The Pledge

by Chandra Sparks Taylor

  Aunt Dani glanced at her watch and jumped up. “I’ve got to run,” she said. “I’ve got to get ready for tonight.”

  “Where were you last night?” I asked and bit my lip the moment the words came out. “I tried calling you, but no one answered.” I prayed they didn’t notice how nervous I looked about my lie.

  “Girl, I was out with my man. We’re going out tonight, too.”

  “Well, have fun,” I said.

  “Always.” She grabbed her purse and was just about to walk out the door when she spun around. “Oh, I forgot to show you guys my new modeling cards.”

  She pulled a card out of her purse, which featured her in a bunch of different poses and had her phone number, e-mail address and a Web site on it. I wasn’t an expert, but I didn’t see anything that blew me away.

  “I think I’m going to try and get some gigs in Atlanta. You know they say that’s the black New York.”

  “Sounds good,” Momma said, sounding about as interested as I felt.

  “See you guys later,” she said. She blew kisses at us, then she was gone.

  “Where are Daddy and Cory?” I asked as I turned the chicken.

  “Your daddy took her to her tae kwon do class,” she said. “Don’t you have a Worth the Wait meeting tonight?”

  “Oh, man. I totally forgot,” I said. I had never missed a meeting, but after all I had gone through, there was no way I was going. “I’ll just have to catch the next meeting.”

  “No, you’ll go to this one,” Momma said sharply, slamming her knife on the table. “Apparently you need it.”

  I jumped at the sound and turned to look at her.

  “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”

  I gulped. “What are you talking about?” I started rearranging the cooked chicken on a paper-towel-covered plate to give me something to do. “Are you going to make green beans?” I didn’t wait for her to respond before I went to the cabinet, grabbed a can of beans, then went to the refrigerator and got some chicken broth and bacon, which I started frying in a pot.

  “Courtland, look at me,” she demanded.

  I turned to face her, still not looking her in the eyes.

  “What is going on? You call here early this morning with some crazy excuse about leaving early for a team breakfast and forgetting your cheerleading uniform, then you get suspended from school for punching your best friend. I go into your room and your bed doesn’t look like it’s been slept in, a strange number is on the caller ID and the bathroom window is partially opened. Something’s not adding up here. Did you sneak out of this house last night to see Allen?”

  I looked up at her and my eyes widened in shock. “You think I wasn’t young once?” she said. “You think I don’t know you’ve still been in touch with him? Baby, talk to me. There’s something going on with you I don’t know about. I can feel it in my spirit.”

  I looked down on the floor, trying to find the words to tell her all that had been going on. I took a deep breath, but before I could say anything, the phone rang.

  I lunged for it, but my momma stopped me. “Let it go to voice mail,” she said.

  “But, Momma—”

  “Courtland,” she said in her warning tone, and I knew to let it go.

  The phone rang and rang, and after it stopped, it started up again a few seconds later. Momma sighed and snatched it off the hook.

  “Hello,” she snapped. She listened for a few minutes, murmured a few uh-huhs and said a few things I couldn’t make out, then she glanced at me before finally saying, “I’ll make sure she’s there.”

  When she hung up, I waited for her to say something, but she went back to making dinner. “Who was that?” I finally asked.

  “Andrea. She wanted to know if you were going to be at tonight’s meeting.”

  “I guess you said yes,” I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes and neck.

  “Go get dressed,” she said. “We’re leaving in five minutes.”

  “I can drive myself,” I said with an attitude.

  “You think I really trust you to do what you say you’re going to do?” she asked.

  I didn’t bother to argue. I went upstairs, ran a comb through my hair, which was all over my head, and stomped downstairs, not really caring how I looked.

  Momma and I rode to the church in silence, and when we pulled up, Andrea was at the door greeting everyone who walked in with a hug.

  “I’ll be back to get you when the meeting is over.” I nodded, watching Bree hug Andrea. “You need to apologize to her,” Momma said softly.

  “I will,” I said.

  Bree had already gone inside by the time I made it to the door. “Hey, Andrea,” I said, giving our adviser a hug. She gave me a tight squeeze.

  “Hey, Courtland. How are you?” She gazed into my eyes like she really wanted to know the answer.

  “I’m not having a great day,” I said honestly.

  “Bree told me what happened at school, but I want to hear your side. I don’t know if I’ll be able to talk after tonight’s meeting, but I want us to get together soon,” she said.

  “Okay.” I really liked the idea. Bree’s suggestion that I talk to Andrea made sense. I needed to talk with someone, and Andrea had always been cool and honest. I had a feeling she wouldn’t spread all my business, and obviously she knew how to keep a secret, since she hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing me at Wal-Mart.

  I headed in and looked around for Bree, who was sitting off from the other girls. I slid in next to her.

  “Hey,” I said shyly.

  She looked up at me. “Hey,” she said and went back to reading her book.

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  She closed the book so I could see the cover but then opened it so fast I didn’t have a chance to see the title.

  “Looks good,” I said, not really knowing what to say.

  “Did you come over here for a reason?” she asked, staring at me. I guess she had time to think about what I’d done, and now she was angry. I really couldn’t blame her.

  Her eye had turned black and it looked like it really hurt.

  I couldn’t believe I had done that to my best friend.

  “Bree, I am so sorry,” I said. “I should have known you would never have told anyone about our conversation. I guess everything that’s happened lately built up and I took it out on you. Please forgive me.”

  She shrugged and looked down at her book. “I’ll consider it,” she said, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. When I saw her smile, I threw my arms around her.

  “I should make you get down on your hands and knees and beg,” she said. “I can’t believe you punched me.”

  I got on my knees in front of her and clasped my hands. “Please, please, please forgive me,” I said.

  A couple of the girls started laughing at us, but I didn’t care. I realized at that moment that Bree was a great friend. She always had my back, and even though I had done something horrible to her, she was willing to forgive me.

  “What, y’all a couple now?” someone said, and we all burst out laughing.

  “She’s not my type,” I joked. “I like them tall, dark and sexy.”

  “Me, too,” Emily said, and I rolled my eyes, not believing she was admitting to liking black guys. I had always suspected, but her words confirmed it for me.

  We quieted down when Andrea walked in.

  She smiled. “I see you guys are in a good mood today,” she said.

  A few girls nodded.

  She grew quiet and glanced around the room. “I see a few of you brought in articles to discuss.”

  I groaned to myself, realizing I had forgotten one.

  “Today I want to do something a little different. Is that okay?”

  I sat back, relieved. Although Andrea wasn’t strict, she did like for us all to participate, and I didn’t like letting her down.

  “Why don’t we get a little more comfortable? You guys form a circle
with your chairs.”

  We got up and dragged our chairs so they were no longer in straight lines, and once we got settled, Andrea walked over to get a beautifully wrapped box along with a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag.

  “How many of you hugged me when you walked in?” she asked, and all of the girls in the room raised their hands except for one who had come in late.

  Andrea smiled and pulled tiny gold boxes out of the bag and handed one to each of us. I shook mine, trying to figure out what could be inside. Andrea gave really good gifts. Once she had given us all white fitted T-shirts with Worth the Wait written in black letters and she had been hinting that she was going to give us purity rings during a purity ball we were planning.

  “Don’t shake them,” she said. I placed mine on my lap, as did a few of the other girls, although a few still tried to sneak and shake them.

  “Who was the first one to give me a hug today?” she asked.

  Two girls raised their hands, then glared at each other.

  “You know I spoke to you when you came in, Lindsey, so put your hand down,” Maria said.

  Lindsey eyed the present and raised her hand higher. “I hugged her first,” she said. “When you came in, Andrea had run to her car, remember?”

  Maria lowered her hand.

  Andrea handed the present to Lindsey, who bounced in her seat. “Can I open it?” she said.

  “Not yet. I want you girls to open the smaller packages first.”

  “I want one,” Kaya said, flopping back in her seat. She was the one who had come in late, and her brown eyes glowed with jealousy.

  “Are you sure?” Andrea said.

  “Yeah,” Kaya said. “Who wouldn’t want a gift?”

  Andrea shrugged and handed a package to her. “I hope you like it,” she said. “You can all open them on the count of three.”

  She counted, and we all ripped the boxes apart. Kaya was the first one to get hers open and she pulled out the slip of paper that was inside, read it and frowned. “What is this?” she asked.

  By then, most of the other girls were staring at their gifts, too.

  I looked at my slip of paper, which read “You’ve been given the gift of HIV,” and I’m sure I looked just as confused as most of the other girls.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Emily asked, tossing her long blond hair behind her back.

  Kaya threw the paper toward Andrea. “I don’t want this,” she said.

  “Sure you do,” Andrea said. “Remember, you made a choice—you asked for it.” She turned to Lindsey. “You can open your gift now.”

  Lindsey hesitated, but then curiosity got the best of her and she ripped the wrapping paper off her gift. Nestled inside the box was a card that read “You’ve been given the gift of AIDS.”

  Lindsey made a face and dropped the box, looking at Andrea like she was crazy.

  The room grew quiet as we all sat staring at Andrea, waiting for an explanation.

  She looked each of us in the eye, took a deep breath, then began.

  “From the time I was old enough to know what sex was, my mother always drummed it into my head to never have sex before marriage. She had me when she was sixteen, and my father was never around, and she didn’t want me to get myself in the same predicament. Saving myself for marriage wasn’t a big deal—until I got a boyfriend.”

  A few of us girls looked at one another, knowing exactly what she meant. If someone had told me a year ago I would have been thinking about sleeping with Allen, I would have laughed at them. There was no doubt back then that I would still be a virgin on my wedding night, but meeting Allen had made me question that.

  “Paul and I met when I was sixteen. He was a couple of years older, but when we were in high school together, he was the cutest guy at school—star quarterback. I was kind of quiet then, and I had secretly had a crush on him for years.” Her gaze landed on me, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t look away. It sounded like she was talking about me and Allen.

  “We started dating, and I knew I had found the love of my life. It wasn’t until I went off to college that I decided to sleep with him. He was at a different school, and after it happened, he just stopped calling. I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. I called him, and when I didn’t hear from him, I got someone to drive me to his school, which was about two hours away. It took me most of the day to track him down, and when I did, he pretended he didn’t know me.”

  Tears filled my eyes, and my heart broke for Andrea.

  “I went back to school, devastated, trying to understand what had changed. Paul told me he loved me, and I believed him, and I tried with everything in me to figure out how someone who said he loved me could just drop me like that. I became depressed, and I was barely able to drag myself to class each morning. I’d come home and just lie in bed.”

  She sighed. “To make a long story short, a couple of weeks later I thought I had the flu, so I went to the student health center. They ran some tests, and a few days later I learned I was HIV positive.”

  “What?” I whispered. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “I’ve been HIV positive for about ten years. Now I’ve passed that gift on to you.”

  The room grew silent as we took in what she had just said.

  She smiled. “Luckily for you, it’s not a real gift, but I hope I’ve made my point. I got HIV from one sexual encounter. If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Did you realize girls your age, especially black girls, are contracting HIV at the highest rate?”

  “Really?” someone said, and Andrea nodded.

  “I know many of you are in this group because someone forced you to be here, but I hope I’ve made you realize how precious your virginity is. Even if you don’t have it anymore, you can make a decision today not to sleep with anyone until you get married. Abstinence is the only way to make sure you don’t get AIDS or any other sexually transmitted diseases.”

  “You’re just trying to scare us,” Emily said. She threw her box on the floor and stomped out and someone got up to go after her.

  “No, let her go,” Andrea said. “Sometimes the truth scares people. She’ll be back.”

  We sat there taking in all we had learned.

  “Are you going to die?” someone finally asked.

  Andrea laughed. “I don’t plan to anytime soon. Listen, I don’t want you guys feeling sorry for me. I have a good life, and I’ve learned to live with my HIV status.”

  “You don’t look like you have it,” I said.

  “How does someone with HIV look?” she asked curiously.

  I shrugged. “Skinny and sick,” I finally said, realizing how silly it sounded.

  “There are more people walking around with this disease than you realize. You can’t tell just from looking at someone, and before you ask, you can’t get it from hugging me. I just did that to prove a point. This disease is moving quickly. Like I said, black girls are the fastest growing population.”

  “That’s because there are a lot of gay girls now,” someone said.

  Andrea shook her head. “It’s black heterosexual girls who are getting it.”

  “You mean guys are giving it to us?” Bree asked, her eyes huge.

  Andrea nodded.

  “How will I know if my boyfriend has it?” she asked, and I wondered if something was going on with her and Nathaniel.

  “Ask him.”

  “You can’t ask someone something like that,” I said.

  “But you can sleep with him?” Andrea asked, looking at me. “Many of you don’t have any problems making a decision to have sex, even when you don’t really know a guy, thinking all you need is a condom, but condoms aren’t a hundred percent. My boyfriend and I used one.”

  A few of the girls and I looked at each other, not believing that could be true.

  “Does anyone have any more questions?” she asked.

  “What made you decide to tell us?” someone asked.


  “I saw a friend about to make a mistake, and I knew I couldn’t keep this to myself. That’s one of the problems with the black community.” She glanced around. “No offense to my girls of other races, but I have to talk about what I know. We want to keep stuff buried and not talk about it. You guys are living in a different time and experiencing things I never even imagined. It wouldn’t be fair to you if I didn’t tell you what was going on.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I thought about the night before, and as crazy as it sounded, I was glad things had turned out the way they did. What if I had slept with Allen? I knew he had been with other girls, and obviously he hadn’t used a condom because of the pregnancy rumors. It was also obvious he didn’t love me, since he had made a bet to take my virginity and tried to rape me. I was more determined than ever to renew the pledge I had taken to save myself for marriage.

  “Well, I guess we’ve had enough conversation for tonight. If any of you have questions, please call me,” she said as we started gathering our things. “Otherwise, I’ll see you in two weeks.”

  The first girl was just making her way out the door when Andrea dropped another bombshell. “Don’t be surprised if your parents want to talk to you when you get home tonight. I called each of them and told them exactly what I just told you.”

  thirteen

  “So how was your meeting tonight?” Momma asked on the drive home.

  “It was good,” I said.

  “Anything happen you want to talk to me about?”

  I sat looking out the window.

  “Well?” she asked when I didn’t say anything after a few seconds.

  “Andrea is HIV positive,” I said softly.

  “I know. I’m really sorry to hear it. When she told me earlier, I was so shocked I couldn’t say anything. I thought about telling you, but I figured you should hear it from her.”

  I just kept staring out the window.

  When Momma swung into the parking lot of Ben and Jerry’s, I looked up in surprise. “We need some girl time,” she said.

  I got out of the car without a word and we went inside. After we had gotten our ice cream, we sat in the car, eating in silence.