Monday's Not Coming

by Tiffany D. Jackson

  With a weight the size of Daddy’s truck strapped to my back, I struggled through school, every class dragging on for miles.

  By lunchtime, with Ma and Daddy’s talk heavy on my mind, I slipped into the large bathroom stall to hide my tears. What if Daddy’s right? What if Monday really didn’t want to be my friend anymore? But what did I do to her to make her hate me so much—to make her pretend I didn’t exist? Or what if that detective’s right? Did Monday run away?

  Did that picture really change us?

  “Aye, who’s that crying in the bathroom like that?” a voice barked.

  I bit down hard on my tongue to stop the gasping tears, hoping if I just kept quiet, I’d become invisible.

  “Who’s in there?” I recognized Shayla’s shrill voice.

  “I don’t know,” Ashley responded.

  I dried my face as someone moved into the next stall and climbed up to peep into mine.

  “Oh, it’s just Claudia,” Ashley said, rolling her eyes before hoping off the toilet.

  Shayla sucked her teeth. “What she in there crying about?”

  “Probably missing her boo-thang. Thinking about them doing nasty shit.”

  Heat sizzled off my skin. I stormed out of the stall and ran straight into Shayla.

  She pushed me back, shaking off her hands. “Whoa, chill! You tripping, I ain’t into girls like that!”

  Ashley and her other friend snickered.

  “Whatever,” I hissed, trying to walk around her. “Get the hell out my way.”

  “Or what?” she snapped. “What you gonna do?”

  I stepped left and she stepped with me.

  “I’m not playing with you!”

  I stepped right and she stepped with me.

  “Dumbass!” she chuckled. “So I heard you in TLC now.”

  I jerked back as if her elbow had pierced right into my stomach. Shayla was the one person in the entire school—the entire world—that I didn’t want to know. How the hell did she find out?

  Her top lip curled up. “Wait a minute, is that what was really going on? She did your homework and you ate her coochie! Is that why you crying? ’Cause Monday’s not around to do your homework no more? ’Cause you too dumb to do it yourself?”

  The girls stifled their giggles, sounding like squeaky markers on a whiteboard.

  “Oh, naw, that can’t be it,” Shayla corrected herself, rolling her neck. “’Cause in that PICTURE, look like Monday was the one licking your box.”

  All the rage, all the pent-up emotions of the last few months, erupted at the mention of “the picture.” I pulled back a fist and went to strike her but only hit air as she dodged my pathetic blow. Shayla shoved me so hard I went flying, hitting my head on the stall door and falling to the floor. The room spun. I tried to stand back up but she yanked me by the hair and dragged me.

  “Helllpppppp!” I screamed, kicking my legs.

  “Girl, chill,” Ashley said, pulling Shayla’s arm. “Stop! She ain’t even worth it!”

  “Oh, you gonna try to hit me!”

  Shayla propped me up like a doll, shoving my head toward the nasty toilet bowl. My arms shot out and I gripped on to the sides of the seat, shaking and slipping.

  “Help! Somebody,” I cried. My face inching closer to the water as she pushed harder against the back of my head. The foul stench of piss mixed with cleaner made my stomach heave.

  “Shayla, stop, come on!” Ashley begged, pulling at her.

  Never had I been so horrified of my own reflection staring back at me from a pool of water.

  “No,” I whimpered, my voice echoing inside the bowl, my arms trembling under the pressure. Using all my strength, I tried to find the power to fight back, when I heard the voice of an angel.

  “Hey! What’s going on in here?” Ms. Valente roared, her heels clicking into a jog. Shayla released me fast. Too fast. My teeth barely missed the edge of the bowl before I fell face-first on the tiles. Ms. Valente slammed open the stall.

  “Claudia?” She glanced over at Shayla, standing in the corner with a bone-straight expression.

  “Ms. Valente, she started it. She pushed me, then tried to hit me!”

  A moan escaped as I rolled over. Ms. Valente kneeled by my side, touching the lump growing above my eyebrow, and I winced.

  “You girls go on to lunch,” she ordered. “NOW!”

  “What about her?” Shayla shrieked.

  “I’m taking her to the nurse,” she snapped, helping me to my feet.

  “Ain’t you gonna tell the principal? She tried to hit me. Everybody in here saw her!”

  Ms. Valente stopped to glare at her. “Do you want to get suspended? Do you ALL want to get suspended?”

  The girls shook their heads. All except Shayla.

  “But ain’t she gonna get in trouble? She hit me first!” Shayla screamed, her foot stomping.

  “Well, that’s what happens when you poke at a beehive for so long. You likely to get stung! Now, go to lunch and I don’t want to hear nothing else about this.”

  Angry tears swelled up in Shayla’s eyes before she stormed out of the bathroom, the other girls running after her.

  Ms. Valente helped me to my feet and pulled me out the stall, checking me over again.

  “Claudia, did you really hit Shayla?”

  I swallowed. “No . . . well, I tried, but she was talking about me.”

  Ms. Valente huffed out some air, her face hardening.

  “I don’t want to ever hear about you fighting again. Ever! What if I hadn’t walked in here? What if those other girls had jumped in? You could’ve been seriously hurt!”

  “But . . . they were talking about me in that picture again,” I said.

  “I don’t care! That’s no excuse for fighting,” she said, and pointed down the hall. “Go down to the nurse’s office and get your head checked out. Now!”

  I scurried out of the bathroom. My adrenaline still pumping, I only walked a few feet before noticing the stinging over my eye that made my entire face throb.

  I entered the nurse’s office and stopped short at the front desk.

  “Hey there!” said an unfamiliar pretty young blond lady standing by a filing cabinet.

  “Where’s Ms. Orman?” I blurted out, my head pounding.

  “Ha, I guess word still hasn’t got around, huh? She retired during the Christmas break. I’m Ms. Moser.”

  “Ms. Moser?” I repeated.

  Her smile dropped as she crossed the room.

  “Hey. Are you okay? Come, let’s have a look at you,” she said, leading me over to one of the cots. “What happened?”

  “I . . . uh . . . ran into the wall—at gym.”

  “Oh, wow! Are you dizzy?”

  “A little.”

  “Am I blurry? How many fingers do I have up?”

  “Three.”

  “Okay. Let me get you an ice pack while we check you out,” she said, grabbing one out the cabinet in the back. She cracked the pack on her thigh to activate the ice beads before wrapping it in sheets of paper towels.

  “Here you go,” she whispered, gently laying it over my forehead. “Do you know if you’re allergic to any medications, like aspirin?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let me just double-check your file. What’s your name, sweetie?”

  It wasn’t planned. The idea didn’t really hit me until her name leaked out my mouth.

  “Monday Charles.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Monday.”

  I can play this off, I thought. People confused us all the time. Ms. Moser stepped behind the desk and opened a file cabinet with the key around her neck. Maybe there’s another address or number in her file. An emergency contact, maybe for her dad or her aunt.

  “Ah, here you are,” she said, pulling out a file.

  She scanned through Monday’s chart, squinting before her mouth dropped.

  “Hold one second,” she said, her voice low. “Let me close t
he door.”

  Ms. Moser peered out into the hall and shut the door.

  “Monday, Ms. Orman left a note here . . . said you may stop by from time to time. Are you okay?”

  The ice pack suddenly felt colder. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just have a little headache.”

  Worry painted across her face, she twitched nervously. “Um, is there anything else you want me to take a look at?”

  “Like what?”

  “Any other . . . injuries you may have . . . that you want me to examine? Any bruises?”

  Those marks on her back, I thought, and the pack slid out my hand.

  “No. I’m okay. Just hit my head.”

  “Monday, anything we talk about I promise will not leave this room. Just like with Ms. Orman.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, wincing a smile. “But . . . um, do you have my dad’s number?”

  Ms. Moser opened Monday’s file again, flipping through papers. Why is it so thick?

  “Sorry, sweetie,” she sighed. “No one else listed here but your mom. Do you need him?”

  “No. I was just gonna call him so my mom doesn’t have to . . . take off work to pick me up. But I’m okay. I think I can go back to class now.”

  She placed a hand on my shoulder, worry in her eyes.

  “Are you sure? You said you were dizzy a few moments ago.”

  I sat up, blinking away stars. “Yeah. I’m good.”

  “Well, let me get you some aspirin anyways.”

  Ms. Moser took a generic bottle out the cabinet and filled up a cup at the water cooler.

  “So, where did Ms. Orman go?” I asked.

  “She retired in Florida with her daughter,” she said as she handed me the pills and a cup of water. “You still have her number, right?”

  I popped and swallowed the pills raw.

  “No, I think I lost it. But do you happen to have it?”

  The After

  Dear Monday,

  Reamember last year, how a clip of the Group 5 pirformnce make it on Good Morning America? Now I no why. Ms. Manis is work us hard! She’s even ading more practices. I don’t knw if I can ceep up. I know what you wold say if you where here: “So just quit.” But I can’t quite. Dance is all I got witout you.

  “Claudia, you must fully extend your arms,” Ms. Manis corrected, her voice just a touch above the music pouring out the speakers. “And watch your turnout.”

  Group Five performance is the crowd favorite. So we needed to be tight; even simple head turns had to be in sync. I was used to having Monday to practice with, be the mirror I needed to make myself look flawless, in school and outside it. Without her, my imperfections seemed jarring, like coloring an ocean carrot orange rather than cyan.

  “Okay, ladies, let’s take it from the top.”

  We split up into two lines at the far end of the studio. Megan stood next to me with her hands on her hips, focusing on Ms. Manis’s direction, her feet sitting comfortably in first position. She hadn’t said one word to me since our run-in at the mall, and I didn’t expect her to.

  “She don’t say much, does she?” Shannon whispered behind Megan.

  “I wouldn’t either,” Megan mumbled without glancing in my direction just as another girl bumped into their conversation with a sly grin. “But you heard what Ms. Manis said, so leave her be.”

  “You think she knows yet?”

  Megan shoots her a look.

  “Aye, why was Michael asking you about her the other day?”

  Megan’s head snapped back. “Drop it, Kit Kat.”

  “What? What’d I say?”

  “I said drop it,” she growled.

  “Dang, what’s up with you?”

  When class ended, I raced to the locker room to change before the girls had time to join me. I slipped on my sneakers with my coat in hand and ran out into the lobby, where Megan stood waiting by the elevators.

  “We need to talk,” she said, her voice clipped.

  I swallowed. “Um, okay.”

  I followed her into an empty classroom in the back of the school. Music danced through the walls from next door’s Group Four lesson, loud enough that no one would be able to hear her whoop my ass for staring at her boyfriend.

  “I got to ask you something,” Megan said, locking the door and leaning against it.

  I stepped back a few paces, putting space between us.

  “Uh . . . okay.”

  She crossed her arms and took a deep breath. “The other day at the mall . . . did you . . . tell anyone you saw me there?”

  I blinked, unsure if I heard her right. “No.”

  She nodded. “Good. Don’t.”

  Her words jabbed at my stomach and I took another step back.

  “Why . . . you asking?”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “’Cause, I told my mom I was taking an extra solo lesson so she wouldn’t know I was with Kam.”

  I blinked again before a giggle burst from my lips, quickly becoming a full-fledged laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, why would you go to the mall to sneak around with your boyfriend?”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, I know. It was dumb. I guess ’cause the only other place to hang out is in his car or at his house, and I just wanted to go somewhere and be a regular couple for once.”

  “Well, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Michael’s the one you probably got to worry about. He knows everybody!”

  The corner of Megan’s lips crept up into a smirk. “Trust me, I found a way to shut Michael up. I ain’t worried about him.”

  One Year Before the Before

  Monday had tasted the sweetness of popularity and craved its high.

  Every day she attempted to talk to someone new, to be seen, to stand out. Every day her head spun with ideas on how to win back the spotlight. With the braid business over and Jacob giving her death stares in the hallway, she had to come up with something new. Something big and exciting.

  “I think I want to dye my hair,” she announced as we walked into the library.

  “Ha! Really? Your mom is gonna let you do that?”

  “She won’t even care,” she said, dropping her book bag by our table.

  “Dang, Ma would never let me. She’d kill me for even asking!”

  Monday’s face tensed, her pupils shrinking the way Ma’s did after coming home from the eye doctor. She sat motionless, millions of miles away.

  “Well, what color you gonna get?” I asked, calling her back to earth.

  It took her a moment to land, but when she did, her lips curved into a smirk. “Blond.”

  “Blond? Now I know you lunchin’! You ain’t got no business with white-people hair.”

  “Not like white-people blond. More like Beyoncé blond. And I’m gonna straighten it but with curls on the bottom.” Monday licked her lips, thirsty for the unattainable. “There ain’t no other girl in the whole school who’ll be blond like me. I’mma be the first!”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon flipping through magazines and websites in the media room, searching for examples of the perfect blond. It had to be the right shade of golden yellow with a tint of auburn. More natural, we thought. By the end of the day, I loaned her five dollars to buy a box of color and a relaxer at the dollar store.

  That Sunday I called before church, after, and during dinner. Each time she was busy fighting with her hair. Over eight hours. All the website said was you weren’t supposed to leave dye in for more than twenty minutes. By bedtime, I was pacing around my room, plotting how to convince Daddy to drive me over to Ed Borough. Monday had never relaxed her hair herself before. Mrs. Charles always brought her to some lady’s house a few doors down who fixed her up in her kitchen for twenty dollars. I could count on one hand how many times she had been in that woman’s house.

  In the morning, I waited by our lockers, frantically hoping to catch the first glimpse. I bounced on the balls of my feet, my stomach dancing. She should’ve done it at my house. I co
uld’ve helped.

  Monday trickled in minutes before the bell, wearing my pink bucket hat, her eyes low and glassy, the spark in them missing. The wrinkled collar on her white shirt had a light brown ring of sweat circling the neck. Must have been too busy with her hair to worry about her clothes, I thought.

  “Hey,” she mumbled.

  I grinned. “Well? Hurry up, let me see!”

  She sighed as she opened her locker to stuff her coat inside. When she slammed it shut, I almost screamed.

  “Claudia,” she asked, eyes big and uncertain. “What color is it?”

  Her hair was a violent burnt orange, her roots a rusted burgundy. Drenched in hair spray, overfried, stiff to the touch, her split ends screamed for a merciful cut. It hurt just looking at her.

  “It’s . . . diff . . . rent,” I said, trying to keep it cool, but wishing she’d put that hat she’d borrowed back on.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “I think I messed up,” she said. “The instructions were . . . confusing.”

  “Well . . . you know, girls mess their hair up all the time. It’s nothing.”

  “Really?” She looked doubtful, touching the crispy tips of her hair.

  The second bell rang, and I looped our arms, heading for homeroom.

  “Yeah! And Ma dyes her hair herself. Maybe she can help . . . fix it.”

  Monday struggled out a breath, as if using her lungs for the first time that day. “Okay.”

  Go home! Run out the back door, I should have said, if only to save her. But instead I walked into Ms. Valente’s classroom first, Monday close on my tail.

  “Morning, la . . . dies.” Ms. Valente struggled to compose her shock.

  A dead silence surrounded us as Monday slipped into her seat. I mean, you could hear a pin drop—every eyeball glued to the fire on her head. She cleared her throat and opened her notebook as if she didn’t notice. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, knowing what was bound to happen, in three, two, one . . .

  “Yo! What the fuck happened to your hair?” Trevor screamed.

  The class erupted into laughter.

  “Guys! Knock it off!” Ms. Valente warned.

  “But look at her hair—”

  “You need to stop worrying about her hair and start worry about your grades. And your hairline.”