Kendra

by Coe Booth

  Staring at myself all messed up and everything, I can’t help but start thinking about everything that happened, about the fight between me and Nana, and how she attacked me and then just threw me out like that. Like everything was fine when I was doing exactly what she wanted, but the second I made some decisions for myself, she just turned her back on me.

  She probably wants me to call her up and beg her to come back, just so she can tell me no, but I’m not gonna do that. I don’t even wanna go back now and have to listen to her getting on my case all the time. It’s not gonna happen.

  An hour later, I’m in shorts and a tee, and I’m walking around the tiny apartment bored outta my mind. I open the windows and it’s nice and sunny and hot outside, and I can’t believe I’m stuck in here like this. I lean out and look down at the street. Harlem. I don’t know, but I can’t believe I’m here, living here. It’s so different.

  I mean, a few doors down, there’s an old lady actually sweeping the sidewalk, and across the street, this guy is painting the railing outside of his brownstone, making it shinier than it already is. You would never see any of this at Bronxwood, that’s for sure. They can’t even get people to clean up after their own dogs up there.

  I turn away from the window and look around the apartment. I can’t even unpack, because there’s no place to put anything. There are only suitcases and boxes and books. All the boxes are labeled. CDS & DVDS. KITCHEN. SHOES. BATHROOM.

  One box says PHOTOS ETC. and it takes some heavy lifting, but I do get it out from under some other boxes and bring it over to the futon. If Renée wants to leave me here alone, she should be prepared for me to go through all her stuff. She has a folder on top of the box with all kinda certificates in there, starting all the way back in high school. Everything. Science achievement, winner of some kinda math competition, perfect attendance for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. She was probably too busy having me for perfect attendance in ninth.

  There are certificates in frames, too. National Honor Society and a Regents scholarship. Then I dig down in the box and pull out a photo album. I kinda don’t even wanna open it, because I know I’m only gonna see a lot more of what I saw when I was at her apartment at Princeton. Pictures of everyone else except me.

  But when I start flipping, I’m kinda surprised because the photo album goes way back, to pictures of Renée when she was real little, her and Nana in front of our building, dressed up like it’s Easter. Renée’s wearing a pretty yellow dress with white tights and shiny black patent leather shoes, the same kind Nana bought for me when I was little. Nana has on a funny pink hat with a big giant bow. It’s hilarious.

  And there are pictures of Renée and Kenny, too, all young and acting stupid, sitting on cars in the parking lot behind our building, eating ice cream, sitting on a couch in Grandma’s apartment with their arms around each other, all happy.

  I don’t show up in the album ’til near the end. There aren’t any pictures of Renée pregnant, but all of a sudden, there I am. I smile when I see myself. I mean, Nana has some pictures of me at home, but the fact that Renée has pictures of me, too, it means a lot more. There’s a picture of me on the couch crying my eyes out. And there’s one of Nana holding me in the kitchen. But the only picture I see of me and Renée is one in Nana’s bedroom. Renée is sitting on Nana’s bed and I’m just a little newborn right there on the bed next to her. Renée’s looking up at the camera, but she’s half smiling, half bored. Like she don’t really want her picture taken.

  Behind her, right in the corner of the room, is my crib. It’s light brown wood with white trim, and there’s a cute mobile of baby animals hanging over it. And the weird thing is, even though I’m staring at the picture, it takes me a while to really get it.

  My crib was in Nana’s room.

  I look at Renée again as she sits there on the bed, and her face, it’s so young. She’s only my age. And she already has a baby.

  I shake my head and just sit there for a while thinking what I would do if it was me. And thinking how it could have been me, how close I came to almost being in that situation. When I really think about it, it’s so hard to know what I would do if I did end up like Renée. Just the thought of it makes it hard to breathe.

  I close the photo album and put it back in the box. Then I get up and go to the phone in the kitchen and call Kenny because I did promise I’d call him, and there’s nothing else for me to do. While I wait for him to pick up, I sit there at the table, thinking about telling him about the pictures and asking him what it was like back then when I was a baby, and how it felt to be a father when he was only fifteen.

  But Kenny don’t give me a chance to ask anything. He starts talking, telling me all the stuff he been hearing about me from Adonna, who was probably going off on me last night. Like our fight was all my fault or something. “So is it true?” Kenny wants to know. It kinda sounds like he’s all disappointed in me, and that’s not something I’m used to hearing.

  It’s hard to answer him. Because it’s a lot more complicated than he thinks. I can’t just answer yes or no.

  “You having sex now?” Kenny asks. “You having sex with the boy Adonna likes?”

  “No,” I say finally. “You don’t know the whole story. And I’m not having sex.”

  “I don’t like this, Babe. I don’t know what you doing.”

  Tears spring into my eyes so fast they actually sting. And I’m surprised because I didn’t even think I had any more tears left in me after yesterday. “You don’t understand,” I say, and my voice comes out scratchy and thin. “You’re not letting me explain and—”

  “Explain, then,” he says. “Go on.”

  I wish I could see his face, because I’m having a hard time figuring out what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking about me. And that’s making this conversation even harder because I feel so off balance all of a sudden. I don’t know what to say and how to say it. “Um, Adonna don’t understand,” I start, and right away I know there’s no way I’m gonna be able to tell him what happened and why. First of all, he’s my father and he don’t need to know everything, and another thing, he’s Adonna’s brother, and how am I supposed to be honest about her when he’s gonna try to be fair to both of us? Well, there’s no way to be fair in this situation. And I don’t wanna tell him the whole story only to have him decide that I’m the one that’s wrong. “Kenny,” I say, “can I call you back? I, um, I can’t talk about this now.”

  The tears feel like they’re gonna drown me from the inside, and my chest hurts real bad. I mumble bye to Kenny and hang up. Then I sit there wishing I had someone I could really talk to, about everything. But I can’t think of anybody. And nobody’s here.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Renée is still not back by two thirty, not that I’m watching the clock or anything. I mean, she can come home whenever she wants, but I just happen to see the time and wonder what kinda brunch lasts this long. And how long she expects me to stay trapped here waiting for her.

  A little while later, the doorbell rings and I actually have to find where the intercom is before I can ask who it is.

  “Kendra, it’s me, Mr. Mover and Fixer.” It’s Gerard.

  I buzz him in, then open the door and wait for him to come up the stairs. He really is handsome. I mean, if you like the tall, strong, and sexy type. When he comes into the apartment, I feel kinda weird being there alone with him, especially since I don’t hardly know him. And with the way I’m dressed. No way would Nana think this was okay.

  Gerard drops a book he’s carrying on the futon and looks around. “Damn, there’s a lot of work to do here. And I see Renée hasn’t done a thing since I left. Where is she, anyway?”

  “Brunch,” I say, closing the door behind him.

  He looks at his watch. “I thought she’d be back a long time ago. Oh, well. I’d better get started here. You girls need a nice place to live.”

  He picks up one of the boxes and carries it into the kitchen. While he’s in
there putting things away, I glance down at the book he left on the futon and see it’s one of those study guides that Kenny used to have, for all those tests for city jobs he never got. This one is for the Police Sergeant Exam.

  “You wanna be a sergeant?” I ask Gerard.

  “I don’t know,” he says, holding a curtain rod in his hand. He looks up at the window. “Come here and help me put this up.”

  I go into the kitchen, and for the next ten minutes, me and Gerard put up the rods and hang the curtains. Then we do the same thing for the curtains on the other side of the room.

  Meanwhile, he’s telling me some funny things he sees as a cop on the streets of Newark. “And there was this woman, right?” he says, helping me down from a couple of boxes, after I put up the last curtain. “She called nine-one-one, panicked, whispering, ‘Oh, my God! He’s in here. Help me. Help me.’ Three squad cars respond, you know, with lights and sirens, the whole nine. And when we get in there, this lady is standing on her kitchen table pointing to a hole near her stove where a mouse had got in. And she’s looking at us, with our guns drawn and everything, and she’s screaming, ‘Do something! Get him! Get him!’” He laughs and shakes his head. “It was insane.”

  I laugh with him. “You probably won’t have to do that kinda thing if you get to be a sergeant, right?”

  “No, not really. I won’t be so hands-on, but I don’t know. I like what I’m doing now. You know, when I don’t have to deal with crazy ladies on kitchen tables.” He laughs again, but then his face gets kinda serious. “Most of our calls are for real problems, and you know Newark can be a tough place. When I show up at somebody’s house and they’re a victim of a crime, I like that I can help them out. And the kids in the street, I like being a role model, you know, someone they can see doing the right thing, someone who looks like them. And being a sergeant and sitting behind a desk a lot of the time—I don’t know if that’s what I got into this for.”

  “Then why are you taking the test?” Even as I ask this question, I already know the answer.

  “Renée wants me to take the test, you know, to get a better job, move up the line and all that.” He opens another box, the one with the photo albums, and says, “I better put that bookcase back together so we have a place for all this stuff.”

  He goes to the other corner of the apartment and behind some other boxes are the wood slats and the frame for one of the white bookcases. She had, like, a million books on it in Princeton, all kinda boring sociology books and stuff. But I don’t remember seeing the photo albums on it. Unless she didn’t want any of her Princeton friends to see those pictures.

  I sit down on the futon and try not to think about it. But it’s hard. It’s like she really didn’t wanna have to think about me when she was at school. So I end up asking Gerard, “When did Renée tell you about me? I mean, how long were you dating?” I don’t look at him when I ask this, because I don’t want him to know how much his answer means to me.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Gerard says. “Probably after a month or two.”

  I sigh. That’s a long time. What was she waiting for? For him to fall in love with her? So he wouldn’t wanna leave her once he found out she was already a mother?

  “You know what I thought?” Gerard goes on. “I thought she had, like, a baby or a three-year-old. You know, a little kid. Then when she told me her daughter was, I think you were thirteen then, I couldn’t believe it.” He laughs again. “Your mother is really special. I hope you know that.”

  I turn to look at him and he’s already staring at me. “I know,” I say, but I’m not really sure I get what he’s talking about.

  “Not a lot of girls could have a baby in ninth grade and then turn their life around so much.”

  I nod. I know she could have been like a lot of girls at Bronxwood that have babies and then never even finish high school. Some of them even end up with two or three kids back to back. So I know what Gerard’s talking about. I get it. But it’s not that simple. He’s not seeing everything.

  When Renée comes home, she’s all happy that we been doing work, getting her apartment together. Not only are the curtains up and the bookcase put back together, but the TV is hooked up to the cable and her little CD player and speakers are set up, too.

  She gives Gerard a big hug and then a kiss, and I decide it’s time for me to go outside and get some air. I don’t ask Renée if I can go, because I never asked her if I could do anything before. And she’s not paying me any mind, anyway. But probably as soon as I leave, she’s gonna tell Gerard everything Nana said about me, and the next time he sees me, he’s gonna think bad about me.

  When I get to the first floor, there’s a lady going into her apartment. She’s probably about Nana’s age or a little older. She’s a lot heavier, too, but not as heavy as Grandma. She smiles when she sees me, and I say hi.

  “You must be Renée’s sister,” she says in a real friendly way. “You favor her.”

  I wonder if she’s just guessing I’m Renée’s sister or if Renée told her she had a sister. Because it wouldn’t be the first time.

  “No,” I say. “I’m her daughter.”

  The lady’s head kinda snaps back. “Oh, I didn’t know.” She shakes her head. “I thought she was—” She gives a short kinda half laugh. “You never know these days, right?”

  I don’t say anything to that. I just walk past her to the door, my feet sounding kinda heavy on the wood floors. Outside, I walk down the steps and look up and down the block, not knowing where to go. I mean, I could just walk around and try to get comfortable in the neighborhood, but something tells me not to get too settled, because who knows how long I’m even gonna be here? Maybe Renée will convince Nana to take me back. Not that I really wanna go back or anything.

  So I pick a direction and start walking, past the brownstones that all look alike. Probably when I get back, I won’t even know which one Renée lives in—which one I live in. I walk around for a little while, and it feels like I’m in a place that’s been here a real long time, like I’m in a history book or something.

  And I’m looking at the design of the brownstones, the wide steps leading up to the doorways with fancy arches. The huge windows with flower boxes. And I can’t help but wonder if I could ever design something so beautiful one day.

  At first I don’t go on any of the streets with the stores or a lot of people hanging around, because I’m out here in booty shorts. Nana never let me leave the house in shorts like this. I could wear them around the apartment, yeah, but she would have a fit if she saw me out here like this, trying to show myself off, as she would say.

  But she’s not here to see me. So forget her, then.

  I walk around for about a half hour, going nowhere special. The neighborhood is really okay, nice and quiet. There’s a church on the corner that must be real good, because there are cars double-parked out front and I can hear the music from the street. It’s the middle of the afternoon and it don’t seem like this church service is gonna be over anytime soon. Probably one of those churches that you go to in the morning and leave at night. I’m glad nobody in my family ever went to a church like that, even if the music is alright.

  When I get back to the apartment, Renée and Gerard are sitting at the kitchen table working outta that study guide. She’s leaning over, pointing something out to him. And she don’t even see that he’s barely paying attention.

  I sit on the futon, feeling kinda bad for Gerard, and wondering why he can’t just tell Renée that he don’t really wanna be a sergeant. He’s a nice guy. Just like Kenny. Too bad both of them aren’t good enough for Renée the way they are.

  Gerard leaves about five o’clock, and when he tells me bye, he don’t look at me different, so maybe Renée didn’t tell him anything. I hope not, anyway. I go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator, and that’s when I remember there’s no food.

  I sigh real loud. “Can we go shopping already?”

  Renée comes back into the
kitchen and pulls out a chair, the one Gerard was sitting in. “Sit down, Babe,” she says.

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “You’re not going to starve.” She sits down in the other chair and waits for me.

  I roll my eyes, wait awhile, then go and sit down across from her. “What?” I ask, crossing my legs.

  “We have to talk.”

  I fold my arms in front of me and stare up at the ceiling. This is gonna be so stupid, I can tell.

  “Nana tells me you’re sexually active now. Is that true?” When I don’t answer, she says, “Well, is it?”

  I shrug and don’t look at her.

  “Okay,” she says, like she’s just as bored with this conversation as me. I know she’s only asking it because Nana is probably making her talk to me. “Okay, I’ll talk and you listen.”

  And she talks and talks and talks. About everything. About how sex is serious and that if I’m gonna do it, I need to think about it, make sure it’s something I really wanna do, and all that. I need to be careful and protect myself. And, of course, I need to make sure it’s with the right guy, whatever that means. The whole time she’s talking, I’m sitting there thinking, who is she to tell me any of this? By the time she was finishing ninth grade, she already had a kid.

  The other thing that gets me is the way she’s talking to me. She don’t sound like a mother or even like a big sister. Her voice is all flat and calm and she’s telling me the facts like she’s my health teacher from seventh grade. Then she says something about how a lot of kids my age have sex when they really only want a connection to somebody and all that. And now I can tell she’s talking to me like a sociologist. I’m not her daughter right now. I’m one of her students. Either way, she don’t sound like somebody that cares about me, really. It’s just that she’s supposed to tell me this stuff. And when this talk is over, that’ll be it. She’ll be done.