Make Lemonade

Jolly starts to get Bs and then As in school, and she’s so proud she’s “prancing around/absolutely cool like she’s a fancy princess” (121), but then Jeremy gets chickenpox, Jolly stays home with him, and her grades fall. After three days, the school arranges to put Jeremy in a special part of day care so he won’t spread the illness, and they ask Jolly why she didn’t tell them what was going on right away. Jolly responds that “nobody told me” (122), and LaVaughn thinks about all the people Jolly’s never had in her life, the people who tell you things, who offer guidance and advice: parents, teachers, friends, and coaches. LaVaughn asks Jolly if she ever played a sport, and Jolly shows LaVaughn “her resentfulness” (122) for asking about something so trivial. As the chapter ends, Jolly and LaVaughn head off in their “separate directions” (123)—figuratively as well as literally.

LaVaughn is called out of homeroom to attend a conference with Jolly and a counselor. Jolly acts withdrawn—she’s “gone into Underdrive” (124)—as the counselor explains that Jolly has difficulty doing her homework while also watching her kids. She needs a Home Care Helper for one hour a day, and the Moms Up organization will pay for this helper. Jolly wants LaVaughn to fill this role. However, LaVaughn hasn’t completed the Day Care Apprentice Program, so they’re reluctant to hire her. LaVaughn says she wants to do it, and her concerns about whether Jolly was using her, or she was using Jolly, “slide on out of [her] memory” as “[she] and Jolly are reconnected” (127). The counselor asks LaVaughn to try to complete the apprentice program next fall, and she leaves eager to spend time with Jolly’s kids again.

LaVaughn’s friends, Myrtle and Annie, as well as her mom, all disapprove of LaVaughn spending time with Jolly again. However, LaVaughn discovers that an hour a day with Jeremy and Jilly “was my vitamins I’d been not having” (128). At the same time, LaVaughn notices Jolly becomes distracted easily while doing her homework and even leaves the TV on, but “who could expect work habits/from somebody spent more time pregnant/than she did in study halls?” (129).

LaVaughn gets frustrated with Jolly’s habit of leaving things “not all the way done but partway” (130), like a few dishes not washed or shirts put away damp. One afternoon, LaVaughn lets slip a comment she immediately regrets: “That the way you did the birth control too?/Part way is good enough?” (131). Jolly gets “shorter” for a moment, then “taller” with “anger,” saying if “highmighty” LaVaughn is too good for Jolly and her kids, she should leave (131). She adds that LaVaughn’s “phony little lemon seeds” will never bloom, and will end up “break[ing] [Jeremy’s] heart” (132).

As LaVaughn is about to leave, she spots a headless doll on the floor near Jolly, with “its arm all twisted in a direction no person could ever reach” (133). LaVaughn feels compelled to fix the doll’s arm before leaving, so she won’t always picture it when she remembers Jolly, and as she bends down she finds herself hugging Jolly’s legs, telling her “It’ll be okay” (134). Jolly slides down till she’s sitting and asks LaVaughn to tell the story about her mom and the Vaseline. LaVaughn repeats the story of how her mom and three friends put Vaseline on their eyebrows to make them shine, and then, when four boys took them to the drag races, the dust stuck to the Vaseline and left the boys “laugh[ing] so hard with shock/they never took those girls anywhere ever again,/not even to a movie” (135).

LaVaughn and Jolly “bust up laughing” as they imagine the girls “with eight beards/growing out of their foreheads” (135). For a moment, both LaVaughn and Jolly wish their problems were as silly as Vaseline beards.

On the same day as LaVaughn and Jolly’s fight, Jilly crawls all the way across the floor for the first time, ending up in front of the two girls, where they’re still laughing together. Jolly holds Jilly “tight against her chest” (138), and LaVaughn goes home feeling like she knows something new—she’s seen Jolly and Jilly in a new way, “sitting there on the floor/clinging with everything they got” (138).

The daycare staff considers Jeremy a problem because he won’t put together puzzles or make macaroni art, and he knocks his cup over too often. They want to test his eyesight and coordination, so Jolly takes Jeremy to the doctor and learns he needs glasses. Jeremy becomes “a different kid” with his new glasses, which he calls “Gas”—he’s now “more expensive” and “more breakable” (141).

Jolly is dismayed to learn Public Assistance is paying for Jeremy’s glasses—she thinks this means she’s not handling things on her own—although LaVaughn argues it’s better for her to focus on school, rather than getting a job to pay for the glasses herself. LaVaughn notices the dishes are actually washed and the counter clean, and tells Jolly she’ll “‘make it’” (143). Jeremy complains to LaVaughn that there’s still “‘no lemon blom’” (143) growing from his pot, and LaVaughn’s new sense of hope sours.

LaVaughn tells her mom she “ain’t” (144) finished her social-studies homework, and her mother becomes furious at her for using the word “ain’t.” She tells LaVaughn saying “ain’t” at work will get her fired, and saying it in college will get her sent back home. Finally LaVaughn’s mother’s mood softens, but as LaVaughn leaves, her mom adds “‘it’s that Jolly’” (146) who’s making LaVaughn talk that way.

Jolly hasn’t paid her rent for three months, and she tells LaVaughn about a billionaire who gives away his money to people in need who write him letters. LaVaughn wonders how taking money from a billionaire is different from welfare; Jolly insists that to get money from the billionaire, you must be “‘deserving’” (148). Since she has to write a business letter for school, she writes to the billionaire, and then shows LaVaughn her letter, which is missing words and has mistakes. LaVaughn is hesitant to correct her, but finally mentions the most significant missing word—Jolly wrote “so they kick us out on the street” (148) and left out “don’t”—and Jolly starts to get angry, as she usually does when she realizes she’s done something wrong. However, this time, Jolly “does an unusual thing” (150): she collects herself and calmly corrects her mistake (150). LaVaughn wants to “cheer” like a “cheerleader” (150) for Jolly, but instead she just plays with the kids before going home.

Jolly has always told LaVaughn “she was nobody’s kid, ever” (151), and in this chapter, she remembers getting her first period as a 12-year-old living in a refrigerator box. With no one to explain what a period was, Jolly thought she was dying until she went to the girls’ home, where she was given Maxi-pads but left before they could take her name or help her further. Jolly and LaVaughn wonder about what women in other countries, especially refugees, do when they have their periods, and together they imagine “[a] whole ocean of blood./All those thousands of years/all the ladies and girls been bleeding” (152).

Their moment of connection over, Jolly begins working on her school report on Peru. When LaVaughn offers help, Jolly complains that LaVaughn just “confuse[s]” her more (153). Remembering how Jolly fixed the mistakes in her letter, LaVaughn stays quiet and goes to take care of Jilly while Jolly works.