by Nina Revoyr
Telisa was quieter than usual, and sad, but she managed to get her schoolwork done and to be sociable with the parents. She did go get the rest of her things eventually, sneaking in one day while her mother was at work to pack boxes of clothes, and books, and records. She left all of her furniture there, but lugged the boxes to our garage, where I peeked in on her at one point and found her sitting with her face in her hands. I didn't say anything, and backed out before she noticed me. Although I was worried about her, I didn't want to intrude, and she, for her part, didn't seem to want to talk very much. I knew she must have been hurting beneath all those layers of composure, but she wouldn't let anyone see it. At school she acted normal, telling no one besides the team what had happened, and even then she gave an edited version. At practice she was more intense than ever.
But this would turn out to be one of those instances when fate tempers a terrible blow by then reaching into its hat and producing something wonderful. For it was also during Telisa's stay with us that she got a piece of incredible news. It happened four days after she'd been kicked out. Her brother called that night just after Claudia got home from work, and told Telisa she'd better come meet him at McDonald's right away. She left, and when she came back about an hour later, she was so excited that she started jumping up and down and thumping on the walls. There was a look of happiness and vindication on her face.
"What happened?" I asked.
She clenched her fist in triumph and then slammed it down on the couch. "I just got into Berkeley," she said.
I said, "Huh?"
She turned and beamed at me, her eyes lit with joy. "I just got into motherfuckin Berkeley!"
I cocked my head at her, confused. "Wait a minute. What you talkin about? I didn't know you applied to Berkeley."
My friend did a little jig and then looked at me again. "That's 'cos I didn't tell anyone, homegirl! You think I'm gonna tell people 'bout something like that? Shit. What if I didn't get in?"
Her news, finally, began to sink in. "Holy shit!" I said. "You just got into Berkeley!" I stood there and thought about this for a moment. No one, I mean no one, ever got into Berkeley. No one I knew had ever even applied. Only the very smartest kids in the state could go there on the strength of their academics alone—and now, my friend was one of them. "You're a fuckin genius, T!" I yelled, and then we high-fived each other, and that wasn't enough, so we high-fived each other again. We hugged and whooped and danced around, and then Telisa almost split my eardrums with her yell.
"Whheeoooeew!"
The dog got into the act, jumping on us and barking. All the commotion brought Claudia out from the kitchen, and just as she came into the living room, my father walked in the front door. He put his book bag down, smiled at us, and asked, "What the hell is going on?"
"Telisa got into Berkeley," I announced. But I bristled a bit, not entirely happy that he should share this.
My father's mouth opened, then closed again, and he smiled even wider. He nodded at Telisa, looking impressed. "That's wonderful," he said. "Congratulations."
"Telisa, that's great," added Claudia, going over and giving her a hug. Then she turned toward my father, not looking happy. "Where have you been, Wendell?" she asked. "It's almost nine o'clock."
My father bent down, suddenly engrossed in the zipper of his book bag. "I was out having a drink with Larry," he said.
"You could have called," she said gently. "I didn't know whether you wanted dinner or not."
I was not feeling so gentle, and, because I was excited about Telisa, less likely to keep a lid on my thoughts. "Why you hangin out so much with that asshole, anyway?" I said, and I knew my voice was dripping with disgust.
My father stood and raised his head, but didn't look at me; his eyes settled on a space beyond my shoulder. He cocked his head a little, and held his mouth in such a way that it looked like he was in pain. "I have my reasons," he said.
"Right," I said. "Like if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?"
He said nothing, but seemed tired and grim, and I felt a thrill of anger, a bitter pleasure at my cruelty.
"And what about Eddie?" I asked, almost gleefully. "Did you invite him to have a drink with you too?"
Claudia stepped forward, put her hand on my arm, and gestured toward Telisa. "Nancy, let's talk about this later."
I glared at her. I was mad at Claudia too, or maybe ashamed that she was defending my father to her friends when he had failed us all so miserably. But then I remembered Telisa, who was standing there, looking confused. "Okay," I said. "You're right. We'll talk later."
My father and Claudia went into the kitchen. I felt bad that we'd made Telisa see this, that we'd interfered with her moment of triumph, so I turned back to her now and jabbed her on the shoulder.
"Sorry about that. Hey, how'd you find out you got in?"
It took Telisa a moment to switch back into gear, but when she did, anger flickered across her face. "My brother. Girl, he dug the letter out of the trash! My mom just threw it away without opening it, but he took it out and read it, and then he went straight to McDonald's and called me." She grabbed me by the shoulders and smiled again. "But it don't matter how I found out," she said, shaking me. "I got in, Nance! I got my ass into fuckin Berkeley! I'm gettin outta this place. You hear me? And this messed-up crazy city can kiss my skinny black ass goodbye!"
There was a new bitterness in her voice as she said this, and I wondered at the similarity between her sentiment and Raina's. I didn't have time to think about it, though. Telisa hugged me again, and then my father suggested we order some pizza. We all ate a lot that night, and my dad let us drink beer with our food, and Telisa laughed and glowed and told us that she'd been worrying for weeks about the status of her application. Raina came home in the middle of this, and when she heard the news, typically, she was more impressed by Telisa's new security than by the brains it had taken to get in.
"You're so lucky," she said. "You know where you gonna be next year."
And this, I suppose, was an element of my own reaction too—Telisa was the first of my immediate circle of friends to have a definite plan for the fall. But more than that, I was conscious of the shift this would cause in our relationship, and in the way that other people would perceive her. I was so proud of Telisa. Of the two of us, it had always been me whose achievements garnered praise, me who people talked about with envy and wonder. I'd often felt vaguely guilty about all the recognition I received for my athletic skills while Telisa, who was so much smarter than me, got none. In any situation other than basketball, it would have been she who was the star. But things had changed just in the course of that night, because now, at least in my eyes, she finally was.
* * *
Telisa's family situation had just begun to lose its drama when, a few days later, Stacy got arrested. I was among the first to know about this development too. The phone rang around seven one night, when the parents were out to dinner.
"Nancy?" said the voice on the other end. And it was so guttural and quavering I couldn't tell who it was.
"Yeah," I said, "who's this?"
"It's Stacy," the voice answered.
"Stacy? What's wrong?"
"I'm in jail, girl," she said. "I got my ass thrown in jail."
And even though she sounded upset, this news would not register; I simply could not take it in. I smiled and shook my head. "Shut up, girl. Stop playin."
"I ain't playin," she said. And there was such insistence in her voice, and agony, that I knew she was telling the truth.
I stood there uselessly, not knowing what to do. "Jesus," I said finally. "What happened?"
"I did somethin stupid, girl," she said. "I just did somethin stupid."
"Shit," I said. "What are they doin to you? Do they have you in a cell?"
"Not yet," she said. "They let me come into this little room and make a phone call first. Is Raina home now? Can I talk to her?"
"Yeah, sure, hold on," I said. I stayed on the line for
a second, trying to think of something comforting to say, but nothing came to mind. Finally I put the receiver down and called out for Raina. She appeared in the kitchen a moment later, and when she got close, I whispered, "Its Stacy. She's in jail."
Her mouth opened in surprise, and then she suddenly looked very serious. She picked the receiver up off of the table. "Hey," she said. "It's Raina."
They talked for a few minutes, and I couldn't make out what was happening from Raina's end of the conversation; she mostly said, "Mm-hmm," and nodded her head. I petted the dog absently and tried to figure out what Stacy could have done. Drugs were the most logical answer. Stacy smoked weed sometimes—most people did, although I tended to stick with beer—and maybe she got caught with a joint or a dime bag. She could also have been making a drop for someone, although I hoped she wouldn't be that stupid. As far as I knew, she didn't carry a gun, but if she was strapped, that was grounds for arrest too. I was still thinking about this last possibility when Raina got off the phone. She turned to me, looking exasperated.
"She wants me to go tell her mom," she said.
"Well, why didn't she call her herself?"
"Because she was afraid that her mom would trip."
"Oh, that's nice," I said. "So she's gonna trip less when you tell her?"
"No, but I guess at least this way Stacy doesn't have to deal with it."
"Great," I said. Then, after a pause, "What'd she do?"
Raina sighed. "She took a two thousand–dollar check that was addressed to her employer and signed it over to herself. I guess the bank or her boss or someone got suspicious, so they investigated, and the cops came and arrested her at work."
"Holy shit," I said, and we just stood there for a moment. Then we went upstairs and got ready to leave.
The parents had taken the Honda out to dinner, so we took the Mustang. I handed the keys over to Raina, because I was still nervous about driving at night. At Stacy's, I waited outside in the car while Raina went in and talked to Stacy's mom. She came out looking grim. After she'd shut the door and belted herself in, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"Girl, she is pissed," she said. "You know, she got Stacy that job, and she's real upset that Stacy dogged out her friend. And then, you know, Stacy's dad's in jail too."
I shook my head. "I know." Out the window, I saw a few dark shapes moving in the schoolyard across the street. "What's she gonna do?"
Raina shrugged. "Wait and see what they set the bail at, I guess, and then try to scramble it up. She said she had some folks she could call. And J.R. offered to kick in some cash."
I smiled wryly. Stacy's younger brother, J.R., was a small-time dealer, a smart, sly kid whose elusiveness had served him well on the street. He was the most likely member of the household to have cash on hand, and the least likely to have legally earned it.
There was nothing more for Raina and me to do now, so we headed back home in silence. We were both too distracted to concentrate on our homework, so we sat in front of the television and didn't talk much, except to tell Telisa, when she came in, what had happened. The parents came home eventually too, but we didn't fill them in on the events of the evening. I finally went to bed around midnight and it took me a long time to get to sleep.
Two days later, Raina and I dropped Telisa off at school, and then we borrowed her car and came straight back to the house. Raina called Stacy's and learned from Nicki that their mother had just gone to bail Stacy out. We kept calling every fifteen minutes or so to see if they were back yet, until Nicki finally got sick of us and said she'd call us herself when there was something to report. So we waited all morning—pacing, worrying, painting possible scenarios—and I remember thinking to myself, oddly, that we were acting like two people who were waiting for the birth of a baby. Finally, around noon, the phone rang. We both jumped to answer it, and I got there first.
"They're back," Nicki said. "And if you wait about twenty minutes, our mama's goin to work, so you can have my sister all to yourselves."
We went straight out to the car, both of us figuring it was better to go somewhere than to keep pacing back and forth inside. When we got to Stacy's, though, her mother's car was still there, so we circled around the block a couple of times until it was finally gone. We parked, went up the walkway, and Raina knocked on the door. I felt nervous. It was as if I were about to encounter someone I had never met before, or who I knew but hadn't seen in several years. Then Stacy answered the door.
She looked awful. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and there were dark blotches in her yellowish face. I wondered if she'd had any sleep in the last few nights, and if there'd been anyone in the cell that she could talk to. Seeing her like this did something strange to me. It made me feel closer to her, but also, somehow, more distant—because I knew, now, how different our lives had become, and felt, as I often did regarding my friends, that I had no right to care about her as much as I did.
"Wassup, ladies?" she said, moving aside to let us pass.
"Wassup?" I replied. "Welcome home."
We squeezed past her, and once inside, I looked around me as if I were in a strange, unfamiliar place. There were several football-sized holes in the walls, where you could see through to some of the wooden beams, the old house's bones. A stack of telephone books supported one corner of the worn green couch, where the leg had broken off. The coffee table was littered with half-smoked cigarettes, bags of Fritos, and an empty baby bottle. The recliner by the television had permanently reclined.
"Thanks," Stacy said. "Don't know how long I'm gonna be here, though. The trial's on April 23. I gotta go meet with the lawyer again this afternoon, and everyone knows I did what they say I did, so . . ." Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away.
I stood there looking at her, and felt completely unable to help. "It'll work out," I said. "Your lawyer's gonna figure something out."
Stacy shook her head doubtfully. "I don't know, girl."
Then suddenly, Raina, who'd been looking away, whirled around and glared at Stacy. "What the fuck were you thinkin?" she demanded. I turned and looked at her, surprised. She was standing there with her fists clenched, and what struck me most was not the anger in her voice, but the pain. It was as if Stacy had done something against her personally. And Stacy must have taken it that way too, because she stood there with her eyes on the floor like a large, repentant child.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just that we needed the money, with Nicki havin the baby and all, and it just seemed so easy, and I was sure I could get away with it."
Raina shook her head violently. "It ain't a matter of gettin away with it! Jesus! You just don't fuckin do shit like that!"
Finally Stacy raised her eyes and met Raina's glare. She looked a little angry now. "Well, that's easy for you to say. You got your ticket outta here. Your future's wide open, and when you leave this place, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Well, that's all real nice, Raina, but for the rest of us, it just ain't that fuckin easy."
There was a complicated expression on Raina's face. She looked furious, but also sad, and something else I couldn't interpret. At any rate, she didn't say a word. She turned and walked out the door, and a few seconds later I heard the car start.
Nicki, who'd been listening from the kitchen, came in now and shook her head at Stacy. "You steal and you lie and you hurt the people who love you," she said, almost gleefully. "You just like your no-good father."
Stacy closed her eyes and sighed. "Shut up, Nicki," she said.
Since Raina had stranded me, I suggested to Stacy that we go for a walk. We went to the liquor store to buy some sodas, and then jumped the sagging fence to get into the schoolyard. Some high school–age guys were playing hoops on the run-down courts, and the usual shady, secretive traffic was taking place in the doorways of the boarded-up old classrooms. Once, Stacy had told me, while the school was still open, some gangbangers had driven past it and fired shots over the yard while the kids were out for rece
ss. The kids, accustomed to the sound of gunfire, had apparently dropped to the ground and crawled calmly inside, while their teachers ran around in a panic. That afternoon, the grass was overgrown and lush, thanks to the rain of the last few weeks. We could hear the traffic and smell the car exhaust from the freeway behind us. We sat in some old swings, hands curled around the cold metal links, and Stacy tried to explain what had happened.
"I feel like I let everyone down," she said, "but I was really just tryin to help out. My mama's always complainin 'bout how we can't afford to do this, we ain't got money for that, and that's the reason I even got this job, right? Only I wasn't workin that much, just evenings and weekends, and after the tax season's over, I was supposed to get a lot less hours." She paused and looked thoughtful. "So one night, I find this check that no one logged in, and I figure I can just take it and that no one'll miss it 'cos they never even knew it was there. And it's real easy signin it over and everythin; they didn't hassle me at the bank. That week I gave my mama four hundred dollars and she was happy to have it, so the next week I gave her four hundred more. She knew I wasn't makin that much, so she had to know I was gettin it from somewhere. But she never asked where it come from, you know what I'm sayin? It's like with J.R. He give her money, and everybody knows he make it over there . . ." she gestured toward the people in the doorways, "but she never says nothin about it, she just thank him for the help. It's like she don't care where the money come from as long as she don't have to know about it. I can't even tell if she's pissed that I stole somethin, or just pissed that I got myself caught."