Love Like Sky

by Leslie C. Youngblood

  His voice was low and heavy with sadness. I felt like an intruder for eavesdropping, but Frank wouldn’t care how his voice sounded if he caught him in the living room.

  I’d leaned forward a bit more to hear Tangie because her voice was even lower, like when Mama comes in to tell Peaches and me good night.

  “I know we’ve gotta do something. But blocking traffic? That’s what the mayor wouldn’t allow during the Ferguson protest downtown. Trying to cross that barricade got protesters arrested. My dad and I were there.”

  “Can’t barricade what they don’t know. And if some of us get thrown in jail, better for this than for no reason at all.”

  My stomach twisted when he said that. I’d heard Frank tell Mama that he and Tangie were at one of the Ferguson protests. He said it was the closest he’d been to going to jail since he was in his teens. When I saw Michael Brown’s picture on TV, I asked Mama could I go, too. But she said that I was too little. But every time she’d see his picture she’d say, “Bless his mama, Lord. Bless his mama.”

  “Count me in, Marshall. I mean, I can make posters, whatever you need me to do. I just can’t go tonight. But for the protest, I want to be there.”

  “Not happening for about two weeks or so. Thinking about gathering in the evening. How are you going to get away?”

  “I’ll come up with something. If he could just get to know you, then he’d see what you’re all about.”

  He laughed quietly. “Yeah, he’d see I’m all about you.”

  She said something soft back, and they moved away from the stairs. I heard whispering and then…smacking. Loud smacking.

  Kissing. They’re kissing.

  To get to my room, I had to go for it now. I got as low as a turtle and crept back.

  Nikki. I wanted to tell Nikki but knew better. The first time she got mad at me, she’d go tell anyone who looked her way.

  This was my first real little sister test, and I had to ace it.

  Then a light flashed in my window. I raced to check it out. If it were Mama and Frank, nothing would stop me from leaping down those steps like a super ninja to warn Tangie.

  “Whew!” I said when two taillights lit the street. I made it my business to stand in that window like a scarecrow. After a few minutes, I put my elbows on the windowsill and rested my head in my hands.

  Everything was quiet.

  Minutes later, our front door opened.

  Please don’t leave. I could be a lookout for her, but I couldn’t cover for Tangie if there was no Tangie in the house.

  Marshall was standing closer to the light this time. He was almost taller than Daddy and had on a hoodie with jeans. I squinted hard to see if his jeans were all the way up, no underwear showing. If they were sagging, Frank wouldn’t like him for sure, and neither would Mama. They didn’t mind hoodies, especially after what happened to Trayvon Martin. But Frank says, “There’s no reason on God’s green earth a boy should walk down the street with his boxers hanging out.”

  Marshall bent down and hugged Tangie, who was a little taller than I was. Spying on them wasn’t even on my mind anymore. I stretched my neck to see down the street, still keeping an eye out for Mama and Frank. If Frank caught Marshall here, he’d be so mad at him that he’d never get to know what Marshall was all about. Well, it wasn’t like I knew what he was all about, either. But anybody who wanted to stand up for people couldn’t be all bad. Plus, if Tangie thought he was worth the risk of getting grounded, so did I.

  My thoughts went back to Mama. She’d said that she and Frank were doing the “whole shebang.” But what if, for whatever reason, they only did a half shebang? They could be home early.

  When I looked at Tangie and Marshall again, he was walking down the street. I jumped back from the window and sat on my bed, listening. The door closed. Moments later, Tangie rushed up the stairs and her door slammed.

  That woke Peaches. Just my luck, she picked up where she’d left off, like she hadn’t been sleeping at all. “Let’s play Beauty Shop.”

  “Did you dream about that or something?”

  “C’mon, G-baby, it’ll be time to go to bed for real soon.” Peaches went to my dresser and snatched up my comb and brush.

  “Just for a little while.”

  I undid my two French braids and let loose what Grandma Sugar called “a gloriously wild bush of hair.” Next to my dresser Peaches pulled up a chair, and I flopped in it while she stood on a plastic crate behind me.

  As Peaches tugged the comb through my hair, I thought about Tangie. If I could get her to trust me and talk about Marshall, then I could ask her what to do about a boy, too—Kept Back Kevin Jenkins. He used to always hang around us at my old school, Sweet Apple Elementary. Nikki said it was because he liked me. I’d never say it to Nikki, but I thought he was cute. His eyes were two different shades of brown, and his eyelashes were longer than mine. And he never made a girl cry like some of the other boys.

  What if he did like me? What was I supposed to do? My brain was pounding.

  I leaned back, and Peaches scrubbed her stubby fingers on my scalp. One thing was for certain, I could think until my brain exploded, but I wasn’t gonna figure it out alone.

  I needed help from a real, experienced teenager, not Know-It-All Nikki, who was just like me and never even kissed a boy.

  “Ouch, Peaches! That hurts.”

  “Sorry.”

  Peaches pulled and twisted my hair for what seemed like hours before an idea hit me. I remembered Tangie’s loose braids and figured she’d been trying to take them out. I sprung up in the chair.

  “G-baby, water is dripping everywhere!” Peaches shouted.

  I pretended to take a towel and wrap it around my head. “I got something better we can do,” I said.

  “What?” Peaches forgot about the make-believe water.

  “Let’s ask Tangie if she needs help with her braids.”

  “Okay,” Peaches sang, hopping off the crate, then heading for the door.

  As soon as we opened our bedroom door, I heard Drake’s voice belting out of Tangie’s room like he was having a concert in there. Peaches and I stood in front of her door like we were about to see the Wizard of Oz.

  “She might be a little nicer to you, Peaches.” I eased her toward the door. “Knock and ask if we can help take out her braids.”

  “Okay,” she repeated, and gave the door three good knocks. We waited for a minute. Drake was on full blast, so she knocked again.

  “What?!” Tangie turned down the music.

  I elbowed Peaches.

  “Can you play Beauty Shop with us?”

  “That’s not what you were supposed to ask,” I whispered.

  When Tangie opened the door, I snapped to attention like Frank showed us he used to do in the marines.

  “She means, do you need any help taking out your braids?”

  “No, thank you. Val’s gonna do it.”

  I stared right at her. “I’m really good at it. I used to help my mama take her’s out all the time,” I said, hoping Peaches kept her mouth shut. I imagined helping Tangie and letting her know I saw Marshall and that her secret was safe with me. I just needed that time with her.

  “Val’s got it. Anything else?”

  When I hadn’t answered in three seconds, she shut the door.

  Peaches’s smile dropped as she walked away. “She hates us.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and eased her back to my side.

  I didn’t say anything to Peaches as we returned to my room, but all I could think was maybe Tangie does hate us.

  * * *

  Peaches checked on Girl. I’d seen her watching Girl and wondered what she was thinking. But little girls need to have private thoughts, too, so I didn’t ask, and I went to my room. Minutes later, Peaches hopped on her bed and I closed my eyes, pretending I was sleeping. I thought I’d fooled her. No sooner than I was drifting off Peaches called, “G-baby?”

  I cracked my eyes open. “W
hat is it?”

  “It’s about Girl.”

  “What about her?

  “Does…?”

  “Does what?”

  “Does Girl have to die?”

  “Someday, Peaches. Everything has to someday.”

  “Even if I take real good care of her for always?”

  “Yeah, even then. But the better you do that, the longer she’ll live.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  She fumbled with the tiny stethoscope around Nurse Barbie’s neck for a minute or two.

  “G-baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Daddy got Girl so we wouldn’t miss him so much, huh?”

  “No. He bought it ’cause Mama wouldn’t let you have a rabbit, remember?”

  Actually, Peaches was onto something, but I didn’t want her believing Girl was some sorta replacement for our daddy.

  “Do you think Daddy still loves us?”

  Now I felt really guilty for talking about Daddy to Mama.

  “You just asked me that a little while ago.”

  “No, I didn’t. I asked did you still love Daddy. That ain’t the same.”

  “Well, the answer is the same. Of course Daddy still loves us.”

  “How I know you’re not lying?”

  “What Mama say about that word?”

  “Sorry…You might been fibbin’ or telling a story. Like you were telling Tangie that Mama had braids, ’member?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Mama don’t like her hair braided because she said they pull her brains out.”

  “She don’t say that.”

  “Well, something like that.”

  “I’m trying to get Tangie to like us, so I was fibbin’ to be nice. That’s okay sometimes.”

  “Like when someone gives us a Christmas present we don’t like and we have to say we do?”

  “Yeah, that’s close. But I don’t have to fib about Daddy. We talked to him a few days ago, right?”

  “It was eight. I counted backwards.”

  I sighed. “Okay, eight. That’s not that long.”

  “Yeah. But he got a new wife.”

  “I know. We were flower girls, just like at Mama’s wedding. That means he loves us, too.”

  She took a deep breath. “What if he runs out of love? You know, give it all away to her and don’t have none left for us?”

  “That won’t happen, Peaches.”

  “How you know?”

  “’Cause love don’t run out like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like gasoline. Love ain’t like that.”

  “How is it then?” she asked, turning on her stomach to face me.

  I’d been working on that question since she asked me the first time, and I still was tuning up my answer.

  “Well?” Peaches nudged.

  “It’s like sky. If you keep driving and driving, gas will run out, right?”

  “That’s why we gotta go to the gas station.” She flung her covers back and jumped into my bed.

  “Yep. But have you ever seen the sky run out? No matter how far we go?”

  “No, when we look up, there it is.”

  “Well, that’s the kind of love Daddy and Mama have for us, Peaches—love like sky.”

  “It never ends?”

  “Never.”

  Moments later, she had fallen back asleep and was hogging most of my bed.

  That answer was good enough for Peaches, and I believed it, too, sorta. Daddy hadn’t been calling as much as he used to, but I didn’t want to worry Peaches. I figured the best thing to do was love her that much more in case Daddy’s new wife made his love run out just a little.

  The smell of Mama’s biscuits woke me the next morning. When I opened my eyes, Peaches wasn’t in bed with me or in my other bed.

  “Peaches?” I jabbed my feet into my stuffed-animal slippers. Peaches’s pandas and my koalas were supposed to be Christmas gifts from Daddy. But I bet his new wife, Millicent Parker, aka Millipede, bought them. Daddy probably didn’t have time, which was one thing he and Mama used to argue about. I hated the slippers even more, knowing that Millipede bought them. Plus, who wants a big-eyed koala staring up at you all the time? I hurried into the hall. Peaches’s door was open, as usual, but I didn’t expect to see Tangie’s like that. It wasn’t cracked open, it was wiiiide open. And she wasn’t even in there.

  I tried to shift my koalas into reverse. But they kept stepping at full-speed to Tangie’s room.

  Glancing down the hall, I didn’t see any sign of her. So I tiptoed in. A few steps, then a few more. Next thing you know, I was all the way in.

  It was childish, but I imagined music playing as balloons and confetti rained from the ceiling. It was kinda like when Charlie got that Golden Ticket. Tangie’s room was beautiful. There was a bookcase built into her wall filled with trophies. There was a poster of Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles as they twirled in midair. At the bottom of the poster were the words Gymnasts Don’t Defy Gravity…They Defeat It.

  Above Tangie’s bed were clouds of pom-poms. I wondered how long it had taken Frank to put them up, and would he ever love Peaches and me enough to do something like that?

  On the dresser were pictures of Tangie’s sister, Morgan, and their mama. From what I could piece together about Tangie’s mama, she lived in Houston. I heard Frank telling Mama that she blames herself for what happened to Tangie’s sister and spent a year not saying a word, not even to Tangie. Mama just shook her head and said, “Some hurt only God Himself can heal.”

  Along with the pictures, different flavors of lip gloss were sitting on it: Chocolate Fudge, Strawberry Gumdrop, Orange Sherbet Surprise. She had as many kinds of lip gloss as Mama had fancy perfume bottles.

  I didn’t touch the lip gloss, but I picked up the picture of Morgan—she had died in the car crash. When Frank and Tangie took Morgan flowers last month, Mama said she’d been in heaven almost five years. She looked so much like Tangie, except without freckles. I held the picture closer. I’d never seen anyone up close younger than me who was dead. My lips quivered. Morgan looked the same age as Peaches.

  “What are you doing snooping in my room?”

  I froze, like not moving would make me invisible, but not before the picture crashed to the floor.

  “Oh my God!” Tangie shouted and rushed to pick it up. “The glass…it’s cracked.” She cradled the picture in her hands.

  “I’m sorry…. I’m so…so sorry.”

  Tangie rubbed her thumb across the frame, then pressed it to her chest.

  “There’s money in my bank. I can—”

  “Are you serious? I don’t want your money!” When she glanced up at me, her eyes were teary. “Answer me! What are you doing in here?”

  “Your door was open. I came in to tell you that breakfast was ready.”

  “Don’t lie. Your mom sent me up here to tell you to come down. If you’re a snooper, just say it. I knew I was right not to trust you. You said you weren’t a tattletale, but you’re worse.” She wrinkled her brows like Mama when she was concentrating real hard or mad. “I know what you are…. I know exactly what you are…. You’re a snoop tattler. I’ll get my dad to put a lock on my door like he’s been promising since you two gremlins moved in here. Matter of fact, I bet you’ve been tattling to him about my every move. Haven’t you? What is he doing? Paying you a few dollars to keep your big, floppy ears open, Snoop Tattler?”

  “Stop calling me that. I don’t have big ears. And I’m not a snoop tattler! I’m not. And I wouldn’t burn down the hou—” My hand couldn’t get to my lips fast enough.

  “Oooh, I knew it.” I got chills as her eyes laser beamed on me and her voice lowered. “Last night. You saw him, didn’t you?”

  “Saw who?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Snoop Tattler. He told me he saw someone peeking out. Now you think you can blackmail me? Come into my room whenever you want?”

  “No, I would never do that. I wouldn
’t! I didn’t mean to see him.”

  “So it’s true.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t. I’m not a snoop tattler.” I widened my eyes, hoping that would keep the tears in.

  “What you call it then?” she asked. She was still cradling the picture of Morgan, which made me feel worse because she held on to it like Morgan was right there in her arms.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen that picture of Morgan before. I didn’t touch anything else.”

  I held up my hands like Daddy would do when he was trying to convince Mama he hadn’t eaten the last piece of cake.

  “Well, you’ve seen it. And you almost shattered it to pieces, too,” she said. Her voice cracked some. “You’ve done enough. There’s the door. And put your hands down.” Then she whispered, “And you better not breathe a word to anyone about Marshall and what we were talking about. I mean anyone. You hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” As soon as I said it, I wanted to turn to slime.

  “Ugh. What did I tell you about that? I’m not your mama. Don’t be a snoop tattler and a suck-up rolled into one.”

  How could I have been so stupid? I eased backward until I was at the edge of her doorway. Tangie sat the picture back on her dresser.

  “She looks just like you. She’s real pretty. I mean, was real pretty.” I wanted to chop my tongue off. I dug my nails into my palms, preparing myself for more of Tangie’s stinging words.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “I didn’t mean to drop the picture, and I promise—”

  The door clicked shut. I stood there with the eyes of my koalas staring up at me. They knew just like I knew: my chances of getting closer to Tangie were just like seeing someone famous at the Snellville mall: Zip. Zero. Zilch. I needed help, and quick.

  I ran to my room and dove face-first onto my bed. I was glad that Nikki hadn’t heard Tangie call me “Snoop Tattler.” Nikki would wear it out for sure.