Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

Chapter 20

It Was That Boy

GALVESTON, TEXAS, WAS BLAZING. IT ALWAYS WAS, BUT THE END OF JUNEWAS brutal. Especially up in Lizette Mercier’s attic–cum–rehearsal studio. The AC in her rickety leased house refused to work, except (randomly) on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.

To combat the oppressive heat, Lizette scattered Home Depot fans around the periphery of the pink-painted attic—which caused papers, boas, gowns, bedazzled sashes, robes, and other sequined miscellanea to fly about as if caught in a windstorm. Lizette relished the drama. Sometimes, she even threw confetti directly into the fan, just to get her girls used to being distracted while performing. Something always threw you off on stage. Bright lights, a glimpse of your boyfriend, side-eye from the judges. Your competition doing terrible things to ruin your stage presence, like when Emmaline Hargrove flashed that hairy, nude Burt Reynolds centerfold from an old ’70s Cosmo at her, from the wings.

When was that, 1983? No, ’84. The Miss South Louisiana Mardi Gras pageant. Emmaline Hargrove was trash. Lizette got revenge, though. First by nailing the talent portion of the show (“Brick House” on clarinet) and then by nailing Emmaline’s dad (Justice Peter Hargrove). Lizette won Miss Congeniality that year. It wasn’t the big prize, but she was pleased, nonetheless.

Sometimes smaller victories count more, she thought. That’s quite the catch phrase, actually. I should get that printed on a banner for my girls.

It was time to replace the banner draped across her back wall, anyway. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. After winning Junior Miss Crawfish, one of Lizette’s girls had crafted the glittery sign for her. It was a decade old, and the sequins had fallen off the e in “thine.” TO THIN OWN SELF BE TRUE didn’t make sense, but she always encouraged her girls to remain as skinny as possible, so it still worked.

Lizette wasn’t sentimental, but she did love gifts from her students—sweets, stuffed animals, bouquets. Her favorites were the thank-you notes. She was the most successful pageant coach in the greater Galveston Beach area. Which was a feat, considering she ran a strictly word-of-mouth operation. No marketing. And definitely no social media. She loathed the thirstiness of Instagram, and Facebook felt like a yearbook from the Twilight Zone. To Lizette, all the “conveniences” that were supposed to make your life easier were actually just the tech equivalent of mosquitoes buzzing in your ears. She hated mosquitoes. And she hated being bothered.

Plus, Lizette didn’t want to be found. The internet wasn’t a place for people with secrets.

Her first client had been her neighbor’s daughter, whom she’d spied practicing for Little Miss Forever Beautiful in their shared backyard. The perky fifth grader had been working on a majorette routine but kept dropping her baton. “You need a longah wand, darling,” she’d called out over the peeling, ticky-tacky iron gate dividing their lawns. “One to match ya wingspan!”

Lizette had continued with her unsolicited performance notes—and when Kaileigh swept every title in the competition, she knew her advice had value.

Right now, she was working with Mahckenzee Foster, a twerking, tap-dancing, death-dropping demon. Lizette leaned forward in her director’s chair, lasering in on the little girl’s form. Lizette wasn’t a trained dancer, but she did understand presence. When she worked as a cocktail waitress, the mere cadence of her walk inspired chaos. Or, at least, it inspired drunken, red-faced white men to shout “Halle Berry” at her. Lizette looked nothing like Halle. It was that white-person phenomenon where they see a pretty brown face and declare that it looks like the first pretty brown face that springs to their minds. She’d been compared to Thelma from Good Times, Jasmine Guy from A Different World, and the Black girl from Saved by the Bell who went nuts—no resemblance.

Just another way they make you feel invisible, she thought. Lizette knew that the only person she looked like was herself. And Clo Mercier.

All told, her past didn’t bother her. Nothing bothered her, really. She lived on a Xanax-assisted cloud, stubbornly impervious to bad feelings and dark days. When a depressive thought popped up, she swatted it away.

“One more time, sweet Mahckenzee,” she purred, adjusting her kimono so it draped prettily around her legs. At fifty-five, with dreamy doe eyes and hot-rollered hair rippling to her shoulders, she looked like she ran an upscale 1940s brothel, not a kiddie-pageant consultancy.

When Lizette first heard her Samsung Galaxy ring, she ignored it. The phone sat on the director’s chair next to hers, the one she reserved for helicopter moms who wanted to observe rehearsals. After it rang a good six times, Lizette caught a glimpse of the name lighting up her screen. She yelped and then accidentally crushed her Diet Coke can in her right hand.

“Holy shit,” she said, grabbing the phone. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Mahckenzee? Keep practicing, doll, I’ma step downstairs for a moment. Need to take a call.”

“Okay…Miss…Miss Lizette!” panted Mahckenzee, who’d been dancing for forty minutes straight.

Lizette floated downstairs. She looked in her wall mirror, added a bit more CoverGirl Red Revenge lipstick to her bee-stung lips, and then draped herself over her white leather-look couch.

“Hello, Genevieve,” she cooed, all honey-mellow tones and lilting accent.

“Hey, Mom. Hi.” Her daughter sounded frantic. And close, as if she were yelling from the next room. It must’ve been an emergency if she was calling her on a random afternoon in June. They talked exactly four times a year: twice in April (on each of their birthdays), once in September (on Audre’s birthday), and at Christmas. She couldn’t imagine what had precipitated the call. But to her daughter, everything was a crisis.

Lizette had barely seen Genevieve since she’d moved away from home. When she came back from that psychiatric ward where the police sent her (she would never have had her flesh and blood committed, good God), Genevieve had told her in a long, teary midnight conversation that her therapists had said she needed space. From her mother. For her health.

Space!

Those were her words, in that kitchen, in their janky rented apartment in Washington, DC. That home had never felt like one, just an in-between purgatory riddled with bad luck. Everything fell apart in DC. Genevieve went missing. Lizette’s lover went missing, too—and then, one night, he hobbled into his bar, where she was cocktail-waitressing. She yelped, seeing his chubby, square frame propped up on crutches and his face bruised to hell and back.

She sidled up to him, a vision in black lace.

“My condolences to the other guy,” she chirped breathily into his hairy ear. An attempt to appeal to his (unearned) vanity—but he didn’t react at all. He just looked right through her. It wasn’t a look, actually; it was an unlook. The end.

It shouldn’t have hurt so much. She’d been dumped before. But this one had such potential! Lizette had met him while waitressing in Vegas. Over Bloody Marys, he’d invited her to live in DC, promising to set her up nicely and teach her how to manage his bar. She’d hoped he’d be her forever guy. She was so tired of starting over with a new man every couple years, only to be abandoned for unspecified reasons. When bad things happened over and over, it was a sign. God was telling you to change. Your attitude, your hair, your address. Something.

So she knew why Genevieve had fled. Lizette also knew that no matter where or how far you went, you couldn’t outrun yourself. But her daughter was grown. What could she do? She hugged her, kissed her, and helped her pack for the dorm. And “space” stretched across years. Until one night, Lizette picked up a Glamour in the dressing room where she was dancing, and saw a profile on Genevieve, in the Ones to Watch section. And discovered that she had a baby and an ex-husband, neither of whom she’d met.

Lizette didn’t lay eyes on Audre till she was two. It was cruel. She hadn’t raised her daughter to have such ghastly manners. But in the end, maybe Genevieve had been right to sever ties. Genevieve was Eva now, and she and Audre were both thriving.

Everything turns out the way it oughta, she thought.

“What’s wrong, bé?” She plucked a cigarette from the Parliament pack under her couch cushion and lit up. On an exhale, she said, “Must be trouble.”

“Are you smoking?”

Lizette took a deep drag and then blew smoke directly into the receiver. “No.”

“You said you’d quit. I sent you those e-cigs. Did you get them?”

“Jayzee Mahdee Joseff!” Jesus Mary Joseph. “Why you tendin’ to my business? Don’t antagonize me—I’m in the middle of class.” She glanced above, where Mahckenzee’s rat-a-tat-tat-tat tapping pounded through the ceiling.

“I need to ask you something. It’s important.”

“You sound off,” said Lizette. “You been crying?”

“What happened the morning you found me in the Wisconsin Avenue house?”

Slowly, as if moving through water, Lizette brought her fingers to the corner of her mouth. They’d never talked about this. Genevieve always insisted she didn’t want to revisit that morning ever again. Long ago, she’d put her foot down. Why now?

“I don’t like to think about that morning,” she said. “I’m having a hard day, G. So many girls, so little time, and I’m exhausted. You should see little Mahckenzee up there.” She gestured at the ceiling, with her cigarette. “No bigger than a minute, but she projects to the stars.”

Upstairs, Mahckenzee’s tapping was actually shaking the ceiling. Lizette’s crystal chandelier, a long-ago gift for excellent services rendered, was swaying. That was probably dangerous. It could fall on her.

Ah well, she thought, her eyelids fluttering shut. We all die of something.

“I need you to tell me every detail, Mom.”

“Well, why you ain’t asked till now? When you came back from that insane asylum—”

“Insane asylum? It was Howard University Hospital’s psychiatric ward, not One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“Well, whatever. You forbade me to ever discuss it again. You made me promise.”

“I was a kid!”

“Yes, a stubborn, hincty kid with volcanic emotions. I ain’t wanna upset you, so I did what you asked. Besides,” she said haughtily, “there are things we just don’t talk about. That’s our relationship.”

“We have a relationship?”

“Lord, the theatrics.”

“Tell me,” Genevieve demanded. “Please.”

“Oh, fine.” Lizette propped herself up on her silk pillows. With an indulgent yawn, she sank into a feline, full-body stretch, her kimono fluttering and rippling around her killer legs. Then she crossed her feet at the ankles and lit up her eleventh cigarette of the day.

“Think. How…”

Lizette heard her daughter’s voice crack a little.

“How what, Genevieve?”

“How did you get to the house?” she asked, in a flimsy, hesitant voice. And Lizette wasn’t positive, but judging from the way she asked the question, it seemed that she already knew the answer. How she knew, Lizette had no idea. But her hunches were rarely wrong.

A chill knifed through her. Lizette knew she was on trial. But she had no idea where this interrogation was coming from.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she whined petulantly.

“I really don’t care.”

What did she have to lose? Her daughter already hated her. And if God was judging her for her crimes, lying to her daughter to protect her would be the least of her sins.

“I’ll try to remember,” sighed Lizette. “I’d been calling you all week, and you never answered. Imagine if Audre ran away like that?”

“She wouldn’t,” said Genevieve, with devastating finality.

Lizette cleared her throat. “Um, finally, on Sunday morning, my phone rang. But it wasn’t you.”

“Who was it?”

“It was that boy.”

“Shane?”

Shane.Lizette rolled her eyes to the ceiling at the mention of his name—and then realized that she could no longer hear Mahckenzee tapping upstairs. Unacceptable. She slipped off her violet stiletto and threw it at the ceiling, where it hit with a thud and then landed on an accent table, in a tray of pink-and-yellow macarons.

She eyed this pastel tableau from the couch. It looked like the cover of a ’90s chick-lit novel.

“Mom, are you there? Shane called you?”

“Yes! How many times I gotta say it?” Lizette held a pillow to her chest. “He was all distressed. Said you were in trouble, and gave me the address. I drove there so fast I got a ticket. Got there, and you…you weren’t breathing. He was crying, saying it was all his fault. Which it was. Because there were drugs everywhere. Pills, liquor, just depravity. A razor. And you had terrible cuts! I knew he’d done it all; you were my innocent little baby.”

“Oh, Mom,” she moaned. “Jesus, you got it so wrong.”

“I called the paramedics,” she said proudly. “And then I called the police. And then they called the Oriental girl whose daddy lived there.”

“You can’t say ‘Oriental,’” she said flatly. “So you called the police. It was you.”

“If I knew the cops would send you to the loony bin, I wouldn’t have. But yes, I called the police! That boy kidnapped you. Hurt you. You were bleeding. Any mother would’ve done the same. Imagine if it were Audre. Besides, he knew he was guilty. You can’t imagine…He…he wouldn’t let you go. He was holding both of your hands in his and just wouldn’t let go. And then he crawled in bed and held you. Right in front of me. So disrespectful. Imagine if it was your baby? He refused to move. When the cops got there, it took all three of them to drag him away from you.”

Lizette hadn’t thought about this in years, but the memory still infuriated her. How dare that boy, who was clearly to blame, be so upset? She was the mother. She got to be upset. Lizette’s world was falling apart, her boyfriend had just dumped her, and here was this kid, so consumed by love for her daughter that he had to be physically dragged away.

Genevieve was a child. She hadn’t even lived yet. Why did she get that kind of adoration, when Lizette had never experienced it? It wasn’t the order of things. It wasn’t fair.

“What happened then?” Genevieve asked, in a broken whisper.

“I had him arrested and put away. Good fucking riddance. I believe he went to juvenile detention. They told me it was his third time. Serial predator.”

Silence.

“You’re welcome,” said Lizette, nervousness creeping through her.

Nothing.

“Hello?”

“All these years.” Genevieve’s voice sounded reedy. “All these years, I thought he was a coward. A liar. I hated him.”

“Well, who’s to hate if it ain’t him?”

Her daughter had no response to this, apparently. Her silence was so complete, so lengthy, that for a moment, Lizette thought she’d hung up.

“You never noticed that I cut myself?” she asked hesitantly. “You must’ve known.”

“What? You were so secretive. How would I know that?”

“I know when Audre gets a papercut.”

“Well.” Lizette took a deep drag. “You need to get you a life, bé.”

“I cut myself. He didn’t do it. And I’d been taking drugs—your drugs, or getting them from your boyfriends—my whole life. I wasn’t your innocent little baby.”

“How’d you get them from my boyfriends?” Lizette’s voice went cold, sharp. She hated being reminded of her failed loves. And how hard her life had been. And that she was never able to fix what hurt her daughter. But Genevieve had always felt so unreachable. Her pain took her to a place where no one could follow.

“I’d been watching you my whole life, Mom.”

“Careful your tone.”

“I was in agony. I needed help.”

“I know you suffered, my bè. But what could I do? I prayed for you; I still pray for you. But you can’t fight a curse. I been tellin’ you to get some houseplants.”

The force of Genevieve’s long-suffering exhale carried across nine states.

“My girls always ask me why I got so many dead plants. I tell ’em what Mama Clo told me. Deceased plants are good luck. When a houseplant dies, it’s because it’s absorbed bad energy and juju. Bad juju meant for you. They’re protection.” After dropping this gem, she took a deep drag off her cigarette. “Everybody’s got an affliction, Genevieve. Whether it’s mental or physical or spiritual. You just gotta remember what good you got.”

“Please don’t get philosophical, Mom. It doesn’t look good on you.”

“Everything looks good on me, except dolman sleeves,” she said testily. “Look. I don’t know what’s got you ornery or why we’re discussing ancient history. But a word of advice? Get over your childhood. I got over mine. You think you had it bad? I had to perform unspeakable acts for pageant judges just so I could win a little money to buy groceries and fake Jordache jeans from Family Dollar.”

Genevieve’s silence was deafening.

“They were called Gordache jeans,” said Lizette sadly.

“You sent Shane away.” Genevieve sounded like she was speaking more to herself than to Lizette. “He was terrified of going to prison again. I told him that I’d make sure he never went back.”

“Oh, G,” Lizette cooed. “That boy preyed on you. That’s what they all do! They want the pretty girl but then get jealous of your youth and vitality. So they lure you down the path to ruin and break you.”

“Jealous of youth? Shane and I were the same age!”

“Well, I know, but I was talking about me!” Lizette smoothed her kimono over her legs, exasperated.

After another extended silence, Genevieve finally spoke. “You were jealous.”

“I’ve never been jealous in my life! But I’ll tell you what. Mercier women are cursed. We are. And if I can’t make a man stay, there’s no way in hell you could.” Lizette tightened the sash on her kimono. “I don’t know why you’re so determined to hate me. You get got by a cute li’l criminal, I rescue you, and I’m the villain? How’s that work?”

“You really want me to explain this?”

“Go ’head and judge me, miss. I fear nothing but the pitiless gaze of the Almighty. You could be Mommie Dearest or Clair Huxtable—don’t matter what kind of mother you are; daughters always blame moms for every mess they make.” Lizette took one last drag and then stubbed her cigarette out in a crystal ashtray. Under her breath, she said, “In fifteen years, Audre’ll give her therapist an earful.”

“You don’t understand one thing that’s happened to you, do you?” Genevieve asked wearily.

“Stop being so morose, G. We had some really fun times when you were little! Remember those adorable lovebirds?”

“They died of lead poisoning.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“They died of lead poisoning because when they chirped at night, you’d throw pencils at their cage.”

“Well, who knew pencils were edible? Did you?”

“Goodbye, Mom.”

“Stop being so mad at me! You know, boys like Shane belong behind bars.” Lizette was grasping at straws now, just trying to keep Genevieve on the phone. Genevieve had always confused her. When you’re pregnant, you think you’re gonna have a little you. A tiny person with your same thoughts, same feelings. But her daughter came out wholly herself. Self-sufficient, stubborn, too clever for the world, and an utter mystery. Lizette never really knew how to raise her, and Lord knows Genevieve never gave any clues.

“I saved you from a world of trouble. Look at who you’ve become! You’re…” Lizette stopped talking then, because her line went dead.

Ah well. It wasn’t the first time her daughter had hung up on her, and it wouldn’t be the last. She dragged herself off the couch and swept back upstairs to Mahckenzee, one out of dozens of girls whom Lizette had made perfect, in her image. With each new student, Lizette had a chance to get it right. Season after season, show after show, again and again.