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So Done

Page 4

by Paula Chase


  Mo’Betta: its gotta be 45 seconds long. Imma do a part from Sara Strut? member dat?

  JahMeeLah: yessss!

  Sara Strut was their first jazz dance with La May. Her and Mo had a featured role dancing in front of the other girls for two whole eight counts. If you blinked or looked down at your program, you missed it. Still, Tai had been so mad that she hadn’t been featured that she fussed about it a whole month after the recital was over.

  Mo’Betta: I already picked out the part I want do

  JahMeeLah: u way ahead of me. For real I haven’t thought about it. . . . guess I better

  Mo’Betta: probz should. Imma ask Noelle if I can practice it after class. If she say yes stay after w/me. We can help each other get ready

  JahMeeLah: kk

  A text from Tai flashed on the screen. Instantly Mila felt guilty for enjoying the chat with Mo so much. Tai texted with Mo and Sheeda without her all the time, usually because Mila didn’t answer her phone fast enough. Still, they were all friends. How come it felt so wrong now?

  She promised Mo she’d hit her up if they ended up in center court and switched to Tai.

  DatGirlTai: furreal if Rollie mentions TAG one more time I’mma merc him

  JahMeeLah: yeah sure ya will He pretty hyped huh?

  DatGirlTai: try super hyped & thas fine but anytime I’m not hyped back he act like I’m the one wrong. TAG ain’t gonna be no different than Girls Run. Whus to be excited about?

  Finding things to argue about was Tai’s job. She did it good enough for the both of them. So Mila knew not to say what was really on her mind—that even if TAG was like other after-school programs, what was wrong with that? It was better than sitting around or walking the streets.

  JahMeeLah: it’ll be something different to do though. I’m not mad at that

  DatGirlTai: Of course u not. Everybody know ur father would make u try out no matter what. Gotta keep her highness outta trouble. don’t even get mad cuz I’m joking!

  JahMeeLah: u not but it’s w/e

  DatGirlTai: lolz

  Stuff with Tai had a way of starting out as a joke but not ending there, so Mila asked about Roland.

  JahMeeLah: so R u and Roland official?

  DatGirlTai: I wish. He so slow. Like boy what r u waiting for?!

  JahMeeLah: will be weird to see yall as a couple

  DatGirlTai: Why?

  JahMeeLah: jus b/c we’ve known him 4eva

  DatGirlTai: oh. I guess

  For a few minutes there was nothing. Mila figured the conversation was over since Tai couldn’t ask her to come hang out. It was Wednesday. Ms. Sophia worked late Wednesday night and slept most of the day. So no company allowed. She was lost in the rhythm of sorting the leos into two piles—giveaway and throw away—when Tai came back minutes later.

  DatGirlTai: Hey sorry. Rollie just hit me up. they balling later. Let’s hit center court and hook up wit em

  Mila read the message again like putting the words in a different order might make them mean something else.

  Center court.

  Rollie.

  Hook up.

  Nope. They still meant having to see Roland.

  Ugh. Talking about him was one thing. Tai was always talking about him. So there was no avoiding that. Seeing him was another. She wasn’t ready. But she wasn’t about to tell Tai that. It was complicated.

  She hadn’t talked to any of her friends over the summer. Then one day she’d gone to the court, down from Aunt Jacqs’ house, and seen Roland—never Rollie to her. Rollie sounded like a short, fat bald guy that did the announcements at church on Sunday.

  It had been so weird seeing somebody from the Cove in the Woods. But there Roland had been, standing on the sidelines of the basketball court with another guy who turned out to be his cousin, Michael. He’d looked up, squinted in her direction, then sauntered over.

  Without Tai there grinning in his face and interrupting the conversation, they’d ended up talking for a long time about life in the burbs and going into the eighth grade. Then she’d run into him again, at the Garret Carnival, and they’d talked until Cinny and her friends had gotten off the devil’s whirl. After that he texted her a few times. Mostly to talk about what it was really like in the Woods because he was thinking of staying with his cousin the next summer.

  He seemed different outside of their neighborhood. Until he mentioned TAG she didn’t know that he played the drums, was auditioning, and was thinking of starting a go-go band. Roland rarely said more than he had to. Sometimes he was quiet to the point of being antisocial. When he did talk, it was always in the most simple sentences. It pleased her that they’d talked so much and so easily without the rest of the crew around.

  Then one day Cinny saw her squirreled away texting him and teased her about having a boyfriend. After that she stopped answering his text messages. She didn’t want him thinking she was pushing up on him. He was Tai’s crush.

  Eventually his messages stopped. She had put it out of her mind, until now.

  DatGirlTai: ????? hello u down? Don’t flake on me. We only have a few weeks left to kick it before school starts.

  Reluctantly Mila agreed to go.

  Remembering her chats with Roland made her tingly with anxiety. She would tell Tai all about it when she had time to explain the whole thing. She prayed he wouldn’t say anything until she could.

  As soon as they rounded the corner, Tai squealed. Mila’s head swiveled. She didn’t know whether to duck or run. Was it a gun? A fight? She looked up in time to see that it was only Roland, Simp, and a guy she didn’t recognize in front of the rec. Tai pulled her by the wrist across the street toward them.

  Mila grasped at her shirt as it slid down her shoulder showing what little boobage she had. “Dang, Tai.” She tried to hold it up and keep her balance, but Tai was on a mission.

  Roland bounced a basketball, slow and easy, dribbling it in between his legs while Simp pointed at the rec, saying something to the new guy. Tai placed herself in front of them. “Hey, y’all.” Her smile reached her eyes, making them crinkle.

  Mila snatched her bra strap up, hoping the boys hadn’t noticed, before adding herself to the small semicircle. Her eyes darted away from Roland. She fixed them on Simp.

  “What up, Tai-Tai?” Simp said. He licked his lips and leered at her, showing off a single platinum cap on his front tooth. His thick mane of dreads, pulled back with a single black band, reached his shoulders. It made him look like somebody from The Lion King.

  Never one to pretend when she wasn’t feeling somebody, Tai frowned. “Nothing, Simp. And you know I hate being called ‘Tai-Tai.’” She dug in her shorts pocket and pulled out a tube of lip balm. “You need this?”

  The new guy managed to keep a straight face. Roland looked on with bored amusement.

  Simp frowned down at the lip balm. “Why?”

  Tai shrugged. “Oh you was licking your lips so . . .”

  She put it back, the bust obvious to everybody but Simp.

  Mila caught Roland looking at her. There was a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Mila’s eyes fled back to Tai. She was smiling so fiercely her face looked like it was going to crack.

  “Y’all ready go ball?” Tai asked. Her fingers combed through the long, slinky side of her hair.

  Roland’s mouth twisted slightly like “what you think?” Then he looked right at Mila. “Hey, Bean.” He dribbled the ball hard, once, making it bounce into his hand. He held it under his arm. “I thought maybe you was gone for good like your sister.”

  She cleared the squeak out of her throat. “Nope. Back on the block.”

  He lifted his chin, nodding in approval. For a second, their eyes locked. Once again, Mila prayed, silently but hard, that their summer chats weren’t worth bringing up.

  The word secret whispered in her mind and made her pits sweat.

  He bounced the ball, again—ping, ping, hold. Ping, ping, hold. The longer he did it, the more relieved Mila was. He’d said
all he was going to say. She breathed, calm, happy when Tai—tired of the conversation leaking away from her—changed the subject.

  “So who’s this?” She gave the new guy a good long look from head to toe.

  Without being as brazen, Mila scoped him out herself.

  He was brown skinned with big brown eyes and fifteen rows of braids going straight back. She was eye to eye with him. So he had to be about five foot five.

  “I’m Chris,” the guy said with an easy nod.

  Tai played hostess. “I’m Metai and this is . . .”

  “I’m Jamila, but you can call me Mila.” She raised her eyebrow at Tai.

  Of course Tai was unable to let it go without saying something smart.

  “Mila love calling people by their government name.” Tai rolled her eyes then raised a playful eyebrow. “I hope you don’t have a nickname, Chris. If you do she won’t be calling you by it.”

  Only Simp brayed in appreciation at Tai’s sarcasm. He was forever on a quest for her approval.

  “People who go back with her call her ‘Bean,’ though,” Roland said. “We still allowed to call you that?”

  Mila’s heart quick-stepped across her chest. She felt like she knew him better now. She didn’t want to say no and seem petty. But she wasn’t about to let some stranger call her “Bean.”

  “I mean, I really wish people would just call me Mila. I outgrew Bean a minute ago.” She plastered a polite smile on her face, hoping he understood.

  Tai pursed her lips—either mad about being corrected or because the attention wasn’t solely on her. Before she could say anything, Roland deaded the conversation.

  “Cool. All right . . . Mila then,” he said.

  Tai jumped in the second it grew quiet. “So, Chris, like, where are you from that you still rocking straight backs, for real?”

  Simp’s dreads shook as he burst into a fit of laughter. Chris smirked at Tai like she was funny but not funny enough to make him laugh.

  “Virginia” was his only answer.

  “Ay, yo, Chris is here to try out for TAG.” Roland looked at Mila. “He auditioning for Vocal Arts.”

  Tai pouted in Roland’s general direction. “I be so glad when auditions over.”

  “I thought you was excited to try out for dance,” Roland said. He looked genuinely confused.

  Mila was, too. Tai always acted like she hated dance. She almost said it. But the realization that Tai had obviously told Roland something different hushed her. It relieved her, too. If Roland and Tai had talked so much, the little bit she had talked to him wouldn’t matter.

  “I mean I’mma at least try out,” Tai said sheepishly, then she raised her eyebrow high. “As long as it ain’t just all ballet. Ain’t nobody trying to be a bun head.”

  Mila took the dig graciously. Tai took her being good at ballet personally. At first it hurt her feelings when everybody but Tai would compliment her on a good class. Now the jabs about ballet being boring or played out was noise—just one more thing her and Tai didn’t agree on. She steered the conversation back to the new guy. “So which part of the vocal program you trying out for? Singing? Songwriting or . . .”

  “Lyrical flow,” Chris answered, seeming to know what she was reaching for. He smiled like he was apologizing for having to remember for her.

  Mila returned the smile. He was a little cute, straight-back cornrows and all.

  Roland bounced the ball then feigned taking a shot. “Man, I don’t know why they don’t just call it rap. They trying too hard with some lyrical flow.”

  He and Chris shared the same choppy laugh. Every boy Mila knew did it. There was no mistaking they were clowning something when they laughed that way. JJ laughed like that all the time when he was poking fun at something she or Jeremy said. Even Jeremy was starting to do it sometimes. She had thought it was only a Cove thing.

  “True dat,” Chris said. “I can definitely spit a little bit. . . .”

  “You mean flow lyrically?” Roland said, making them both laugh hard, for real this time. They knocked knuckles.

  Simp gritted on Chris, his lip arched in a snarl like the conversation was boring him. Mila felt a little bad for him. Roland and Chris were already talking like they’d known each other for a while. She could see how Simp felt left out.

  “Righ’ righ’,” Chris said. “Well, I been singing since—”

  “If you can already sing, what you need some program for?” Simp asked, lip pooched in disgust.

  “Simp just salty ’cause he can’t try out. He not in eighth grade yet,” Tai said, spreading the boy’s business without thought.

  Simp’s eyes went to the ground. He sat back in the cut, silent the rest of the conversation.

  “I don’t need no program to sing,” Chris said more to the group than directly at Simp. “TAG got a songwriting track. Most programs don’t. And I’m trying tighten my writing game.” He smashed his fist lightly into his hands, growing animated. “Songwriters make bank, for real. So I’m doing the vocal program with a concentration in songwriting.”

  Mila had never heard anybody lay out where they were going “in the future.” She hadn’t thought about TAG like that at all.

  “You saying you moved from Virginia just for this?” Tai asked. She stared wide-eyed like Chris had landed from a spaceship and had two heads.

  He gazed at her defiantly. “Yeah, me and my sister.”

  “Who moves to another state not even knowing if they gonna get into the program?” Tai looked around the circle, waiting on somebody to jump in and cosign her interrogation. Simp’s mouth was set like he was determined not to answer anything that had to do with Chris.

  Instead of answering Tai, Chris turned his back slightly to her and Simp and talked mainly to Roland. “My mother figured we’d have a better chance of getting in since it’s a brand-new program.”

  “’Cause y’all all that?” Tai said, refusing to be iced out of the conversation.

  Chris glanced over his shoulder at her. “I ain’t bragging or nothing. It’s just fact, I been singing since I was, like, three years old.”

  “I don’t mean no harm but that seem crazy to me,” Tai said. But the hard edge in her voice was gone. She wasn’t going to get a rise out of Chris no matter how hard she tried.

  “Don’t knock the man’s game,” Roland said, adding insult to injury.

  “Ain’t nobody knocking his game,” she muttered, crossing her arms. But that was it. She kept her usual sarcasm locked away.

  Mila was fascinated. Guys were usually nice to Tai and flirty with her while Mila sat on the sideline feeling invisible. And Chris wasn’t mean about it. He was time enough for Tai and her questions. If him and Roland ever got close enough, maybe Roland would warn Chris that Tai was likely keeping score of every little law he broke. Though Chris didn’t seem like the type of person who would care. She decided right then she liked him. Even more as he went on, talking, unaware of the daggers Tai was shooting at him.

  “These programs be wanting a good mix of people who already got ‘it’ and a few they can help be better at what they do. At least that’s how the one where I used to live worked. But they always got a waiting list. So—” He shrugged. Without Tai’s interruptions and all the attention finally on him, he seemed uncomfortable for the first time. “Anyway. But good luck to whoever trying out.” He put his fist out. Roland knocked it. “All right, Rollie, man. Thanks for showing my sister where the rec was. See you on the court.”

  He walked off without saying boo to Simp.

  Tai’s head whipped from Roland to Chris’s disappearing figure.

  Roland stage-whispered, “He kind of read you, Tai.”

  Mila held her breath waiting for the explosion.

  “Shut up, Rollie,” Tai said without an ounce of anger. Her eyes narrowed. “He got a sister, huh?”

  “Yeah. They twins,” Simp offered, happy to be back in the conversation. “She take dance. Probably in y’all class.”

&nb
sp; Tai’s eyes lit up. “Fresh meat.”

  “Shoot, if she anything like him she can handle you,” Roland said.

  “Whatever,” Tai said. But there was no fire in her voice. She elbowed Roland then stepped closer to him until her boob brushed his arm.

  Mila’s thoughts turned to Chris. He was a twin. That was cool. She couldn’t remember the last time somebody their age had moved into the hood. That had to be a good sign. Maybe the Cove was changing some.

  Against her will, hope built in her chest.

  Chapter

  6

  The new dude was lucky Tai had been in a good mood. She had come real close to busting him out a few times. Especially when he turned his back on her.

  The only reason she didn’t say anything—Rollie. Not that Rollie had some kind of control over her or anything. Hmph, he wished. But no, it wasn’t that. At least not totally. She was trying to respect that him and Rollie was vibing. Over TAG, of course. And if she had said how she really felt—that all this fuss over TAG was like trying to put air back into a burst balloon, a waste of time—it might have made Rollie mad. So she had chilled.

  Plus, once he mentioned he had a sister, she knew she’d have a chance for some get back. Tai couldn’t wait to see her and give her a little Cove welcome. She snickered ’cause the last thing she felt, right now, was welcoming. Sometimes dance put her in a straight-up bad mood.

  She had a love-hate relationship with it.

  She loved jazz-hated ballet. Loved getting out of the house for a few hours-hated how long class lasted sometimes, especially toward the end of ballet when her knees and back were sore from trying to hold a position that made her look like a demented pretzel. Seriously, who could stand with their feet up against each other but facing opposite directions? That didn’t even sound right.

  She pulled on a pair of pink tights then sucked her teeth. She had forgotten to take off her underwear. She always did and Noelle always got all extra lecturing about a dancer’s proper uniform. It was just hair and a pair of drawls. Who cared? Still, she took off the underwear with unnecessary force.

 

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