Love Me or Miss Me

by Dream Jordan

  I heaved my bags onto the backseat, climbed inside the van, fastened my seat belt, and stared dead ahead. Didn’t dare look back at the Johnsons’ house, just in case they had snuck outside to watch me go away. Listen, the sight of my foster parents standing on the stoop waving good-bye would only make my situation sadder, harder. Harder for me to build up my guts in order to face the drama sure to follow. Never thought I’d have to see the inside of a group home ever again. Well, never say never. The Old Kate was supposed to be dead; stomping out chicks in my distant past. But now, there was a good chance I’d have to bring her back to life.

  “Nice day outside, isn’t it?” asked the driver.

  I put my mouth on mute.

  “Weatherman threatened rain,” he continued, “but look how sunny it is outside … that’s why you can’t believe everything you hear. Gotta go by what you see.”

  Seriously?

  Hoping this dude would get a clue and be quiet, I turned my head away from him, and silently stared out of the window at the sun-drenched streets and people bustling about. “We’re headed to the boondocks,” the driver said with a chuckle. “Hope we don’t get lost. Do you know your way around Brooklyn?”

  I shrugged and continued staring out of the window. I wasn’t trying to be rude to the guy, but I just couldn’t muster up the strength to make fake conversation. Luckily, he finally took the hint and zipped his lips.

  The driver smelled like a cheeseburger; I rolled the window all the way down. Warm summer air blew on my face, but I felt so cold and empty inside. The farther we got from Bed-Stuy, the emptier I felt.

  As the van rumbled down Ocean Parkway, I took in my surroundings, bland as white bread with no butter. All I saw were tall trees and short houses and barely a soul hanging around town. When we turned off the parkway and headed down a side street, I realized we were getting closer to my dreadful destination. My eyes watered up against my will. Tears began to flow down my face. I furiously swiped at my eyes.

  Keep it gangster, Kate.

  We’re almost there.

  Oh, best believe, crying was not an option. Boohooing in front of my new housemates would only bring on their bullying faster. They’d take me for a silly punk and test me till I flunked. I should know. I wrote the script on this.

  And as I stood in a huge shabby living room being given the stink-eye by five hard-looking chicks, I realized the script was now flipped. What goes around comes right back, and like a backhanded slap, I was it. Three girls were huddled on a sagging plum-colored couch. Two sat on the floor, eyeballing me nonstop. I felt like a juicy steak they couldn’t wait to tear up. When Mrs. Cooper, the ancient group home supervisor, pushed me forward to introduce, nobody cracked a smile.

  Mrs. Cooper patted my hand. “Kate, I promise you’re really going to like it here.”

  Me, like it here? Please, picture that. My spirits plunged with the evening sun as I took in my surroundings: grim green paint covered the living room walls, cigarette-burned brown carpet covered the floor, and the smell of dirty feet and corn chips swirled up my nose. I’m saying, the Johnsons didn’t live in a mansion, but at least they kept their home clean and funk free. This home, way out in Gravesend, Brooklyn, was not the place to be. I was already plotting an escape in my head.… Straight up fantasy though, because I had no place to go. No family to speak of. No power to make my own moves. As a ward of the state, the system has me yoked up by the throat until I turn eighteen.

  Mrs. Cooper smoothed down her gray crooked Afro with her bony, wrinkled hands and said, “Now for the rules.”

  I followed her out of the living room. She walked with her body bent low, slow as a turtle. Behind my back, I heard one of the girls say, “Dang, her cornbraids is mad fuzzy!” Wow, clowning me already, I thought.

  Mrs. Cooper had either heard the diss and pretended not to, or she was plain old hard of hearing. Whatever the case, her frail little self probably couldn’t discipline a fly.

  “Yo, peep her dusty wardrobe,” another girl piped in. Then they busted out laughing louder than necessary.

  See? The dumbness was really going down. But I swallowed a nasty comeback and kept my dusty butt moving. Who cared that I was rocking a faded black T-shirt, and busted blue jean shorts? Worrying about my gear was so last year. No reason for me to pop off on these broads to gain respect. Been there, done that. Got me nowhere.

  I had bigger and better things to worry about. Had to get on my grind before it’s too late. In two more years, I had to be college-bound. Four years after that, I had to be on point—or be homeless. Basically, at age eighteen, you have the choice to stay in foster care or get out. But by age twenty-one, the only choice is to let the door hit you where the sun don’t shine.

  The system is dead serious like that. You could be living in foster care one minute, and in a cardboard box the next. My old roommate, Roberta, proved this simple fact. Last year I had bumped into her while she was begging on the number 3 train. The saddest sight I’d ever seen: Roberta was ashy and embarrassed, but trying hard to play it off. I tried to play it off, too; meanwhile a lump stayed stuck in my throat. I was staring at my own future if I didn’t get it together. So, like I said, bump these silly broads. I had to stay focused on what really mattered.

  Mrs. Cooper stopped short in front of a giant white poster hanging on the wall. Rules numbered one through ten were written in gigantic red letters. The rules that stuck out the most involved fifteen-minute phone calls, a crazy early ten o’clock curfew, and no boys calling the crib until you’re sixteen years old. Well, I had a month and some change before I could think about a boy calling me.

  Then again, I had no boyfriend to think of. Couldn’t seem to meet any boys worth my time. All they did was holler at my big butt instead of trying to make love to my mind. Real talk, it was downright hopeless for me in the romance department. I’m saying, could a girl get some love, please? My last kiss had happened last year with a two-timing chump named Charles, who had taken my kindness for weakness, and played me for a fool. So if it wasn’t love kicking my behind, it was foster care kicking me to my next location. I couldn’t help but wonder if my life would ever change for the better.

  “Any questions?” asked Mrs. Cooper, jolting me back to the present. She ran a long bony finger down each rule, to make sure I understood each and every one.

  But all I wanted to ask was: “Why am I here? Why can’t I ever live a normal freaking teenage life? Why was I ripped away from the first foster parents I could ever truly call Mom and Dad? It made no sense to me. I finally had a family to call my own, and then all of a sudden, I had to leave them? Just like that?

  Everything had happened so fast. On a cloudy April afternoon we got the sad news: Ted’s father was deathly sick in South Carolina. One month later, the Johnsons’ roof literally fell apart. Next thing I know, the Johnsons are moving down South at the end of June.

  The only upside of this: I found out Ted and Lynn actually wanted to adopt me; it was the first time in my life a family actually wanted to keep me.

  Unfortunately, the Johnsons were so broke they couldn’t afford to pay attention. With all of their backed-up bills and family complications, no amount of pleas or paperwork could convince the state that relocating down South would be a stable move for me. It was decided that I had been through enough disruption in my life already. Bottom line: I had to stay in New York without my family.

  I remember the discussion about my future like it was yesterday. I was sitting on the living room couch flanked by Ted and Lynn, with attitude written all over my face. Tisha, my former (and best ever) social worker, was busy trying to convince me that this move was for the best. But all I could do was stare at the floor, my arms folded tightly across my chest.

  “You have a ton of resources while in the system,” Tisha explained, as worry lines creased her entire forehead. She could tell I was tight.

  “Yeah, okay,” I muttered. “Tons of resources.”

  “And staying in
the system will help you get money for college—”

  “Man, listen,” I interrupted, “staying in the system is helping me go insane.… I’m tired of this moving-around mess.”

  “Trust me, I understand,” said Tisha.

  I knew she meant well, but her understanding didn’t help my situation. I shook my head in disgust, feeling hopeless, helpless. “I swear I can’t take this anymore,” I said.

  “What do you mean, you can’t take this anymore?” Ted suddenly piped in. “You’re a survivor, missy. This world can’t stop my Kate!”

  Ted and his silly self. He was only trying to make me feel better, even though it wasn’t working. Lynn, the more serious one, simply said, “We’re always going to be your family, Kate. Always remember that.”

  Comforting words at the time.

  But right about now?

  I was feeling mad uncomfortable, left to deal with group home staff instead of family. There would be no hugs here. No jokes. No love. Somehow, getting kicked out of people’s homes was much easier than growing attached to them. I had only known the Johnsons for a year and a half, but it felt like I had known them my whole entire life … and now, poof, they were gone. Just like that.

  “Kate, you seem so far away,” said Mrs. Cooper, bringing me back to the present.

  By now my tears were welling up again. But I quickly dammed up my eyes.

  “Are you sure you have no questions for me, sweetheart?” she asked, staring at me with what looked like pity in her eyes.

  I shook my head no, but wanted to scream, “Please, leave me alone already!” I had no freaking questions. Everything was crystal clear. Ready or not, I had to serve my time at the Common Grounds group home. Keep my head up. Control my temper. Make it out of this hellhole alive.

  Chapter 1

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this. As soon as Mrs. Cooper left me alone inside my bedroom, I wanted to call her old butt right back, and ask, “Are you serious right now?”

  I looked around the shabby room in disbelief. Junky and funky—the first words that came to mind. In other group homes, we were never allowed to leave clothes sprawled on the floor, or food floating around in our rooms. Yet here I was, staring at a mountain of dirty jeans sitting in the middle of a stained gray carpet, and a half-eaten hot dog resting on top of a cheap wooden dresser. Four walls were covered in chipped beige paint, and white dirty blinds hung from the single window in our room. Twin beds sat across from each other. One bed was surprisingly decked in clean white sheets, the other was mad messy.

  Earlier in the day, I was told Tracy was to be my roommate. Well, Tracy was a straight-up slob. I unpacked my bags with a serious attitude. Man, I missed my old bedroom so much. Although it was small as a shoebox, at least it was mine. Didn’t have to share it with nobody. And I missed the Johnsons even more.

  In the Johnson household, I had no big beef or worries. As soon as I had stopped acting like a knucklehead and learned how to return the love they gave me, it was so easy and breezy living with them. Once my chores were done, it was all about creating my own program. I could chill by myself and watch the portable TV they’d bought me last Christmas (for getting all As on my report card), or I could sit up in bed and do homework in peace; I could play Spades with Ted, or have girl talks with Lynn; I could lounge on my fire escape, reading good books and cracking sunflower seeds. Real talk, I had it made in the shade while living there.

  But here? Please. No peace up in this piece. Nobody to talk to. Nowhere to break away from the madness. Even the fire escape connected to our bedroom was located in a weed-filled backyard with a view of a corroded cemetery beyond it. How mournful could things get? I was ready to cry again.

  After stashing all of my clothes away, I sat on my bed and leaned my head up against the wall, wondering what to do next. I wasn’t trying to go downstairs and beg the girls for friendship. I could hear them from upstairs, talking and laughing loud, bonding nicely without me. Well, my room was disgusting; I needed to bond with a broom.

  I jumped up and tried to make my bedroom more livable. Cracked open the window to let in some clean air. Using my foot, I pushed the pile of jeans closer to Tracy’s side of the room. Then I kicked her sparkling white Adidas underneath her bed.

  And just then.

  Boom.

  The second my foot connected with Tracy’s sneakers, here she comes, sheathed in a tight sky-blue jean jumper and silver gladiator sandals, hands on her hips, scowl on her lips. I had the worst timing in the world.

  Tracy is a shorty like me, dark-skinned like me, thick body like me, but she wears a long burgundy weave and has slits for eyes. She was using them to glare at me right now, trying hard to scare me. Not possible, though. I stood my ground.

  “Yo, why are you kicking my things around?” Tracy snatched her sneakers out from under the bed and placed them in full view, to spite me, I guessed.

  “My bad,” I replied. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, right, your bad,” she snapped.

  “I said I was sorry,” I snapped back. Her attitude was so unnecessary. When someone apologizes to you and they really mean it, accept it and move on, silly chick. I had no time for this.

  I looked at Tracy like she was minor league, and dared her to say something else. She had nothing more to add. So I marched right past her out of our bedroom, and braced myself for a possible attack from behind. But Tracy just called me the “B” word when I was halfway down the hall. I guessed she was all mouth, no action. Weak witch.

  I decided to take a trip to the bathroom, for no other reason than to be alone. I pulled the rickety door closed with its flimsy (pray-nobody-busts-in) hook in the hole lock. Clicked on the light, which was mad bright, revealing all the grime surrounding me. Stray hairs and blue soap scum decorated the sink, a see-through plastic shower curtain revealed scummy tub tiles. No bath rugs in place. No pretty pictures on the wall. The main attraction: a noisy toilet with dirty brown water swirling around inside. Ugh. Straight-up nasty in here.

  Thank goodness I didn’t need to use the bathroom yet. I just needed to be alone for a few. I pushed the shower curtain aside and sat on the edge of the tub, feeling crazy depressed and out of it. Then someone pounded on the door, bringing me back into it.

  I heaved a lungful of air, and stepped out of the bathroom to find Makeba, a pierced-up brown-skinned chick, doing the two-step like she had to go real bad. “It’s about time,” she huffed in a husky voice.

  I flashed her the illest mean-grill and kept it moving. It felt like I had to be in defense mode 24/7. I’m saying, it felt like the whole house was against me for no apparent reason. I just couldn’t understand it … but then again I could. I had played the same dirty game back when I was all about bullying. The new girl gets clowned on until she proves herself. Yeah, I get it. But now that the combat shoe was on my foot, it hurt like hell … drafted in a war I wasn’t prepared for.

  I couldn’t complain to Mrs. Cooper about how the girls were treating me. No snitching is my rule—street code in my blood. And the other two grown-ups in the house, Belinda and Gerald, were a big fat joke. They could care less about encouraging us girls to get along. I could already tell they were just there to collect paychecks; chilling around the crib like a couple of stone-faced simpletons.

  I had absolutely no one to confide in, to comfort me. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “Get me out of this madhouse!” But if I screamed, who would hear me? Even my new social worker was ghost. She never returned my calls. I don’t even remember her name.

  I had nobody. Absolutely nobody.

  When Mrs. Cooper called me down for dinner, I lied about a stomachache. Wasn’t in the mood to be sitting at the table flanked by these skanks.

  From upstairs, I heard their forks and knives clanging while my stomach was sangin’, “Kate, what’s going on? I’m starving like Marvin!”

  * * *

  Later that night, I tossed and flipped around in my
strange new bed, hungry and restless. I couldn’t sleep for nothing. Meanwhile, the whole house was catching zzz’s. I had to do something to keep myself busy or I was about to lose my mind. I had left all my novels back in my old bedroom; had no magazines to flip through, no nothing to do.

  Just then, I remembered my Lifebook, the book given to me by Lynn, the book Ted had told me to keep all of my experiences in. “Kate, you need to capture all of your life’s moments,” he had explained. “Big things, little things, good times and bad…”

  Well, these times were bad and I needed to capture them. Then maybe one day I could look back and release them, saying to myself, “After all of the hardships you’ve experienced, look how far you’ve come.”

  Careful not to wake Tracy, I eased out of my bed and slid my knapsack from underneath it. I crept downstairs, hoping no one would block me. The hallway lights were on, but thank goodness not a soul in sight to stop me. I went into the living room, turned on the end table’s lamp, and sank down on the couch. I pulled out my Lifebook, opened it up, and quickly flipped past all of the pictures of me and the Johnsons. Looking at those pictures would precipitate a rainstorm inside of me.

  From my knapsack’s side pocket, I pulled out my favorite fancy black felt-tip pen Ted had given me, and stared at the blank page staring back at me.

  Now how should I begin?

  My first day here and I hate this dirty stinking house. These chicks are asking me for problems, but I can’t be snapping necks anymore. I have too much to lose. Too much I’ve already gained by changing my old ways. I know if Tisha were around, she’d tell me to suck it up and be strong. And I know I can be strong. Sometimes I forget that I’m a survivor. Always have been. Always will be. So let me stop tripping. I can do this. I can really do this. Nobody can bring me down, but me.

  Seeing these words in print eased my mind. I repeated the last line out loud: Nobody can bring me down, but me. I wanted to believe in these words. I needed to believe in these words. I clicked off the light and sat up in the dark, repeating these words over and over again. I felt a little crazy, but what else could I do? I had no one around to put my mind at ease.