All the Wrong Moves

by Nikki Carter

  “Why don’t I pick you up for a change?” I ask. “I do want to drive, but I don’t want to show up alone. I’m afraid I might get jumped.”

  “Dilly still isn’t talking, huh?”

  “No, and neither are Dreya and Truth, although I don’t know why they’re mad.”

  “Does Drama need a reason?”

  I chuckle. “No, not really, but I think if someone would call her by her real name every now and then she might remember that Drama is a stage name, and that she doesn’t have to live up to it.”

  “She will forever be Ms. Drama to me,” Sam states.

  “Well, whatever. She’s Dreya to me. I’ll pick you up in an hour. Cool?”

  “Yep.”

  My mother calls me from the living room. “Sunday! Come here, now!”

  “Sam, let me call you back. My mom is tripping on something.”

  Her voice sounds crazy, like she’s about to try to ground me for something. But we’ve officially halted all punishment activities since I turned eighteen and graduated from high school. Like how’s she gonna ground me when I’m helping pay bills up in here? Real talk.

  But still she sounds like she’s in trip out mode. I am sooo not in the mood.

  “Sunday, sit down,” my mom says when I come into the living room.

  “What’s up?”

  “Look at what just came in the mail.”

  She hands me an envelope that’s addressed to me and my mom, but doesn’t have a return address. I open up the envelope, and inside is a cashier’s check.

  For twenty-five thousand dollars.

  It’s the exact amount of money that my mother’s boyfriend Carlos borrowed from my college fund to buy into Club Pyramids. It’s the exact amount that was stolen from him when the deal went sour and he ended up getting shot.

  “Do you think this has anything to do with Carlos’s cousins trying to kidnap Dilly?” she asks.

  “How can we say for sure? We don’t even know who sent it.”

  My mother replies, “It had to be Carlos. Somehow he got his hands on the money, and he’s trying to make it up to you.”

  “But why wouldn’t he let you know it was coming? I mean, he knows how to get in contact with us.”

  My mother sits down next to me and takes the check back. She flips it over a few times as if she’s looking for clues to its origin. She sighs and shakes her head.

  “Maybe it was the record company. Maybe they want all of the ghettoness surrounding you to stop, especially since they want to do a reality show with just you.”

  Apparently, BET liked what they saw of me from the reality show footage, and they want to give me my own show. That’s all good, and I know they don’t want any more brawls taking place during my new gig. But how would the head honchos at BET know about the twenty-five thousand dollars? There is no way Mystique or Big D would tell them what really went down at the club in New York.

  “I don’t think it was Epsilon Records, Mommy. They aren’t really in the loop with all the drama.”

  “Maybe it was Big D or Mystique?”

  I bite my lip and think about this for a moment. Big D is out. He’s known all along about the money, and if he wanted to give it to me, he could’ve done it at any time. Mystique is a possibility. She’s the type that would do something under the radar and not sign her name to it.

  “I don’t know,” I finally reply. “Maybe. I’ll ask them both.”

  My mother shakes her head. “No. Don’t ask. Whoever sent this doesn’t want it to be known, or else they would’ve signed their name. We just have to look at it for exactly what it is.”

  “And what’s that?” I ask, completely confused at her reasoning.

  “That’s simple. It’s a gift from God.”

  Hmmm … a gift from God? While I’m as Christian as the next person, I doubt that He’s just sending random checks in the mail. If He was doing that, why wouldn’t He send them to someone who really needs it? I mean, for real, I’ve got hundreds of thousands of dollars on the way. Isn’t there some poor, single mom out there who could use the check more? I’m just saying.

  But there’s no way I’m gonna argue with my mother when it has to do with a blessing. She’ll make me attend daily revivals, Bible study, vacation Bible school, and everything else if she even thinks I sound like I don’t have faith.

  So, it’s up to me to figure out the identity of the mystery check writer. Something new to put on my already overflowing plate!

  “Well, I guess we just need to thank the Lord,” I reply.

  “You sound like you’re being sarcastic, Sunday.”

  “I’m not! If it’s from God, then I think I should thank Him.”

  “All right. Keep it up, and your new reality show will follow you around at vacation Bible school.”

  This would be funny only if she didn’t really mean it. Even though I’m eighteen, I’m still afraid of her. I have to hurry up and figure out the mystery check donor, before my mom makes her move.

  Can somebody say a prayer for me?

  Don’t miss Nikki Carter’s

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  1

  I cannot believe that it’s the middle of the night and I’m thirsty. I’m parched, really—my throat feels like it’s growing an afro weave.

  I glance to the left of me in the dark. I can make out my cousin Dreya’s shape in the twin bed on the other side of my room. No one can tell it’s my room, since I always have to share with Dreya and her little brother, Manny. They get on my last nerve. Honestly. Dreya is the reason for my cotton mouth. She finds it necessary to get out of the bed every night and turn the heat up to eighty-five degrees, like she and her mama are paying any bills up in here. Nobody with human blood running through their veins needs to sleep with the heat turned up that high.

  And, of course, the vent is right up over my bed. Because of this, I’ve been swallowing heat for the past few hours.

  I throw my feet over the bed and try to escape quietly before …

  “Sunday! I want some water.”

  Manny wakes up. Dang!

  “Boy, you can’t have no water. You’re just gonna pee in the bed.”

  He starts whining. “But I’m thirsty.”

  “Boy! Go to sleep.”

  He squints at me and frowns. “What’s wrong with yo’ throat? You sound like a man!”

  “I’m thirsty and my throat is dry!”

  “Mine too, so hook a brotha up and get me something to drink.”

  “Manny, I’m gonna hurt you!”

  “I’m gonna tell my mama you cussed at me.”

  “I did not cuss at you.”

  “So.”

  I narrow my eyes at this little evil genius. He stays trying to blackmail somebody. The other day, he got half a candy bar out of Dreya by threatening to tell that she was kissing a dude other than her boyfriend. The fact that she never actually kissed anyone meant absolutely nothing to Manny. A candy bar is a candy bar to that little hobgoblin.

  “Come on then,” I say, still fussing. “You better not try to get in my bed either.”

  “I don’t even want to sleep in yo’ dusty bed! I’m sleeping with my sister!”

  Beautiful! The thought of this makes me smile. Dreya’s gonna be heated when she wakes up to sheets soaked with Manny’s pee! That almost makes up for my interrupted sleep. Ha!

  Manny and I creep quietly into the kitchen, which is hard to do because we have to pass through the living room to get there. We tiptoe around feet, legs, and blankets that are spread where they shouldn’t be. It’s something like a hood slumber party obstacle course.

  In most people’s homes (I would think—since I really don’t go to other people’s houses at night) the living room is a pretty quiet place. Living goes on during the day, so that’s when it should be busy. At night, normal people go to their bedrooms and go to sleep, and their living room is quiet.

  It’s a whole other story i
n the Tolliver household. Our tiny living room is occupied twenty-four seven. My auntie, Charlie, is sleeping on one couch and my mother’s boyfriend, Carlos, is asleep on the love seat, wrapped in Manny’s Transformers comforter.

  “Gimme my blanket!” Manny hisses and tries to snatch his comforter from Carlos.

  I pull Manny into the kitchen, not wanting him to wake anyone. “Stop it, Manny! You don’t have a bed anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “I did at my other house.”

  “I wish you’d go back to your other house,” I mumble under my breath.

  Aunt Charlie, Dreya, and Manny moved here a year ago when they got evicted from their duplex. My aunt doesn’t keep a job for longer than three weeks, and they never have enough money for rent, so they live with us off and on. It really sucks lemons.

  As much as it irritates my mother that Aunt Charlie won’t get and stay on her feet, she won’t ever let her and her kids be homeless or on the street. That is not how Tollivers roll. We always stick together, no matter what. Even if we get on one another’s last nerve.

  “Sunday, I’m thirsty. Hurry up,” Manny says.

  I know he’s not trying to have an attitude. Let him keep it up and he’ll be swallowing spit.

  Just for that, I take my time getting Manny’s sippy cup out of the dish rack on the counter and filling it with water from the faucet. I try to hand it to him, but he shakes his head.

  “I thought you wanted some water.”

  He shakes his head again. “Put some ice in it.”

  “We ain’t got no ice.”

  “Yes, we do. My mama filled up the trays. I saw her.”

  I open the freezer, crack two ice cubes out of the plastic tray, and drop them into Manny’s cup.

  While he’s drinking, I search in the refrigerator for my orange, pineapple, and banana juice. The fruity goodness that will slide down my throat in a burst of yummy flavor will be the cure for my dry, parched mouth.

  I know I sound like a commercial. It was completely intentional. Plus my juice is the bidness, ya dig?

  For some reason, I can’t seem to find it in our refrigerator. This can only mean one thing. My beloved juice has been stolen and consumed by someone else in this house.

  “Manny, who drank my juice?”

  He shrugs. “How you expect me to know? I’m only four.”

  “Because you always asking your mama for my stuff!”

  “What color was your juice?”

  “What color was it? It was yellow!” I feel the anger rising from the pit of my stomach to my dry and crackly throat.

  “Oh, that must be the juice I had tonight with my fried bologna sandwich.”

  AARRRGGGHHHH!!! If my throat didn’t feel as dry as the Sahara Desert, I would scream that out loud, but right about now, I can only offer a raspy hiss.

  I leave Manny standing there in the kitchen, with his ice water, as I storm back through the living room and down the hall. I can’t stand all these people up in me and my mama’s spot. I don’t have anything to myself, not my own room, my own clothes. Not even a carton of juice. I wish they would all disappear!

  Then I hear whimpering coming from the kitchen.

  I roll my eyes and go back to get Manny. “How you gon’ have all that mouth and be scared of the dark?”

  “I’m not scared of the dark. I’m scared of roaches.”

  “We don’t have roaches, Manny.”

  “We did at the other house.”

  I sigh and scoop him up into my arms. “Just come on.”

  I tuck Manny into the bed with Dreya and get back in my bed. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep.

  Which is impossible.

  Because. I’m. Still. Thirsty!

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