by Ni-Ni Simone
I did as she asked.
She walked around her desk, leaned against the front of it, and looked directly at me. “What did you eat?”
I huffed. Pursed my lips. “Could you just get to the point?”
“Yvette . . .”
“Look, no disrespect, but I’m not no baby and I don’t have no sweet tooth, so whatever I had for lunch wasn’t sugarcoated. Please don’t try and feed it to me now. I’m just sayin’, say what you gotta say, so I can be on my way.”
“On your way where?”
“Outta here. If you think I’m ’bout to sit here in the ninth grade again, with some li’l freshmen lookin’ at me like I belong in the thirteenth grade, you dead wrong. Not. Gon’. Happen. I will figure it out. School ain’t for e’ry-body, ’cause it ain’t never been for me.”
Mrs. Brown placed the tests, face down, on the desk where I sat, and said, “There are your tests; look them over.”
I ain’t wanna look nothin’ over. I just wanted to get up outta there so the walls could stop closin’ in on me. I ain’t touch the tests.
“Look them over,” she demanded.
I sucked my teeth and did as she asked. Red ink was marked up all over both tests. I rolled my eyes. Whatever. I looked up at her. “Okay. I looked them over. It ain’t no more, or no less, than I expected. I failed. Okay, next.”
“You have to stop using failure as a crutch.”
Dear God. No. Not today. “Mrs. Brown, don’t go there. Like for real, I thought I would fail and I did. That’s not using failure as a crutch. That’s keepin’ it real. And I’m not about to sit here and be lost in the dream clouds wit’ you. I’m sixteen, still in the ninth grade. When I’ma graduate? When I’m twenty? What, me and my daughter gon’ be in school together? I ain’t ’bout to sit here and play myself like that. Nah.”
“Yvette, so many things have happened to you that you never expect to win. Winning is a state of mind. If you want to win, then you have to start with believing that no matter where you come from, the world is up for the taking and it can be yours.”
She trippin, again. “Mrs. Brown, listen . . .”
“I don’t want to listen. That’s the problem; you’re doing all the talking and you’re not allowing anybody to offer you something different. You expected to fail, but guess what? You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Fail.”
Just breathe. She don’t mean no harm. And obviously she thinks this reverse psych is about to work. “I didn’t fail, why? Because I took a chance and took the test. Because I’m now armed with everything I need to work on. Because I can be anything I want to be?” I said mockingly, whining. “Never mind that my mama’s missin’, my daddy’s a blank line, and the only family I got is my baby. Never mind any of that ’cause I can be anything I wanna be, all ’cause people with college degrees, who have never lived my life, keep sayin’ it to me?”
“You didn’t fail because you’re here. There are a million places you could’ve been, but you’re here.”
“It ain’t that deep, Mrs. Brown. I don’t have a choice. I’m just tryin’ not to go back to jail and tryna keep my daughter outta foster care.”
She shook her head. “So is that the answer to what you think of Yvette? A jailbird, with nothing and no one?”
Silence.
She continued. “Here’s what I think of Yvette. I think you need to get out of the past and move forward because no amount of attitude, being pissed off, or feeling sorry for yourself will ever make your family the Brady Bunch. Yeah, your mother’s somewhere out there. And your father, too. But at this point, what is Yvette going to do for Yvette? You can either make it happen for you and your daughter or you can stay stuck in your parents’ junk.”
I wasn’t about to stand here and argue with this lady. The bell rang. “Okay. Now, can I leave?”
She looked up at the clock that hung above the door. It was the end of the school day. “Yeah, you can leave,” she said, handing me a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Your junior class schedule.”
“Junior? I don’t get it.”
“You’re not a freshman. You’re a junior.”
“I passed the test?” I asked, shocked.
“With flying colors. Out of a hundred and fifty questions, you got five wrong. Had you actually taken the time to read the tests over, instead of thinking you failed, then you would’ve seen the Congratulations, you passed! written at the top of the paper.”
I tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. “Mrs. Brown, I just didn’t expect . . . you know.”
She nodded, like she understood what I was tryin’ to say. “I know. It’s ai’ight. I got you.”
I laughed and she did too.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank me by being in class every day, not hanging out in the hallway, and coming back to see me every Friday.”
16
Express Yourself
“Look, Yvette. Listen. For real; no bullshit. Not today,” I said to myself as I pressed my palms onto the bathroom’s pink marbled vanity and leaned into the medicine cabinet’s mirror. I locked eyes with my reflection and continued. “You cannot. Pop off. Today. Today, you gotta check yo’self.”
I turned away from the mirror; then I remembered somethin’. “One more thing: You gotta go to all your classes. You gotta stay in all of yo’ classes ’til the end.”
I’ma try.
I shook my head. “No. You gotta do it.”
I don’t know how long I can do that.
“At least for a year.”
You know how long a year is?
“Nothin’, compared to being locked up.”
But . . . a year stuck in space, wit’ new people, new things, and new rules is a lot.
“Well, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, ’cause it gotta be done. Period. And if you can’t do it for yourself,”
Then do it for Kamari.
“Yeah. Do it for Kamari.”
I turned away from the mirror and headed out of the bathroom, determined to get today right. I walked back into my bedroom, where I’d left Kamari playin’ on the bed, and said, “Come on, Kamari; let’s get you dressed before I go to . . . school . . .” I paused. My eyes scanned the bed. No Kamari.
The kitchen. Suckin’ down bacon grease.
Heading for the kitchen, I placed my hand on my doorknob. That’s when I spotted Kamari on the floor, beside my dresser, gaspin’ for air. Her round brown face was sunken and pale purple; the whites of her eyes were dull and wet with tears.
“What’s wrong?!” I rushed over and snatched her off the floor. “What’s wrong?!” I felt Kamari’s heart thunderin’ out of her chest, while mine cracked into jagged pieces.
She clutched my right arm, sinkin’ her tiny nails into my skin, strugglin’ to breathe. She was chokin’ . . . on somethin’ . . . but what? Her mouth hung open but nothin’ was comin’ out.
Panicked, I picked up Kamari and ran out of my room. “Ms. Glooooo! Please! Help me! Help my baby!”
Ms. Glo, standin’ in front of the stove, looked up.
Tasha at the table, jumped up and knocked over one of the kitchen chairs to rush towards me.
Ms. Glo reached me first and ripped Kamari out of my grip, shoved her arms around Kamari’s tiny belly, made a fist, and pushed into it.
Nothin’.
“Dammit, Kamari! Please! Breathe! Please!” I screamed. “I was only gone for a minute. A minute! Come on!”
Ms. Glo squeezed again.
Nothin’.
My baby was dead. I could see it. I could feel it. And it was my fault for leavin’ her.
Dear God, please!
Please . . .
“Come on, baby!” Ms. Glo said, tears fallin’ from her eyes.
My strength took flight and my legs became Jell-O. If somethin’ happened to my baby, then that was it for me, too.
Wouldn’t be
nothin’ to live for.
To fight for.
To see somethin’ different for.
Seconds crept like hours.
“Ms. Glo, pleeeeeease,” I begged as she squeezed until a penny flew from Kamari’s small mouth and sailed across the room.
My baby swallowed a much-needed gulp of air, then burst into tears as she wrestled from Ms. Glo’s grip and into my arms.
I fought with e’rything in me to hold back the tears that hammered against the backs of my eyes. But e’ry part of me wanted to collapse. E’rything I’d ever been through, ever seen . . . or didn’t see . . . or no longer could see . . . crashed down on me in the middle of the yellow linoleum floor, while I held my baby and rocked back and forth.
Ms. Glo bent down on her knees, faced me and Kamari, and wrapped her arms around us, linkin’ her fingers behind my back.
She rocked with me, placin’ her cheek against mine. “Yvette, you don’t have to be tough all the time. It’s okay to be scared.”
Tears pounded, and I gave my all to swallow the stingin’ lump in my throat, but it wouldn’t go down. Instead it burned its way outta my eyes and sailed a shriekin’ wail outta my mouth.
“Just let it go,” Ms. Glo said, holdin’ me tighter. “Let it go.”
Through my tears, I heard myself babblin’ and I kept tellin’ myself to shut up, that I sounded crazy, but I couldn’t stop talkin’. “I just feel so lost. I don’t have anything, but my baby. And to think she almost died because of me.”
Ms. Glo continued to rock with me. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. That could’ve happened to anybody. And she didn’t die. She’s fine.”
“I only left her for a second to go to the bathroom. If somethin’ had happened to my baby, that woulda been it for me. She’s all I have.” I felt my tears soak through Ms. Glo’s blouse.
I continued. “I’m just so . . . so tired. Tired of wonderin’ why I’m here with nothin’ and nobody. Tired of makin’ the wrong turns while tryna find the right way. It’s like e’ry breath I take got a noose in its way.”
Ms. Glo didn’t say anything; she just rocked with me.
I carried on. “And I’m tired of people tellin’ me to stop bein’ mad and to stop havin’ an attitude, appreciate what I have. But what do I have but days, months, and years of the same shit? Nobody ever sees how hard it is to be me. And, yeah, I’m always mad and I got an attitude, but wouldn’t you have one too? Now I’m here in a new place, a new space, new people, and e’rybody is lookin’ at me like, ‘you got a new chance. This is a new place; you can start again.’ ”
“You can start again,” Ms. Glo said softly in a comforting whisper.
“But, Ms. Glo,” I said, “do you know how many startin’ agains I’ve had? E’ry time my mother left and came back, we was startin’ again. I’m tired. I’m just tired. And I want out. I want out of feelin’ like I gotta fight e’ry day. I just want a day where the only thing I gotta worry about is the gum I’m smackin’ on.”
Ms. Glo cupped my face. “Listen to me; you are only sixteen. Only sixteen. And you have to allow someone to get into your heart, into your space. Trust somebody to love you. To take care of you. That’s what I’m here for. But you gotta let me in.”
“I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start by dropping the defense and simply be Yvette. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just simply be Yvette and everything else will fall into place.”
17
Three Feet High and Rising . . .
I wasn’t sure if I could do this.
Ten minutes into homeroom and I felt like bailin’.
There was no peace in here.
No quiet.
No courtyard.
No park benches.
No loosies.
No forties.
No Kamari.
No old heads passin’ by to kick it.
Just twenty-plus high school juniors crammed into this one classroom, loud as hell. They only stopped talkin’ long enough to say Present or Here when Mr. Harris, the teacher, did roll call.
Tasha, Reesie, Ebony, and me took up the middle row. I sat off to the far left, on the edge of my seat, my back pressed against the bulletin board. Tasha and her crew was pissed off ’cause they ain’t get any tickets to the sold-out Dough E. Fresh concert.
The last row of the classroom was filled with dudes bangin’ out rap beats on their desks with their pencils. Some of ’em was spittin’ in a mini rap battle while a group of chicks was off to the side, dyin’ to get noticed.
The front row was filled with kids sittin’ at I-don’t-want-my-mama-to-beat-my-ass-attention.
Meanwhile, I was just here, tryna shake my thoughts of where I really wanted to be.
“Umm, excuse me.” Someone tapped my shoulder.
I turned around to the dude I’d nicknamed Whack-Skee, based on how corny he looked yesterday outside the school. Overalls must’ve been his uniform, ’cause he had on another pair, except today’s was acid-wash green. That’s when I noticed him sittin’ next to Brooklyn.
My heart skipped two beats as Whack-Skee stuffed a note into my hand. “Yo, give this to Tasha for me.” Quickly, I turned around, faced the front of the room and passed the note to Tasha.
“What’s this?” she whispered.
I shrugged. “I don’ know,” I whispered back. “Ole boy in the back of the class asked me to give it to you.”
Tasha swung around in her seat and looked at Whack-Skee. “Eww.” She swung back around, tore open the note and said, “Look at this.”
Yo Shawtie, I’m tryna see what’s up with you. I like you. So circle yes or no if you like me too.
Tasha studied the note. “Chile, cheese. Boo, please. Next.” She snapped her fingers. Then she circled, checked, and drew a cloud with her yellow highlighter over the word No. And at the bottom of the note she wrote, Hell, no. Never. She folded it back up and said to me, “Pass this back to him.”
I shook my head. “Girl, you really want me to give this to him?”
“Yes. I can’t stand that boy and he knows it. If he was on fire, I wouldn’t even spit on him to put it out.”
“Okay, then,” I said, and handed the note back to Whack-Skee.
He opened it. “Damn, homie!” erupted from the back row. E’rybody in the class turned around. Whack-Skee snatched the note back from Brooklyn.
“What is going on back there?” Mr. Harris asked, looking over his round, rimless glasses, peerin’ at the back of the room.
“Nothing, Mr. Harris,” Brooklyn said. “Sorry about that. I was just trying to get the notes for my next class.” He topped off his lie with a smile. Then he looked at me and I quickly looked away.
Butterflies erupted. Damn, he’s fine. I shook my head, hopin’ he couldn’t read my mind.
Mr. Harris tossed on his no-bullshit voice. “Everyone take out something to read. The bell will ring in the next few minutes and I don’t want any more outbursts.” He looked at one of the students in the front row. “Kaareema, I need you to come up here and see me, please.”
Kaareema walked up to Mr. Harris and e’rybody returned to the exact same thing they were doin’ at the top of the class.
“Umm, excuse me,” came from behind me, again, accompanied by an annoying tap. I turned around and shot Whack-Skee a look. “What?!”
“Can you hand this to Tasha?”
I grabbed the note. “Here, Tasha. It’s from your boyfriend.”
“Don’t play me.” Tasha opened the note, blinked and ran her right palm over the paper to smooth out the wrinkles. Then she read it again. “Here.” She handed it to me, bored. “Look at this.”
It read: If you give me a chance at romance, then you’ll see that we are meant to be. So would you like to be my date to the Dough E. Fresh concert? My cousin is a party promoter and he can get us in.
My eyes popped open wide.
“Does that say what I think it says?” she asked
, takin’ the note from my hand again. “Did he ask me to be his date to the Dough E. Fresh concert?”
“Yep. That’s what it says.”
“Lies,” she said.
“You don’t believe him?”
“Hell, no. Li’l Herman ain’t got no juice like that.”
Li’l Herman?
My mouth dropped open.
Tasha pushed up my chin. “I know, gross. Now back to the matter at hand. What should I write back? ‘Die Slow?’”
“No. You gotta write more than that.” I snatched the note from her, picked up my pen, and wrote, The only way I’ma go is if you get my girls in. If you can’t get the four of us in, then no, die slow. We smirked and shot each other a high five.
The bell rang and e’rybody popped out of their seats like toast, bumrushin’ toward the door. Whack-Skee lolly-gagged in the back of the room, his desperate gaze dug into Tasha, as we walked toward him. She handed him the note and as we walked out and into the hallway, Brooklyn looked directly at me and said, “So you just gon’ keep bein’ rude? What? You can’t speak?”
Screech. Stop the press. Wait a minute. Pause. “What?” I looked at Tasha. “I don’t know who he’s talkin’ to.”
“You.” She popped her lips. “Yup. You would be homegirl of the hour. Now keep it cute.”
I was too tongue-tied to keep it cute and my unexpected brain freeze wouldn’t let me think of anything quick to say.
So instead, I looked back at Tasha. “Like I said, I don’t know who he’s talkin’ to.” And I walked away, leavin’ e’ry-body standin’ there, while I prayed—all the way to my locker—that the jumpin’ butterflies in my stomach didn’t force the jelly in my knees to give way.
By the time I made it to my locker, my heart was in full panic mode and the butterflies in my stomach fluttered like crazy.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Breathe.
Okay . . . okay . . . I got it.
It’s all good.
“Yo’, you got a minute?” fell over my shoulder.
Oh, hell no!
I froze.
Brooklyn.
Again.
Oh. My. God.
Breathe.
Breathe.
I slammed my locker shut and whipped around, in full screw-face, hoping my eyes didn’t soften as they swept over him. His smooth brown frame was dressed in a cream and hunter green leather Guess jacket; a light green tee shirt, with the Guess logo in the center of it. His deep blue Levi jeans hung slightly off his waist, givin’ sneak peaks of the white boxers he wore beneath his pants.