“You be careful, you hear me?” Tilly asked. “This is not the countryside and nobody around here cares that you are from there, either. So put that sweet and innocent face in your pocketbook for a while.”
I passed by Hope Baptist, Tilly’s home church, which seemed like everyone’s home church in this neighborhood. I knew I would be seeing the inside of that building many times before I went home. Fine by me, since it looked like I would need God’s help to get me through the next few weeks.
It was a perfect afternoon to be walking, a slight breeze, warm, and no humidity. Not too many people were out for a leisurely stroll, though. One lady shoved me out of her way as she sped by. A boy about my age yelled for me to move as he rolled by on his skateboard. I inhaled car fumes, dog urine, and leftover food spilled on the street. I was happy to be out, though, out of Tilly’s reach, out of a ballet dancer’s nightmare, out of a circle of troubled teen girls, out of the line of fire.
I walked past a skinny Asian woman who held a sign about her losing a job and needing money to feed her two kids. I dropped one of my dollars into her cardboard box, even though Tilly had said not to. She said some people choose to live on the street and have more money stored than she’ll have in her whole lifetime. Not sure I believed that. The woman thanked me and I kept walking.
I rounded another corner and stopped to watch a basketball game in progress. The boys on the court were serious, like a cash prize was on the line. Some had their shirts pulled over their heads, some only wore basketball shorts, and one boy had on a sweat suit. Curse words poured from the boys as they ran back and forth across their concrete court.
After the third basket slammed into the wire-rimmed hoop, I turned around to continue walking and smacked right into someone. The boy’s soda flew out of his hand and hit the sidewalk, spilling out all over. I covered my mouth with my hand and looked up to see who I had assaulted.
“Yo, watch where you’re going,” the boy said angrily. Some of the drink had sprayed his dreadlocks. He wiped his hair with the sleeve of his shirt. “I don’t even have any more change.”
“I’m really sorry, I didn’t see you standing there,” I told him.
He stared at me for a moment like he was thinking of mean things to say. Then his frown loosened a bit and his hazel eyes shone brightly.
“Hey, you better slow your roll around here, girl,” he warned me. “The next guy you run into may not know who you are and bump you right back.”
“Well, I said I was sorry,” I snapped back, “and you don’t know me.”
“Yeah, well, just remember what I said,” he told me.
“It won’t happen again,” I said. I put up my hands in surrender and he smiled. I moved away from him and started walking back toward Tilly’s apartment building.
“Hey, you! Wait up!” he yelled.
I thought, Oh, great, now I have a stalker. Tilly would be pissed. I was not supposed to talk to anyone or attract any unwanted attention. So much for that plan. I kept going, walking a little faster. Tilly’s apartment was straight ahead on the next block. If I could make it to the corner, I was home free.
“Hey, NaTasha, don’t you remember me?” my stalker called out.
I stopped my speed walk abruptly and turned around, completely going against Tilly’s rules of survival.
“How do you know my name?” I asked him, crossing my arms.
“NaTasha, it’s me, Khalik,” he said, pulling all of his dreadlocks behind his back with one hand. He looked me right in the eyes and cocked his head to the side like he was posing for the cover of GQ. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place his face.
“I live in Tilly’s building,” he said, releasing his hair. “We used to hang when we were younger.”
I remembered having friends here when I was younger, but this broad-shouldered, handsome boy couldn’t have been one of them. This boy had round eyes and high cheekbones. And he smelled amazing, like a warm chocolate brownie with caramel icing and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. The brown-and-white Sean John T-shirt he was wearing matched the brown-and-white Adidas sneakers on his feet. He was tall enough to be out on the court with the other ball players. He pulled a brown stretchy headband from the pocket of his pants and gathered his hair back again. He must have been growing that hair for years.
“I think you have the wrong person,” I told him, turning back around to head home.
“I remember a little girl who screamed anytime Tilly tried to braid her hair,” he said to my back. I slowed down but kept my back to him while he continued. “This little girl would only play with me and she always had to choose the game. I always wanted to play ball, but she always wanted to play house or jump rope or something. It usually had something to do with a little white baby doll with blond hair that never left her arms.”
Khalik had grown up.
I turned around to look at him again and smiled, breaking yet another one of Tilly’s rules. My childhood crush I used to tell Heather about had transformed into a man, a goodlooking man.
“You’ve changed, Khalik,” I told him, sizing him up again.
“You think so?” Khalik asked, moving closer to me than I should have let him, according to the rules. He looked me up and down and moved another step closer, eyeing my skirt and lingering on a spot where my stomach was peeking out below my tank top. “You too.”
“Not that much,” I told him, taking a step backward and pulling down on my top.
“Oh…you mean you still carry that ratty old white doll around?” he asked, laughing and searching around me for the doll.
“No, I guess I have changed a little,” I said, backing up a few more steps. “So, how’s your life? What have you been up to?”
“I’m out of school for the summer and just hanging out with my boys. You know how it is,” he said. I wished I knew. I wanted to be home hanging out with my own friends. “What about you? You here for a quick weekend in the city?”
“Actually, I’ll be here for a few weeks this time,” I told him. “You still live in the building?”
“Yeah, I’m headed there now,” he said. “How’s Ms. Tilly?”
“Still cooking up a storm, as usual,” I told him. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”
We turned to walk the rest of the way together to the building. It was just starting to get dark. Knowing Tilly, she was probably watching us from her window and had been the whole time, which would explain why she hadn’t come for me yet.
Khalik opened the front door and held it for me to pass through.
“So, maybe we can catch up before you leave,” he said, stepping inside behind me. The memory of us holding hands, and roller skating on the very floor we were standing on, came to me and I laughed out loud. Khalik looked hurt. “Alright, Tash, you ain’t got to be rude about it, I was just asking.”
“No, no, I mean, yes,” I said, hiding my smile. “I was just remembering us skating on this floor. You used to fall all the time.”
Khalik started laughing, too.
“Nah, the way I remember it, you were the one always bustin’ your ass,” he said. He caught my eye and smiled. “Hey, I’ll catch you later then, Tash.”
“Okay, good night,” I told him, and started up the stairs.
When I got in, Tilly was on the phone. I reached for my cell phone right away to call Heather. I couldn’t wait to tell her about the encounter I just had with Khalik.
“You remember that guy I used to tell you about?” I asked Heather. “You know, the one that lived in Tilly’s building?”
Khalik is the only boy I ever really told her I liked, other than Matt Billings.
“Let me guess, you saw him, and you’re getting married and never coming back?” she said.
“You got it, and we may elope,” I told her.
“NaTasha!”
“Just kidding, but if he did ask me, I’d have to think long and hard about my decision,” I told her. “How are things in Adams P
ark? Are you dying of boredom yet?”
I could picture Heather lying faceup on her bed, staring at her own star stickers.
“Well, actually, I have some big news for you,” she said. “Matt is throwing a party in a few weeks and he asked me to invite you.” When Heather got excited, all her words slurred like she’d had too much to drink. The news spilled out of her mouth like water from a fountain.
“Who is having a party?” I said, interrupting her.
“Tash, what other Matt do you know?” Heather squealed. “And, get this, he asked if I had ideas for a theme!”
Matt Billings called Heather to invite us to a party. That was huge news.
“Wait,” I said. “Why didn’t he call me himself if he wanted to invite me to a party?”
“Oh, you know how guys are,” Heather answered. “They run into one friend and ask for all her friends. You’re missing the point, Tash. We are going to Matt Billings’s party!”
Matt must not have heard about the dance recital at all. He would never invite me to a party if he had heard what happened to Stephanie. Maybe I could show my face in Adams Park after all. I was hiding out in Harlem being laughed at by a bunch of delinquents while my best friend was enjoying my summer vacation at home talking on the phone and planning a party with my Matt Billings.
“Tash?”
“I don’t know, Heather, I’ll have to call you back,” I said. “I may be busy getting married that weekend.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
TILLY CONVINCED ME to give the girls at Amber’s Place another chance. I told you it wasn’t going to be easy, she reminded me.
We headed into the center, and I hoped share time wasn’t a regular thing. But when we got there the girls were already in their groups and were beginning to share. I looked at Tilly for a way out, but she nodded to my group and walked toward her own.
“Hey, Tash, welcome back,” Red announced as soon as she saw me. “We’re going around the circle and telling everyone one thing we hate about ourselves. Join us.”
Like I had a choice. Where else was I going to go? Tilly had brought me about as far north as you could go on the subway and I couldn’t find my way back if I wanted to.
I sat down next to the girl who had hugged her stomach during the last session. She had her black hair pulled into a ponytail high on her head, accentuating her big, blue eyes. She smiled weakly at me. Her skin was sweaty and pale like Elmer’s school glue. I wondered if she had the flu or something.
“Okay, Susan, go ahead, you can continue,” Red said, pointing to the pasty-skinned girl.
Susan moved her hands from her stomach and put them on both her cheeks and stared between her feet. All the girls in the circle followed her gaze to the floor.
“I hate my feet,” she said quietly. “And I hate my knees, and my fat thighs and the extra flab around my belly, the way my skin swings on my elbows when I move my arms, and my saggy boobs.”
The girls around her began to giggle until they saw the tears falling from her eyes. Her sadness was like a wave of gloom that hit us all at the same time. She was serious. The only body parts she left out were from the neck up. I wondered if she was happy with anything up there. I didn’t think so.
“Susan, that’s quite a list,” Red said, flipping pages in her notebook. She scooted to the front of her seat to touch Susan’s knee. “You only had to give us one, and I hope at some point you’re able to come to grips with your body. We all do at some point in our lives.”
The girls were oddly quiet. None of the taunts or insults thrown at the previous session was happening. All eyes were on Red. Susan had tear after tear running down her cheeks. She didn’t try to fight them back at all.
“I’m not finished,” she said quietly, interrupting Red, who withdrew her hand and motioned for Susan to continue. All eyes went back to Susan again. “I also hate having a boyfriend who hates all of these things about me, too.”
She wrapped her arms back around her stomach. I thought about putting my arm around Susan’s shoulders. I would do that for a friend. But these girls weren’t my friends. Susan would move away from me if I tried to comfort her. Touching was probably breaking some rule I didn’t know about anyway.
“Girls, we’re doing this exercise so that you can release any of your anxiety or negative feelings,” Red said. “I’m hoping the act of saying our fears and hates aloud will free you in some way. Susan, would you like to reflect anymore?”
Susan shook her head. She probably wouldn’t talk ever again for the rest of her life. In fact, her honesty had silenced everyone in the group. I glanced around our circle again. Susan wasn’t the only one with tears in her eyes. I lowered my head and prayed for the uncomfortable silence to disappear. I would have even welcomed the new-girl jokes to make this tension go away.
“Rochelle, why don’t you go next,” Red said, shifting in her seat to face the girl on Susan’s other side.
Rochelle pulled her thick, shoulder-length hair behind her ears and leaned back in her seat. She looked more ready to sleep than to share with a group about her feelings. I watched her eyeball each member of the group before starting.
“I hate my parents,” she said, wiping an invisible hair from her face. “I hate that my mom was strung out and my daddy wasn’t never around and jumped in and out of jail. I hate them for making me. When I was little I swore I wouldn’t be nothing like them, but look at me. I’m just like them. I hate when people see me coming and they grab their stuff like I’m gonna steal something or when I’m in a store and the salespeople walk right past me like I don’t need no help finding nothing. I hate a lot of things.”
Red rocked slowly like this information was heavier than she expected. I wanted her to say something soothing, but she just kept rocking back and forth.
“Does anyone want to speak to Rochelle?” she asked after awhile.
No one moved. No one spoke. No one looked around. Susan was still hunched over, wiping tears from her eyes. Quiana looked like a mannequin, stiff and unaffected. The other girls just listened.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” I asked quietly. My mouth obviously wasn’t following directions from my brain, which only happened at the most inopportune times like this one.
Rochelle looked surprised. “What?”
“Well, you said you’re like your parents, but you’re not in jail like them, you’re here with us,” I stated. “Maybe you aren’t as similar to them as you think.”
Red smiled and nodded her head in agreement with me. Rochelle wasn’t as impressed. Her sad face quickly turned sour. She glared at me like I was the one who had just said all those bad things about her family members. I immediately regretted getting involved.
“I just got out, new girl,” she said, snapping at me. “And when I go home tonight, I’m going past the drug dealers on my street and the hustlers trying to pimp me out and my parents’ friends crashing at our place because they got kicked out of their own. I’m just like them.”
I thought of Tilly’s apartment with its matching decor and the quiet and the comfort.
“I just thought…” I started.
“I know what you thought, NaTasha,” Rochelle stopped me, “and you don’t know nothing about me or my life or anyone else’s in here for that matter. No one in here comes from the cushy stuck-up suburbs and no one here lives the perfect life you do, so I don’t even know why you’re here.”
All the girls looked at me now. Even Susan.
“Sorry,” I told her.
“Yeah,” Rochelle said.
Thankfully, Red didn’t miss a beat. “We all have different experiences in our lives, no matter where we come from. NaTasha does come from a different place, but we all have problems,” Red said. She had stopped rocking and turned to me. “Maybe, NaTasha, you’d like to share with the girls something you hate.”
I didn’t, but I had to dig myself out of the grave I’d just dug with Rochelle. The girls wanted blood and I knew it. Every eye was on me
. They wouldn’t let me get away with the silent treatment today. No way.
My head started to pound. I smoothed my jeans, glancing up at all the eyes watching me. My heartbeat was in my throat. The girls were waiting.
“Sometimes, I hate the color of my skin.”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble. It was a shock even to me. I had never said them out loud, even though I’d felt it my whole life.
Susan gasped and stared at the others to see what they’d do. Quiana grinned and folded her arms across her chest, happy to have some dirt against me. Rochelle leaned forward and popped her knuckles and challenged me to a staring contest that I didn’t want to participate in. Red rocked back and forth for a while before speaking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Thank you, NaTasha, I know how difficult that was for you,” Red said. “Can anyone offer an encouraging word?”
Silence. My whole body was hot and I needed a blast of fresh air right away. When it was clear no one else was interested in holding a conversation, especially to give nice words to me, Red dismissed us for the day. I ran out of the circle toward the exit faster than I knew I could move.
If I knew anything about Quiana and Rochelle, they would have the word out at Amber’s Place by the end of the day. Confidentiality my ass. My group had no loyalty to the new girl. After hearing their own stories, it was clear those girls knew nothing about following the rules.
It was only a matter of time before every girl at the center would know my greatest secret. Tilly would be heartbroken. I had to find her.
When I found Tilly I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell her about the silence I had created at the end of our session. Or the dirty looks I’d gotten as a result of my confession.
“Hey, baby, how was group today?” Tilly asked, hugging me tight. She hadn’t heard yet. “These girls go through some stuff, don’t they? Many wouldn’t have a chance if it wasn’t for this place.”
Sellout Page 6