by Mitzi Miller
“Yeah, well, you did leave me standing outside in the middle of the night while you were supposedly studying,” Sydney hinted as she backed away and turned toward his desk.
“What do you mean supposedly studying? What else would I’ve been doing?”
“I don’t know, Marcus, I’m just saying. You’ve never gotten so caught up in studying that you’ve forgotten me before…”
Marcus gently turned Sydney around. “Syd, I don’t know where all these weird questions are coming from but you have to believe me, I have no reason to lie about where I was.” Marcus leaned in and gave Sydney a gentle kiss on the lips to which she barely responded. The same lips you just used to kiss Dara, she thought bitterly.
“So lemme ask you this, since when have you and Dara been hanging out?”
For a brief second, Marcus Green looked like a deer caught in headlights…but only for a second. “What are you talking about?”
“Well that was her car that you just got out of, was it not?”
“We weren’t hanging out, we were studying,” he responded defensively, pushing his locs away from his face. “I been told you that Dara was in my Advanced Placement Biology class.” He walked past Sydney and started to straighten the already neat desktop.
“No, you didn’t,” Sydney insisted, refusing to back down. “And you definitely never mentioned that you’d be studying with her.”
“Sydney, you’re being ridiculous. Today is like the first time we’ve even gotten together.” Marcus sighed in annoyance. “Do you have your period? ‘Cause you’re acting really insecure and emotional. I mean not for nothing, I don’t have to tell you about every single person that I spend time with.”
“Excuse me?” Sydney asked in disbelief as she remembered the e-mail that clearly implied that they’d been together before. “Are you really telling me that this is the first time you’ve been hanging out with Dara?” Sydney looked at Marcus as if he had just grown a third eye.
“Yes. Why, who said they saw us together? I mean I don’t know what your sister may have told you about that night at the High but…”
Sydney didn’t even hear the remainder of his sentence. Granted, she kinda figured Marcus might lie about being with Dara last night to avoid getting into another argument about leaving her stranded, but now he was talking about being seen by Lauren at the High? The event at the High Museum happened over two months ago! And just what the hell had Lauren seen and not bothered to tell her about? Suddenly her sister’s ominous comment in the car started to make too much sense. As much as she couldn’t stand Lauren’s trifling ways, Sydney would definitely let Lauren know if her so-called boyfriend was playing her out. I mean they were sisters, for goodness sake! Humph, so much for blood being thicker than water…Just wait till she caught up with Lauren’s backstabbing behind!
Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Marcus again completely switched gears. “Look, babe, if you don’t want me studying with her I won’t. I don’t want you to ever question my behavior. It’s nothing…”
Sydney was quiet as she considered his words. On one hand Marcus had never given Sydney any reason to worry about him liking another girl, let alone cheating on her. What had Rhea called them? The Black Ken and Barbie…On the other hand, he had blatantly lied about how many times he and Dara had been together. If it was really “nothing,” then why lie? But then again, everyone knew that Dara was a total hoochie, just like her notorious mom, who’d tricked that poor Atlanta Falcon into getting her pregnant and now lived the high life off his generous child-support payments. Marcus was such a stickler for keeping up appearances, would he really risk it all for Dara?
Marcus walked over and softly fingered Sydney’s shirt. “You know I don’t like it when you get mad at me.”
Every rational bone in her body told her to march through the door and not look back, but her heart desperately wanted to believe his words. Breathing became physically painful as she remembered Carmen and Rhea’s stinging accusations from the other night. Was her strong-black-woman stance nothing but talk? “I just don’t like the secrets, Marcus,” she started, struggling for the words to express how she felt without seeming like she was some paranoid, insecure girlfriend.
“I would never purposely keep anything from you, Syd,” he quickly assured her with soft kisses to her lips. “It won’t happen again. Promise.”
Even though she heard Marcus’s apologetic words and saw the look of remorse on his face, something deep in Sydney’s gut told her differently. And Sydney Duke’s gut was rarely wrong.
8
LAUREN
“U-G-L-Y / You ain’t got no alibi, you ugly / Yeah, yeah, you ugly!”
Lauren tossed her ponytail extra hard in the direction of the opposing dance team’s bench and then put a little twist in her hips for good measure. Their football team was for crap on this warm Monday night—the scoreboard said they were down by fourteen points—but that was no reason to slouch on the field. Halftime was game time, and the hundred-member marching band had just tore up Luda’s “Pimpin’ All Over the World,” putting the stale-ass St. John’s All Saints Catholic High School band, with their wack traditional marching-band ditties, to absolute shame. And since all eyes were on Lauren Duke, she was making every effort to make bitches—and their boyfriends, of course—remember exactly who she was.
“Damn, girl—if you shook it any harder, it might have fallen off,” Marvin Joyce yelled out to Lauren as she passed by him. When she looked him in the face, he winked.
“And you’d be right there to pick it up, wouldn’t you, Marvin?” Lauren shot back. “Too bad I read on YRT that Pam says you wouldn’t know what to do with it, though.”
Everyone on his bleacher and several more surrounding it fell out in hysterics. “Ooh, she got you,” one guy shouted. “Pick up that lip, bruh,” said another.
Lauren smiled and bounced back to the dance-squad seats. The actual game bored her to tears, but she loved the spirit of it—how everyone dressed in the school colors and chanted alongside the squad when the girls were performing. The dance squad was God at Brookhaven Prep, even if the football team made a point of embarrassing the mess out of them by losing every other game, today’s included.
“Well, despite the loss, it’s still good to be the queen,” Lauren announced to her squad. “Don’t forget, JV is having a bake sale tomorrow to raise money for the senior squad members’ homecoming breakfast. Maria, make sure they come correct, right? I will send them steppin’ if they’re wack, bringing out some bran muffins or something.”
Dara laughed as she tossed up a high five.
“And whose mom was responsible for the snacks today? Um, carrots and dip? What, are we in pre-K? You skinny things could stand a steak or two to fill out these uniforms properly. And you all should know by now that in order for me to dance at full capacity, I need my sugar and carbs. Don’t play. Dismissed.”
“Damn, is that Ebony over there staring all up in fine-ass Cole’s face?” Dara interrupted, as she leaned into Lauren and pointed four bleachers back. Lauren squinted her eyes to take in a better view; indeed, that scabby trick was all up on her next conquest. Lauren had thought she’d made her intentions clear to him at the pregame rally, when she’d sized him up and decided he’d be the perfect accessory when she accepted her homecoming-queen crown. Clearly, he needed it spelled out. “Damn sure is.”
Just as Lauren got up from the bleachers to make her next move on Cole, her Sidekick went off. She looked to see who it was but didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?” she shouted into the mouthpiece.
“Lauren?” a deep but unsure voice questioned on the other end.
“Who’s this?” she said with even more attitude as she detoured from her original mission, rounded the corner of the big brick football field gate, and stepped closer to Sydney’s silver Saab, Dara in tow.
“It’s Jermaine,” he said, this time with much more confidence.
“Jermaine? Jermaine who?”
“Jermaine
from the West End—you know, the brother you crashed into?”
Hold up! The cute boy from the West End? How’d he get her number? Better yet, who the hell told him he could use it?
“Right, right, the service call…” Lauren said, turning to Dara to mouth a good-bye. “That still doesn’t explain how you got this number.”
“Let’s just say a brotha got skills.” He laughed. “You told me if I got the digits, I could call. So I got the digits. Don’t worry about how. And by the way, baby blue on silver is definitely working for you.”
Lauren looked down at her uniform as if she didn’t know what color it was; her heart did a flip when she realized he’d seen her. Here. This evening. But where was he?
“Look up,” he said.
“What?” she said as she fumbled for the keys.
“Look. Up.”
She did. And there he was, on the hill overlooking the parking lot. Cutie from the West End. Live and in the flesh. She took a quick look around to see if anyone was paying attention. Damn, he was fine.
“What are you doing here?” she said into the phone, unsure whether she should smile or hang up and call 911 to report him as a stalker.
“Let’s just say I like football and Brookhaven’s halftime show—or, more specifically, a certain cheerleader on the varsity squad who performed in it,” Jermaine said as he walked up to the car.
Lauren didn’t say anything. She just blushed.
“Anyway, you made it hard for a fan to concentrate, bouncing all over the field like that in that short skirt,” Jermaine continued. “And seeing as you banged up my ride and all, I think you owe me something.”
“But I’ve already arranged for you to get it fixed.” Playa found her number and her school, too. She knew it was that damn Hal. If he still worked at Paintless, she would have smacked him upside his head. Of course, she might have to track him down to thank him, depending on what the boy had to say next.
They were standing face-to-face now but still talking into their cell phones.
“I wanted to say thank you like the gentleman you demanded I be when we first met. Why don’t you let me take you out for dinner Friday night? I’ll pick you up.”
“Awfully cocky of you to drive all the way from the West End to Brookhaven Prep to hook up with the head cheerleader and expect I’ll just say yes,” Lauren snapped, closing her cellphone.
“Uh, awfully cocky of you to assume that the only reason someone from the West End would come here is to see you,” Jermaine snapped back, staring into her eyes without so much as a flinch. He snapped his CRAZR closed. “Look,” he said, taking a breath, “it may sound corny, but I think you hitting my car happened for a reason, and I can’t get you off my mind.”
Lauren giggled. She could feel her heart skipping a few beats as she considered, even if for a moment, what it would be like to be wrapped in his arms. But wasn’t no way he was coming to the Duke house—at least not while Lauren’s parents were home.
After staring into his sexy eyes for a beat, Lauren decided to let him take her out. “Sure. But I’ll meet you there,” she said, fiddling with her keys.
The rattle of the keys made Jermaine look at Sydney’s car. “Damn, your daddy didn’t waste no time getting you a new ride, huh?”
“Actually, that’s my sister’s car,” Lauren said. She quickly decided she didn’t want to get into details with him on the torture Altimus had exacted on her for getting into her last wreck. “Mine is, um, still in the shop. How about you meet me at Lenox Mall? We could grab a bite to eat and maybe check out a movie. Let’s say, eight-thirty sharp?”
He leaned in and kissed her cheek ever so softly with those juicy lips. “Don’t be late,” he whispered, and then swaggered toward his car. He tugged his hoodie over his head to stave off the early evening chill. Lauren watched him, grinning, until he disappeared into the raw Atlanta sunset.
9
SYDNEY
“Oh, my God, I almost forgot to tell you! So remember that guy I told you about? The one I met the other day while I was in the golf-pro shop looking for my dad’s birthday gift? Well he finally called me,” Carmen blurted out as soon as the end of period bell sounded. “Do you think it’s a bad sign that it took him two days?”
“Is that so…” Sydney replied simply as she stood and gathered her English Lit books from her desk. Although Sydney normally enjoyed hearing all the juicy details of her best friends’ boy escapades, she was still way too stressed out from the whole Marcus and Dara situation to serve up meaningful relationship advice at the moment. Add to the equation that she was now being forced to chauffeur around the same trifling-ass twin that essentially conspired to sabotage her relationship and Sydney felt on the verge of a straightjacket-worthy meltdown. The only thing stopping her from checking into the nearest rehab facility was the anticipation of seeing Dice again. When he called on Sunday night, they made plans for her to try to swing by after school that week if she could get out of debate-team practice.
“Sydney! Did you not hear a word I just said?” Carmen questioned a little too sharply for Sydney’s taste as she stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re not still mad about what happened after the last committee meeting? ‘Cause I mean seriously, you know Rhea didn’t mean—”
“Carmen, please. I am not even thinking about Rhea’s over-the-top theatrics.”
“So then, what’s wrong with you? You didn’t return any of my calls all weekend, yesterday you weren’t in school, and you’ve been like, absolutely mute all day today,” Carmen insisted, obviously unwilling to budge until Sydney came clean about her funny attitude.
Sighing, Sydney readjusted her new gold-mirrored Louis Vuitton doctor’s bag on her forearm while making a mental note not to forget to follow up with her guidance counselor about scheduling an advanced SAT tutorial into her schedule for next semester. “Girl, it was just like, the longest weekend ever. I needed a day to get my life together. Lauren crashed her car AGAIN.”
“Again! What is this, her third accident this week?”
“Seems like it, right? But wait, that’s just the beginning. Apparently Einstein tried to cover up the accident by replacing her car with an identical loaner while it was being repaired in the shop. Except Altimus totally found out—like he always does.
“Shut. Up. I know he was so pissed…” Carmen’s eyes widened like saucers.
“Can I just tell you? Altimus is worse than freaking CSI; nothing gets past that man. He hit the roof when we got home from choir practice. Lauren was hemmed up in his study for at least two hours straight. I swear, she was Kunta Kinte and he was the slave master. Which, honestly, didn’t bother me at all until the part where he decided to revoke Lauren’s car privileges for the next month.”
“A month? What is she going to do without a car for a month?”
“According to Altimus, learn how to share.”
“Huh? I’m confused.”
“It just occurred to my stepfather that the reason Lauren continues to crash her car is because she’s been spoiled into believing that the world revolves around her. So to teach her a lesson, she will have to share a car with the rest of us in the house. Since Lauren no longer has her own car and neither of my parents are even about to let her come within fifty feet of theirs, I have to share my car with Lauren. Which is why I took a mental health day yesterday.”
“And with Homecoming around the corner, too? Whew, your stepfather was too thorough with Lauren.” Carmen shook her head in disbelief.
“So basically, it’s about to be all about ‘Driving Ms. Lauren’ unless I want her behind the wheel of my car.”
“Humph, no wonder you’re having a moment,” Carmen mused as the two finally joined the procession of students headed toward the cafeteria. “And your mom didn’t say anything in your defense?”
“Oh, please, if you think my mom is about to get into an argument with Altimus over my car situation, you’re very mistaken. Now then, if she was the one who had to drive
Lauren around, it might be a different story.”
Before Carmen could further sympathize, Rhea rushed over from the opposite end of the hall. “My God, Mr. Hicks is a total maniac,” she complained animatedly, oblivious to Sydney and Carmen’s somber demeanors. “I just took my fifth pop quiz since the school year started what, two months ago? Jesus H. Christ!”
“Really? I guess that means we’ll be getting one from him after lunch, huh?” Carmen questioned.
“Pretty much,” Rhea replied as the three girls stopped at Rhea’s locker just shy of the entrance to the cafeteria. All three put their textbooks inside and quickly straightened out their respective outfits in her locker mirror. Finally noticing Sydney’s silence, Rhea turned to face her. “What’s wrong with you?
“Nothing worth talking about,” Sydney answered. “The regular Lauren dramatics ruining my life.”
“Okay…” Rhea hesitated.
“You know, Syd, I meant to tell you earlier how cute your skirt is today. BCBG?” Carmen immediately attempted to steer the conversation in a more neutral direction.
“Actually it’s Theory, but thanks. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago at Nordstrom. I was worried that it made my thighs look a little big, but it was marked down almost half off so I couldn’t pass it up. What do you guys think?” Sydney turned slightly so her friends could scrutinize the knee-length brown A-line skirt with pink-ribbon detail that complemented her cream top.
“Absolutely not. You look adorable,” Carmen assured.
“You’re so good,” Rhea confirmed as she slammed the locker door and twisted the purple-faced Master Lock one last time for good measure.
Sydney allowed a small smile to cross her face. Her friends always knew the right things to say to make her feel better. If only Carmen or Rhea had been born her sister, there was no way either of the two would’ve cosigned on some skanky loser trying to come on to Marcus. Sydney struggled to keep her mouth shut about the cryptic messages from Dara on Marcus’s computer. As much as she trusted her girls, there was no way Sydney was about to let on to anyone that her boyfriend might be cheating on her. Like Dice always asserted, if you don’t want it to be, don’t even speak it into being. “You guys ready? I’m totally starving to death.”