Pride

by Ibi Zoboi

  For the rest of our date, we don’t stop holding hands. We talk about music, his school, my school, and soon our little block in Bushwick extends all the way out to here too. Everything about this afternoon with Darius Darcy feels like home.

  I never knew that deep kisses, hand-holding, and small talk could last for so long, because by the time we get back on the L train and get off on Halsey Street, we’ve talked about everything under the sun. We forget that we aren’t supposed to be seen together until we get to the corner of our block. Still, we don’t move away from each other. I have a big smile on my face, and so does Darius as we get to my door.

  “It was nice getting to know you, Zuri Benitez,” he says as he stands in front of my stoop.

  “Likewise, Darius Darcy,” I reply.

  He eases his hand against the side of my neck, and I lean my head into it, kissing his wrist. I close my eyes for a little bit and feel this whole thing, this sweet thing, take over my whole soul. It’s something I feel in my bones. No. Deeper than bones.

  When I open my eyes, I can tell from Darius’s face that he feels it too. His eyes are in another place, even though they’re staring right at me. His smile is so soft that it looks like it’s in a deep, deep rest. Finally he kisses me one last time for the day. And I don’t care one bit who sees us.

  In fact, I want my family, my block, and my whole hood to see us.

  Twenty-Four

  NOT EVEN A week goes by before Darius asks to see me again. But this time, he insists that it’s a date.

  “Come with me to Carrie’s party,” he says when I run into him at Hernando’s. Well, we kind of, sort of, planned to run into each other. At about eight in the morning, he texted me that he was going for a run with Ainsley and that he was picking up two bottles of Gatorade beforehand. I volunteered to get Papi a tin of Bustelo coffee when I spotted Darius walking out of his house.

  Darius already has on his workout clothes—a fitted T-shirt, basketball shorts, and sports leggings or whatever they are. I’m in my drawstring not-pajama pants and a T-shirt, and my fro is in thick braids. We’re standing in the middle of the aisle, away from Hernando’s nosy eyes, but his cat, Tomijeri, eases his fat, furry body between both our legs, eavesdropping.

  “Carrie? You know I don’t like her, right? And she doesn’t like me,” I say as I hold Mama’s EBT card in my fist. I really don’t want to pull it out in front of Darius.

  “You really shouldn’t care about that,” he says with a smile.

  I have to cast my eyes down when he smiles.

  His knuckles softly graze the side of my face, and immediately my whole body melts.

  “I like you a lot, Zuri Benitez,” he whispers.

  I smile. “Then you got my back if something goes down between me and Carrie, right?”

  He laughs. “You’ll fight over me? I didn’t think you were that type of girl.”

  I laugh too. “I didn’t say I’d be fighting over you. I’m only throwing jabs if she come at me with some nonsense.”

  “Okay, but don’t underestimate bougie rage. That’s on another level.”

  “Zuri-looose!” Hernando calls out when we reach the counter. “Those Benitez women . . . you better watch out!” he says to Darius.

  Darius and I walk out of the bodega like two old friends, or new friends. Or something else, something better and different.

  My sisters and Madrina can read the different all over my face and body. So this time, I tell my family the truth—that I’m going on a date with Darius Darcy.

  “Janae, you’re acting like I just won the lotto!” I say to my sister. She’s picking out clothes for me to wear when I meet Darius. But everything she puts out, I put away. She wants me to borrow her heels. But I’m a sneakers girl. So we compromise. I settle on a short dress with sneakers, and I rock my bamboo earrings.

  She watches me get dressed, fixing and fussing over me. “Zuri. Just have a good time, okay? Darius is really nice. Whatever you thought of him before, he proved you wrong, right?”

  “You okay, sis?” I ask, smiling, only because she’s smiling. But her eyes are not smiling.

  “Yeah,” she says, furrowing her brows. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Janae?”

  “Z, I’m over Ainsley. Trust me.”

  “Like, you’re not even wondering what he’s doing right now?”

  “No, Zuri. I’m good. Really,” my big sister says. But I know her too well. I see it in her face as she glances at the top-floor windows of the Darcy house.

  Mama bursts into our room clasping her hands, with a giant smile on her face. “I’m so happy for you!” she sings.

  “Oh, come on!” I say, rolling my eyes so hard I give myself a headache. This is the last thing I wanted to happen. For Mama, me having a cute and rich boyfriend who comes from a good family is right up there with getting a scholarship to college.

  When I’m dressed and ready to leave, Papi only looks up from his book and grunts. But when I catch his eye again, he gives me a half smile and a nod. This is our secret understanding. This is okay with him. Just okay. He approves for now, but he wants to make sure that I’m happy. If I am, then he is. I smile at him.

  “Bueno,” he mouths.

  Even though I look extra cute with my outfit and my hair done up in the biggest fro possible, Darius is two steps ahead of me. He’s actually wearing a tight-fitting leather motorcycle jacket. He has on shoes with no socks so I can see his ankles, and he smells way too good. I do my best to keep my cool on the cab ride to Park Slope, where Carrie lives, but tingles go up my arm when Darius takes my hand and holds it in his the entire time.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he says.

  “Who said I was nervous?” I ask. But he just gives my hand a squeeze. I wonder what there is to be nervous about.

  The moon is round and full tonight, and it casts a dim light on this neighborhood where the whole block is lined with tall trees and brownstones. This is a part of Brooklyn that gets shown on TV.

  There’s a small crowd of teenagers standing outside one of the brownstones. The cab pulls up to the curb; Darius pays the driver and comes out first. As soon as his no-sock-having foot steps onto the sidewalk, these kids gather around him like he’s the coolest person they’ve ever met. I’m left standing by myself as the cab drives away. So I start to make my way around the group and go up the steps leading to the brownstone’s open front door.

  “Zuri, this is everybody,” he says, pointing to everyone who’s standing around him. “Everybody, this is Zuri. She lives across the street from me in Bushwick.”

  I just smile and nod.

  “What up, Zuri!” one of the white boys calls out.

  I leave Darius on the sidewalk and make my way into the brownstone, where the smell of alcohol smacks me in the face and the music is really good. The living room has a chandelier, tall bookcases, and strange artwork on the walls. The lights are mostly turned off, and kids are packed tightly into a long hallway that spills into the kitchen at the back of the house. But nobody’s dancing. Well, some people are moving their bodies, but it’s definitely not what we call dancing around my way.

  Carrie is sitting on a leather couch with a red cup in her hand. Our eyes meet. Her mouth drops open. I guess Darius didn’t tell her that I was coming to her party. We stare at each other for a minute too long before I blink away and notice the other people around her. Two guys are on the floor in front of her, playing a video game, and she’s surrounded by white girls who all have red plastic cups in their hands.

  Carrie mouths, “That’s her,” to one of them. They stare at me. I stare and cock my head to the side. They quickly look away.

  There are four other black girls besides me and Carrie. One of them is standing by a marble fireplace. She smiles at me. I smile back. Another one is sitting on a white boy’s lap in the corner of the room, and the two others are taking turns swigging from a plastic vodka bottle and giggling.

  I stop before I reach th
e dining room, where another wide chandelier hangs from the ceiling and a long wooden table is pushed aside and covered with snacks, boxes of pizza, and more alcohol.

  Someone jumps in front of me—a dark-haired white boy with a huge crooked smile on his face. “Hey, girl! What can I get you?”

  “Hey, girl?” I quickly say. “I’m not your girl. My name is Zuri, and I’m good. Thank you.”

  The boy smiles even bigger, nods, looks me up and down, and says, “Spicy! I like you. You sure you don’t wanna get white-boy wasted?”

  “Nah. Really. I’m good,” I say.

  “Careful now,” another guy says as he walks up behind the first boy. “That’s Darius’s girl.”

  “Darius! This you?” the boy calls out, just as Darius walks into the house with a line of girls trailing behind him.

  Carrie quickly gets up from the couch, goes over to Darius, and hugs him as if he’s her man. She talks and laughs too loud and fixes his jacket. And Darius does nothing—nothing to at least show me that he’s not cool with it, and that he’s here with me.

  Someone hands him a red cup, and he takes it. A crowd gathers, and they ask him about Bushwick. Is it safe? Is it loud? Are there gangs? Did he meet any drug dealers? I can tell they’re not all serious questions, but just by asking them, they’re making fun of my hood.

  So I walk over to the group and say, “It’s safe, it’s loud, there are crews and dope boys. Anything else you wanna know about Bushwick?”

  Darius chuckles and shakes his head. “Yeah, Bushwick is cool,” he says to his friends. “If I throw a party, will you guys come?”

  One of the white boys around him yells out, “Hell, yeah!” Then he starts with “Bushwick! Bushwick! Bushwick!”

  I roll my eyes hard at this boy, and I wish Darius would say something to shut him up. He’s not focused on me, clearly, even though this was supposed to be a date. I try to make eye contact with the black girl standing by the fireplace. She’s dancing by herself with her eyes closed and all.

  I go over to her and tap her on the shoulder. “Hi” is all I say.

  “Hi,” she says, still dancing.

  “You know all these people?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Pretty much.” She sounds like Georgia and Carrie. Her statements sound like questions.

  “They all go to Easton?” I ask.

  “Easton, Packer, Brooklyn Friends, Poly Prep, Tech, Beacon . . .”

  “Oh. Those are private schools?”

  “They’re just schools,” she says, and looks me up and down.

  “Bushwick High,” I say.

  “Cool,” she says with a genuine smile.

  Her smile lets me know that she’s not too stuck-up. I can’t blame her for giving me these short answers, because she doesn’t know me like that. But we may know somebody in common. “Darius is really popular, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she says, nodding really hard. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Really? Like, how?”

  “I mean, look at him.”

  And I do. He’s not much taller than everyone else, but something about the way he stands and looks around at everybody makes him seem taller. He holds his head up high, nods during a conversation as if that person is saying the most important thing in the world, laughs on cue—throwing his head back and all—and folds his arms and puts his hand back into his pockets at just the right times. He doesn’t dance, even as the other kids around him dance. When another song comes on, he just bops his head to the bass. I don’t know if he sees me. And at this point, I don’t feel like I’m even in the room anymore.

  I grab a red plastic cup from a nearby table, pour myself some cranberry juice, and start dancing alone like the girl near the fireplace. I let my body ride the bass, and I mouth the lyrics to myself. I sip and dance, and dance and sip, without a care in the world. But I can’t front for too long because Darius walks over. He starts dancing too. He’s actually dancing, and I have to stop for a minute to watch him raise his arms and sway to the beat just right. He mouths the lyrics too, and holds his head as if the bass has taken over him. Soon he has a crowd around him again, cheering him on. And I’m ignored, like I’m some side chick he brought with him to show off to his friends.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Darius says, off-key.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” everyone sings. But it’s all wrong. It’s out of tune and off beat.

  Nothing about this whole scenario seems legit. Something about the way Darius is moving, the way people are acting around him, and the way he’s smiling, lets me know that he’s being phony. And that’s not the Darius I want to be around—I want the real him, the one I know.

  So I put down my cup and tug at his arm. “Sorry to interrupt the Darius Show, but can I talk to you for a second?” I walk out of the house and back down the front steps onto the sidewalk. He follows me with a tight look on his face, but he won’t come down the steps all the way. He sits on the stoop instead, still with the red cup in his hand, and with his shifting jaw. “What’s this about, Zuri?” he asks.

  “No, what was that all about, Darius?” I ask.

  He puts his hands up and shrugs. “We’re at a party. I’m partying. And you?”

  “That’s what you call partying? You’re putting on a show in there, Darius!”

  He chuckles. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about this!” I try to mock him. I laugh like him and put my hands in my invisible pockets, and cock my head back, and rub my nonexistent hard jawline. I pretend to dance like I have no rhythm at all. “Hey, you guys! You should come see my big house in the ghetto,” I say with a fake deep voice.

  “Well, you’re not a very good actor, ’cause that’s not how I look or sound.”

  “Well, that’s how I see you.”

  “Oh, okay, then. This must be how you want me to party!” He gets up from the stoop, claps his hands in front of my face, snaps his fingers over and over again, rolls his neck and his eyes with his hand on his hip, and says with a fake high voice, “Yeah, bitches and niggas! I’m here to parrrrtay!”

  “What? Oh, no, you did not just go there!” I shout. “You’re gonna stand here and say the n-word in front of these white people’s houses, Darius? Typical. I was right about you. You’ve never heard those words come out my mouth like that. Especially in a place like this.” And I purposely snap my fingers, rolling my eyes and neck.

  Darius shakes his head, just as Carrie peeks out from the front door. “Hey, Darius. Is everything okay?” she asks, without even looking at me.

  “Yeah,” Darius says with way more bass in his voice than I’ve ever heard. And he’s still looking dead at me. “I’m good.”

  I stare at Carrie, but she avoids my eyes. After a long second, she finally goes back inside.

  “I wouldn’t say those words around my friends,” Darius says quietly, almost whispering.

  “And I do. But not those kinda friends,” I say, but not as quietly.

  “What are you saying, Zuri?”

  “I’m saying that you were a little extra in there.”

  “Extra? I’m just being myself!” He’s louder now, and his voice cracks.

  “Well, that was not the you I’ve gotten to know these past few days.”

  He chuckles. “The operative words here are ‘past few days.’ You don’t really know me, Zuri.”

  “And you don’t really know me. ’Cause if you did, you wouldn’t bring me someplace like this.” And I start to walk away. I’m not sure where I’m going, but there’s a busy intersection at the end of the block.

  “Zuri, wait,” Darius says. “What do you mean ‘especially in a place like this’? This is somebody’s house, not friggin’ . . . Lincoln Center. I brought you here for a reason.”

  “And what’s that, Darius?” I turn around, cross my arms, and look him in the face, because I know this boy is about to come out the side of his neck with some nonsense. And I am not afraid to tell him about himself.

  “To e
xpand your world, Zuri! To party with different kinds of kids. That’s what I’m doing. Partying!”

  “Partying? I know how to party, Darius. And I don’t need to be around different kinds of kids to party. And you said this was a date, but you left me over here high and dry. That’s not what dates do, Darius!”

  He steps closer to me, and I don’t move back.

  “Not everything is about your little corner in the hood. These are kids I go to school with, and I wanted you to meet them. And yes, this was supposed to be a date.” He lowers his voice on the last thing he says.

  “A date?” I whisper. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right. ’Cause dates are for when two people get to know each other better. And I damn sure have gotten to know you better.”

  He puts his hands up as if he’s surrendering. “I’m being myself, Zuri. What do you want? This is me when I’m around people I know, people I’m comfortable with.”

  “You must not have been comfortable with me, ’cause that’s not how you were acting before.” I cross my arms and shake my head. “I want to go home.”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t for me. I don’t feel right in here.”

  He takes my hand. “Zuri. Come on. Don’t be this way.”

  I pull my hand away again and shake my head. “I was right about you, Darius. We’re just too different. This can’t work,” I whisper.

  I walk away. I can feel that Darius doesn’t follow me. I make it down to the end of the tree-lined block where the street sign says that it’s Fifth Avenue. Everything around is so damn different, clean, and bright, so I close my eyes and try to shut it out. I need to be back in my neighborhood. I need be on my block, in my apartment, and in my bedroom with my sisters.

  I know my place. I know where I come from. I know where I belong.

  Twenty-Five

  PAPI ALWAYS TELLS me to never let the streets know when you’re upset. Don’t let any strangers see you cry. Hold your head up and look as if you’re ready to destroy the world if you have to. Even though part of me wishes I was curled up in my bed and crying right now, I gotta hold it in, because this isn’t my hood and I don’t really know where I’m going and I can’t be looking weak out here.