by Raqiyah Mays
“Hey,” I said, smiling. “What’s up?”
“Oh, what’s up?” he murmured, not even looking at me. “Yo, I’ma talk to you later.”
“Um, okay,” I said, watching him walk away. His boy Rex put a heavy arm around me. “So you gonna let Michael hit it again?” He smiled hard, the gap between his teeth whistling an air of unsaid words that read across a devious smirk.
“What?” I looked up at him, pushing his oversize bicep away. “Get off me.”
“Don’t play stupid. I’m his boy. I know what happened,” Rex said, removing his arm from around my shoulder. “You did a booty call. It’s cool. All the girls do it. Besides, you know what they say about girls who don’t have their daddies around. I know you couldn’t help it.”
I glanced back at Michael and found a smug look of triumph on his face.
“Trust me. I understand,” Rex continued, pulling out a notebook and pencil. “What’s your number?”
I turned to say something but couldn’t muster it up. Instead I speed-walked away, into the school library, where the only other person I noticed, hiding in an aisle, was Carl Murphy. I tiptoed past him, sitting in the comic book section.
He glanced up. “Hey, Meena.”
Holding back tears, biting my lip, I gave a little nod. As I whisked away I faintly heard him say, “I like your dress . . .”
But I couldn’t hear any words of praise. Ashamed, embarrassed, praying I wouldn’t develop a “reputation” like some of the other girls who’d slept with football players at school, I stayed hiding in the library for the rest of the day, reading astrology books on Michael’s two-faced sign of Gemini. Relieved that spring break began the next day. I called Michael three times over vacation. But the asshole never called or spoke to me again.
All these years later, as I sat remembering my first time having sex, sad thoughts of that painful past made me rip the picture with Michael off my bedroom wall and trash it. Then the phone rang.
“Happy birthday! Why are you awake?” Meredith asked on the other end. “Thought you’d be sleeping in since you took your special day off. It’s snowing outside. Good day to just stay in bed.”
“Thank you. But I’m not awake because I want to be,” I answered, shoving the picture deep in the garbage. “Mom woke me up making unnecessary noise this morning. I feel like she did it on purpose.”
“You and your mother . . .” Meredith said. “Was she talking to herself again?”
“Yeah, about her and Aunt Connie. They always fight.”
“You all should go to family therapy.”
“Yeah, okay.” I laughed. “Like they’d talk about their issues to a professional.”
“I think they might talk to me. I’d serve magic brownies and write a prescription of a dime bag of weed so they all could just smoke together, laugh, and love and calm down.”
“What?” My face was twisted up, looking at the clock. “It’s ten a.m. Are you high?”
“Girl . . . brownies. I had some last night. I mean, I made them for you. And I sampled some. And man, they just stay in your system forever.”
We paused for a second of silence before cracking up together.
Meredith always made me feel better. Like life was to be enjoyed and laughed at. Like giggling at yourself and taking a deep breath were essential keys to sanity. Like everything would be all right. Growing up, she was the only one who ever said that: “Everything is going to be all right.” She was the sister a lonely, only child like me had always wanted. She was my support and backup to the bullshit of life. She was my conscience and voice of reason even when I didn’t listen.
As she placed me on hold to run to the bathroom, I glanced at her smiling picture from last summer’s family reunion, surrounded by my cousins; she fit right in with the crew: Bernard, Bishop, Tommy, Winnie, and me. Meredith was the one who suggested we all take a walk that day. It was during that family walk when I realized how deep the curse ran.
Escaping from the reunion, we’d taken off toward a dead end that led to a short path, looping around the perimeter of a lake. Across a tiny bridge was a recreation area packed with kids on swings, a crowded basketball court, and families splashing in the swimming pool. We sat on a bench, watching an old lady throw slices of bread at pigeons.
“Hey, have you guys heard of some curse on the family?” I asked, watching a little girl with braided pigtails bouncing atop her daddy’s shoulders. “Some man curse we’re supposed to have?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” said Bernard. “Mom talks about it all the time.” He looked at Bishop, who nodded his head in agreement. “She says that’s why my dad cheated on her.”
Bernard and Bishop’s father, Jonathan, was a cop with the Philadelphia Police Department. After they were born, Aunt Cece pushed for marriage. But when Jonathan finally agreed, she hired a private investigator to conduct her version of premarital counseling. Hiring a friend who had once worked for the Philly PD, his inside sources found out that Jonathan was sleeping with a female cop on the force.
“Well, I don’t know about a curse. My dad says it’s a bullshit excuse for being single,” said Winnie. “He says the reason why so many women in this family have no man is because they’re too mean and angry. Too hard. He said they’re all looking for a man to make them happy.”
“Haaa!” Tommy let out a loud, drunken laugh that made him stumble to catch the fence before he fell.
“Before my dad died, he said he felt sorry for the women in the family,” Tommy said, dusting himself off. His words suddenly seemed more sober than ever. “He said that even though he didn’t get along with his sister, Grandma Fey, he felt sorry they were all alone. I remember him saying that it was strange how all of his female cousins and aunts never married and would get into a relationship with a man who abused them. If he didn’t beat or cheat, he’d usually up and die before marrying them.”
“That’s crazy,” I said under my breath. “I didn’t know about the dying part. But now I’m freaked out thinking about that guy Aunt Connie was supposed to marry, until he was killed a week before the wedding by a stray bullet.”
We all shook our heads in unison.
“Ooh, and you heard about one of the Camden cousins? I think her name is Diane?” Winnie asked, looking around for someone to recognize which cousin she was talking about. No one knew. “Anyway, she had to get her tubes tied and she can’t have babies ’cause some guy gave her an STD and she didn’t know.”
“Damn,” said Bishop and Bernard in unison.
“Maybe the curse is true,” said Tommy with a little giggle. “But it do be mean women in this family. Like you, Meena, lookin’ at me mean all the time. Haaaa!”
I caught myself giving him a repugnant look, nose wrinkled, smelling the nasty aroma of nonsense coming from his mouth. My face only softened when I realized everyone was staring at me, stuck on the verge of laughing.
“Yeah, I learned a lot about you and your family that day,” Meredith said. “It explained why you think the way you do. Date the guys you do. Oh! And speaking of dating someone. You know who I saw the other day?” she said excitedly. “Joey Williams.”
After losing my virginity to Michael, I stayed away from boys, especially him, for the next two years. By the eleventh grade, I’d decided I wanted an older, more mature boy, Joey Williams. A senior, he went to the alternative school for bad kids after fighting got him expelled from everywhere else in the district. After passing each other while walking home from the bus stop, we realized this shared route was magical destiny and immediately became a couple. It didn’t take long for afternoon phone calls to escalate into after-school visits. He treated me like his thug queen. Hanging out at the mall holding hands. McDonald’s Happy Meals every day after school. Random gifts, teddy bears, and candy; he even let me wear his Africa medallion. Joey was a regular guest before Mom got home from work. We’d bump an
d grind, like the horny teenagers we were, on my bed, on the couch, or on the floor. At sixteen, sex didn’t hurt anymore. My painful experience freshman year with Michael became a fleeting thought of the past when Joey came into my life. He slowly wooed me into sleeping with him. Soft, careful, and tender, asking every few seconds, “You okay? You all right?”
I’d nod my head, lying still, breathing deeply, imagining the faces of pleasure I’d seen on late-night HBO. Beautiful women enjoying the moment of sex. I wanted to be like them—gorgeous, fabulous, and masterful in bed.
I used to let Joey follow me into my bathroom, lock the door, and grind on me, atop the fluffy blue rug beneath the sink. We did it standing up, lying down, out of breath like two playful, raw puppy dogs. He’d exhale whispers of how I was the best. I’d make small noises, like the ladies on HBO. And this was our routine, for months, until my mother came home early from work one afternoon.
I heard the grumbling car pull up to the driveway, and fortunately, the entrance to the basement was inside the bathroom. As my stomach flipped into butterfly-fluttering mode, Joey and I flew across the bathroom, gathering our clothes, buckling pants. I fixed the rug. He grabbed his sock. Pants half-buckled, he fled down the basement stairs and out the cellar door, running across the backyard. Watching him escape, I turned to fly up from the basement and close the door. I was about to walk out of the bathroom as Mom met me at the threshold.
She marched forward, nudging me back with the strength of a soldier. I could have sworn she sniffed the smell of sex in the air.
“Did you have someone in the house?”
“No.”
She looked around, surveyed the bathroom, checked the trash, opened the toilet, looked behind the radiator—and there, crumpled up, with a tiny brown stain in the crotch, was Joey’s underwear. Fuck.
“Tell me the truth, Meena.”
“Ill, what’s that?” I said, feigning dumb. Hoping to win an Oscar.
“Meena . . .” she said, holding the underwear with her two fingers at the tips, nose turned up. Suddenly the floor, my toes, anything besides direct contact with her eyes became interesting.
Still, I knew it was better to lie. Being honest was a death sentence; the truth was something she wouldn’t accept or believe anyway. She always thought I was lying, even when I wasn’t, so I self-fulfilled her prophecy by becoming a vivid storyteller.
“Did you have sex?”
“No.”
“Did you have sex, Meena?”
“No,” I repeated a little more passionately, yet not too sassy for fear of encouraging a slap.
She picked up the air freshener and sprayed. Sucked her teeth and hissed under the breath, “Stay here.”
Left alone for a long, uncomfortable stretch, I waited with knots tangling my insides. Mom returned with a small box. “I want you to use this.”
The word “douche” stood out in black letters between her fingers.
“Read the directions and use it to clean up.” She waited for the words to sink in. “Go ahead. Do it now!”
I hurried to pull down my pants. She watched, closing the door behind her. “I’m so disappointed in you. Don’t think about watching TV. Unplug that phone and put it on my bed.”
Standing in front of the toilet, I stared at the instructions, following the diagram that showed how to squeeze the vinegar mixture between my vaginal walls. Pulling out the plastic device, I stuck the contraption between my legs. It felt strange, like the cylinder of cardboard holding a tampon in place. I squeezed the device as cold liquid poured inside me, dripping into the toilet water. When done, Mom opened the bathroom door. I handed her the empty box.
“Go upstairs,” she said. “And unplug that video game, too.”
That was the last thing she said about the situation. After thirty days of punishment, void of phones and the ability to venture anywhere, I never called Joey again, dodged his calls and after-school doorbell rings. Taking an alternate route home from school, I felt ashamed of being caught. Embarrassed about having to use vinegar to clean. Scared of my mom’s wrath. So I simply didn’t call Joey. Our love faded away into oblivion.
“Yeah, I remember Joey,” I said to Meredith with a deep sigh. “He was actually pretty nice.”
“So how come you didn’t ever call him back?”
“Scared of my mom.”
“You never call the nice guys back,” she said, laughing. “Remember poor Monster?”
Beenie Wilson. One of the linemen on the varsity football team, he was six-two, 290 pounds, and dark as a skid mark. His overwhelming weight at sixteen made room for the nickname “Monster,” especially since you could hear his heavy wheezing as he carried himself to class.
“I dare you to kiss him,” Doreen said one afternoon at lunch. “Not a peck. But tongue and all.”
“Ill,” I said, feigning vomiting. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s a dare!” she said, smacking my arm. I lost balance and tripped down the hallway. “Girl, if you trip again . . . You need to loosen up. It’s just for fun. There he goes . . .”
Monster was leaning on his locker, breathing as if he were on a ventilator, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“I can’t just walk up and kiss him,” I said, turning up my lip. “I need to get to know him a little.”
Doreen sighed. “What is this?” She looked as if she couldn’t believe me. “You are so corny. Catch up to the times,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Just kiss him. If you do it, I’ll buy you lunch for a week.”
Doreen knew I hated packing my cold, mushy peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a plastic bag of potato chips every day. Always envious of those who bought pizzas, hamburgers, fries, and tacos, I’d borrow a dollar from different people daily, just to get a plate of hot cafeteria food. Mom never gave me an allowance. But I knew whose parents did.
“Okay, I can do it,” I said, watching Monster talk to his friends. “But in my way. Watch . . .”
I followed Monster into the stairwell and tugged on his shirt. “Hey, Beenie,” I said, smiling brightly. “Is that Polo?”
He seemed surprised, eyes lighting up, euphoric that a pretty girl would talk to him.
“Um, y-yeah,” he stuttered. “I got it for my birthday.”
“Okay! What’s your sign?”
“Virgo.”
“Uh-oh, perfectionist. I’m an Aquarius. We’re supposed to be good together.”
He laughed out loud, obviously not expecting that.
“Well, you look nice today,” I said, rubbing his arm. “That shirt brings out those muscles. I’ma call you later.”
He did a double take. “You got my number?”
“Not until you give it to me.”
Beenie moved faster than I’d ever seen: throwing off his backpack, kneeling down, ripping out a notebook page, and scribbling his digits on a piece of lined paper in huge numbers across the center of the page.
That night we talked, laughed, and gossiped like two lost friends who hadn’t spoken in years. I was surprised as we moved from sports to music, TV, movies, and parental complaints. Not only did the conversation flow, but he even brought up things I’d said in class a year ago. Apparently Beenie had a crush on me since the seventh grade. He admitted to being jealous and angry when he heard about my incident with Michael Tubman freshman year, while his teammates snickered about me in the locker room. But they didn’t think of me as a slut, I was relieved to hear him point out. I was just another girls’ track team challenge achieved.
By the end of the week, I asked him to be my boyfriend. Each day, he bought me lunch, shunning his friends, sitting with mine, giving me doting attention. Doreen would snicker and stare. Meredith kept a confused look on her face. And the moment he walked away, they made me feel embarrassed to be with what they saw as a monster.
“You like
him?” Doreen asked, checking herself in her compact mirror. “You’re like Beauty and the Beast. You can do better, girl. Don’t settle.”
“You two are an odd couple,” Meredith chimed in, looking at me with what had come to be a familiar perplexed expression. “But if you’re happy . . .” Her words trickled off into a place of uncertainty.
“Oh my God, she is not happy.” Doreen laughed out loud. “She’s a genius. Meena is working for that free lunch.”
“Well, he buys me lunch every day,” I said, digging in my bag. “He’s actually kinda nice.”
“Girl, please. He just wants some coochie. Have you even kissed him yet?” Doreen waited for an answer, tapping her foot.
“No, you haven’t,” she said. “That’s what I thought. ’Cause he wouldn’t be all up on you like that. I mean, the whole point of the bet was for you to kiss him.”
“You’ll know if it’s meant to be,” said Meredith. “If the kiss is right, you’ll know . . .”
“And if not, cut your losses,” snapped Doreen. “Be out.”
After lunch, in the northeast stairwell, I moved next to Beenie for our first kiss. Grabbing his arm, I pulled him close. He opened his mouth wide and with a jolt forward threw his tongue down my throat. The Monster grabbed tight, bumping his teeth into mine, swallowing my mouth, touching my gums. I couldn’t breathe. His breath smelled of salt-and-vinegar potato chips covered in ketchup. Globs of saliva covered my lips as he woofed them between his sticky smackers. Instinctually I moved back, nearly falling down the stairs, until Beenie caught my arm and pulled me up. Saved by the school bell, I ran to class without a word. That night, I ignored his phone call, feigning sickness to avoid him. And the next day, in that same kiss-of-death stairwell, I killed our short-term romance.