by Jaime Reed
Like a toddler falling out in the grocery store, Alyssa pounded her fists on the table and screamed, “I’m not a baby anymore! I’m thirteen! This is so unfair!”
“Life ain’t fair, Lyssa. You think I wanted this for you? We gotta do the best we can with what we have and play the hand we’ve been dealt.”
“This is all your fault!” Alyssa hissed. “Yours and Grandma’s! Why have kids if you know they might get sick? You’re both selfish!”
Now, if I’d said that to my mom or—heaven forbid—Grandma Trina, my bottom jaw would be sitting in the mailbox. But that was none of my business. What was my business was making sure my best friend stayed healthy and still kept her dignity.
“I’ve got an idea!” I sprang up from the table and headed into the living room.
On the outside, the Weaver house matched everyone else’s in the neighborhood: trimmed lawn, pruned shrubs, spotless windows, and shutters. The inside, however, was a mini wholesale emporium. No membership needed. The only place in the house you didn’t have to shimmy and Harlem Shake through was Alyssa’s room.
Not even my grandma would cross the threshold. A fearless woman, who in her heyday counseled abused women and children and forged a clinic inside an abandoned school in Uganda, she had once taken one peek into Mrs. Weaver’s living room and said, “Uh-uh. No, ma’am. The Devil is a lie,” then walked out.
“That house—heck, the block—ain’t big enough to fill the hole in that woman’s heart. That husband of hers done ran off and did her wrong, and she thinks she can fix it with some hole-sale hoarding. Not ‘whole’ sale, but ‘hole,’ ” my grandma had explained to me during the drive home that day.
But again, that was none of my business.
Now I found Velcro, a purple headband, a glue gun, and some sparkles from a craft kit. After a few minutes of tinkering, I created the coolest armband this side of Claire’s.
I returned to the dining room and modeled my new invention on my arm. “See?”
Alyssa’s eyes lit up as if it were Christmas morning. “That’s so cute!”
“It is. The kids in school are gonna be so jelly,” Mrs. Weaver added in her attempt to be cool.
Alyssa rolled her eyes, then asked me, “Can you make one in red? And blue? Oh, and lime green to go with my sneakers?”
That sounded like homework, a practice that I viewed as a form of fascism. I decided to meet her halfway. “Sure. But I’ll show you how so you can make more on your own.”
She agreed with a firm nod. “Deal! Ooh! We can make a bunch of these and sell them at school. Kids can place orders—”
“And have their names put on it,” I added. “Or even their initials written in—”
“Gold and glitter! Omigod! Twinsies!” we said at the same time, pointing to each other.
“You’re a genius! We’re gonna make so much bank.” Alyssa threw her arms around my neck and squeezed. “Thank you, Janelle.”
“It’s okay, really.” I peered over Alyssa’s shoulder to where her mom stood by the patio door.
Mrs. Weaver smiled back at me, hands clasped together in prayer, as she mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
Set about sixty miles south of DC, White Chapel was an idyllic Christmas card of a town, littered with houses and farms dating back to the Redcoat and Patriot days. Pickup trucks and John Deere hats reigned supreme. Everything was closed on Sunday, and citizens awoke every morning to the airy perfume of wood chips, fertilizer, and dead skunk. Home, sweet home.
I lived in the historical district, and my street was one of the first to get power after the storm. But the trash in the road turned my commute into an obstacle course. Moldy sofas and tables waited at the curb for the city to collect. Neighbors aired out their houses and patched up walls covered by tarp. Ancient trees had been pulled from their roots; toppled-over rooftops and power lines stretched across side streets like casualties of war. Chainsaws buzzed and branches snapped, a recurring melody that would carry well into the night.
To think, we had Big Loretta to thank for this extreme makeover. Not Hurricane Loretta, as the news stations called her, but Category 4, board-up-your-windows-and-pray-your-house-doesn’t-land-in-Oz Loretta. For a town that saw maybe two inches of snow three weeks out of the year, we’d taken no heed of the evacuation notice, but left all the shelves at Walmart bare. Suffice it to say that we. Were. Not. Prepared.
Behind the wheel of my sister’s beat-up RAV4, I parked in front of the redbrick Victorian house that took up the corner of the block. In a movie, my house would either be haunted or overrun by orphans and a quirky caretaker. The latter wasn’t a stretch since the home had been in my family since Prohibition and now served as a pit stop for the traveling members of the Pruitt clan. No matter where my parents and sister traveled around the world, 288 Pennington Lane was our home base.
Aside from a few missing roof shingles and a flooded basement, the house survived the storm unscathed, probably for the same reason Grandma Trina had. They were both old and built to last, and too stubborn to keel over.
Her maroon minivan sat in the driveway. Normally, Grandma Trina would’ve been at First Baptist helping out with whatever church activity was going on that week. She spent more time there than at home, so being here before dark was odd for her.
I entered my house and air conditioning, spicy food, and the whiff of wet dog hit me immediately. I heard tapping claws and jingling collars before the stampede. Soon, five dogs greeted me at the door. The black German shepherd and black-and-white border collie stood on their hind legs, begging for affection, their large paws tugging at my shirt. A brown terrier and a foxhound circled my legs, nearly tripping me, while their half-breed pup performed acrobatics to get my attention.
If anyone asked, I couldn’t tell them how we came to acquire so many dogs or why. The animals were just strays that kept coming back when we fed them. I dropped my bag and picked up the happy pup. She was a flirty one, always licking my face and burrowing under my shirt and popping her little brown head through the collar. That’s how she’d gotten the name Peekaboo. Never one to disappoint, she gave my neck and chin a good tongue bath while I sifted through the mail by the door.
Wedged in the middle of the stack was a postcard from Mama and Dad. It was a picture of an African shoreline, the sand bleached white, the water clear blue against a cloudless sky. The postage was dated three weeks ago, and I figured the storm had caused the delay.
If I called them now, the time difference would send me straight to voice mail. Mom and Dad would be working in the field and wouldn’t get to their phones until nightfall.
I heard the lady of the house clattering around in the kitchen, and if my nose wasn’t deceiving me, she was cooking. That alone was worthy of investigation. I strolled in that direction, reading Mama’s silly message on the back of the card.
Enjoy the sun for as long as you can, it read. Whatever that meant.
Grandma Trina stood at the kitchen island, poking at the pork chops and greens simmering on the stove. She was a tall, busty woman whose height and dark complexion I’d inherited. Though the woman rocked a silver afro, her true age remained a mystery to this day, and she had more agility than most twenty-year-olds.
Her huge brown eyes lifted from the pan and she flashed me a bright, gap-toothed smile. “Hey, baby. I thought you’d be back later. You hungry? You look hungry.”
I was starving and willing to eat anything that wasn’t chargrilled, but I had more pressing concerns. Grandma Trina could throw down on any given occasion—she just didn’t. Outside of holiday meals or church functions, the woman never cooked. So my next question came with good reason. “What’s going on?”
She stirred mashed potatoes bubbling in the pot. “What’s it look like? I’m cookin’ dinner.”
“But why though?”
“We’re havin’ company over.” She tipped her head toward the bay window behind me. “Mateo, guess who’s here? You remember my grandbaby Janelle, rig
ht?”
The postcard slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor. My knees buckled and my arm muscles clenched, causing Peekaboo to yelp and tunnel inside my shirt collar to safety. I fumbled and caught her with both hands before she fell through the bottom of my shirt.
At just the sound of his name, I underwent a freak astral projection where my soul left my body for two seconds.
“Yeah, I see her around at school all the time.” The reply came from behind me and managed to extend my out-of-body experience to about a year.
Slowly, I pulled a 180 clockwise and observed the boy sitting at my kitchen table. Not just any boy, but Mateo Alvarez: six feet and 170 pounds of male perfection, Scorpio, professional introvert, and wanted in all fifty states for first-degree hotness.
He faced away from me, his back hunched over his phone, but I’d know those broad shoulders anywhere. The shape of his head, his black curls, and the way his ears poked out had been ingrained in my memory since the seventh grade. For fear of gossip and the all-seeing Borg, his side and rear profile were all I’d dared to admire on school property.
He set his phone on the table and slung his arm over the back of the chair as he turned around. “Hey, Janelle. ¿Qué pasa?”
Of all the responses running through my head, panic gave voice to the rudest one. “What are you doing here?”
“Your abuela invited me over for dinner. I saw her earlier today and she brought me here. She said I looked hungry.” His gaze lowered to my chest. “Something’s moving in your shirt.”
I glanced down at the wiggling lump in my arms. “Yeah, that’s my puppy. She’s needy like that.”
His full lips curled into a sly smirk. “Looks like that dinner scene from Alien.”
It did, and yet I was too bugged-out to remove her. The whole situation felt unreal, so if Peekaboo burst out of my chest and started eating people, I wouldn’t be any less surprised.
“Janelle, put down that mutt and go wash your hands. Dinner’s almost ready.” Grandma Trina then aimed her wooden spoon at Mateo. “Young man, get that dirty phone off my table and wash your hands, too.”
As Mateo rose from his seat to do her bidding, she went on to say, “So, I get to church today and Bishop Campbell had us crammed in a hot van, droppin’ off supplies to the shelters on the Southside. Four old black women, one van, no AC for six hours in the heart of Redneck County. But I ain’t complainin’. We get to the last stop at Herrington Middle School and they’ve got generators and cots set up in the gym.” She paused to look at me. “You used to go there, remember, baby?”
“How can I forget?” I muttered, then fished out the pup from my shirt and set her on the floor. Junior high was an awkward time in my life that I wished I could block from memory—the main cause being the boy walking toward me.
Looking away would’ve been smart, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. His scuffed black boots had no laces, with a gray bald spot on the toes where they’d been worn to death. His blue jeans and long-sleeve shirt were wrinkled as if thrown on in a hurry. Scrolling up, I caught the light dusting of stubble and a black scab on his chin. Red scratches marked his right cheekbone and eyebrow, but his eyes were what held the most turmoil. They shimmered in a kaleidoscope pattern of green, brown, and gold, framed by thick black lashes that shadowed his cheeks when he blinked.
Somewhere on the other side of the planet, Grandma kept talking. “So there I am, handin’ out water and blankets at the school, and guess who I see up in there on one of the cots, lookin’ hungry?”
I rolled my eyes. Everybody looked hungry to Grandma Trina.
“I’m searchin’ the place, wonderin’ why this baby’s sittin’ by himself. See, I know his mama—”
“You know everybody’s mama, Grandma—”
“She’d come to church every Sunday draggin’ this little runt with her.” She held a hand at her mid-thigh. “He was about this high, runnin’ around the aisles in his little suit, head full of curls like a wet poodle. Now, Anita ain’t about to let her child starve in no shelter. She would’ve called me first, so I knew somethin’ was up.”
The last part of her rant caught my attention. “Wait. You were at a shelter? Why? What happened?” I asked Mateo.
“Loretta happened.” He scrunched up his sleeves and moved to the sink.
I closed my eyes and allowed my imagination to reenact the fallout. He lived in the lower portion of White Chapel where the storm did the most damage. From what I saw on the news, blocks of that area had been leveled. The rural parts were now a wetland and they still had no electricity.
I joined him at the sink, then whispered, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“Not exactly” was his only reply as he handed me the soap. I didn’t press the issue.
Side by side, we lathered and rinsed under the faucet in silence. This was the closest I’d ever been to Mateo, so I savored the sandalwood cologne and faint trace of sweat drifting from his direction. I snuck a glance at his hands: rough, and tracked with even more scratches.
“I tell ya, baby, that storm did a job on them people down there.” Grandma swung the wooden spoon like a conductor’s wand, sending gravy flying everywhere. “The campgrounds are flooded. All them RVs and trailer parks—ain’t nothin’ left but matchsticks. And this one here barely got out alive. The roof done caved in and fell on him and his mama. Had to pull her out of all that rubble.”
“What?” I turned to Mateo. “Is your mom all right?”
He reached across me and snatched paper towels from the rack. “Yeah. She broke four fingers, two ribs, one leg, has a minor concussion, a punctured lung, and had her spleen removed, but she’ll survive. Can’t say the same for the house, though.”
“House’s flat as a pancake,” Grandma added, and slapped scoops of mashed potatoes onto plates. “He told me what happened to Anita and how the hospital sent him to the shelter. I said, ‘Lord, this baby’s been by himself this whole time? I gotta take him home with me.’ ”
“Don’t you have relatives you can call?” I asked Mateo.
“If I did, you think I wouldn’t have done that already?”
I reared back and shook off the frostbite from his answer. “I was just asking.”
Grandma Trina came from behind the counter and set three plates of comfort food on the table. “Y’all better come on here and eat this food. I don’t cook like this ’less a man’s here. Since my son’s in Nigeria or wherever, I’m off the clock.”
Right on cue, the German shepherd and the collie circled the table and jumped on their hind legs to reach the food.
“Ah-ah-ah! Corner. Now!” Her command cracked a whip through the room, making me and Mateo jump. The dogs whined and retreated to the doggy beds by the pantry door, their tails tucked between their legs. The woman had everybody under this roof trained, humans included.
We took a seat, mumbled a quick prayer, and dove into the meal. I couldn’t describe what the food tasted like; I was too distracted by the boy by my side. I must have spent ten minutes staring at his lips alone.
Halfway through dinner, Mateo asked me, “So, your dad’s from Africa?”
“No. We’re American. He and my mom are there for a humanitarian project.” I showed him the postcard they’d sent me. “My sister and I used to travel with them when we were little, but they wanted us somewhere stable for school,” I explained.
“That sorta thing runs in our family, Mateo.” Grandma spoke up. “My late husband and I did mission work in Africa. I did social work for forty years before I retired. My oldest grandbaby is off buildin’ houses in Haiti and there ain’t no tellin’ what this one’s gonna do.” She jabbed her fork in my direction.
I sank lower in my seat, ducking the spotlight she put me under. I hadn’t picked a college yet, but I wanted my future to involve something political: maybe becoming a public official or a diplomat. My family was more hands-on in their approach, but I craved enacting change on a broader scale. In the meanti
me, I’d make any small difference in my own backyard, even if it was collecting canned goods in the school parking lot.
“What you tryin’ to do, sweetie?” Grandma asked Mateo. “You’re a senior, right? You’ve got plans for the future?”
“Nothing that big, but I like to bake. I wanted to go to culinary school, but I’m more set on making sure my mom’s okay.”
“Cookin’, huh?” Her dark eyes narrowed as she sucked loudly at something in her teeth. “Great. You can start by fixin’ pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.”
His brows knit together in a scowl. “And … why would I do that?”
“You gonna need somethin’ to eat in the mornin’. I ain’t gonna cook for you. Y’all old enough to fend for yourselves ’round here.”
He looked just as confused as I felt. “I’m sorry—did I miss something? I thought this was just dinner.”
She gave him a dismissive wave. “Boy, you knew good ’n’ well you weren’t sleepin’ in that musty gym another night. You need a place to stay till your mama gets out of the hospital. By the look of things, that’s gonna be a while.”
At some point, I knew I should draw a breath, and it took a minute to remember how. I heard the words, understood what each one meant, but their sequence had me grasping for clarity. “You’re gonna— Why would you— What are you saying right now? You mean he’s staying? Right here, in this house? With us? Here?”
Grandma’s reply was a lethal gaze, a quick scan up and down my frame, and a veiled threat in the form of a question. “Is there a problem, Janelle Lynn?”
Yeah, a big freaking problem. Mateo Alvarez, the guy I’d been crushing on for five years, would be sleeping under my roof. Eating my food. Using my shower. But I wasn’t trying to die by this woman’s hands, so I was like, “Nah, I’m cool with that.”
“Mrs. Trina, it’s nice what you’re doing, but I’m fine on my own.” Mateo tried to put her down gently, but he was messing with the wrong one.
“I don’t recall askin’ you if it was okay or not. This is my house and I already called Anita and she agreed that you’d stay here till she gets out the hospital. Lord knows you need somebody watchin’ over you.”