Tutored

by Allison Whittenberg

  Hakiam felt comforted by this.

  24

  Their meetings at Wendy’s house were clandestine, perfectly synchronized to last until the time that her father came home.

  On his first visit, Hakiam gave her house a good once-over. He examined the front porch with its ornamental fretwork. He peered at the three-car garage, which housed only two cars.

  Inside, Wendy watched his eyes dart around.

  “What, are you casing the joint?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer at all; he just continued to survey.

  “Would you like iced tea, hot tea, soda, juice, water?” Wendy asked him, then smiled slyly. “Or coffee?”

  He twisted around to her. “I don’t want nothing,” he said.

  “You must be a camel. They go for days and days without anything to drink.”

  She led him upstairs to her room, and he ambled into the walk-in closet to examine himself in the mirror.

  “You sure do got everything,” he said.

  She sat on her bed.

  He stretched out beside her.

  “The springs on your bed squeak,” he announced, as if he were happy to find a flaw.

  “I better change the oil,” she quipped.

  His eyes went back to combing the room.

  “This is a real nice setup,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she said, a little embarrassed by the girliness of it, all the stuffed animals and posters that she should have been over already.

  He pointed to the cosmetics caddy on her vanity.

  “You wear makeup?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “It don’t look like you do.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

  He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Your skin is real smooth.”

  She caught his hand with hers and held it to her face. She looked into his large, sensuous eyes surrounded by dark, thick eyelashes—he was one to talk about putting on paint. She’d kill to have her eyes pop like his did.

  They kissed for a while.

  “So I’m your girlfriend?” she asked.

  He was laconic as usual, offering her only a half smile.

  “I’m your main squeeze,” she proclaimed, pressing her fingers to her chest, using her stock “soul sister” accent. Then she did a triple snap in the air. It felt freeing to pull it out every now and then. She liked the reaction it got from people. They always looked at her as if to say, You can do that?

  Hakiam was no exception.

  She knew good and well that her usual persona was an uptight priss who always knew the right answers.

  “You could be the next Biggie Smalls,” he told her.

  She knew he was being sarcastic, but still, she decided to up the ante. “Wrong, Hakiam. I could be the next Tupac Shakur.”

  That made him reel back.

  “Hear me out,” she told him. “Biggie had the flow but Tupac had the meaning.”

  He tilted his head to the side as he considered her reasoning.

  “Pac it is,” he conceded.

  She laughed.

  “You seem like one of those Tupac fans. They always want to start something,” Hakiam said.

  “Hey, hey. I thought no one knew what went on that night, either night,” Wendy said, feigning innocence. “What did they die, a few months apart? It’s a real shame that they escaped the poverty of the streets but not the violence. That’s a horrible way to lose someone.”

  “Yeah.” Hakiam gave her a sad look, then brightened into a laugh.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You know, if Tupac had looked like Biggie, he wouldn’t have had half his following.”

  “I don’t know. Even without the washboard abs that Tupac had or you have, Biggie did all right with the ladies.”

  “Yeah, you got that right. I didn’t know you knew so much about hip-hop. Who’s your favorite rapper that’s around now?”

  Wendy thought for a while and said, “Britney Spears.”

  Soon their time was up. While they were getting themselves together, he said, “I almost forgot. I saw your movie.”

  “My movie?” she asked. “I have a movie?”

  “The jawn about the angry dudes.”

  She ran his words through her mind and tried hard to translate. “Oh,” she said finally, “you saw Twelve Angry Men?”

  “Yeah, I ain’t got to the end yet, but you reminded me of the guy who smoked,” he told her.

  “It was the nineteen-fifties, Hakiam. All the men smoked.”

  “No, the guy with the glasses,” he said.

  “A couple of guys had glasses.”

  “No, the guy who didn’t sweat.”

  “Oh, oh, you mean E.G. Marshall,” she said.

  “Yeah, he was cool.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “I’m cool?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, under pressure, you don’t get emotional.”

  Wendy frowned; Hakiam really didn’t know her at all. If only he were privy to her and her dad’s extra-inning volcanic arguments.

  Wendy gave him a small smile. “Well, where does emotion get you?”

  25

  Leesa thumbed through the mail till she got to the letter from the state. “Well, it’s about goddamn time,” she said.

  Hakiam snatched it from her hand and opened it. He scanned its contents quickly. “You get a check to pay for child care?” he asked.

  She grabbed it back. “Yeah.”

  “Well, how come I don’t see any of it?”

  “Look, for the millionth time, you are living here for free.”

  “So are you, practically.”

  “If you don’t like the setup here, why don’t you hit up your people—”

  “You are my people,” he said.

  “Your Cincinnati people.”

  From the bedroom, Malikia started bawling.

  Hakiam spoke over her.

  “I want that check.”

  Leesa clucked her tongue and turned her head.

  “Okay, I’ll take half of it.”

  “Dream on, Hakiam.”

  “I deserve half of it,” he insisted.

  That made her laugh out loud.

  “You’re gonna be sorry about this,” he warned her.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said.

  He felt like taking her throat into a vise grip. He wanted so badly to strangle her till her last breath. Instead, he chose to sting her with words. “You are one greedy bitch.”

  “Well, maybe that uppity girl you see will treat you better.”

  “Leave her out of it. She’s way better than you. At least she’s not cheap and petty like you are.”

  Leesa laughed again. “She cares even less about you than I do. And let me tell you something, Hakiam, that’s saying something.”

  Hakiam held up his hand to halt her words.

  Leesa kept right on talking. “I tell you why she’s going out with you. She’s curious. She just wants to see how the other half lives. You’re a science experiment to her.”

  Broiling, he let his cousin keep talking just to see where she would go. “Is that right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right. She’s not interested in Malikia, and she sure as hell ain’t interested in you.”

  “You know everything, Leesa.”

  She nodded and stuffed the check back into its envelope. “How could she be, Hakiam? You ain’t her kind. You ain’t going nowhere. You ain’t about nothing. She can’t take you around Mommy and Daddy. Beyond satisfying her curiosity, you’re worthless to her.”

  That was taking it too far. Hakiam wondered if Leesa realized the irony in what she was saying. She had said all this staring at him like he was a germ or something under a microscope, and she had room to criticize Wendy? Where did she get off?

  For the second time in a very short while, Hakiam stormed out of Leesa’s apartment.

  “Where are you going?” Leesa called after him.

  “Away from you.”
>
  26

  The seasonal display was kicking in at the mall, a giant leap from Halloween straight to Santa.

  Hakiam and Wendy sat at a wrought-iron table in the mall’s atrium; Wendy was singing the alphabet for Malikia’s benefit. Malikia was in the drooling stage, still moving in herky-jerky motions. Hakiam bopped his head, following along with the singsongy beat.

  “You follow along pretty well,” Wendy complimented Malikia and turned to Hakiam. “And so do you.”

  Hakiam’s customary scowl melted to a half smile.

  Malikia tugged on Wendy’s blouse.

  “That means she wants to hear it again,” Hakiam told Wendy. “She don’t get much of this entertainment at home.”

  “A, B, C, D,” Wendy began singing, then said, “You know, there are tapes at the library that you can get.” Her eye went back to Malikia. “E, F, G.” She told Hakiam, “That would help her—”

  “Her mother ain’t into all that.” Hakiam broke into “H, I, J, K,” then went back to “She ain’t gonna bother with that.”

  “L, M, N, O, P,” Wendy began, then switched to “Well then, why don’t you pick up the ball and—”

  “I need to find a new place.” He winked at Malikia. “Q, R, S, T, U, V,” he sang. “To live.”

  “How will she get by without you?” Wendy asked. Then she turned back to Malikia. “W, X—”

  “Y do you care?” Hakiam broke in. “She’s all set up,” he said. “Z.”

  “Well, that can’t last forever,” Wendy said.

  “If she has more Malikias it will.”

  Wendy gave an I’m-going-to-gobble-you-up look to Malikia and then said, “She’s a cutie, but that’s one heck of a plan.”

  “Yeah, women have it made.”

  “Hold on, Hakiam. It takes a man and a woman to do that.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You said Leesa works outside the home.”

  “Part-time.”

  “Hakiam, you don’t even do that.”

  “Look, Wendy, let’s go back to the ABCs.”

  “It sounds like you need to make other living arrangements. I mean, you can’t keep …” Wendy’s voice trailed off as her throat constricted. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of them: Rhea, Jullian, and Carlyle.

  Why were they always here? Since when was this their domicile?

  “Oh, shit,” Wendy said.

  Malikia smiled.

  Wendy grimaced. She definitely didn’t want to teach the baby that word.

  Hakiam twisted around to see what she was looking at.

  “It’s them,” she said.

  “Who?”

  Wendy took the baby off her lap and handed her over to Hakiam. She stood and threw back her shoulders. Unlike the last time she’d run into these girls, she was free from the constraint of her father.

  She walked over to them. “Don’t even think of messing with me. Go back to your other hobby—shopping or shoplifting or however you were occupying your time before you saw me.”

  “What does she mean by that?” Rhea asked, feigning innocence and elbowing her clique members.

  Carlyle and Jullian gave looks of exaggerated surprised that went well with their teenybopper Limited apparel.

  “You know exactly what I mean—leave me alone.”

  With their two-faced smiles, high ponytails, and jiggling charm bracelets, they were going to say something stupid. Wendy knew it. They didn’t disappoint.

  “Is that your baby daddy?” Rhea asked.

  Carlyle and Jullian laughed on cue.

  Wendy’s blood beat hot. Her internal voice sought to jibe with her exterior voice, but she couldn’t think of a darn thing to say. She found herself wishing she could just deck their cutely made-up faces.

  She pointed at them. “Just keep away.”

  Wendy turned and left them right where they stood. She went back to Hakiam and Malikia and tried to put the girls out of her mind by reapplying her beige lipstick.

  But the trio couldn’t leave well enough alone. Though they kept their distance, they continued pointing and giggling and playing Wendy for sport.

  “Are those white chicks trying to mess with you?” Hakiam asked her.

  He didn’t wait for her to answer.

  “I never liked bullies,” he said.

  Wendy watched him spring into action. He placed Malikia in her lap. He rolled up on the three of them, and they seemed to physically shrink about a foot each. The ceiling seemed to compress on them. He spoke to them for only a few minutes but came back to the table in a strut.

  “What did you say?” Wendy asked him.

  Hakiam gave her one of those playful chucks to the chin, then leaned back into his chair. “I told them if they didn’t leave you alone I was going to do a drive-by.”

  “A drive-by?” Her eyebrows perked up. “You don’t even have a car.”

  Wendy shot a glance back their way. Jullian, Carlyle, and Rhea looked decidedly meek and tamed.

  The next thing that happened really seemed like science fiction to Wendy. They scraped their way over with humbled and bowed heads, and Rhea did the impossible. She said these words: “We’re sorry for messing with you.”

  Wendy could only imagine what fear prickled their minds when they were face to face with someone they couldn’t bully. She couldn’t help a slow smile from lifting the edges of her mouth. They had apologized to her. Where was Perez Hilton when you needed him? This gossip belonged on his blog.

  That evening, Wendy couldn’t wait to punch Erin’s number into her cell. She recounted the events for her best friend with relish.

  “That’s just what I always suspected about them—they can dish it out but they can’t take it.”

  “He really shook them. You should have seen the look on their faces.”

  “Well, they are really sheltered girls. I bet they mistake Justin Timberlake for Timbaland.”

  27

  The limp green leaves on the ground mixed with the cornflake texture of the brown ones as Hakiam, Wendy, and Malikia breathed in the crisp late-autumn air of Fairmount Park. They were getting to be the Three Musketeers, always in each other’s company.

  That Saturday, Wendy was dragging along a picnic basket so big she was lopsided with it. Hakiam had a peaceful and content Malikia on his shoulders.

  Suddenly a bike rider stopped in front of them and jammed his hand down the back of his shorts, fishing and fishing. This went on for quite a while, like he had a mega-wedgie.

  Wendy turned her head, and Hakiam pulled her and Malikia down under an umbrella of trees. After a blanket was spread out, Hakiam and Wendy enjoyed tuna fish sandwiches as Malikia feasted on pureed apricots.

  Hakiam was in awe of Wendy. She did it so well: the patting and whispering as she spooned out that orange glop to Malikia.

  “People this age are perfect,” Wendy told him. “It takes next to nothing to make them happy. All they want is some hugs and silly songs and they’re set—what’s not to love?”

  “Do you want your own baby?”

  They looked out at the Schuylkill River as they ate.

  “Yes,” she answered eagerly, then qualified, “when I’m thirty-two.”

  “Thirty-two is old. Why do you want to wait that long?”

  “Thirty-two is nothing anymore. People are living into their eighties. By then, I’ll be out of medical school and three years into my practice.”

  “I could see you with a little girl.”

  There was a chill in the air but the sky was powder blue.

  “I could see you with a boy, Hakiam,” Wendy mused aloud. “A bunch of boys. A whole football team.”

  Hakiam turned away. “I don’t think I’ll have any kids.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t got nothing to offer. I don’t think I’ll ever be situated.”

  “Ever?” Wendy asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Forever’s a long time, Hakiam.”

  The
y did more strolling and talking, then they put the leftovers back in Wendy’s car. They walked out of the park into the neighborhood, where an old man was sitting on the cement stoop of a storefront with his hands out, saying, “You don’t have to be a Rockefeller to help a fella.”

  Wendy handed him a buck, then they went back to her car and put an already sleeping Malikia in her car seat.

  Hakiam jerked his thumb in the old man’s direction. “I’ll probably end up like that guy.”

  “Don’t say that,” Wendy said.

  “It’s true.”

  “Do you know tomorrow?”

  “No, but I know today. I can’t go back and I can’t go forward.”

  “You sound like Bigger Thomas.”

  “Hold up, since when do you use that word?”

  “What? Oh, I said Bigger Thomas, a character in a book. I don’t use that other word.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why? What purpose does the word ‘nigger’ serve, besides to transmit hate?”

  “You can’t take that word away from us now. And you don’t have to say it in hate.”

  Wendy held up her hand. “We’re not going to agree on that. I don’t get any love from that word.”

  “Well, of course not, look at where you’re from.”

  “Oh, not that again.”

  “Yeah, that again.” He paused. “Tell me about the dude.”

  “What dude?”

  “The dude from the book.”

  “Oh, the book’s called Native Son. What you said before reminded me of a line toward the end: ‘I had to kill because you wouldn’t let me live.’ ”

  “Yeah, it gets like that sometimes.”

  “You’re not in the same predicament that that character was.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He killed a white girl and stuffed her into the furnace.”

  “Say what?”

  “It’s a classic, Hakiam. Read it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She started up the engine, but she could tell he was still thinking of the plot of the novel.

  “You’re right, Wendy, things could be worse,” he said.

  “These are just things left over from our outing,” Wendy told Leesa after they got to her place. “Do you mind if I put them in the fridge?”