That's What's Up!

by Paula Chase

  I’m definitely not my mother, Kelly thought, snorting in derision at flashes of her mom’s retelling of how she and Kelly’s dad, a drug dealer, now behind bars, had gotten together.

  She picked up the Sidekick. Her fingers ached to call Angel back. But her mind clamped shut against the idea, remembering vividly Jacinta calling her and Angel the ghetto version of Beauty and the Beast.

  “Y’all are just too different,” Jacinta had said dismissively.

  Kelly agreed that they were like Beauty and the Beast, but not in the sarcastic way Jacinta meant it.

  The whole point of Beauty and the Beast was that the Beast had a sincere heart under his growl. Kelly thought Angel did too. If she hadn’t, things would have been totally over, after the disastrous party he and Raheem had before the Christmas break, instead of this perpetualact of breaking up.

  Just then the phone rang and Kelly dropped it as if bitten. She laughed at herself, grinning harder when she saw Angel’s number.

  “You hung up on me,” she said, doing a poor job of sounding mad.

  Angel’s voice was hushed and serious. “Yeah. I’m sorry. Kelly look ...” There was a long pause. Kelly frowned down at the phone, wondering if the connection had been lost.

  Angel’s voice came back, stronger but no louder. “I never asked you to agree with what I do. Have I?”

  Kelly answered uncertainly. “No.”

  “I don’t see why it’s always gotta be between us. But ...”

  “Because, I told you about my father and—”

  Angel cut her off. “I know. But I’m not your pops.” He rushed on. “Look, we had this discussion already.” Kelly nodded in agreementas he continued. “I ain’t call to talk that yang again. I’m saying, I respect that you did what you had to, breaking it off. But I’m feelingyou and if you trying give me a second chance, I’ll do right.”

  Kelly zoned in on a spot on the wall, narrowing her eyes at it, as if it had spoken the words instead of Angel. Her heart pounded in her ear through the phone.

  “You hear me?” Angel asked.

  “Are you saying you’re ... that you ...”

  “Getting out the game? Yeah,” Angel said flatly. He met Kelly’s long silence with a chuckle. “All this time you been wanting this and now you don’t have nothing to say?”

  “Well, how are you going to get out?” Kelly whispered.

  “You don’t need worry about all that,” Angel said tersely. His voice softened immediately. “Your turn to answer me.You with me, once it’s done?”

  Kelly nodded, prompting Angel to prod, “You not leaving me hanging, are you?”

  “Oh, no. I was nodding I ...” Kelly giggled. “Yes. I’m with you.”

  Kelly heard the smile as he said in Spanish, “That’s my girl.”

  FWBs

  “Can somebody help me, help me get out of this circle.”

  —Marques Houston, “Circle”

  Raheem’s voice came out of the darkness. “You letting your hair grow long, huh?”

  He and Jacinta sat side by side on his bed, only inches apart. But it was too dark for her to see his face, to gauge if there was anything hidden in the question. In her mind’s eye Jacinta could see his thick eyebrows relaxed, a small grin playing on his lips to match what sounded like a good mood. Tufts of hair from his frayed braids, in need of freshening up, wisping around his hairline, making him look like he’d just swiped a hat off his head.

  That was the Raheem she’d known forever—best friend turned boyfriend—except now with a twist, because he was her ex. As in broken up, kaput since December.

  If he’d asked her that question before they’d broken up she would know how to answer. But she wasn’t sure how to answer ex-boyfriend.

  It was a simple enough question. And the answer was obvious—yes, she was letting her hair grow out.

  She’d worn her hair short for the last two years. But after she and Raheem broke up over the Christmas holiday, she’d decided to try something different. It had been rough going at first—going from short to long always is. The clique had teased her daily when the sides of her hair went from a slick curl to a thick poof. Now she was finally over the puffy stage. Her dyed blonde hair was now a cute mid-length curly shag, which framed her honey-golden face perfectly.She was now toying with letting it go back to its natural sandy brown color.

  Yes, I’m growing it out. Changing my style to go along with my new statusas Cinny without Raheem, she thought silently in the quiet darkness.

  Yet, she still hadn’t answered aloud. Because as obvious as it was that she was letting her hair grow out, as conversationally and calmly as he’d asked it, the question coming from ex-boyfriend, Raheem—her friend with benefits, as Jacinta preferred to think of him—could easily be a booby trap. Now it was an easygoing convo about her new ’do, but in a few minutes it would probably be an angry disagreement,ending with Raheem saying that her hair change was just another in a million other changes Jacinta had made since movingin with her Aunt Jacqi in The Woods. Another sign that she “thought she was cute” and was turning into “one of those gray chicks from DRB High.”

  It was so stupid to worry about how to answer such an ordinary question. She had to say something, so she muttered, “Um-huh,” keeping the answer neutral.

  “It’s cute,” Raheem said. His fingers caressed her thick curls gently.

  Jacinta clenched her jaw against a sigh of relief and regret. She shouldn’t be here. She and Raheem were broken up. If anyone had walked in on them ten minutes ago, they wouldn’t have been able to tell, though.

  Her stomach rolled over. Why do I keep doing this? she thought, staring bleakly at the ceiling. Boredom? Loneliness? Burn-out from spendingall of Friday night and half of that day gaming with her younger siblings?

  Whatever it was, every other weekend, when she went back home it never failed to show up. She’d be all set to sit in the house the entire weekend and then Angel would call. It was always Angel, never Raheem. And the conversation always went the same. It had become their new friendship ritual—the way things were now that she and Raheem were FWBs.

  “What you doing, girl? Want hang out?” Angel would say.

  Jacinta would hem and haw, think about the alternative—spendingthe entire weekend playing video games with her brothers and sister—something she enjoyed but not for two days straight. Then she’d think about the inevitable argument she and Raheem would have over something stupid and begin to say, “Naw, I catch y’all later.” Then Raheem’s voice would float from the background, nonchalant,smooth and chocolate, “Tell her come on and stop playing. She know she want roll.”

  Hearing his voice always did it. It wasn’t planned. Every time she came home, back to Pirates Cove, she swore she’d say no this time.

  And yet, here she was. She felt sick about being so weak, so unableto break the habit of spending her weekends with Raheem and Angel. It had been second nature most of her life. They’d been friends since she was five years old. It had never occurred to her what life would be like if they weren’t going out. Now she knew.

  “Why you so quiet?” Raheem asked. He scooted over so they were hip to hip.

  Jacinta took a deep breath. Her chest was tense but she knew she had to say it. “Heem ... you know we ... it’s not like we’re back together, because ... just ’cause we’re hooking up.”

  He sucked his teeth and Jacinta felt his thigh tense beside her as he said, “Yeah Cinny, you say that every single time.”

  Jacinta winced. “You act like it happens all the time.”

  Raheem snorted. “Hasn’t it?”

  Jacinta thought back on it. Four months, seven weekends ...

  “It hasn’t been every weekend,” she said weakly, unable to come back with anything as Raheem blew out a long breath.

  His voice edged closer to argument territory. “Whatever, Cinny. While we getting facts straight, the reason we’re not back together is ’cause you keep throwing shade.”

&
nbsp; Jacinta shook her head in the darkness as she corrected him. “No, I never said no I don’t want to get back together. When you ask what’s up with us, I ask if you gon’ stop tripping about me and what I’m doing when I’m home.”

  “Home?” Raheem interrupted. “So The Woods home now?”

  Jacinta heard the smirk in his question. I knew it, she thought to herself. From talking about her hair to this.

  She inhaled deeply then let it out quietly, slowly through her nose, before responding. “Whatever, Heem.You know what I mean. Over my aunt’s. And this is why we not officially back together.” She snorted. “I’m surprised you haven’t moved on anyway. What happenedto ... whatever her name is who you was all up on in December?”

  Raheem’s silence was thick in the darkness.

  Jacinta sucked her teeth. “We argue just as much apart as we do together.”

  “Not like I’m twisting your arm when you come home,” Raheemsaid, a nasty sneer in his voice.

  This time, Jacinta didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering, mainly because he was right.

  I can’t keep doing this, she muttered to herself.

  Her and Raheem needed to be together or apart because this halfway thing was worse than the arguing that led to the breakup and the heartbreak she felt when they first split.

  But it wasn’t that simple. When she was in Pirates Cove, she wanted to be with Raheem, wanted things to be like before. But when she was back in The Woods, seven miles away, she loved her freedom. Out of sight, out of mind was no joke—it was exactly how she felt about him when she was back at Aunt Jacqi’s where her fatherhad sent her to live eight months ago.

  She dreaded spring break. Her aunt was going away on a business trip to New York. Weekends were hard enough. What was she going to do back in Pirates Cove Thursday through Sunday?

  She pushed herself off the bed, ready to head home. Standing in the darkness, she wondered what else to say.

  She’d already asked her father if he could take her back to Aunt Jacqi’s early (home, whether Raheem liked it or not). She couldn’t wait to get back to the ’burb side of the DRB Bridge. That seven miles between her and Raheem kept her honest. Once there, she didn’t have the same flood of emotion, the struggle to keep herself away from Raheem, away from the hope that if he tried harder they could make their relationship work.

  Her phone buzzed and Jacinta looked down at the message from Mina:

  da click iz chilln 2mrw @ mikes 2:00. u b bk hm?

  The words calmed her.

  The clique was hooking up tomorrow. Just what she needed to wash this weekend off her. The confusion and uneasiness she felt about hooking up with Raheem without them being an actual couplealmost always disappeared once she was tripping and dissing with the clique.

  Her mood lifted. “Alright, well I talk to you later,” she said to Raheem.

  Raheem reached out, meaning to grab her hand. But his hand grazed her belly. If it had been like old times, Jacinta would have automaticallygone to him to cuddle.

  This time she stood stock still and he had to pull her gently back over to him. “How we gon’ talk later if you don’t call me?” he asked.

  “I meant I guess we’ll catch up later ... you know, when I come home Thursday,” Jacinta said, anxious to go.

  The dark room was suffocating even though Raheem was being sweet now. When he was sweet it was hard for Jacinta to keep her attitude. She still loved him. A fact she didn’t so much deny as try to resist.

  Resist, because she was sick of bickering about the same old stuff—he didn’t get to see her enough, who was that in the background talkingwhen he called her, where was she. He criticized or questioned everything she did and said, since she’d moved to The Woods.

  “So you not gon’ call me?” Raheem prodded.

  “You can call me, you know,” Jacinta teased, her mind on texting Mina back.

  “Yeah, but when I do you usually busy with your ... clique.” He said the last word like it hurt him. “I may as well just wait for you to call ... you know, when you got time for me.”

  When Jacinta answered she was careful not to sound too pouty, too mad, too anything. “Anytime you call I talk to you, Raheem. Don’t make it like I be blowing you off.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said innocently.

  Always the games, she thought.

  The silence grew around them for a few minutes before she finallygot up the nerve to exit again. “Alright, well ... I better go.”

  “It’s like that? No kiss or nothing?” Raheem asked, pretending to pout, wanting her to believe he was playing around, uncaring about getting a kiss. But Jacinta heard real hurt in his voice and it tugged at her heart. Raheem wasn’t the sensitive type.

  She bent down to kiss him and they bumped foreheads. She giggled.“Sorry.”

  He pulled her down on his lap and guided her face to his. They kissed and the usual heat she felt when they were that close was there, not raging, but definitely there. When Raheem’s hands began to rub Jacinta’s back she popped up hastily.

  “Alright, Heem. See you.”

  “Alright,” he said sullenly.

  Jacinta stood by him for a second, waiting for him to stand up and walk her to the door. But he didn’t.

  She straightened her back and headed out.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.

  Sunday Clique’n

  “Turn around and bless me with your beauty.”

  —Bobby Valentine, “Slow Down”

  Lizzie’s legs, long and slender, went on for days. Especially in the canary yellow pants with fine gray pinstripes.

  Mina never understood how someone with legs as long as Lizzie’s wasn’t considered tall. But Lizzie wasn’t. She was only an inch or so taller than five-foot Mina. But where Mina had curves and muscles, Lizzie was thin, not quite shapeless but definitely unassuming, until she wore an outfit that accented her slim waist and slender-hipped legginess. It was a shape perfect for modeling because everything fell just right on her. So Michael said, constantly.

  As Michael’s creations for the school’s theater productions becamemore and more everyday wearable, Mina had once whined, “How come you never want me to model?” Michael seriously had some outfits that she’d sport in public in a heartbeat.

  In answer, he’d merely dismissed her with a tap to her athletic buns.

  Standing alongside Kelly, Mina admired yet another Michael James masterpiece.

  Michael fluttered about Lizzie, busily pinning the pants leg, tuggingat the waist and generally fussing the costume, a 1930s-style man suit, into perfection. The pants, pleated in front, hung loosely on Lizzie’s long-legged frame, ending in a more precise fit at the ankle. Under normal circumstances Mina would have laughed out loud at the notion that she’d like a pair of bright yellow pants. With pinstripes, no less.

  But she marveled, mouth agape, at how even with the pinstripes it was easily an outfit that would get compliments. It was hot.

  Michael had done it again—given a retro outfit a funky update. It was, in Michael’s own words, a modern day zoot suit (swearing he’d made up the term, Mina had to Google it) with a definite hip edge.

  Lizzie fiddled with the suspenders, another risky fashion choice that Michael had made work, careful not to move an inch where Michael’s hands danced around her legs. Her arms glowed tan against the stark white sleeveless tee that fit snug around the low waist of the pants. She rattled on, already talking about the summer production and possibly trying out for The Players, Del Rio Bay’s premier theater production company, now that Michael had an in and was doing costuming for them.

  Mentally sizing up whether she’d look as good as Lizzie in the pants (probably not), Mina turned to ask Cinny what she thought and stopped mid-inhale at the cozy scene across the room.

  JZ and Jacinta were playing pool.

  If pool consisted mostly of Jacinta scratching up Michael’s pool table with her choppy attempts, and JZ staring squarely
at Jacinta’s lush backside wiggling in the air each time she bent over to take a shot.

  “Okay, Cinny. Can you at least pretend to know what you’re doing?” JZ cracked. He shook his head at yet another pitiful attempt by Cinny to whack the ball with her cue stick.

  She waved him off and bent back over. JZ’s eyes followed her butt like a magnet to a refrigerator, openly ogling.

  Mina cleared her throat in an exaggerated “ahem,” but she was too far away for them to hear.

  JZ and Jacinta had been awfully cozy the last few weeks, openly flirting but pretending it was dissing.

  They weren’t fooling anybody. Something was popping off and Mina had made it clear, in a very nice way of course, that she thought it wasn’t such a good idea. She’d casually reminded Jacinta how many girls JZ had already gone out with since the school year started.

  “Girl, who you telling,” Jacinta had laughed. “I think he’s trying to break a record.”

  “You must be trying to be girl number fifteen,” Mina had joked. But the way she’d looked at Jacinta provided the unspoken, are you?

  “Hell to the naw,” Jacinta had said, cracking them both up again. “You know Jay my buddy.” She’d shoved Mina’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna put you in the middle like I am with Angel and Kelly.”

  Mina had felt a ridiculous amount of relief. It probably showed on her face and she was almost embarrassed. It was selfish to begrudgeJacinta a little fun. After her very public breakup with Raheem,whether it was JZ or Justin Timberlake, Jacinta deserved to enjoy a little playing the field.

  There was a lot Mina hadn’t said, that day. She knew she didn’t have to. Jacinta knew exactly how Mina was feeling. The back and forth between Angel and Kelly had been a thorn in Jacinta’s side for months. Known for speaking her mind, she’d admitted it many times to Mina, to Kelly and anyone else who would listen.

  Still, Mina felt bad for being such a bulldog about the no-flirting-with-friendsrule. She wanted to not care. Let JZ and Jacinta have their fun.