by Coe Booth
I shake my head, slow. “I don’t know. I feel…” I wish I could tell Mara some of what’s going on. I don’t think she would tell anybody. But I can’t say any of this out loud, because I know it won’t make sense to anybody else. I don’t even get it. “Um, I don’t know,” I say. “I kinda feel sick again.”
“You want to sit down for a while in the auditorium?” she asks. “Maybe all the dust in here is getting to you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, like that’s what it is.
I pass Darnell on the stage. He looks like he’s having fun, carrying one of the set walls with Gregg. He smiles when he sees me and I smile back, but I don’t know what to feel.
I sit down in the front row and watch everybody work for a few minutes, still not sure what to do. I mean, I can’t leave now. I already told Darnell I’d sit next to him at the diner, and maybe he was planning on kissing me again. How wrong would it be for me to just leave like that?
But then there’s Nashawn, and I don’t want him waiting for me, either. Can I just leave him out there and not show up? That wouldn’t be right, either. And what does he mean, he’s coming back for me? Why? What does he want?
I’m going back and forth in my head for a while, then, before I can stand to think about it anymore, and before I even know what I’m doing, I’m walking over to Mr. Melendez, who’s ripping nails out of a big piece of plywood with the back of a hammer, and I’m saying, “Mr. Melendez, can I talk to you for a minute?”
He looks up at me and takes his glasses off. “You okay, Kendra?”
“No, not really.” I take a deep breath. “I’m, um, not feeling that good anymore. I think I’m getting sick again. Maybe. Is it okay if I leave now?”
He looks around, and even though the stage is still a big mess, he says, “I think we have everything under control here. Sure, go home and get some rest.”
I nod.
“You did a great job here, Kendra.”
I smile, weak, feeling horrible now. I should be here to finish this.
Instead, I walk real slow back to the storage room and tell Mara I’m gonna leave early.
“That’s not right,” she says, giving me a hug. “You’re gonna leave me with all these guys?”
“You love it,” I tell her. “Look how much attention you’re gonna get.”
I grab my book bag from off a chair and wave good-bye to her. I’m on my way to the side door when I run into Darnell. “You leaving?” he asks. And he’s not hiding how upset he is.
“I’m sorry,” I say right away, and I really am, too. “I’m starting to feel sick again and I don’t wanna, you know—”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, and the way he says he knows makes me think he’s talking about Nashawn, that he knows something about us. But he’s not. He’s really just worried about me. “Feel better. And I’m gonna call you over the weekend, even if I have to put up with another interrogation from your grandmother.”
I smile. “Okay.”
He waves bye to me, then I open the side door.
Nashawn’s already standing there in the hall waiting for me. Right out in the open.
“Good,” he says to me. “You’re ready.”
I look back over my shoulder, hoping Darnell isn’t still standing there. But he is. He’s staring past me, right at Nashawn. Hard.
“Um,” I say to Darnell, trying to think of some kinda explanation, but his eyes look different now, angry and cold. Hurt. “Darnell, I—”
Nashawn takes my hand and says, “C’mon.”
It feels good, his hand on mine. And while I wanna figure out something to say to Darnell, really, there’s nothing I can say. So I turn away from him and walk out into the hall with Nashawn. And the heavy door closes loud behind me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
There’s so much I didn’t know about Nashawn. He has a car. I mean, yeah, it’s an old beat-up-looking blue car with one darker blue door and lots of rust, but it runs good. I didn’t know that he drives fast and listens to the sports station on the radio. And that he lives in a house, not an apartment. Definitely not in the projects like me.
When he pulls the car up in front of house, all I can say is, “This is where you live?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me and my mom moved in with her boyfriend a couple months ago.”
“That’s why you transferred to our school?”
“Yeah, we used to live in Hempstead before that, you know, out on Long Island.”
We get outta the car and I follow him up to the front door. All of the houses are small and attached together, but still, it must be kinda nice having your own place.
There are kids riding up and down the block on scooters. “Hey, Nashawn,” one kid says as he gets closer to us, moving at, like, fifty miles per hour. He’s about eight or nine and is smiling real big with the buckest teeth I ever saw. “Watch this,” he yells, flying past us, holding both hands out. He looks good for a few seconds, then starts wobbling and has to hold on again.
Nashawn laughs and yells, “Cool, Brian. But come back and let me show you the trick.”
“Is he your little brother?” I ask, even though the two of them look nothing alike.
He shakes his head. “He lives two doors down. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
Another thing I didn’t know about him.
“Me, neither,” I say, even though I’m not sure why.
I stand at the gate and watch for a few minutes while Nashawn tries to demonstrate to Brian how to balance on the scooter with no hands. It gives me an excuse to look at him, at his back and legs and butt. Everything about him is perfect, and the way he moves on that scooter, so easy and confident. And his face, when he rides the scooter back in my direction, he’s smiling and having so much fun playing with that little kid, I’m glad I’m getting to see him like this, away from school.
After Brian takes a few turns on the scooter, getting only a little better each time, Nashawn comes back over to the gate and puts his arm around my waist. “Sorry about that.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t know what. It’s not like me and him had plans or anything, or that we ever actually spent any time together before. Not really. Just a few minutes in dark rooms. I’m still not even sure why I’m here, at his house.
“C’mon.” Me and him walk to the front door and he unlocks it. Inside, the house is small and messy. Not disgusting, but Nana wouldn’t approve of anybody living like this, especially with the empty beer bottles on the coffee table and the dirty ashtray. No, she definitely wouldn’t like that somebody smokes. Straight ahead is the kitchen, and I can see from the door that the sink is full of dishes.
“My mom’s outta town,” Nashawn says, closing the door. “And now me and her boyfriend think we’re bachelors.”
I try to smile a little, but it’s hard. I don’t get how anybody, even fake bachelors, could treat their place like this. Especially when they’re lucky enough to have their own house.
“We were thinking about cleaning up this weekend, but we’re both gonna be busy. He has to do some overtime and me, I got—I got that doubleheader against South Bronx on Sunday.”
Right after your date with Adonna on Saturday.
All of a sudden I start to feel uncomfortable. “Why am I here, Nashawn? Why did you bring me here?”
Nashawn puts his hands on my waist again. “C’mon, girl, I brought you here so I could spend more time with you. And not like before.” He kisses me on the side of my face three or four times real slow, and I close my eyes and try to relax. “I wanna slow things down,” he whispers. “Take my time with you.”
He’s so close to me now and I feel my heart racing and my breathing getting heavier. I can’t help it. He knows how to get me right where he wants me.
“Do you know how sweet you are?” he says, kissing my neck and shoulder. “You are so sweet.”
A little part of me wishes we could stop, at least for a while and maybe talk or something first.
That’s what my head is telling me. But my body is already gone and it’s hard to think of anything else. After a while, he takes my hand. “Let me show you my room.”
Nashawn leads me downstairs to the basement. “It’s like my own apartment,” he says. “Only, the washing machine’s down here, so I gotta put up with my mom being here all the time.”
The basement is actually cleaner than upstairs. His bed isn’t made and there are some clothes thrown on the floor, but there’s nothing nasty.
“Sit down,” he says. “I’m gonna go up and get us something to drink.”
I smile and sit down on the only thing there is to sit on, his bed. While he’s gone, I look around. He has a TV with a stack of DVDs on the side, mostly action movies from what I can tell, lots of Spider-Man and stuff. He has a lot of books, too, and not the kind they make us read at school, either. He likes to read. Something else I didn’t know about him.
Nashawn comes back with two bottles of beer. He opens a bottle and hands it to me. “You like beer, right?”
I shrug.
He laughs. “You never took a sip of beer in your whole life?”
I laugh a little, too.
“I would say you’re a real good girl,” he says, coming over and sitting next to me. “But I know what you been up to.”
I look down, embarrassed, not really knowing what to say to that. There actually is nothing to say to that.
“C’mon, try it.”
I take a small sip and it’s kinda bad, but I don’t care. I can deal with it. Maybe it’ll make me more relaxed.
“You like it?”
“It’s okay.” I take another sip, which is worse, but I take a third, anyway. Then I ask him, “Do you drink a lot?”
“Nah, not too much. More since my mom been away. But I’m an athlete.” He pulls up his shirt a little bit and pats his stomach. “Can’t be getting all flabby.”
I check out his stomach, which is nice and hard. It’s the first time I’m seeing that part of his body in the light. God, there’s nothing not hot about him. I look away real fast and take another sip of the nasty beer.
Before I know it, Nashawn’s got his shirt all the way off, and he moves even closer to me on the bed. He takes the beer bottle outta my hand and puts it on the nightstand next to his. “This is gonna be good,” he says, kissing me on the lips. “We don’t have to rush now.”
I wish I was strong enough to stop him or slow him down. But his lips and his tongue feel so good. I’m weak, I know it. Maybe I do wish we could have talked and spent time getting to know each other and all that, but the truth is, I know why he brought me here. And this is what I want, too. It is.
Soon his hands are everywhere, touching me, taking off my clothes, and the rest of his. And when he whispers, “Um-virgin?” I nod, not really sure why I care anymore. I close my eyes, and a few seconds later I hear him opening a condom wrapper.
Then, when we’re doing it, for the first time on a bed, it’s the closeness that I’m feeling. We’re together. Our two bodies feel more like one and he’s whispering in my ear and we’re moving together, my back pressed against his chest and him pushing himself into me. It feels different this time. It means something. And not just to me, but to him, too. That’s how connected we are.
Later, me and him are sitting on the bed together finishing our beer. It’s almost night now and the room is darker since Nashawn never bothered turning on the lights. And I sit there wishing he would talk to me, say something, but he don’t.
So instead, I ask him what time his mom’s boyfriend will get back from work.
“He won’t get home ’til, like, eleven or eleven thirty. He’s the night manager at Home Depot, the one up in New Rochelle.”
“I went there once with my father and I almost got run over by some kinda truck, inside the store!”
He laughs. “Yeah, they got those things speeding around there carrying wood and stuff. You gotta keep your head up in those kinda stores.”
At least we’re talking now.
“Do you get along with him, your mom’s boyfriend?”
“He’s alright. She could do a lot worse than him. She has done a lot worse. He’s okay. As long as she’s happy with him.”
I wanna ask him where his mom went, and when she’s coming back, but I don’t wanna be nosy. And he probably would have told me if he wanted me to know. But he hasn’t told me a whole lot of anything, really.
I finish my beer and put the bottle back on the nightstand. Then I move closer to him. He puts his arm around me and it feels nice, just being with him like this. But then, a few minutes later, he’s kissing me again and touching me.
And everything is happening all over again. Like it’s all we ever do. And I’m not sure what it means.
It’s his cell phone that wakes us up. The room is pitch-black and I have no idea what time it is or how long I been there. Nashawn jumps up and looks for his phone, and he finds it on his nightstand.
I sit up in bed and can see it from there. Glowing from his phone is the name of the caller: ADONNA.
He looks at the phone ringing there in his hand and, meanwhile, I can’t breathe, waiting to see if he’s gonna answer it or not. Because if he does, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
But he don’t flip it open. He stops it from ringing, then puts it back on the nightstand, mumbling under his breath, “This is hard.”
And that’s it. I get it now.
I jump up outta bed and try to find my clothes in the dark room.
“What?” he says to me.
“I gotta go. My grandmother is—”
“Slow down.”
I find my bra and my shirt on the floor and start putting them on. “She’s gonna kill me. What time is it?”
“Calm down.”
I button my shirt. “I gotta get outta here.” I bend down and try to find my panties, but I can’t. So I pull on my jeans without them, rushing so fast I almost trip and fall down.
“Kendra. Hold up. I’ll take you—”
I find my sneakers and put them on without my socks. My book bag is on the floor by the bed. I grab it and head for the stairs.
“Wait,” Nashawn says, and I see him stepping into his jeans. “C’mon. Slow down.”
But I don’t. I run up the stairs and outta the house as fast as I can, leaving the door open behind me. I practically run full speed down the block and don’t stop ’til I’m around the corner, where he can’t see me and try to come after me. Because I don’t wanna see him right now. I can’t even face him.
I walk two blocks without even knowing where I’m going or where I am. Or how I’m gonna get home from here. I look at my watch and it’s 9:24. By the time I get home, Nana’s gonna kill me and I’m gonna have to hear her mouth all weekend. And for what?
My head is jumping from one thought to the other so fast I can’t keep up. What just happened? Why would I do that with him again, especially when I know Adonna and him are going out tomorrow? What is Nana gonna do to me? What is Darnell thinking of me? Or is he even thinking about me at all? Why did I leave with Nashawn in the first place? Why would I go and hurt Darnell like that?
And why do I keep hurting myself? Why do I keep letting Nashawn do this to me? It’s not real. It can’t be because it’s not me he wants. It’s Adonna. Why can’t I just stop letting him use me? Because it’s me that’s the problem, not him. I mean, I could always just say no.
I’m crying. Walking fast and crying and not caring who sees me because it’s not my neighborhood, anyway. All I know is, none of this is worth it. I mean, what do I have now? Nothing.
Nothing and no one.
I don’t even have Renée.
I could have just asked her why she don’t want me even after all the time I been waiting for her. I could have opened my mouth and asked her. But I didn’t.
Even with Nashawn, it’s the same thing. Why didn’t I just ask him who he likes, me or Adonna? Why do I keep doing it with him when I don’t
even know what he thinks about me?
I get to the corner and finally see a bus stop. The number 31. I can take that and transfer at Gun Hill Road.
Standing there, waiting for the bus, I can’t stop the questions. The only thing is, everything I wanna know I could have found out in a second if I would have just talked to Nashawn. And Renée. Just looked at them and asked them. And I don’t know why I didn’t.
All I know is, I’m scared.
What if both of them told me the same thing? That they don’t want me? What do I do then? Because, the truth is, I don’t think I can handle hearing that.
I mean, I know I can’t handle that.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I’m forced to spend most of Saturday with Nana, and I’m really not in the mood for her today. Especially after I got home late last night and she wouldn’t even believe me when I told her how the diner was crowded and me and the rest of the crew had to wait for more than an hour for a table big enough for all of us. And how long it took for the waitress to serve us.
She wasn’t even listening. She kept asking me about Darnell and if me and him were together. The boy called me one time and that’s all it takes to get her imagination going.
“Yeah,” I told her, “he was there, but so was everybody else. And Mr. Melendez, remember?”
She didn’t yell and scream at me like I thought she was gonna, but she kept looking at me like she knew what I was up to, and it was hard facing her because I knew what I was up to, too. And the truth was probably worse than what she was thinking.
Then because she was probably more tired than me, she finally said, “We have to get to the hairdresser early in the morning. But we’re gonna talk about this some more, you can be sure of that.” And she let me go to my room, which was good.
But today, while I’m getting my hair relaxed and she’s in the chair by the sink getting hers washed, every time I look in the mirror, I catch her checking me out, sizing me up. It’s like now she’s collecting evidence against me, instead of the other way around, and right when I let my guard down, she’s gonna make her case against me and prove that I been doing it with somebody. Only she got the wrong boy in mind.