One of the Good Ones

by Maika Moulite

  Mom and Dad are the type of people who have always had eyes on them. Mom has flawless skin and short, wavy hair she keeps in a pixie cut. Dad’s got a thick fade haircut, a dimple in his right cheek, and no dad-bod. They’re captivating together. Basically two Beyoncés. Even before what happened with Kezi, people came up to them just to chat because they seemed like they were having so much darn fun. The women are always surprised when they learn Ma is the mother of two teenagers and one fully-grown adult. Dad plays the good husband when they get to that part of the exchange, because he’ll politely let my mother have her moment even though her spiel clearly makes him uncomfortable.

  As we get closer to the table, I notice an older couple leaning in to listen better to whatever Mom is in the middle of explaining.

  “Thank you! I hope I look like you when I hit seventy-six!” Mom says.

  “Honey, if this is you at forty-four, then I’m sure you’ll be just fine,” the woman replies.

  “You know, I truly, truly believe it is a blessing from the Lord. Like I said, we used to live in sin and had our first girl in our teens,” Mom says as easily as discussing the menu Dad was pretending to be engrossed in. “That was a shock. What did an eighteen-and nineteen-year-old know about raising God-fearing babies?”

  The older woman’s husband pulls out his phone to read an imaginary text message.

  “But my God is a God of second chances, He is! Malcolm and I got married straightaway and even eventually heard the call to go to the seminary, and we pastor a growing church back in LA.”

  “Amen!” The woman waves her hand gently in the air. I can see the feathered fan she undoubtedly uses on Sundays so clearly in my mind.

  “I like to think my family is like Job’s. I even named my daughters after the children he had once the plagues and sickness and death stopped,” Ma continues.

  “Speak of the devil! Guess who’s here?” Dad says.

  “Were your ears burning, ladies?” Mom jokes when we approach them awkwardly. “Mrs. Loretta and Mr. Billy, this is our eldest, Jemima Genesis, and the youngest, Keren Happuch.”

  “Genny,” my sister clarifies as she shakes their hands.

  I wave listlessly and sit down. They can call me whatever they like. I’m never going to see them again.

  “You know, Kezi—Keziah Leah—we liked to call her our ‘doing it the right way baby.’”

  Dad grunts.

  “And—and of course, Happi was our beautiful bonus baby. We got to finish our little trinity of names. Granted, by then, I thought we had moved into the second act of Job’s life when the bad stuff already stopped happening... But it’s God’s will.”

  For the first time, I notice the three and a half empty wineglasses on the table in front of my mother.

  Dad clears his throat and smiles tightly. “Well, it was very, very nice to meet y’all. And thank you so much for the support. We’re about to tuck in to some dinner, just the family, and be off to bed. Long day, you understand.”

  “Jesus! Look at us, monopolizing your time,” Mrs. Loretta says as she swats her husband’s chest. “I told you not to let me talk too much. You have a wonderful evening, you hear?”

  Mr. Billy shakes Dad’s hand, and Mrs. Loretta gives Mom a firm hug before walking away.

  “That was...a lot,” I say. I decided in the car to act like the scene in the theater didn’t happen. Take my direction from the audience, if you will. Maybe if I’m more pleasant at dinner than I usually am, they’ll leave me alone.

  Before I even have a chance to determine what my fate is for the night, Genny grabs one of the empty glasses and taps the rim gently with her fork.

  “Ahem. So now that we’re alone... I have an announcement to make,” she says. “As you know, Kezi would’ve graduated this past May at the top of her class, and she wanted to take a road trip to celebrate.” Genny rests her purse on the table and pulls out a tattered green pamphlet. “More specifically, she was going to explore old Route 66 and its nearby roads with the help of The Negro Motorist Green Book so she could investigate what life was like for people like us back then.”

  “Yeah...” Dad says, leaning forward with a slight frown.

  “I want to take the trip in her honor and vlog about it on her YouTube page! I could even somehow tackle the web series she planned to do using her narrative nonfiction. With Happi,” she adds hastily. “We would cancel the meet-and-greets she set up with her followers of course. I don’t think we’re ready for that kind of interaction... Ooh and I’ve already gotten my principal investigator’s blessing at the lab. It will be our way of commemorating Kezi’s life and upholding her legacy.”

  Mom sobers up real quick and puts down the piece of bread she’d been buttering. “No,” she says simply.

  Genny’s chuckle is free of any humor. “I’m not exactly asking y’all for permission. I was hoping you’d be supportive, after everything we’ve been through these few months.”

  “Everything we’ve been through? You must be out your damn mind if you think a road trip across the American heartland is what you need to be doing right now,” Mom says.

  “You’re like the new face of social justice! How can you say no when in your own speech today you talked about Kezi’s—”

  “Malcolm, speak some wisdom into your daughter,” my mother says tiredly.

  My dad drums his index fingers on the table and is silent for a moment, unquestionably experiencing the wave of déjà vu washing over him like it is with me. With Kezi. Then, “Gen, this country is dangerous. You know that. I’m not too comfortable with the idea of my two little girls—”

  “Number one. I’m not a little girl,” Genny whispers. “Number two. You have three daughters. Three. And what one of them wanted was to celebrate the next chapter in her life.” He opens his mouth, but she plows through. “But there are no more chapters. I have to do this one last thing for her.”

  “I don’t need history to repeat itself!” Dad slams his fist on the table. A man and woman sitting a few tables over jump in surprise at the noise and point at us. “Look what happened in California. And you want to go hunting for this madness out in Missouri and Oklahoma?” The only other time I really saw him lose his cool was when we were going to Kezi’s funeral. His eyes had the same look of dazed disbelief.

  “Hey there, I’m back and yay, the rest of your party’s arrived! Are you four ready to order?” The waiter looks around my age and must lack the ability to read a room or even a closet. He lifts his pen dramatically over his pad of paper, then tucks a loose dreadlock behind his ear and waits.

  I close my mouth, which had been hanging open during the verbal tennis match between the two most soft-spoken members of the Smith clan. I didn’t think it was Job’s first daughter who would be getting ripped into tonight.

  “Sorry. Make that three instead,” Genny hisses, pushing herself out of her seat. She pulls out two folded pieces of paper from the Green Book and slams them on the table. I recognize the assured round lines of Kezi’s handwriting before the sheet flutters closed again, and my throat catches as I read the first line of the first page.

  To Daddy...

  It’s like she never left.

  “I’m hitting the road tomorrow, with or without your blessing.”

  10

  KEZI

  TUESDAY, APRIL 17—THE DAY OF THE ARREST

  KEZI’S 18TH BIRTHDAY

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  I didn’t even pretend to pay attention to the presentation about cellular respiration in second period AP Biology. Yes, it was my birthday, but my mind was focused on the rally. I was itching for class to come to an end. My teacher must’ve noticed how uncharacteristically spaced out I appeared, so when she asked me something about the citric acid cycle, she looked just as surprised as I was when I said the correct answer. (Tip: when in doubt, it’s always mitochondria.) We
were about to break for lunch, which meant that in a few short hours, I would be on my way to the protest for Jamal Coleman. My nerves had been on ten all day as I thought about what it would be like to take my digital activism offline to my first in-person protest. Even if it meant my parents weren’t speaking to me. That was okay. I’d win them over again.

  “Don’t forget, everyone.” The shout rang over my classmates as they loudly got ready to leave. “Your assignment on oxidative phosphorylation and the electron transport chain is due this Friday at the beginning of class. I won’t take it from you if you try to sneak it in at the end!”

  My peers finished packing up their belongings, and I quickly did the same. I had one thing on my mind, and that was to get to the cafeteria as fast as possible. I was meeting Ximena and Derek for lunch, which was something I did every day, but the anticipatory buzz I felt in the pit of my gut was new. I hoped Ximena and I would be able to convince Derek to join us, but I wasn’t holding my breath. If anything, he would help me and Ximena figure out the best ways to maximize our presence at the march. We would mostly just be walking in tandem with the surrounding protestors, shouting as one. But we wanted to come up with a chant that was clever enough to get the whole crowd to join in and foster a greater sense of unity. So far, all the ideas we’d come up with were trash.

  I wound my way through the crowd of students, avoiding people as they ran through the halls or stopped in the middle of the walkway to chat. I noticed a few kids staring at me intently, whispering as I walked past. Strange.

  Just as I was turning into the cafeteria, I made out a familiar neon-pink book bag bobbing closer and closer to the exit.

  Now where does that girl think she’s going? I thought as I watched my younger sister attempt to sneak off of campus. Well, she wasn’t really trying...or sneaking. She was more so daring anyone to stop her. The first time I’d heard the phrase, “Ask for forgiveness, not permission,” I’d immediately pictured Happi, simply being herself. It was her life’s motto, whether she knew it or not. And attached right beside her was her human parasite of a boyfriend.

  There was no denying that Santiago Garcia was objectively attractive, if there was such a thing. Tan olive skin, dark curly hair, and the stubble of a fledgling beard that lined his sharp jaw and directed your eyes right back up to his striking hazel ones. Happi was head over heels for this fool...and so were the rest of the girls in her grade. Even a few of the seniors would joke about wanting to rob the cradle for a piece of him. And some of them had successfully done so too, Happi be damned.

  I quickened my pace to catch up to the two truants and grabbed Happi by the arm a few feet before she reached the door to freedom.

  “What the hell?” Happi yelled as she spun around to see who was holding on to her. Santiago turned with her, ready to step in, but stopped as soon as he realized it was me.

  “Aw damn,” he said, gaze hopping back and forth between me and Happi. “I’m gonna wait for you outside, babe.”

  Santiago didn’t even pause to hear if Happi had any objections and slipped out of the building. He knew that he was on my ain’t-shit-list ever since his trifling ways became known to me and the entire school. He had never even tried to get back into my good graces either. (Maybe because such a place didn’t exist for him.) Especially since I had pulled him aside to read him for filth at Russell Stewart’s party a few months ago after I found him cozying up to some girl from another school that nobody even knew. Happi had seen me whispering at him furiously and had started shouting at me for getting on his case. And I had just stared at her, wondering how she could be such a dummy.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Happi? You don’t think you’ve missed enough school this semester?”

  “First of all, all of my absences have been excused.” Happi counted on her fingers. “And second of all, you need to mind your business.”

  “Well lucky for you, little sister, you are my business.”

  A shadow of annoyance flickered across Happi’s face. She hated whenever I asked her any question at all. Showed that I cared. And she always made sure to point out that Genny was never on my case like I was on hers... I’m certain she thought I was babying her, but I only checked in because I wanted to know she was okay. And if I didn’t, who knew what could go down? I was usually good at not mentioning the glaring fact that I didn’t really do much to warrant our older sister worrying about me.

  “You think just because you’re a year ahead of me and have your little YouTube followers and a random viral moment you can tell me what to do?”

  “I didn’t say that, Happi,” I said. “And furthermore... Wait... Viral moment? What are you talking about?”

  “Have you even looked at your phone since you posted that video of you roasting Mr. Bamhauer? Everyone’s talking about it.”

  I pulled my cell out of my pocket and looked down. I had what looked like hundreds if not thousands of comments on my YouTube channel. Whoa. A major youth activist had posted it on his social media pages. It had blown. All. The. Way. Up.

  This is someone who’s in charge of KIDS? Oh hell no!

  Thank you so much for posting this. We need to get this man out of that school!

  Mesmerizing. Smart. Articulate. You’re so special, Kezi. Do you know that? Just tell me what you want to do about this guy and I can take care of it.

  “I’m gonna go, Kezi,” Happi said, snapping my attention back to her. I really wanted to read through all of the comments and block any weirdos, but my rebellious sister needed a voice of reason to keep her out of trouble. I tucked my phone back into my pocket. I was a little worried about whether or not Mr. Bamhauer would find a way to turn this on me and get me in trouble for calling him out. I’d really have to put up a fight then. But those thoughts would have to wait.

  “Look,” I said, my attention squarely focused on Happi. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t get yourself into trouble with that waste of space. Besides, I know you haven’t told anybody where you’re slinking off to. And God forbid something happens to you...we need to know where to look first.”

  Happi sighed exaggeratedly. “Again, I’m gonna go. I have an audition to get to. Okay? Cool. Bye.”

  “Nuh uh,” I said pulling my sister’s arm again as she turned to leave. “What are you auditioning for that would take place in the middle of a school day? Pregnant teen?”

  I regretted it as soon as the words escaped my mouth. I heard my mother in my voice. The worst part of her. Our mom had started warning us against messing around with “fast boys” the moment we could pronounce three-syllable words like pu·ber·ty. At least she’d included guys in her slut-shaming. Mom didn’t want any of us to end up “with child” early like her, especially while we were living under her roof. “I’m not about to be watching over anybody’s kids!”

  What she really meant was that she wasn’t about to have us embarrass her in front of the church, walking around with basketball bellies one month and bawling babies the next. The possibility of having a daughter who had no interest in boys, fast or slow, never crossed her mind.

  “How progressive of you, Kezi,” Happi said. “Did I say it right? Pro-Gress-Ive?”

  “Look, I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”

  “I don’t even know why you’re acting like you give a damn,” Happi continued. “And not that it matters, but I’m going to audition for a TV show. Sometimes they’re on school days. Santiago is auditioning too. If I’m lucky, I’ll get the role and be able to film somewhere far away from you. Let’s shoot for Atlanta.”

  This was going worse than I anticipated.

  Happi paused and looked up, as if waiting for her next words to float down from the ceiling.

  “You’re not better than me,” she said finally, body angled more toward the exit.

  “I never—”

  “You’ve never said it, but you’ve al
ways thought it. I may not have the most book smarts out of the Stupendous Smith Sisters, but I have emotional intelligence.”

  “Of course you’re smart. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I don’t think you are. I just think that you should make better deci—”

  “Look. Leave me alone,” Happi said slowly. “The only thing we have in common is our parents. Allegedly. And that’s fine. You’re not responsible for me, and I don’t need you to be.”

  “But I want to be, Happi!”

  “How about this? I don’t want you to be.”

  The final twist into my heart. There was once a time that, if I shut my eyes and thought back really, really hard to when we were kids, I’d come up with memories of Happi following my every move. If I got a cowboy hat, she got a cowboy hat. If I read the most books in second grade, then she would try to do the same in first. That period in our childhoods hadn’t lasted long. But I still think about it a lot.

  “You’re the one who’s going to be in major trouble for going to that stupid protest you have no business going to. Especially since our folks told you no. And now that you’ve got this video floating around, you know you’re going to be called down to talk to the principal any second now. Worry about yourself.”

  I tugged on the straps of my bag in frustration. There was some truth to what she was saying. But I’d never admit that.

  “How can you be so willfully ignorant?” I said to my sister as she walked away. Again. “It’s our job to speak up when things aren’t right, Happi. Just because something hasn’t happened to you directly doesn’t mean that it can’t one day. We all have to stick together. Stop being so...self-centered.”

  “I’m the self-centered one? Don’t act like you didn’t calculate how all this shit you do looked for your college applications. Stop pretending like you don’t live for Mom’s praise and for those hypocrites at church to give you a pat on the head.” She enunciated each word. “I am not like you. I am not living my life for people. I am living it for me. It’s not my fault you can’t.”