Deal With It

by Monica McKayhan

  I slowly made my way around the corner, and my eyes locked with Darla Union’s. I remembered our recent altercation and couldn’t believe that she was the one who was pushing up on Vance. I approached her, stood square in front of her and pointed my finger in her face.

  “I don’t appreciate you pushing up on my man!” I said.

  “Then you should take better care of your man, little girl,” she said. “If you did, I wouldn’t have to.”

  She wouldn’t have to? Did that mean she’d already taken care of him? Were they already messing around behind my back?

  “I thought I put you in your place the other day,” I told her.

  “Apparently you didn’t!” she snapped back.

  I pushed her, and she fell against the restroom door. She lunged toward me in defense, and Vance stepped in between us just in the nick of time.

  “Stop it!” he yelled and then grabbed my waist.

  “Let me go!” I said and pushed him away. “We are so through, Vance.” I walked away. Trying not cry, I was moving fast.

  “Tameka, wait!” he yelled and reached for my hand, but I yanked it away.

  I turned around just long enough to point my finger in his face. “Don’t touch me,” I said and then headed toward the glass doors in the gym.

  Vance was moving quickly toward me, but since he was hopping on crutches, it was hard for him to catch up. “Tameka, wait up!”

  I rushed out the door and never looked back. Left Vance behind in the cold Atlanta air. I practically ran to my mother’s BMW, started the engine and burned rubber out of the parking lot. I needed to get as far away as I possibly could, and fast, because it felt as if my entire world had just fallen apart. Vance’s words still stuck in my head. “Let me go handle my business,” he’d told Darla. It was hard to believe that I was the business that he needed to handle. It was me that they probably laughed about when I wasn’t around. I was the joke. That hurt.

  I wanted to call my mother. She was my best friend and she would know exactly what to say. But I didn’t want her worrying about me. I knew that if she thought I was in trouble, she’d be on the next flight from Charlotte to Atlanta in an instant, and I didn’t want to inconvenience her like that.

  Tears blurred my vision as I made my way through traffic on Old National Highway. When I finally saw our subdivision up ahead, I rejoiced. I was happy to finally pull into our garage and shut the door behind me. I was safe there. I could hide my pain from the world behind that garage door. I sat in the car for a moment, trying to get myself together, hoping that the pain would ease up just a little, but it didn’t. I went inside, rushed upstairs to my room, threw my backpack on the floor, kicked my shoes off and curled up in my bed. I stayed like that for a long time. When the doorbell rang, it startled me. I got up, looked out my bedroom window, but didn’t see a car out front. I couldn’t see who was at the door, and it started to scare me. The person on the other side of the door was relentless and kept ringing the doorbell and knocking, and then my phone rang. I looked at the screen. Vance. Wasn’t interested in talking to him, so I let it roll into voice mail. He called three more times before finally sending a text. I read the text.

  I’m at da door. Pls let me in, he wrote.

  I didn’t respond. Just placed the cell phone on my dresser and sat on the edge of my bed, trying to figure out what to do next. He sent another text.

  Please. Just want 2 talk.

  Oh, now he wanted to talk. It seemed to me that he’d done all the talking necessary—to Darla Union, about God only knew what. Part of me did want to hear what he had to say, though. I wanted to hear that this was all a joke. Or that I hadn’t heard things correctly, and they hadn’t talked about hooking up. All of it had been one big mistake—maybe. I crept slowly down the stairs and made my way to the front door, leaned against it.

  “What do you want, Vance?” I asked.

  “I just want to talk, Tameka. Can I come in?”

  With my back against the door, I contemplated letting him in.

  “It’s really cold out here,” he finally said.

  I slowly opened the door. He stepped inside, shivering from the cold. I closed the door behind him, folded my arms across my chest.

  “What is there to talk about?”

  “I’m sorry about tonight, Tameka. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I made a mistake.”

  “Yes, you did make a mistake. A big one,” I said.

  “It wasn’t what it seemed. I promise.”

  “Then what was it? Because I heard everything loud and clear.” I stood my ground. “Why were you trying to kick it with someone else?”

  “I don’t even know,” he said, not even denying the fact that he was trying to kick it with someone else. “I don’t even like her like that.”

  “You just wanted to sleep with her, huh?”

  He shrugged. I was right. He wanted to sleep with her, and it hurt knowing that.

  “I’m sorry, Tameka. I never meant to hurt you,” he said. “And I don’t want to lose you.”

  He reached for my hand, and I didn’t pull away this time, but I didn’t look at him, either. I looked away. He grabbed both of my hands in his, held on to them. Then he pulled me close, and I relaxed in his arms. My mind was telling me to pull away, throw him out and tell him where to go, but I didn’t. Instead, I let his lips touch mine.

  “What does she have that I don’t, Vance?” I had to ask. Insecurity had found its way to my heart.

  “She doesn’t have anything on you. Nothing at all,” he said.

  “Then why were you all up in her face, making plans with her?”

  “Just stupid, I guess.” He sounded so sincere, I couldn’t help but believe him. “What we have is really special, and I almost messed it up.”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “Will you forgive me?”

  I ignored his question and asked, “How long have you been messing around with her?”

  “I’m not messing around with her,” he said. “I’m with you, Tameka, and you only. She wants to get with me.”

  “Have you slept with her?” I asked.

  “No. I promise I haven’t,” he said.

  “But you were willing to,” I said.

  “I’m not gonna lie, Tameka. I was thinking about it. And I’m sorry…”

  My heart started aching, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. The thought of him thinking of another girl in that way made me sick.

  “If I make love to anyone, I want it to be with you,” he said.

  I believed him. He wrapped his arms tightly around my waist and kissed me with passion. I put my arms around his neck. He didn’t know it, but I had already forgiven him. And when his fingers began to caress my skin, I didn’t even stop them from roaming.

  “Where’s your room?” he whispered.

  We had reached that crossroads again. It was the same crossroads that we’d found ourselves at before, only this time there was a little twist. I could send Vance away, but there was a chance that he would end up in Darla Union’s arms in a matter of seconds. She was probably somewhere waiting for that to happen, hoping I would turn him away. She wanted to get her claws into Vance and steal him away. And I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “My room is upstairs,” I told him. “You have to take your shoes off in the house.”

  He removed the Jordans from his feet. His hand in mine, I led the way upstairs to my bedroom.

  “Nice room,” he said as he looked around.

  “Thanks.” I smiled. Who would’ve dreamed that Vance Armstrong would be standing in the middle of the floor in my bedroom, saying that my room was nice?

  I hit the power button on my stereo, popped in Lloyd’s CD, and ironically, his “Love Making 101” track rang out across the room. Vance didn’t waste any time pulling me close again, and our lips locked—again. Before I knew it, I was lost in the moment. There was no turning back. We slow danced in the middle of my floor, and then Vance led the way to my
canopy bed. We both sat on it slowly, careful not to let our lips come apart.

  “I brought protection,” he whispered.

  I was glad, because protection was important if we were going to move to the next level. It seemed that this was actually going to happen. His lips against mine, his fingertips all over my body, our hearts beating at a consistent pace, we became one in an instant—one love, one mind, one soul. As the song encouraged us with its lyrics, we made love to the music. And when we were done, Vance held me in his arms, and we both fell asleep.

  The sound of Vance’s ringtone shook the room. He and I sat straight up. We looked at each other; both of us were dazed for a moment. He grabbed his cell phone from my nightstand.

  “Oh, snap, it’s three o’clock!” he exclaimed.

  “In the morning?” I asked, wiping sleep from my eyes.

  “I gotta get home. That was my father calling,” he said, searching for his jeans. He pulled them on, buttoned them. “I caught a ride over here with Jaylen. You think you can you take me home?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yeah, right now.”

  I’d already broken the rules—had company over when my dad had specifically asked me not to. Now Vance wanted me to drive my parents’ vehicle in the middle of the night, when I was told not to go anywhere but school and back home. I had taken so many chances already.

  “Yeah, I’ll take you.” It was already out there before I could take it back.

  The streets of College Park were dark and quiet, reminiscent of a ghost town, as I took Vance home. My heart pounded the whole way. There wasn’t much to talk about at that hour, and so there was silence in the car. He grabbed my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine. I felt safe, felt lucky. Like I had won the prize and Darla had lost. I wished she could see that Vance belonged to me, in every way. His heart belonged to me.

  I finally pulled up in front of his mini mansion. The neighborhood was so quiet that you could actually hear the crickets chirping in the night. I lowered my headlights so they wouldn’t disturb any of his neighbors.

  “I’ll call you when I wake up,” he said. “You wanna check out a movie or something? We can go to the matinee.”

  “That’ll be cool.”

  “All right.” He opened the door and stepped out of the car. “Send me a text and let me know that you made it home.”

  “I will.”

  I watched as he approached his front door, used his key to go inside. When I saw the upstairs light pop on, I pulled away quickly. Made my way back home, driving just below the speed limit, as my mind drifted back to the intimate moment I’d just shared with Vance. We had been so natural with each other. It had felt right. Vance didn’t need to go anywhere else. He had everything he needed right here.

  seventeen

  Indigo

  It had been five days, seven hours and twenty-eight minutes since I’d last spoken to Jade. We were officially on non-speaking terms, and it felt weird. There hadn’t been many times that we’d been apart. Just the time that she had the chicken pox and I had to stay away; and the time that I had that stomach virus, and her mother wouldn’t let her come over and play Barbies with me. Then there was that time that she moved to New Jersey to live with her grandmother. That was probably the longest time we’d ever spent apart. And even then, we talked on the phone just about every day.

  But now, when I saw her in the hallways at school, she walked past without so much as a hello. And I wasn’t about to say anything. In my opinion, she was the one who was being childish, rolling her eyes like I had done something wrong. She needed to grow up.

  As I stood in the lunch line, holding my plastic tray, she walked past, running her mouth with Tymia and pretending that she didn’t even see me standing there.

  “Can we have a cut, Indi?” Tymia asked.

  “You can.” I responded directly to Tymia, making sure that my body language expressed who I was talking to—and not talking to.

  “I didn’t ask her for a cut, anyway. So I don’t need her doing me any favors,” Jade said, with her back to me. “Tymia, let’s just go to the back of the line. We don’t need her.”

  “Tymia, you are definitely welcome to cut in front of me if you want to,” I said.

  “We’re just gonna go…you know…back there, to the end of the line, Indi,” Tymia said. I could tell she felt uncomfortable being in the middle of our catfight. “You’re welcome to join us at our usual table by the window. Okay?”

  Jade was already heading to the back of the line, and Tymia followed.

  “Okay.” I said it sadly. Now she was stealing my other friends away, too.

  “Hey, girl!” Tameka entered the cafeteria, wearing jeans and Vance’s basketball jersey. Something was different about her. She wore her hair pulled up on her head, instead of her usual flat-ironed style. She approached me in line. “Can I get a cut?”

  “Yeah, you can,” I said and then spotted Asia, who was running to catch up with Tameka.

  “There’s Jade and Tymia in the back of the line,” Asia said. “Let’s go back there.”

  “Come on, Indi,” Tameka said, and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go back there with them.”

  Reluctantly, I followed them to the back of the line, where Jade and Tymia stood, with their trays. The usual giggles and gossip began the minute we all got together, but it was obvious that Jade and I were not speaking to each other. Whenever we had something to say to or about each other, we said it in third person.

  “I saw Kim the other day at Publix,” Asia said. “She’s starting to show.”

  “You mean, she actually looks like she’s preggers?”

  “Yes, big-time,” Asia said.

  “I bet she’s pregnant by that boy who dropped out of school. The one who used to hang around our dance-team practice, waiting for her,” Jade said.

  “I wonder if her baby is going to be dumb, since he obviously was,” Tymia said.

  We all laughed.

  “Everybody that drops out of school is not dumb, Tymia,” Tameka clarified.

  “They are in my book,” Tymia insisted. “Anybody who makes it all the way to the twelfth grade and then drops out is dumb!”

  “My mom dropped out in the tenth grade because she was pregnant with me,” Tameka said, “and my mom is not dumb!”

  “She was pregnant with you in the tenth grade?” Asia asked.

  “That’s our age,” Jade said.

  “I would die if I got pregnant in the tenth grade!” Tymia exclaimed. “I can’t even imagine it.”

  “Your whole life would change.” I added my two cents. “You wouldn’t be able to do anything. No parties, no dance team.”

  “You would even have to go to a new school,” Asia announced. “Can you imagine wobbling down the hall in front of all your classmates—fat and preggers?”

  “I’m too young to be anybody’s mama,” Jade said.

  “Can you imagine me asking Marcus, ‘Where’s my child support?’” I laughed, because it sounded so ridiculous. “And this baby need some Pampers…and some formula! Don’t stand there looking at me crazy, boy. Go on down to Wal-Mart and get some.”

  Everybody laughed. Even Jade. I thought about Kim. Wondered if she was wobbling down the halls of her new school. Wondered if she knew who her baby’s daddy was, and if he was going to help her take care of the baby once it was here. I wondered how she was going to take care of the baby once it was born. Would she get a job, or would her parents help her out? I wondered how mad they’d been when they found out. What if they had kicked her out of the house, and now she was wandering aimlessly through the streets of College Park, looking for a place to sleep? I felt bad for her and thanked God that it wasn’t me.

  Jade and I managed to get through the entire lunch period without even mumbling a word to each other. We avoided even looking at each other. I was grateful for my other friends, because otherwise it would’ve been a pretty lonely world. I liked her hair that day, though. She’d
obviously tried something new with it. And the outfit she had chosen for the day was hot. I still remembered where she bought it—Charlotte Russe at Cumberland Mall. That was where she got the jeans. And she bought the tangerine-colored top at Forever 21, off the clearance rack, end of season. I had a blue one just like it. But I wasn’t about to tell her that her outfit was cute. The compliment that was dangling around in my head would never reach my lips. In fact, I looked the other way before she caught me checking out her gear.

  In Mr. Espin’s Spanish class, I dozed off at least three times before he finished going over our homework assignment—which I didn’t have, by the way. The fourth time that I dozed off, Mr. Espin stared right at me, but the fifth time, he tapped me on my shoulder.

  “Didn’t get enough sleep last night, Señorita Summer?” he asked.

  I tried to focus my bloodshot eyes on Mr. Espin.

  “I’m awake,” I said.

  “Do you have your homework?” he asked.

  I began searching through my three-ring binder, pretending to look for it. I already knew it wasn’t there, knew I hadn’t done it. I had been too busy gossiping on a three-way call with Tameka and Tymia the night before. We were on the phone until at least one o’clock in the morning, and by the time I hung up, I was way too tired for Spanish homework. I struggled in Spanish more than I did in math. I didn’t get it, and Mr. Espin seemed to forget that we weren’t born in Cuba, like he was. It took a while to grab hold of a new language, especially when we didn’t even have English down yet. I was still working on my English prepositions, pronouns and verbs.

  “Um, I think I left it at home,” I lied.

  “Or maybe the dog ate it?” he asked sarcastically.