Make Lemonade

Since Jolly has been fired, she doesn’t need LaVaughn to babysit anymore. Jolly has become “mad enough” (60) to report her boss’s behavior, and as she tells LaVaughn during their nightly phone calls, she’s called the factory fourteen times and received no response. LaVaughn explains the situation to her mother, who says Jolly will need a lawyer. At the end of the chapter, LaVaughn goes to Jolly’s apartment to help her look for a new job.

Jolly and LaVaughn make a list of things Jolly has to do, like going to the employment agency and finding a lawyer. LaVaughn notices, with concern, that Jolly “can’t hardly spell” (62). Jolly asks LaVaughn how much money she’s saved from babysitting, but LaVaughn insists “‘that won’t help’” (63). She feels guilty that she’s keeping that money “to help me/not end up like [Jolly]” (63). Jeremy asks the girls to read to him and Jolly says she can’t, so LaVaughn reads to him, wondering “how’s he gonna learn to read” (63) if no one will guide him.

In this chapter, LaVaughn reflects on her shift of attitude after Jolly asked her to give or loan her money. Though LaVaughn feels bad for Jolly, her own goal of attending college—and saving the money she needs to get there—has become even firmer in her mind. As she puts it, “It would be college for Verna LaVaughn/and a good job and not any despair/like I saw in these surroundings here” (65).

LaVaughn tells Jolly she should go back to school and explains what her mother told her—that if Jolly registers at school, she and her children will get welfare. However, Jolly responds with “‘never/no Welfare ever again!’” (67). She’s afraid the welfare agency will take her children away, and LaVaughn, not knowing how to respond, goes home. LaVaughn thinks about the “pile of things” now separating her from Jolly (68), especially the fact that “Jolly can’t spell her words” (69).

LaVaughn babysits Jilly and Jeremy for free while Jolly looks for a new job. LaVaughn finally “get[s] up [her] nerve” (73) to ask Jolly what happened the time she came home with her face all cut up. Jolly responds that one of the kids she “used to hang with” (73) was angry that Jolly wouldn’t tell him where she lived. Jolly vows not to return to her old neighborhood, and LaVaughn thinks that “Jolly is a magnet for bad luck” (73).

LaVaughn’s mother asks her what’s going on with Jolly—she knows that LaVaughn is no longer getting paid to babysit. LaVaughn tries to explain Jolly’s bad luck, comparing her path to a bowling ball that’s gone “‘crooked’” (75)—and her mom says that “‘the gutter’” (75) is where Jolly’s metaphorical ball has landed. LaVaughn goes to school without forgiving her mother for her harsh judgment.

Jeremy is mad that the lemon seeds still haven’t grown into a plant, and thinking about Jeremy’s life with an unemployed single mother, LaVaughn understands why the boy is angry. LaVaughn wishes she could “do magic to make the […] plant grow” (76) as she takes Jeremy on a bus ride to buy new shoes. Jeremy pretends to be “King of the Shoe Bus” (78), but when the bus drops them off, he and LaVaughn are “back down on earth/to buy shoes/we can’t afford” (78).

At the shoe store, Jeremy does his “Hacky sack dance” (79) while LaVaughn hesitates before buying him shoes that cost six hours’ worth of babysitting money. Finally, LaVaughn decides she won’t “feel bad” about spending her money—she doesn’t “need to get paid/for having fun” (80).

LaVaughn is taking the bus home from Jolly’s when she has “one of those waves of [her] father” (81)—a brief reminder of her dad that she can’t clearly identify. Then LaVaughn remembers how after her father’s death, her mother “got huge” (81)—while she didn’t grow physically larger, she transformed into a “big Mom” (82), with a large emotional presence. Where other parents bought their children one pack of notebook paper, LaVaughn’s mother bought her a “stack that’s so high, like a phone book,” because her mom expected her to do “that much math and spelling” (82). Sometimes, her mother’s “big voice and big hands” (83) are so strong, they give LaVaughn a “glance” (82) of her father, too.

LaVaughn and Jeremy save seeds from other types of fruit so they can grow an entire garden. LaVaughn takes Jeremy grocery shopping and he sits in the bottom rack of the cart, where the world looks like “a dying, garbagey place of discards” (85). LaVaughn is about to invite Jeremy to sit up top but then realizes he’s “sending” a message “to the knees of strangers” (85), repeating the word “balloon” over and over again.