Kendra

by Coe Booth

  I’m crying, but I don’t know why, really. I mean, yeah, her punches are hurting, but it’s not like I didn’t expect this to happen. I knew I was gonna get it sooner or later. I had to with everything I been up to. Better to get it over with now.

  But she don’t stop, and pretty soon I’m crying so hard I’m gasping for breath. I finally break away from her to go over to the couch and try to get some air. I’m panting so fast my chest hurts, but it’s still not working. And I’m waiting to see if she’s gonna come over and attack me again.

  But she don’t. She takes her time wrapping the towel back around her and tucking it in on the side, her eyes on me the whole time. We’re staring at each other and I’m waiting for her to make her move. Tears are coming down my face so fast, it takes me a while to notice that she got them in her eyes, too.

  Nana is crying.

  I never saw that before. And while we stare at each other, I can swear she’s not looking all that mad anymore. She’s just looking at me. Finally, she says, “Why are you doing this? Why? I been doing so good with you, and now…” She shakes her head. “What did I do wrong this time?”

  I put my head down in my lap and cry. I don’t know what to tell her. Why did I do this? I don’t know. All I know is, right now I feel like everything is over. Done. I messed everything up and now I have nobody. Nothing. I’m empty.

  “I put my whole life into raising you right,” she says, her voice a little softer. “I thought—I thought you were gonna turn out…different. I tried to—” She sighs loud, and when I look up at her, she just shakes her head again like she’s already giving up on me.

  Tears and snot are running down my face like a baby, and I can’t help feeling like if I don’t stop crying now, I’m never gonna be able to. It just hurts so much.

  Nana stands there staring at me for a couple more minutes and I can’t take the way she’s looking at me. Finally, she says, “Babe, go in my room and get my suitcase down from the top shelf in my closet. Then pack your clothes and school stuff, and make sure you take enough to last you ’til the end of the school year. You can get the rest of your things later.”

  I look up at her, my heart feeling like it’s stopped beating.

  “You’re throwing me out?” I say. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “I make one mistake, a couple of mistakes, and you’re just gonna—”

  “You’re going to live with Renée,” Nana says, still looking at me with the saddest face I’ve ever seen on her. She takes a deep, heavy breath and says, “You need your mother now.” And her voice cracks a little bit when she says it.

  “But—”

  “Go pack while I call Renée.”

  I get up from the couch and walk down the hall to Nana’s bedroom. I’m too tired to argue, and I don’t have anything left to say. Anyway, there’s no use trying to get Nana to change her mind. It’s already made up. I’m outta here.

  THIRTY

  Not even an hour later, I’m standing on the curb waiting for the cab to get here. The dispatcher called and said it was downstairs, but, of course, it’s not here yet. They always do that, just so they won’t have to wait for people, especially in the projects, where there’s always a broken elevator or something. But still, I’m not in the mood to wait, and I feel stupid just standing here like this.

  It takes a while for Kenny to see me because a whole group of ten-year-olds is crowded around the truck, buying candy and drinks.

  The cab pulls up a second before I hear Kenny call out, “Babe, wait up! Hold on!”

  Hearing his voice, it hits me that I’m leaving here, leaving him. But I don’t cry or anything. I’m too exhausted. I’m practically numb.

  The cabdriver pops the trunk but don’t even get out to help me with my suitcase. I start to lift the bag when Kenny runs over and helps me.

  “What’s going on?” he asks. “Why you—where you—?”

  I reach up and hug him tight. He holds me, but only for a couple of seconds. Then he pulls away and looks me in the eyes. “Where you going?”

  I shake my head. “I’m going to Renée.”

  His mouth is hung open, but I don’t feel like explaining. I mean, how can I talk about something I hardly understand myself?

  “Let me take you,” he says. “We can get rid of the cab and—”

  “No,” I say. “I wanna be alone right now. I’ll call you tomorrow, alright?”

  I open the door and slide into the backseat before he can say anything else. He closes the door for me and I reach in my pocket and take out the little piece of paper that Nana gave me, the one with Renée’s address on it. Convent Avenue. I never even heard of it before.

  Before the cab pulls off, I see Clyde getting outta his car, carrying something in his hands. Looks like a bottle of wine probably. And he’s smiling. All of a sudden, I can’t stand him. I mean, he don’t know it, but all of this is his fault. Because if it wasn’t for him, Nana wouldn’t have been so quick to throw me outta my house. She wouldn’t have had someone else to turn her attention to.

  As we drive away from Bronxwood, I feel like I’m in some weird kinda zone. Not like I’m dreaming or anything, but like I’m in one of those movies Nana watches on the Abuse Channel. And this is the part where the sad, helpless girl is sent away from the only home she ever knew and has to face life on her own. Of course, in those movies, right after the commercial break, the poor girl either gets raped, falls in love with a man that beats her, or ends up in a coma after some kinda stupid suicide attempt. And all the other choices are just as bad.

  A couple of weeks ago, this was all I wanted, to be on my way to Renée’s new place, to be going to live with my mother. There wouldn’t have been all this drama. And I would have been happy about this.

  I wanted Renée to want me to live with her and to want to be like a real mother to me, but now she’s just being forced to take me. Like, really, how’s that supposed to make me feel?

  I lean my head back on the seat and try to close my eyes while the cab speeds across the Bronx. I don’t wanna look outta the window and get all sad as I see my neighborhood fly by. Even though I know the girl in the Lifetime movie would do that.

  With my eyes closed, all I can think about is how much everything changed in the last two weeks, ever since Renée’s graduation. It’s like I was a different person or something. But the biggest change I can see is that I really don’t even need Renée anymore. Not like I used to.

  It’s too late.

  When the cab pulls up in front of the brownstone, I’m kinda surprised by how nice it looks, how the block looks, with all these four-story brownstones connected together, and all the steps on the outside. The whole neighborhood is clean and quiet. No wonder Renée wanted to get away from Bronxwood and move here.

  The cabdriver turns around and says, “That’s twenty-six dollars.”

  “Huh?” I say, and it’s right then I realize that I don’t have any money on me. “Um, I…I need to…”

  I start looking in my book bag, like some money is gonna magically be there. I keep my head down because I’m so embarrassed and scared, but I try to look calmer than I really am.

  After two minutes of me pretending to look for my wallet, I pick my head up, trying to think of what to say to the cabdriver. But I don’t have to, because standing there at the top of the steps is Renée. She’s wearing a T-shirt, cutoff shorts, and flipflops. She comes down the steps to the cab, hands the driver some money, and waits for her change.

  Meanwhile, I sit there watching Renée’s face, trying to figure out how she feels that I’m here. But I can’t tell. Her face isn’t giving anything away. So I get outta the car and knock on the trunk to remind the driver to pop it open for me. Then I have to get the suitcase out by myself because Renée don’t help at all. Matter of fact, by the time I get the suitcase out and close the trunk, Renée is back upstairs already.

  I carry the suitcase onto the curb, wheel it the rest of the way, then make my way up the steps rea
l slow. And when I get near the top, Renée holds the door open for me and I follow her up another flight of stairs and down the hall to what I guess is our apartment now.

  When I step inside and look around, I can’t keep myself from saying out loud, “It’s tiny.”

  “Told you,” Renée says, closing the door behind me.

  Why did I even have to open my mouth? “No, I’m just saying…” I shake my head. “Forget it.”

  The apartment is really all just one room, and not a very big one either. Renée brought all the furniture from her apartment in Princeton—the futon, the TV, the little wooden crates she painted and made into coffee tables. Her small white bookcases are here, too, but there aren’t any books in them yet. And there are boxes stacked up all over the place and lots of mess from the move.

  Off in one corner is the kitchen, which is kinda separate from the rest of the room, but just as little. There’s a small table in there with only two chairs, and there are already two plates set out for us and a couple of cartons of Chinese food.

  I walk farther into the room and put my book bag down on the floor. Right then, the bathroom door opens up and Gerard comes out. He smiles when he sees me.

  “Kendra,” he says. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay,” I answer, like getting thrown outta my house by my own grandmother is just great. “And you?”

  “Good. Good.” He looks around the room. “Lot of work getting all this stuff in here, up all those stairs.” He laughs a little. Then he turns to Renée and asks, “You want me to set up the Aerobed before I go?”

  “Can you?”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  I watch him find the box marked AEROBED, PUMP, TOWELS and lift it onto the floor. The one thing about Renée is that all of her boyfriends are fine. She definitely knows how to pick them. Gerard is tall, dark-skinned, and so muscular it’s not even funny. His arms are huge, and I can see the six-pack through his T-shirt.

  Gerard has to move the futon over to make room for the Aerobed on the floor. As he starts to inflate it, I stand there thinking, Is that gonna be where I sleep from now on? I don’t even get a real bed?

  But, really, there’s no room for a real bed in here.

  There’s no room for me.

  I don’t know what to do with myself. Renée hasn’t even looked at me, I don’t think. And every time I look at her, her face is blank. I don’t know if she really don’t have any feeling for me being there, or if she’s holding it all in because Gerard is there.

  When the bed is inflated, Gerard grabs his duffel bag off the floor and zips it up. “Well, I’d better get going,” he says, slinging it over his back.

  And for the first time, I can see something in Renée’s face. Her eyes kinda get duller, sadder, and her voice comes out a little softer. “You sure you don’t want to eat something before you go?” she asks him, and then bites on her bottom lip a little bit.

  “I’m okay,” Gerard says. “I’ll come by tomorrow and help you some more.” He goes over to her and puts his arm around her. “You alright?”

  She nods.

  He leans closer to her and whispers a little too loud, “You can do this.”

  She nods again.

  Then he kisses her on the lips. I look away and walk over to the other side of the room ’til I hear Gerard say, “Take care, Kendra.”

  I turn back around and tell him bye, and it’s not ’til he’s gone that I get it. He was gonna spend the night with Renée. And I’m the one that messed up their plans.

  I stand there, not knowing what to say to Renée. She’s my mother and I don’t know how to talk to her. I’m not comfortable around her. Even in this tiny apartment, we’re on opposite sides of the room.

  Finally, she looks at me, and now I see it, her anger. She folds her arms in front of her and her eyes narrow in on me.

  “Are you going explain this to me?” she asks. “Because I don’t understand any of it.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging, not sure what’s left to explain. “What did Nana tell you on the phone?”

  “She said, ‘I’m putting Babe in a cab. I hope you have money to pay the man.’”

  “And I’m here,” I say.

  “I see that.” She keeps staring at me, and the look on her face is like she’s asking me, Who are you?

  But after today, I’m asking myself the same question. About myself. Because I don’t really know that girl back at Bronxwood, the one that acted like that with Adonna and Nana.

  Renée throws her hands up in the air. “Well, I don’t know what my mother expects me to do with you.”

  I’m your daughter, I wanna say—but, as usual, I don’t. Not because I’m scared but because I know if I say that, she’s just gonna get madder than she already is. And even though I don’t need her anymore, not in that way, I wanna try to make this work because I’m running outta places to go.

  So I do the only thing I can think to do. I tell her I have to go to the bathroom, and fly outta the room at top speed. In the bathroom, I take a whole bunch of deep breaths and try to calm myself down. When I woke up this morning, no way could I ever think that I would be here tonight. It’s too much.

  I mean what’s it gonna be like now, both of us living here?

  Two strangers.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I wake up hearing Renée on the phone, and by what she’s saying, I know she’s talking to Nana about me.

  “And you really think that was the best way to deal with her behavior?” Renée asks. “To put her in a cab and send her over here? Because there were a whole lot of better options, if you ask me.”

  I don’t need to have the phone to my ear to know what Nana says next. Well, nobody asked you.

  “I know you didn’t,” Renée says, her voice getting a little whiny. “But what am I supposed to do with her here? I don’t have enough room. Where is she supposed to sleep?”

  I turn onto my other side, facing the wall. I don’t wanna hear this, especially not this early in the morning. Couldn’t they at least wait ’til the afternoon to talk about how much both of them don’t want me?

  “She’s better off with you,” Renée says. “What does she have here? And what about her friends? How’s she going to see Adonna and—”

  Renée is cut off and quiet for a while, and I know Nana is telling her about my fight with Adonna. I turn back over and see Renée’s face as she sits there at the kitchen table. I can tell by the surprised look that Nana is telling her about everything else. Renée really didn’t know anything last night. She’s finding out all about me right now.

  I wish I could jump up and snatch the phone away before Nana can tell her too much. Because it’s not fair. It’s my business. And if Renée has to know, I should be the one to tell her.

  But something tells me I’m already too late. Nana could tell her the whole story in one sentence, knowing her. Your daughter is nasty, just like you were at her age.

  While Nana is talking, Renée glances across the room at me, and our eyes kinda lock on each other. And even though Renée’s looking at me like there’s something wrong with me, I don’t move, because at least she’s looking at me.

  Then, all of a sudden, her face gets kinda tired and she looks away from me. Finally, she says, “Okay, okay,” like she wants to get off the phone already. “I’ll take her tomorrow. Okay?”

  I lay there wondering where she’s gonna take me and why. Or am I gonna be the last one to know, as usual?

  A few minutes later, Renée gets off the phone. I sit up on the Aerobed, waiting for her to say something to me, thinking of how I can explain all of this to her. I mean, Nana might think she knows what happened, but she don’t know anything except for what I told her, which wasn’t anything hardly. Only I can try to make Renée understand why I did it, what I was feeling.

  But Renée never says anything to me. She sighs real hard and heavy, then gets up from the kitchen table and goes straight into the bathroom wit
hout even looking at me again. A minute later, I hear the shower running, so I lay back down. Part of me feels relieved that I didn’t have to explain anything to her. The other part wants to know what it takes to get her to say something to me. Not that I did everything just to get her attention. I’m not that stupid.

  After awhile, I get up and go into the kitchen. I’m starving, but the refrigerator’s completely empty except for the leftover Chinese food. And there’s nothing in the cabinets either.

  “I’m going shopping later,” Renée says when she comes outta the bathroom in a short, sleeveless terry cloth robe. “I was going to go last night, but…”

  “That’s okay,” I say.

  “Eat the rest of the lo mein,” she says. “There’s still some in there.”

  I take the white carton outta the refrigerator and open it up. And I try to think of something to say to her, but now that she knows everything that happened, I still think she’s gonna say something to me first.

  “I’m going to brunch with some of my friends,” she says, putting her suitcase on the futon and opening it up. “We made these plans days ago.”

  “Um, okay,” I say, shrugging. Whatever.

  “And when I get back, we’re going to have a talk, because you’re going to have to make some serious changes, from what I hear.”

  “Oh, you’re actually gonna talk to me?” I mumble under my breath, but I don’t think she hears me, because she’s too busy trying to find something to wear so she can get outta here as fast as possible.

  I scoop some of the shrimp lo mein onto a paper plate and put it in the microwave. Nana would have a fit if she saw what Renée was feeding me for breakfast. I mean, there’s so much oil in this food, it’s soaking right through the plate.

  I eat while Renée gets dressed. Before she goes out, she tells me not to leave the apartment because I don’t have a key. First Nana, now Renée. No matter where I live, I guess I’m always gonna be locked up like some kinda prisoner. Like I did something so wrong.

  After I finish eating, I get dressed in the bathroom. I look in the mirror and can’t believe the way I look. I have a bruise on the side of my face and one on my shoulder from where Nana hit me. And I have a whole bunch of red scratches on my face and neck. That’s why Renée didn’t want me going anywhere. So people won’t think she’s abusing me or something.