If You Really Loved Me

by Anne Schraff

  “You’re finally home from the nightmare, eh babe?” Tyron asked.

  “Yeah,” Destini answered. “All done.”

  “Did the little monster you were stuck with try to push you over a cliff or anything?” Tyron joked.

  “No, that part was okay. She was a good kid,” Destini said.

  “Let’s see,” Tyron went on. “It’s five o’clock. Is it too late for us to go to the movies?”

  Destini was tired. She wasn’t used to all that hiking. She had fun yesterday and today, but she was worn out. She hadn’t even had time to shower. Her hair was a mess. “Maybe we could make it tomorrow,” Destini responded.

  “Hey babe, you got time for those little squid, but you’re blowing me off. I’m lonely for you, Destini. I’m dying to see you. You hear what I’m saying?” Tyron urged.

  “Okay, yeah, just give me forty-five minutes,” Destini agreed. “I’d love to see a movie with you, Tyron, after I get the dust out of my hair.”

  “That’s more like it, babe,” he said. “See you at six. Bennie’ll drive us.”

  Destini raced into the bathroom and showered. She struggled to make her wet hair manageable. She thought it looked like a big black tumbleweed.

  “What are you tearing around for, girl?” Mom asked. “You just got home.”

  “Oh Mom, my boyfriend, Tyron, he called and he’s taking me to the movies,” Destini explained.

  “What?” Mom gasped. “You been campin’ for two days and now you’re goin’ to the movies? Don’t he know what a day you had?” Mom sounded annoyed.

  “He says he’s lonely for me, Mom,” Destini responded. “I don’t want to disappoint him. He’s really nice.”

  “Girl, I don’t like this,” Mom grumbled. “This boy sounds like he’s real domineering. He don’t care how much he puts you out, as long as he gets what he wants. A considerate boy wouldn’t have even asked you out after you put in a day and a half camping.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Destini assured her. “I really want to go to the movies with Tyron.”

  A little after six, Bennie drove up in front of the house. Bennie hit the horn. A frown came over Destini’s mother’s face. “I see,” Mom snapped. “He’s one of those. One of them boys who don’t have the courtesy to come inside and say hello. That makes me sick. That makes me really sick. He honks and the girl is supposed to come running like a dog or something.”

  “Mommm,” Destini groaned. “It’s just that we’re running late and he wants to get to the theater.” Destini ran past her mother, down the walk to the car. Sitting inside, Tyron held the back door open and Destini hopped in.

  Destini’s legs ached from all the hiking. She had dreamed of a nice long soak in the bathtub. She planned to go to bed early and have a good night’s sleep. She didn’t feel like a movie and she was only going for Tyron.

  “We’re gonna see Saw Town, baby,” Tyron announced. Bennie laughed from the driver’s seat and said, “Yeah, they say it makes those chainsaw movies seem tame.”

  Destini hated horror movies. She liked comedies and musicals. One time she went to a horror movie with two girlfriends, and she couldn’t sleep for a week. She kept sitting up in the dark and imagining hideous strangers with claws for hands entering her bedroom.

  “Yeah?” she said now.

  “Yeah,” Tyron went on. “See, in this movie, these guys trap tourists staying at this creepy hotel, and they get them down to the basement and—zzzzzz!—the saws go to work. I bet after spending a coupla days with those stupid delinquents you wouldn’t mind feeding them to the saws.”

  “They weren’t bad, the kids I mean,” Destini replied. “But I’m glad the day is over.” Destini did not mean to say that but she knew it was what Tyron wanted to hear, so she said it. What troubled her a little was that she was spending so much effort saying things she didn’t believe just to please Tyron. But she cared for him and he cared for her, and it was worth it.

  “So who else from Tubman was at that stupid camp thing?” Tyron asked.

  “Alonee and Sami were the other girls. Jaris Spain and Derrick Shaw were there. And Kevin, the guy from Texas.” Destini listed them.

  “Derrick Shaw?” Tyron asked. “Man, he’s so stupid it’s a wonder they let him come along. He’s almost one of those special needs guys.”

  “No Tyron, he did okay. He hiked and played softball and did everything the rest of us did,” Destini countered.

  “You almost sound like you had a good time, babe,” Tyron remarked. “Like you enjoy hanging out with phonies like Jaris and Alonee.”

  “Oh no, I got trapped into it,” Destini said quickly. Again, Destini felt funny. Never before in her life did she feel obliged to say things she didn’t believe just to please someone.

  “Here we are,” Bennie declared, parking in front of a ratty looking movie house. They showed old horror movies and minor films that nobody really wanted to see.

  The theater smelled of rancid popcorn. It was sparsely attended, with many of the customers looking like homeless men who had come in for a place to sit down. There were a lot of seats in the middle, but Tyron led them up front. “I like the action in my lap,” Tyron stated.

  Bennie went to get them popcorn even though Destini didn’t want any, especially the way the place smelled. Destini had eaten so much on the camping trip she felt stuffed, but soon Tyron was shoving the box of buttered popcorn at her. When she didn’t join in reaching into the box, Tyron urged her. “Hey eat up, girl. We got the extra deluxe buttered popcorn just for you. It wasn’t cheap.”

  It was the most disgusting movie Destini had ever seen. There was so much blood and gore she thought she was going to vomit. But most of the guys in the theater were laughing and yelling, including Bennie and Tyron. As heads and body parts flew through the air, the roars of approval increased. Destini closed her eyes often and kept telling herself that this is the kind of stuff guys like and girls don’t. Guys were different than girls when it came to movies. Guys thrived on violence.

  “It kinda scared me,” Destini admitted as they walked out of the theater after the movie. “I mean, horror movies like that make my skin crawl.”

  “You’d of rather gone to a chick flick where everybody gets out their hankies and weeps, huh, babe?” Tyron asked, laughing.

  “I guess,” Destini said. She was so tired she hoped she wouldn’t fall asleep in the car on the way home. When they pulled up to Destini’s house, Tyron and Destini got out of the car and walked to the door. Tyron reached out and took her hand. “Hey beautiful,” he asked softly, “do I get a goodnight kiss?”

  Destini turned numb. Beautiful? He called her “beautiful.” Her weariness vanished and she turned to him smiling. Tyron bent down and kissed Destini gently on the lips, and she reached up and caressed his cheek. She had never felt to special in all her life. She felt like Cinderella when the prince discovered her dainty foot was a fit for the golden slipper.

  “Goodnight Tyron,” Destini said at the door.

  “Goodnight beautiful,” he whispered in her ear.

  Destini stood there watching them drive away. She kept asking herself, “Did he really call me beautiful? Did he really, really call me beautiful. Me of the frizzy hair, the plain face?” Destini was not Sereeta or Alonee or Carissa. Everyone knew they were beautiful. She was Destini Fletcher, always the outsider, never the chosen one. But now she had been chosen.

  Destini went inside. She heard her mother turn off her bedside light. She had been up waiting for Destini’s safe return. Now Mom could go to sleep.

  In her room, Destini sat in front of the bedroom mirror for a few moments. She looked at the image of herself. How could he have called her beautiful? But he did. He did. And she loved him for that. She loved him with all her heart.

  At school on Monday, the first person Destini saw was Derrick Shaw. He looked fantastic. “Did you get the word yesterday?” he asked.

  “What word?” Destini asked back.

  “
There’s gonna be a surprise quiz in English. I didn’t read half the stories. I’m doomed!” Derrick groaned.

  “Oh Derrick, that can’t be!” Destini responded. “Mr. Pippin always tells us when he’s having a test.” Just then Destini caught sight of Marko and Tyron laughing like crazy a few yards away. She knew they had sent Derrick the message. “Don’t worry, Derrick. It’s just a joke. There isn’t going to be any test,” she assured him.

  Derrick saw where Destinit was looking, turned, and saw the two boys. “They put the word out, didn’t they? I worried all night about it.” An angry look came to Derrick’s face. “Why would they do something like that?” He shook his head, stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked away.

  Destini walked over to Marko and Tyron.

  “Did he wet his pants?” Marko asked. “He looked freaked enough to wet his pants!”

  “Marko, that was mean,” Destini declared.

  “It was funny,” Tyron cried. “We had him going for a minute, didn’t we? But then you came along and spoiled it, Destini. He’s such a big joke. It’s fun to yank his chain.”

  Destini tried to smile, but her face wouldn’t cooperate. “Please Tyron, I mean, I know you wouldn’t do something like that, but Marko puts you up to it,” she told him.

  “I’m a bad influence on you Tyron,” Marko whimpered in a mock hurt voice. “I’m a baaad boy. You better not hang with me, Tyron. You better go hang with the goody-goodies like Jaris. I make you do bad things.”

  Tyron laughed and turned to Destini. “Lunch today, beautiful? The food’s not good, but the company is great.”

  Destini was trying to follow Ms. McDowell’s advice to study more and bring up her grades. That was important to Mom too. That morning, at breakfast, Mom had said, “Destini, unless you bring up your grades, you are going to get grounded. I mean it, girl. No more Ds are gonna pass muster around here. I wanna see a few Bs, nothin’ worse than a C. If you got the time to hang with that creepy boy, then you got the time to study, you hear what I’m saying to you?”

  “Mom,” Destini had protested, “he’s not a creepy boy. He likes me. He thinks I’m pretty. Do you know what that means to me? Most of the boys at Tubman look at me like I’m part of the sidewalk, but he looks into my eyes and he cares about me.”

  Destini brought her binder to English and was prepared to take notes.

  “Today we are dealing with points of view,” Mr. Pippin lectured. “Some stories use an objective point of view. They do not go into the minds of the characters. ‘The Wish Book’ by George Milburn is such a story.”

  Marko raised his hand. “What’s the wish book, Mr. Pippin? I read the story but I couldn’t figure out what the wish book was. Could you explain that?” he asked.

  Mr. Pippin looked at Marko. He knew the boy too well to think he was asking a sincere question. He regarded Marko as a snake always ready to strike. “Why it’s a mail order catalogue. That’s quite obvious.”

  “But it says the wish book sold sizzle pants, and I’ve never seen sizzle pants in a mail order catalogue,” Marko went on. He was starting to laugh. On cue, Tyron and a couple others were laughing too. “What are sizzle pants?”

  “Yeah,” Tyron added. “We have to know what these sizzle pants are in order to understand the story. Have you ever worn sizzle pants, Mr. Pippin?” Tyron’s voice was gurgling with laughter.

  Mr. Pippin flushed. “They are simply trousers that people wore at the time. Now, for the point of view—”

  “Do they sizzle? Like bacon in a frying pan?” Marko asked. “ ’Cause that’d be hard if your pants sizzled.”

  Mr. Pippin’s face twisted in rage. “Marko Lane, Tyron Becker, and Eddie North, get up and leave my classroom at once. You will be scheduled for detention all of this week and the next,” he declared.

  “Aw Mr. Pippin, we were just trying to lighten things up,” Marko whined.

  “Get out of my classroom now and report to the vice principal in charge of discipline,” Mr. Pippin asserted.

  Marko began to look concerned. “I can’t do detention. I got track and football practice,” he said seriously.

  “I don’t care,” Mr. Pippin almost screamed. “Out! Out!”

  Destini felt terrible. She glanced back at Tyron. He’d miss football practice too. It could threaten his position on the team. After the three boys left, the class continued. It was tense but orderly.

  After class, Destini saw Marko and his friends near the vice principal’s office. “This is gonna ruin me on the track team. Coach Curry will use it as an excuse to throw me off the relay team,” Marko stormed.

  “That old fool Pippin,” Tyron raged. “Where does he come off doing something like this? I wish he’d drop dead. He’s old enough.”

  Destini felt cold all over. “Oh Tyron, don’t say that,” she warned. “Please don’t say things like that.”

  “I’ll say anything I want,” Tyron snapped.

  Chapter Five

  “Pippin’s not fit to teach,” Marko declared. “Everybody knows that. He’s senile. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he blames us that the class is a mess all the time. I’m gonna make a petition and take it to the principal. I’m gonna tell him how this creep isn’t fit to teach and he’s gotta be kicked out and sent to a nursing home where he belongs.”

  “Yeah,” Tyron said excitedly. “We’ll all sign the petition.”

  Destini saw Mr. Pippin clutching his worn briefcase talking to Ms. McDowell near the library. He looked distraught. It was clear that Ms. McDowell was trying to reassure him. He appeared to be shaking. It was the first time he had taken serious action against his tormentors, and he feared the consequences.

  Marko walked into a group of students trying to get signatures for his petition. Jaris Spain saw what he was doing and said, “Are you crazy, Marko? Do you think anybody who wasn’t stupid would sign that petition? Yeah, Mr. Pippin isn’t the greatest teacher in the world, but he’s okay. You and your friends are the problem in that class. I’d rather sign a petition to get rid of you guys.”

  “Give it up, Lane,” Kevin Walker added. “Everybody knows you’ve been acting like a freakin’ fool in that class. Grow up, man.”

  “Come on, you guys,” Jasmine argued. “Why are you siding with a teacher instead of the students? Mr. Pippin needs to go. He’s older than dirt!”

  Alonee glared at Jasmine. “Jaz, you’re a good student. You make good grades. Don’t throw in with those goof-offs,” she urged.

  Jasmine ignored Alonee. She handed the petition to Destini and said, “We got five signatures already. You can be number six, girl.”

  Destini stared at the petition. She didn’t want to sign it. What if Mr. Pippin found out who signed the petition against him? Maybe he would flunk all the students who signed. Destini was not sure if he could do that or not. She was afraid to take the chance. “Tyron, look,” she said, dodging the issue, “hardly anybody is signing. I don’t think it’s going to work.”

  Tyron’s face showed a mixture of surprise and anger. “Babe, you are telling me you won’t sign it? You won’t back me up? That detention is gonna mess up my life, babe. He’s gonna hurt me big time, that old devil,” Tyron demanded.

  “It’s just that I’ve never signed a petition against a teacher, Tyron,” Destini explained. “I’m scared.”

  Tyron grabbed Destini’s wrist. He grabbed it so hard that an ache went up to Destini’s shoulder. “You sign this, Destini, or else you’re saying I don’t matter that much to you. If you really loved me you would sign it right off.”

  “Ow, you’re hurting me!” Destini cried.

  Derrick was standing nearby. He turned and came closer. “Let go of her, dude,” he growled. “She said you’re hurting her.”

  “I don’t need a moron like you to tell me how to act with my girl,” Tyron snapped. He turned to Destini, “Was I hurting you, babe?” He was smiling at her but it wasn’t his usual nice smile.

  “No,” Dest
ini mumbled. She knew Tyron did not mean to grasp her wrist so hard. He would never do anything to hurt her. He was just so upset, and he was so strong that he didn’t realize his own strength.

  Tyron thrust the petition at Destini and she signed it quickly. Tyron smiled at her again. “Atta girl,” he smiled. “We gotta stick together against that old fool, Pippin. He’s out to get us, but we’ll get him first.” Tyron took the petition and walked away, saying, “See you later, beautiful.”

  When Tyron was gone, Derrick walked over. “I don’t like that guy, Destini,” he warned her. “Be careful.”

  “Oh, he’s nice. He just gets upset sometimes,” Destini explained.

  Derrick shrugged. “Suit yourself, but if you were my sister I’d be doing something.”

  Destini looked after Derrick. He just didn’t understand Tyron. It touched Destini that Derrick was concerned about her, even though his help was not necessary. Derrick was a nice guy, much more fun than Destini had thought he was. Before they were on that camping trip together, Destini didn’t realize Derrick had a good sense of humor and a lot of heart.

  Destini was sorry she had signed the petition, but she didn’t think she had had a choice. Tyron would have been terribly hurt if she had refused. Destini just hoped that things would turn out all right and that Mr. Pippin would not retaliate against the petitioners.

  Destini went to American History I and took her usual place. Since Ms. McDowell had talked to her, she was striving very hard to take good notes and read all the assigned material. Destini thought that if she worked really hard, she might get a B in history. That would make Mom really happy.