Something to Say

by Lisa Moore Ramée

  When the door closes behind Malcolm, Gee turns and glares at me.

  I pretend it has nothing to do with me not being at school. With me letting down the only real friend I’ve ever had. Probably will ever have. “Watch the movie, Gee,” I grumble, and he turns back to the TV.

  At lunch my phone vibrates again.

  Come on Jenae. Don’t do this. You know how bad I want to be in debate club.

  Please.

  I could get dressed and run to school. I would make it for fifth period. I have all the information for my side of the speech. I stare at the back of Gee’s head. He would be fine. I could give the speech and come right back. My throat tightens. I imagine the auditorium. And all the people staring. Watching me. Seeing me. My tongue fills my whole mouth, choking me.

  The debate club is really for eighth graders. Aubrey can be in the dumb club all next year. And be friends with all the debate kids. Kids who are like him. Loud. And actually want to be seen. I’m sure when Aubrey imagined being at a regular school, he didn’t just want to make one friend. He probably saw himself with a whole slew of them. Instead, he got stuck with me.

  I turn off my phone. I set it on the couch.

  “I . . . I’m going upstairs, Gee,” I say. The television is so loud, I doubt Gee even heard me, or maybe he’s already dozed off. Slowly, I make my way upstairs, to my room, back into bed.

  I stare at the ceiling thinking I am probably the worst person alive.

  56

  Gone Missing

  My eyes fly open, and I sit up. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I have no clue what time it is. I left my phone downstairs.

  Downstairs.

  I should hear the TV blasting, but the house is silent. I leap out of bed and race down the stairs, but I know. I just know. There’s a special silence of an empty house.

  Gee’s not in his chair.

  “Gee,” I call out. “Gee!” I run into the kitchen. He’s not there. Since his stroke, he’s been staying in the downstairs bedroom so he doesn’t have to deal with the stairs, and I check there. “Gee?” I knock, but when he doesn’t answer, I creak open the door. Empty.

  I run upstairs. Maybe he decided to go up to his actual room. The one he and Nana June shared. “Gee!” I don’t bother knocking this time but just yank the door open. He’s not there either.

  My heart is pumping so hard, it’s filling up my ears, and I can’t hear and I can’t think. Where is he?

  I check the backyard. Nothing.

  I come back inside and stand in the kitchen for a second, trying not to panic. Maybe he left a note! But I check the pad next to his chair, and it’s as blank as it has always been. I have to call Mama. My chest squeezes tight, but I head back out to the living room, and grab my phone off the couch. I have lots of missed messages from Aubrey, but I don’t read them. It’s three forty-five. I left Gee alone for hours. I’m sweating as I start to punch in Mama’s number. I don’t want to call her. She’ll be so mad.

  Our mail hits the entryway floor with a loud thunk.

  Mail. Mail! He’s probably out delivering mail. Relief floods me, and I can breathe again.

  I run to the door so fast I almost slip on the pile of catalogs and magazines. I can see someone at the door, and my relief grows. He’s back.

  But when I open the door, ready to give Gee a piece of my mind for scaring me like that, the scolding words burn and die in my throat. It’s not Gee standing there.

  It’s Aubrey.

  57

  Not Anywhere

  My mouth opens and shuts. What can I say? It’s Wednesday, and that means me and Aubrey are officially not friends anymore and it’s too much to try and talk about. Besides, my grandfather is missing. I push past Aubrey, closing the front door behind me. When I hit the sidewalk, I look up and down the street. I don’t see Gee.

  Aubrey follows me.

  “How could you do that to me?” he shouts at me. “It was important. You didn’t even care.”

  I don’t have time for this, but I turn and face him anyway. “I did care, but I told you I couldn’t do it. You should’ve listened to me! I told you to pick a different partner.”

  His face tightens into a grimace. “I wanted to be partners with you. You’re my friend. Friends are supposed to be there for each other. I never asked you for anything except for this one thing!”

  “That’s not true! You asked for stuff all the time.”

  “Like what, Jenae?”

  “To be friends! For me to be like you!” I shout. If Aubrey knew me at all, he should’ve known he was asking for the hardest thing.

  “I have to go,” I say. I know if I tell him Gee is missing, he’ll offer to look with me. We could run down the street together, or we could split up and he would look one way while I look the other, and somehow as we were looking, we’d be fixing things and Aubrey and I could be friends again, but I don’t do it.

  Aubrey reaches forward like he’s going to grab my arm, and I step back.

  I turn and run down the street. Toward Tía Rosalie’s house. I bet that’s where Gee is. Having another cup of that delicious cocoa. I expect to hear the pounding of Aubrey’s feet chasing after me, but I don’t, and when I get to her walkway I force myself not to turn around to see if he’s still standing on the sidewalk.

  I don’t want him to be.

  I want him to be.

  I push the doorbell over and over. “Tía Rosalie!” I holler, and start pounding on her door. “Tía!” She doesn’t answer. I’m not sure how long I stand there. Just long enough for a boy with flaming-red hair to disappear. I start running again.

  As I run, I check each porch. Even the house with the dandelions as tall as me, and the screens ripped and flapping in the slight breeze. But Gee’s not anywhere. All those hours. He could’ve walked over a mile, over two. Why isn’t Malcolm back? Didn’t he say he wouldn’t be gone long? How could he have just left me? I keep looking, even while I remind myself this isn’t Malcolm’s fault. It’s all mine.

  And I know I can’t possibly wait any longer. With shaking fingers, I punch Mama’s number into my phone.

  58

  A Terrible Thing

  Mama’s voice is razor-sharp as she tells me to wait for her at home; that she’s going to report Gee missing at the police station.

  I slowly walk back to the house, rechecking the houses I’ve already checked. My legs feel like they weigh a thousand pounds, and the air presses against me like wet concrete.

  Mama is always sharing with me and Malcolm the police notifications she gets at home, alerting the neighborhood about robberies and chain snatchings and reckless drivers and at-risk missing persons. Now that person is going to be Gee.

  When I get home, I check the computer and see the police have already sent out the email alert. There’s a picture of Gee Mama must’ve had on her phone. He’s smiling but not at the camera, and his eyes look fuzzy. The email says he was last seen on our street. That he is recovering from a stroke and may appear to be confused. The alert makes me feel better and worse at the same time.

  Malcolm gets home, and at first, he’s all smiles, so I’m sure his meeting with the coach went well, but his smile evaporates when I tell him we need to drive around and look for Gee.

  He frowns at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I explain in as few words as possible what happened.

  “You were asleep?” he accuses me. The question drills into my heart. “You told me you’d watch him!”

  “I know!” I say, close to tears. “I did. I was.” How can I explain I stopped sitting with Gee because I was doing this terrible thing to Aubrey?

  Malcolm’s hands clench and unclench, and a muscle in his cheek does the same thing. “Look, it’s not your fault. You’re sick. I shouldn’t have gone. This was my responsibility.”

  His words come out like someone else gave him these words to say, and they make me feel 100 percent worse.

  The front door opens, and I get less th
an a second to hope it’s Gee before Mama storms in. She lights into Malcolm before I can stop her. Before I can explain anything.

  Mama angry is a hurricane. She grabs the front of Malcolm’s sweatshirt and shakes him.

  “Mama!” I shout. “Mama!” I don’t want her to throw that anger at me, but I can’t just stand here and let Malcolm take it. “It wasn’t his fault. I was supposed to be watching.”

  Mama narrows her eyes at me. “You’re a baby. No one with any sense is gonna leave you alone to watch your grandfather.” She turns back to Malcolm, releases him. “Boy, what were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” Malcolm says. He doesn’t tell her how it isn’t his fault but mine. “I know I messed up. Can’t we just go look for him?”

  I want to ride in the car with Malcolm but Mama makes me ride with her. We drive up and down all the streets in our neighborhood, making a wider and wider sweep. After a while, I know we must be too far. No way could Gee have walked all this way. We pass a police car, and I check their back seat to see if Gee might be sitting there, but he’s not. I want to see more police cars. I want to see an army.

  “Someone will see him,” Mama mumbles. Her eyes are anxious and flit back and forth, searching.

  “Maybe we should go back. Maybe the police have found him,” I say.

  “They would’ve called,” Mama says. She’s had me check her phone every few seconds. No calls from the police, but tons of messages from her sisters and brothers. They are all out looking too.

  We drive around for almost two hours before Mama pulls into a Perk Up! parking lot. “I need a cup of coffee,” she says. As we’re walking through the door, it must dawn on her that I’m supposed to be sick. “You probably need to get back into bed.”

  “That’s okay, Mama,” I say, not admitting to anything. “I want to be looking with you.”

  She nods and orders herself a large cappuccino and me some apple juice even though I told her I didn’t want anything. “You need something in you,” she says.

  When they call her drink order, I think she’ll take it and head right out to the car, but she sits down. “Where would he go?” she asks. I don’t think she’s really asking me. Just putting the question she’s probably had rumbling around in her head all this time out in the air. But I still try to answer.

  “I thought he might be trying to deliver mail. Like he used to. He likes doing that,” I say.

  Mama raises questioning eyebrows at me, so I explain the “game” Gee and I played delivering fake mail. Maybe I should’ve told her before now. Maybe she would’ve told me it was a bad idea.

  But she nods and her eyes soften. “Daddy sure did like carrying that bag. June-bug wanted him to move to an administrative job in the office.” Mama chuckles. June-bug is what she calls her mom. “Thought he should be a bit more respectable. But he liked being outside and all the people he met. All kinds of people.”

  I don’t like how Mama sounds. Talking about Gee like he’s not just missing but gone. “We’ll find him, Mama.”

  She nods. “You know he was feeling so good when he first got up that morning.”

  I know what morning she means without having to ask. Saturday. The last day Gee was normal.

  “We were talking about the name of your school, of all things. I think hearing those things about John Wayne the night before had him stewing some.” Her eyes are sad, and I hope she doesn’t start crying. I’ve never seen Mama cry, and I don’t think I could handle it.

  “He felt bad for holding on to the idea of the school being called John Wayne. Said he needed to set a better example for his grandchildren. Said it was important to celebrate the dream of equality. He wanted to make sure the name got changed, and he did get sort of riled up, but I never imagined . . .” Mama seems almost like she’s talking to herself, but then she snaps back into the moment and really looks at me. “He really wanted you and Malcolm both to be strong. Tough.” She smiles. “Like him. Not like me.”

  I’m totally shocked. I don’t know anyone tougher than Mama.

  She must read the disbelief on my face because she says, “Oh, you know I put on a good front. Hard as nails and can spit them out when I need to, right?” She snaps her fingers a couple of times, making the thin gold bracelets on her arm jangle.

  I nod.

  Mama rubs a knuckle between her eyebrows. “Lord knows y’all need to be strong in this world. Black kids get chewed up every day. Your grandfather knew that and made sure we all knew it too. When you were tiny, I used to carry you around everywhere. Whenever Daddy would see that, it would make him so mad. Kept telling me it didn’t help you none to keep you soft.” She takes a long sip of her coffee, then sets the cup down hard. Milky foam spouts from the sippy hole. “And after me and your dad broke up?” She shakes her head. “Whoo boy. I thought I was doing a good thing moving back home, but it sure gave him a lot of say in how I was raising my kids.”

  I lose Mama for a moment as she gets deep into her memories. A soft smile plays around her lips, but then she shakes her head hard and gets back to the moment.

  “Him loving the Duke? Was all because the characters John Wayne played were tough but good, you know? He wanted to act like he didn’t believe it, but hearing those bad things John Wayne said? That was hard.” She takes another sip of coffee. “But you know my daddy is always going to stand up for what’s right. He told me he was planning on going to the school board meeting. Wanted to show his support. But then he . . .” Her voice catches. I know what she was going to say. He was going to the meeting, until the stroke stopped him.

  I sit up straight. I know exactly where Gee is.

  “Mama,” I say, “we gotta go.”

  59

  Be Sorry for That

  On the way to the school district office, I text both Malcolm and Aubrey. Only Malcolm answers. He’ll meet us there. I keep throwing sideway glances at Mama, thinking about all the things she said.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I say, and I’m surprised how good it feels to finally say it.

  Mama, misunderstanding, says, “This isn’t your fault, Jenae. Malcolm should’ve been there, and even though Gee is still recovering from a stroke, he knows better than to go wandering off.”

  “No, not for that,” I say.

  “For what, then?” she asks, looking confused.

  “For . . . you and my dad getting divorced.” I hang my head. “It was because of me.” I tug at my bottom lip, pinching it hard between my thumb and finger.

  “Girl, what are you talking about?” Mama scoffs. “You’re the only good thing that came out of me and Kamal. That relationship was a disaster from day one.”

  “But . . .” Didn’t I make him go away? “I thought—”

  “Me and that man fought every day we were together. Having you just added a spice to the stew. And trust me, if it hadn’t been for you, we would have split a lot sooner. You kept us together for more years than was probably right.” She laughs. “If you wanna be sorry for something, be sorry for that.”

  Then she reaches over and gives my knee a squeeze.

  When we get to the district office, I’m surprised to see a huge crowd outside. You’d think there was going to be a concert or something. It’s not until we get closer, and I see how mad a bunch of the people seem, that it’s obvious this is not an excited crowd but an angry one.

  My brother’s so tall, he’s easy to spot, and he waves me and Mama over. I bite my lip hard when I see Rox just behind him. I don’t know what I’ll do if she starts yelling at me, but she just gives me a small worried smile.

  “We haven’t seen him,” Malcolm says, and my heart sinks a bit.

  “But”—he waves his hand, indicating the crowd—“we haven’t made it inside yet. Someone said they stopped letting people in because it was getting too loud. Supposed to open the doors back up when the name change comes up on the agenda.”

  “It’s a mess out here,” Rox says, and Mama does a quick look back-and-for
th between Rox and Malcolm, but she’s too worried about Gee to stop to ask questions about their relationship.

  “We need to get inside,” Mama says, and I agree, even though I don’t know how we’re going to do it.

  The crowd is getting hyped up. People are waving signs around, and a man is shouting through a bullhorn about John Wayne being an icon and about tradition. He’s dressed like he came right off a set shooting a Western, and most of the people shouting along with him are in cowboy boots and some have cowboy hats on. I guess they’re dressed like that so everyone knows they are supporting the Duke.

  There’s another group that’s just in regular clothes, and they are shouting about representing our community. They’re angry too. And they also have signs. About diversity. About respecting history. And they wave pictures of Sylvia Mendez.

  The school district office isn’t close to our house. It’s hard to imagine Gee walked all this way, but I know that’s what he did. And got here early enough to be one of the ones already inside. I just know it.

  While we’re waiting, all my aunts and uncles arrive. Mama texted them before we left the coffee shop, telling them to head to the district office, which meant she believed me. Instead of them continuing to look other places, they are all counting on me knowing where Gee is. He has to be here.

  The crowd outside starts to get shouty.

  The people standing outside of our school hadn’t seemed angry; they just seemed like they were on different sides. But they’re not like that tonight. Maybe because tonight it matters. If Tía Rosalie was right, tonight the school board is going to put the name change to a vote.

  A man in a too-skinny tie and a rumpled shirt addresses the crowd. “Okay, we’re going to open the doors,” he says. His voice trembles.

  “There’s probably not enough room for all of you. My . . . my staff is handing out comment cards. If you don’t get in, don’t worry, we’ll still read your comments.” He runs a nervous hand through his wavy hair. “Let’s all be respectful,” he says, but it almost sounds like a question instead of a command.