Deal With It

by Monica McKayhan

  Mommy and Aunt Annette began making plates for the little ones, Nick and Nate. Jason was already scoffing down a plate of bacon, eggs and muffins. He barely even looked up. Just as Aunt Annette placed a plate in front of me, Roni walked into the kitchen, rubbed sleep from her eyes. She frowned at the sight of her mother and Grant at the kitchen sink together.

  “Mom, have you seen my pink polo?” she asked Aunt Helen.

  Aunt Helen turned to face the rest of us. She was actually blushing. “Uh, no, I haven’t seen your pink polo, Roni. Have you looked in the laundry room?”

  “It should’ve been washed with my other polos. They were all together,” Roni insisted. It seemed that her goal was to get her mother’s attention off Grant and on her at any cost.

  “Well, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen it,” Aunt Helen said, “but I’ll help you find it after we eat breakfast. Now have a seat.”

  Roni plopped down in the chair across from me. She sighed from frustration.

  “I hate it when I can’t find my things.” Roni folded her arms across her chest. “They’re never where they’re supposed to be.”

  “You can wear my pink polo,” I offered. “At least until you find yours.”

  “No thanks. I have my own,” Roni said and then poured herself a glass of orange juice. “Can’t wait until I’m grown and out of this house.”

  “Your mom doesn’t need the attitude, Roni,” Grant said, stuffing a piece of bacon into his mouth and heading for the front door.

  “How would you know what my mom needs when you’re never here?” Roni mumbled under her breath.

  “Roni! You will mind your manners,” Aunt Helen said and then headed for the front door to say goodbye to Grant.

  “I can’t stand him,” Roni said after she was gone. “And I can’t stand the way she puts him on a pedestal, like he’s really something.”

  There was silence at the table for a moment.

  “Well, baby, that’s your mama’s husband,” Mommy replied, stepping in. “And you have to respect him, because he’s also an adult.”

  “But, Aunt Mel, you don’t understand. He doesn’t even love her. He treats her so bad, yet she always puts him before me and Jason,” Roni insisted. “Doesn’t she, Jason?”

  Everyone looked at Jason, waited for his response. He shrugged. “I don’t really care, Roni,” he finally said, “and you should stop trippin’ about it, too.”

  Aunt Annette placed a plate of food in front of Roni. Roni began to eat in silence at first. And then she mumbled, “Nobody really understands.”

  “We can try and understand, sweetie,” Mommy said. “You want to talk about it?”

  “No. It doesn’t really matter, Aunt Mel,” Roni replied, then stuffed eggs into her mouth and shrugged. “It won’t change anything.”

  We strolled through the mall, Roni, Alyssa and I, all three of us wearing Ecko Red jeans and similar tops. The moment Mommy’s SUV had pulled up in front of Belk department store, Jason had made a beeline for the door. He wanted to be as far away from us as he possibly could. He wasn’t interested in spending the day with three giggling girls, and we didn’t really want to spend the day with him, either. It was better that way.

  “I’ll be back at two,” Mommy had said. “Meet me right here in front of Belk.”

  I’d checked my watch and nodded a yes as she pulled out of the parking lot. It was nice to see so much eye candy on a Saturday afternoon. Lots of boys strolled through the hallways of the mall, either chatting on their cell phones or hanging out with their friends. Not that I was looking, but it was definitely a nice view.

  We popped into Charlotte Russe and checked out their clearance rack. Forever 21 was also having a sale, and I picked up a couple of new tops with the allowance that I’d earned just before we left Atlanta.

  “I gotta go to the bathroom,” I announced to my cousins as we approached Macy’s.

  “Yeah, I need to go, too,” Alyssa said.

  “Well, why don’t we just make a group visit?” Roni said.

  In the restroom’s handicapped stall, I checked for my visitor again. No sign of it. It was at that point that I started to panic. My heart was pounding out of control; I wondered if my cousins could hear my heartbeat through the walls. I could hear it loud and clear. It seemed that it echoed through the restroom, bouncing off the walls, and every customer in the mall could hear it. Could it really be that I was pregnant? A missed menstrual cycle was usually the first sign. Pregnant at sixteen, just like my mother? No way! It could never happen to me. I was too smart, and besides, Vance and I had taken precautions.

  I was in a daze as I sat there on the toilet. I stared at the salmon-colored door, where my leather jacket, my Forever 21 bag and my purse hung. I looked down at my sneakers and went through all the what-ifs. What if I was pregnant? How soon would I begin to show it? How would I tell my parents—especially my mother, who preached abstinence to me on a regular basis? What if they put me out on the street? Where would I go? How would I support myself? How would I tell Vance when he was on a fast track to play ball in college? What if he dumped me? And then there was Aunt Helen, who already thought that I was the fastest thing on the face of the earth. Would she ban me from the family once and for all? How would I support a child, with no job and no money?

  “I’m trippin’,” I whispered; at least I thought I was whispering.

  Roni’s voice rang out from the other side of the door. “Yes, you are trippin’! Can we go already?”

  I stepped out of the stall, and Roni and Alyssa were waiting patiently. I couldn’t even remember how long I’d been inside. I stepped up to the mirror, looked at my face. Looked at my stomach and the rest of my body, searching for a sign—anything.

  “What is your problem, girl?” Roni asked.

  “Are you okay, Tameka? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Alyssa acknowledged.

  Something was wrong, and I needed to handle it.

  “I’m late,” I said, turning on the faucet and holding my hands underneath the water.

  “Late for what?” Roni asked. “You are acting way too strange for me.”

  “No, my cycle is late,” I explained.

  They both stared at me blankly.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Alyssa said. “My cycle changes all the time. Sometimes it comes the first week of the month, sometimes two weeks later. We’re athletes. That’s not unusual.”

  “You don’t understand,” I told them. “Mine comes every month at the same time, like clockwork. Ever since I was twelve years old. It never changes.”

  When a white-haired older lady walked in, she smiled at us, and we lowered our voices to whispers.

  “Well, how late are you?” Roni whispered.

  “Today makes eight days,” I said.

  “Wow, and you’re never late?” Alyssa asked.

  “Never.” I dried my hands on a paper towel, put my leather jacket on.

  “You have to find out for sure,” Roni said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Follow me,” Roni said.

  Alyssa and I followed Roni out of the restroom, up the escalator at Macy’s and outside. The wind was brisk, and I zipped my leather jacket all the way up.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Across the street,” Roni responded.

  We jaywalked across the busy street, right into the middle of mall traffic. A man driving a huge truck blew his horn as he’d just missed hitting us.

  “Well, this is one way to handle the situation…. Why don’t I just get myself killed?” I asked sarcastically and continued to follow Roni to the other side of the street and through the automatic doors at Walgreens.

  We walked briskly past a clerk who was placing things on a shelf.

  “Can I help you ladies find something?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” I responded nervously.

  I assumed that Roni knew exactly what she was looking for, as she led us straight for the aisl
e where the boxes of pregnancy tests were stacked on the shelves. She stood in front of them, scanned them one by one with her eyes.

  “Here it is,” she said and handed me a bright pink box with First Response across the front of it. “This is the best one.”

  “And how would you know that?” I asked, my hands on my hips and my eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah.” Alyssa wanted to know, too. “How do you know that?”

  “I just know,” Roni said.

  “You been holding out on us,” I said. “You been having sex!”

  She didn’t admit or deny it. She simply said, “It costs eighteen ninety-nine.”

  “I don’t have that kind of cash! I just spent all I had at Forever 21,” I said.

  “Don’t look at me,” Alyssa said. “I’m flat broke.”

  “Fine,” Roni said and snatched the pregnancy test from me. After checking the ceiling for cameras and mirrors, she opened the box, took out its contents and stuck them inside her jacket. She placed the empty box behind the other boxes on the shelf and said, “Let’s go.”

  We walked quickly toward the door, trying to look inconspicuous. My heart pounded out of control.

  “Did you ladies find what you needed?” asked a clerk.

  “Yes, thank you,” Alyssa responded for the group.

  We walked right through the automatic doors, and no alarm went off. I exhaled as we stepped outside into the cold. We made our way across the busy street again and back to the mall, where we had ten minutes to spare before Mommy would pick us up.

  “We got ten minutes. You wanna do it here?” Roni asked.

  “No, not at the mall!” I exclaimed.

  “Then where? At the house, with barracuda lady breathing down our throats?” Roni asked.

  “I’d rather do it at home. We’ll be really careful, and we’ll dispose of the evidence.”

  “Cool,” Roni said. “Let’s go look for my juvenile delinquent brother.”

  As Mommy bounced to the sound of music, I watched her sadly from the backseat. She was so cool. People wished that my mom was their mom. She was my best friend in the whole world. I told her everything—we had no secrets. But suddenly, I had secrets that I couldn’t tell my mom. At least not yet. I sang along with Beyoncé and looked out the window. Hoped for better days.

  twenty-four

  Indigo

  Life was lonely without a cell phone. It was like you were on a deserted island, similar to the one that Tom Hanks was on in that movie Cast Away. It was a lonely place, and I was tempted to start talking to myself during the downtime. Other times, Mama was calling me to do the dishes or to clean up something. I hated that it was a Saturday. At least during the week I got to see my friends at school and talk to them. Once I got home, it was a different story.

  Marcus had acted as if my fight with Jade was all my fault.

  “I can’t believe you, Indi. Fighting with your best friend,” he’d said, slamming our locker shut—the one that we shared on the third floor of our school. “And at Macy’s? For real? You don’t have any shame, do you, Indigo Summer?”

  “You act as if I was the only one fighting! Shouldn’t she take some of the blame, too?” I’d asked.

  “What is it with you and this spot on the team? Why can’t you just let it go?”

  Neither of us had answered the other’s questions, and the entire conversation had become frustrating.

  “I just felt like it should’ve been my spot, that’s all.”

  “Then it sounds like your beef should be with Miss Martin. Not with Jade,” Marcus said as we had stood in front of my classroom. “I’ll see you after practice. You want me to come over to your house and study, or you comin’ to mine?”

  I shook my head no.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “We can’t study together anymore. At least not until I get off punishment,” I’d explained.

  “Are you for real?” he’d asked. Nothing seemed to shock him at this point.

  “Daddy’s helping me with my math.”

  “Wow, you really messed up this time, Indi. Mr. Summer is helping with your math. You won’t survive algebra.” He’d laughed. “I’m sure it’s been a thousand years since he had an algebra class.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not laughing at you.” He’d smiled. “I’m laughing with you.”

  “Well, I’m not laughing.”

  “You have to admit that it is pretty funny when you think about it,” Marcus had said. “But it’s okay. You’ll survive it.” He’d walked backward down the hallway and then yelled, “I’ll put some money on your books.”

  I’d stood there watching him for a few minutes, with his baggy black jeans sagging a little and his green Boston Celtics jersey with Pierce embroidered across the back. When I could no longer see him among the crowd in the hallway, I’d gone inside my classroom.

  It had seemed like the longest school day ever.

  Lying flat on my back and staring at the ceiling in my room was about all I had on my agenda for the day. Besides watching Girlfriends reruns back to back, staring at the ceiling was the most exciting part of my day. When I heard the light taps on my bedroom window, I knew it was Marcus. Tap tap. Sounded like he was throwing Skittles against the pane. I got up, opened the blinds. Marcus stood in his window—shirtless, with biceps, triceps and abs staring back at me. The elastic of his blue nylon shorts hung just below his six-pack.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Nothin’.” I wasn’t enthused at all.

  “What you doing?”

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m grounded, Marcus,” I said.

  “Staring at the ceiling again?” He laughed.

  “Not funny.” I lowered my voice. Didn’t want my parents hearing me talk to Marcus—they might nail my windows shut.

  “Think you can sneak out later and meet me at the creek?” he asked.

  “Are you asking me to break the rules, Marcus Carter?” I asked.

  “I just miss you. I can’t hold you at school like I want to, and since we can’t study together anymore…well, you know…I just need to see you,” he said.

  “I need to see you, too,” I admitted. “I’ll meet you there at ten o’clock. I should be able to sneak out after Daddy goes to bed.”

  “Cool. I’ll see you then.” He pulled a Nike shirt over his head.

  “Where you going now?” I asked, jealous because he was free and I was still a prisoner in my own home.

  “Going over to the YMCA with Terrence to shoot some hoops,” he said as he slipped a pair of sweats on over his shorts.

  “Think of me while you’re out there running free,” I said dryly. “Can you bring me a Big Mac from Mickey D’s?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He slipped a gray hoodie on over his head. “I’ll see you later on tonight. Be on time.”

  “Yeah, like I got so much to do in between now and then. That’ll be the highlight of my day.”

  Marcus blew me a kiss and then vanished from the window. Getting out of the house at ten o’clock wasn’t going to be an easy task, but I was up for the challenge.

  My parents’ bedroom door was cracked just a little, the light from the television shining through the crack. I tiptoed past their room, my heart beating out of control. I could hear the newscaster on my parents’ television giving the latest weather forecast. Daddy’s snores echoed from the room as I crept down the stairs. When I made it to the front door, I twisted the lock and then turned the knob gently, pulled the door open. It creaked just a little bit, and it was just a few moments before I was on the other side, shivering from the cold. Wearing my pajamas, big fuzzy slippers and a winter coat, I headed for the creek behind our house—a place where Marcus and I met often. It was a place where we went to get away from the rest of the world, discuss our future. It was the place where I first became Marcus’s girl. It was where he kissed me for the first time. It was a very special place.

&nb
sp; He was already there, seated on a huge rock, a hoodie covering his head. A McDonald’s bag in his hand, he waited patiently for me. He grinned when he saw me approaching.

  “About time,” he said, standing. “I was about to leave.”

  “I had to take my time.” I fell into Marcus’s arms. “You know I had to wait until Daddy was asleep.”

  As he hugged me strongly, his cologne tickling my nose, his cold lips touched mine. He lifted me off the ground and twirled me around in the air.

  “I missed you, girl,” he whispered.

  I squeezed his neck. Wished we could stay like that forever. Even after my feet hit the ground again, I felt like I was still flying.

  “Got my Big Mac?” I asked, grabbing for the bag.

  “Of course,” he said and pulled me onto his lap as he plopped down on the huge rock.

  I opened the bag, opened the carton and eliminated the hamburger with just a few bites.

  “You didn’t want any, did you?” I asked once it was gone.

  “Too late now.” He laughed. “You greedy.”

  “You greedy!” I pushed Marcus, and he was so solid that he didn’t even budge.

  As I sat on Marcus’s lap, he held me tightly around the waist. I wondered if our relationship would survive this punishment of mine. Wondered if Marcus would get bored or tired of waiting. Boys were like that. They were the most impatient people on the face of the earth. He never pressured me about sex or anything like that. In fact, I was the one who had pressured him about it when I was in the ninth grade. He’d thought it was too soon for us to even consider it. And we never really discussed it anymore. We had just sort of left it at that.

  But the truth was, Marcus was getting older. He was becoming a man a lot faster than I was becoming a woman, and I wondered if he thought about it now. I wondered if he would step outside of our relationship, especially since I was on punishment indefinitely.