Heather never turned her phone off. I pictured her sitting at Matt’s place talking themes for his party, which made me more upset. I hoped she’d get back to me soon. When I got to Tilly’s neighborhood, I headed right for her front stoop. Rex and Khalik were there playing cards. I sat down next to Khalik. He nodded while he passed out his playing cards but didn’t speak. Rex picked up each card Khalik handed him and examined them closely.
“Man, why don’t you wait until you got them all?” Khalik asked.
“Nah, I got to make sure you ain’t trying to cheat me,” Rex said, winking at me.
“Have I ever cheated you before, old man?” Khalik asked, still flinging the cards between them. Rex scooped up each one.
“That don’t mean jack and you know it,” Rex told him.
When the cards were all in place, Khalik turned to me, looked me up and down, and shook his head.
“Damn, you look a mess. What happened to you?” he asked me.
I shook my head and looked down into my lap. They didn’t need to know what went down at Amber’s Place. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway, so what was the point? Khalik turned back to the game when he figured out that I wasn’t talking.
I watched them throw the cards down and argue back and forth for a while. Every so often one of them would steal a glance at me, but they let me just sit and watch. The more I tried not to think about the fight, the more upset I got. I had held it inside for as long as I could, but eventually a tear escaped, falling down my cheek.
“You know what I think?” Rex asked to no one in particular. No one answered him, but he kept talking anyway. “The human race is going down the toilet. We have no leadership, no sense of community anymore, and people are just afraid. They are afraid to reach out to one another. Rather than helping one another, we’re hurting one another because of what we don’t know and what we don’t understand.”
“Hmm…I hear that,” Khalik said, throwing a king onto a teetering pile of cards.
I wiped the tear from my cheek, but another fell in its place. Khalik handed me a tissue from his pocket but stayed focused on the game. He paused and looked like he wanted to say something, but he let me be. I was glad.
“Sometimes on the street, people look at me like I’m some kind of disease,” Rex continued, “like I’m not good enough to walk on the same sidewalks as they do.”
I’d never thought about how hard Rex’s life must be. He always looked content to me. His shopping cart was filled to the brim with torn blankets and plastic bags full of canned goods. A pair of sneakers was thrown over the top, almost holding everything in place to avoid an avalanche of his belongings. Living on the street must be rough, but I’d never heard him complain or even talk about it.
“It don’t seem fair, do it, Ms. NaTasha?” Rex said, finally looking up at me. I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted me to say, but I nodded my head in agreement. “But you know how I learned to deal with it? I just held my head high no matter what. And I also learned that for every jerk that passes by, there are two or three good ones that come by soon enough. You kids need to learn that.”
I kept nodding because he was right. I wondered if I could find even a handful of nice people at Amber’s Place to make up for the bad ones I’d run into so far. I thought about Shaunda.
When they finished the game, the guys leaned back with their elbows on the stairs next to me. We sat like that until the sun changed positions in the sky. The streets started to fill with more people. Soon Tilly would be back and I knew she’d have a million and five questions for me to answer. She must have been shocked to discover I wasn’t in the building with her all day.
We watched her neighbors go by, everyone headed home for dinner. A group of guys around my age joked with a taxi driver, who didn’t look pleased to have to take the group anywhere. He reluctantly unlocked the doors and drove off with them down the street. I could also see Amir. He was unloading boxes from a delivery truck. I watched him work for a while until he caught me staring. I looked away quickly but waved when I could feel he was waiting for me to look back at him again.
“Looks like you got an admirer, young lady,” Rex said, with a smile on his face.
“Whatever,” Khalik said, “that dude ain’t nobody. Look at him, he works in that funny outfit and he ain’t got no peoples to hang out with.”
“That’s what I’m talking about right there, son,” Rex said. “You don’t know nothing about that cat, but you talking bad about him. You should go meet him and then see what you think. You two might have a lot to talk about.”
“I ain’t got shit to say to that dude,” Khalik said, standing. “I’ll catch you all later. Keep your head up, Tash.”
Khalik moved quickly and was already through the door by the time I turned around to say good-bye. I wondered why he was suddenly in such a rush. Rex must have thought the same thing and shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t know why, either.
“What are you all doing out here?” Tilly asked, as she crossed the street toward us. She was carrying two grocery bags at her side. I ran to take them from her with the cut side of my face turned away, and then walked behind her. It was only a matter of time before she discovered I’d been in a fight, but later was definitely better than sooner in my case. “What happened to you, girl? I was worried.”
“I just needed a break, that’s all,” I told her, which was half of the truth. I did need a break from all that madness. Tilly didn’t need to know I was running away to hide from those terrors at Amber’s Place. “Sorry I worried you.”
“I got your note, so I knew you weren’t lying somewhere hurt, but you should have come to find me,” she said, squeezing her hips through the front door. “Evening, Rex, you want a plate?”
“No, thanks, Ms. Tilly, I’m headed to the church tonight,” he answered, moving toward his cart. “You know they got my favorite meat loaf tonight.”
“Alright then, Rex, we’ll catch you later,” Tilly said, starting to close the door behind us. We waved to Rex as he wheeled away down the sidewalk.
When we got inside Tilly’s apartment, Tilly set her purse down and went straight to the kitchen. She smiled and reached for two place settings, each decorated with a different pattern of painted apples and vines. When we sat down to eat a short while later, she didn’t waste any time.
“So, are you going to tell me about the day, or am I gonna have to hear it from someone else?” Tilly asked. “What’s the matter, girl, tell me about it.”
I put a forkful of salad in my mouth and tried not to look her in the eye.
The collection of pearls I’d picked up off the ground was burning a hole in my pocketbook. Tilly had a way of finding everything out, without asking. I knew she better hear it from me.
I swallowed hard and looked her in the eye. She wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“Tilly, I broke the bracelet,” I told her. I pulled the loose pearls out of my purse and placed them on the table between us. She finished chewing what was in her mouth before she said anything. She eyed each pearl, almost like she was counting.
“I’m sorry, Tilly,” I said.
“How did this happen, NaTasha?” she asked quietly. “You know I don’t own much and I trusted you to keep up with my jewelry.”
I felt horrible. I couldn’t look at her anymore. I thought I saw a tear forming around her eyes. If only I’d knocked first before rushing into Red’s office or just kept my mouth shut, none of this would have ever happened.
“I fell.” First I broke her jewelry and then I lied. It was a fall, after Monique knocked me down, but it was still lying. “I fell coming out of the bathroom today. The pearls got caught in the door and I went down like a bowling pin.”
I’d have to find some way of repaying Tilly for the broken pearl bracelet.
“Oh. Well, did you hurt yourself?” she asked, looking at the scraped skin on my face. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I’d never lied to Tilly ever befo
re. I leaned in and showed her my cheek, where Monique had grabbed me. She traced her fingers across my face and watched me carefully. I pulled away quickly and put more lettuce in my mouth.
“You fell, huh?” she said, taking another spoonful of the greens.
I nodded yes, but couldn’t bring myself to look at her anymore. Our eyes didn’t meet, but I could feel her gaze like I could feel a fork scraping across my teeth.
“Did anything else interesting happen?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said.
“Nothing?” she prodded. “You’re sure?”
I thought about all the bad things these girls had said to me so far. It seemed like Amber’s Place had been a part of my life forever and not just a few days.
“Tilly, why do these girls hate me so much?” I asked before I could think better of it. I really wanted to know. Quiana was so angry and I couldn’t figure out why her anger was directed toward me.
“Someone said they hated you?” she asked, sounding surprised. She put her fork down onto her plate.
“Yeah, in the gym yesterday,” I told her. “I guess I stood with the wrong group of people. But I didn’t understand what was going on.”
“It sounds to me like you stood with the right people and didn’t get yourself wrapped up in silliness,” Tilly said.
I put my fork down, too, and pushed the plate away from me a little. Tilly sighed and kept talking. Something about her tone and facial expression told me she’d had this very same conversation with someone else before.
“There’s a difference between being proud and being ignorant,” she said. “Don’t you choose ignorance, you hear me, girl? Those girls believe because you are different that you can’t still be just like them. And we know that isn’t true. People fear what they don’t know.”
When Tilly gave words of wisdom, I listened. She stood up after that, leaving some untouched food, and started clearing the dishes. Tilly had gotten most of the dishes from the table and turned on the hot water to start washing. I walked up behind her and hugged her tight.
“I tried to be nice to those girls and they don’t want anything to do with me,” I told her. “They are so different from the girls at home. I really miss my friends. I miss the way things were.”
“I know, baby, I know,” she said. I wanted to ask more and find out what she knew, but she sighed again and I could tell she was getting tired. “It’ll get better in time, you’ll see.”
I trusted her and desperately wanted to believe her, but it was hard to. We cleared and washed until every dish was returned to its proper place in Tilly’s cabinets.
“Tilly, I’m really sorry about your bracelet, but don’t worry, I’ll replace it,” I told her.
“I know you’re sorry, baby,” she said. “I’m not worried about those jewels. I’m glad you’re okay. And you know you can talk to me about what really happened whenever you’re ready.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she closed her bedroom door before any more lies could come out of my mouth.
I knew Heather would call me back after she got my message, so I wasn’t shocked when the phone rang. She was already talking when I picked up the line.
“Hello?” I asked. “Heather, who are you talking to?”
Two voices giggled back at me. There was someone else on the line, which annoyed me. I was in no mood to be toyed with, not after the day I’d had. Heather should have been able to recognize that in my voice when I had left her the message earlier.
“Tash, you have to, like, guess who it is. You’ll never believe it!” Heather said, sounding like a three-year-old on Christmas Eve waiting to open a room full of presents. “Go ahead and guess.”
If she only knew how not in the mood I was for this.
“You have three seconds, Heather, and then I’m hanging up,” I said as sternly as I could. The two of them giggled again. “I wanted to talk to you about my day.”
Heather didn’t answer at all. I could tell by her silence that I’d hurt her feelings. Well, she’d get over it.
“It’s me, NaTasha. It’s Stephanie.” Stephanie said this like I was supposed to be excited to hear her voice. “How’s the big city treating you? I decided that I’d forgive you. Actually, Heather convinced me. So we can all be friends, okay?”
What in the world was my best friend doing on the phone with my biggest enemy? I must have a tattoo on my forehead that read TORTURE ME or something because I just couldn’t win.
“Stephanie, what’s up?” I asked flatly.
Heather jumped in before Stephanie could answer. “What’s got you in, like, such a sour mood, Tash?” she asked.
“Maybe it’s the fact that I wanted to talk to my best friend about the rotten day I’ve had and she calls with the one person who hates me most in Adams Park,” I said. Yeah, it was rude and I didn’t care.
“Look, I already told you what to do about your situation at that crazy place, Tash,” she said, like she was talking to a stranger on a telemarketing call. “If you don’t like it, then come home already. No one’s forcing you to stay there. But we didn’t call to talk about that. We have some exciting news for you.”
We didn’t call? I didn’t know what had gotten into Heather, but I sure hoped she didn’t seriously think I’d be excited to hear any news from the girl we used to hate.
“What’s the news, Heather?” I asked reluctantly.
“Get this…we got the same haircuts today,” she screamed into my ear. “They’re, like, totally the same. Stephanie’s hair stylist was awesome and she gave us a great new look.”
“Wonderful,” I said, holding the phone about a foot away from my ear. This could not be happening. I’d been replaced, by a party, a new outfit, and a pair of shears.
“I know! They look great. You could get one, too, when you come back,” she said, waiting for my reaction. I didn’t have one. “How cool would that be? Then we’ll all look like sisters!”
I would look as much like those two as an elephant does a zebra.
“Well, not exactly alike, Heather,” Stephanie said, throwing her little laugh into the mix again. She was starting to sound like long fingernails dragging across a chalkboard. “I’m sure my stylist could try, but NaTasha wouldn’t look exactly like us.”
“Of course she would,” Heather said, sounding confused. “I, like, so don’t get it.”
“Why do you sound like that, Heather?” I asked her. The high shrill sound was working my nerves.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“So, how long exactly are you going to be gone, NaTasha?” Stephanie asked, interrupting again.
That was it. No more Ms. Semi-nice Guy. This conversation was over.
“Okay, it’s been great catching up, but I have more important things to worry about than cutting my hair,” I told them. “Heather, maybe I’ll talk to you later when you’re not so busy.”
“NaTasha, wait, we have another surprise…” she started.
I hung up the phone, feeling like crap, which was starting to become all too familiar a feeling these days. I flopped onto the sofa without undressing or showering. Cleaning up right then wouldn’t have made my deep state of funk go away anyway.
CHAPTER NINE
I WOKE UP feeling like something had shifted inside of me. Despite the nasty fight and the disturbing phone call from home, I felt stronger somehow. And I knew I couldn’t go home.
Rex was right. For every one jerk, there had to be at least two more nice people to balance the world out. I had met the mean ones already at Amber’s Place, so today the nice people had to make a comeback.
Quiana, Rochelle, and Monique had already done their damage. There was nothing left for them to do to me. If I ran away, they would win. I may not be able to compete physically, but they weren’t going to make me run away, too. I would plan the best recognition ceremony they had ever seen. I couldn’t disappoint Red or Tilly anymore. I had already told Red I’d help and already lied to
Tilly, so I owed them.
Tilly was silent all the way to the train station. She eyed me a few times, though, and every time I turned my face away so I wouldn’t have to talk about what happened by Red’s office. Tilly had let me avoid the subject so far, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the story was out.
When we stepped onto the train, a young guy got up and offered Tilly his seat. I stood directly in front of her, waiting for her to look up. She didn’t. Right then I knew Tilly wasn’t very happy with me.
“I wonder what’s going on at Amber’s Place today,” I said in Tilly’s direction. When Tilly didn’t respond my heart sunk. I couldn’t have Tilly not on my side. Not with so many people already against me. The other passengers looked around to see who I could be talking to. I didn’t like everyone’s eyes on me like I was some crazy person, but I was desperate for Tilly to talk to me. “We have that volleyball match today. I hope we win.”
Now I was having a full conversation with myself. The couple sitting to my left stood and found seats near the other end of the car, so I sat down. A few others eyed the empty seat next to me, but no one moved. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to sit next to a crazy girl who talked to herself, either.
“I sure hope we win or at least come close,” I said, more loudly than before. “I was thinking of wearing my famous ballet scarf bun for the big game, what do you think?”
Tilly glanced over and grinned a little bit. It worked. She always liked when I made her laugh. I reached for her hand and she took it. Her hands felt rough, but just around the edges, like she washed dishes but applied the right amount of her cocoa butter lotion.
“Let me tell you a story,” she said softly.
I leaned closer to Tilly and listened to her over the roar of the train.
“When I was your age, I walked into a similar situation as you, NaTasha. I was the new girl at school, struggling to find myself, struggling to find a place where I fit in, to be accepted for just being me. I searched for a long time, because, unlike you, I didn’t get that kind of support at home. I looked to my friends at school and some kids who shouldn’t have been my friends. Most of them were just looking to take advantage and have a little fun with the new girl.”
Sellout Page 9