by Tanya Savory
“Not in any movie I want to see,” Mom had said.
Later that night, Angel thought she heard her mother crying. The next day, Mom overslept and didn’t seem to care that her skirt was wrinkled or that her mascara was smudged. Then the long evenings of smoking and staring at the TV started. Angel even found empty wine bottles on the counter a few times. Before that Saturday, she had never known her mother to drink. Now she wondered when it would stop.
Angel took a deep breath and gently brushed ashes off her mother’s lap. Mom pushed her hand away.
“Stop fussing over me, Angel. I’m fine!” she huffed. “Go help your sister.”
I’m trying, Mom, Angel thought to herself as she left her mother and hurried into the kitchen to cook dinner.
I’m trying.
Chapter 2
“So did your mom say yes?” Sharice asked the next morning.
Angel had waited at the corner of Greene Street as Sharice rushed to catch up with her on the way to school.
“Say yes to what?” Angel asked blankly. She had left her mother sitting at the table just moments earlier. Mom had barely spoken, though she did sigh and rub her temples as if she had a bad headache. Angel made sure Dionne had lunch money and that she knew her babysitter, Mrs. Alexander, would get her after school.
“To what?” Sharice squeaked. She wore a snug denim skirt and a bright pink top that showed a bit of her stomach when she walked. Angel felt dull and lifeless next to her in her worn jeans and a wrinkled black shirt. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, what?”
“To you going with Trey to the party!” Sharice yelled. “It’s only a week away. Come on—twin brothers! The two cutest boys in the school! It would be the best ever. Think of how jealous everyone would be. Please don’t tell me you forgot to ask your mom.”
Angel shrugged. She wished Sharice would forget it. Couldn’t they talk about something other than clothes and boys?
“I guess I got too busy,” Angel said. “I had a ton of homework last night. Our poems for Collins, remember?”
“Girl, that’s what you always say,” Sharice sighed. “Ain’t no one got so much homework that they can’t take a second to say, ‘Hey Mom, can I go to a party? Everyone else is going.’”
“Well, my mom wasn’t feeling well last night, so I didn’t want to bother her.”
“Excuses, excuses,” Sharice said and poked Angel playfully with a tube of lipstick she pulled out of her purse. “I can see you’re gonna need some help. I gotta figure out how I’m gonna get you two together. Now let’s see . . .”
Angel tuned her out as they walked. It was a warm late-spring morning with high fluffy clouds and the faint smell of the ocean in the air. Lincoln Middle School stood back from the street like the shy younger brother of Lincoln High. The two buildings were next door to each other, separated by an enormous parking lot and athletic fields. Lincoln Middle was a yellowy two-story stucco building shaped like a big L, while the high school was an imposing brick structure with sprawling wings and branches that dominated the block. To Angel, it seemed that whenever they walked by the school, there were groups of loud teenagers leaving or arriving, some in their own cars.
When Angel started sixth grade, the high school kids always seemed so grown-up. She and Sharice had walked by them quietly then, sneaking peeks at what they did and how they dressed, catching some of them smoking or kissing outside. No one ever noticed either of them back then. But now, as Sharice walked by in her tight skirt, a few boys stared at her and made comments.
“What are y’all doin’ going over there?” a tall boy in a football jersey called out. “You two don’t look like you belong in middle school!”
Sharice grinned and looked right back at the group of boys as a security guard watched.
“Y’all better get ready for me, ’cause I’ll be up in Lincoln in a minute,” Sharice said with a wave, clearly flirting. Angel noticed Sharice swung her hips a bit, and she spoke with confidence. Angel didn’t know how she did it. With high school just a few months away, she felt awkward whenever the older kids said anything to her. Just last week, a Lincoln boy with a faint mustache had asked Angel if she had change for a dollar. She had gotten so flustered that she spilled her entire backpack on the sidewalk.
“Girl, I don’t need your books,” the boy had joked when her English book tumbled toward his feet.
Two older girls sitting on the steps had snickered. Angel glanced at them and felt like a sixth-grader again—not the graduating eighth-grader about to join them.
“Why didn’t you say anything to him?” Sharice said in a low voice, jabbing Angel back to the present. “That boy was talkin’ to both of us!”
Angel glanced back at the boy in the jersey and quickly looked away when she saw that he was grinning at her.
“I don’t even know him,” she said with a shrug.
Sharice rolled her eyes. “Angel, don’t you know anything? That’s how you get to know a boy. What am I gonna do with you?”
Angel wished Sharice would stop giving her advice about boys. She was relieved when they finally reached the middle school’s wide front doors.
“One thing’s for sure,” Sharice continued, eyeing Angel up and down. “You gotta stop dressing like you’re cleaning the house or something. And a pair of beat-up Converse? Girl, you’re a serious fashion emergency.”
“Yeah, I ran out of clean things to wear,” Angel said as they entered the crowded hallway. She thought of the mountain of dirty laundry piled on the floor of their apartment. Normally, her mother would do a load every few days, but not lately. The old Mom would never let Angel leave the house wearing something so wrinkled. The new Mom didn’t even notice. Angel did, but she forgot when Dionne asked her for help finding an outfit for school.
“Look, I gotta go, girl,” Sharice said, scanning the bustling corridors. “I want to catch Marcus before the bell rings. See you in English, and—” Sharice grabbed Angel’s hand, a playful glint in her eye. “Don’t forget! I’m gonna be thinking up that plan to get you and Trey together, so be ready. And maybe put some lipstick on before class. And check your hair. And don’t forget—”
“Sharice!” Angel snapped.
“Bye,” Sharice said with a grin. She turned and headed quickly down the hallway. “Gonna get you a boyfriend,” she added in a singsong voice as she disappeared in the direction of Marcus’s locker.
Angel tried to forget the conversation as she headed toward her first period class. On the way, she passed the school library and spotted her reflection in the glass doors. There again was the familiar brown-eyed girl with the thin face and chunky glasses. Only this time, those eyes were stormy. Self-consciously, Angel reached to smooth her hair and straighten the wrinkles in her shirt.
“It’s pointless,” she grumbled, annoyed at what she saw. And yet Angel knew her clothes and hair were not the real reason she suddenly felt so irritated. There was something else bothering her too: Sharice. I don’t want her to get me and Trey together, Angel thought as she pushed through the crowd. I don’t want Sharice to get me together with any boy.
Math and history classes were normally interesting, but today Angel felt as if she were trapped in a heavy fog. All through class, she kept picturing Mom’s blank expression at breakfast. Had she even gone to work?
What about dinner? Laundry? The dishes? Do I have to do it all? Angel wondered. And for how long? She had asked the same questions in her journal late last night, though it wasn’t all she had written. For a second, she imagined her mother at home on the couch reading it page by page. The thought made her shudder.
“So, Angel, give us one example.”
Angel jumped, accidentally knocking her textbook off her desk. It hit the floor with a loud slap. Ms. Warner, her history teacher, eyed her from the front of the room.
“I . . . I . . . what?” Angel stammered, feeling completely lost.
Giggles erupted in the classroom. Angel reached down for her b
ook. Nearby LaDonna Burns, a popular girl who Angel had once seen dump chocolate milk on a frightened sixth-grader, smirked and shook her head. Angel made it a point to avoid LaDonna as much as possible, though Sharice had started hanging out with her this year.
“An event,” Ms. Warner said crisply. “Tell us one event that helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.”
Angel’s mind went blank. She had read the chapter on Civil Rights, but with all the distraction last night and the entire classroom staring at her, she couldn’t remember anything. She flipped open her book, hoping the pages might trigger a memory.
Ms. Warner sighed. Angel’s face began to burn with embarrassment.
Ask someone else, Ms. Warner, she pleaded wordlessly. The teacher kept waiting.
Suddenly Angel saw a hand to her left go up like a lifeline. Win Liu, an Asian-American boy who transferred into her class last year, had raised his hand.
Win was in two of Angel’s classes. He was always friendly but was unpopular in school because he was different and he was a good student. Sometimes boys would tease him, calling him a teacher’s pet or even making fun of his name. Once Angel saw him get tripped by guys in the hallway.
“What about that kid who got killed for whistling at a white woman?” Win asked.
The room suddenly grew silent. Angel felt the stares of her classmates shift from her to Win. She was grateful to be free of the attention.
“Boy, what textbook are you readin’?” LaDonna asked with a snort. “Ain’t nothin’ in here about someone being killed for whistling.”
“But it happened, LaDonna,” Ms. Warner said somberly. “Win’s right. Emmett Till was only a year or two older than you. He was murdered for whistling and flirting with a white woman in 1955.”
“That’s messed up,” said one student. Others shook their heads. The class was silent for several long seconds.
“I don’t remember hearing about that,” a tall girl named Justice Waters said quietly.
Angel glanced over at Justice. She was the opposite of Sharice in many ways. She rarely wore makeup, and she didn’t seem to care too much about fashion. Today she wore a baggy black T-shirt with the words East Park Steppers written in large white letters across her chest. And yet Angel still thought Justice looked pretty with her light hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and long beaded braids. Some girls made fun of Justice’s looks and lack of style, but she never seemed to care. Sometimes Angel found herself staring at her.
“What page was it on?” Justice added, flipping through her history book. “I woulda remembered that.”
“Oh, it’s not in our book, but it should be,” Ms. Warner said. “How did you learn about it, Win?”
“My grandmother told me,” he explained. “She saw my homework last night, and we started talking about it.”
“Are you serious? Your granny checks your homework! She tuck you in at bedtime too?” LaDonna snorted from the back row. A few students laughed until Ms. Warner shot them a warning glare. Win nervously ran his hand through his hair and looked embarrassed.
Angel wanted to reach out to him somehow. She had always liked Win. Once she even told Sharice that she thought he was funny. Sharice had wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Yuck. They shoulda named him Lose instead of Win,” she had said.
“But how could that happen?” someone else asked, snapping Angel’s thoughts. “There ain’t ever been a law against flirting with anyone.”
“There was no written law,” Ms. Warner explained, “but many people back then believed that it was wrong for black and white people to flirt with one another, let alone be romantically involved. They called it miscegenation. And it was against the law for blacks and whites to marry in much of the United States. Some people thought it was unnatural. Others said it went against the Bible. Still others were simply afraid of change.”
“That’s just wrong,” Justice said with a toss of her braids. “My mom is white and my dad is black. I wouldn’t even be here if those laws hadn’t changed. How could people believe that?”
“Well, that’s exactly the kind of question many people were asking in 1955,” Ms. Warner said. “The death of Emmett Till got even more people questioning the laws and the unfair treatment of black people.”
“So what really happened to Emmett?” LaDonna asked, leaning for ward with a curious gleam in her eye.
Ms. Warner looked at Win and nodded to encourage him to speak again.
“They. . . um,” Win began as he looked hesitantly around the room, particularly at LaDonna. “They beat him up real bad and then . . . threw him in a river, and he drowned.”
Someone cursed in the back of the class. An angry silence spread through the room.
“Just for flirting with a white woman?” Justice said quietly, shaking her head. “Haters gonna hate. I’m glad I live today and not then. At least things have changed. Some things, anyway.”
After class, Angel rushed to catch up to Win. “Thanks for bailing me out in there. I was totally zoning.”
“Yeah, I saw you looking out the window,” Win said shyly. “Then I saw Ms. Warner watching, and I knew she was gonna call on you. Glad I was ready.”
“Me too,” Angel said as they walked down the hall together. “That’s really cool that your grandmother remembers Civil Rights and everything.”
“I know, right? She always surprises me with what she knows,” Win said, shaking his head. He glanced at Angel, then at his watch, and back at her again. “So . . . it’s almost the end of the year. Can you believe it?” he added suddenly, in kind of a nervous rush.
“I know,” Angel said, wondering why he had changed the subject. “Seems like we just started and now . . .”
“And now it’s coming to an end and . . . graduation . . . you know, I . . . I was wondering if . . . if,” Win stammered. He paused and looked around as if he was searching for something. “Well, what I mean is, I wanted to ask you if—”
“Angel!” a familiar voice shouted from down the hall. “Come here! I gotta tell you somethin’.”
Angel turned to see Sharice push between her and Win. Marcus was right behind her chewing on a straw. He looked at Angel and held up his hands as if to say, This isn’t my fault. I had nothing to do with it.
“Wait a second, Sharice,” Angel said. She turned back to Win, but he was already backing away into the crowded corridor.
“Bye, Angel,” Win said weakly, disappearing into the crowd. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Before Angel could say anything, Sharice began dragging her by the arm toward English class. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said with a giggle.
“She just couldn’t leave it alone,” added Marcus as he headed in the opposite direction shaking his head.
“What are you talking about, Sharice?”
“So, here’s what I did,” she said in an eager, excited voice. “I just texted Trey and said that you liked him and that you wondered if he wanted to go to the party with you and—”
“You what?!”
Angel felt her stomach lurch. She expected Sharice to nag her to talk to Trey after class, but nothing like this. She was about to protest again when they rounded the corner and burst into the classroom.
Trey was at his desk. And he was staring straight at Angel.
Chapter 3
Angel froze.
What am I supposed to say? she thought desperately. If she admitted Sharice had made everything up, Trey might be angry at Sharice, and she would get mad at Angel. But if she went along with the lie, Angel realized things could get even worse. She suddenly felt trapped.
“Girl, don’t just stand there blocking the door,” Sharice said, giving Angel a gentle shove to nudge her forward. “Just see what he says.”
Angel wanted to crawl under her desk and disappear. She darted quickly to her chair and sat down. A hot wave of embarrassment spread over her as she opened her English book and flipped to the poem Mr. Collins had assigned, Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird.” Th
e words were like a temporary refuge.
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
“Angel?” A low voice interrupted her reading.
She turned to see Trey leaning toward her from across the aisle. He had a puzzled expression that looked to Angel like a cross between fear and embarrassment. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Trey scanned the room as students steadily filed in. Angel wondered if he wanted to hide that he was talking to her.
“Sharice texted me earlier,” he began in a nervous voice just above a whisper. “And, well, you know, it’s just that . . . I’m kinda seeing someone else . . .”
Two seats away, Sharice, who had been leaning out of her chair to listen, nearly toppled over. She caught herself with a thud on the desk in front of her. A few students turned at the sound.
“What are you talkin’ about?” Sharice squeaked. “You got a girlfriend? I’ve never seen you with anyone. Marcus never said anything about that. Seriously?”
Trey rubbed his forehead and shook his head. “No . . . I mean, yes. Maybe. I guess.”
“What’re you tryin’ to say?” Sharice demanded. “You mean you’re taking some other girl to the party?”
Trey looked from Angel to Sharice and then back at Angel. A few drops of sweat beaded on his forehead. More students turned at their desks to listen. Angel wished she could escape from the classroom. Somehow Trey looked the same way. Finally, after several agonizing seconds, he blurted out, “No . . . I mean . . . what I meant to say was . . . I’m going with Angel.”
“All right!” Sharice cheered with a wide grin. “My brother will drive us, and we can all go to Grillz before the party for burgers. This is gonna be on point!”
Trey turned around and nodded weakly at Sharice. While his back was turned, Angel glared at Sharice and shook her head angrily. Sharice ignored her and started pulling books from her bag, humming happily.