Gettin' Hooked

by Nyomi Scott

  I followed him inside, and he shut the door behind me, then indicated I should take a seat. Once I’d sat down he moved around to his side of the desk and slumped in his plump leather chair.

  “I’m presuming you know why you’re here?”

  As if on cue my puffy eye started to throb. Or maybe that was my head.

  I nodded. I knew.

  Mr. Alton shook his head, then turned his attention to some papers and started furiously writing notes on a long yellow pad. My hands were hella sweating as I gripped the cold metal armrests, and my pulse raced as I sat in the hard narrow chair.

  The bright overhead flourescent lights were making his beak nose shiny and all the half-healed shaving nicks stand out like crazy.

  Biting nervously on my lip, I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. Not a single word, just kept on with his with his pen.

  It’s not like I needed him to tell me what this was all about, but it would have been hexxa nice to hurry up and get on with it. He might as well talk ’bout the fight. Everyone else was.

  But he still didn’t. After a little bit, I glanced at the clock and realized I’d been sitting there for nearly a half hour staring at his shiny, beaded-with-sweat forehead.

  I cleared my throat, just wanting to get on with it, but he didn’t react to my prompt. I felt like shit, a cold setting in after my rain-drenching run home. Though all my peeps had been diggin’ me for the haps, I’d ignored the text messages and e-mails, deciding on Sunday to stay in bed and play sick for most of the entire day.

  Scratch that, I wasn’t playin’ at it. Between my aching, stuffy head, swollen eye and stomach that had been touched with the twisting of nerves, sick was closer to the truth than a frickin’ stretch.

  The only reason I’d come to school this morning was because it was easier checkin’ in here than trying to explain to Gram—with my busted-up eye—why I was staying home. Since she stays in her room so much, avoiding her Sunday hadn’t been an issue, but had I remained in bed today, she’d have been in to see if I was doing okay.

  And I wasn’t ready to tell her I’d kissed two fiiine boys in one day, and walked away from them both. It was easier to come to school with my friends, to face Mr. Alton, than to lie in bed all day remembering the way Maurice felt. And the way he’d tasted.

  Easier gettin’ in trouble—if that’s what this was—than lying around dwelling on his accusing words. Or the way both fellas had tried to put some sorta claim on me without either of them asking me to be their girl.

  Aww, shit, this was crazy to be sitting here in the principal’s replaying Saturday. Again. I was hella trippin’ for letting those guys bother me at all. I didn’t have time for stupid, and both of them had acted straight stupid. Especially Maurice.

  Swallowing the lump in my throat and wiping my damp palms across my thighs, I glanced at the clock again as I blew out a frustrated breath. Another ten minutes and the first-period bell would ring and I’d have missed the entire class for nothing.

  “Did you wanna talk to me, Mr. Alton?” I asked, trying not to sound annoyed.

  “Actually, Imani, I’ve been waiting for you. I figured there was something you need to tell me.”

  What-the-hell-evah! The dude was straight hella crazy if he thought I was going to volunteer to sprinkle. I shook my head, adding a quick shrug.

  “No? Nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  He wrote something on his pad, then looked back at me. “I can think of a couple of things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like your eye. You want to tell me how that happened?”

  “An accident.” That was no lie. Michelle’s fist wasn’t meant for me.

  Mr. Alton glared at me for a sec. My heart pumped and I hoped he didn’t notice the way my pulse roared along my neck. Or see how my hands shook just slightly.

  “Hmmmph, an accident. I see.” He wrote some more, then clicked the mouse on his desk, making his computer screen come out of sleep mode. “What about this, then?” He turned his flat-panel screen my way, and fo’ sho’, the homepage of GettinHooked was pulled up.

  “GettinHooked.com,” I mumbled, forcing another shrug and strugglin’ to keep my voice all casual. Making a Web site wasn’t punishable, so I had no idea why he was bringing it up, other than, of course, how Jonathan met Leza and why Michelle kicked Leza’s ass.

  “Your creation.”

  “Yeah, so?” Attitude, too much attitude, I knew. I was tryin’ to stay out of the mess, not jump into the hot water.

  Knowing what I was going to see, I just glanced at it right quick, but my eye caught something just as he turned the screen back toward him.

  My heart squeezed all tight, and I leaned forward, trying to get another glimpse at the screen as my lungs burned for a breath.

  There was no way—no way possible—that I saw those numbers right. Yesterday we’d been at around six hundred. The member number showing on Mr. Alton’s screen was more than two grand. There had to be some sort of mistake. No way was there more than two thousand student from Howard and Creekside registered for Gettin’ Hooked.

  “There’s nothing wrong with creating a Web site, Imani. I’d like to think our staff has encouraged you to think outside the box in this manner.”

  Leaning back in my chair, I folded my arms across my chest and bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing. Figures Mr. Alton would try to take some kind of credit for the bomb I’d designed with Kayla.

  The first-period bell rang, ending the class. Outside voices rose as students made their way to second period.

  Lifting a brow, I curled my lip sarcastically and waited for him to go on.

  “But I’m a little concerned about some of the things I’ve been hearing about this Web site. People are getting hooked up? What’s that mean to you, Imani? Sex?”

  My face flamed. I hadn’t talked about sex with my daddy since he’d given me his version of the birds and the bees, and I sure as hell didn’t want to have a talk anywhere near sex with Mr. Alton.

  Were folks hooking up, hooking up because of my site? Yeah, I knew some of my friends had been having sex because of it. That didn’t mean I was. Though maybe prom night. Maybe with the right guy. Maybe prom night with the right guy. If I found him.

  I kept my lip square between my teeth, saying nothing to his comment about sex. When he realized I wasn’t spilling, he continued.

  “And there’s been fights.”

  And I’d known all along that’s what this was all about.

  “I don’t know anything about either of those, Mr. Alton. My Web site is to help my girls find prom dates that aren’t guys we’ve been hanging with since we were five.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup.”

  “And your black eye was an accident?”

  “Yup.”

  “I see.” He turned his pale brown gaze away from me and started scribbling on his paper again, the silence getting on my nerves.

  “Can I go back to class now?” But what I really wanted to do was find a computer and find out what sort of hype my site had attracted and why the membership profiles was off the heezy.

  He lifted his face from his crazed note taking. “Not today, Miss Lane.”

  “What? I’m being suspended?”

  The ass actually smirked at me and I had to grip the metal chair arm to keep from reachin’ across his desk and straight-up smacking it off his face.

  “No. Your father is picking you up.”

  I spun around in my chair and looked at the door like he’d be there. He wasn’t. A shiver of nervous excitement slithered across my skin. “My dad’s coming?”

  “Yes. You can wait for him in the lobby. I’m finished talking to you.”

  Oh, he was through. Ha, he had no idea how whack this was. I didn’t need to be explaining my site to him. He should deal with school shit, and that’s it.

  Getting to my feet, my knees trembled a little, but I ignored it and grabbed my backpack off the floor
. As I headed toward the office door, I said, “Pixx,” and flashed him a peace sign.

  When I reached the admin office lobby I plopped back down on a chair to wait for my dad, a little freaked about why he was coming and afraid it meant something bad. I didn’t even know he’d landed, and thought he wouldn’t be here until Wednesday.

  Closing my eyes to ward off a rush of tired and frustrated tears, I leaned my head back, feeling worse every second. Wrapping my arms around my middle, I had to wonder if the chills I’d been having hadn’t been annoyance, but really fever.

  After a quick sec, I took a deep breath and pulled my cell out of my pocket, then thumbed in a message for Kayla, Pop n twn. 2K GH mem, to let her know I wouldn’t be around later and that something was blowin’ up with our site.

  Just as I hit Send, my dad walked in and I went into his arms.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I didn’t know you were coming in today, Daddy,” I said, snuggling into his embrace, not givin’ a damn that we were standing in the admin office. Only seeing him a few days a month wasn’t enough. But I knew he was gone all the time because he was doing his best for me.

  His arms were tight around me, his chest strong and lean. The warm scent of Polo cologne that clung to his clothes was bringing tears to me eyes, reminding me of when I was younger and he’d cradle me close. When his flights had been domestic, rather than international, and he spent more time at home.

  “My flight schedules were rearranged.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He chuckled, the rumble against my cheek familiar and comforting. “I live in this area, in case you didn’t know,” he said teasingly, one large hand stroking across my hair.

  “I mean at school. You came home to me being in trouble.” Snap, I hadn’t meant to say that. Mr. Alton was straight trippin’ and I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  My dad put his hands around my shoulders and backed me out of his embrace. “Trouble, Imani?” His gaze landed on my black eye, then his dark eyes narrowed. “What’s going on, girl? Talk to me.”

  “It was an accident. Really,” I added when he continued to look at me all skeptical like.

  He nodded, but still looked pensive. After a quick sec, he stroked a gentle thumb over my bruised cheekbone. “You win?”

  “I wasn’t fighting.”

  With another nod he gave me an odd look, then smiled as he hugged me again, planting a kiss on my temple. “Let me check you out and we’ll get out of here.” He took my pack. “You can tell me about your trouble in the car.”

  About ten minutes later we’d escaped the office, made our way through the pouring rain and finally took refuge in his hella clean black Lexus, and I was free of school for the rest of the day. That helped ease my whacked-out, frazzled nerves, but I was still feeling the onset of a cold and the lingering festering of a heart that been used the wrong way.

  Cuddling up in the leather seat, I leaned my forehead against the cool glass as my daddy drove. Fat raindrops snaked down the outside window, the clouds thick and darkening around us.

  With the soft voice of Usher, my baby-boy, seeping from the speakers thanks to XM Radio, I felt my lids droop and the restless last couple of nights start to ease from my bones. From my tired and sick body.

  “Daddy,” I said sleepily, “how come you haven’t mentioned my trouble?”

  He relaxed in his seat, his left elbow on the window frame, his long fingers managing the wheel, his other hand casually tossed over the gearshift. He grinned, then winked. “Because I didn’t know about it. You told on yourself, baby.”

  What the—“How’d you know I was in the office? How’d Mr. Alton know you were coming?”

  “I called. Asked them to call you to the office. Thought you could play hooky for the day, spend a little time with me. I’m only home for two days.”

  He took my hand. “Now don’t look so sad, Imani, you know I’d stay longer if I could.”

  “I know.” My words were whispered, but hard to push out they were so lodged in my dry throat. I did know. His schedule was hard on him, too.

  Pulling slowly into the breakfast line at McD’s, my dad clamped down his foot on the brake and angled more fully toward me. “Why don’t you tell me about your eye? Who’d you fight? I’m guessing that’s the trouble you were talking about.”

  I laughed. Fo’ sho’, parents thought they knew everything. “Not really.”

  “Oh?”

  “I wasn’t fighting.”

  “That’s good. So what happened then?”

  I sighed, then decided to clue him in on most of what was going down. I’d leave off the double kiss afternoon. No need having my daddy freakin’ about the boy situation. No need for my dad’s usual threats against any fellas interested in messin’ with me.

  “Actually, it’s about a Web site.”

  “Go on.” He pulled the car up one, bringing us a little closer to the menu board.

  “Right. You won’t freak, will you?”

  My daddy laughed, his hand tightening around mine, it wasn’t painful, but reassuring. “I’m cool, baby, but you’d best start talking.”

  “Kayla and I set up a Web site, like a locals-only MySpace.” I watched his face, and lowered my voice. “To get prom dates.”

  He’d been looking straight ahead and tapping his fingers in rhythm with the song, but as soon as the word date slipped past my lips his dark eyes and all his attention were focused on me.

  “Prom dates?”

  A little anxious giggle bubbled up. “Yeah, Daddy, you know that I’ve gone to school with the same guys forevah! Prom’s supposed to be special, but the fellas at Howard are tapped, played out and tired.”

  “So how’s your cousin figure in?”

  “She feels the same way about her friends at Creekside, so our site is set up to kinda…um…er, trade.”

  “Trade?”

  “Fa shizzle. My girls can meet fellas from Creekside. Kayla’s peeps can meet fellas from Howard. It’s perfect. We all live close. We all needed dates.”

  We pulled up another spot, easing closer to ordering, the thought causing my stomach to grumble in hunger. With his foot back on the brake, he glanced at me again.

  “Look at you, Imani. You’re beautiful. I hardly think you’ll have any trouble finding a guy to escort you to prom.” He chuckled, then shook his head in sympathy. “Poor boy.”

  I laughed with him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I shrugged and held out my hands, palm up, to my sides.

  “Just that you’re more than beautiful. You’re smart. And special. Some poor fella is going to be a fool for you sometime soon, baby.”

  “You’re my daddy. You’re supposed to think I’m pretty and special,” I replied, grinning for the first time all morning.

  “Nah, it’s more than that, Imani. You’re like your momma, she was so pretty and sweet.”

  I held my breath, shock trembling though my system. Go on, oh, God, go on, my heart begged, at the same time tears burned behind my eyes. My hands shook, so I folded them in my lap, and kept my gaze trained out the window, just as I had been.

  My momma was a non-topic, and I can’t remember the last time, if ever, my daddy had spoken about her calmly. And the few memories I do have, he’d been filled with anger and bitter.

  I swallowed right quick, then licked my lips, trying to find a little moisture. …like your momma, she was so pretty and sweet… Those words had been said softly and filled with such tenderness.

  It felt good, hella good to hear him talk about her like she’d actually been a part of his life rather than a big blank. But the light feeling was quickly overshadowed by something else.

  Fear.

  Had something happened to her? I’m not sure why it mattered, since it’d been such a long time since she’d been in my life anyway, but a gnawing burn started in my gut and wouldn’t quit.

  The pieces seemed to fit. First my auntie’s phone call, and this gut feeling that she’d bee
n talkin’ about me. Then there’d been the pictures that Gram had hidden under her book. The envelope. And now my daddy talking ’bout her like she’d passed.

  I swallowed again, choking down the lump of raw pain. “Daddy?” My voice cracked, and his gaze swiveled to my face.

  “Hmm?”

  “Is my momma dead?”

  His shoulders seemed to deflate, a whistled breath rushing past his lips. He remained casually reclined in his leather seat, but I could see the tension in the way his knuckles gripped the wheel. In the way his jaw clenched. I could feel the tension tapdancing along my spine.

  Finally, after a dragged-out moment, he said, “I don’t know, baby.” He shrugged. “I don’t know where she’s at. I quit keeping track when you were about ten.”

  And lawdy, that hurt nearly as bad, something sharp and hot pierced my chest and left me feeling empty and sad. Being dead woulda been a hexa good excuse for droppin’ out my life and staying gone. Just being gone meant she really didn’t have any interest in being my momma at all.

  And I knew that already. I knew she walked out on me. Her loss, I silently repeated, the same reassurance I always brushed up on.

  “Wh—” I had to break off to get the tears out of my throat and to wipe the trails of liquid from my cheeks. “Why’d she leave?”

  Seventeen and I’d never once asked him direct.

  His hand gripped mine, firm but expressing emotion. “Imani, baby, I wish I could give you the answers you deserve. I loved the girl.” He shook his head. “I loved the girl, and if she wanted to leave me, I’d have been hurt but would’ve dealt with it. She had no right to leave you.”

  I gulped. “And that’s why you’ve never forgiven her?”

  “She hasn’t asked for forgiveness. That requires she repent. If she isn’t dead, baby, then her years and years of silence, of staying away, tells me she’s not sorry. I can’t forgive that.”

  My lips were quivering so bad I had to tuck my lower one between my teeth, and there was no stopping the silent tears as they poured over my lashes.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” my daddy said, putting a big palm across my cheek and swiping away the silver trails. “I love you very much. Your momma may not want you, but, baby, I do. I couldn’t be prouder of my girl.”