I pull the car into the street. A minute later, near the Church’s Chicken, I see Velvet. In my sweatshirt. I HEART that sweatshirt. It was my dad’s. (All of mine were.) It still has a barbecue stain on it. (All of them do.) I pull over.
“Yo, Velvet. If you’re around here at noon I’ll trade you this fur for that sweatshirt.”
“Oh my gosh, really?!!”
“Jesus says to clothe the necked. Peace.”
I prepare for my entrance to school. It’s hard to squeeze on heels in sweat socks. And even though the dress is a maternity outfit, my hoodie is making it all bunchy. I smooth myself out.
Pepe bows as he opens the door. I bow and he starts to tell me something about a cutesy? but then the principal and assistant principal are homing in on me.
Principal, looking me up and down: “Good morning, Macy. That’s quite an ensemble.”
Me: “Yeah. Uh. Much assembly was required.”
AP: “Is this” (whisper voice) “in the dress code?”
Me: “Dress code got the word dress in it, don’t it?”
AP: “Macy, how are you going to do PE?”
Me: “I got art today!”
AP: “You have an answer for everything, huh, young lady?”
Me: “Today, yes!”
They let me pass. That’s a good choice on their part because I brought a slingshot thong as a weapon and I’m not afraid to use it.
Some dude says to his friend: “Hey, it’s the next top model.” I knew the slingshot thong would come in handy.
Dude: “My eye! My eye!” He bangs into his friend and accidentally pokes him in the eye.
Gandee said a eye for a eye would make the whole world blind, motherfoes. Maybe Gandee did not mean to apply his words to the current situation, but I think it works.
I’m about to make a epic exit from the hall when I stumble on my damn shoe. The shoe catches on my jean hem. Just as I’m about to eat linoleum, I float.
I HEART George.
“Why are you dressed?” he asks.
“I’m going to get Alma back in history class,” I say.
He don’t ask any more questions. He knows me.
He puts me down and holds my arm like we are about to square dance. Strike that. We do square dance because George thinks that shit is funny. If I don’t let him, he’ll cry. Now imagine what this shit looks like to the kids watching. But everybody knows that dying laughing will take on a new meaning if I think they are laughing at George. Or if George thinks they are laughing at me.
See, George is six foot six. He could have been a basketball player, except he kept lifting the girls up so they could reach the net better. He could’ve been a football player, but he kept asking the dudes he tackled if they was okay.
George wheezes and stops square dancing. He pulls out his inhaler and sucks on it.
“You okay? Need to go to the nurse?”
He shakes his head so hard his whole coat shakes. After stuffing his inhaler into his pocket he makes like he’s jumping onto his motorcycle and motions for me to jump on the back.
“Okay, Jorge.” I climb on. Nothing happens. “George?”
“Hello?” He taps on his helmet.
“Oh. Okay.” I put on my imaginary helmet and he rides us to class. We park outside history and walk inside. I freeze and George knows something is wrong. It’s staring us both in the face. And no, it’s not all the kids pretending they are taking selfies when they are taking my photo instead.
It’s the writing on the wall. Tomorrow’s Leaders Field Trip today.
Alma isn’t even in school today. She’s at a fancy supermarket thirty minutes and a million miles away, learning about rational decision-making.
George starts to cry.
Teacher Man: “Julio, escort George to the nurse, please.”
The tears lower George’s blood sugar.
Julio: “Yes. I’ll take him to his” (dealer, he whispers before coughing and ending with) “nurse.”
I bunch up my dress and stare at the words on the right: Tomorrow’s Leaders Field Trip today, and then the words on the left: Emancipation Proclamation.
I emancipate my stupit sweaty self from the dress and heels.
DING! I have maybe the best lightbulb I have lit all week. I will tell the teacher in study hall that I have to poo. I will then proceed my ass to the nearest exit, stuff myself back into the dress and find Velvet. After getting some directions, I will drive myself to the supermarket where Alma is making rational decisions. Alma and I will make up for the field trip we never had!
Operation No Matter What continues, bitches . . .
Bargain
Noun. Selling your soul to El Diablo.
“Directions in exchange for a fur coat?” Velvet shouts back at me, lighting up a Newport. She looks both ways like a little kid crossing the street.
On the far corner, some dude in a ninja hooded T-shirt is eyeballing her. “Everything cool? Is that your pimp?” I say as she gets near.
She leans in the car window. “Yeah, he’s working me today. No worries, I got it covered. Made an extra twenty last night he don’t know nothing about.”
Ew.
“So, Macy. I gotta know. Not that it ain’t worth it, but what’s going on?”
“Remember the fight I had with my BFF? Well, Mission Not Accomplished—yet. We got a deal or what?”
“I’ll tell you what. For a free fur coat, I’ll take you there myself.”
She struts her skanky self to the passenger side and opens the door. Dude in the ninja hood has his hand up shading the sun from his eyes, and he’s eyeballing us hard. I let her in, though. The clock is ticking. I can’t mess this up.
Velvet looks at me and smiles. If her teeth weren’t all fucked up she’d be real pretty. “Maybe you could pull up your hoodie?”
“I get it,” I say. “I’m a john. Ew.” I do it.
“Just make a left turn at the light like we’re going to the motel. Then I’ll get you to the supermarket.”
I drive down the street and turn left on red. Shit! A bus is barreling toward me. I swerve out the way.
“Honey, right on red! Not left! Pull over!”
I pull over. Which is too bad for the seven squirrels that didn’t see me coming. I hang my head against the steering wheel and exhale. Velvet puts her hand against her chest like she’s having a heart attack.
“Macy,” she says, gasping. “Maybe I could drive?”
“No! It’s all good. I get it. Right on red.”
“C’mon. What if someone is on the lookout for you? Plus, if you let me, I’ll pay for gas.” She points to the gauge. She’s a observant little skank. I guess in her line of work you have to notice every little thing.
We switch places. She drives funny. Like she turns on this clicker whenever she wants to turn. “Is that what that’s for?”
“The turn signal? Yes, honey. Now, how long’s your mission gonna take?”
“Alma’s there for a field trip. They gotta be back after lunch. I got maybe thirty minutes?”
“How about I get gas and meet you back in front in—”
“Yeah, NO. Get the gas first.”
“Wow. You’re not shy.”
“Nope.”
She turns around and pulls up to the gas station.
“So were you gonna steal my mother’s car?”
Long pause. “No. But I would have thought about it. That’s all. Just a thought.”
I like how she was straight with me. She shows me how to do the gas. I like that too.
A couple minutes later Velvet pulls up to the supermarket. I now know what Dorothy felt like when she saw the Emerald City.
I take it all in. “A’ight,” I say. “Changed my mind. You wait for me. Keep warm.”
“I thought you didn’t trust me?”
“I don’t.” I grab the fur.
“Good luck with Alma,” I hear her say. Velvet remembered Alma’s name. Damn. For a minute, I feel bad about grabbi
ng the fur. I enter the supermarket through the giant sliding-glass doors. SHINY.
I walk to a section called Produce.
“Macy! What are you doing here?” Alma runs up to me, looking me over from my fur to my sweat-sock-stuffed stilettos. She grabs my hand and holds it like a infant’s. The minute she touches me I realize every hour, minute, and second that she hasn’t touched me. That no one has. Not like that. I let her pull me along. Because of her softness, because of her warmth, and because if she lets go I’m gonna stuff half the supermarket in my sweatshirt.
Apples. Pears. Something labeled honeydew. Bananas. And—shit, I don’t know what that is. But whatever it is, I have to eat it. “Alma! There’s FREE samples!”
Alma: “Yes, they’re free. But you’re only supposed to take one. Breathe, Macy.”
In through my nose . . . I suck in the smells of the apple bins. Not cafeteria apples. Apples like you read about in storybooks that is baked into pies and shit. And then I see the signs. Fuji and Golden Delicious and Gala and Granny Smith and Honeycrisp. There are many many kinds all with their special names. I pull away from Alma. Reptile Mind takes over. Alma grabs my sleeve. She knows what is going to happen.
Alma: “NOOOOOOOO!”
Me: “I have to!!!!!!”
I lift a sample lid and gobble up the entire plate, spitting out toothpicks as I go. When I’m done I move on to the bins. I bite a Fuji. I bite a Golden Delicious.
Somewhere in the background someone is yelling: “Suh-cure-ity! Suh-cure-ity!”
Someone else is saying, “Macy? What is she doing here?” Someone else: “The school will pay for that. And that. And—Alma! Make her stop!!”
I bite a Granny Smith.
Someone is saying, “Get down from there!” I bite a Red Delicious.
Somewhere someone ties my hoodie sleeves behind my back and pulls. Avalanche!
Field trip is OVER!!!
I blink. Cigarettes and gasoline choke me. Damn! We are standing in the parking lot.
Tomorrow’s Leaders Today’s top banana: “Alma. How did she get here?”
Alma: “I don’t know! I had nothing to do with it. But we can’t leave her here.”
Speaking of my ride, I look around. Just as I’m vowing to hunt her down and kill her slowly, I see her crazy ass waving from the back of the parking lot all incognito and shit.
The school bus pulls up. Screech! A store person pushes a cart over to the bus. It is filled with separate bags for each of the students. Alma hoists her powdered milk and vegetables and stuff onto the bus with all the other kids.
She comes back out the bus, pulls me toward the door. I try her patience. I look at Velvet and think about my mom’s car. Alma snaps her gum and shakes her head, squinting, trying to see what I’m seeing across the parking lot. Velvet ducks into the car and I let Alma yank me up the steps onto the bus.
Alma: “Remember that day in the cafeteria? This was not the field trip that I intended.”
Me, wiping juice from my lips: “But you were right, Alma! You were right!”
Alma and I are sitting in the back of the bus. I get a feeling and turn and see that Velvet is trailing us. I vow to stop calling her a skank in my head. I will drop the fur by the door of the school on my way inside. It is now Velvet’s. She deserves it.
Because
Conjunction. A word that connects things. As in, “Why you do me like that?” “Because.” Nuf said.
Alma goes to the main room of the library for study hall and I go to the back room for In-School Suspension. They don’t even bother to call my mother anymore because she changes her number every other week. Actually she changes her boyfriend every other week, because that’s how she has phones in the first place. That’s also how I have a phone. (See F for Fine Print.)
ISS is in a room at the back of the library, and I can see Alma through the window. It’s like that Tantalus thing again. I have a lightbulb. I know she feels me like I feel her. But she don’t want to admit it yet. I got a secret weapon, though. The problem is Mr. ISS Teacher, who won’t let me leave my seat. I decide he needs some convincing.
Me: (Making the sound of a ticking clock.)
Mr. ISS: “Can you stop that?”
Me: (Pulling out my eyebrow hairs.)
Mr. ISS: “Can you stop that?”
Me: (Pulling out my eyelashes.)
Mr. ISS: “Can you? Uh, that is disg—!”
Me: “You like that? I can do it all day.” LONG PAUSE. “But I don’t have to.”
Mr. ISS: “What do you want? Gum?”
Me: “Ha. No. Yes. And also, just to go see her.” I point through the window at Alma reading cookbooks. Cookbooks of food that she is never going to cook or eat.
Mr. ISS: “I can’t do that. I can’t have any trouble.”
Me: “Nah. No trouble. I just want to give her this.” I show him.
Mr. ISS: “That’s it? Uh. Okay. You got five minutes.”
SCORE.
I make a field trip to Alma’s table and sit across from her. Alma don’t look up from her book. I do a big sigh and set the apple in front of her.
My eyes say: I only have this one left. A bonafide Honeycrisp. But I was saving it. Not for my dinner. For you.
Alma looks over the top of her book. Her mouth don’t say nothing. But her eyes say: For real?
My eyes say: I didn’t even take one bite. Not even a lick.
The librarian says: “Shhhh.”
Alma and I look at each other like WTF and laugh.
Alma puts her book down. She laughed so she knows I win. “Hey,” she says, “today’s your birthday.” She takes a bite of the Honeycrisp. My stomach growls.
“I guess so.” But I don’t want to talk about that so I pull out my dictionary. “Check this out. I made it while you wasn’t talking to me.”
She flips the pages and wrinkles her perfect nose. Even her damn nostrils are pretty.
“Silly,” she says. “Always comes after Afraid.”
I don’t drop-kick her because she’s Alma. (See B for Bestie.)
“I remember when you used to think LMNOP was one letter!” She smothers a laugh. “And it started with an E!”
I don’t split her lip because she’s Alma. I do slam the book shut but Alma sticks her hand in the way.
“Wait,” she says. She turns pages and reads me for what feels like a century. “I changed my mind. We can pretend you did the mistakes on purpose. Whatever’s confusing we’ll just call poetry. Symbolism. Famous writers do it all the time.”
Famous writers? Alma always makes the stupit things I do seem smart. A writer? I can’t even imagine myself typing in the price of a Big Mac at McDonald’s. I can’t even imagine tomorrow. Tomorrow is for people like Alma. I’m still somewhere between today and yesterday.
The librarian says, “No eating in the library!”
Alma passes me back the apple. “I’m regifting,” she says.
“Why?”
“Just because. Now, you heard the librarian. Go! Call me tonight. Oh. And FYI: I still detest you.”
I grab the apple and run away before I drool in front of her. I love you, Alma!
Bestie
My noun, my verb, my adjective. Best-ee rhymes with free! Synonym: Nobody Hates Alma.
Alma don’t take nothing for free. When the teacher handed out school supplies at the beginning of the year and all the kids were stuffing their pockets, their backpacks, their assholes, she wouldn’t take them.
“What are you crazy?” I say.
She ignores me and says to the teacher, “What can I do to pay for them? Can I clean your boards?” When she says it, she don’t whisper. Everybody hears.
After Alma ignored me like that, I didn’t get mad, because—
Okay, I got mad. But I’m always mad so Alma don’t really notice. Mostly what I get is jealous. Because I can never be like that.
So why don’t I hate Alma? Why don’t everybody hate Alma? Back to the school supplies and the
flashback.
Some new girl wearing two different shoes stands up. Against her chest she holds free binders, free notebooks. Free pencils stick out of her pockets. Free egg burrito breakfast sticks to the corner of her mouth. “So what,” she says to Alma, still chewing. “You think you better than us?”
Alma knows not to sweat it. She knows I have her back. But I always let her speak up for herself first. She’s my bestie, not my bitch.
Alma says, “What I do has nothing to do with what you do. I don’t know your life. You do what you need to do. I do what I need to do.” She looks down at the girl’s pants.
New girl throws down her books and all the free shit she’s holding. I stand up. The class scoots back their desks to make a ring like Madison Square Garden. Teacher buzzes the office. Ding ding ding. Fight over before it begins.
Alma: “You sew that yourself?”
New Girl with Two Different Shoes: “Whatchu say? Did I what?” She’s breathing hard like they really just threw down.
Alma, all calm, cool, and collected, points and says, “Your pants. I know they didn’t come like that. How did you do that? I could never do that. Did you do it yourself?”
New Girl with Two Different Shoes takes a step back. Opens her mouth, closes it. Repeat. Finally says, “Uh. Yeah.”
Alma says, “Could you do that for me? I have pants that are nice but not in style anymore. Do you think you could do that to them? Not for free, of course.”
New Girl with Two Different Shoes gains her bearing: “Uh. Of course not. Nothing’s for free.”
Alma: “Right. Maybe I could help with your—” Alma looks at the girl’s books spread over the floor.
New Girl with Two Different Shoes: “Uh. Maf?”
I sit, put my head down on my crossed arms so no one can see my face, and smile. Nobody’s allowed to see my smile. Nobody but Alma.
Alma says, “Deal.”
Then Alma does something funny. She walks right up to New Girl with Two Different Shoes, the girl who stands two heads above her and is ten times as wide, and does that thing that only Alma can do. She wiggles her finger and gets New Girl with Two Different Shoes to bend down. Alma whispers in her ear.
Nobody, including me, knows what was said. Alma wouldn’t tell me. Which didn’t make me mad.
The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary Page 4