“What are you doing? What’s happening?”
The color drains from Q’s face.
“You gonna be sick?”
He shakes his head. “No. I don’t know. Maybe. Yes.”
38
Q’s barely put the car in park, when he leaps out. He runs ten yards, his sneakers crunching gravel, glass, who knows—toward the scraggly underbrush, the freshly cut highway grass, and he lets it all go:
The pepper jack fried cheese.
The bacon cheeseburger.
Ice cream dots.
Enough varieties of soda to start a fountain drink stand.
Chili cheese french fries.
Blue cotton candy.
And yes, even my beloved funnel cake.
And it’s weird, how it sucks to throw up, but also there’s that instant relief of emptying yourself from the inside out.
I wish I could expel this secret.
Deception, the heaviest thing you can carry.
“You okay?” I call out, as he wipes a pearly string of saliva hammocking from his lips. I hand him a stack of napkins and a small pack of wet wipes from the car.
“Not gonna lie, I feel better.”
And he didn’t mean it that way but lie echoes up and down the highway.
Lielielielielielie.
“Like, so much better.”
And I nearly say, hold that thought.
“Q, we need to talk.”
“Okay, can we do it in the car? These woods sorta give me the creeps.”
“I just . . . I just need to say it now. While I have the nerve.”
“If a highway forest killer comes out of those trees, you gotta take one for the team.”
I nod weakly. “Q . . . I . . . if it had been up to me, I would’ve told you as soon as . . . how do you even say something like this?”
“You’re freaking me out, man.”
“Brace yourself for more freaking out.”
“J, whatever it is, you can tell me. I won’t . . . I would never judge you. Not anymore, at least. You could tell me that you’re the highway forest killer and I’d be surprised for sure, but then I’d get you the help you need to stop killing in the highway forest. I promise you.”
“Q, it’s not funny, man.”
Q’s hands go up. “When things feel dark, I go for laughs, you know that.”
“Yeah, well, there aren’t enough jokes to lighten this.”
Q holds up his hands. “Why so glum?”
“You should’ve stayed your ass on the beach. You’re a terrible swimmer. Why would you even try?”
“I feel like I’m missing something important.”
“Because you are, Q . . . you’re missing something monument . . . monumentally . . . very important.”
“Or maybe someone’s had a little too much wine.”
“Everyone’s lying to you, Q!”
“What are you saying?”
“Everyone’s lying. Including me.”
“Lying about what?”
“Everything. Your whole life. You’re not even you. I mean, you’re you but you’re not you.”
“I’m sorry, J, but you’re not making any sense.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Listen. Let’s just get back in the car, okay. Let’s get home and we’ll talk in the morning when we’re both thinking more cl—”
He grabs my arm again and again I yank myself from his grip.
“There’s something you need to know. And I have to tell you right now.”
“Okay, man. I’m listening.”
And now reverberates in my brain, ricochets and rips through whatever gray matter I still have. NOWNOWNOW NOWNOWNOW.
I wag my finger. “Yo, I’m serious, man. You need to listen.”
Q scratches his chin. “I said okay.”
NOW, JAMAL. NOW.
But I force it back down.
I gulp hard.
I swallow.
“My arms are different sizes.” I extend both. “See, look. Weird, right?”
Q studies me. “I don’t know why I take you seriously.”
Because maybe Ms. B’s right.
Maybe I only want to tell Q the truth because I feel guilty for being so crappy.
I want to make up for lost time. For being a terrible human to my best friend.
Prove I’m a good person, a better person than I would appear to be, because look, here I am doing something brave, taking a chance, keeping it real, doing the thing.
But maybe I don’t get to throw up on the side of this road and feel better, lighter.
Maybe keeping this trash inside is the price for my mistakes.
37
It’s funny how much of ourselves we never see.
Our most honest mirror, a friend.
A sister.
Whit raps on my mostly open door, a long pillow under her arm, her favorite blanket—Mom’s favorite—draped across her shoulders like a cape.
“Sleepover?”
I drag in the rocking chair we put together for the nursery.
She settles into it, rocking slightly.
“You okay?”
“I could use another pillow,” she says.
She leans forward and I reposition the pillow until she’s most comfortable.
And then I tell Whit about our surprise reconciliation.
How I want to be a better friend to Q than I was before.
“Except how can I be better if I’m keeping such a huge secret? He has a right to know the truth, right?”
Whit shrugs. “It’s all in our motives, man. You gotta ask yourself, why do I want to tell him? Because you’re anxious to show you’re new and improved, or because it’s truly the right thing?”
36
In the middle of the night, I say: “Would you want to know?”
And Whit says, “Would I want to know what?”
But she knows what I mean.
So I don’t rephrase; I let the question hang.
Let it breathe.
“Would you?” she asks.
“Yes,” I tell her without hesitation.
“No,” she answers back. “But I think you’re asking the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“Should you know?”
Day 3
Approx. 21—25 Q Days Left
35
Whit throws on my lights and shout-sings at the top of her lungs: “Carpet Denim!”
And I have insta-feelings.
Had I heard her right?
I shake my head, trying to clear space for her words to land. “We haven’t done one since . . . can we even . . .” I think of the thing she said last night. “Should we?”
“I think they’d want us to. Truthfully, I think they’ve been waiting for us to. Like, all this time, us purposely avoiding Carpet Denim, we’ve been disappointing them.”
“So, just you and me?”
“Umm, ouch! You saying I’m not enough for you?”
“No, you’re more than.” I look away, my throat tightening, burning like someone lit a marshmallow on fire and stuffed it down my windpipe. And I’m not going to cry; it’s not that. But it’s like tears are lining up just on the other side of my eyeballs, ready to dive down my face if necessary.
Because this is the time for lots of things—but tears don’t make the cut. Not right now.
“Okay, so let’s get this party started. We got a day to seize!”
I roll out of bed. “Let’s get it!”
“I’m excited.” Whit claps her hands together. “Why’d we wait so long to do this?”
“We weren’t ready to do this.”
“So what’s changed?”
I shrug. “Us, I guess.”
Whit nods, takes a few steps into the hallway. “Okay, well, we can discuss our evolution more in the car. Get in the shower, because you smell like you’ve been lost in the jungle for weeks, and I’ll meet your ass in the kitchen.”
I sniff myself. “Your assessment’s definitely a tad harsh, I feel really attacked right now, but okay, give me five.”
Whit sniffs the same air. “Make it ten.”
“Hahaha, you’re so funny,” I say, already walking into the bathroom. I poke my head back out. “Umm, Whit?”
“Yeah?”
“Is there a reason you’re wearing a workout headband right now?”
Whit grins. “I figure we’re gonna be very active, so.”
I roll my eyes. “What you mean is, you’ve been looking for an excuse to rock that headband forever, and now you’re using Carpet Denim to justify it.”
Whit shrugs. “Whatever. I’m cute.” Whit makes a face. “See, baby’s kicking. Two kicks means yes. They agree with me.”
“Surprise, surprise, the baby you’re carrying, who is incapable of audible responses, agrees with their mother.”
“Sorry, I don’t make the rules, but I mean, it’s two against one. Basic math.”
I laugh. “So, this is what I have to look forward to? A lifetime of being outnumbered, outvoted, out-everything’d?”
“Wait a sec,” Whit says, holding her hand up. “Yep, two kicks.”
“Ohmigod,” I say in my best valley voice. “This is gonna be so much fun.”
“Should Uncle Jamal jump in the shower immediately?” She holds her hand up again. “Yikes! You’re not gonna believe this. Two more kicks. Baby Anderson has spoken.”
“Fine. You win,” I say, raising my hands in surrender. “But Baby Anderson, if you’re gonna live here, in this house, a word to the wise. If you have any measure of pride, please, please, don’t ever let your mom leave the house wearing a headband!”
I snatch the headband off her head and bound into the bathroom. I can barely lock the door, I’m cracking up so hard.
“Really? You just gon’ victimize a pregnant woman? I know where you live, Jamal!” she shouts from the hallway. “Sleep with one eye open, buddy.”
I turn on the shower. “I’m sorry, Whit. I’m having a hard time hearing you right now because I’m really engrossed in my personal hygiene!”
“I hate you so much! Seriously, you’re the worst!”
“You said you want me to flush your headband down the toilet? Wow, that’s a really strange request but, and please don’t take this the wrong way, I’ve heard hormones get all weird while you’re pregnant, so, hey, if you really wanna flush your headband, who am I to stand in the way, you know?”
“Jamal Anderson!”
“I’m sorry, Whit, but I still can’t hear you. Tell you what, give us two kicks for yes, one for no, okay?”
I pause.
“Jamal, I’m not playing with you!”
I hide the headband underneath the sink cabinet.
Then I flush the toilet, because siblings, amirite?
34
You’re probably wondering wtf is Carpet Denim?
You’re saying to yourself shit sounds made up.
And you’d not be wrong.
See, Carpet Denim’s a by-product of four-year-old Jamal’s inability to pronounce carpe diem. Although I’d still argue that—when said quickly—it sounds more like carpet denim anyway, fight me.
Showered, changed, and feeling extra clean, I track Whit in the kitchen.
“So, you ready to do this?” I open my fist, hold out my palm. “And look what I’ve got.”
“The dice!” Whit exclaims.
And okay, I appreciate we’re this late in the game and you’re totally seeing another side of us. A Whit and Jamal duo prone to excessive exclamationing and insufferable amounts of shrieking. But it’s Carpet Denim day, and if that doesn’t get your blood racing, you’re not human.
I slap her two dice. “You roll first?”
But she shakes her head. “We don’t need the dice.”
I scowl. “Uh, tradition? Whoever rolls the higher number chooses our activity. Then we alternate.”
“Thanks for the rules recap, but we already did all that.”
“Not following.”
So, naturally, she speaks slowly. Like she’s handcrafting each word with the finest materials. “Our last Carpet Denim. We never finished. Which makes it still your day, Jamal.”
I wag my head. “No, no. That doesn’t . . . that’s different. We should roll.”
I reach for the dice, but she slips them into her pocket. “Sorry, no dice,” she says, laughing at her own joke and patting her pocket closed. “Rules are rules, man. And I don’t make them.”
“Umm, except that’s literally what you just did. You just made this thing up.”
“Nope. It’s in the book. Look it up.”
“There is no book.”
“You’re right. So that means it’s gonna take you a while to find the rule, huh. Well, I guess in the meantime, we should get this Carpet Denim on the road!” She waves her car keys, slips out the front door. “You coming? I’m excited. Are you excited? Are we doing this? God, we’re doing this. Mom and Dad, they would be so . . . wait. Wait. Ohmigod. Oh. My. God.”
I rush over to her, stricken with panic. “What? What’s happening? Is it the baby? Did your water, uh . . . I’ll get the overnight bag and, damn, are you okay? Do you need me to carry you to the car? But also, no offense, but I’m not sure I want any of that fluid on me, so maybe we can . . .”
“Whoa. Whoa. Easy, cowboy. Let’s take a deep breath, okay? Because you’re about to need it.” She grins, digs into her purse. Produces a circular piece of spectacularly ugly, bright-ass neon cotton. “Wait a minute, what do we have here? Is this . . . is this what I think it is?” She slips it snugly over her head and throws the biggest smile since the founding of our siblinghood. “Another incredibly awesome headband.”
“Wow, Whit. Wow. Please tell me you don’t have a whole package of those cheesy things?”
“So, I can’t tell you that, but I can do this . . .” She drops her hand back into her purse and pulls out another terrible headband. “Uh-oh, whaaaat, this one has your name all over it? How did that happen, hmmm.”
She flings the headband to me.
And sweet baby Jesus, she’s not lying.
This lime-green bordered, pink-polka-dotted, orange-hatched fashion atrocity literally has my name on it. Jamal, in gaudy gold thread, right in the center.
“What the actual hell, Whit? There’s no way you found a headband with Jamal on it at the store.” The lack of already-made personalized merchandise is an ongoing saga in my life. You could get Jack, Jordan, James. I’d even seen Trey dangling on a key chain at a rest stop. But never, ever Jamal. “You had these made, didn’t you? You are officially out of control.”
She laughs. “C’mon, J. We gotta be twins for the day.”
I sigh. Fit the headband around my forehead. “Happy?”
She claps excitedly. “Super happy.”
The doorbell rings.
I look at her. “You expecting someone?”
She pregnant-skips to our front door, swings it open with gusto.
And there stand Q and Autumn, back-to-back, their arms folded, posing like they’re shooting a nineties hip-hop album cover.
“Hiiiii,” they say in inspired unison.
“Somebody order a music video?” Autumn says.
“I’m starting to think the best thing about being friends again is this gal,” Q says, nodding to Autumn.
“Funny, I was just thinking that was the best thing about being Jamal’s girlfriend.”
“Gee, thanks, guys.”
Autumn’s breaking into the running man, Q joining her.
And then Autumn’s rapping over Q’s beatboxing, and it’s a whole-ass thing.
My name is Autumn, and this is Q.
Carpet Denim is what we ’bout to do.
We rock every party.
We get played hardly.
If ya step to him, or me, or you, or she,
Prepare to be sorry.
Buuh-huuh-huhhh-huuuuuh
/> “Wow,” I say. “I don’t even want to ask how long you two practiced that, or even whose idea it was, because wow. I can’t unsee or unhear any of that.”
“Let’s hear you spit,” Q challenges me.
But I wave them off. “Y’all ain’t ready.”
Autumn scoffs. “I told you he’d be scared, Q.”
“Oh, never that. NEVER. THAT.” I look over at Whit. “Yo, Whit you ready?”
Whit slants her headband, semicrosses her arms. “Yo, J, I stay ready.”
“Okay, then drop that beat.”
And then Whit proceeds to deliver the worst beatboxing performance in musical history. The only thing crappier is my rhyme skills.
“Yo, yo, yo, uh, uh, uh,” I groan, the way rappers do when they’re preparing to jump on some bars and spit a verse. But I basically keep doing that until Autumn and Q are laughing their asses off, and then I figure I might as well keep it going, considering Whit and I have already lost this battle.
“So, here we go, Whitney and Jamal. We back to give you that hot heat, to make you applaud.”
“Boooooo,” Autumn interjects.
“Hot heat,” Q says, shaking his head. “As opposed to the well-documented cold heat. Got it.”
Whit stops her highly irregular beat, and I pause my rhyming. “Yo, who invited these fools anyway, Whit? I thought you said it was just you and me.”
“No, you said that. I asked if that wasn’t good enough for you.” Whit winks. “But c’mon, Carpet Denim is, and will always be, about family. And family isn’t only what you’re born into. Some family you’re given, and some family you choose.”
And we all nod our heads in agreement, because church.
And then Whit’s tossing a headband to Q, one to Autumn, and yeah, okay, maybe we look like the last four kids to get picked for dodgeball, but so what?
I stick my hand out in the middle of us, and everyone piles their hand on top. “Seize the day on me, seize the day on three,” I say. “One, two, three!”
“Seize the day,” we all shout.
“That’s what the hell I’m talking about,” Whit says. “Now let’s do this!”
So, yeah, I’m still kinda mixed-feelinged about this made-up Carpet Denim continuation thing. But one thing I’m not confused about: how much I love these three people. I can’t imagine a better foursome.
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