The snow was up to our shins now and the wind had started slanting its fall, blowing it in our direction so that snowflakes pelted into our eyes and stuck our eyelashes together. I nuzzled my nose against my scarf and trudged forward. Some of the boys in our grade had decided to stay in the playground, whipping snowballs at each other, their screams and laughter too stubborn to be drowned out by the wind.
“Let’s get fries from New Orleans Donuts,” said Aishani. “I’m starving.”
“It’s too cold to walk around. We can order pizza at my place,” said Rochelle.
“With what money? You’ve got, like, two dollars to your name,” said Jordan.
“That’s two dollars more than you. And anyway, my mom left me money for an emergency. We’re good.”
“But I feel for fries,” said Aishani.
No one had said anything about stopping anywhere. I turned to them but tried to keep my face buried in my hood — more as a way to hide my panicked expression than to shield myself from the cold. “Can’t we just go to Chelle’s house? That’s what we said we’d do.”
“If you’re going to be this way, you should just go back to school,” said Anita.
“Well, I actually don’t care where we go,” said Rochelle, “as long as we go Vaughan way.”
“What’s so special about Vaughan way?” said Jordan. “You always want to walk that way.”
“I just like it,” said Rochelle.
“Yeah, but why?”
The high school was on Vaughan Road, and Rochelle was seeing a guy who went there: Chris Richardson, grade ten. Every girl knew Chris; every mother, too. He never kept himself out of trouble: trespassing, tagging buildings, mouthing off to cops who spot-checked him and his crew at the park or in front of the McDonald’s or by the bus stop. But he was always quick to carry your mother’s grocery bags to the door or help your grandmother find a seat in church, and he did it all with sly silences and toothy smiles and, if you were lucky, a wink behind your mother’s back.
“Be careful of boys like him,” they’d tell us. “Yuh need fi stay clear from bright-eye boys like that.”
“Your dad was like that,” my mother would add. “And look how I turned out.”
The day Chris and Rochelle first said “hey” to each other, we were at Vaughan Road Academy for a tour, trying to see if that was the school we wanted to spend the next four years at, me pretending like I had a say in where I ended up. He’d stopped her in the hallway, took her by the hand and guided her to him, putting his hands around her waist as she stood in the space between his spread-out legs; it was a move she was used to. Rochelle had that really fair rose-brown complexion, that kind of red skin and shapely heaviness that made cars slow down and girls up-down, and she’d been dealing with hungry-eyed boys since she was ten.
While they were talking I’d pretended to flip through the notes my mother had told me to write down, far enough behind Rochelle that I wasn’t interrupting but close enough that if she wanted out she could just turn to me and we’d walk away together, our arms linked. Chris had thought she was a transfer student, a sophomore like him, and only when he took down her number did Rochelle tell him she’d just turned fourteen and was in grade eight. First he got quiet. Then he left without even saying bye. But later on that night, she called me and said that he’d rung her up and they’d just finished a three-hour conversation.
“Just don’t tell anyone,” she’d said. “It’s a secret, okay?”
Sometimes we both pictured the licks she’d get if her mom ever found out about Chris — and Rochelle’s mom didn’t play around: she used the belt. My mother didn’t like to use objects; she always said her hands were sharp enough. I tried to imagine keeping something like a boy from her — if a boy ever showed any interest in me — and I felt my body turn in on itself. Even the backs of my eyeballs throbbed as if they’d grown strained from searching for her open-palmed hand. It was how I felt when I let myself think that a storefront boy might be smirking at me; a panic would creep up on my body like a slow-moving fever and then for a brief moment I’d feel glad that I wasn’t sexy enough to keep a secret like Rochelle’s.
* * *
We crossed the street to New Orleans Donuts and stumbled over ourselves to get inside and out of the snow. The warmth of the shop was heavy with the smell of frying batter and loud with the sounds of chatter mixed with the pew pews of the two arcade games by the washroom. It was packed. Each of the four corner tables had been seized by a school, from high-school kids from Vaughan Road Academy (they took up two tables) to other students from our school to the kids from St. Thomas Aquinas, another Catholic school just up the street from ours.
Rochelle scanned the store, her eyes slowly sweeping over the boys in oversized coats and fur trapper hats. When she found Chris over by the window, in the corner across from the entrance, sprawled out and laughing with three of his friends, she took off her hood, shook her hair back and looked the other way in a display of nonchalance. I was the only one who noticed the move and I couldn’t tell if her plan was working.
Chris was focused on his friends still, all of them bumping fists and shoving shoulders and shouting, “That’s respect, man. That’s respect!” but his attention seemed to have shifted somehow; even though he never looked away from his group, it was like he knew ours had arrived. But maybe he did that with all the girls; maybe he was just weighing his options. His friends appeared oblivious. I recognized all three of them; they didn’t have reputations like Chris’s, but they were the boys you went after if Chris wasn’t into you. They were the boys Anita, Aishani, and Jordan got.
Aishani bought a large poutine and found us a deserted table in the middle of the store. We all started digging in with our plastic forks, the fries nice and crunchy beneath the hot gravy and melting cheese curds.
“I’m just saying,” said Jordan, “I find snow romantic.”
“What’s romantic about this? We’re in a fucking storm.”
“I’m with Anita on this one,” said Aishani. “Nothing romantic about freezing your ass off.”
“Well obviously not this kind of snow. Like the snow in that movie. You know, the one with that white dude.”
“Oh yeah. The movie with that white dude.”
“You guys know what I’m talking about. They meet at a store and spend an amazing night together or whatever, but she’s white-girl flaky so she writes her number in a book that’s going to be sold the next day and, like, five years later, he’s still trying to find that number? Searching in bookstores and shit? Chelle, you were with me when I saw it with Jackie.”
I knew what movie she was talking about. I’d seen it twice. But I joined in with the others and stared at her blankly.
“Anyway, they finally meet at an ice rink and it’s snowing and they make out in the snow. You wouldn’t want that? I would. And if not snow then rain.”
“We can’t do snow or rain — think about your hair.” I took off my hood and rubbed the top of my head. “Look at Chelle.” Everyone turned to Rochelle, whose hair was now in that stage between natural and straightened. Puffs of tangled curls spiralled out from behind her ears while the part of her hair that was still straight lay flat atop the kinks, giving her a bizarre mushroom head. “She looks like a palm tree.”
“Fuck off,” said Rochelle, but then she touched the back of her head and glanced in Chris’s direction. “Wait, do I really, though?”
Anita nodded and Rochelle rushed to the washroom. I took another forkful of poutine and smiled at the gentle embarrassment I’d caused; no real harm was done, but the insult was enough to make Jordan snigger appreciatively, which earned me points.
No one said anything for a bit, each of us focusing on our forks, fighting each other for more cheese on our fries.
Then Aishani spoke. “Kara, I think Chris is looking at you.”
“And his boy De
von,” said Jordan.
I tried to keep my eyes from widening with alarm. “What?”
“Yeah, he’s been staring at you since we came in,” said Aishani.
“Maybe he’s just checkin’ for Chelle,” I said. “They always check for her.”
Rochelle returned to the table, her hair in a high ponytail with a thin black headband around her edges to hide the frizz. “What’s going on?”
“Chris and Devon are checking Kara out,” said Jordan.
“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” I said quickly. Too quickly.
Rochelle turned around and after a few seconds she looked back at me and giggled. “They’re checking you out for sure. You got eyes in your head?”
I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Rochelle for some sort of sign, some kind of wordless communication to signal how I was supposed to react in this situation, but she didn’t give me anything.
“Rhatid! Devon is smiling at you. Smile back, Kara,” said Jordan. “Or wave or something. He’s looking at you.”
“No he’s not,” I said again.
Anita spoke this time. “Well he won’t be checkin’ for you when you look so tore-up tore-up.”
“True,” said Rochelle. “Go to the bathroom. Pat down your braids, put on some makeup or something for once.” She rooted around in her knapsack and took out the makeup bag she hid from her mother. It was a slim case, pink and white with wide-petalled flower designs all over. She handed it to me. “Gwa’an, nuh.”
“I don’t know…”
They all shouted at me. “Gwa’an, nuh!”
The bathroom was small and kind of grimy. It only had two grey-doored stalls, and the white ceramic tile was yellowed and dirt-grubbed. The mirror above the sink was foggy, almost opaque; I could barely see my reflection much less use it as a guide to put on makeup. I was about to go back to the table when the door swung open and Devon walked in.
He was short for a guy but a good few inches taller than me. He had mahogany skin and a smooth, oval face, eyelashes longer than most girls’, and really broad shoulders; he could probably carry me around on his back. I thought about what my mother would say if she were standing where I was, how she’d raise her head and set her jaw, how her voice would echo around the room. But all I could say was, “You know this is the girls’ washroom, right?”
He smiled at me a little. “Your friends told me you were waiting for me in here.”
“What? No.”
“Your girl Rochelle said for me to come in here.”
I waited for him to say something else but he didn’t. There was only one door and he was standing right by it. I couldn’t imagine Rochelle telling him that, setting me up like that. I couldn’t even imagine Anita doing it. Our group could be hurtful but never cruel. Devon had to have come in on his own.
I headed toward the exit, but he shifted his weight so that he was in front of the door.
“I want to leave.” I hoped my voice sounded forceful enough.
“Why?” His tone was light, like he and I were playing a game. A sick, nerve-wracking game.
“Don’t be scared,” he said. I was scared, but I didn’t want him to know that. I wanted him to think I could hold my own. I wanted them all to think that.
He took a step closer to me. I took a step back. That made him chuckle and he leaned back against one of the stalls.
“Chris told me you were shy. I get it, let’s just go slow.”
“Chris doesn’t know anything about me.”
“He said you were the quiet one. Always chillin’ behind your girls. C’mon, don’t be so scared,” he said again.
Rushing toward the door crossed my mind, but if Devon managed to block me from leaving that would just make everything worse. I took a step forward, and he pushed off from the stall.
“My food is getting cold.”
He was only a foot or so away from me now.
“I bought it with the last of my allowance . . .”
“I’ll get you another one after.” He closed in on me, reaching up with his left hand, and pushed one of my braids off my face, his thumb brushing my cheek. My skin burned.
“I want to go.” I said it again.
“Don’t be like that.”
His thumb was under my chin, gently tilting it upward. I turned my head away.
“Kara — ”
I flinched at hearing him say my name and almost screamed when the door opened again. Devon looked behind him to see who’d come in, and I moved quickly past the girl at the door and hurried back to our table.
The chairs were empty, pushed out from the table; crumpled, gravy-stained napkins and empty Styrofoam containers littered the tabletop. I looked around but I couldn’t find Rochelle and the others anywhere in the store, and white was all I could see out the windows. Blue squiggles were on one of the napkins and I picked it up.
Sorry. Jordan’s handwriting.
I stared at it. They’d really left me. Devon sauntered back over to his corner, the swag in his step telling me that a lie had been whispered, that the girl from the washroom now had gossip to spread. I wasn’t so quiet anymore and everyone would know. Laughter boomed out from the corner. Devon’s friends were eyeing me and giving him props, nodding their heads in my direction. Only Chris seemed to be straight-faced and uninterested.
“Just chill, Devon,” I heard him say.
“What’s up with you?”
“Just calm yourself.”
The loud chatter in the store trailed into mutters, and I could feel everyone glancing at me. There was no one here to have my back. The way Devon had come on, forceful without force, the stories I knew he was telling his friends, embarrassed me in a way my mother and grandmother had prepared me for. But the loneliness that empty table made me feel was new and unexpected in a way that made it hard to breathe.
I ran out into the snow, not bothering to cover my hair or button my coat. I didn’t even know where I was going or where the parking lot ended and the street began. I couldn’t see if there were any cars on the road or if there was anyone else walking. I wasn’t even supposed to be out here.
“Ay!” a voice called. “Ay yo!”
I ignored it and lowered my head to my chest to keep my face from the cutting snow, making sure I only stepped in the footholes made from people who’d managed through earlier. There was a small black glove on the ground, and I hoped it belonged to Rochelle or Jordan or anyone from the group and that her hand was a rainbow of white, blue, and purple. I hoped they were all freezing, that little icicles were forming on their eyelashes and making them stick together. I hoped, prayed, that their hair would give way to the wetness and tangle in on itself, knotting and coiling, shrinking and puffing so that they’d cry out when their mothers combed through it before they went to bed. And I wouldn’t be there to listen to them whisper sheepishly about how they’d bawled and screamed for respite from the pain. I wouldn’t be there to listen to them whisper about anything anymore.
“Ay!”
A hand touched my shoulder and I whirled around. The person took a step back. It was Chris. “Sorry — you weren’t turning around. It’s freezing out here. I can’t see shit.”
“What do you want?”
“To give you a ride. I have my brother’s car today.”
“No.” I started walking again. He kept pace beside me, trudging through fresh snow.
“Why? I just want to give you a ride.”
We were nearing what I thought was the sidewalk and I stopped walking, trying to reach a decision about where I wanted to go. Rochelle’s house was on Hopewell Avenue — not too far. If I followed them there they’d know I could take whatever they threw at me and if I didn’t they’d write me off as sensitive, the worst thing you could be in that group, in this neighbourhood.
“Listen,”
said Chris. “What Devon did was foul. I know that.”
“If you know, who’re you going to tell?”
He paused and then sighed, silently admitting to what I already knew: boys didn’t rat on each other even if they were in the wrong, especially if they were in the wrong.
“Your girls snaked you. Devon snaked you. Just let me give you a ride. I won’t do anything. My car is right there.” He pointed to what looked like an old Honda parked in front of New Orleans Donuts.
The wind howled, and I shivered in my jacket. “Whatever.”
We didn’t speak on the way over to his car and once we were inside, he cranked the heat up to full blast and turned on the radio so that 50 Cent’s beat bumped in the car. I cupped my hands around my mouth and breathed on them, rubbing my palms together. Going to Rochelle’s seemed like the expected thing to do, almost like a natural choice, but something that felt like doubt hollowed out my stomach; joining them might prove I could shake off humiliation, but it would also prove that there were no limits to the kind of humiliation they could put me through.
Chris backed out slowly and told me he had to put his hand on the back of my headrest so he could see better. It wasn’t until we were already on the road that I began to wonder if anyone had seen me get in, if there was even just one person who’d been able to make me out through the snow.
“Where should I take you?”
The heat from the car started steaming up the windows and my eye followed a water droplet streak down the glass. I thought about my grandmother and how when I was a child and a creak in the house or a squeak of a chair made me flinch she’d say, “Duppy know who fi frighten.” The first time she said it I asked her what it meant, and she only told me that I had to learn to steel myself so I wouldn’t be a target for any ghost; so spirit and human would know better than to target me and would know to leave me alone.
“Kara,” said Chris. “Where do you want to go?”
I faced front and put my hands to my mouth again. “Just take me back to school,” I said.
Frying Plantain Page 3