The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

by Junauda Petrus

  “Cool, Audre. And then you wanna roll to the mall? I wanted to hit up the shoe store. We can take the bus there, which you should know how to ride too. You down for that?” She looks at me with some shyness and hope. It is cute.

  “Yes, I’m down. That would be nice,” I say and turn to her and give she the best smile I can find in my sadness.

  “Cool, I’ll text my mom and let her know where we going.”

  We gather the dishes from the porch and bring them back inside, and the kitchen still smelling like we cooking.

  VIRGO SEASON

  in the body, temple of sacredness within our flesh and bone

  the meticulousness of magic

  the healing in the flowers and herbs

  the toiling and the work

  the grains of life, the harvesting of perfection

  the healer and the need to heal

  i unlayer the layers.

  the wheat, the chaff, the stem

  the harvest brings forth the elements

  the ancestors of our work.

  fine-tuned finesse

  the clarity of our calculations

  the quality of our hearth

  wisdom moving through the pathways of the body

  the brother who pays attention to every twitch

  and movement of police and overseers

  calculating the bales of cotton until escape

  and he moonwalking like a seed underground to freedom

  she the sharecropper in the fields

  the protagonist in oppression’s fairy tale

  a deity, master of underworlds

  she sugarcane fields and unemployment lines

  she bussing yam to fufu

  she tap-dancing what the drums used to say

  toiling ’cause she understand the inherent

  perfection of her existence is healer and the ancestors are trees

  connected in roots growing towards stars

  MABEL

  “I’LL BE OUT HERE READING, baby girl, if they got any questions about your medical history or whatever . . .” He trails off. My dad and I are at the doctor’s office for my annual physical. He gets so awkward for stuff he thinks my mama should be doing. Woman stuff. But she was at a voice-over gig, so he was on deck.

  When we first got there, the office assistant was for sure flirting with him when he was giving my insurance information. Leaning over the counter, giggly and boobylicious and lip-gloss lipped and asking him about whether his wife usually brings me, which was just plain thirsty. And he still was oblivious, afraid she was gonna ask him about my period.

  “I think I got this, Dad. I’m sixteen. Some kids my age got two kids by now, I can handle this,” I tell him, and his face falls. I laugh and motion for him to sit down in the waiting room.

  Dr. Cloud has been our family doctor forever, and I love her. My mama found her clinic when she was pregnant with me. Dr. Cloud started it with other indigenous and women-of-color doctors. It’s got beautiful artwork everywhere, some by Dr. Cloud, and all of the walls are shades of pink, brown, and beige. She has long silver hair in a braid down her back and always wears intricately beaded earrings.

  “Hey, Mabel,” Dr. Cloud says as she enters the exam room. She has golden skin with freckles and the warmest brown eyes, and her smile always reminds me of getting free scratch-and-sniff stickers and fruit leather. She reminds me of an older auntie, who nosy and ain’t afraid to ask about your period and if you having sex. When I first got my period, she recommended some books for me to check out from the library about relationships, bodies, and sex, which I told my mom I ain’t want and then low-key, totally checked out from the library.

  “So how is school going for you this year?” she asks as she looks into my ear (for some reason I have always found this medical procedure soothing, even though I don’t know why they do it). I was in my socks, bra, and drawers and a hospital gown and feeling all extra naked.

  “It’s good so far. I’m a junior this year, and ready to be out,” I tell her, closing my eyes as she peered into my mind through my ear canal.

  “You grown now, hunh? Here, lean back while I listen to your lungs. Breathe in a couple of deep breaths.” She puts her cool stethoscope on my chest and back, and I breathe in her soft smell with each inhale.

  “Everything sounds fine there. You looking at colleges yet?” she asks. I tell her I want to go to a historically Black college, an all-girls’ one that’s supposed to be good, or maybe a school in California. She nods and smiles at me while she sits at her desk, taking notes on a clipboard while listening to me.

  “I can’t believe you are almost headed to college! I remember little baby Mabel coming into the world and now you are going out into the world. I’m excited for you.” She turns around to me and slides her reading glasses off her face into her hands. “So, Mabel, when was your last period? I heard you have not been feeling the best lately around it.” Apparently, my dad asked her to ask me about it. I explained that I just feel like I have less of an appetite, been having a hard time waking up and working out and been needing more sleep. She asked if it was before, during, or after my period, and I told her it is kind of all the time. She took some notes.

  “Mabel, are you currently sexually active or interested in being so soon?” she asks all calm, like she ain’t all in my business. That question always makes me want to vanish into thin air, leaving the itchy, pale gown in a pile on the examination table in front of her.

  “Mm-hmm, nope, I’m not,” I said and I wasn’t.

  “And it would be okay if you were, and I would give you the rundown, so you can be safe,” she says, pushing the issue ever so gently.

  Crickets.

  She gets the hint.

  “But that does eliminate some possibilities. I’m not sure what the change in appetite and energy could be, but I will order some blood work and do some tests,” she says, sliding her glasses back on her face and writing some more notes. “You could be anemic, which just means you have low iron. It’s not uncommon in young women. In that case, I could prescribe some vitamins for you. That should make a difference.”

  She gets ready to leave the room. “You can get dressed now and then one of the nurse assistants will grab you to do your blood work. I will send you and your parents an email with the test results. If anything seems out of the ordinary, I’ll call.” She winks at me, swinging her silver hair and body around toward me before she opens the door. “But like I said, it’s probably nothing serious. Whoops! I almost forgot!” She grabs a small basket from a cabinet by the door. “You want a sticker and fruit leather?” she asks, smiling.

  I nod and take a shimmery dolphin and concord grape fruit leather. “Thank you, Dr. Cloud.”

  “All right, sweetie, tell your mama and daddy I said hi.”

  When the door closes behind her, I start to change. I look up and notice myself in the mirror and walk closer to it. Then for a second, I just stand there and look at my face.

  Do I look like I have sex?

  I can’t tell. I know I ain’t have sex. I’ve barely kissed or made out with anybody except Terrell. I can’t ever tell who is for real about that in school, because most people talking shit either way. I look at my dark eyes and my wide nose. I wonder at myself. Am I attractive? I kind of feel like I am sometimes, and other times, I don’t know. I give myself a smile, then I stop. I don’t know if I like my smile. My two front teeth are a little crooked, like a book that’s wide-open but wants to shut a little bit, or like a butterfly mid-flutter. I lift my chin up and try to look chiseled with swag. Now, I think I kind of look like my daddy. A little bit, I see it. I wonder if he sees it. I look at my cornrowed hair and my little diamond earrings that I got my last birthday. Daddy say all the time that I’m pretty like my mom, but I can’t tell.

  �
��Are you ready? We just need some blood samples and then you’re done,” says a voice from the other side of the door. I’m startled and remember where I’m at.

  “Almost, give me one more minute. Thanks.”

  I put on my jeans and white T-shirt and gray hoodie. I put on my Chucks, tuck in the laces and head out to find the nurse’s station.

  MABEL

  “DANG, GIRL, LOOK AT THIS FLY BIKE YOU GOT! Uncle Sunny hooked you up. I’m low-key jelly,” I say to Audre when we meet up on the corner by the football field as we agreed last night over the phone. Her bike is an old-school Schwinn, dark green with a basket that holds her backpack. She beams, proud of her new wheels. We slide off our bikes and walk up the block to where all the racks are. Kids is coming from all directions, headed to our first day back.

  “We went to this bike shop he friend own and this one was perfect for me and they fix it all up and shine it up for me. And then me and my dad ride around for a while so I could get used to it.” She locks her bike next to mine, and I take an opportunity to stare a bit as she fiddles with the combination. She is wearing a light-pink T-shirt and high-waisted jeans over her curviness with a brown belt and brown loafers and of course her thick glasses. Her hair is in two cornrow braids that come together in the back of her neck. She is looking natural and fly in her own way.

  “I love riding,” she says as she stands up, and I avert my eyes. “I feel so free when I is out here zoomin’!” She does a little hoppy dance. “And I figure out how to reach here by myself too, gyal. It wasn’t that hard at all.” Her gap-tooth smile radiates her pride. I feel happy for her—that she is getting used to Minneapolis and riding around the hood.

  “Oh, I had no doubt,” I say, offering a fist for her to bump and adjusting my backpack on my shoulder.

  “I forget to ask you what classes you have. I hope we have one together,” she says, and I dig in my pocket for my schedule.

  “My first class is trigonometry, which I know I’ll probably be too sleepy for that early in the morning, so I will see if I can change that up. After that I have poetry with my boy, Mr. Trinh, then chemistry, US History, ceramics, and weightlifting. Lemme see what you got,” I ask, and she hands me her schedule. We have chemistry together after lunch, but her first class is World History with Mr. Burns.

  We walk toward the gray-and-beige boxy structure of education, South High School. The building was built in the early seventies and is rumored to have been designed to be riot proof with slim windows and labyrinth-type hallways. It is also said that the same architect designed prisons, and I believe it. In the nineties they added a third floor with windows, which made it a little better. As we walked closer to the entrance, we floated on a flood of teenage commotion. Audre gets quiet, looking around at all of the first-day cray. Students figuring out classes and where they friends at. The excitement of a new year is buzzing through me as I guide Audre ahead.

  She is a junior like me, but probably feels more like I did as a freshman. Her spirit seems like it is suddenly pulled in tight and timid amid all of the people.

  “Mabel! Hey, sis, what’s good?” asks a voice as soon we walk through the school doors. Ursa. Looking fly in all black—black button-up, black skinny jeans, black Jordans, and her pretty brown face shining in her loosely wrapped black hijab.

  “Hey, what up, what’s good? I missed you, playa! You been ghost this whole summer, is Jazzy your new bestie or something?” And we hug it out with each other.

  “Chill, fam. I was about to say the same thing to you! You looking fresh for the first day. Oh, hey, I’m Ursa,” she says to Audre. “I see you got new friends now, Mabel,” she adds.

  “It’s not even like that. Dis my homie from Trinidad, Audre. Uncle Sunny’s daughter and she moved up here this summer and I been showing her around. Audre, this is Ursa,” I say, tucking my thumbs in my pockets.

  Ursa turns and bows her head toward Audre.

  “Hey, Ursa, nice to meet you.” Audre shakes Ursa’s hand, friendly, but her attention is somewhere else—maybe on the flow of loud-ass students coming down the hallway.

  “Good morning, Audre. Your dad is cool. And Mabel coulda BEEEEEN introduced you, but she musta been busy,” says Ursa, pretending she is hurt and wiping away a fake thug tear, hand gripping her chest dramatically.

  “Awwww, Ursa, it wasn’t even like thaaat! Dang. You know how the struggle is real in the summer in Black Eden, and how my dad get so emotional over his garden.” I grab her and link our arms. “And you know that is why your booty was a ghost from by our crib: My dad woulda had you weeding and paying you in the strawberries that you picked for him,” I say.

  “I ain’t afraid of yo’ daddy, girl! Agnes Marie, you know I woulda been told massa, ‘Hell to the no,’ and that we was both phasing off the plantation.” Ursa smiles, knowing that ish was a fantastical fantasy and that her mama woulda magically materialized to whoop her ass for being rude to my dad.

  “Ha, Ursa, got jokes this early,” I say, laughing hard.

  “Just saying, I thought once you got sixteen and was working that little jobby job, that woulda been your cue to exit the garden. Your daddy’s a real gangsta for that one.” Ursa shakes her head. “Hey, Audre, you like poetry? You should come to this open mic. You may have heard I be rapping too,” says Ursa, winking, knowing I ain’t said nothing about her being a wannabe rapper, but she can’t help but exude swag.

  * * *

  • • •

  I love Ursa like she my fam, like my sister. When her family moved to an apartment on our block, we was in sixth grade. Her mama wanted to know if she could grow some things in our garden, and my parents was cool with it. Her mom is Oromo and wanted to grow special things from back home for her cooking. She would even share with my family, so we all bonded over that.

  Ursa and I were inseparable from jump, especially when we was both stuck gardening with our folks. We would work “the fields,” which is what we would call Black Eden, and would sing “We Shall Overcome” and pretend we was enslaved Africans looking for the North Star.

  I would tell Ursa, “One day, Lil’ Puma (Ursa’s slave name; she came up with it), we finna know the sweet taste of freedom, and we won’t have to deal with massa’s evil ways no mo’ or break our backs in his fields.”

  “You finna get us kilt, talking all of that freedom mess, Agnes Marie (my slave name; I did research). You know these fields got ears and eyes,” Ursa would reply, looking around cautious and all scared.

  “You think I’m afraid to die, Lil’ Puma!? I won’t have the white man’s hand around my throat one mo’ day, you scared Negro! I gotta know life!” I would say dropping my shovel dramatically.

  “Y’all can play around and make fun of y’all ancestor’s oppression all you want, but y’all gonna thank me one day,” my dad would say, side-eyeing us while focused on weeding around the herb patch and overhearing our performance. “Black folks should know how to grow our own food, even if the white man done made us associate being with the land with being slaves. Our ancestors lived with the land and grew their own medicine and food, and we trying to teach y’all how to love and be comfortable with the land. And ‘We Shall Overcome’ is from the Civil Rights movement, you know, right? I know what y’all gonna be writing your summer essays on.” My dad always managed to kill the vibe and assign me and another innocent child summer homework. He know how to drop some good ol’ Black history on a playa, whether you felt like it or not.

  Ursa and her mom and siblings gardened there until they moved to their own house a couple of years ago. Ursa got two older sisters, Ifanii and Jeeynitti, and an older brother, Birraa, who look out for her, which I was kinda jealous of, only having baby Sahir, but her sisters and brother treated me like I was they little sister too. My dad would tease me about liking Birraa, which was annoying and not true. Birraa is handsome and kind, but he was like my family. Ursa and I were basica
lly inseparable until high school when we got more busy and into different things, but we always got love for each other.

  “What’s your first class, yo?” I ask Ursa, wondering if we have the same one.

  “AP Calc, but Imma try to switch that around. They got me twisted. I’m barely awake now,” Ursa says.

  “Dang, I forgot you a math prodigy and all a that. I’m going to drop Audre to her first class and I will find you at lunch. You got second lunch, right?”

  “Fah sho, but I’m rolling out with Jazzy, ’cause as you know the food here is garbage, so we going halfsies on a sandwich. Nice to meet you, Audre.” Ursa adjusts her hijab and extends her hand to her chest. “We will look out for you here. This school can be poppin’ in its own corny-ass school way and I’ll introduce you to Jazzy, who is dope too.” And then she walks away.

  As we head down the halls, I can see Audre is wide-eyed, taking it all in: from the spectacle that was Ursa to all the folks reuniting with friends, teachers welcoming students back with new-year energy, and security guards roaming and encouraging folks to get to class on time.

  “How do you feel? Is it a lot different from Trinidad?”

  “Yes.” She doesn’t elaborate. I pull her off to the side of the hallway to get space.

  “How you feel, for real?” I ask, when we stop for a breather. She is quiet for what seem like a while, before she speaks.

  “I guess it’s just real, real overwhelming. It’s just a lot, being in America, everything is different. I can’t describe it . . . ,” she says, looking at the ground and playing with the strap of her backpack. I lean on the wall next to her as she fiddles with her stuff.

  “Well, you know I got you. Whatever you need, girl. Folks here are cool, for the most part. There might be some haters lurking, but if anyone messes with you, just let me know, okay? That shit ain’t right.” I’m feeling protective of her, which is a strange feeling. Like nobody better come for her, ’cause she new or got an accent.