chapter 1
Belle Isle
MELODY THOUGHT SHE’D never seen the sky as blue as it was today. The azure canopy arched over the Detroit skyscrapers rising silver in the distance. The May air was soft and scented with that special fragrance of damp earth and new leaves that only comes in the spring.
Melody bounced a little on the springy backseat of the Ford Fairlane as it sped past the shops and offices that lined the busy streets. She glanced over at her cousin Val sitting beside her. Val’s mom, Tish, was driving them to a picnic.
Val grinned at Melody. “I’m so glad we’re going to this picnic together, Dee-Dee,” Val exclaimed. “I hardly see you anymore.”
“Except for every week at church and every Sunday for dinner,” Melody teased, smiling. But what Val said was true. About one year ago, Val’s parents had finally been able to purchase their own home in a nice neighborhood. It had taken them a long time, because many neighborhoods didn’t want black families on their blocks. But the Fair Housing Committee, a group that was working to end this housing prejudice, had helped Tish and Charles, Val’s father, find someone who was willing to sell to any buyer, regardless of race.
Melody was so happy for Val and her parents when they finally moved into their very own home. But Val’s new house and school were farther away, and Melody missed her cousin. They couldn’t walk home from school together the way they had when Val was staying with Melody’s grandparents.
“Don’t worry,” Melody told Val. “It’s not like I’m going to forget you. You’re still my best cousin. We’ll just have to make up for lost time when we are together.”
“That’s right, girls,” Tish said over her shoulder. Her beehive hairdo shone in the sun pouring through the windshield. Tish owned a hair salon and always had the newest hairstyles. “You girls keep each other close. That’s what families do.”
The car wheels thump-thumped over the edge of the pavement and onto the steel girders of the MacArthur Bridge. Below them, the Detroit River glittered blue-brown in the sunlight.
“Woo-hoo! Belle Isle, here we come!” Melody called as they left the gritty city of Detroit behind. She craned her neck to spot the green leafy oasis of the park at the other end of the bridge. They were going to the spring picnic of the Fair Housing Committee at a park shelter on Belle Isle, a large island that sat right in the middle of the Detroit River. The entire island was a park.
“Belle Isle,” Tish sighed as the park’s huge trees came into sight. “This place is a rest for weary eyes.”
Melody agreed. There was something special about Belle Isle. Not twenty minutes from the car horns and asphalt streets of Detroit, the grasses and trees of the island fluttered in cool breezes. You could do anything there—swim off the little sandy beach, take a pony ride, watch the monkeys on their gym at the children’s zoo, walk through the woods—
“Mom, can we stop at the carousel?” Val’s eager voice interrupted Melody’s reverie. “Dee-Dee, remember how this was the first thing I wanted to do when we moved here?” Val and her family had lived in Birmingham, Alabama, until two years ago, when they’d moved up north to Detroit.
“Yes!” Melody laughed. “You loved the silver horse the best. Remember how we’d have to wait and wait for that one to be free, and I’d be so impatient…”
“Forget about the carousel, baby, we can’t stop right now,” Tish told them. “We’ll be late for the picnic, and we’ve got the meat. Everyone will be wanting their hamburgers.”
“We’ll ride later,” Melody told her cousin. “For old times’ sake. Look, there’s the fountain!” The girls stared at the hulking gray stone fountain that spouted jets of water. They passed the band shell with its rows of benches, empty for now, and the ornate stone building that housed the aquarium.
“Oh, look at the conservatory in the sunlight!” Melody exclaimed. Tish slowed the car, and they all gazed at the vast glass-and-steel building that glittered like a massive diamond in the bright sunlight. The giant center dome was crowned with a cupola, with low greenhouses extending out either side—all built of glass so the exotic plants inside could grow in the heat and light. Lawns spread out around the main building and the greenhouses.
“Didn’t you visit the conservatory with your school last year, Melody?” Tish asked as she started driving again.
“Yes,” Melody said, “on a field trip.” She remembered the musky, warm air inside the huge greenhouse. It had seemed like a blast of the tropics in the middle of a snowy Detroit winter. She recalled the towering palm fronds that brushed the ceiling, the giant pink hibiscus flowers thrusting their heads over the railings, and lavender wisteria that hung over archways like a gorgeous trailing curtain. Melody had never wanted to leave. Flowers and gardens were her favorite things—she loved digging in the soil, touching and smelling the flowers, helping living things to grow. Her grandfather, Poppa, loved flowers as much as Melody did—that’s why he had his florist shop, Frank’s Flowers.
“Here we are.” Tish pulled up in a row of cars parked in front of a shady stone picnic shelter beside a grove of trees. A knot of adults stood around a smoking grill, the women in summer shifts, the men in short-sleeved shirts and straw fedoras. A few children chased one another on the grass, while some girls and boys sat on the picnic benches talking. “There’s Phyllis,” Tish said as she tugged a green metal cooler from the trunk. She nodded toward a tall woman wearing a yellow print dress. “She’s the leader, you remember, Val?”
“Oh yes,” Val said. “I remember she likes to talk…a lot,” she murmured to Melody. Melody smothered a giggle. The housing group had helped Tish and Charles so much that Tish still attended the meetings. She often took Val, but Melody had never tagged along before.
More cars pulled up, spilling out their occupants—black and white, young and old—and soon the grill was full of sizzling burgers and hot dogs, their rich smoke wafting through the air and making Melody’s mouth water. A few women spread a checked tablecloth on one of the picnic tables and set out big bowls of potato salad, Jell-O with pears, potato chips, and carrot and celery sticks. Coffee bubbled in a dented metal percolator at the side of the grill.
“I didn’t realize the fair housing group had so many white people in it,” Melody whispered to her cousin. “I thought it was just people from our church.”
But Val didn’t seem surprised. “This part of the housing group is called Operation Open Door,” she said, taking a paper plate from the stack at one end of the table. “It’s people from the churches and also the synagogues. So some of the people are Jewish.”
Melody looked at the group with renewed interest. She’d never really talked to any Jewish people before, that she knew of. She did recall Big Momma, her grandmother, saying that their own neighborhood used to be mostly Jewish before it became mostly black.
“Let’s eat, folks!” Tish called out a few minutes later, waving a metal spatula in her hand.
Everyone began lining up for food. Melody heaped her plate with Jell-O, chips, and a burger with lots of bright yellow mustard, and
