by Paula Chase
“No, but I mean, look at this line.” Jacinta got up, stumbled over Kelly, and pointed at the test. She was pleading, near tears. “I mean it’s barely there. Right? That doesn’t count as an actual line.”
“Let’s just make you a doctor’s appointment. Okay?” Jacqi handed Jacinta the test back. She put her arm around Jacinta’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll call first thing Monday.”
Jacqi headed back downstairs, leaving bewildered silence in her wake.
Jacinta slumped against the wall in the hallway and slid into a sitting position. Her eyes remained glued to the plastic wand.
The girls finished cleaning up quietly, at a loss for words.
Epilogue:
Blessings & Curses
“Damn all these beautiful girls,
they only want to do your dirt.”
—Sean Kingston, “Beautiful Girls”
It would be another two weeks before a doctor confirmed what Jacinta knew (hoped-prayed)—she wasn’t pregnant. She waited a grand total of five minutes after walking out of the doctor’s office before she started her told you so’s, texting Raheem and the clique to announce that she’d been right all along. The whole thing was some mishap with her birth control. The doctor prescribed her a new one, mandated condom use, and sent her on her way.
Her grin covered her entire face. She leaned her head back on the seat and breathed in the freedom of summer, of the tests results, of the countdown before Raheem headed to Georgetown University. She closed her eyes, letting the hot sun bake her honey skin golden.
As soon as she got home, she was heading to JZ’s. He was teaching her how to swim, even had her getting up at the crack of dawn to condition with him some mornings.
Her smile broadened.
It was hard for anyone, including her, to believe she was giving up her summer mornings to exercise. But she loved every painful minute of it.
Because she’d dodged a bullet. She knew it, felt it in every pore.
She was getting a second chance to do things right, to choose a path for herself.
And she wasn’t going to waste it holding on to old fears.
“Well, somebody’s happy,” her aunt Jacqi said.
Jacinta nodded, not wanting to break the spell of the sun’s warmth on her closed lids. But her aunt broke it for her.
“So, we need to tell your father.”
Jacinta’s eyes flew open. “Why? I wasn’t pregnant. Why do we have to tell him?”
She breathed a sigh of relief when her aunt said, “We don’t have to tell him.” And she was about to thank her when Aunt Jacqi finished, “But we’re gonna tell him.”
Jacinta stared at her aunt as if she’d just proclaimed herself Queen of England. Her mouth worked soundlessly as her thoughts raced, refusing to come together in a coherent plea.
“This little scare took place while you were living with me. I’m not hiding it, or he might take it wrong,” her aunt said. She glanced away from the road and over at Jacinta. “And also, you and Raheem need a little break. Maybe Jamila and the boys can come visit you at my place on weekends for a while. I think you have too much idle time when you go home.”
Jacinta snorted softly. “That’s cool with me.”
She gazed away from her aunt’s surprised expression and out the window.
“Technically, this is just like female stuff, Aunt Jacqi,” Jacinta said. She kept the panic at bay by speaking quietly and calmly. “It wasn’t even like I was pregnant. It was the pills.”
She found herself nodding along with her aunt’s bobbing head, pleased they agreed. Her heart slowed its gallop.
“You’re right, and that’s what you can tell your father,” her aunt said matter-of-factly. “When you tell him.”
One hundred twenty.
Kelly looked down at the text from Angel, the one hundred twentieth text from him today. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning.
He’s just getting started, Kelly thought bitterly.
“Who dat?” Greg quizzed her playfully. He touched her knee lightly, grinning, his eyes hidden behind a pair of Aviators.
“One of those stupid service texts,” she said, lying easily and feeling bad for it.
But Angel wasn’t going to mess this up for her, even though his presence slithered around Kelly, waiting for just the right moment to squeeze. She turned the phone to silent, determined to be done with Angel’s text assault but unsure how.
The night she and Greg became an official couple, she’d ’fessed up about prom night. He’d forgiven her when she promised that was the end, said he wasn’t worried about her past.
Kelly wanted to feel the same way. But the past wouldn’t stay there if Angel could help it.
She hadn’t told anyone, not even the girls, that Angel continued to text her hundreds of times a day. The messages bounced between pleading and abusive, then apologetic and confused as to why Kelly was being such a “bitch.”
No amount of apologies or reasoning from Kelly penetrated Angel’s agitation.
Nothing she said convinced him that her saying yes had been nothing more than a terrible lapse in judgment.
Nothing.
Most days she left the phone home, pleading forgetfulness when Grand or the clique reamed her out for not answering their calls. She glanced down at the phone as it lit up, another message from Angel.
“I’m going to the concession stand. Want something?” Greg asked.
Kelly shook her head. She waited until Greg hotfooted it across the burning sands of Cimara beach before snatching the phone up and glaring at it. The backlight continued to blaze as another message came in.
At that moment she hated the phone passionately, as if it were Angel himself.
She wondered briefly if the incoming call was Mina. She was supposed to call when the clique was on their way. But all Kelly saw was Angel’s messages, his number time after time. Even if Mina called, her missed call would be buried by his.
She hugged her knees to her chest, gripping the phone. She gazed around the crowded beach, wanting the frivolity of the beachgoers to inject her with some happiness. But the phone sat in her hand like a lead weight, forcing her deep into the throes of anger and frustration.
As if sensing it, she looked down just in time to see another message from Angel. Her eyes scurried away but not fast enough. She’d read it.
Kelly 4real just let me holler at u for a minute. Don’t do me like this.
She shot up off the beach blanket and ran across the hot sand to the water’s edge.
Tears stung her eyes, making her feel like she was underwater. She gripped the phone tightly, feeling her pulse beating against it. The phone felt alive. Her stomach rolled.
With as much force as she could muster, she pitched the phone deep into the Del Rio Bay. And watched, willing the phone to float away, go away, leave her alone. The waves sucked it in. It disappeared for a second, then reappeared atop the crest of a wave before plopping back under, gone for good.
She swiped at the tears, drying her eyes, and forced a smile on her face.
She was starting over.
It was gone. He was gone. She was starting over.
Mina eyed the clock on the cash register with suspicion. No way it was only eight-thirty. That’s what time it had been when she’d last checked, and that was at least five minutes ago. At least.
She pushed the sleeves of her light blue Henley up to her elbow and grabbed the vacuum, determined to force the time to move. She rolled it to the front of the store, staking out a spot in the middle of the entrance, the better to see the happs in the rest of the mall, what little there was to see in the night’s dwindling traffic. There were a few women, probably in their thirties, heading into Victoria’s Secret—hot night out lingere shopping—and an older couple window-shopping for shoes next door.
In contrast to the quiet scene of the corridor, music thumped powerfully from the DJ stationed in Seventh Heaven’s front window. Meant to c
reate a club atmosphere and keep customers pumping out the cash as the music bumped in their chests, at eight-thirty on a Friday in June, the teen girls who would normally storm Seventh Heaven were at beachside bonfires, swim parties, or sharing a slice of pizza at Rio’s Ria. Vic, the DJ, was as lonely as Mina, but not nearly as bored. His long, lean body twisted and popped to the beat, his head perpetually bent into the right headphone so he could hear his mixes. When boredom set in, he challenged himself to change up the beat, keeping the store alive with rhythm, even when it was empty.
Vic, never Victor, was a junior hottie from Sam-Well. Every other Friday and Saturday, when he spun records at Seventh Heaven, he became DJ V. Mina had always figured it stood for Vic, but he said it was for Vanish because his mixes were so smooth, the transition from one song to the next was nearly invisible. She’d found that out on a Friday, of course. Shift supervisors always got to pick their crew, and any time Jessica Johnson worked a Friday, Mina worked a Friday. Jess had taken that whole “keep my friends close but my enemies closer” saying to a ridiculous level. Their frenemyship, alive and healthy in its fifth year, continued its odd, awkward journey, smoothed out by Mina’s genuine friendship with Jess’s twin, Sara. Had Jess had the early Friday shift instead of the late, Sara would be here, too. But Friday nights only required a shift sup, the DJ, and one other worker.
Mina’s eyes swept the store for signs of Jessica. Seeing none, she plugged in the vacuum. It was too early to vacuum, and she knew it. But the store was empty, and at nine PM, with her folding and floor cleaning done, she was going to dip. Brian was heading to Atlanta with his dad the next day, and every second between getting off work and her curfew, she planned to be with him. Every single second.
“You know you wrong,” Vic called from the corner. His teeth shone bright in his handsome, deep dark brown face.
Mina raised her finger in front of her mouth in a shh, and Vic mimed zipping his lips.
She revved up the vacuum, and its growl mixed with Vic’s thumping bass.
As the vacuum glided over the already clean floor, Mina did what she did often during Seventh Heaven shifts—think.
She had thought having to work was going to curse her summer, but it hadn’t. She wasn’t looking forward to August fifteenth, but work kept her too busy, so she wasn’t obsessing over it, either. And Brian was traveling so much with his dad for his dad’s job, even when Mina wasn’t working, he was gone more than he was home.
If their parents were trying to get them used to a long-distance romance, they were doing a good job.
The lemonade was that she and Lizzie were closer than ever. Todd was in Cali and would be until July. So it was almost like back in middle school when even with busy schedules, she and Liz always found time to hang out.
Sometimes, Lizzie dropped Mina off to work on her way to her rehearsal. Or she’d pick Mina up from work after a show. Or, on a rare day off for both of them, they’d hit the beach with the clique, Lizzie sunning, Mina shading under the umbrella, catching up. Mina lamenting, yet not hating, life working with Jessica Johnson; Lizzie sharing some wild tale from Todd’s adventure on the left coast.
As Mina vacuumed, lulled by the machine’s easy glide across the floor, she had no way of knowing it was the summer they’d never forget. Not for the bonfires, midnight swims, or Ria reunions. Not even for the late-night phone calls of whispered “I miss you’s,” or hundreds of text messages to stay in touch with one another.
They’d remember this summer because it would set the stage for a junior year of hurtful revelations, broken allegiances, and foolish impulses.
The last summer the clique would remain intact.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
WHO YOU WIT’?
A Del Rio Bay Novel
PAULA CHASE
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The following questions are intended to enhance your group’s reading of WHO YOU WIT’?
by Paula Chase
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mina and Lizzie’s friendship continues to endure despite the various paths they choose. How much should friends’ differing opinions on things like sex impact a friendship? A lot? A little? Explain your answer.
Each of the girls has a very different type of relationship with her boyfriend. Which relationship do you like the most? Which do you like the least? Which type of relationship do you think you’d most likely end up in? Mina and Brian’s stable yet constantly evolving relationship? Kelly’s volatile but never dull relationship with Angel? Jacinta’s loyal but rocky relationship with Raheem? Lizzie’s fragile but fresh and new relationship with Todd?
Was the abstinence pact something that Lizzie should have discussed with Todd first? Or was it her decision to make free and clear? Is it something that you feel you could comfortably discuss with a guy you’re growing closer to?
If you wanted to abstain from sex in a relationship and the guy didn’t, should you bother to try to make the relationship work?
Raheem was surprisingly supportive of the possibility that Jacinta was pregnant. But Jacinta didn’t see this as a good thing. Was his support and her reaction to it a surprise to you?
Jacinta is constantly torn about her relationship with Raheem. How far should her loyalty go when it compromises her own happiness? How can she get out of the relationship and move on?
In a sense, Mina was pressured to have sex with Brian because of her fear that he was seeing someone else. Do you agree with Mina’s decision to have sex with Brian? Why or why not?
Kelly allowed her ego to make the decision about going to the prom with Angel and it backfired on her. Why do you think she kept Angel’s increasingly frantic text messages from her friends? What would you do in that position?
Resources
www.sexetc.org—a site for teens by teens about sex education. Includes resources on relationships, teen sex, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases.
www.stayteen.org—facts on dating, relationships, waiting, breaking up, and more.
* * *
Stay tuned for the next book in this series: FLIPPING THE SCRIPT Available in April 2009 wherever books are sold. Until then, satisfy your Del Rio Bay craving with the following excerpt from the next installment.
ENJOY!
* * *
The Gang’s All Here
“You gon’ make us both get into some things that’ll scare grown folks.”
—David Banner ft. Chris Brown, “Get Like Me”
It’s just like old times, Mina felt like shouting as the clique chilled in JZ’s family room. Sitting at the juice bar with Brian, she surveyed the usual chaos, soaking in every ounce of the energy emanating from her friends. Her heart fed off it.
If it weren’t for the fir tree in the far corner, a reminder that Christmas was days away, Mina would swear they were reliving a summer night. Todd, Michael, and JZ on the sectional sofa playing Madden, talking smack, insults, and obscenities; Jacinta flitting between plucking with JZ (a happy intrusion to his game that he would have never allowed a year ago) and conversing with Lizzie and Kelly at the arcade-sized Pac-Man game. Greg, standing with the girls, guiding them through each level’s danger spots as he waited his turn at the “real” gaming on the sofa.
Greg went with the flow like he’d been friends with all of them forever, fitting in easily since he and Kelly had become an official couple over the summer.
Mina knew if JZ or Michael brought a girl around, it would hardly be as nice a match. And they must have known it, too, because neither of them ever had.
Not that me and the girls wouldn’t accept her, Mina thought, checking herself. The fact was, guys seemed to find things to bond over, while girls seemed to focus on the differences.
Brian pulled her stool flush against his, forcing Mina’s attention back to him. She draped her legs over his to prevent them from being crushed by the bar stools. His hands cuffed her sides as he leaned in, closing off their part of the room with his intimate stare an
d seductive grin.
“Did you miss me, toughie?”
“Nah,” Mina said, unable to keep a straight face. An explosion of “aw man” went off from the couch, but Mina barely heard. Brian kissed her gently, pulled back and, in a voice that melted her heart, said, “I missed you.”
Her heart trotted as Brian kissed her again, this time longer, his hands pressing against her hips as he leaned in closer. Mina’s head swam. She and Brian hadn’t been this close since August. If you didn’t count the few times she’d watched him play basketball on television, it had been four months since they’d seen each other. The time apart had been all text messaging and phone calls. She kept her phone on so much, she’d worn out two batteries already.
Oh my God, I’m swooning, she thought, giddy, and to prove it, lost her balance when Brian eased his hold on her hips.
“Mmm, good hands,” she murmured when he rested his hand on the small of her back to steady her.
“Un-huh.” A playful smile lit up his face. “What you know about how good my hands are?”
“A little sumpun, sumpun,” she said shyly, dumbstruck by his presence.
He was really here, home with her again. She quickly zapped the bothersome side note whispering in her ear that he was only home for a week before heading back to school. Instead, she stared into his face, taking in the way his long eyelashes framed his friendly brown eyes, wanting to make sure the moment was real. Being up close, very close, to her delight, she saw he looked different, somehow older and more mature. A clean thin line of facial hair framed a more square jaw, and his eyes seemed wiser, like he knew things.