by Ni-Ni Simone
We headed to the parking lot, exhausted. “Harlem,” I smiled. “I really like you, and you are real special to me.”
“That’s sweet, baby. I feel the same way.”
“And we’ve been really kickin’ it and everything.”
“So where’s all this coming from? You tryna break up with me?”
“No!” I shook my head. “Silly. But look, let me ask you this.”
“What?”
“Are there any type of girls that you wouldn’t date?”
“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Short ones. I’m too big for a short chick.”
“That’s it, short chicks. And you would date any other kind of girl?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, if I don’t like her, I just wouldn’t kick it to her.”
Okay, since he doesn’t discriminate, maybe this is the perfect time to tell him that I have a baby. I couldn’t help but smile as I started to daydream about us being a family. Noah’s car seat in the back of Harlem’s Jeep and the three of us just chillin’ forever.
“…and teenage mothers,” he said, seemingly out of nowhere.
I looked at him. “What?” I was so busy daydreaming that I had tuned him out.
“Teenage mothers,” he repeated. “I can’t stand chicks with kids. Most of the time they’re stupid, with no goals, and easy. That’s why the kid doesn’t do statistics.”
“Statistics?” I couldn’t believe he said that.
“Statistics,” he repeated. “They’re too much baggage and drama. I’m just nineteen. What I look like with a ready-made family? Please. I’m good.
I’m not tryna give no babies, so I ain’t tryna get none. ’Specially no baby that’s not mine.”
He didn’t know it, but I felt like he’d spat on me at least three times. I swallowed and sniffed. “Ai’ight,” I said, pushing my bruised feelings to the side.
“So, what you wanna do now?” he asked.
“Go home,” I said as the sun started to set. “I’ma little tired anyway.”
“Ai’ight,” he said as we started walking toward his car.
“Toi.”
“Yeah?”
“We got a long ride ahead,” he said, “so don’t be up in the car falling asleep and dreaming.”
“Harlem, please.” I frowned, “Believe me, I’m learning not to dream.”
11
It was eleven o’clock at night. I’d just laid Noah down, Keyshia Cole’s “Let It Go” was on the radio. I’d been avoiding Harlem’s phone calls for a week and it was making me sick to my stomach. I was missing him like crazy, but I couldn’t deny my son…any more.
In between listening to the radio, my sister was talking to me about Spelman and how we needed to apply there. I barely paid her any attention—with the way things were going, who saw me doing anything else other than being somebody’s mama and struggling to live my life. At least that’s what I felt reduced to…or is reduced the right word? My son was the most important person in the world to me and if I didn’t love him, I wouldn’t be profiling at IHOP, believe me, but college, paleeze. Spelman was just another one of those dreams I would have to live without.
“Seven, could you…talk about something else?” Though Noah had just fallen asleep, I turned the radio up—this was my jam—matter of fact—this was everybody’s jam.
Seven tooted her lips. It’s funny how we were twins but looked totally different. Nothing but our dimples and black hair were the same.
“Toi,” she said, pointing to the college applications she had spread on my bed. “We need to apply now.”
“Seven, newsflash, I’m not going to college. And if I do, I’ma be in Essex County all my life, taking one class at a time…forever.” I flipped through the current issue of Vibe Vixen and flopped down on the futon on the other side of the room, while Seven sat Indian style on my bed and looked at me like I was crazy.
“Are you retarded?” she spat. “Who told you that garbage? I know mommy is hard on you, but dang, she never said roll over and die.”
“Excuse you,” I flipped the page. “I didn’t think going to Essex County was rolling over and dying.”
“I’m not talking about that. There’s nothing wrong with Essex County. You’re the problem, acting like you have no hope. Ill, what is that?”
“Seven, have you been asleep? I no longer have a life. The only time I party is when I go to IHOP. How whack is that?” I was resentful when I said that, but that’s how I felt. “I don’t go anywhere, my friends have their own lives, and the only reason why you’re home so much is because Josiah is at school—”
“Did I tell you my boo is a good look for the NBA?”
“What?” I was excited.
“Yes, he entered the draft and he’s a hot lottery pick. So, it’s a sure shot.”
“So when you two getting married?”
“Girl, please,” she frowned at me, “he gon’ wait until I get outta college. I have to set me up first.”
“Excuse me, you would be, just by being his girl.”
“Forget being his girl. I gotta be my own girl first and then we can talk about marriage. I don’t know about you, but I’m depending on me to get what I need to succeed in life.”
“True.”
“I know it is, anyway,” Seven said. “Wassup with Harlem?”
“It’s over.” I snapped.
“Why?”
“It just is.”
“Broke down!” Cousin Shake yelled. “Get the door. It’s probably my tender coming to get some’a Cousin Shake’s honey, but I’m in the bathroom. Tell her to go in my room, light the incense, and put the best of Run DMC on. Tell her Big Daddy will be there in a minute.”
“Yuck.” I twisted my mouth as I walked toward the door. Before I opened the door, I asked, “Who is it?”
“Quamir.”
“What?” What was he doing here?
“What do you want?” I asked through the door.
“I came to see my son.”
Now that pissed me off. I snatched the door open. “You for real or you just want me to go off?”
“Oh, I can’t see my son now?”
“You haven’t seen him but twice in his life. Now, all of a sudden you coming to see him at almost midnight. Boy, please.” I rolled my eyes to the sky. “Do I look crazy?”
“Oh, it’s like that Toi?”
“Pretty much. Plus, my mother’ll be here any minute from work and if she sees you here, she gon’ bug. So just go.”
“Oh, so now your mother is more important than me?”
I blinked my eyes. “What?”
“Toi,” my mother snapped as she pressed onto the porch. “What is this?”
See, this is exactly what I didn’t want. “It’s not what it look like, ma.”
“I told you, I didn’t want him at my house. He can’t take care of this baby, he can’t come through my door.”
“Yo,” Quamir frowned at my mother, “you better go ’head. I’m not no kid.”
“Don’t be talking to my mother like that, Quamir,” I snapped. “You better calm down.”
“Oh, now you flexin’?” Quamir was beyond pissed. “Remember this when you calling me beggin’.”
“Boy, I ain’t called you in so long. Please.”
“If you don’t leave my damn house right now,” my mother stepped into his face, “I will call the police on you!”
“This how you gon’ do me, Toi?” Before I could respond, he said, “You know we really through, right? Since you gon’ let somebody disrespect me,” he looked my mother up and down, “I’m going to be with Shanice!” He stepped off the porch.
“Do I look concerned?” I yelled behind him. “Go be with her—matter of fact, what’s taking you so long to get there? And if you get in my mother’s face again, we gon’ see if you live to get to Shanice!” And I slammed the door.
“Ma, it wasn’t what you thought.”
“It never is, Toi! You just keep making one mistake
after the next. As soon as I think you’re getting better, you just seem to get worse!” She stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door.
A few minutes later, I knocked. “What?” she snapped.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
I pushed the door open and I could still see the disgust on her face. “Ma, do you hate me?”
My mother looked completely confused and if I wasn’t mistaken, she even looked like her feelings were hurt. “Hate you? Do you think I hate you?”
“How come you always go off on me? You never listen to me! Like you just go off at the drop of a dime.”
“I don’t always go off on you,” she said, more as a question than a statement.
“Yes you do, like tonight with Quamir. That wasn’t my fault but you snapped on me.”
“I just get so frustrated, Toi.” She patted the bed for me to come sit next to her. “Let me tell you something. I love you. I love you so much that it hurts me to see you making mistakes that I know are going to cost you. I’ll admit, I’m disappointed. And maybe I am going about it the wrong way and being a little too hard.”
“Ya think?”
“Toi,” she gave me half a smile, “I had you and your sister at nineteen so I know what it’s like to be a young mother. I just want so much more for you.”
“Ma,” I looked at her, “don’t you think I’m disappointed too? Don’t you think I hurt? I mean, look at me.” I held my fingers out as if I was counting on them. “I’m on welfare, I can’t go out with my friends anymore—matter of fact, they don’t even invite me out. Quamir is exactly what everyone said he would be. Sometimes I feel like I’ma go crazy because I’m so confused. Like, it is so not cute being in this situation. Sometimes I wonder if I hate my own self.” Tears streamed down my cheeks.
My mother took my hands into hers. “Let me tell you something. Before your father and I got married, I was on welfare.”
“You were?” I couldn’t believe it. “Daddy didn’t help you out?”
“Yes, he did. He’s always taken care of you, but we were both young and high-strung. But we had two beautiful babies and we had to do what we had to do. So I accepted welfare. I took my mother’s advice—she said that she’d paid taxes long enough for me not to be ashamed of needing some help.”
“How long were you on welfare?”
“Two years, and then your father and I got married. Even though I never liked the idea of having to get food stamps, Medicaid, and whatever little money they gave me, taking care of you became more important than pride. What I learned is that there was nothing to be embarrassed of because being on welfare was the means to something better. It wasn’t forever, and now I have my own house, I work two jobs but I have money in the bank, a car, and I have all the other things that I’ve wanted in life and what I don’t have I’ll work on it and eventually I’ll get it.”
I sat and stared at my mother for a moment. For the first time since I became a teenage mom, I had hope and I could see myself actually being something—somebody. “Ma, you know what I’ve always wanted to be when I grew up?”
“What, a pink Power Ranger?”
“Ma,” I laughed. “I told you that when I was seven.”
“I know and I told you—you could be whatever you want to be.”
I fell out laughing. “Well, it’s not a pink Power Ranger.”
“So what is it and don’t say the red one.”
“Ma, be serious.”
“I’m listening.”
“A teacher.”
Her face lit up with delight. “A teacher?”
“Yeah.” I gave her a prideful smile. “I like English. So I would like to be a high school English teacher.”
“And that,” she said, “would make me the proudest mother alive!”
“I love you ma.” I hugged her tight, like I used to when I was a little girl.
“I love you too li’l mama,” she said, calling by the nickname she gave me as a child. “Now,” she said, “go to bed.”
12
It had been a week now. Quamir kept stalking me and Harlem kept calling. I didn’t know how or when this happened, but life as I knew it had been shut down. Even if I wanted to go out with Harlem, I couldn’t. I couldn’t find a babysitter to save my life.
I kept lying to Harlem and I knew he knew that something was up. This was the longest time I’d gone without seeing him since we first started kickin’ it. And I knew I should just tell him I have a son, but it was so much easier to just let it all go…or at least I thought it was.
“What you thinkin’ about, girl?” Tay said as she collected the tip off her table.
“Harlem.” I frowned. “I’ve been avoiding him.”
“Why you dissin’ your boo?”
“Somebody say boo? ’Cause have no fear, Percy, Cle’otis, and Shim-daddy is here!”
“I wish I had some Raid,” I squinted my eyes, “because I’d spray yo’ ass.”
He curled the corner of his top lip. “And I still wouldn’t die, girl.” He snapped his mouth at me like a dog.
I shuddered. I swear I wanted to Mace ’em. Percy and his crew were all dressed in double-breasted sky blue tuxedos with white ruffled shirts. “You thinkin’ ’bout me?” Percy growled. “Just say it, homie.”
“Why don’t you fly away!” Tay snapped at Percy.
“Why don’t you give me a li’l, jump-off!”
“Who you calling a jump-off Lil’ Bootsy?” Percy’s mother screamed as she stormed out of the bathroom.
“Dang,” Percy whined. “Mamaaaaaaaaa.”
“Don’t mama me. Y’awl lookin’ like a loose pack of flies, following these girls around!” She grabbed him by the ear while mushing Cle’otis and Shim-daddy in the head. “I’m so tired of you messing up your church clothes.”
“Mama—” Percy cut his mother off.
“I’m talkin’—”
“Mama—”
“Oh, you cuttin’ me off?” She pinched his ear even harder. “Where ya manners at Lil’ Bootsy? This is yo’ problem, ya mouth. Seems your mouth bigger than yo’ body. That’s why you going to church tonight, so you can pray and ask God to teach you how to break yo’self, fool. Now get on back to the table.”
If I weren’t so heartbroken I would laugh.
“I’m concerned,” Tay said.
“About who, Percy? I think he was dropped as a baby,” I said, answering my own question.
“Forget Percy. We all know he’s crazy. I’m concerned about you. Why you playin’ Harlem? I don’t understand. I thought you liked him.”
“I do.”
“So why you tossing him to the left?”
“Okay, listen,” I said as we walked toward the kitchen to pick up our customers’ food. “He told me he doesn’t date teenage mothers.”
“For real?” She looked surprised. “Even after you told him you had a baby. You did tell him, right?”
“Wrong.”
“You trippin’,” she shook her head, “real hard.”
“You don’t understand. He said he doesn’t do ‘statistics,’ and he said I had too much drama and a whole buncha ra-ra.”
“He said that about you personally?”
“Well, no. He just said teen moms—”
“You’re crazy. You owe him an explanation.”
“Uhmm, maybe.”
“Ladies,” my manager said, clearing his throat, “your customers are waiting.”
“Call him.” Tay said as we parted.
She had a point. Maybe I should tell him. After all, it had been two weeks and I’m sure he suspected something. After I sat my customers’ food on the table, and collected my tip from another table, I stepped to the back so I could use my phone. As I went to flip it open, I heard someone saying, “Hello?”
“Toi.” It was my mother.
“Yes.”
“What do you think about us giving Cousin Shake a birthday party?”
“If you want.”
“I mean something small. You can invite some of your friends, Josiah, Harlem…” she said with emphasis.
“Harlem? How do you know Harlem?”
“Because he was by here today.”
“He was?” I said in disbelief.
“Uhmm hmm, he came inside and everything.”
My heart skipped a beat. “He saw Noah?”
“No, Noah was asleep, but he was looking for you and he asked me to have you please call him.”
“I’m not calling him.”
“Why? He’s cute and he’s in college. I’m impressed.”
“You don’t understand, ma.”
“Toi—would you be seventeen, sometimes. Goodness.” Now I was confused—one minute I’m too immature and the next I’m too grown—see, I can’t win. “Loosen up,” she continued.
“I can’t believe you, ma.”
“Look, I’ll babysit, but call him. Go out and have a good time.”
“Okay.” I smiled.
I only had a second before my manager would be looking for me, so I called him quickly. I got straight to the point. “I wanna see you.”
“When, last week?” he snapped.
“Funny. And I can’t talk long, so pick me up around six.”
“Ai’ight ma, whatever.”
“You coming?”
He stalled. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
My heart fluttered for the rest of my shift. I couldn’t wait to see him, and I was determined to be honest. Just spit it out. I’ll hold my diaphragm in and say, “Harlem, I have a baby. A son. That’s right, and if you don’t like it, then get ta steppin’!” Yeah, that’s it. That’s exactly it.
I sucked my teeth. I was sounding so damn dumb!
“I know you don’t think you should go on a date when you have a sick baby at home.”
I wanted so bad to say why not? I couldn’t believe this. Noah was fine when I left home this morning and now he’s running a fever. Jesus. “No ma,” I hesitated, “I know I should stay home.” I wanted to scream and just lose it, but what good would it do?
“Okay, I’m just checking.” She held Noah in her arms and I placed the dropper of Tylenol in his mouth. “’Cause mothers should be home when they have sick children. Just tell boyfriend he’ll have to come another night. I mean, Harlem seems like a nice guy. I’m sure he’ll understand.” Noah started to cry and she placed him on her shoulder.