Almost as soon as I ask myself the question, the beginning of an idea starts to squirm around in my brain. An awful idea. A really bad, horrible idea that just might work.
25
A Bad Idea
The busy part of the neighborhood falls behind me as I turn off to the quiet streets, and I start wondering about the people who live in the houses and what makes some people not care about weeds getting so tall they’re as high as my waist, while other people keep their yards so tidy, it looks like they might get outside with a vacuum cleaner and mop and duster. I wonder about all that mainly so I don’t have to think about getting out of the speech. But the idea is like a weed. Growing fast and pokey with barbs.
Mama will be really mad if she finds out, but since she tries to avoid talking to my dad as much as possible, she probably never would. Still, the idea makes my neck sweat and my breath come out hard and too fast.
Normally, it bothers me that my dad barely ever comes around. He says it’s because he travels so much, but it feels like he just doesn’t want to see me. For my plan to work, though, it’s a good thing that I can count on him not coming over.
But if Mama finds out my dad did me a favor without her knowing about it—especially this favor—they will get into one huge monster of an argument. And it will be all my fault.
So I better make double, triple sure I don’t get caught.
Since it’s Friday, Mama comes home early and I act extra sweet to her, because I’m feeling guilty. I ask her lots of times what I can do to help get things ready for the fish fry.
Most Friday nights, Mama’s family comes over for fried fish. Nana June started it, so it’s always been right here. She liked having all her kids (and their kids) over. But even though she lives in Florida now, we keep having the fish fries here. Makes sense. It’s the biggest house in the family, with enough room for everyone to fit. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas here too.
For someone who doesn’t cook that often, Mama sure can cook up some catfish and shrimp. Sometimes she makes a pot of greens too, but usually she’ll just do the fish, and Uncle AJ brings huge bags of french fries, and Auntie Maug makes a salad (or makes me do it), and there’s always garlic bread dripping with butter.
I think it makes Gee happy to look around the table and see all the people who wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for him and Nana June getting married a million years ago. Used to be my cousins would come over too, but they’re all older than Malcolm and me, so most Fridays they usually are off doing things with their friends. I don’t get how anyone would choose to miss out on a fish fry.
“You want me to set the table, Mama? Or make some iced tea?”
“Jenae, stop bothering me. You’re like a hummingbird tonight, zipping around my head!”
“I’m just trying to help.” I pout.
“June, stop fussing at the girl!” Gee hollers, and rubs a knuckle between his eyebrows. “Making this headache worse with that noise.”
“You have a headache?” Mama demands. “Try working all day and then having to do everything. And for the record, my name is Mona.”
Gee just stares at her for a second, then shakes his head. “I know your name, girl! This darn headache is just muddling things. And watch your tone.”
Mama looks like she’s about to argue, but then she just says, “I’m going upstairs to get comfortable before I start frying up the catfish. Jenae, get out the plates and napkins, and, Daddy, take some aspirin.”
“Okay, Mama!” I say, happy to have a job. For the holidays, we get out the fancy dishes, but for fish fries, it’s a stack of paper plates and a ton of napkins. “You want me to get you something for your headache, Gee?” I ask, before heading into the kitchen.
“Naw, I’m just going to settle in my chair. Watch my program before the house fills up.” Gee sits down and turns on the television, putting on a Western, of course, but then he closes his eyes instead of watching.
I go into the kitchen to start getting things ready for Mama. As I set out the plates and napkins and get out stuff Mama will need, like the oil and flour, I catch myself thinking about Aubrey.
As much as I love our Friday dinners, I wish it wasn’t Friday yet. I won’t see Aubrey until Monday. That’s two days stretched between us with me not being able to say anything about lunch today and how I’ll be back by the container Monday. What if during those two empty days, he realizes he’s better off hanging with someone else at lunch? Like whoever he partnered up with in English?
My elbow hits the bag of flour, and it falls on the floor with a big thump. Flour explodes into the air.
It is literally snowing in the kitchen. Mama is going to kill me.
The unsettled flour makes my eyes sting and water, but I can’t just stand there crying over spilled flour.
I get a big pot from the cabinet and slide the busted bag of flour into it. Okay.
And then I start sweeping. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I sweep, though—the flour is still everywhere. Even wet paper towels don’t do that great a job.
If Aubrey were here, I bet he’d have an idea of how to clean all this up.
That is a silly thing to think, and I get annoyed with myself. Why would Aubrey be here?
I get the vacuum cleaner out of the small hall closet right when Mama comes back down the stairs.
“What in God’s green acres did you do to yourself?” she asks.
Gee’s eyes pop open at her question and he takes one look at me, says, “Lord,” and closes his eyes again.
Mama pushes past me to the kitchen, and when she sees the disaster I made, she whips around so fast, I’m surprised she doesn’t fall.
“Jenae!” She grabs the vacuum out of my hands and goes back into the kitchen. It all happens so fast, I don’t have a second to explain. And then I look at my arms. See the fine white presifted flour, sticking to each hair.
Great. And, of course, that’s right when the front door opens and my aunts and uncles start piling in.
The thing about living in Gee’s house is, all of Mama’s siblings have a key, since they used to live here. And it’s not like we can complain. It’s as much their house as it is ours. But talk about something making Mama mad. When Auntie Jackie brought over a bunch of dresses and just shoved them into the closet in a spare room Mama was using for extra storage, and smooshed waves of wrinkles into Mama’s clothes, Mama just about lost it.
I dissolve into the wall and let the shadows melt over me. At least it’s easy to be invisible with Mama’s family. Their loudness covers me like a blanket. Everyone is too busy talking over everyone else to worry about me.
Then the doorbell rings, and no one goes to answer it, and it rings again, so I push myself out of the shadows and go open the door.
“Aubrey?” Even though that bright red hair is blinding me, I can’t quite believe he’s standing there. “What . . . are you doing here?”
“Better question,” he says. “What happened to you?”
26
What Happened Was
“I didn’t have time to make my lunch. I had to buy. I was in the cafeteria.” The words bubble out of me like a shaken-up soda.
He stares at me for a second before saying, “I mean, what happened to you? You’re covered in . . .” He leans close and peers at my arm. “Flour?”
I step outside and close the door behind me. I go over to the water hose and rinse the flour off my arms and splash water on my face, then rub it off with my shirt. “Better?” I ask.
Aubrey shrugs. “I don’t know, I kinda liked the ghost look.” His smile eats up his entire face, and that makes me smile too.
“I dropped a bag of flour, and it exploded,” I say. I wish that’s what I had said when I first opened my mouth. “It got all over the kitchen.”
“And you.”
“And me.”
We stand there, quiet, a road going one way, and a road going another, and neither of us seeming to know where to put our feet, or even
if we remember how to walk.
“So, the cafeteria?” he asks.
I give him three fast nods. “I should’ve— I didn’t want you to—” I dust flour from my T-shirt. “What are you doing here?”
Aubrey looks up at the clouds for a minute. “When you didn’t show up for lunch, I wondered if maybe I was a little too . . . um, in your space?” He glances at me quick and then back up at the clouds. He shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and rocks back on his heels.
“My mom tells me I can be sort of intense?” He gives me another quick glance.
Maybe I’m supposed to disagree with him.
“The thing is . . . back in Chicago, I . . . I didn’t . . . It’s not . . .” He pauses and pulls a hand out of his pocket and starts doing the hair-twist thing he does.
I don’t know what he’s trying to say, and he looks so uncertain, I’m not sure if he knows either. “It’s not, what?” I ask.
He grins self-consciously. “It’s just that . . . I guess I can overdo it sometimes. I just wanted to come over and let you know it was okay if you wanted me to leave you alone at lunch.” He says that last bit in a big rush, and his hair twisting goes into overdrive. He doesn’t look at me but stares at his yellow Vans instead.
“No, that’s okay,” I say, talking as fast as Aubrey. “I mean, it’s a free country. You can sit wherever you want.” I think I made him feel bad, and that makes me feel bad, but I don’t want to go all overboard and seem like a big weirdo or anything.
Aubrey stops twisting, looks up at me, and takes a step back. He seems to be waiting for something. “Oh, okay, then.” He starts to turn away.
“Wait!” I shout at him, making him jump. “You don’t have to leave.” I pinch hard right between my thumb and index finger, forcing myself to stay there. Not letting myself disappear. “And you’re not that intense.”
Something crashes inside, and I groan. I bet one of my goofball uncles broke something. “You want to come in?”
I’ve never seen a smile that big.
“Let me just text my mom so she doesn’t freak out,” he says.
27
Just Old
Inside, I tell Aubrey I’ll be back in a second and then I run upstairs to get out of my messed-up clothes. Flour drifts behind me like fog.
When I get to my room, I finally have a chance to look in a mirror. Flour is all in my hair. I look like I got cast in the role of Grandma in a play. The thought makes me giggle and reminds me of an Astrid Dane episode where she tried her best to look older. She wore makeup and heels and looked ridiculous.
I do the best job I can to get all the flour off me, moving as fast as I can, not wanting Aubrey to have to deal with my family by himself.
A lot of laughter and yelling is going on—which is how it usually sounds on a Friday night—but my aunties and uncles might be too much for Aubrey. If he thought he could be a little intense.
I race back downstairs, expecting everyone to be surrounding Aubrey in a tight circle, tossing questions at him one after another like hot darts, but they’re not. They’re all too busy settling into their standard fussing routines. Mama says it just goes with the territory that with so many of them, she and her siblings are going to be at each other all the time, but sometimes it seems like they don’t agree on anything.
I don’t even see Aubrey. Maybe he left. The idea makes me feel hollow.
Malcolm is sitting next to Uncle AJ, deep in conversation, and I hear Uncle AJ tell Malcolm about sticking with physical therapy. Uncle AJ should know, because he played football in college and got banged up a bunch. He had to do a lot of PT, according to Mama. He’s tried to talk to Malcolm before, but usually Malcolm avoids him. Now Malcolm’s listening and nodding, and a tiny sliver of hope squeezes down my spine. I ask Malcolm if he knows where Aubrey is, and he points toward the French doors in the dining room that lead outside.
I go over and stare out, finding Aubrey easily. He would lose every time in hide-and-go-seek with that hair. He’s sitting next to Gee, and whatever Aubrey is saying, it is making Gee crack up. I watch them for a minute, not jealous exactly, but wondering what it might feel like to be that easy with people. Then I open up the door and go outside.
“Hey, Gee,” I call, and he beckons me.
“Come on over here, Nae-nae,” he says. “Can you believe this boy has the good common sense to like chitlins?”
Gee and I argue about chitterlings. I’m not even going to tell you what part of a pig’s body they come from. That’s how gross it is. I wrinkle up my nose. “That’s ’cause he likes everything. It doesn’t count.”
Aubrey smiles at me, like he’s glad I know this fact about him.
Gee chuckles, and Aubrey says, “No, but they’re good. Seriously.”
“Your offal opinion can’t be trusted,” I joke, and Gee and Aubrey both bust up laughing.
Aubrey leans back in the chair and says, “It sure is nice out here. We lived in the city in an apartment. No trees to climb.” He looks at the huge avocado tree longingly, probably imagining himself climbing way up.
Our backyard is full of all sorts of fruit trees. Cherry, fig, peach, apricot, orange, and avocado.
“Gee planted all of these. Even the avocado. He said it was tiny when he planted it, right, Gee?”
Gee doesn’t answer, and when I look over at him, it doesn’t seem like he’s even listening.
“Hey, Gee, you want us to pick some apples for you? I bet you’d like some apple pie.”
He doesn’t answer again, so I holler, “Hey, Gee!” at him. His head turns my way, and for a second I think his face looks strange. His eyes seem too small, and his cheeks are sunken in. He looks like he’s aged fifty years. But then he blinks a bunch of times and he goes back to being Gee.
“Come on, y’all, let’s pick some of these apples,” he says, but his voice doesn’t sound right, like it’s snagging on something. “Maybe someone will make me a pie.” He gets up and rubs his leg and then gives it a few whacks. “Darn leg,” he says. Then he shakes his head. “Let me get the ladder.” He heads behind the garage, and it seems to me that he’s walking a little wobbly.
“Is he okay?” Aubrey asks, and I don’t know why, but it makes me mad.
“Yes,” I say. “He’s fine!” I start picking the apples I can reach.
“Okay,” Aubrey says, and joins me, but most of them are growing too high, so we have to wait for Gee to come back with the ladder, but he doesn’t.
“He’s probably sneaking a smoke,” I say, but after another few minutes, when Gee still doesn’t come back, I shrug at Aubrey and go looking for him, with Aubrey trailing me. We find Gee behind the garage, rubbing his leg again.
“Gee!” I call out. “Aren’t you going to bring us the ladder?”
He gives his leg a shake. “Leg didn’t want to cooperate.” He pauses and takes a few deep breaths. “Just . . . went . . . goofy on me.” He is smiling, but he doesn’t sound very jokey, and his voice sounds slow, as if he has to take too many breaths.
The ladder is resting on the ground behind him, so Aubrey and I run over and pick it up together. It’s not very heavy, but it is long, and it’s nice to have a helper to carry it. Gee leans against the garage wall.
“You okay, Gee?” I ask before Aubrey and I turn the corner of the garage.
Gee runs a hand over his face and gives his leg another shake. Then he grins at me. “Sure enough. Just old.” And he sounds like himself again, so I stop worrying.
He follows me and Aubrey back to the apple tree.
Aubrey uses the ladder to climb right up. I climb after him, and we swing and climb through the tree like he’s Spider-Man and I’m Astrid Dane.
28
Leave the Name Alone
When we finally head back inside for dinner, we have a whole bucket filled with apples and are covered in dirt and scratches.
Mama picks a leaf out of my hair and frowns. “Go wash up,” she says, and gives me one of those look
s that means I need to use one of my freshening wipes to get the stink and sweat off me.
Upstairs, the smell of the food makes me wash up extra fast. Garlic and lemon and cayenne pepper. The fishy smell of catfish and the almost-metal smell of shrimp. Even the flour has a smell once it hits the sizzling-hot oil. It’s like clean, moist earth.
“Check the bread!” someone shouts. There’s been enough times when the bread got forgotten in the broiler and came out as smoky black bricks. I hustle downstairs, but Auntie Jackie is already pulling the perfectly toasted bread out of the oven.
When all the food is ready, we cram around the dining room table and Uncle Deon says a quick funny prayer about loaves and fishes, and then we all dig in. My favorite thing is to take a piece of garlic bread, pile about four or five shrimp on top of it, and fold it in half for a garlicky shrimp sandwich. Talk about good eating.
Aubrey piles his plate high with everything, and it’s not until we both have our mouths full of food that it occurs to anyone that me having a guest over for Friday fish fry is something unusual.
“Y’all go to school together?”
“How come we’ve never met you before?”
“Your mama lets you dye your hair like that?”
“How long you been knowin’ Jenae?”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Where are your people from?”
The questions come like a sudden hailstorm, and I can’t even keep up with who’s asking what. I half expect Aubrey to start ducking. But he just answers them one by one. “Yes, we have two classes together. I just moved here. Yes, she lets me. I met Jenae on the first day of school. Aubrey. I’m from Chicago, and I guess my people are from there too.” He glances over at me, and I think he’s asking me if he did okay, so I give him a little nod.
“Nice to meet a friend of Jenae’s,” Auntie Maug says, sounding a little sad.
But after that, Mama’s family is too interested in who said what to whom, and who went to the doctor recently, and whose ex-wife called and whose kids are messing up, to bother with Aubrey anymore.
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