered banner behind them read: “We Are More Than Conquerors in Christ Our Lord,” and she tried to use this as a focal point. But her cross-eyes couldn’t help it; they settled, at last, on Deacon McCreedy, making his way down the aisle for the second time. Oh, how she hated him!