Cool Like That

by Nikki Carter

  “Um…Mommy, is everything okay?”

  “Don’t you ‘Mommy’ me.”

  “What did I do?”

  Why am I scared that she knows about all the fun that I’m having here? She can’t possibly know. Right?

  “Did you know about Kevin liking Candy?”

  Whew. It has nothing to do with me. “I don’t know. I guess, but it’s nothing serious.”

  “Y’all are getting out of control with this crush business. I’m ’bout to shut this all down.”

  “What did Kevin do, exactly?” I ask, not knowing if I really want the answer.

  “This fool boy came over here asking LeRon’s permission to court Candy.”

  Oh, my goodness!!! LeRon is Candy’s father, and Kevin is straight tripping. I don’t know what he’s thinking.

  I try to contain my laughter long enough to reply, “Mom, at least he’s not being sneaky with it.”

  “Girl, you’d better not be taking his side. This is utter ridiculousness. And to think I wanted him up there with you in New York. He probably would’ve been courting you all over the city. He doesn’t fool me with that gentleman crap.”

  “Seriously, Mom? You know Kevin. I think you’re just paranoid. Maybe you need to let go and let God.”

  “What did you just say to me?”

  “Um…nothing?”

  “That’s what I thought. You’d better mind your mouth unless you want me to visit you in person.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  “Recognize.”

  It’s official. My mother has gone completely bonkers.

  17

  “Wake up, Gia! We’re going to Battery Park!” I knock away Melody’s arm. I’m not going anywhere outside this room. I’m too embarrassed to show my face. Everyone by now, I’m sure, knows Rashad was all up on Keisha at that party.

  Plus, I don’t want to run into Ricky and see that mix of anger and hurt on his face. No, thank you.

  “I’m not getting up until tomorrow.”

  Melody snatches off my comforter. “Gia, I’m not going to let you lie here and be upset for the rest of this program. We’ve got only two weeks left, and we need to make it hot!”

  Two whole weeks, and this horrible nightmare will be over. Might as well be a million years.

  “Listen, my boyfriend is not here, and I really miss him. He’s probably pushing up on some girl back home in Boston, but I can’t worry about that while I’m here.”

  I sit up in bed. “Why do you think your boyfriend is pushing up on someone? I thought you said you guys were going to college together and getting married and all that other stuff?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said, and maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t. We’re teenagers, Gia. I know he’s up to some shenanigans. I just have to forgive him and move on if I want us to be together.”

  “So you think I should forgive Rashad?”

  Melody puffs her cheeks full of air and then blows it out. “No! That is not the moral of this story. Rashad is Rashad, and you don’t ever have to see him again after this.”

  I toss myself back down on the bed and will the tears not to come. “I don’t want to never see him again, Melody!”

  “You are worried about the wrong boy, Gia. If you need to be making up with anyone, it should be Ricky.”

  “Ricky is mad at me for no reason, so I don’t even know where to start with him.”

  “For no reason! You chumped him out in front of everyone, Gia. Got him looking like a punk who runs up behind a girl who’s digging someone else more.”

  “I guess I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “Can you imagine how he must’ve felt with you crying over Rashad? From what I know, Ricky hasn’t pushed up on any other girls here. He’s all about you.”

  I feel like such an idiot! Ricky’s been patient with me and this crazy crush on Rashad, but of course he’s never accepted it. “So what do I do now?”

  “I don’t even know if this is fixable,” Melody says.

  “But you can’t stop enjoying the summer because of it.”

  “I just want the summer to be over.”

  “You’ve liked and lost—now get over it! There are street vendors with chicken on a stick calling Xavier’s name.”

  Melody is pretty convincing, huh? I get out of bed and find some jean shorts and a Tweety T-shirt to rock for the day. I’ve been playing my boy Tweety this summer too. He’s been sitting at the bottom of a drawer waiting to see the city, and I’ve played him for BCBG and Baby Phat.

  But I know he’ll forgive me. He’s not like these stupid boys.

  Melody and I get dressed, leave our room, and head over toward Lerner Hall. In the hallway we run into Sienna.

  “Thanks for having my back at the club.”

  “It was nothing. I would’ve done that for anyone. Even you,” I reply.

  “Well, I don’t know if I deserve it, as mean as I’ve been to everyone. Especially you, Gia.”

  I shrug. “You didn’t deserve what Dan did to you. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

  “You didn’t even get to see Jay and Bey. I heard they finally showed up.”

  “You don’t have to rub it in, Sienna,” I say.

  Sienna drops her head. “Gia, I feel really bad about how I treated you. It didn’t even really have anything to do with Rashad.”

  “What a jerk!” Melody adds.

  Sienna continues, “It was more because I was jealous of you. I’ve never been able to get boys to like me by just being myself. Do you know how few boys like girls who can name all the elements on the periodic table?”

  “I’m guessing not a lot.”

  “Bingo. I never told Dan about any of that. He has no idea how smart I am, and Rashad…Well, he just doesn’t care.”

  “I didn’t know you liked Rashad all like that. You should’ve told me from day one. Maybe things would’ve been different.”

  “If my memory serves me right,” Melody says, “you were on Rashad before you even got here. Y’all met up on the plane, right?”

  “Yes, we did. I should’ve let him switch seats with Ricky. That’s what I get for trying to be a player.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Most of us aren’t cut out for it,” Melody says.

  My phone buzzes in my purse. “Talk to me,” I say.

  “Gia, this is an intervention.”

  “Kevin! What are you talking about?”

  I hear him take a deep breath. Oh, no. Do I even want to hear this tirade?

  “Ricky told me all about you and your little boyfriend Rashad. Why are you up there playing Ricky like that?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Gia, this is not the relationship status on Facebook! You don’t answer me with complicated!”

  I hold the phone away from my face and look at it. Does he know who I am? Apparently not. “I don’t have to answer you at all, Kevin. You betta recognize.”

  “Gia, you really hurt Ricky.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Kevin. Let me call you back, okay? I don’t really feel like talking about this right now.”

  I press “end” on the phone before Kevin gets to say something else. I don’t want to talk to him or Hope about this anymore.

  On our way out of the dorm, we see Sushil, and he waves for us to come over. I don’t want to hear it from him too about how I’ve hurt Ricky so badly. I don’t need them all to jump on me to let me know how wrong I am.

  Sushil says, “Ricky is really sad, Gia, but I think he wants to make up with you.”

  Finally! A glimmer of hope!

  “What makes you say that?” I ask.

  “He just kept saying over and over again how he knows you’re the girl for him and that he wants to marry you one day.”

  “He said that?” My eyes have got to look like two gigantic saucers. This is some serious talk here.

  “Yes. And he said every time he saw you with Rashad, he wanted to punch him out, but he didn’t, because he
needed to know you would choose him.”

  But I didn’t exactly choose him. I didn’t choose anyone. Rashad chose for me by kissing that girl.

  Sushil continues, “But when you cried over Rashad, he couldn’t understand it. He didn’t understand why you didn’t just chalk it and keep it moving.”

  “He’s mad right now,” Melody says, “but it’s probably just a bruised ego more than anything.”

  “How do I fix it?” I ask Sushil. “I do choose Ricky, but how do I let him know that now?”

  “You can start by apologizing, I guess,” Sushil says.

  “But take your time with it. He’s still very heated right now.”

  He’s heated.

  Well, I guess it could be worse. He could be heated and done with me. I wouldn’t blame him if he was, but if he’ll let me, I think we can fix this.

  18

  Even though I wish I didn’t have to, I see Rashad in creative writing class. We had an assignment to write a free-form piece of poetry with no structure or set rhyming scheme, but it was supposed to drip with emotion—the teacher’s words, not mine.

  I had a difficult time writing anything that didn’t sound like a sad Mariah Carey song. “Don’t Forget About Us” and “We Belong Together” keep playing on the soundtrack that’s in my brain.

  I should’ve listened to my mother.

  This may be the only time I ever admit this. She was right about Ricky. Who knows what other stuff she might be right about.

  Rashad steps to the front of the class to read his poem. I don’t want to listen to him. Definitely don’t want to look at him. Nope. Not one of my five senses want anything to do with Rashad Moore.

  He clears his throat and begins.

  “Sometimes sorry is just a word.

  Like when I broke my mama’s crystal vase

  When I was four.

  Cried till snot ran out my nose.

  But the vase is still gone.

  Mama’s moved on.

  Sometimes sorry is just a word.

  Like when I crashed my brother’s bike

  Around the old, tall maple tree.

  Then again, I cried.

  Shouted, ‘I apologize.’

  But the bike is still scrap metal

  In a raggedy junkyard.

  Sometimes sorry is just a word.

  Like when I broke this girl’s heart.

  I’ll say it anyway

  Though it won’t mean anything.

  I’m sorry just the same.

  But sometimes sorry is just a word.”

  Everyone except me gives Rashad a round of applause. Are you kidding me? Is that supposed to be an apology?

  Sometimes sorry is just a word?

  Yeah, right. How about the fact that his apology would’ve meant so much more if he didn’t have a huge purple hickey on his neck.

  Sometimes hickey is just a word!

  I can’t believe I was digging him so hard. Isn’t it funny how once a person makes you mad, you can see all their flaws?

  Like for example, didn’t someone say Rashad’s locs make him look like Simba? Maybe that was Ricky who said that. How is it that only now can I see the resemblance? And though I don’t stay one-hundred-percent-acne-free myself, I can play connect-the-dots with the zits on his forehead.

  Ugh!

  After class I try to rush out without talking to Rashad. I don’t want Ricky or anyone who might talk to Ricky to see me alone with Rashad—not even having a conversation.

  Yeah, it’s that serious.

  “Gia!” Rashad calls as I step out the door.

  It sounds weird to hear him say my real name. He’s been calling me “princess” since we met. That part about Rashad I will miss.

  I stop, though I don’t really want to. “Yes, Rashad. What’s up?”

  “I really am sorry, Gia. You do know that.”

  “Just a word, right?”

  “Yeah. It didn’t go down the way you think. There was more to what you saw.”

  I’m sure there was more—lots more, and it probably took place back at the dorm. Hence the hickey. “Don’t even explain. It’s cool. We’re cool.”

  “Just like that? You don’t want an explanation?”

  “What is it going to change, Rashad? Just save it.”

  “Dang, Princess. I’m feeling beyond dissed right now.”

  “Now you see how I felt when I saw you lip-locked with Keisha. I guess we’re even.”

  I leave Rashad standing there. He probably does feel bad, but it can’t possibly match the way I’m feeling right now.

  I walk back toward my dorm, and my internal soundtrack starts again. Why do people write sad songs anyway? They don’t make anybody feel better. Actually, they only make me feel worse.

  When I get back to my room, Ricky is sitting on the floor right outside my door.

  My heart leaps a little, but I don’t get too excited. He could be here to tell me he never wants to see me again.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey, Ricky.”

  “I have a question.”

  “Okay….”

  “If we make things official, and you’re officially my girlfriend, will I always have to worry about some other guy taking you away?”

  “Are you asking me to make it official?”

  “Answer the question, Gia.”

  I take a deep breath. “At the beginning of this summer, I didn’t know the answer to that question.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I know it’s you, Ricky. I want to be your girlfriend.”

  Ricky stands to his feet. “All right.”

  “All right? Is that all?”

  “That’s it. I just wanted to know how you would answer the question. Nothing’s changed.”

  As he walks away, I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. He’s not giving me much to work with, but at least it’s something. I’m hopeful that we still have a future together—or at least a senior year.

  19

  I call my mom and tell her the whole story about Ricky and Rashad. This time I don’t change the names to protect the innocent, but I tell her only the necessary information. There are some details that are inappropriate for parental units. Like, there is absolutely no reason for her to know about anyone’s lips on mine.

  “Wow, Gia. I didn’t know you and Ricky were liking each other just quite so much,” she says after I finish.

  “Mom, are you going to give me a lecture?”

  “No. It was only a matter of time. Ricky is a handsome boy. He’s fine, as a matter of fact!”

  “Mom!”

  “Well, he is. Do you think ’cause I’m grown that I can’t see that?”

  “This conversation is getting weird, Mom.”

  My mother bursts out laughing. “Oh, you get to weird me out talking about crushes and carrying on, and I don’t get to reciprocate?”

  “Sorry. What do you think I should do?”

  “Well, boys—and men, for that matter—have really fragile egos. You pretty much shot Ricky’s down when you let this Rashad guy get in the mix.”

  “I know, but how do I fix it?”

  “This might be hard to fix, Gia. Right now Ricky is probably feeling like he can’t trust you with his heart.”

  “Mom. I need knowledge here. What can I do to make it okay?”

  “Keep doing what you’re doing and apologize. No other boys! Have you apologized at all?”

  “No, not really. I haven’t figured out yet what to be sorry for.”

  “You’re not sorry about liking Rashad?”

  “No. Because I didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “Are you sorry you hurt Ricky?”

  “Yes. I am sorry about that.”

  “Then there you go. Start with that.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Mmm-hmm. When you get home we’re going to have to discuss this whole crush and dating thing.”

  “Okay.”

  I am not looking forward to
having that conversation. No, ma’am, I am not. I see a lockdown in my near future.

  After I hang up the phone with my mom, I psych myself up to go apologize to Ricky. It shouldn’t be hard. I’ve known him my whole life, and we’ve been best friends for what seems like an eternity.

  All the way to his room, I keep telling myself I can do it and that it’ll be okay. It just has to be!

  My first words will be, “I’m sorry.”

  It’s simple, direct, to the point. But will he think it’s only words?

  My mom always tells me to forgive people if I want to be forgiven. How can I expect Ricky to accept my apology when I didn’t even consider accepting Rashad’s?

  Instead of going to Ricky’s room, I decide to find Rashad first. I want to tell him I forgive him. He wrote a poem about what he did and everything! The least I can do is accept his apology and let him off the hook.

  I don’t even make it to his room because he’s standing in the hallway. He looks at me as though he’s deciding whether to speak to me. Understandable. Our last conversation ended in a diss.

  “Hey, Rashad.”

  “Hey. How are you doing, Princess?”

  “Cool.”

  “Still cool, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I let out a soft chuckle. I’m more nervous than amused, but he doesn’t have to know that. “Rashad, I accept your apology. For real. I don’t think I did before, but I do now.”

  “What changed?”

  “I guess when I look at the big picture, these past few weeks don’t really matter at all.”

  “You’re going to strike me from the record?” he asks.