Wildflower

by Anne Schraff

  “He’s worried, chili pepper,” Jaris told her. “He loves you very much. He’s worried that some creepy boy is going to hurt you one way or the other.”

  “Heston is a nice guy, Jaris,” Chelsea protested. “He’s really shy. And Pop goes off on like he’s some maniac who’s after me.”

  “It’s hard for parents, chili pepper,” Jaris explained. “Especially when you got a girl. It’s a jungle out there. Some nice guys, a lot not so nice. Look at what happened to Athena. That could have been the end of the road for her. And all because of some stupid jerk like Brandon Yates.”

  “He didn’t mean for that to happen, Jaris,” Chelsea said.

  “That’s a crock,” Jaris corrected her. “He gave liquor to a kid. I don’t believe that story that somebody else put the booze in his bottle. I don’t believe it for a minute. He thought it’d be fun to make her drunk, and when she passed out, the little creep bailed. If Athena buys that, she’s one dumb little chick.”

  Chelsea put her hands on her hips and glared at her brother. “Is that what you think I am too, a dumb little chick?” she demanded.

  “Sometimes, yeah,” he agreed. “You make better grades than me, chili pepper. And you’ll probably ace high school and get honors in college. But when it comes to boys, you girls are sitting ducks, and creepy guys know it.”

  “Oh!” Chelsea snapped. “You’re getting more like him every day, like Pop. What good does it do to reason with either of you?” She went back in her room, slamming the door even harder than before.

  Pop was in the kitchen making dinner. He was merrily banging the pots and pans. Jaris was trying to do his homework when another argument broke out between his parents.

  “You’ve got to ease up on Chelsea, Lorenzo,” Mom told Pop. “You’re making her crazy.”

  “Yeah,” Pop agreed, “that makes two of us. She’s making me crazy too. This here’s gonna be a Mexican polenta pie. We never had one of them.”

  “Lorenzo,” Mom went on, “you are making her so upset that she won’t bring her friends home anymore.”

  “Oh no!” Pop cried in mock horror. “You mean those beady-eyed little punks won’t be coming around drooling over her in her mini clothes anymore? So, let’s see, we mix up the cornmeal, water, and salt, and we let it boil.”

  “Lorenzo, you are getting impossible,” Mom said. “You are getting like Mickey Jenkins. Next thing you know you’ll be knotting wet towels and beating Chelsea, the way she beat her boys.”

  “Hey!” Pop exclaimed. “Now that’s not a bad idea. One thing for sure, Mickey didn’t raise any bums. She raised four great boys in a tough neighborhood without a man to help her. Two of them in the army serving the country, one in college, and Trevor, a great kid too. So whatever she’s doing, she’s doing fine.”

  He opened up a can of beans. “Don’t these look good? Hey Monie, once I get the garage, maybe I’ll open up an eatery too. I could fix cars and dish out grub too. I’d be a double threat man, babe.”

  “It’s all a big joke to you, isn’t it?” Mom commented bitterly.

  “No, I’m dead serious, Monie,” Lorenzo Spain replied. “I’m gonna see the banker next week and talk turkey. We got to sign the loan then, you and me. Both our names on the property and we both gotta sign on the dotted line. Then I’m a businessman, no longer just a grease monkey.”

  “What if I just can’t?” Mom asked in a suddenly emotional voice.

  “You mean you wouldn’t sign?” Pop asked. There was a terrible gravity to his voice.

  “What if I just can’t take the chance of losing it all?” Mom asked him in return.

  “That’d be telling me you don’t trust me, Monie,” Pop told her. “That’d be saying your man has just one last chance to be somebody, to be a man. That’d be saying he needs his wife’s support, but you won’t give it to me. That’d be turning your back on me, babe. I’m not sure I could come back from that.”

  Mom sounded like she was about to cry. “What are you saying, Lorenzo?” she cried.

  “You heard me,” he said.

  “So you’re threatening me,” Mom argued. “Either I sign or we’re over. Is that it?”

  Jaris froze. He felt like putting his hands over his ears because he didn’t want to hear the answer. But he listened.

  “I don’t know, babe. I really don’t know,” Pop responded. “If you’re not on my side . . . if the person I love more than anybody else on earth isn’t behind me, I don’t know what would happen. You’re my woman, Monie. I love the kids more than my own life. But if you’re not with me, if you won’t help me carry the dream, then I’m not sure I got the stuff to go on.”

  There was a deep, almost dreadful silence. Then Jaris heard his father stirring the cornmeal and whipping in an egg. Then he spread the cornmeal in a pie plate, spread the beans over the cornmeal, and sprinkled cheese and corn chips over everything.

  The Mexican polenta pie was delicious, but the atmosphere around the table was tense. Chelsea was sulking about being humiliated in front of Heston. Jaris was sick about the conversation between his parents that he had overheard. Mom and Pop seemed lost in their own separate worlds, almost like enemies across a battlefield, waiting for the other side to fire the first shot.

  That night Jaris heard his parents in the hallway on their way to bed. “The dinner was delicious, Lorenzo,” Mom remarked. “You’re a great cook.”

  “Thanks, babe,” Pop responded.

  “I’m tired,” Mom said. “It was a hard day at school.”

  “Yeah, at the garage too,” Pop said. Then he told her, “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you. You know that, don’t you, babe?”

  Jaris could tell his mother was crying, though her sounds were muffled. Her face was pressed against Pop’s chest.

  On Monday, Jaris was anxious to see Sereeta to find out how her Sunday with her mother had gone. There had been no phone call, no texting from Sereeta. Jaris was afraid that was a bad sign—an indication that her mom had let her down again.

  But when Jaris arrived on the Tubman campus, Sereeta came running toward him, a big smile on her face. “Oh Jaris, we didn’t get back till three this morning,” she said excitedly. “It was just so amazing!”

  “Wow,” Jaris replied, glad to see the radiant look of happiness on her face.

  “We flew to San Francisco!” Sereeta cried. “Just Mom and me. It was crazy. It was wonderful. We stayed in this beautiful old hotel, and we went to Chinatown and had the most awesome dinner. We walked all around, and we bought souvenirs and laughed and talked. I felt like I was eleven years old again, having fun with my mom. It was so fabulous. It was like the old days when Mom and me did fun things together. Like we used to get up in the middle of the night and go down to the beach when the grunions were running—those tiny silver fish. Mom was so happy then and I was happy too . . . it was before all the bad stuff happened.”

  Jaris gave Sereeta a big hug. “I’m so glad you had a good time, babe.”

  “Jaris, she was my mother again,” Sereeta confided. “We got lost once and we laughed until our sides ached. Then we almost missed our plane, and they made us take off our shoes, you know, for security at the airport. Mom broke a heel and she giggled about that too. Oh Jaris, I’ll never ever forget it. You know, my grandma said that, when Grandpa died, she thought if she could have had one more great day with him, then she’d be able to cope better with him being gone. One amazing day to remember, and that’s how it was with me and mom. Well, no matter what happens now, I’ll have this day to remember. I didn’t have any good memories of these last years. But now this is like a gift, a treasure I’ll never forget.”

  “Sereeta, that’s great. You deserved it,” Jaris said.

  Sereeta was still savoring her day with her mom. “When Mom doesn’t pay any attention to me again. And when I miss her, I’ll feel her arms around me and that wonderful perfume she wears will be all around me. I’ll feel like Mom’s kid again. And, you know wha
t, Jaris? When she asked me to come with her this weekend, I almost turned her down. I just didn’t want to be hurt again. But you gave me the courage to try again, Jaris. You told me to follow my heart. I woulda told Mom no, and I woulda missed all this. And now I’ve got still another reason to love you, Jaris, because you make me strong when I’m weak.”

  When they all had lunch under the eucalyptus trees that day, Sereeta regaled them with her adventures in San Francisco. Alonee and Oliver, Kevin and Carissa, Derrick and Destini, and Sami and Matson listened and laughed with her and rejoiced with her. It dawned on Jaris that he had never seen Sereeta quite so lovely as she was right now. Her face glowed with joy.

  Sereeta’s mother had bought her a small replica of a San Francisco cable car. That Sunday was just a brief moment in the months and years of sadness. But it would stay in Sereeta’s memory as something to warm her heart when the days and nights turned cold. And as long as Sereeta lived, she would keep the little cable car on her bedroom dresser.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Look!” Athena shouted when school let out at Marian Anderson Middle School. “Did you ever see a car like that? It’s like a silver chariot!”

  It was a silver Mercedes. Chelsea and Inessa stretched their necks for a look at the car as it cruised down the street.

  “Brandon Yates is sitting next to the driver,” Inessa noted.

  “Who’s driving?” Keisha asked. Keisha was a cheerleader at Anderson and a friend of Chelsea’s.

  “That’s Cory Yates, Brandon’s brother,” Athena answered. “He said he’d be down this week from LA. He’s really rich.”

  “How did he get so rich?” Inessa asked, wrinkling her nose. “He’s real young. I bet he’s a crook.”

  “Oh Inessa,” Athena laughed, “you’re such a wet blanket, girl.”

  The Mercedes turned around and came back down the street adjoining the school. Brandon grinned out at Athena, Chelsea, Keisha, and Inessa. “You chicks want a ride around the block in a cool car?” he yelled.

  “Oh wow,” Athena said, quivering with excitement. “I never in my whole life rode in a car like that. I bet it cost thousands and thousands of dollars! I’d feel like a princess!”

  “You’d be a fool, Athena,” Inessa advised. “Gettin’ in that car is gonna be nothin’ but bad.”

  “Oh, it’d be so exciting,” Keisha exclaimed, grabbing Chelsea’s hand.

  “If my pop ever found out,” Chelsea groaned, “he’d lock me in the closet until I turned eighteen.”

  “He won’t know. It’s just a spin around the block,” Athena said.

  Keisha tugged on Chelsea’s hand. “Come on, girl! I so wanna go, but I won’t go unless you come too.” Keisha was jumping up and down with excitement as the big silver car pulled to the curb in front of them. “Oh please, please, Chelsea!”

  “Keisha, my pop!” Chelsea gasped.

  “You guys,” Inessa warned, “you’re crazy if you get in that car with those whacko boys.”

  “Just a little ride, Chelsea,” Keisha begged. “I never in my whole life rode in anything better than a rusty old Toyota, and maybe I never will!”

  Athena got into the Mercedes first, squealing with excitement, followed by Keisha and Chelsea. Keisha still held tightly to Chelsea’s hand. The door slammed shut.

  Cory Yates looked back at the girls and smiled. He was even handsomer than his little brother, Brandon. He wore cool shades and designer jeans. He immediately turned on the music, a pounding rap. The whole car seemed to shudder with the angry beat. Cory was snapping his fingers and rolling his head from side to side with the music.

  “What’re you sayin’ ‘freeze?’ ” a raucous male voice demanded in the song, “takin’ me down with the greatest of ease. Whatcha doin’ in my hood? What made you think you could?”

  Cory looked back, grinning, and sped up.

  This is my hood, and you better believe it,

  You’re not the man I am,

  If you cross me, you gonna grieve it.

  Keisha looked out the window at the kids from Anderson, some of them her friends, staring at her going by in a silver Mercedes. “Chel,” Keisha cried, “look! They’d give anything to be where we are. Look at how they’re looking at us! They’re envying us, girl. It’s like having a snow cone on a hot day when nobody else has one!”

  Chelsea spotted just one face in the crowd of surprised classmates. Inessa was looking upset. Inessa was a very good girl. She never gave her parents a moment’s worry. Chelsea often thought Pop should have had Inessa as a daughter instead of her.

  Athena waved at the gawking kids. “Eat your hearts out,” she screamed happily.

  “Athena, don’t!” Chelsea pleaded. “They’ll get even with us.”

  “Look,” Keisha laughed. “Lark Lennox is getting picked up by her mom. Look how jealous she looks!”

  Chelsea saw Maya Archer getting picked up too. Maya saw Chelsea in the Mercedes, and she had a look of disbelief on her face. Chelsea began to get a little nervous. What if somebody texted Pop or called Mom? Chelsea hoped the Mercedes would turn around quickly and return to school, dropping her and the others off. Brandon had said just a “ride around the block.”

  But the Mercedes was free of the school traffic now. Instead of turning around, it was roaring up the freeway ramp. Cory Yates turned up the volume of the rap music even louder. The Mercedes itself seemed to be rocking to the beat.

  Lissen up suckas, you got nothin’ to lose,

  Smoke what you like, and jack the booze.

  World comin’ down in a mighty blast,

  Fool, didja think this all would last?

  “Where are we going?” Chelsea screamed at the driver, trying to be heard above the din.

  “Cory wants to show you what this baby can do on the open road,” Brandon shouted. “We’re gonna be flyin’, babe.” Once on the freeway, the Mercedes scooted across lanes amid a wild chorus of honking horns.

  “Get outta my way, suckas,” Cory shouted. To her horror, Chelsea recognized in Cory some of the signs she saw in the guests at that party that Jaris had dragged her from months ago. Cory was high on something.

  “We’re doin’ over a hundred miles an hour, gang,” Cory shouted. “Hey, we almost taking off into outer space like a rocket ship.”

  Keisha looked scared for the first time since the ride started. She was thinking that maybe Inessa was right and that this all was a big mistake. Chelsea was thinking the same thing.

  “Wheee!” Athena was screaming as the Mercedes chewed up the freeway, passing every car in sight. The rap music powered on again,

  Lissen man, you’re on your way, nobody stopping you, you can play.

  Winner’s circle just ahead,

  Never quit ’till you’re good and dead!

  “Slow down!” Chelsea yelled, grabbing Brandon’s shoulder. “Make your brother slow down! We’ll all be killed!”

  Brandon looked back. He was on something too. His eyes looked bad. “You wanna live forever, chick?” he asked, laughing.

  Keisha grabbed Chelsea’s hand for comfort. Keisha’s eyes were so big with fright that they seemed to fill her entire face. Chelsea was shaking with terror too. She thought they would crash at any moment in a mangled inferno. Chelsea remembered all the wrecked cars she had seen in recycling yards—the jagged steel twisted into the passenger’s area. She had always shivered at the thought of how the people died in those cars or how they were permanently scarred and disabled. Chelsea remembered a TV news spot about a little nine-year-old girl whose neck was broken in a car accident; she would spend the rest of her life unable to move her arms and legs.

  Chelsea kept asking herself, “Why did I risk this? Why did I get in this car? Why did I risk my health and my life for a stupid ride in a silver Mercedes? I could be in intensive care tonight, paralyzed for life, lying in a coma. I could be missing an arm or a leg. Or I could be blind or dead in the morgue . . . ”

  “Slow down,” Chelsea screamed
with all her might. “You’ll get us all killed!”

  Even Athena looked a little worried now. Until now she was enjoying the thrill of the ride, but now she added her own pleas. “Brandon, tell your brother to slow down.”

  Cory Yates did slow down momentarily as he left the freeway and continued on a two-lane country road. He looked back at the three girls clinging together in terror. And he threw back his head and laughed. “Hey, you chicks, bet you never been on a ride like this, not even in the amusement park! Don’t this beat the roller coasters? This is the real world!”

  The Mercedes was flying down the country road at over ninety miles an hour. Cars coming in the opposite direction looked like blurs of color when he passed them. The trees on the sides of the road blended into walls of green.

  Up ahead, a car was doing about fifty. Cory slowed a little and hit the horn, screaming, “Outta my way, sucka. Get off the road, fool. If you’re gonna creep along like this, you don’t belong drivin’!”

  The car ahead continued at its same speed, and Cory began frantically trying to pass in the oncoming lane. Every time he cut out to pass, oncoming traffic forced him back behind the slower car. He was getting hysterical. He honked nonstop at the frightened driver ahead. The driver was an elderly man who just kept going fifty miles an hour. Then Cory saw an opening. He swerved into the oncoming lane, passing the slower car and screaming at the elderly driver as he did.

  “There’s a car coming!” Chelsea screamed. She covered her face with her hands. They were going to crash head-on with the oncoming car. That was it. A grinding head-on collision. For just one horrible second Chelsea imagined herself lying in her silk-lined casket at Holiness Awakening Church with Mom and Pop and Jaris standing there crying. Her lips moved soundlessly now, “I’m so sorry . . . so sorry . . . ”