by Nia Arthurs
“Thanks,” she said and then promptly ignored him.
The next day, he brought her a juice pouch.
“Wow,” she grinned as he handed her the gift. “Thanks.”
Once again, Cece walked away and went to join her own friends, leaving him alone in the classroom with his book.
The next day, David handed her a dalla biscuit.
Cece’s eyes went wide as she grasped the package. She appraised him with her intelligent brown eyes. “You want to be best friends, noh?”
David nodded slowly, waiting for her reply.
The pretty little girl placed a finger to her chin in thought. Nodding slowly, she agreed. “Okay. We’re best friends now. I’ll bring you a chips tomorrow.”
She did.
And so began the long and fruitful friendship of David Kim and Cece Walker.
CHAPTER ONE
What are we watching?” Cece yelled from my bedroom.
I finished washing my hands and glanced at my reflection in the mirror.
My thick black hair was messy and I combed it to the side to keep the strands down. My brown eyes and long nose were as familiar to me as the inside of my palm.
I ran a hand down my chin. After seventeen years, not a hint of facial hair sprouted along my jaw. I shrugged and stepped out of the bathroom.
“I told you. It’s a surprise,” I reminded my impatient best friend.
Cece lounged on the bed. Her thick black hair teetered in a bun on top of her head. Her tall, lithe body was dressed in a pair of her favorite cut off jeans and a black tank top.
“You know we have two completely different tastes in movies,” she pointed out.
“And music, and clothes, and TV shows and…”
“I get the picture. Now come on. I’m bored. You promised you’d entertain me today.”
It was the last week of summer and there was so much to do to prepare for school. Only Cece would claim to be bored when junior college was right around the corner.
I walked toward the television on the dresser and turned it on. I then logged onto my favorite site that streamed movies online.
“I thought your mom and dad went to Chetumal today? Why didn’t you go with them?”
“Are you kicking me out?”
“What if I am?” I teased, my eyes disappearing with the force of my smile.
“It doesn’t matter if you are. I wouldn’t leave anyway.”
“That’s what I thought.”
I returned my attention to setting up the movie. I finally succeeded and flopped unto the bed, waiting for the film to load.
While the small bar at the bottom of the screen slowly advanced, Cece rolled her body next to mine and watched me with her stunning almond shaped eyes. “When are you going to update this place?”
For a minute, I grew distracted by just how gorgeous she was. The pretty little girl in the school yard all those years ago only blossomed as Cece matured.
Whenever we hung out and people assumed that we were dating, I’d receive incredulous looks.
I already knew Cece was out of my league and I had come to grips with being just friends. At least I got to be with her way more than any of her many, many crushes.
“Yo!” she slapped me on the shoulder.
I rubbed the spot.
“Let’s get some paint this weekend and take your bedroom to the next level.”
I rolled on my back and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars my dad and I had put on the ceiling when I was nine. “I like it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s nice… I think you should upgrade.” She closed one eye and held her fingers in the formation of a square. “I think we could keep the blue walls but make it a darker shade with some brown carpets or better yet, no carpets at all!”
“You are not touching my room.” I put her hands down and checked the progress of the movie.
The bar hadn’t moved more than an inch in the minute that we had been talking.
I groaned. “Adam is probably downloading his anime again.”
“Your cutie little brother? He would never do that to me,” Cece said.
“Adam!” I hollered. “Adam!”
“What!” My little brother yelled back.
Hopefully, Mom and Dad didn’t hear us. They hated when we shouted across the hall like that.
“Get off the internet!”
“No!”
“For me?” Cece tried.
“No!” The answer was sharp and immediate. Cece was a part of our family and my thirteen year old brother treated her as such.
“Well, that stinks. Wanna talk in the meanwhile?”
“About what?”
“Um,” she hesitated. “I’ve been talking to Shawn again.”
“C!” I groaned.
Shawn Anthony had been after Cece since hormones and puberty kicked into his body. My best friend normally told Shawn where to stick it, but lately she’d been entertaining him.
“He’s not the same guy he was in primary school! He’s changed!”
“People that evil don’t change.”
“He’s not evil,” C defended. “Besides he offered to show us around the sixth form. He said we could all hang out together.”
Shawn was attending his second year of junior college and was undoubtedly looking forward to Cece’s eighteenth birthday this August.
Cece’s parents hadn’t allowed her to date until she was of age.
Until Shawn came into the picture in full force, Cece hadn’t cared about dating. We had each other and that was all we needed. Stupid Shawn would mess that up. I could feel it.
“That’s never gonna happen,” I said.
“He’s been back there for two years. He can help us…”
“Shawn and I don’t see eye to eye. He can stay in his lane and I’ll stay in mine.”
Though Cece easily moved past the childhood bully, I could not forget all the mean things he’d pulled when we were little.
Shawn Anthony had been trying to weasel his way into Cece’s life for years. The bully was biding his time and Cece was too soft-hearted to see it.
“At least attempt to get along,” she slipped closer and blinked her thick black lashes. “For me.”
I tried to keep my frown in place, but she darted her hands out and tickled my side. “You know you love me.”
I laughed and captured her hand. “Okay, okay. I’ll try. I promise.”
“Thank you,” she blew me a kiss and then stood. “Now, let’s go beat the living crap out of your brother. I want to see this movie you think I’ll enjoy.”
Cece and I marched to the room next door and banged on the door. “Adam!”
The white door swung open and Adam glared at us. “What’s the big deal?” He checked the time on his watch. “I’m trying to enjoy myself before I have to head to the store and you two keep bothering me.”
I snickered as Cece narrowed her eyes at my brother. She insisted that we looked exactly alike, but that was because Cece couldn’t tell any Asians apart.
She’d spent her life with me and she was still clueless.
My little brother was tanner than I was. His eyes were slanted and dark brown and his lips were wider.
Adam took after mom, while I took after dad. No matter how often I explained that to the girl beside me, it just didn’t take.
“Please get off the internet. David and I are trying to watch a movie.” Cece folded her arms and tapped her foot on the hardwood floor. She had two little sisters and so the bossiness was ingrained her.
“Um, let me think about it.” Adam pretended to ponder her request. “How about ‘no’.” My little brother slammed the door in our faces.
I laughed at Cece’s expression. She was about to fist her hands and pummel the door again, when I caught her fingers in mine.
“Sh,” I winked and led her to the main computer table down the hall.
Dad used the space to keep track o
f the store’s inventory and receipts. Right beside the computer sat the modem that fed wireless internet to each corner of the house.
“We have a choice.” I said quietly so that Adam did not hear. “We can let him win or we can all lose.”
Cece grinned wide. “You are diabolical.”
I tilted my head to the side and raised my eyebrows in inquiry.
“Do it,” she encouraged and I pulled the modem from the wall.
Immediately, Adam’s door burst open and he lunged toward us. “David!” he shouted. “Fix the internet!”
“Catch, C!” I tossed the modem at her and we took off toward the backyard and into the sunshine, laughing all the way.
None of us got to watch anything else for the rest of the afternoon. And that was perfectly okay with me.
CHAPTER TWO
On Saturday, I lounged on the stool in front of the cash register at my family store. My cousins sat in the other chairs, manning their own machines. The sign above the grand building proudly proclaimed ‘Kim’s Groceries’.
My grandparents bought the land for the store when I was eight but sent for my aunts and uncles in Chinese before they decided to build the huge grocery store on the northern highway.
Sitting behind the cash register all day during the weekend was supremely boring.
My cousins and I had to stay focused, keep an eye out for thieves, and remember to give people their correct change.
The only reason I didn’t go crazy was because of Cece. Whenever I wasn’t busy with a customer or restocking the shelves, I’d be exchanging text messages with her.
Rider, my older cousin, winked at me from the stall next to mine. He wore a grey T-shirt and comfortable jeans pants.
Rider played with the slippers on his feet, slapping it against his heel as he spoke. “That your girlfriend again?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Rider narrowed his eyes. “I know you. You get that stupid grin on your face whenever she rings up your phone. It’s pathetic.”
I put the phone down and clutched my heart. “Man, thanks so much for pointing that out. I seriously – I could not live another day without those words of wisdom.”
Rider laughed. “Somebody’s defensive.”
Sky, Rider’s younger sister, passed by with a discarded blue grocery basket.
“Leave the boy alone,” Sky instructed and then stepped to the side as a customer brushed past her. “He’ll find out soon enough that we don’t marry outside of our community.”
I shook my head. “You two are jumping way ahead of yourselves.” I glanced at Rider. “I’m not in love with her.” I turned to Sky. “And I’m not marrying anyone anytime soon.”
“Ha!” Sky slipped her glasses firmly on her nose. “That’s what I said, but you can’t run away from reality. It’s how things are done.”
I strongly disagreed. The long-standing ancient Chinese tradition of arranged marriages had been lost somewhere in the Caribbean Sea.
“Grampa and Grandma don’t believe in that.” I insisted, defending myself even though I didn’t have to.
“Grampa and Grandma have become creolized. They have forgotten our traditions, but Mama has been working on them both. Soon, you will feel the effects of that.”
“Whatever.” I disregarded her warning and focused on my phone. Cece had sent me a message.
The photograph depicted a chubby child with her face screwed up in fright. She was frozen with her arms pumping by her sides and her body twisted.
The caption read: ME RUNNING AWAY FROM MY RESPONSIBILITIES.
I snickered.
Rider made kissy faces in my direction.
I ignored him.
Few people understood my connection with Cece. In Belize, Asians stuck to themselves.
Over the past few years, we had been breaking the stereotypes and merging with other cultures. But for the most part we were still generally known to be a quiet, close-knit community.
When I started hanging out with a little black girl from the north side, my parent’s friends wondered why Mom and Dad allowed the association. It was unusual for a Chinese boy to latch on to a Creole girl.
However, my parents didn’t make a big deal. They were cool with it then and they were cool with it now. As long as Cece didn’t distract me from school or work, they saw nothing wrong with our friendship.
I noticed a customer walking toward me and put my phone away. She was a pretty Latina girl with a wide smile and long dark hair that curled to her waist.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and batted her eyelashes at me as I checked her items.
Cece would say that she was flirting, but I tended to believe that Cece told me such things because she didn’t want me to feel bad about my lack of appeal.
“Hi,” the girl said when I was half-way through her items.
I pushed a bag of rice in front of the scanner and eyed her.
“Hi.”
“I’ve always seen you in here but I never had the chance to talk to you.”
I nodded, uncomfortable with the conversation.
She tilted her head and bit on her plump bottom lip. “So, a couple of my friends are meeting up at the Platypus Park later, like around nine o’clock.”
She glanced around the store that was starting to fill up now that the seven o’clock Saturday rush hour had begun.
I quickly bagged her things to move the conversation along, but she held my wrist to stop me.
“If you’re free later, you should drop by. It’s a couple of us from the sixth form.”
“Sure. I’ll think about it.”
I smiled shyly at her and declared her total. She handed me the money and then winked.
“Keep the change,” the girl said as she gathered her groceries and strolled away.
I glanced up, hoping that Rider had missed the exchange. Thankfully, my cousin was too busy with his own customers to pay my strange conversation any mind.
The hours flew by as they did when the store got busy. I kept my eyes downward and my head focused on counting the correct change.
I was ducking my head and minding my own business a few minutes before closing when someone slapped a biscuit package before me. My smile bloomed unconsciously.
I’d brought Cece a pack of Oreo cookies the day that we became best friends. Since then, the little black circles of goodness were dubbed ‘ours’.
“What can a girl do to get some service around here?”
My head jerked up in surprise. Cece’s answering grin was wide and brought a sparkle to her brown eyes.
She was dressed in a fancy blouse and light blue skinny jeans. Her curly brown hair was out and it fell past her shoulders in beautiful ringlets.
“What are you doing here?”
“I begged Mom and Dad to get me out of the house. I’ve been trapped in there all week,” Cece pouted.
Just as I had a responsibility to my family – and so to the store – Cece had a job with her family. She was the unofficial summer babysitter to her younger sisters.
At least I got paid for my work. Cece was often informed that the roof over her head and the food on the table was her allowance.
“I can’t believe they let you go.”
“Yeah. Once they heard I’d be with you they were chill. They trust you so much. It’s insane.”
I didn’t know about that. I’d received the ‘hurt-my-daughter-I’ll-break-you’ speech from Mr. Walker the minute I became aware that girls were more than playfellows.
I never overstepped my bounds and was careful to always keep the door open whenever Cece and I were alone in a bedroom. I’d gained Mr. Walker’s respect and I didn’t play around with that.
Still, I was surprised that they’d simply dropped her off here knowing that we had no plans.
“What did you say we’d be doing tonight?”
“Hanging out and watching movies,” she smiled and waved at Rider who was tallying the last customer’s it
ems. My cousin nodded at her.
“What are we really doing?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“So, Shawn invited me to the Platypus Park tonight…”
I groaned and shook my head. “Nope. I won’t be a part of this.”
She slapped a dollar and twenty five cents on the silver counter and tugged at the ends of her hair. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t stand Shawn.” I insisted, putting her change in the cash register.
“Come on. I just want to go, peek around and see what it’s like and then come back and hang at your place.”
I snorted. Cece was a convincing liar but I had spent too many years with her to turn a blind eye to her tells.
“I promise. That’s all I want to do.” Sensing that I was not convinced, Cece grabbed my hand. “Please,” she gazed at me with her big brown eyes. “I really want to go.”
I caved as she gave me puppy dog eyes. Cece knew I was powerless against that.
“Fine.” I agreed, since it meant that much to her. “But only for fifteen minutes and then we’re leaving.”
“Deal!” she grinned and shook my hand, the gold bangle on her wrist twinkling as brightly as her eyes. “This is going to be so much fun!”
Yeah, I doubted that.
CHAPTER THREE
I was not a recluse. Especially with Cece as my best friend. She pushed me out of my comfort zone as resolutely as a mama bird tossed her chicks out of the nest so they could fly.
Cece had drawn me out of my shyness. I could hold my own in a social situation without needing to withdraw. So when I rushed home to change into something dressier than my work clothes, I was almost excited.
I planned on avoiding Shawn Anthony with my every breath, but being asked to a sixth form party was a big deal.
What were the odds that Cece and I would both be invited by different people?
“Good night,” I nodded at my parents as I walked up the stairs later that evening.
“Hi Mr. and Mrs. Kim.” Cece waved at them.
“Hey, guys.” Mom strolled to the foot of the staircase and watched us walk up. “Wow, you look nice, Cece.”