Between Madison and Palmetto Read Free Page B

Margaret said.
    Caroline turned and Margaret caught the frown racing across Maizon’s face and knew Maizon had recognized Caroline from the window on Palmetto Street.
    â€œHey!” Caroline smiled. Her eyes were just a little darker than her hair and her smile seemed to light them up. It’s a nice face, Margaret thought. It’s honest. Margaret remembered the sad-looking girl waving to them from the window. When Caroline smiled, she wasn’t that person anymore.
    â€œHey yourself,” Maizon said.
    Those first days at Pace Academy had been great. The teachers seemed to treat every student as though they were the only student. Although Margaret and Maizon only had a few classes together, they had the same lunch period and had spent the early days catching up on everything going on during that time. But as it turned out, Maizon and Caroline had practically every class together and Margaret watched from the sidelines as they grew closer and closer. Soon, all Maizon was talking about at lunch was Caroline. Pace Academy didn’t seem so perfect anymore. It was just another school with a bunch of smart kids. And Margaret felt more alone than she ever had before.
    â€œYears pass,” Ms. Dell said again, looking over at Margaret.
    Margaret took another sip of chicken soup.
    â€œYears pass,” Li‘l Jay echoed, walking sleepily into the kitchen. “I want soup.”

4
    M aizon made her way slowly up Palmetto Street, past the empty plots where cranes and cement mixers sat silently waiting for Monday when they’d start up again. Cranes and cement mixers working five days a week to change this neighborhood into something it hadn’t been before.
    â€œLife,” Ms. Dell had said to Maizon and Margaret the summer before Maizon left for Blue Hill, “moves us through all the time changes. All kinds of changes. And we’re made so that we roll and move with it. Sometimes somebody gets stuck in the present and the rolling stops—but the changing doesn’t.”
    It seemed now everyone was rolling nervously, waiting for the next change to shiver, like a late winter wind, through the neighborhood. Everyone, Ms. Dell and Hattie and Mrs. Tory, waited anxiously. They were afraid of these changes. If the fixing continued and the neighborhood improved, richer people would begin to move in, the way Caroline’s family and other families had moved onto Palmetto Street. Ms. Dell and Mrs. Tory rented their apartments. They were afraid the rents would increase because people moving in had more money to pay. If the rent increased, they’d have to move. Maizon had heard Ms. Dell talking to Grandma about it. Grandma owned the house she and Maizon lived in. People had tried to buy it, offering her lots of money, even showing her the cash. But Grandma had held fast. In the end, she had forced the men from her house, daring them to ever come back again.
    â€œThey think black people go crazy for money,” Grandma had said sadly, shaking her head. “This house is ours, Maizon. That’s the way it will always be.”
    But now, as she turned the corner, heading to Caroline‘s, bending her head against the cold rush of wind, Maizon wasn’t so sure about “always.” It contradicted Ms. Dell’s statement about change. Everything contradicted everything. Even her friendship with Caroline was a contradiction. Bo flashed across her mind. You get me on a dark street with your Caroline or your Caroline’s mom, and if they don’t run like Pete to cross the street, my name’s not Bo Douglas. Maybe he was right too.
    At the corner, Maizon stopped. Woodbine Street. She looked up at the black-and-white street sign. Woodbine used to be between Madison and Palmetto. A long time ago there had been a whole block of houses where there was nothing now. A whole block just disappearing, Maizon thought to herself. A whole neighborhood. Years ago, Ms. Dell had told