by Coe Booth
“No. I just wanna lay down for a little while.” I look up at him real quick. “And, you know, sleep.”
“Okay,” he says again, looking at me, worried. “I’m gonna call you later, make sure my little girl’s alright.”
I force myself to smile a little bit. “Okay.” He gives me another hug, and he don’t let me get outta it so fast this time. In his arms, I smell the strong Lever soap he been using forever, and I feel so guilty and stupid and embarrassed, I can’t help but start crying. I been holding the tears in for more than an hour, and I can’t stop them now.
“Whoa, what’s the matter, Babe?”
“Don’t call me that,” I say, holding on to him tighter. “I’m not a baby anymore.”
Kenny breaks away from me and looks me in the eye, and when I try to look away, he puts both hands on the sides of my face and makes me look at him. “What’s wrong, Babe? And don’t say ‘nothing,’ ’cause I know it’s something.”
I stand there crying and crying, not saying anything, and luckily Ms. Lucas from Building D comes up to the truck and asks for a pack of Newport, so Kenny has to let go of me. “Don’t move,” he tells me, then grabs a pack of cigarettes from one of the shelves. I stand there for a few seconds, listening while he talks to Ms. Lucas and makes change for her, but I know I can’t talk to him about anything. I can’t do it.
So with Kenny’s back turned, I slip outta the back door real quiet. I hate doing it to him, but I have to. I really need to be alone right now.
TWENTY
“Babe, you awake?” Nana opens the door to my bedroom without knocking, as usual. “Here. Kenny’s on the phone.”
She comes inside over to the bed and hands me the cordless. I put the phone to my ear, say hi, and wait for Nana to leave, but she just stands there.
“How you feeling?” Kenny asks me. “You better?”
“A little,” I say, sitting up. I look over at the alarm clock on my night table, and it’s almost seven. “I guess I just needed some sleep, that’s all,” I tell him.
When I left Kenny’s truck, I came upstairs and took a long hot bath, crying practically the whole time, then went straight to bed. I think I just wanted to be out cold so I could forget about everything. At least for a little while.
“’Cause the way you cut out on me today—”
“I’m sorry, Kenny. I was just feeling sick to my stomach and I wanted to get home.”
“You sure that’s it? ’Cause the way you was crying, I thought maybe something happened. ’Cause you know if somebody tried something with you, all you gotta do is tell me and I’ll take care of him. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I glance up at Nana, but this time she’s looking at the sketches I have on my desk, the one I did for Theater Design and the houses and the floor plans I do just for myself. “I’m okay. Oh, yeah, did you call the school to tell them I got home?”
“Yeah, they know. But me and you, we still gonna talk, you hear me?”
I tell him okay and try not to give anything away because Nana’s looking at me again, outta the corner of her eye.
“Hold on, Babe,” Kenny says. “My pinhead sister wanna talk to you.” I hear him call Adonna and, while I wait, I cover the mouthpiece and ask Nana if she wants anything.
“I want to know why they called Kenny when you were sick and not me.”
“He’s my father,” I say.
Nana sucks her teeth. “No school ever called him before. Now all of a sudden—”
“They wanted me to call someone who was gonna be home, so they could make sure I got home okay.”
“How’d they get his number?”
“I gave it to them.”
“Well, I’m going to be calling that school tomorrow and let them people know who to call next time they need to get ahold of somebody.”
“Kendra, what happened to you?” Adonna asks me when she gets on the phone. “I was waiting for you in front of the school. Then that girl Tracy with the stretch marks on her neck, she said she saw you in the nurse’s office, and you left early. You still got that headache?”
“Yeah.” It feels weird keeping things from Adonna, but I’m not really lying, not about being sick. “And then my stomach started hurting, too.”
“Man, you probably got the flu or something.”
“No, I think I’m better now.” For some reason, Nana finally walks outta my room. Don’t know if she heard enough or if I’m just boring her or something. “What are you doing?” I ask Adonna.
“Chem homework. Wait ’til next year when you have to deal with this shit.” She lowers her voice a little and says, “Guess who tried to step to me today?” She don’t wait for me to guess. “Nashawn Webb.”
I stop breathing.
“He walked up to me outside Mr. Pollack’s class, and it was so funny ’cause you could tell he had to work up the nerve to talk to me, and he goes, ‘Hey, Adonna. Lookin’ good like you always do.’ And I was like, what happened to him that he’s finally saying something to me like we’re friends all of a sudden?”
“Did he say, um, anything else?”
“No, not really. We talked for a couple minutes, though. He was asking me why I never come to any of the baseball games, that kinda thing. Nothing serious. I kept thinking he was gonna ask me out ’cause he looked like he was trying to, but he didn’t.”
“Oh,” I say.
“That’s all you got to say, ‘oh’?” Adonna asks, and I can hear how excited she is, that he finally talked to her after all this time.
But I can’t even talk anymore. “No, I just…never mind.”
“But you should have seen the way he looked at me, Kendra.” Adonna giggles like a little girl. “Like you could tell what he had on his mind ’cause he couldn’t hide it.”
I need to get off the phone. Right now. “You know what, Adonna? I gotta go. My stomach’s starting to hurt again.” And it is. For real. I hit the OFF button on the phone before even saying good-bye, get outta bed, and run down the hall. But I don’t make it all the way to the bathroom. The next thing I know, I’m bending over and throwing up on the carpet. And all over my bare feet. I really am sick now.
TWENTY-ONE
The only reason I wake up is because they’re talking about me.
“And can’t nobody tell me she ain’t into them boys already,” I hear Nana say. She’s in the kitchen, talking all loud. For some reason my heart starts beating faster. Maybe she does know about me and Nashawn. “You should see her,” she says, “walking out here in the morning wearing all kinds of tight jeans and skirts, buying thongs, thongs, and acting like that girl upstairs. And reading them little ghetto romance novels and hiding them like I don’t know everything she does.”
That’s when I hear Renée laugh.
“Girl,” Nana goes on, “I just hope she’s not getting no ideas from those books, ’cause I done told that girl I’m going to have her checked if I even suspect anything.”
“Are you still threatening her with that?” Renée laughs again. “You tried that with me and you see how well it worked, right?”
I lay there, waiting for Renée to say more, to defend me. To tell Nana that just because I read those books, don’t mean I’m a ho. Because I’m not. I don’t think I am. I wait for Renée to tell her that I’m just like any other normal fourteen-year-old girl. But she don’t say anything. Not that anything she says would get Nana off my back, anyway.
I look over at my alarm clock, and it’s already after eleven o’clock. I wish I knew what time Renée got home and how long they been talking about me.
I try to sit up in bed, but my stomach twists and I have to lay still because I really don’t wanna throw up again. So I wait a few minutes before trying to move again. Then, just as I’m sitting up, I hear Nana say, “So, what’s this about an apartment?”
“Yeah, I can’t believe how lucky I got. I was telling someone at City about how I need to find a place, and she introduced me to this professor in
the foreign languages department who’s been looking for someone to sublet her place from now ’til the end of the year. So I stopped by after work and she took me over there to take a look at it.”
What she’s saying surprises me. She found us a place so fast? And what does this mean? That I’m gonna be moving outta here soon? That me and Renée don’t have to wait to live together by ourselves?
“Where is it?” Nana asks.
“Oh, it’s a studio apartment in a real nice brownstone in Harlem. It’s small but really cute.”
I sit perfectly still on the bed, so they won’t know I’m awake. But I can’t really breathe, not completely. I don’t know what she’s saying. What does she mean, a studio? Isn’t that just like an apartment with one room?
“Brownstone? Harlem?” Nana sounds as confused as me.
“Look, Ma,” Renée says. “I know you didn’t think I was moving back here. I mean, I didn’t get a Ph.D. so I could live in the projects again.”
“And what about Babe?”
I hold my breath and listen for Renée’s answer.
“God. I just got out of school. This is my first job!”
“Don’t start that with me again.”
“I’m just saying I need time, that’s all.”
“Time for what?”
“Just time,” Renée says.
And I sit and wait. I wanna hear everything. I need to hear what Renée’s gonna say when she don’t know I’m listening. I have to know the truth, now that she don’t have school as an excuse anymore.
“Renée.” I can hear the frustration in Nana’s voice. “We’re not going to have this discussion no more, because you’re wearing on my last nerve, you understand me? I don’t want to hear no more of your high siddity talk tonight, nothing about how you’re too good to be in Bronxwood, because we both know that shit ain’t gonna fly with me, pardon my French. And we both know that one way or another the time’s gonna come when—”
“Please, Ma,” Renée whines, the way she always does when things don’t look like they’re going her way. “I haven’t even started working yet. What do you want from me?”
I know what I want from her. It’s what I always want from her.
“I want you to grow up!” Nana shouts. “You expect me to do this forever? When you going to start thinking about somebody other than yourself?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
The argument between the two of them goes on and on, and before I even think about it good, I’m laying down again, back under the covers.
When I was little, I used to cry when Nana and Renée had this argument, get in the middle and try to get them to stop. I would tell Renée it was okay she was going back to school and promise Nana I would be good and not get in her way too much. Stuff like that. Just to get them to stop fighting.
But there’s no reason to do that anymore. I get it now. Nothing’s ever gonna change. Their arguments are always gonna end the same way. With Renée gone and me stuck right here.
TWENTY-TWO
In the morning, I wanna die, that’s how bad I feel. My head and stomach still hurt, and I’m freezing and hot at the same time. Not to mention how much my body hurts from what Nashawn did to me yesterday.
But none of that even comes close to how bad I feel inside when I think about what Renée said last night, how she don’t want me. It’s like there’s this giant hole inside of me now, and it’s never gonna close, no matter what.
Nana comes into my room. “How are—?” She stops talking when she sees me. “Oh, my goodness. You look terrible.”
“I feel terrible,” I say, but I mumble it into the pillow and I’m sure she can’t hear me.
Nana leans over the bed and feels my head. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m cold,” I say.
“Come, let me help you to the bathroom,” she says. “And I’ll make some tea to warm you up.”
Nana helps me up, and it’s not easy because I feel weak and shaky. When we get out into the hall, I hear Luther playing again in the living room, and again Renée is singing. As I walk to the bathroom with Nana’s help, I’m trying to figure out how Renée can do that, just sing like she’s all happy, like nothing happened last night.
When I’m done in the bathroom, Nana gives me her heavy robe to put on and she walks with me down to the kitchen. As I pass the living room, Renée stops singing and says, “Hey, Babe.” She smiles, but I’m not really sure how much of that smile is for me and how much is left over from Luther.
So I don’t say anything back. I go into the kitchen with Nana and sit down, waiting for her to make the tea. A few minutes later, Renée comes in and says, “What’s going on?”
Nana flashes her a look, and her face is all tight and hard—I can tell she’s still mad at Renée from last night. “She’s sick,” Nana says. “You don’t remember I told you she was throwing up yesterday?”
“Yeah, but—”
“She got a fever. The flu.”
Renée comes over and puts her hand on my head, but it don’t even feel right to me. As far as I know, this is the first time she ever done it. “You are pretty hot,” she says.
I don’t say anything to that. I mean, she should have been able to take one look at me and see that. A real mother would have.
Her cell phone rings in the living room and she runs to get it, saying, “Oh, I hope that’s Gerard.”
I pull the robe tighter around me, but it’s not helping at all. I’m still shivering. And I’m listening to Renée on her phone, and she’s talking and laughing like everything’s okay. But she’s just probably all excited about her studio apartment, the one that’s just for her.
And I’m thinking, Wouldn’t a real mother be able to tell that I’m not just sick, that I’m in pain, too? Real pain. Why can’t she see that?
If I wasn’t sick, I would go in the living room right now and tell Renée I heard everything she said last night. And I would ask her why she don’t want me.
But I can’t get into that kinda conversation today. Not in this condition.
Nana brings me my tea and I drink it fast, and it does kinda help me get rid of the chills. After the second cup, Nana helps me back to my room and tells me to get some sleep today, that she’ll call the school to tell them I’m not coming. She even puts a glass of orange juice and the cordless phone by my bed, and tells me she’s gonna call me later to see how I’m doing.
When she leaves the room, I bury myself under the covers and try to get warm. I’m only half asleep when I hear Nana and Renée. It’s hard to really make out what they’re saying because the music is still playing, but I hear enough to know they’re fighting again. And it’s all because of me.
“…a selfish daughter like you.”
“Look,” Renée says. “I don’t need this today, okay?”
“Well, it’s the first time you don’t need something.” Nana’s voice is loud and sharp, and it cuts right through the music.
“What do I ever ask you for?” Renée shouts back. “What?”
“Girl, don’t get me started this early in the morning.”
The doorbell stops them, and a few seconds later, I hear Adonna’s voice. I should have called her to tell her I wasn’t going to school.
I close my eyes and hope she don’t come to my room. Because I really don’t know how to face her. It was bad enough yesterday, but now, after what me and Nashawn actually did in the dressing room, there’s no way I can look at her and act natural.
I need time. Time to sleep and time to stop thinking about everything and everyone. What I wish is that I had enough time to forget about what I heard and what I did. But I know that’s not gonna happen.
TWENTY-THREE
“Here. It’s a boy, for you.”
I open my eyes to see that Nana’s in my room, handing me the phone. The door is open and the light coming in from the hallway is burning my eyes.
I been sick and in bed for almost two w
hole days, feeling just about as bad as a person can. Yesterday, Adonna came by after school, but I acted like I was asleep. Because I still didn’t wanna face her, and I definitely didn’t wanna hear if her and Nashawn ate lunch together or if he finally asked her out. I was sick enough.
Then late last night, Kenny stopped by after he locked up the truck. He brought up some of those little packets of Comtrex he sells, and he sat with me and told me how he saw Nana and Clyde kissing in the car when Clyde dropped her off after work. “She’s into that dude,” Kenny said, laughing. “Can’t believe, after all this time, Nana done caught herself a man!”
I was still kinda outta it, so all I remember saying to him was, “Shh, she’s gonna hear you.” But Kenny didn’t care, and I was too sick to stop him from snapping on her.
Now, with Nana standing over my bed, it takes me a few seconds to catch up to what she just said to me. A boy? On the phone for me?
Then, in my next breath, my mind jumps to Nashawn and I’m thinking, Would he really call me? And why?
I look up at Nana’s angry face and ask, “A boy?”
“That’s what I said.”
I take the phone from her, dreading the sound of Nashawn’s voice, and say, “Hello?”
“Kendra? It’s me.”
Darnell.
“Oh, hi,” I say, my voice coming out kinda breathy, more out of relief than anything else.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but I haven’t seen you around school and I heard you were sick, so I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I have the flu,” I tell him. “But I’m a little better now.”
“That’s good. Uh, I hope I didn’t get you in trouble, calling you, or anything. Because your mom started giving me the third degree just now.”
I look up at Nana. She’s staring at me with her hands on her hips. Why did Darnell have to call me and get her started? Now I’m gonna be hearing about this for weeks.
“No, it’s okay. And that wasn’t my mom. It was my grandmother. I live with her.”