Getting Played

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “She doesn’t seem to be listening.”

  “Caller ID?” he asks. I shake my head. “Perhaps you should speak to your grandmother or father, whoever pays the phone bills. They can have the phone number blocked or have your phone number changed.”

  I nod, but I know that won’t work in the real world. We finish up by talking about steps to be more aware of my surroundings at all times. We also talk about after-school programs that would be better use of my free time. I leave feeling great, and he promises to pick up a few Essence and Ebony magazines.

  CHAPTER 17

  Walking On the Wild Side

  “I keep falling down and in the process all hell is breaking loose. I get that sometimes keeping quiet is better than screaming your head off. But forget what I said before, I really need to scream right now.”

  —MySpace.com

  I skipped school the rest of Monday. I seriously didn’t feel like going in. Hell, I wasn’t sure I was ever going back to school again. Well, that’s not true. I knew I had to go back to my life. I just wasn’t ready to do it now. All I kept thinking was, damn, this is the second time something crazy like this happened to me. Okay, the last time I walked into it, but this time, I was minding my own business doing what I was supposed to be doing, and drama jumped up on me.

  By the time Tuesday came and I got back to school, the attempted robbery at Giorgio’s Pizza Place was old news. Everybody already knew about it, talked about it, was done with it. It was just like a hundred or so other robberies that go on in the hood. No big deal, old news. But what wasn’t old news were the rumors that the police had been to the school again asking questions. They weren’t gonna let this go. Rumor now was that this attempted robbery was very different from the other break-ins that had been going on in the neighborhood.

  So I’m sitting in my second period class trying to pay attention, and it’s just not happening. It feels like everybody is staring at me. And I know it’s not just my imagination. Then, later on, I find out why. Ursula texts me ’cause Sierra texted her. Somebody told somebody that I was involved in the robbery, and it was my “uppity crew” from my Virginia private school coming in the hood doing it. WTF. The rumor is flying around the school like wildfire. I’m sure by noon everybody knows about it.

  Okay, first of all, who the hell is in my “uppity crew” and why the hell would anybody I know bother to rob some place around here? I know that might sound wrong, but for real, if my friends were gonna rob someplace, they’d definitely make it worth their while. So it was all BS started by some idiot with nothing better to do than start some drama. And yeah, I have a damn good idea who started the shit—it was probably Cassie. It sounds just like something she’d do.

  After class I see Ursula at lunch. She walks over to me just as I am leaving the food line. “Hey,” she says.

  I turn. “Hey, what’s up? How you doing?”

  “Please, girl, you don’t even want to know. Did you hear the shit going on with all this?”

  “About my so-called ‘uppity crew’?” I ask.

  “Oh, hell, no, see that was this morning’s rumor. This afternoon’s drama is that you were all hooked up in it because you need the money to go back to your private school.”

  I laugh. “And robbing a corner pizza place was gonna get me there. Obviously whoever started the rumor doesn’t have a clue about how expensive Hazelhurst costs per semester. Believe me, I’d have to rob damn near every place around the way to even send them the first down payment,” I say, just as Sierra comes over. It is the first time I’ve seen her since she passed out in Giorgio’s office when the police came in with their guns drawn.

  “Hey, ya’ll talking about how Kenisha masterminded the whole thing ’cause she wants to take over the world?” We laugh because it is just that stupid. As scared as we all were at the time, nobody in their right mind could say anything so stupid. We know the truth and that’s what matters. “But you okay?” she asks me.

  I nod. This is weird. This is the same person who barely speaks to me. And yeah, this is the same person who was in my face about Troy at my locker just a few days ago. “Yeah, I’m okay. What about you? Are you okay?”

  She nods. “I still have headaches and nightmares.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” both Ursula and I say.

  “They said your face was all cut up and you were having plastic surgery in the hospital yesterday,” Sierra says.

  I shake my head. This place is like rumor city on crack. Every five minutes there’s something new and something just as stupid. It is ridiculous because pretty much nobody has brains enough to question if the rumors even make any sense. “No, I just didn’t feel like coming to school yesterday.”

  “I wish I’d stayed home, but my mom was driving me crazy all weekend,” Ursula says.

  “The only reason I came yesterday is I didn’t want to be in the house by myself,” Sierra admits.

  We keep talking. I drink my drink, but none of us really eats our lunch. We just push the food around on our plates until the bell rings, then we go our separate ways. It is the last class of the day. For me, it is U.S. History and Ms. Grayson. Since my locker is on the way to her class, I make a quick stop. I definitely don’t want to run into Troy and his crew today.

  I walk into the class just before the late bell rings. Ms. Grayson closes the door as soon as I walk in. “Okay, okay, people, let’s settle down. We have a lot to do, so let’s get started.” Since we have assigned seats and every seat is taken, it is easy to see no one is absent from her class. She glances around the room quickly, then walks over to her desk. The first thing Ms. Grayson usually does is do an extra credit current event thing. All we have to do is bring in a newspaper clipping about a current event so the class can talk about it. “All right, anybody want to do a current event?”

  Nobody ever does this except for right before report card grades go in or when we are having a quiz and we want to take up most of class time, so we don’t have time for the quiz. But today someone volunteers. Everybody turns around, including me. Cassie has her hand up.

  “Cassie, are you volunteering?” Ms. Grayson asks.

  “Yeah,” she says, pulling out her newspaper clipping. “My current event is the robbery at Giorgio’s Pizza Place last Saturday. I have the newspaper, and it says here that the police think it was an inside job,” she says, and then looks directly at me. Thirty-seven pairs of eyes turn to look at me, too. “So obviously somebody, I’m not saying who, did it.”

  “You just like to hear yourself talking, don’t you?” I say.

  “All right, all right,” Ms. Grayson says, while clapping her hands. She tries to regain control of her class, but nobody pays any attention to her. “All right, that’s enough, Cassie. You’re finished. And don’t even pretend to think you’re getting extra credit for that.”

  “She knows she did it or she’s covering up protecting someone who did,” Cassie says accusingly.

  “Vous est une telle chienne,” I mutter under my breath, but loud enough for her to hear me, but not knowing I’d just said she was such a bitch.

  “Kenisha,” Ms. Grayson says quickly, “this isn’t French class. Watch your language. Some of us speak French very well.”

  “What did you say about me, skank?” Cassie asks.

  “Cassie, watch your language, too,” Ms. Grayson says.

  “See, that’s why nobody likes your ass now. You think you’re so much better than everybody else here.”

  “Actually, I don’t, but obviously you have a problem. You know what? Seriously, you need to get yourself a hobby and get up off my ass.”

  Everybody starts laughing.

  “Skank,” she says.

  “Chienne,” I say, calling her a bitch in French again.

  “That’s it, both of you outside,” Ms. Grayson demands. Neither one of us moves an inch.

  “Who are your four friends, Kenisha?” she taunts.

  “I said that’s enough, Cassie,” Ms. Grayson
says louder.

  I open my mouth to respond, but then it hits me. I start laughing, and everybody looks at me. “Oh, my God, it was you, wasn’t it?”

  “It was me what?” she says, quickly wondering what I am talking about.

  “Both of you get up,” Ms. Grayson says. Neither one of us still moves. The whole class is out of control by this time. Everyone is talking and laughing and pointing fingers.

  “It was you,” I say again. Cassie just looks at me this time. Her eyes get wide as she stares. “See, nobody knew how many were there Saturday night except the people in the restaurant. You weren’t in the restaurant and you’re not a cop, so tell me, Cassie, how do you know exactly how many there were?”

  “What?” she says, as everybody looks at her now. “I just guessed, no, I saw it in the newspaper.”

  I shake my head no. “No, it wasn’t in the newspaper. That’s one of the things the police wanted us not to talk about. So, how did you know if you weren’t involved?”

  “It wasn’t me,” she screams.

  “It was you. You’re the one, or maybe you were just too high to remember, just like with Darien,” I say again, as I turn it all back on her and am liking the fact that she is getting all freaked out about it now. But actually I am just bluffing. The police didn’t tell us that, and I have no idea what was in the newspaper, since I made a point of not reading it.

  “That’s it. Enough, get up,” Ms. Grayson demands, standing directly in front of me. “Over to the door, now.”

  “No,” Cassie repeats. “It wasn’t me, it was you.”

  I get up and walk to the door, shaking my head. I am too calm and composed. “It was you, that’s why you’re trying to blame somebody else. It’s reverse psychology. That’s why you start all the rumors, so nobody looks at you to see the truth.”

  “Get up, Cassie, right now.”

  She finally gets up, and by this time, she is in near hysterics. Just as we are going outside, the classroom phone rings. “Sit down,” Ms. Grayson commands to the rest of the class who had basically gotten up to follow and see what was going to happen. “You two stay right there and shut up.”

  She goes to the front of the class and answers the phone. She looks at me, nods and agrees, then hangs up. “Kenisha, you’re wanted in the main office. Go.”

  “Probably the police to lock your ass up,” Cassie says.

  “You stand right there because you’re going to detention.”

  “For what? Reading the newspaper and telling the truth?” she yells. “That’s not right.”

  I smile and stick my tongue out childishly as I walk out. Most of the class starts laughing. Cassie starts bitching. I leave feeling pretty good. Once I get outside, it occurs to me I was summoned to the main office. I have no idea what that means. So I am walking down the empty hall and I hear my name called. “Hey, Kenisha. Kenisha.” I turn around seeing Li’l T running up behind me. “I was trying to text you. Your phone’s been off all day,” he says.

  “Yeah, I know. I leave it off mostly now,” I say.

  “Well, you need to turn it back on sometimes.”

  I don’t need a lecture from Li’l T right now. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. What was all that about?” he asks.

  I glance back at the classroom door. It is still closed. “It’s just Cassie drama. Her fifteen minutes of fame are definitely up. She needs to disappear now.”

  He starts laughing. “Yeah, I like that. She always trying to play somebody. But yo, you okay about what happened?”

  “Yeah, I will be,” I say, getting tired of people asking.

  “Man, when I saw those guys push ya’ll in the restaurant and punch Gio in the face, I damn near passed out. I swear I knew they was gonna make a move,” he says anxiously.

  I stop walking. “Wait, what do you mean, you knew they were going to make a move? Did you have something to do with what happened?”

  “Nah. Nah. How you even gonna play me with that? Nah, I saw them sitting in a car out front. So I walked by and was eyeing this one guy in the backseat ’cause he was eyeing me, too. Then this other dude jumped in my face talkin’ ’bout he’s gonna kick my ass if I don’t get out of there.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police if you knew this?” I say, looking at him all pissed off.

  “I did. They said sitting in a car wasn’t against the law. So then I just waited around across the street where they couldn’t see me. When I saw Gio walking you to the door and that one guy get out, I knew there was gonna be trouble. I ran to the gas station and called the police on the pay phone. You know it took them forever just to answer the phone and when they did they wanted all this information. I called the fire department just to get somebody down there. It still took the police forever to get there.”

  “We called from the office after they left. They said the police were already on the way. So it was you who called first.”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t help much.”

  “Did you see their faces?” I ask.

  “No, just the one guy in the backseat,” he says, and then looks at me knowingly.

  “You know who it was, don’t you?” He nods. “It was the guy with the tattoo on his neck.” He nods again. “Yeah, me, too. You gonna tell the police?” I ask. He shakes his head, no. I nod. “Me, neither. I gotta go,” I say, looking around the empty hall.

  “Yeah, me, too,” he says. “But one more thing,” he says solemnly. My stomach jumps. I swear I know exactly what he is gonna say even before he says it. “He’s out.”

  I stop walking again. He doesn’t have to say anything more than that. I know exactly who he is talking about.

  “I just saw Ursula today at lunch. She didn’t say anything,” I say.

  “She probably doesn’t know. He got out of county jail yesterday. He’s at his dad’s house in Maryland.”

  “House arrest?” I ask hopefully.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “So if it’s house arrest, he can’t leave his father’s house, right? The ankle bracelet won’t let him, right?”

  “You know there’s ways of getting around everything.”

  We get to the office. “I gotta go in,” I say.

  “See you later,” he says and keeps walking.

  As soon as I get in the main lobby area, I see that same idiot woman sitting at the desk. As usual, she is on the phone talking and laughing about something. “My name is…” I begin, but she holds her skinny finger up. I roll my eyes and wait. This is so ridiculous. She keeps talking on the phone basically ignoring me. So I walk away and head to the next desk.

  “Hey, hey, hey, get back here. You can’t go in there!”

  “As I was saying, my name is…”

  “I said, wait a minute. Just be quiet and have a seat. As soon as I’m done, I’ll get to you.”

  Just as she says that, one of the vice principals comes out of his office and walks over. The idiot behind the desk hangs up instantly. “I asked for Kenisha Lewis to come to the office. Where is she?” he asks.

  “I’ll call the class again,” the idiot says. Of course I’m sitting right here hearing and seeing all this. I let her call. A few minutes later the vice principal comes out again. This time he looks at me and walks over.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks gruffly.

  “The receptionist told me to sit down and be quiet.”

  He makes a quizzical face. “Kenisha Lewis,” he says. I nod. “Go inside.” He points to his office. I get up and start walking. He follows, but stops at the reception desk.

  The idiot receptionist is just getting off the phone again. “Ms. Grayson said she was sent here five minutes ago. Maybe she left the school.”

  “Or maybe Kenisha Lewis has been sitting right there waiting for you to send her into my office.”

  “But I didn’t know…”

  That’s all I hear as I walk into the vice principal’s office and see my father sitting in one o
f the chairs. He stands as soon as I walk in. “Baby girl, are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah, fine,” I say trying to figure out why he’s here.

  The vice principal comes in a few seconds later. My dad meets him midway in the office and shakes his hand. “Thank you.” Okay, I’m just standing there looking lost, ’cause I have no idea what’s going on. “Come on, Kenisha, you’re signed out. Let’s go.”

  Okay. Whatever. I follow my dad out of the building and to his car. This is so familiar. I so remember doing this after my fight with Regan about a month ago. As soon as we get in the car, he starts. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what happened to you?”

  “Hi, Dad,” I say drily.

  “Don’t ‘hi, Dad’ me. You’re not working at that pizza parlor anymore. So what the hell is going on?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t hand me that ‘excuse me’ bullshit. You heard me. What the hell is going on? This afternoon I get in the office and everybody is asking me how my daughter’s doing after what happened over the weekend. Then a few minutes later two detectives come into my office and tell me my daughter was in an attempted robbery at her job. Imagine that. I didn’t even know about it. Do you know how stupid I felt not knowing anything going on in my own household?” Okay, I don’t say anything ’cause duh, I already know this part. “Answer me,” he yells.

  Okay, my dad never yells at me, so this is getting crazy. “I’m sorry if what happened to me over the weekend while you were in New York messed up your day or embarrassed you at the office.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asks. I assume it is rhetorical so I don’t say anything again. “Well…” he prompts for a reply. My bad, not rhetorical. I shrug. “No, you’re not getting off that easily. What the hell happened?”

  “The detectives told you, right?” I say. He glances over and glares at me. I can see he is furious now all of a sudden. Fine, I need to expound. “I was working and the place got robbed.”

  “Since when are you working?”

  “Since I found out you don’t have any money.”