Monday’s Not Coming

“Ma, have you seen Monday?” I asked the moment I walked out the gate at Reagan Washington National Airport, my hair still in fuzzy summer braids, skin browned by the southern sun.
“Sheesh! Can I get a hello first? I ain’t seen you all summer either,” Ma chuckled, her skinny arms stretched wide as I dove into a joy-filled hug.
Every summer, Ma sent me down to Georgia to stay with my grandmamma for two months. Monday and I would write letters to each other with funny drawings and ripped-out magazine articles, keeping up with the latest neighborhood gossip and music. But that summer was different. Monday never responded to any of my letters. Without them, the summer had crept by like a runaway turtle. I loved Grandmamma, but I missed my room, missed my TV, and most of all, I missed Monday.
Lights twinkled off the Anacostia River as we crossed the bridge onto Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, the Nationals baseball stadium in the distance. The moment we turned off on Good Hope Road, I noticed old posters still pasted to an abandoned building at the crossroads: “SAVE ED BOROUGH! It’s community! It’s home!”
Ma relocked the car doors, her back tensing. A true southerner, she never felt safe in the city, despite living here since I was born. As a distraction, I told her about my unanswered letters. She shrugged, more focused on the evening traffic, mumbling a “Maybe she couldn’t make it to the post office.” But that didn’t make much sense to me. We’d saved our money and bought enough stamps to make it through the eight weeks without each other, since Grandmamma don’t like the kids playing on her phone and my cousin already hogged up the line talking to her man. Monday knew I hated writing, but we promised to keep in touch, and you don’t just back out of promises. Not with your best friend since the first grade.
“I don’t know, Sweet Pea,” Ma said, stopped at a light by the liquor store and gave a nervous wave to someone she recognized outside. “She probably got caught up with something. But once she knows you’re back, I’m sure she’ll be by.”
The light turned green, and Ma slammed on the gas for two blocks before making a sharp left at the Anacostia Library, then a right onto U Place. Home. She parked on the street in front and I jumped out of the car with my book bag and sprinted for the door. I ain’t gonna lie, every summer I kind of hoped to come back to some miraculous transformation. Not that I don’t like our house, I just love surprises. Like, running down the stairs Christmas morning, I always expect to find a fresh coat of terra-cotta paint on the walls, a new couch to replace our beige sofa set, stainless steel appliances to replace our rusting white ones, and a new staircase banister, one that wouldn’t cry when you leaned on it.
As soon as I walked in and found nothing had changed, I dropped my bag and used the phone by the stairs to call Monday. Maybe she was too wrapped up in taking care of her little brother and sister this summer to write. Whatever the reason, I’d let it slide since I was about ready to bust I had so much to tell her. One ring in and some automatic lady told me I have the wrong number. I only knew two numbers by heart: Monday’s and my own.
“Girl, you on that phone already?” Ma huffed, dragging my suitcase in the house. “Why, you don’t let no grass grow under your feet!”
“Monday’s phone not working.”
“Probably off the hook or something,” she said, locking up the front door. “Now hurry up and get the comb. We need to start on this hair. Sheesh! I should have told Momma to take out these braids before you came.”
I took the stairs two at a time and opened the first door on the right. My room was exactly as I left it, a mess. I mean, my twin bed with its deep eggplant bedspread had been made, and the lavender walls where I hung all my artwork between music and movie posters were all still in place. But I hadn’t had time to clean up the tent Monday and I made with a bunch of old sheets and throw pillows during our last sleepover before I left. It still sat under the shelf near the window, facing the back of the library across the street.
“Claudia! Hurry up!” Ma shouted from downstairs. “Coming, Ma!”
I grabbed the comb off my white vanity, noticing a fresh coloring book and pencils sitting on my chair. Daddy must have left it before heading out on another delivery.
“Claudia, let’s go! We’ll be up all night!”
Ma and I spent the rest of the evening tackling my braids, then washing and straightening out my hair. Exhausted, I finally climbed into bed close to midnight, ignoring the gnawing in my stomach. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put a finger on it.
“Claudia!” Ma yelled the next morning from the kitchen. “You’re gonna be late for your first day!”
Every year Ma would holler, wanting me to run down the stairs all crazy and be surprised by the big breakfast she always made for the first day of school: pancakes with a syrupy smiley face, scrambled eggs with cheese, grits, and beef sausage links.
So I played along, jumping off the last two steps and running into the kitchen dressed in my school uniform and new sneakers, greeted by the table laid out with my feast.
“Surprise!” Ma said, springing from her hiding spot, her short auburn hair still in pin curls. Sometimes in the light, little specks of gray peeked out behind her rose-gold highlights.
“Thanks, Ma,” I laughed, hopping into my seat.
“Lawd, I cannot believe you’re going to high school next year. I’m such an old woman now.”
“Ma, you don’t act no older than me.”
She grinned, cupping my face. “That’s no way to speak to your mother. Okay, Sweet Pea, hurry up and eat your breakfast. You don’t want to be late for school and keep Monday waiting.”
Ma knew the right words to light a match under my butt. What was I going to say when I finally saw Monday? I mean, how could she just leave me hanging all summer?
“Ma, can Monday come over after school today?” I asked between pancake bites. She laughed. “Y’all waste no time. Okay, she can come. Just… check in with Ms. Paul first, okay?”
I dropped my fork onto my plate. “I thought you said I didn’t have to go to the library after school anymore. I don’t need no babysitter!”
“Not a babysitter,” Ma said, feigning innocence. “Just… want you to go say hi. Ain’t nothing wrong with you checking in so someone knows where you are. Breadcrumbs, Claudia. Always good to leave breadcrumbs.”
“I wouldn’t need to leave breadcrumbs if I had a cell
phone,” I muttered into my lap.
Ma huffed. “Listen, I ain’t going down this road with you again. We agreed, once you start high school, then you can have one. Now, come on, let’s go.”
I strapped on my new book bag- navy with violet swirl designs. Monday had the same one except in pink, her favorite color. We picked them out right before I left for Georgia. I called her two more times before leaving, just to check. No answer.
Ma always drove me to school on the first day, taking off a few hours from the veterans’ canteen. They’d miss her for sure, leaving their kitchen a mess without her running it. But she always says, “You only get one shot at your kids, so you need to hit the bull’s-eye.”
We pulled up to Warren Kent Charter School, behind a line of other cars waiting to drop off at the big fenced-in yard where all the kids gathered by grade before the first bell. Pressing my greasy face against the glass, I scanned the sea of red-and-navy-plaid uniforms for my matching book bag.
“Ma, I don’t see Monday,” I said, trying to hide my panic. Monday always arrived first to school, sometimes two hours before anyone else even thought of showing up.
“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Ma said over the steering wheel, inching to the drop-off point. “Now, have a good day at school, Sweet Pea. Remember to call me as soon as you get home.”
An avalanche of uncertainty tumbled down, pinning me to my seat. I couldn’t step one foot out of the car without seeing Monday first. School didn’t seem real or possible without her.