So Done

by Paula Chase

  DatGirlTai: W/e Sheeda. Oun think Rollie into bougie girls. No worries.

  Mo’Betta: SMH where Bean?

  Tai refused to answer even though she knew the question was for her.

  She-da-Man: wow crickets lolz

  Mo’Betta: OMG are yall for real still beefing? Like I can’t. I just can’t. smh

  DatGirlTai: Calm down mother goose. My God

  She-da-Man: Are ya’ll still beefing tho?

  DatGirlTai: Jus cuz I didn’t answer where she at? W/e yall. She not here w/me so idk jus like ya’ll. Ain’t no beef

  Mo’Betta: Well did ya’ll make up?

  Tai couldn’t bring herself to tell them that she’d only made things worse.

  When Bean had showed up the other day, she had been all ready to apologize for going off about the Rollie thing. She really had. Then Bean had bucked up and it scared Tai how different she was. Her mouth had spewed before her mind could stop it. The memory of Bean’s eyes widening then falling heavy made her feel sick.

  Secretly she hoped Bean would jump into the chat and say something. If she did, Tai would make it right. Squash it 100 percent.

  After a few minutes, Mo hit back with ??????

  Tai almost sent her own question marks back. Instead, she dropped the phone on the bed and left them hanging. She forced herself to get to work. In a few days it would be time for school shopping. Before that could happen, she had to know what items she wanted and needed—the easy part—and she had to give away a “significant” amount of old clothes to get new ones. Nona’s rule was to have giveaway clothes packed before she announced it was time to go shopping. If Tai didn’t, the shopping spree was off. The trick was Nona never set exactly when shopping time would be.

  Tai had tested this once. Fifth grade when Nona announced, “Time to go school shopping”—purse on her arm meaning at that moment—and saw Tai hadn’t bagged up any giveaway clothes, she went right back downstairs, turned on the TV, and ignored Tai’s promise that it would only take ten minutes to get the clothes together.

  They had gone shopping the very next weekend instead. But it was one of the few times Tai hadn’t blustered or cried her grandmother into letting her have her way.

  She grabbed her laptop and signed into Skyvo in case Rollie logged on, then pulled every item out of her closet. Minutes later she earned a few brownie points when Nona stuck her head in, before leaving for work, saw Tai surrounded by a mountain of clothes, and winked.

  With the house empty, she turned on music. The rapid-fire chatter of the hip-hop made the house feel full. Quiet when Nona was home was different than when she was gone. Tai hated the alone quiet.

  Even through the low thump of the bass, she heard her phone buzzing. She wasn’t ready to face a screen full of messages with none from Bean. Every time it went off, she forced herself to grab an item of clothing and decide its fate—keep or donate. Bean had to jump in at some point. It wasn’t like she was beefing with Mo and Sheeda. Once she did, Tai vowed she’d check the vibe, then find a way to dead the argument between them.

  Forty-five minutes later she was enjoying the seasonal purge more than she expected to. Bonus, she’d found Bean’s Me Too T-shirt. Tai had the shirt’s fraternal twin that said I’m Hot. They only ever wore them together and were supposed to wear them on the last day of school but Bean hadn’t been able to find it. No wonder. It had been buried on the bottom of the closet. She tossed it, aiming for the bed. It clung to the side of her mattress like a rock climber struggling to make it to the top.

  Soon she was in her own little fort surrounded by three large trash bags of giveaways. Other clothes, more than she realized she had, piled like snowdrifts around her. She bopped her head, singing along under her breath.

  Her father called from downstairs. “Ay . . . ay, who home?”

  Tai ignored him.

  After a few seconds of sounding like a parrot who only knew one phrase, he finally made his way up the stairs. Tai catapulted herself off the floor and onto her bed. Her father stationed himself just outside the room like an invisible shield kept him from going further.

  She lay on her stomach, her back to the door, phone in hand, still pretending not to hear him. She gasped when she saw that Bean had finally joined the chat. She skimmed, trying to get to the beginning of the message.

  “Shoot,” she muttered, fighting the phone’s sensitive screen as it seesawed between that morning’s chat and the end of the current chat. The words were a jumble, but she caught enough to know the girls were trying to make some moves later that included the guys. Forcing her fingers to behave, she swiped slow and deliberate, trying to hit the start of the latest chat.

  Her father’s voice boomed louder than it needed to. “Tai, I know you heard me calling you.”

  “No, you yelled ‘Ay.’ That’s not the same as calling me,” she said, without turning.

  Finally, the top of the chat came into focus. She got as far as Mo’s message saying,

  Hey Chrissy texted me. Look like her place . . . before her father’s yammering forced her to sit up and talk to him. He’d stand there forever just to annoy her if she didn’t. He was childish like that.

  He asked a million questions he should have known the answer to: What time did Nona get off from work? Was anybody cooking? Did his check get mailed here?

  “Nona’s schedule been the same for like . . .” She squinted at the wall, pretending she was really trying to pick a precise date before settling on “a million years. How do you not know she work eleven to seven every day? Unless she working overtime.”

  “Well, is she working late tonight?” he asked, hands slouched in his pocket, satisfied that he was getting some answers.

  “Hold up, let me look.” Tai picked up her phone, scrolled. She cocked her head in more mock thought before shrugging. “Sorry. According to my schedule, today wasn’t my day to keep track of her.”

  The look of burnt stupidity on her father’s face filled her with giddy satisfaction.

  “Why your mouth so smart?” he asked, nearly pouting.

  “Why you coming to me to ask where your mother is?” she shot back, wanting to add, I’m the child, but she knew it wouldn’t matter. She was thirteen and he was twenty-eight, but her father was young-minded—one step up from Simp as far as she was concerned.

  He ran his tongue over his teeth. The habit disgusted Tai. It looked so nasty. But it also meant he didn’t have a comeback. A tiny smile crept across her lips. “You lucky I don’t believe in beatings,” he said, mean-mugging unsuccessfully.

  Tai’s eyes rolled. She dropped the phone back onto the bed and went back to folding clothes between the giant trash bags. Her ignoring him wasn’t enough. He remained in her doorway. She looked up at him and directed him like she really was the parent. “Just call Nona and ask her if she working late, Dad-dy.”

  She broke the word up, like saying it offended her tongue too much to let it roll naturally.

  “That’s right, ’bout time you remember I’m the parent,” he said, grinning like he’d really won something. Then just as quickly he went back to worrying. “But I already did call her. She ain’t answer.” He cocked his elbow on the door sill and stared out Tai’s window, pondering his options. “I need my check, man. I wonder if she put it away.”

  “Just text her and ask if she put it away . . . goodness,” she said, openly disgusted at having to direct him through such a simple problem.

  “Metai, I’m your father. You need to be a better daughter and respect me.” He folded his arms, thumbs stuck out from his pits, looking down at her over the mountainous bags.

  Tai had a long list of reasons she didn’t respect her father. But she found herself calm, for once. “I will when you act like a father,” she said, without a hint of sarcasm. They’d had this conversation before and she was over it.

  He glared at her, hurt in his eyes. “Man, whatever,” he said.

  For a few seconds they eyeballed one another, both waiting
for the next shot. Tai had nothing else to say. To break up the standoff she got up, snatched her phone off the bed, and plopped back on the floor to read the chat. Eventually he walked away. By the time he did, Tai had the full story. Chrissy and her brother had invited everybody to chill at their spot. Everybody was going—Rollie, Simp, Sheeda, Mo, and even Bean.

  Even Bean.

  Chapter

  15

  When Mila got the text from Chrissy saying her and Chris could have company as long as they all stayed outside, Mila was quick to apologize for ditching their plans the day before. She’d been ready for drama. To her relief, Chrissy had shrugged it off. Said she had ended up falling asleep on the couch anyway.

  It was new having her apology accepted without shaming or a cold shoulder. She accepted Chrissy’s invitation even when she saw later that Tai also agreed to come through.

  She gave herself a pep talk as her noodles cooled. This was just the way it was now. Her and Tai were over.

  Hurt zagged down her chest, the pain raw like a scraped knee.

  JJ wandered into the kitchen, bleary-eyed. “Why you be getting up so early? Making all that noise cooking.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock. That’s not early,” she said, blowing softly over the noodles. Steam spiraled from the bowl as JJ grabbed her fork, dug into the bowl, and stuffed a mouthful of noodles into his mouth.

  “JJ!” she exclaimed.

  He huffed from the hot pasta, noodles hanging out of his mouth. He scarfed down a few then spit the rest in the sink.

  “That’s what you get,” she said, shaking her head. “You all right?”

  “Man, those things are blazing,” he said between gulps of water.

  “If you asked I would have shared the bowl,” she said, only mildly annoyed. “Hey, have you hung out with Chris, the new dude, yet?”

  JJ leaned against the sink, the cool glass against his burned tongue. He lisped as he talked. “Christh . . . the twin? Yeah, I met him.” He stroked his lip with his thumb, smiling. “His sister got them thickum thighs.”

  “Um-ew.” Mila frowned. “Remember, you don’t like messing with my friends. So let me warn you, me and Chrissy are friends now.”

  “I don’t mess with none of your old friends. Thickum is fair game,” he said with a snicker. “Chris seem like cool peoples though. I balled with him a few times. Why?”

  “I’m going over there today. . . .” Seeing his narrow-eyed suspicion she added quickly, “His sister invited me.”

  “Don’t let me find out y’all over there ‘experimenting.’”

  Mila rolled her eyes. “I just met the boy, JJ. You always gotta go there.”

  “Who else coming?” he asked.

  “Oh, you’re playing big brother today?”

  He folded his arms. “I’m always big brother. So who coming?”

  “Roland, Simp, the girls,” Mila said.

  His mouth turned up in disapproval. “I told you be careful about hanging with Rollie and Simp.”

  “Are you sure they work with Angel?” She heard the plea in her voice but couldn’t shake it. Angel was the best friend of Cinny’s boyfriend, Raheem. Everyone knew he hustled. But Raheem didn’t and they’d been friends forever. She held out hope that Rollie was only guilty for being around the wrong people or something. “I’ve never seen them hand off anything.”

  JJ kept leaning against the sink, his legs crossed at his feet, casually schooling her. “Ouno all the details. I’m not in their business like that. But I know what I heard and they definitely in the game somehow.”

  “But Roland’s a nice person.” It sounded childish to Mila’s ears but it was all she had. “And Simp acts so slow sometimes, I can’t see anybody trusting him to deal.”

  JJ shot down her arguments. “Real talk, I told you Rollie all right with me. Ouno how ‘nice’ he is, but Angel a good dude, too, ain’t he? And he deal.”

  He raised his arms like Well?

  He had a point. Angel looked, dressed, and acted like any other sixteen-year-old. But he was also Martinez’s nephew. Most everyone knew he was in the game, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

  The only person Mila knew for sure looked like a dealer was Rock and that was because of how many times she’d seen him on the corner exchanging drugs for money.

  It depressed her that she couldn’t prove JJ wrong.

  He kept piling on proof. “Shoot, you ever seen Rollie in a pair of busted kicks?”

  Mila dismissed it. “A lot of people dress nice but not dough boys, Jay.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. But Rollie and Simp stay laced in new basketball shoes.”

  “I mean I thought they got ’em from being on the Marauders.”

  JJ grinned.

  “Exactly. Most of the dudes on the team wrapped up in the game. Why you think Daddy ain’t never let me play for ’em?”

  Mila’s mouth gaped. She had never thought about it. Her dad had a lot of rules. She only focused on the ones that applied to her.

  “Look, I don’t think they deep in it,” JJ said with surprising kindness. “I thought you knew, for real. Just watch yourself when you around ’em in case dumb mess pop off. All right?”

  She was numb from the information. But now she had a feeling she knew what Simp had been talking about over Tai’s that day—“We’ll miss you on the block,” he had said. Goose bumps peppered her arms.

  His kind moment gone, JJ scowled at her as he lectured. “Yeah, and keep your legs closed. Leave these hardheads round here alone.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Mila said vehemently, desperate to hide her embarrassment.

  “That’s big brother advice,” he said, then rolled out of the kitchen.

  Mila left the bowl of uneaten noodles in the middle of the table with a note to Jeremy that he could heat them up in the microwave if he wanted. She thought about hiding them so JJ wouldn’t eat them first. But Jeremy had to start fending for himself.

  She hollered out, to nobody in particular, that she was gone and went to step out the door.

  There was a bundle of cloth on the step. She picked it up and shook it. It was her Me Too T-shirt.

  She looked over at Tai’s then down the street. If Tai had just dropped it, she had haul-tailed away. Mila stared down at the lost shirt like it could tell her how it landed there. She laid it on the table near the door and walked on, her throat tight.

  Kids streamed out of houses like ants anxious to be outside of their underground caves. They sat in small groups on front stoops or side yards, hung at the rec center, or surrounded the basketball court. In two weeks the rhythm would change drastically. For her it already had. Since the TAG auditions it seemed like the girls, Rollie, Simp, and even the twins were officially a crew. It sank in once Mila saw everyone together in the twins’ backyard.

  Yard was a generous term for it. A tall person could take ten steps to the back and ten steps to the left or right before hitting the fence that separated it from the neighbors’. The twins’ mother had stuffed as much in the space as she could.

  Tai, Roland, Chris, and Simp were at a small round table in the middle of the yard. A large brown and beige striped umbrella shaded it from the sun’s beam. Four chairs strapped with soft plastic bands surrounded it.

  Mila wasn’t surprised Tai was sitting at the table with the guys rather than the girls. They were probably the only reason she had come. She sat between Chris and Roland, her body leaned into Roland as she commented on something he’d said.

  Mila joined Sheeda, Mo, and Chrissy around what Mila immediately named the nook. It was a cozy spot with a small wicker love seat and two full round wicker chairs up against the house. A big empty copper bowl sat in the middle of the furniture. Mila only knew it was a fire pit because one of Aunt Jacqs’ neighbors had them over one night and they’d made s’mores over one.

  She stared at the far back corner at four huge rocks big enough to sit on but also random and sort of out of place.

  Chrissy
laughed. “I know, right. Those rocks are ginormous.”

  “They really are,” Mila said.

  “It’s a flower bed,” Chrissy said, pointing to the tiny colorful buds only visible when you walked right up to the rocks. “It’s the first time we not living in an apartment, so my mother went HAM on this yard.”

  “Just a little bit,” Mila said. She laughed along, liking that Chrissy didn’t seem embarrassed.

  Once you added people, there really was too much in the yard. But Mila liked that Ms. Mason had decorated. Her own yard had an old picnic table that gave you splinters and two big plastic bins where her dad stored tools and other boy junk. None of them really used the yard.

  She felt Tai’s eyes on her. So far they hadn’t said a word to each other and no one had questioned what was up. She was sure Mo would ask later. But Cove code was simple—in public leave people’s beef between them. Mila found herself thankful for the neighborhood’s stupid little rules for once. She bunched her knees to her chest to escape the sun creeping its way closer to the nook.

  Most of the conversation centered on whose muscles were the sorest and Sheeda being a little jealous that she couldn’t take part in the moaning. It took Mila’s mind off Tai’s coolness.

  “Do you think everybody gonna make TAG?” Sheeda asked. She slapped on a pair of oval shades that made her look like a fashionable owl.

  “For real, I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Mo said. She leaned up in the chair, elbows on her thighs. “Part of me says it’s impossible because of how many people were there. But . . . then again we tight with Mademoiselle. So . . .”

  Chrissy scooted to the edge of the love seat. “I was talking to one of the people at the photo station. She said there were two hundred fifty people signed up.” Her mouth twisted and her eyebrows went up before she exhaled and dashed their hopes. “I think the program can only hold one fifty.”

  “They cutting a hundred people?” Sheeda asked in dismay. “I can’t see me making it then. Most of the people trying out for drama been in all these plays and stuff since they were like five or whatever.” She sat back cross-legged in her chair, deep in thought.