Vera decided right then she’d keep a close eye on them.
Wasn’t twenty minutes later, Vera was at their table for about the fiftieth time. “Freshen up that coffee, sir?”
He nodded, slid his saucer to the table edge. Vera poured his coffee, her free hand on the small of her back. She had back troubles to go with her bad feet. Breaking down, falling apart, and didn’t have much to show for all the trouble. Johnny, her oldest boy, was locked up. Shawn, the youngest, would be in a couple years, too. These are the breaks, Vera thought.
Vera asked the girl, “How are those eggs?”
The guy spoke for her. “She let ’em get cold.”
“Something heavy on your mind, I see,” Vera said to the girl. “You’ve been kind of just sitting here, staring.”
The guy again: “Teens. You know how they are. You think I can get a slice of that apple pie?”
Vera wanted to hear from the girl. She asked her, “What about you, sweetheart? Want some dessert?”
The guy said, “She’s fine.”
Vera kept her gaze on the girl, waited. Finally the girl looked up at Vera and shook her head. Vera moved from the table, cussing under her breath, having a good mind to add a little something extra to that jerk’s apple pie. Something not too nice, either. Hey, Mom, what’s for dinner? Go up your nose and pick a winner. Something like that.
Vera was back in a snap with his pie. She hadn’t done anything to it, which really bothered her, but that wouldn’t have been right, she reasoned. “Two wrongs never make a right,” as her mother used to say. Vera cleared away the plate of eggs the girl hadn’t eaten. “Can I get you folks anything else?” Everything she said was really directed at the sad girl.
The guy said, “Just the check.”
Vera didn’t want them to go.
She reached into her apron pocket anyway, took out the check slip and dropped it on the table. Offered a weak, Thanks for coming in. Hope you come back. I trust you enjoyed the food.”
The guy said, “I did.”
Nothing from the girl.
Vera moved away quickly. Passed an old black man at the counter putting a hurting on his food, some teen boys huddled in a corner booth freestyle rapping. Vera fumbled in her apron pocket for her pack of Virginia Slims. Two cigs left. She needed to kill the habit, save herself the money. How many new pairs of sneakers could she buy with the money she blew shredding her lungs?
Oh well.
She disappeared to the alley to calm her nerves with a smoke.
She set fire to it quickly, pretended she didn’t smell the trash.
When she went back in, she headed directly to the booth where the guy and young girl had been. He’d placed the money and check under a saltshaker. Left an eighteen-dollar tip on a twelve-dollar order.
Hush money?
Vera felt dirty taking it.
The wannabe rappers called for her. She moved to them. “What you need?” But her mind wasn’t really on them. She caught a glimpse of the guy who’d been with the young girl, standing outside on the curb, alone.
Vera said, “What happened to the girl?”
“She in the bathroom,” one of the rappers said.
Vera hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. All of this was really getting to her.
She said, “What?”
“That fine lil’ bitty in the bathroom,” the boy replied. “I’d try and talk to her when she comes out, but her pops don’t look like he having it. And I ain’t trying to fight off nobody’s pops just to kick it with some ho.”
I believe the children are our future, Vera thought.
She headed to the bathroom, ignored the disrespectful rapper’s call of “Hey, lady, I wanted another Coke.”
The girl was sequestered in a stall, sniffling. Vera rapped on the door softly with her knuckles. Her hands were going bad, too. Arthritis wrecking everything. Didn’t matter at the moment, though. Vera had more important matters to attend to. She rapped her knuckles on the stall a second time. A little more forcefully that go-round.
The sniffling stopped; girl didn’t answer, though.
Vera said, “May I talk with you, sweetheart?”
No answer.
“I’d like to help you. If you open up and let me talk to you, I think I can.”
Vera waited. An eternity, it felt like. “I’m not leaving. I can wait you out. I don’t think Mr. Personality out there will be happy about you keeping him waiting.” Vera felt bad about mentioning him, but that was the way to play this.
Finally the door opened. The girl huffed and puffed. “What?”
She was trying to be hard, Vera noticed, but she wasn’t really. Fragile. A bird with broken wings. Vera was determined to mend them.
Vera said, “You’ve been hurt.” It wasn’t a question.
The girl diverted her gaze.
“I’d like to help you. But you have to talk to me.”
The girl cut her eyes Vera’s way. “You can’t help me.”
Her voice was so soft it broke Vera’s heart.
Vera’s heart was more handle-with-care than the girl’s fragile voice.
Vera said, “Your stepfather?”
The girl shook her head. “My momma’s boyfriend.”
Vera nodded. “Was my stepfather did it to me.”
Something awakened in the girl’s eyes. “You?”
Vera nodded. “From the time I was twelve until just after my seventeenth birthday. Felt dirty for a long time. Blamed myself. Thought everyone else would, too. Like I couldn’t tell anyone. They wouldn’t believe me. They’d blame me for letting it go on so long. Sound familiar?”
The girl nodded. It was as if Vera knew the voices in her head.
Vera said, “None of that’s true, though. It isn’t your fault. No one will blame you. You’ve been victimized. But you have to speak up. Now.”
“Can’t.”
Vera took her hand, tears in both of their eyes. A connection was formed. “You have to. If you want to get your life back. If you want to have a chance at being the little girl that you are. You have to. Now.”
The girl sighed.
Vera said, “Like I told y’all out there, my name’s Vera. What’s your name?”
The girl said, “In my dreams I’m Sister.” She smiled. “It’s just me and Brother. Sister and Brother against the world. He’s like my guardian angel.”
Vera said, “Brother doesn’t know what you’re going through. Brother can’t help you stop it, either. Can he?”
Sister shook her head. Brother sure couldn’t help her.
Vera said, “Let me try again. What’s your name?”
Sister went ahead and told her.
Kenya
It was right there on my locker at school for everyone to see.
Someone had fashioned together the word with stickers, a different one in a different color for each letter. If it wasn’t such an ugly word, and didn’t cut me so deeply, I would have thought the design of it was pretty. A pink S, a blue N, a purple I, and on it went. I stared at it for the longest time. All kinds of noise around me, yet I felt like I was in a vacuum.
I was alone.
No one was speaking to me.
All day I’d been ignored.
Sonya Riley rolled her eyes when I spoke to her first thing that morning, Misha Taylor smirked at my “Hey, girl!” and didn’t open her mouth to speak back, and Essence Carter said something under her breath. I’m not sure what, but I know it wasn’t nice.
Haters, I told myself.
But girls had always been a problem for me. Jealous ’cause I looked good, was smart, could sing, could move so nicely and make any song come to life, and all the boys loved them some Kenya. So even though their disses stung, I paid no attention to those fake girls. They could ignore me all they wanted. I didn’t care.
But then Jamal Bryant walked by me like I was invisible, David Rivers let me know he couldn’t care less what tidbits I had to share about Lark, and Dante Mos
ley told me matter-of-factly I wasn’t “all that.” I hadn’t even asked Dante, or said anything to him; he just volunteered that hateful info.
I wasn’t all that.
Seemed like everyone was making sure I knew it, too. Which brought about a crazy thought: was this how it was with Eric? I couldn’t imagine having to endure this on a daily basis. I’d be ready to pull my hair out or hurt someone.
So I stomped to my locker with a purpose, set to retrieve my copy of Beowulf for English and determined to keep my head up, not let these haters see me sweat.
And there it was.
Oh hells no.
That hateful word spelled out with colorful stickers and plastered all over my locker for everyone to see. Somebody’s idea of a joke, I guessed. It stopped me dead in my tracks. All my determination was gone. My legs turned to water. I couldn’t keep my head up if I tried. And I didn’t. I slumped my head and my shoulders. I was on the verge of tears.
“Snitch,” came a voice from over my shoulder, reading the word on my locker.
Only one person in the school was still talking to me.
You could hear the hurt in his voice. My drama, and he’d taken ownership over it. What I went through, he went through. I was touched by that, but I couldn’t let on.
Eric turned in a circle, yelled to everyone within earshot, “Whoever did this to my sister’s locker is a savage. And a coward. Show your face, coward.”
I didn’t particularly like him putting me on blast as his sister.
I grabbed Eric’s shoulder. “It’s cool, Eric. Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“Letting these fools know—” and his voice amped up as he spoke to the hall crowd “—that you don’t play that. And I don’t, either. We’re Poseys. Anybody got a problem with that…step up.”
I pulled him close. “What’s come over you, boy? You’re causing a scene. Stop.”
He whispered, “There are some things you don’t know about me. I got peoples that have my back.” He touched his neck when he said that. I noticed the edges of a chain but couldn’t see it good because he had it tucked in his shirt. It was thick, I could tell, and looked like platinum. I couldn’t believe it. Since when did my brother rock ice?
I wanted to ask him about it but didn’t. Instead, I studied my runt of a brother and asked, “You’ve got peoples?”
He nodded.
I said, “I hope your peoples are providing you with health insurance.”
“Aflac,” he said, smiling.
He said it like the duck in the commercials. That was my brother, corny as all get-out. Still, I couldn’t help laughing. He had no idea how much I needed to laugh at that moment. It really put me at ease. I’d forever love him for that moment. Even if I never shared with him how much it meant to me. Some things you had to keep close to the vest. Letting your little corny brother know how important he was to you being one of those things.
Eric moved beside me, leaned against a neighboring locker. “Good to see you laughing, Kenya.”
I said, “To keep from crying.”
He got a distant look in his eyes. “I heard that.”
“Look, Eric.” I didn’t quite know where to begin. I reached deep down inside myself, came up with, “I’m sorry.”
He could have milked it. Asked me what I was sorry for. He didn’t. He simply nodded.
I asked, “How do you deal with this?”
“Dunno, Kenya. Just do.”
“It’s only been one day, and yet…it’s been so hard for me.”
He repositioned himself against my locker, seemed to consider something for a moment, and then said, “Regardless of how these kids treat me, I know I have value. I know I can be corny, but I’m worth something. That’s what I force myself to remember while they’re laughing at me, teasing me, beating me up. It can be hard to remember that sometimes, they can be so brutal, but…”
Our eyes were more than a little glassy.
Eric smiled, shook off any sadness, and looked at me. “Where’s Lark?”
“Lark?” I’d forgotten about my closest friend. So self-absorbed I’d become.
Eric added, “Didn’t see her yesterday or today.”
I said, “I have to call her, see what’s up.”
We let thoughts of Lark settle between us, and then I asked, “What’s being said about me?”
“Kenya, leave it alone.”
“I can handle it.”
Eric sighed and shook his head. “Everybody knows Ricky got that girl pregnant. And they know you told her mama. You’re a snitch in everyone’s eyes. You know how much everybody loves Ricky around here.”
I nodded. I’d gotten caught up in the hype, too. “Speaking of Ricky…where’s he at? I haven’t seen him around, either.”
Eric shrugged.
I said, “Did I do the right thing?”
“Everyone hates you, Kenya. Your popularity is in the toilet. You can see what you’ve lost. But Ricky was out of control. And what he did to that girl was terrible. Imagine how she must have felt, handling all that responsibility alone. You have to weigh it, Kenya. Did you do the right thing?”
Sadly, I wasn’t sure.
Getting a ride home after school was never a problem.
Usually.
But everybody suddenly had amnesia, and no ride was available to me.
Kenya who?
The popular girl.
One of the flyest chicks in the school.
Could sing like Keyshia Cole.
Dance like Ciara.
Her.
She didn’t exist any longer. No one was impressed by me. No one cared about me.
I was stuck walking home.
And I wasn’t happy about it. My walk was more of an angry march than anything else. I marched like that, lost in my own world. I’d just rounded the corner from our school when the toot of a horn startled me more than a little bit. I turned to see who was beeping at me, ready for some stuff. I’d been through more than I could handle. I was ready to spit in somebody’s face if need be. I knew that wasn’t a ladylike notion, but whatever. That was what it had come to.
When I saw who was idling in the car at the curb, I couldn’t believe it. He had some nerve. I turned without speaking and restarted my angry march home.
His car rolled slowly next to me. “My bad, Kay,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I kept walking but yelled to him, “Don’t ever call me that again.”
The car kept up its slow roll. I fought hard to outpace him. But I couldn’t.
“Get in. This is too far of a walk for a diva like you.”
I ignored him.
Damn right I was a diva.
“I’m not leaving your side, Kay. So you might as well get in.”
I wheeled on him, angry. “I said, don’t call me that.”
Just then another car approached. Sebastian Wilson was at the wheel. His boy Franklin Gibbs was in the passenger seat. Carla Joy and Desiree Walker were in the backseat. They had room for one more. Sebastian had been trying to holla at me for the longest. I was just about to ask him for a ride when they all yelled out, “Snitch!” and peeled off. Their laughter and the sound of Sebastian’s tires peeling rang in my ears. My eyes started to water, but I wouldn’t let a tear fall. This other fool was still at the curb, watching me. I would not cry, especially not in front of him.
“Get in, Kay. You’ve had a tough time.”
My voice was weak when I said, “Told you don’t call me that.”
He looked up the block, where Sebastian and his carload of haters had disappeared. “I could call you much worse. I think Kay’s pretty nice.”
I swallowed, moved to his car and got in. “Just take me home. Don’t talk. I have nothing to say to you.”
“Always the diva. But that’s okay. You’re a humbled diva, at least.” He smiled. I wanted to wipe the smile off his face with the bottom of my shoe. Instead, I shot him an angry glare. He put his hand up i
n surrender and then pulled from the curb with the music on low.
I said, “Why you giving me a ride?”
“I thought we weren’t going to talk. I’d gotten used to the idea.” That smile again.
I said, “You make me sick, Donnell.”
He laughed. “You fight it, but it’s exactly the opposite. Your mind is forever in hmm mode, wondering about some Donnell.”
I opened my mouth to cuss him out, but he put a finger to my lips. His finger was soft and warm. The profane words I had for him escaped me. My heart was doing something funny in my chest. My face flushed. He looked at me so deeply I felt naked. Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off his. Donnell had always had some pretty eyes. You could get lost in them.
What was I doing?
Donnell noticed my reaction. His laugh was easy, confident. “See what I mean? I’m a biscuit, and you’re desperately looking for some butter.”
I said, “You make me sick, Donnell.”
He laughed harder.
“You don’t want to know what he had to say about you?”
I shook my head to indicate I didn’t. Donnell had already told me enough. Ricky had been forced to move down south, closer to Monique. His last year in school was totally disrupted. Monique’s mom and Ricky’s parents were bound and determined to hold him accountable. They weren’t making him and Monique get married, but they let it be known they expected the two of them to raise their child together. Ricky’s life had changed in a blink, thanks to my mouth. All the things he’d been accustomed to were gone. Parties at Donnell’s. Too many girls to keep up with. Coming and going as he pleased. Even his car had to be sold to help with the bills a child brought. Ricky was set to be a teenage father. The load would be heavy.
I couldn’t help feeling sad for him, even though he was the one who’d made that bed.
My inner Ne-Yo surfaced eventually, though. As much as I tried to fight it, I did wonder if Ricky thought of me anymore. And Donnell was my lifeline to my old love. I said, “Okay, I give. What did he have to say about me?”
Donnell said, “Said it to me, actually, but it involved you.”
“Okay?”
“Ricky told me I was free to have you if I didn’t care that you were his throwaway.”
Dirty Jersey Page 14