“I didn’t know,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
“I did tell someone,” Suki said. “Teena asked me, ‘Why didn’t you tell?’ I did. I told Stacy. She called me a liar and never wanted to be my friend again.”
“Tell what?” I asked. “Who’s Stacy?” I didn’t know anyone named that.
Suki shook herself, and seemed to wake up a little more. “Who’s Stacy?” I repeated.
“Oh.” Suki blinked. “Um. Friend of mine. In fifth grade.”
Didn’t ring any bells. Must have been a temporary friend, like my Junebug.
“What’d you tell her?”
Suki whispered, “About Clifton.”
“But fifth grade was before Mama left,” I said. “Before she—you know—” Blew up the motel room.
“Yeah. Maybe I’m wrong. It probably wasn’t fifth grade.” Suki sounded wrung out. Sad and scared. “But then, that’s why—I was afraid to tell anybody else. I couldn’t lose Teena.”
I did not understand what she was talking about. Teena was the one person who knew Clifton wasn’t our dad. “We haven’t lost Teena,” I said. Teena’d never stop being our friend. “I been telling you. I need to see her.”
Teena always jumped in to help us, and she always knew what to do. Once I spilled nail polish all over the beige rug at Clifton’s house. First we tried to get it out with paper towels and then nail polish remover, but neither one worked. I was panicking ’cause it was already Thursday night and Clifton was not going to be happy when he got home Friday and saw a giant hot-pink splotch permanently in the middle of the living room. Then Teena realized the rug was a rug on both sides—the underneath looked exactly like the top. We flipped the rug over, so the stain was against the floor, and put all the furniture back. Clifton never knew.
Suki flinched. “I know. But I hate that she knows everything. Sometimes people know too much. You can’t forget things when you’re around them.” She shut her eyes. “I just can’t stand it. She looks at me different now.”
I had no idea what she meant. Teena did know everything about us. Always had. That was a good thing. I lay down on my half of the pillow. “I miss her,” I whispered. Suki didn’t reply.
15
Next morning when I walked into our classroom, Nevaeh smiled at me.
“Alled!” she said. “Did you bring me any creamer?”
“Yoj!” I said. “I did not. I just couldn’t decide between the salted caramel macchiato or the almond milk Irish crème.”
She sighed. “I understand.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
Then came math and it was like old times. My head felt full of sand.
At an amusement park, a group of 57 people wants to ride the roller coaster. If each car on the roller coaster holds 8 people, how many people will be in the partially full car?
Who cares?
Ms. Davonte walked past and tapped my paper. “Get to work,” she said. Like my brain wasn’t working if it wasn’t doing math.
53, I wrote.
Ms. Davonte’s lips pursed like she’d tasted something sour. “Erase that,” she said. “Be better, Della.”
I erased it. I wrote 2.
Two of us on a roller coaster. Suki and me.
* * *
■ ■ ■
At recess Nevaeh and Luisa and me were standing under one of the big trees, talking, when Trevor came up and pinched Nevaeh’s back. Right in the middle, a big hard pinch, a whole chunk of skin. Nevaeh flinched away from him, but she didn’t even yell, much less punch him.
“Ha!” Trevor said. “Still a baby! When you going to fix that?”
Nevaeh turned away from him. She didn’t say anything. She looked like she was trying not to cry.
I took a step toward Trevor. “Hey!” I said. “Knock it off!”
He whirled around. “What’d you say?”
“I said knock it off! I saw you pinch her.”
“She’s a baby!” he said. “I bet you’re a baby too!” He stuck his tongue out at me and ran away. I looked around. None of the teachers had noticed a thing.
A gust of wind blew a handful of yellow leaves to the ground. Nevaeh’s bottom lip was quivering. “Please be quiet, Della,” she said.
Luisa said, “Don’t make such a big deal.”
“What was he even doing?” I asked. “What was that about?”
Nevaeh dropped her voice to a whisper. “He was checking to see if I’m wearing a bra.”
I said, “Why the snow would you wear a bra? You’re nine.”
“Shh!” she said. “Stop shouting!”
“I’m not,” I said, though I took it down a notch. “Why would anyone care whether you wear a bra?”
“He and his brother Daniel used to go around snapping girls’ bra straps,” Luisa explained. “Last year. Daniel was in sixth grade. Sixth-grade girls mostly wear bras. Trevor and Daniel thought it was funny to snap them. But then he tried with us—we don’t wear bras yet. So now he pinches us and calls us babies.”
“Last year you were in third grade,” I said. “Doesn’t sound funny to me.”
Nevaeh squirmed. “Trevor thinks so. He does it to lots of girls.”
“My mom says we have to ignore him,” Luisa said. She pushed her glasses farther up on her nose, and shuddered. “She says he does it for attention, and if we don’t give him any attention, maybe he’ll stop.”
“So you just let him get away with it?”
Luisa shrugged. Nevaeh said, “I tried telling our teacher last year. It made everything worse. The teacher didn’t do anything, and now Trevor picks on me more.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said. I looked around the playground for him. “What a snowman!”
“Jeez, Della,” Nevaeh said. “You can’t use words like that at school. You’re gonna get us all in trouble. Calm down, okay?”
I ignored her. I marched over to where Trevor was scuffling with a bunch of boys. I grabbed him by the shoulder. “Look, snowman, you better not mess with Nevaeh again. You better not mess with anybody.”
He said, “I’m telling Ms. Davonte you said snowman.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I ain’t scared of either one of you.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
So he did. I spent the rest of recess inside, writing “I will not use inappropriate language at school” fifty times.
* * *
■ ■ ■
When Nevaeh came in, she frowned at me and said, “I asked you not to do that.”
I said, “The way I asked you not to look at my math paper?”
Her eyes and mouth got round. “You didn’t ask—”
“Because you grabbed it before I could!”
“I was helping you!” she said.
“And I helped you with Trevor!”
Nevaeh shook her head. “You didn’t. You’ll see. You just made things worse.”
I disagreed. I’d stood up for Nevaeh the way I would have wanted someone to stand up for me.
Also, he was totally a snowman.
16
At after-school, the other girls were still cool to me. I sat with them for snacks and homework—and yeah, the math was starting to make more sense—but none of us said much, and then they all ran off to the pool and I went to the gym.
On the way home I asked Francine, “Is Suki working?”
Francine checked her watch, and nodded. “Until six.”
“Can you run me by Food City? I’ve got something I need to buy for school.”
“Sure,” she said. “But Food City’s not the best place for school supplies. How about Walmart?”
I shook my head. She shrugged. When we got to Food City, she said, “Want me to come in with you, or want to go by yourself?”
&nbs
p; It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d come with me. “I’m fine.”
“Wait.” Francine dug in her purse and pulled out her wallet. “How much do you think you’ll need?”
I waved my hand. “Suki’ll pay for it.”
“Suki hasn’t gotten a paycheck yet,” Francine said. “Plus, if it’s something you need, it’s my job to buy it. Not hers. How much?”
I shrugged. “Couple bucks.”
She gave me a five. I went in and made my choice, then had Suki check me out. “What are you up to?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Is that a present for Francine?”
“Nope.”
“Huh,” she said.
* * *
■ ■ ■
Next morning, when I walked into the classroom, I slapped what I’d bought down on Nevaeh’s desk. I said, “Southern. Butter. Pecan.”
Nevaeh eyed the jug of creamer. She eyed me. She said, deadpan, “I only like Northern butter pecan.”
We fell over laughing, both of us. Then I said, “I’m sorry I was up in your business with Trevor.”
Nevaeh said, “I’m sorry I grabbed your paper. I was only trying to help.”
I nodded. “So was I.”
Then Ms. Davonte told everyone to be quiet and take out a pencil. Nevaeh reached into her desk, grabbed two pencils, and handed one to me.
That felt really cool.
* * *
■ ■ ■
When I got in the car that evening, Francine handed me a backpack. “I saw it on sale when I was shopping on my lunch hour,” she said. “You probably ought to have one. I got you some pencils too.”
It was a pretty nice backpack. Purple, my favorite color. “It won’t make Ms. Davonte like me more,” I said.
I’d figured something out, which was that I looked better than I was. There were kids showed up at my new school in clothes so dirty, the teachers washed them in washing machines right there at the school. They had a closet full of clothes for kids to borrow while their stuff was being cleaned.
If I looked worse, I think Ms. Davonte might have been more patient with me. She was real nice to the kids who came into the classroom looking like snow. Me—it was like she thought a clean glitter hoodie and new high-tops meant I had no problems at all, and I should whip through my worksheets with a smile.
“Doesn’t mean you don’t need a backpack,” Francine said. “Put that hoodie in the wash when you get home. It’s getting funky.”
I didn’t want to wash my hoodie. It wasn’t funky.
She made me do it anyway.
* * *
■ ■ ■
Suki waltzed in from her shift at Food City, all smiles. She said it had been busy and the work was easy, and one of the managers—not Tony, some other one—told her she was doing well. She said, “I love the bing-bing-bing noise when I’m really working fast. And I’ve memorized about half the numbers for the produce. But some of that stuff, I don’t even know what it is. Y’all ever heard of a shallot?”
I shook my head.
“Baby onion,” Suki said. “Little thing. But not like a green onion, those are different. Shallots cost about a million dollars a pound, and when I asked the woman buying them what they tasted like she said ‘Onions.’ I was all, then why not just get onions? They’re, like, way cheaper.”
She was talking super fast. I waited for her to ask about my day. To wonder what I’d done with the creamer she knew I’d bought the day before. She didn’t.
“Designer food,” Francine said. “Not my style.” She stuck some plates on the table. She’d made meat loaf and actual mashed potatoes, from potatoes that she boiled and then mashed, and actual green beans too. It was sort of extraordinary. I was used to food that came out of a box.
I waited and waited. Suki never did ask about my day. After dinner, she went into her room, to do homework, she said. I watched TV with Francine. Suki never came out, and when I went into the bedroom, she was already asleep. She stayed asleep until two a.m., when she started to scream.
That made three nights in a row for her nightmares.
* * *
■ ■ ■
At Clifton’s house Suki didn’t have nightmares, even though it was scary there and never easy to sleep. When Clifton wasn’t home, when it was just Suki and me, sometimes the wind would get to blowing, and the house would creak and start to shake, and even Suki would be frightened. She’d make sure all the doors were locked, one, two, three, and then she’d go around and check them again. One, two, three. Then we’d turn the TV up real loud and keep it on all night long.
Weekend nights, when Clifton was home, were even worse. Suki’d be strung so tight, her hands would shake. I’d fall asleep eventually, with Suki’s arms around me, but she’d lie awake, staring into the darkness.
Sometimes when I woke up in the night, Suki wasn’t in our room. Sometimes I’d think it was her screaming that woke me, or her crying, muffled, from a long way away. I’d sit up in bed and yell for her, and she’d come in, saying, “I was just using the bathroom.”
Sometimes she’d be wiping tears from her face.
Sometimes she’d have a funny smell around her, one I couldn’t place.
Those nights I never could go back to sleep well. I’d lie awake, and so would Suki. Those were the bad nights, the worst ones.
At school Monday mornings it would be like my whole head was full of sand. I couldn’t learn anything, because nothing could get past the sand into my brain. I just sat, and words slipped by without me hearing one of them. Drove my teachers crazy.
But now—it was pretty easy to see Francine wasn’t likely to hurt us, and if it came down to a fight, I figured me and Suki could take her. She was tough, but not as tough as us. So I was sleeping pretty good, except for Suki’s screaming.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked her on Wednesday.
“Nothing,” she said. “Jeez.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
Thursday, the caseworker dropped off brochures: A Guide for Teens in Foster Care and Independent Youth Living Handbook. Suki didn’t even glance at them. She said, “I can’t have custody of Della if I’m still in foster care.”
“Y’all are better off staying in care,” Francine said. “Nobody’s splitting you up.”
Francine told the caseworker again that we needed mental health evaluations. She said, “Suki’s having nightmares every night.”
“I am not,” Suki said, which was such a lie, Francine didn’t even bother to contradict it. “I’m fine,” Suki said. “I’m going to school and I’m working hard at my job. I work as much as they let me. I take good care of Della.”
“It’s not your job to take care of Della anymore,” Francine said. “It’s mine.”
Suki gave her side-eye. I did too.
Francine said to Suki, “It’s also my job to take care of you.”
Suki laughed out loud.
“It is,” Francine said to the caseworker, “which is why I need to insist on this. They need to be evaluated. They need counseling.”
Suki put on a winsome smile. “We don’t,” she said. “We’re doing great.”
“They aren’t,” Francine said.
The caseworker looked from Suki to Francine and back again, like she was trying to decide who to believe. In the end she said, “Just keep me posted,” and made another note in her files.
I’d prefer to believe Suki too, if she were telling the truth. I mean, I’d rather Suki was fine. But she wasn’t.
“You’re like a pressure cooker,” Francine said, when the caseworker left, “and the water’s getting hot.”
Suki said, “What the snow’s a pressure cooker?”
“A thing my mamaw used to have,” Francine said. “For canning vegetables from her garden. It’s a pot y
ou put water in and seal tight shut before you heat it up. The water boils into steam and makes pressure.
“Thing is,” Francine said, “pressure cookers have this little valve on top. Rattles around, keeps the pressure from building up too high inside the pot. If the valve isn’t working right, pressure cookers can be dangerous. They can turn into bombs. They explode.”
Francine looked Suki in the eye. “Trying too hard to keep everything under wraps makes you liable to explode. Getting help—therapy—that’s like putting in a release valve.”
Suki said, “That’s the stupidest comparison I ever heard.”
Francine said, “Actually, it’s a pretty good one.”
I thought of myself at school, trying to work with my head full of sand. I wouldn’t mind a release valve. No, I would not.
17
The second Friday night I spent at Food City, I knew Nevaeh wasn’t going to be there. I’d asked, and she said their SNAP benefits didn’t renew for another eight days, and her mom didn’t get a paycheck for six, so they wouldn’t be doing any grocery shopping this week.
Nevaeh’d given me a book to read. It came out of the school library, but Nevaeh’s the one who handed it to me. It was about a girl like me, in a tough spot, who was planning to steal a dog so she could give it back and get reward money. I started reading it after school while listening to Francine’s neighbor’s dog yap. The neighbor’s dog lives on a chain behind our duplex and never stops barking. I steal the neighbor’s dog, I ain’t giving it back. I’m taking it far from here and leaving it.
I wouldn’t be mean. I’ll drop it off in a nice place, near a house that looks like it could use a small, useless, yapping dog.
I’m not one for dogs. Not one for books, either, come to that. But whatever, I took the book with me. Had to have something to do besides clean the deli.
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