by Ibi Zoboi
“He is so cute. I’ve seen him around. He comes to the school with Donna’s boyfriend.”
I stop smiling. “Do you know Donna’s boyfriend?”
“Dray? Who doesn’t know Dray? He makes my skin itch. I don’t know what your cousin sees in him. He looks good and all, but he still be looking at girls even when he comes to pick Donna up. And the guys at school can’t even say hi to Donna when he’s around. Dray was checkin’ for her way back when we were in middle school. And he’d bring a different friend each time so they could hook up with her friends. All these girls would hang around Dray’s car like he’s a celebrity. Not me.”
“Did Kasim . . . what did you say . . . hook up with a girl?”
“Nobody really liked Kasim ’cause he wasn’t a baller. You could tell by his clothes and sneakers that Dray wasn’t even trying to hook him up with dough, talkin’ about everybody has to earn that shit. Looks like Kasim is doing just fine without Dray’s dough.”
“Dough?”
“Cash. Money. Dang, Fabiola! Do I have to translate everything? What are your cousins teaching you?”
We both laugh until the door to the café opens and Kasim’s smile reaches me and warms my whole body.
“May I help you, ladies?” he says with a fake deep voice as he holds the door open while we walk in.
“We have to do some homework,” I say, trying to hide my smile.
We sit down at an empty table, and I avoid talking to Kasim because he’s supposed to be working. Imani removes her coat and unloads her bag, and I take out my essay but keep my coat on. I don’t like how I look in my uniform. Imani starts to tell me how to fix my essay, but my eyes are glued to Kasim. He’s extra friendly to the customers and smiles too much. He whistles while he pours coffee and other hot drinks from a machine. Every few seconds, he turns to me and smiles, or winks, and once, blows a kiss.
Imani kicks me under the table. I snap out of it and try to turn my attention to the essay. “Mr. Nolan said this is not a research paper. I have to put in textual evidence,” I say as if I’ve been listening to her the whole time.
“I can’t believe you brought me here just so you can make googly eyes at your boyfriend,” Imani says. “You didn’t hear a word I said. I just told you the same thing.”
I can’t fool her, so I laugh. She laughs. A white couple next to us shoots us looks, and we cover our mouths and laugh some more. Kasim comes over and places two mugs of hot chocolate on our table. He purposely touches my hand and tiny, sharp things travel all up and down my skin. Imani teases me, we sip on our warm drinks, Kasim keeps finding reasons to come to our table, we giggle some more, and the couple sitting next to us finally moves to another table.
I am like air now. Or a bubble. Delicate. I can pop at any time.
And I do.
When Imani gets up to use the bathroom, I pull out my wallet to pay for the hot chocolates. A card falls out onto the table. I turn it over to see the name Detective Shawna Stevens in bold, black letters. I tap the edge of the card on the table thinking if I should make the first move. She already knows where I go to school, and I’m sure she knows where I live. I glance out the wide window and wonder if she is watching me from some hidden place right now. This Detective Stevens called me a smart cookie, but she’s a whole smart cake. Of course my cousins would not want to tell on Dray because they’ve known him for so long. But me, she knows that I don’t care about that guy, especially if he cheats on my cousin and is mean to her. And most important, she knows that I want nothing more right now than to have my dear manman with me.
I try to be like air again. But thinking of my mother is like a long rope keeping me tied to earth.
THIRTEEN
I LEAVE A twenty-dollar bill on the table for Kasim, but he slides it back to me when he comes to pick up the mugs from our second set of hot chocolates. Imani and I are the only ones left in the café now. They let us stay long after they locked the front door to count the register and clean the machines.
“So you’re gonna actually have to do some research,” Imani continues. “Citing your sources means that you have to show proof of where you got your information. And make it look good. You can’t just go on Wiki.”
“Proof?” I ask. “Everything must have proof?”
“Yeah, and you have to—” Imani starts to say. But a loud thumping seems to make the whole building shake. Music. Heavy. It sounds as if giant speakers are suddenly on the sidewalk directly outside the café. Instead of covering her ears like me, Imani starts bopping her head and swinging her hand in the air. “That’s my shit!” she says.
I watch as Kasim heads for the door, unlocks it, and walks outside to a slow-approaching white car. My stomach sinks. Dray. The tinted passenger-side window rolls down and Kasim leans in. Dray reaches over to give him something. I move in my seat to get a better look, but I still can’t see. Kasim quickly comes back in and waves for us to come out.
“We gotta close up now. Wait for me outside, a’ight?” he says as I brush past him.
Dray turns down the music and comes out of his car wearing dark sunglasses, a black cap, and a gold-cross chain. He checks each of his tires, then pulls out a cloth from the trunk and wipes down the big, shiny silver things along the insides of the tires.
“Those really are twenty-twos,” Imani whispers next to me, making me jump a little.
“Twenty-two what?” I whisper back, keeping my eyes on Dray.
“Twenty-two-inch rims. Hardly any room for the tires. When we were in middle school, he just had some hubcaps.”
“Rims? Hubcaps? Do they cost a lot of money?”
“For a BMW? Hell yeah!” Imani’s eyes are glued to Dray’s car. And he must’ve noticed, because he’s wiping every inch as if he’s making it pretty just for Imani.
“You wanna take a picture?” he says, leaning back on his car and biting his bottom lip.
Imani shakes her head no.
“Come on. Do it for the ’Gram.” Dray takes out his cell phone.
I can see that Imani doesn’t want to. Dray gestures for her to come over even though she shakes her head again. Dray is trying to control her like he controls Donna. Imani drops her book bag and slowly walks over to him. I wonder if her skin is itching now. I want to stop her, but Dray grabs Imani’s hand and gets down on one knee next to one of the rims, pulling her down with him. She almost stumbles but lands on his lap. He extends his phone and takes a few pictures of Imani on his lap, himself and his dark sunglasses, gold teeth, and gold chain, and expensive rims. Imani walks away really fast when Dray lets her go.
“You want one, too, Fabulous?” Dray asks just as Kasim walks out of the café and pulls down the gate.
I’m relieved when Kasim comes over and puts his arm around me. He pulls me in and kisses my forehead. The only person who has ever done that is my mother and, when I was little, my aunties in my old neighborhood.
“Aw, shit!” Dray says, leaning against his car. “Fabulous and my man Ka. That’s what I’m talking about!”
“Dray said he’s gonna give us a ride. You cool with that?” Kasim asks.
I turn to Imani. She shakes her head.
“Yo, what’s your name, shorty?” Dray takes off his sunglasses, and he’s still wearing his eye patch underneath. He licks his lips, and his good eye looks Imani up and down as if she’s a piece of freshly fried griot.
“Imani,” she says.
“Come on. I’ll take you home. Imani.”
Imani turns to me and pops her eyes out as if this is all my fault.
“No. We’re okay. We’ll take the bus,” I say, taking Imani’s hand.
“Fabulous, I’m not gonna let y’all just take the bus,” Kasim says.
I glance over at Imani again, and her eyes tell me that she’s surrendered. Dray wins, so we both walk over to where Kasim is holding open the back door. I slide in first. Then Dray nudges Kasim.
“Imani. You could ride with me in the front,” Dray says.
<
br /> I start to pull Imani in with me, but Kasim has already taken what was supposed to be her spot next to me. I want to say something, anything, but by the time the courage rises to my throat, Imani is in the passenger seat of Dray’s car and the door is closed.
Heavy bass music blasts in my ears. From my spot behind Dray, I can see his whole face in the rearview mirror, and even though it’s dark outside, he’s put his sunglasses back on. Kasim tries to talk to me, but I can only keep my eyes on Imani, who has pressed herself against the car door trying to be as far away from Dray as possible. In the café, this song was “my shit.” But now, she’s as still and quiet as stone. Even as Dray inches his hand toward her lap.
Kasim tries to do the same and I turn my head away from him each time he comes closer to whisper something in my ear or kiss me. I want to say that it’s not him. It’s this car. It’s his friend—his fam. It’s Dray.
I’m so distracted that I don’t even notice when we reach American Street. I thought we were going to drop off Imani first. But Dray finally turns down the music, and loud yelling takes the place of the heavy bass. My cousins. I can’t tell which one. But all I hear is “Get the fuck out of the car, bitch!”
“Oh, shit!” Kasim whispers, and he quickly opens the door on his side.
I get a glimpse of Chantal and Pri coming out of the house. Then the passenger-side door swings open and it’s Donna reaching in to pull Imani out. She grabs the sleeve of her coat, but Imani fights back.
“Oh, shit!” I say, for the first time in my life. I jump out of the car and aim straight for Donna. “No, no. Donna, leave her.” I try to pull her hand away from Imani.
“Dammit, Fab! Get the fuck away from her!” Pri yells.
“Bitch, you’re gonna take advantage of my cousin just so you can fuck my man?” Donna yells. She manages to get Imani out of the car and finally lets her go.
Imani’s eyes and mouth are wide. She fixes the sleeve of her coat and doesn’t say a word to defend herself.
“No! That’s not true!” I yell.
Donna ignores me and goes around to Dray and gets in his face. “You posting pictures on Instagram with bitches on your lap, Dray? And you had to do it with a bitch from my school on top of that?”
“Pri, Imani didn’t want to,” I say to my cousin.
Pri has come to stand beside me. “Go inside,” she says, quietly, with fire in her eyes. Not for Imani, thank goodness. For Dray.
I won’t leave my friend. I go to pull her away from the chaos of Dungeons and Dragons.
“Oh, hell no! You’re not getting her outta this, Fab!” Donna yells. “She’s guilty, too!”
“No!” I yell back. “She didn’t want to take that picture and she didn’t want to sit there. Leave her alone!”
“Yo, check your girl, Ka,” Dray says to Kasim, who’s been standing there like a useless tree stump.
Donna shoves Dray and puts a finger in his face. Chantal finally comes over to pull Imani away. I go to my friend, whose arms are frozen at her sides. “I’m sorry,” I say to her.
“Imani, where you live?” Chantal asks her.
“Over there on Montgomery and Lawton,” she says. “Please tell Pri and Donna not to beat me up. I swear, I wasn’t trying to get with Dray.”
“Pri’s not even thinking about you. And don’t worry about Donna. You’ll be all right.”
With that, my stomach settles. I would have to fight my own cousins if they tried to hurt Imani. She’s been more of a friend to me at school than they have.
Then Pri rushes past us toward the house while saying, “I ain’t staying around to watch that shit. She’s gonna get all up in his face, then next thing you know, she’s coming home in the morning with a fucking black eye.”
Just as she says this, Dray grabs Donna’s neck and shoves her against the car with a loud thud. Both Chantal and I run to Donna just as Kasim rushes toward them and tries to get in between.
“Calm down, man. Calm down!” Kasim yells in Dray’s face.
Chantal pulls Donna away, who is now holding her head down with her arms crossed. And Dray keeps yelling, even as Kasim extends his arms to keep him from getting too close to Donna again.
“You already know how I roll, D! It wasn’t even like that!” he shouts with spittle coming out of his mouth.
My fists are clenched because rage burns through my whole body. I want to lunge at Dray’s face, but Pri has beat me to it and is already yelling and cursing at him at the top of her lungs. Kasim holds her back until she pushes him off her, and then Dray begins to pace around his car.
My hot rage begins to melt. Maybe it’s the cold. Maybe it’s the way Dray holds his head and bends over as if he is about to let out a loud wail. Then I begin to see him for who he really is. Dray, with his sunglasses even as night spreads across the sky, and his gold cross gleaming, and his love/hate for my cousin, reminds me of the lwa Baron Samedi, guardian of the cemetery—keeper of death.
I hate him. I hate what he can do to my cousin. I hate that he is friends with the boy I’m beginning to like. I hate that he sells drugs that make people die. The detective’s words ring in my ears—all she needed was information—the time and place of a party. If I can give her that, then maybe I can get this terrible man out of my cousin’s life for good and get my mother back. An eye for an eye, and Dray has only one left.
Back in the house, I rush to the bathroom and pull out my cell phone, wallet, then the detective’s card. Breathing heavily and with fire still raging inside of me, I stare at her name on the card for a long minute before I start texting. I send her my name and my new number. That is all for now.
I jump when someone bangs on the door. I stuff my phone and my wallet with the card in it back into my coat pocket and open the door. It’s Donna with tears in her eyes.
PRIMADONNA’S STORY
You know why I go so hard for Dray? ’Cause he goes hard for me. I swear, ever since I was twelve years old, whatever I needed, Dray always came through. We were broken up for, like, six months back when I was a freshman, and he was seeing other girls and whatnot. But he still got me the things that I needed. It don’t matter what those things were, he was just there. I mean, yeah, Pri looks out for me, too. But it’s not the same. She be calling me a ho, and I know she’s my twin and all, but it still hurts. How am I a ho when I’ve only been with one dude my whole life? Dray took my virginity, and he’s still the same nigga I fuck with. For five years. How many hos can say that? You know, that’s the shit I don’t like about bitches. Just because everybody says I’m pretty and I wear nice clothes, it doesn’t mean I’m a ho. But that reputation sticks to you like another layer of skin.
I remember when I was, like, ten, some of Ma’s guy friends would come over and tell me that I’m gonna be “fast” just ’cause I was twitching in my little jeans. What the fuck? I was ten. And they’d say to my mother, Oh, she got a little body on her, so you gotta be packing to keep those boys away. But it wasn’t my mother who was packing. It was Dray. He was the one who kept those boys away. Like that one time in the ninth grade, this dude from over on 6 Mile was going hard, coming to my school, and buying me flowers and shit. He was really cute, so I went on one date with him. But word got around that I slept with him. It got to Dray and he was pissed. I had to swear on my father’s grave that the nigga didn’t even get to kiss me. So Dray had to deal with him for spreading rumors about me. I found out the boy ended up in the hospital for a week. That’s the shit Pri can’t do. But Dray . . . After that, he bought me a diamond necklace and took me shopping. And it’s been D&D all along. Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes we fight each other, but he fights for me, and I fight for him.
FOURTEEN
“COME ON, FAB! Step up your hair game. You gotta actually look fabulous for people to start calling you Fabulous,” Donna says, standing in front of me with one of her wigs.
I’m sitting on Chantal’s bed as Donna tries to put that hairy thing on me and make my face look plast
ic again. I keep both my hands on top of my hair and shake my head like a toddler. “No!”
It’s another Saturday night of us getting ready, but this time, I’m the only one going out. By myself. With Kasim. A date. A real date. I’ve been thinking about my mother all day. Would she approve? Would she like Kasim? Would she like what I was wearing? I don’t even know if she would like me wearing wigs, or weaves, as Donna calls them, because I never so much as had braid extensions. Both me and Manman have managed just fine with our own hair—like Chantal and Pri.
My phone buzzes and I quickly grab it. It’s Detective Stevens, and she texts that she’ll be calling me at three o’clock tomorrow. Maybe I will tell her about Kasim. And maybe I will have some information for her. But I shake that thought from my mind, because tonight I don’t want to have any worries.
“Who was that? Kasim?” Donna asks. “I think he’ll like you more with a little more hair on your head.”
I just nod.
“That’s not true. You don’t have to wear any of Donna’s fake hair, Fab,” Chantal says. She’s spread out next to me on her bed, reading a textbook. “She’s trying to make you look like her real twin.”
“I heard that!” Pri says.
I stand up to look in the mirror. When I try to gather my thick braids up on top of my head, it’s a mess.
“Come here,” Chantal says, placing her laptop on her dresser. She punches a few keys, and soon we’re on YouTube, watching a girl do her hair while giving instructions.
“Oh, lord.” Donna sighs. “Chant has been on this natural-hair shit now and she’s gonna try to make you look like Sasquatch.” She plops down on the bed.
The girl in the video has thick hair like mine, and she pats it down with white cream from a jar that she displays on the screen. Then she parts and rolls and twists her hair into a fancy style. Chantal helps me do the same to my braids. When we’re done, my hair looks so good that I could eat it. It’s sculpted like a crown. I look like a goddess. Like Ezili herself, the lwa of beauty.