“Hey,” I say, all calm and casual like we chitchat every day. “One of the first things we need to do is change the name of this lit mag. I mean, we can’t have other schools thinking that we all rock Uggs and Aeropostale while sipping high-end cappuccinos, right?”
Sterling ruffles in her seat some and pulls a document up on her laptop. “So, I was thinking about using the theme ‘Chill.’” She gets right into it. Doesn’t even look at me or exchange any pleasantries. It’s clear she doesn’t want to talk talk with me, so I have to play this real slick. “You know, this being a winter issue and all. Maybe we could get into all the iterations of the meaning of chill. Like cooling off, or hanging out with your friends . . .”
I nod, smile. Catching everything she’s throwing. “Or relaxing. And make some kind of mention about how one of the best things to do when it’s chilly outside is to get real cozy with something warm to drink and something good to read.”
Sterling finally glances over at me, her face glowing. “I like that. That’s good.” She makes a note of something in her laptop.
“You do? You know, I could take a look at what you have so far. Maybe give some feedback on where we could fit that in.”
Sterling rubs her thumb against one of her fingers, as if she’s trying to read my bullshit meter through touch. She gives a nod and shifts her laptop to my desk. I scroll through her rough draft, but my eyes shift to her menu bar below. It’d be so easy to click on her browser. See what she’s searched for before. Filter through her email and type in Nic’s name. Log in to her social media accounts to see her private messages. But Sterling hovers over me so close that her hair tickles my forearm. She may be willing to work with me, but she damn sure’s not leaving me alone with her top-of-the-line laptop. After all, Nic’s only her token black friend. That doesn’t mean she has to trust Nic’s black brother in a hoodie.
I force myself to concentrate on the words in front of me until I can read them as full sentences, and not just words floating in front of my eyes. I point to a spot in her paragraph. “See, right here. You mention something about fireplaces. This would be the perfect segue.”
Sterling leans even farther over me to review the sentence, then nods. “You’re right.” She takes her laptop back and my heart drops. “You know, you might be actually good at this.” One side of her face lifts as she begins to type. Not exactly a smile, but all she’s willing to give me for now.
“Yeah . . . that used to be me and Nic’s favorite thing to do during winter break,” I say, cracking my knuckles so my voice won’t crack instead. “We’d go to the bookstore, the one with the Starbucks inside of it? Sip on one of those holiday drinks while we’d flip through pages. I think one time we sat in the café for so long that I finished an entire book without paying for it. Felt bad for the author, though.” I force out a small laugh.
Sterling’s fingers pause and hover over the keyboard. Her mouth shifts slightly as if she’s primed to say something, but then her fingers fly over the keys again.
I sigh through my nose. Let’s try being just a little more direct. “It’s crazy she’s been gone so long, right?” I make sure I really make it sound like an innocent question, raising my voice so high near the end I could pass for Mickey Mouse. “I mean, this doesn’t really seem like her.”
Sterling chews on her lip. Her eyes remain on the screen but at least she stops typing. Let me push a little more.
“She hasn’t reached out to you recently, right?” I ask.
Sterling’s eyes snap over to me. “You’d hear from her more than I would. You’re her brother.”
I nod. “That’s what I’d assume. But you two seem so close. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to friends than family.”
Sterling sighs and shakes her head. “Sorry. Haven’t talked to her in ages.”
I search for a tell. A muscle twitch, a wandering eye. Something to let me know that she’s not being one hundred percent truthful. I get nothing, though. “What about Javon? Has he heard from her?”
Any sympathy coming from Sterling’s face has morphed into something bitter. “How in the hell would I know?” she asks.
Holy shit. I hit a nerve. Tread lightly, Jay. “I don’t know. I thought you all kicked it or something.”
“Ew, no.” Sterling looks around the classroom, but everyone is busy doing what they’re supposed to be doing at their respective desks. “Not like that. I’d see Javon when I had to see him, and that was through Nic. You think I’d hang around a guy like that?” She scoffs to make a point.
Wow. Whatever she and Javon were talking about in the car was so intense that she can’t even admit that she speaks to him when Nic’s not around. What in the hell is going on? “Of course not,” I say. “I just figured that—”
“Look, I’d like to get as much of this done as possible. I have to leave exactly at three thirty. How about you work on something, I work on something, then we combine them later. Sounds good?” She doesn’t wait for my input. Just digs her foot into the floor to push her desk away from mine, then buries her face into her laptop. Conversation over.
I rub my forehead in frustration, knowing I’ve rammed into another wall.
I give a wave to Joshua Kim as I make my way out of Taco Bell. He gives me a distracted smile before fiddling with the cash register. As soon as I step out of the door, my wave mutates into the middle finger. Not necessarily to Joshua, though he can take some of it, too. To coming home smelling like refried beans. To minimum wage. To wasting hours in the evening here when I could be finding out what’s going on with Nic.
Not like that would be any more productive, though. I got nowhere with Sterling. I got nowhere with Officer Hunter. Kenny’s friends and family were just as lost as, well, Nic. And the guy with all the answers likes pulling sneak attacks on me in church bathrooms. I keep failing Nic. I’m officially the worst brother in the world.
As I cross the parking lot toward the city bus stop, a dark car pulls in front of me. A Lincoln Continental. A smile crawls over my face as Riley pokes her head out of the driver’s side window.
“I officially have forty-two minutes,” she says to me, then holds up a Chinese food carton. “And I figured you might be a little tired of eating leftover cheesy gorditas for a late supper.”
I sniff the air. “Do I smell shrimp fried rice?”
“You’re actually smelling house special fried rice. A whole smorgasbord of meat and seafood. Not to mention some greasy egg rolls and a warm Diet Mountain Dew to wash everything down.”
I sigh extra loud. “Sorry. I only drink Mountain Lion.”
“I’ll keep that in mind next time.” She gets out of the car and unfolds a blanket over the hood. “After you, sir.” She motions for me to take a seat.
“You first. I insist,” I say. I grab her hand and help her climb onto the hood. I sit next to her and she passes me my food and chopsticks. She even hands me soy sauce packages for extra seasoning. I look down at my food, at her blanket . . . at Riley.
She stops pinching at her rice with chopsticks then smiles up at me. “What?” she asks.
I smile back. This is really nice, I want to tell her. You really went all out for me, I want to add. “I take it your parents don’t know where you’re at,” I say instead.
“Not true. I told them I was picking up food.” She pokes at her food again. “Granted, I told them I was picking up food to bring to Bible study, but still . . . I’m eating.”
I shake my head and laugh.
“Also,” Riley continues over my laughter, “my parents only told me not to have boys in the car. Technically, I’m following directions.”
“Something tells me you’re going to end up in law school.”
Riley makes a face. “Ugh. Could you imagine me as a lawyer? I’d either always want to throw the book at people or get them off with a slap on the wrist. There’d be no gray area with me. I’m extreme like that.”
“You don’t say.”
Riley nu
dges me with her arm. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Jay Murphy?”
I take a huge gulp of my food—enough to keep my mouth busy for a few extra seconds. Enough to make Riley want to move on to another topic. But she peers at me, patience all over her face. I swallow. “I’m going to manage a Taco Bell.”
Riley rolls her eyes at me. “Ha. Ha.”
“Being extreme’s not so bad,” I say, wanting the spotlight back on her. Exactly where it should be. “It would make you a dope-ass detective. You have more skills than any of the idiots working in the stations around here. There would probably never be any cold cases in your precinct.”
Riley blushes. “I wouldn’t say I have the skills. It’s just easy to pick up on information when everyone ignores you. They talk around you as if you’re not there.”
I blink at her. “Riley, anyone would be crazy to ignore you.”
Riley tilts her head at me. Gives me a look. “Remember that time back in, like, fifth grade? The church had that Trunk or Treat event the night before Halloween?”
I frown, trying to remember which specific Trunk or Treat she’s talking about. I didn’t like any of them. I didn’t see the point of wasting my Halloween costume with some lames at church when I could be hitting the streets in the bougie neighborhoods, collecting at least two pillowcases filled with candy.
“I was Mal from Descendants. You were a Ninja Turtle. Michelangelo.”
I snap my fingers, the memory suddenly hitting me. I had wanted Nic to be April that year, since April was a girl. She wasn’t having it, though. Wanted to be Donatello instead since he was the “smart one.” When I told her she couldn’t be him because he was a boy, she asked me to show me where his “pee pee” was. Shut my ass up with the quickness.
“You and Nic had been coming to Providence, like, full-time for almost two years at that point. I was so excited to see you guys there. I had some more kids close to my age to talk to, especially cool ones that knew all the words to Drake songs—and not just the radio edit.”
I smile. Nic and I did go hard on old Drizzy. We would sneak onto the family computer in the kitchen while MiMi was at work to find the unedited versions of his songs on YouTube.
“And I really, really wanted to talk to you.” Riley looks down at her lap, getting shy on me all of a sudden. “I spent all afternoon getting my makeup just right, so you could tell me how cool my costume looked. And I thought about the questions I could ask you about yours to get you talking to me. When I saw you, with your half shell and your plastic nunchucks, I knew exactly what to ask you.” She raises her eyebrows to see if I remember. I give a sheepish shrug, completely clueless. Riley sighs. “Where’d you get your mask from?”
I pause. The moment hits me like an ice bath. I had lost the orange mask that came with the costume. MiMi, Nic, and I had spent a full hour ransacking the apartment, trying to find where I might’ve dropped it. MiMi gave up, said we couldn’t be late. Cut some holes in her orange bandana and made me wear that instead. I never felt so embarrassed, so ghetto, in my life. Then the Reverend’s daughter walked over to me and pointed out the one thing on my costume that made me want to disappear.
“You told me to shut up,” Riley continues, poking at her rice. “You told me to shut up, then didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night. Which was partially my fault, since I spent half of the evening crying in the bathroom afterward.”
I wince, wanting to punch that big-headed ten-year-old in the face. “Riley, I—”
“It’s okay. Your sister found me. Apologized for you.” She smiles now at the memory. “She apologized a lot for you over the years, then would tell me some embarrassing story about you to make me feel better. But that was the first time. We developed a silent thing after a while. Whenever one of us would do or say anything to make you snap or make this face . . .” She scrunches her nose and forehead up until they look like origami. “She’d cross her eyes at me and I crossed them back. Something silly just to make us not take you too seriously. I know you were going through a lot then. I know you’re going through a lot now.”
Now I poke at my food. My throat feels too swollen to swallow anything at the moment.
“I know you probably thought that I was all up in your Kool-Aid about the Nic thing at first but, I don’t know, I guess in a weird way, I feel like she’s my friend. One of the few that paid attention to me. I just wanted to return the favor.” She gets real quiet and so do I. We just listen to the cars whiz by on the street behind us. Something about the chaos back there calms me. Like everyone keeps moving, but I get a moment to be still with Riley.
She finally cracks another smile at me. “You’re not so smooth, Jay. You never told me about your dreams. What are you doing when we graduate next year? JRU? I know you probably wouldn’t want to be that far from Ms. Murphy.”
I scoff at her suggestion. John Ratcliffe University is one of the few colleges right in our backyard that the smart, uppity students in our schools usually wanted to attend, and not as a backup choice. It was as close to an Ivy League as we could get in this area—the admissions requirements included a high GPA, high SAT scores, and fair skin.
“Yeah. College is not really my cup of tea,” I say.
Riley looks at me, wide-eyed. Kind of like Mrs. Pratt when I tell her about my future plans, or lack thereof. “I don’t get it,” she says. “You’re so smart.”
My cheeks get warm from the compliment. “I can’t afford it. And I farted around too much to get a long list of extracurriculars going. Every dollar I make is going to MiMi. It’s the least I can do for her after taking me and Nic in.”
“Jay, she’s your grandmother.”
“Exactly. She’s already raised her children. She didn’t ask for another set during her golden years. That’s the only reason why I’m putting up with this.” I tug at my Taco Bell polo shirt.
Riley looks down at my shirt then back up at me. “Okay, I get where you’re coming from. I really do. But . . . don’t you think that the best way you can repay Ms. Murphy is by going to college? For her to see that all her hard work actually gave you a better future?”
I open my mouth, ready to give the same rebuttals that I give all my teachers, that I give Mrs. Pratt. But . . . damn. She got me. She got me good. College is all MiMi has been talking about with me lately—at least it was before Nic’s disappearance. Though I know she’ll be geeked about seeing me walk across the stage getting my diploma, she’d about jump out of her skin to see me doing the same with a college degree.
I look at Riley. Cock my head to one side so I can really take her all in.
“What?” Riley asks, smoothing down her ponytail. “I got something in my hair? Shrimp in my teeth?”
I smile and shake my head. “I just want you to know that I see you, Riley. I really see you. I couldn’t stop seeing you if I tried.” Maybe that’s what Nic needed to hear, too. That she was seen for her inside, not just her outside. That she mattered. Maybe that’s what would’ve kept her next to me.
Riley takes a breath and her shoulders rise, like she knows exactly what I mean. I slide closer to her so she can feel it too. She doesn’t move away. She leans over to me, gives me permission to get even nearer.
So I do. I touch the side of Riley’s face. Tilt my head toward hers, then pause. “Can I kiss you?” I ask.
Riley smiles and grabs the back of my head, pressing her mouth against mine. Our lips move in and out of each other’s, speaking a language that they’d learned forever ago but only get to use now. And every time I think one of us gets tired, Riley presses the back of my head or I squeeze her lower back, and our communication continues. Hell, I could speak to Riley like this all night long.
Tires screech in front of us, snapping Riley and me back to reality. Javon thrusts his head out of his driver’s side window.
“Get in,” he demands.
Twenty-One
&
nbsp; RILEY AND I FREEZE IN TIME, WATCHING JAVON WATCH US with a slight crease in between his eyebrows.
“Hello?” Javon snaps his fingers a few times at me. “I said get in.”
“Why . . . why should I go anywhere with you?” I remember how my vocal cords work. “You told me to stay away from you. To back off. Remember?” I sure as hell didn’t forget—and neither did my stomach muscles.
“I also told you to stop getting cute. So get your ass in the car. Now.”
Maybe this is how it was when he confronted Kenny. If I get in that car, that might be the last car ride I’ll ever take. I cross my arms over my chest, stand my ground. “I’m good right here.”
Javon’s nostrils flare, but then he squeezes his eyes shut. Takes a deep breath. Like Javon Hockaday is suddenly practicing mindfulness. He reopens his eyes and his face is now more still. “It’s about Nic.”
At that, my arms go slack. Nic? So this mofo finally wants to come clean about Nic. He must be broiling from all the heat on him, so now he’s ready to do something right. I slide off Riley’s car. “I need to go with him,” I say to her, almost apologetically. Even if he does spill wax about Nic, it still might be the last thing I hear. But maybe I can at least send a message to MiMi, give her some answers.
Riley hops off the car. “I’m going with you.”
“What?” I shake my head so many times I get dizzy. “No way in hell. Your parents are expecting you home. It’s okay—you’ve done enough for Nic.”
“If I had, she’d already be here. Now let’s go.” Riley walks past me and straight to Javon’s car.
I curse under my breath then glare at Javon. “Look, if you even think about hurting her—”
“Nigga, I ain’t got time for empty threats. Let’s go.”
Riley opens the door to the backseat and slides in. I follow her. Before I can even close the door all the way, Javon speeds off.
“Whoa.” I scramble to click on my seatbelt. “What’s going on?”
“Nic’s phone’s back on,” Javon explains as he pumps the gas and grazes under a traffic light just as it turns red. “I got an alert on my Find My Friends app. Check it.”
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