Patina

by Jason Reynolds

  So, anyway, then I tossed out my second choice, which was Harriet Tubman, who to me, was also a pretty good suggestion. Running from slavery and then coming back all those times to free everybody else—like a relay through the Underground Railroad—and Uncle Tony said she might be the new face of the twenty-dollar bill. That’s major. But the girls weren’t feeling that, either. And these are the moments I miss not going to school with Cotton, because she would’ve been like, “Yo, you know how crazy it would be to see my face on money? Like a hundred-dollar bill? I’d be framed in every corner store in the hood—your girl, lookin’ like money, on money!” But that’s not how the conversation went in my history group. Instead it was all, Harriet Tubman’s just too serious. So when I asked who they were thinking about, Becca, who was one of these girls who swore she was gonna be a star when she grew up, said we should do the project on this lady named Sally Ride.

  “First woman in space,” she said, strangely pointing up at the ceiling. Okay. I can’t front. Not a bad suggestion. But then Taylor said, for the second time, all these choices were too serious, as if the topic wasn’t a serious topic. I mean, it’s hard to be seen as important if you ain’t never been through nothing serious. But Teylor, who goes by TeeTee (one of the few nicknames) decided to add her two cents (by the way, I’d want my face on the penny, because pennies be everywhere and they’d get my skin tone right) and muddy up our brainstorming session with the . . . uh . . . brilliant suggestion of Taylor Swift. Becca didn’t say nothing. And I wanted to shoot it down, because we already had a Taylor and a Teylor in the group and I just couldn’t take another one. But thankfully, Taylor hit TeeTee with a swift no.

  So since serious was all I kept hearing on Friday, I decided to keep Monday light by trying out some of that “Momly-Ma special.” Some good ol’ small talk. And no, I don’t know why I care, why these girls in my class matter to me, except for the fact that I’m just trying to make the best of the situation. I figured weekends had to be a common bond. I mean, it don’t matter who you are, Saturday is Saturday.

  “This weekend, well . . . ,” TeeTee started. She used the long, skinny part of a pen cap to scrape grime from under her nails. “Saturday, I hit the mall.”

  “Me too,” Taylor followed.

  “I know you did, because you were with me!” TeeTee squealed to Taylor, clenching her fingers into a bear paw to check her nails. Oh, I guess I should make clear that TeeTee and Taylor are best friends. Besties. Another word I don’t like. It’s just stupid. Bestie and best friend take the exact same amount of time to say. It ain’t like an abbreviation. That’s like me calling my teammates my teamies. Anyway, not only are Taylor and TeeTee best friends, but they’re also cousins (cuzzies) and pretend to be sisters (sissies). They’re like attached at the ponytail and call themselves T-N-T, which is funny because most of the time I just wished they’d explode.

  Here’s my issues, not with bestie-cousin-sisters, but with group projects: (1) One of the group members always has to volunteer their house for everyone to go over to and work on the presentation, which was never really a good thing because (2a) ain’t nobody coming to my house and I don’t wanna go to theirs, and (2b) only one person in the group actually does any work, which brings me to (3) that person is me. So as the T(a/e)ylors started going on about whether or not they should both take a T-shirt—the same exact T-shirt—back to exchange it for a smaller size, and Becca was off in space, it was me who reached into my backpack and pulled out printouts of images of this Mexican painter lady, Frida Kahlo. I’d swiped them from the Internet over the weekend. Frida Kahlo was who we all settled on on Friday, by the way, with the help of Ms. Lanford, who figured political stuff, sick stuff, service stuff, and art stuff could all be explored in the life of this one artist. I was cool with it. I mean, she wasn’t Harriet or Flo Jo, but this lady, Frida, wore suits, stood up to dudes, and had issues with her legs. Good enough for me.

  After a few seconds of the other girls looking at the images, I got tired of waiting for them to ask how my weekend was. Not like they would’ve cared about me cooking Maddy’s breakfast, making sure she ate her dinner, doing Maddy’s hair, church with the Ma (and the stinky Thomases), then letting Maddy crawl in bed with me last night while I counted all the beads in her hair, one by one, hoping she’d be asleep before I got to ninety, plus on top of all that, finding time to research Frida Kahlo for this project and not go to the mall. Oh, and I had to run. But still, I was waiting for them to ask. Waiting for them to be normal. Or at least treat me normal.

  “Well, I had a track meet,” I threw out there, out of the blue, not like I really wanted to talk about that, either, but I was willing to just try to connect or whatever.

  “Whoa. This lady is in desperate need of some tweezers,” Taylor said, actually pinching the paper between Frida Kahlo’s eyes.

  “Came in first in the eight hundred meter,” I lied, still waiting on someone, anyone to say something about it. To acknowledge me. But before anyone did, Ms. Lanford popped over to check on us.

  “How are we doing, ladies?” Ms. Lanford was now standing beside our desks, which had been pushed together into a square, all of us facing each other, the pictures of Frida—bright-colored self-portraits including monkeys, birds, and flowers—spread out.

  The girls all flashed toothpaste-commercial smiles and gave different versions of “Good.” I bit my bottom lip and prayed for the bell.

  After school I never waste time at my locker. I scurry down to the end of the main corridor, eyes darting from forward to floor, through the mess of hair flippers, the wrath-letes (kids who feel like it’s a sport to make everyone’s life miserable), the know-it-alls, the know-nothins, the hush-hushes (super quiet, super shy), the YMBCs (You Might be Cuckoo)—the girls who wear all black and cover their backpacks with buttons and pins—and the girls whose boyfriends, brothers, and fathers all wear khaki pants. Every. Day. I know this sounds kinda mean, but it’s real. So real. It’s like a rich kid obstacle course, and once I make it all the way to the end, I walk through the courtyard to the north wing, where I then have to maneuver through the younger version of all those same categories. Except way cuter. And less annoying. And the cutest and least annoying of them all (in my opinion) is Maddy, who I always find waiting for me just outside her teacher Mrs. Stein’s, who she calls Mrs. S’s, door.

  “Ready?” I ask, awkwardly wrapping my arms around her detachable hunchback she calls a backpack, only way I can get a hug in with that thing on.

  “Yep.” She turns around and throws the peace sign up to her friends, then turns back and squeezes me, tries to lift me. It’s something she’s been doing for a while. She has a weird obsession with being strong, with proving she can lift heavy things. She got it (and the peace sign thing too) from Uncle Tony, who used to do push-ups with Maddy sitting on his back, counting in a cartoon voice. Mickey Mouse. Goofy. Goofy. Anyway, after Maddy’s cheese and squeeze, we head out to meet Momly, who is always there on time to meet us in the car pickup line.

  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what the ride home was like. Maddy . . . talking.

  Mona got glue in her hair. Again.

  I picked Willa up.

  Lauren cried six times.

  You know Willa, right? She bigger than me.

  Mrs. S’s birthday is on Thursday. I think she’s turning like eighty.

  She’s so lucky she gets to spend it at the farm.

  We’ll try to get the cows to moo “Happy Birthday” to her.

  Oh, don’t forget you have to drive me to the farm on Thursday, Momly.

  Mrs. S reminded us. So I’m reminding you.

  Hopefully Lauren won’t cry the whole time.

  Anyway, Riley wouldn’t pass the ball to me at first. But then she did. And then I passed it back. And then she passed it to Rachel. And then . . .

  While Maddy . . . Maddied . . . I changed my clothes in the backseat. It was my daily shape-shifting routine, which wasn’t a big deal because I
always wore my shorts under my skirt, and a tank top under my button-up, so that by the time we reached MLK Park—my homework started—and I told Maddy what I told her every day, that I’d help her with hers after practice, I was ready to jump out and run from my motormouthed little sister and hit the track. Which, I gotta admit for me, even with just a second-place ribbon, was sometimes more home than home.

  TO DO: Get over it (I mean, the whole second place thing)

  “STRAIGHTEN UP, PATTY!” Momly called out from the car window before pulling off. She said this all the time. Drove me crazy. Always nagging me about my posture or whatever. Roll your shoulders back, Patty. Stop hunching, Patty. And even though it was annoying, I knew she was right. I always walked like I had on a backpack, even when I didn’t. You’ll be walking with a cane by the time you’re my age, Patty. And even though Momly’s age was a long, long, lonnnng way away, I wasn’t trying to be walking with no cane by then. Or ever. So, I shook off the nag and rolled my shoulders back.

  I made it all the way to the track with my back straight and caught up with Ghost and Lu going on about some dude who Ghost, I guessed, was having beef with at school.

  “Soon as spring break is over, we’ll see if he got something to say to me,” Ghost said.

  “Man, he ain’t gon’ say nothin’. He ain’t even gon’ look your way. Probably at home right now still crying about getting smoked on Saturday,” Lu followed.

  “Burnt him up. Might’ve ruined his little vacation,” Ghost topped off, laughing and slapping Lu’s hand. Those two were always braggin’ about something. That was regular. So regular that I let my shoulders roll forward again, comfortable. Just couldn’t help it. Plus, these fools, and just about everybody else on our team, were already on break, and I was still in school getting academied. Fancy School Patty. And I didn’t know if Sunny was on break or not because he gets homeschooled, which, to me, just seemed like vacation with a little bit of education sprinkled in. Sunny didn’t seem to be paying Ghost and Lu no mind, though. He was just sitting on the track with his feet pressed together, his long legs butterflied.

  “Wassup, Patty?” Lu said.

  “Wassup,” I said with nothing on it. I sat next to Sunny, stretched my legs out in front of me. I was trying to get my mind right. Trying to refocus, work harder. First practice of a new week—after the first meet. Time to get to work. Ghost just looked at me and nodded. Probably could see the serious on my face, so he knew not to say nothing. Too bad Aaron, our team captain, didn’t get it.

  “Yo, Patty, you still mad?” Aaron asked, stoking a fire he pretended he didn’t know was there. I didn’t think he was necessarily trying to be mean, but . . . he knew it was a soft spot, especially since the reason he was asking was because of the way I had acted when I crossed the finish line.

  Now, Ghost was giving Aaron a what’s your problem look. “Yo, chill!” he warned. But the truth is, I didn’t need Ghost or Lu or Sunny or anybody to take up for me. But I didn’t say nothing. Just let it ride.

  “I’m just sayin’, it was the first race of the season,” Aaron bulldozed on. “Let it go. Ain’t no reason to be mad about losing.” Losing? Losing? Back went my shoulders, and out came the mad.

  “Yeah, maybe for you,” I shot back, glaring at Aaron. “But I’m still mad. And so what?”

  “Uh-oh,” Curron warned. He was a mid-distance runner like me, but had more mouth than he had moves, so he already knew the power of my clapback.

  “Shut up, Curron,” Aaron spat. “Yo, Patty, I ain’t even mean it like that. It’s just you got second place and was acting all funky for the rest of the meet, like no one else had races to run, like you ain’t got teammates that needed your support.” Spoken like a true captain.

  I didn’t respond. Just stretched my arms out in front of me and grabbed my left foot, pulled myself down until my head was on my knee. Sunny was doing the same stretch. I turned my face so that my cheek was resting on my kneecap, and caught his eyes catching my legs.

  “Hey, Patty,” he said, in his usual sweet voice, which in this moment seemed a little creepy. Actually, a lot creepy. He looked down my leg awkwardly and flashed a timid smile.

  “Hey . . . uh, Sunny,” I replied, uncomfortable. Was Sunny checkin’ me out? If he was, now was not the time. Also . . . no . . . gross . . . stop it . . . right now . . . seriously.

  “What happened to your nails?” he asked. Oh, he was checkin’ out my nails, and the fact that there was no polish on them. But there had been on Saturday at the meet. I did my best to make a cool design using the Defenders’ colors, but it ended up just looking like bright blue with orange squiggles. I scrubbed them clean before church yesterday—another thing Ma would’ve said made me look too fast. Ugh, yeah . . . I know. That’s the point. But Ma was talking about a different kind of fast.

  “I took the polish off,” I said. “Why?”

  “Oh, just because they were cool. Reminded me of Flo Jo,” Sunny said with a shrug. I wanted to ask him how he even knew about Flo Jo’s nails, but I didn’t. Because there was no need. Because he obviously knew something. I did, however, let a smile inch onto my face for the first time since the race. The first time in two days.

  “Okay, listen up,” Coach said. He’d been standing off to the side talking to Whit, the assistant coach. But now he was in front of us, clapping his hands together to get our attention. “Before we start practice, I first want to say good job on Saturday. Some of you did better than others, but all of you put your hearts into it. I saw some things on the track that I loved”—then he looked straight at me—“and I saw some things that didn’t quite rub me right. Either way, I’m proud.” He pulled something from his back pocket. A metal stick. A baton. “But now, we got work to do.” He told everyone else to go start their warm-up laps, but he asked me to stay behind. And once everyone else had a two-hundred-meter head start, Coach “invited” me to jog with him. That’s right, Coach was running. And he never ran. He just ordered us to run. Even though we all knew about his whole used-to-be-an-Olympian thing, it was so hard to believe because we never saw him even pretend to take a stride.

  After about ten seconds of nothing but the sound of rubber on asphalt, Coach finally said, “You did good Saturday, kid,” the silver of the baton gleaming in the sun.

  Jog, jog, jog.

  I let my arms drop down to my side, shook them out. “I did okay,” I said, blah.

  “Second place is a lot more than okay,” Coach replied, clearly trying to make me feel better. “Still got you a piece of fabric, didn’t it?”

  The piece of fabric Coach was talking about was the ribbon. The second-place ribbon. The not-first-place second-place ribbon. The one they give you for false finishes. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Jog, jog, jog, jog.

  “Here.” He extended the baton to me. I took it, not sure why he was giving it to me, but it didn’t matter because as soon as I took it, he said, “Now give it back.” I gave it back and about two seconds later, he extended it toward me again. “Take it.” Confused and getting annoyed, I grabbed it again. “Give it to me,” he said, motioning for it almost immediately, his palm up, rising and falling with each step. We were almost a whole lap around, and I could see my teammates well into their second and final one. I slapped the baton into Coach’s hand again and this time asked, “What we doin’ this for?”

  “Take it,” he said, passing it to me a third time.

  Jog, jog, jog.

  “Coach, why you doin’ this?” I repeated. My attitude started to sizzle as I reluctantly took the baton again.

  “I’ll tell you. But first”—jog, jog, jog—“give it back to me.”

  I ticked my tongue against my teeth and gave Coach the bar, the metal clinking against his wedding ring. Finally he was ready to stop being a weirdo and tell me whatever it was he was trying to get me to understand.

  “How did it feel in your hand?”

  Jog, jog, jog, jog.

  “I don’t know,” I s
aid, trying to find an answer. “I guess . . . normal?”

  “Right. It felt normal, every time it went from my hand to yours, and from yours to mine.” Coach passed the baton from one hand to the next. “Now imagine it’s got magic powers, and every time I give it to you I’m transferring some kind of power from me to you. Like strength, or something. And when you pass it back, you transfer your power to me. So we stay balanced. Now if for some reason you decide not to pass it to me, what do you think happens?

  “I don’t get your strength,” I said in the voice I give the hair flippers when they tell me I should try “a little powder on my nose.” The whatever voice.

  “Exactly.” Jog, jog. Coach cleared his throat and tried to sound as if he wasn’t winded, but I knew he was because his words were thinning out. “Now this baton represents the energy of our team. When we’re passing it from one person to the next, the team’s energy stays, like you said, normal. But if anyone decides they don’t want to pass it, they don’t want to participate in it, well then, that energy is knocked off balance and your teammates are left empty-handed. Weakened. You understand?”

  So here’s what I was figuring about Coach. He was probably one of those kids who wrote poetry and stuff like that. He acts all cool, but the way he be talking makes me think he was more like Sunny when he was younger. Which is still cool. But a different kind of cool. And I don’t really know if all his philosophies make sense, but we all understand what he be trying to tell us, no matter how left he gotta take us to get us right.