Chlorine Sky
Page 3
Did I tell you how much Essa hates me?
(It’s like her & Lay Li got more in common each day!)
Lucky for me our cousin Inga is around
The house like the big hand on the clock
So what Inga say goes & she always comes
through for me
Right on time
Even though Essa tell me she can’t stand me
& to get my own friends
I pull on my crisp new Chucks
& cover up my crop-top basketball camp shirt
We walk to the front yard where Inga’s mama
Auntie Renee’s car is parked
It’s an old dusty white Cutlass
It looks like a cloud
It looks like a dream
Essa starts capping hard
On the car being so old
Jesus prolly used dinosaur bones for petro
But Inga pays her no mind
She checks the rearview mirror
& looks at Essa with her eyes stone cold
“Shut up before I make you walk”
& I cackle a little too loud
Because Essa snaps her head around like an owl
“What you laughing at? If I walk, then you walk!”
I close my mouth & pull the hoodie over my bangs.
WE PULL INTO THE PARKING LOT
& everybody & their mama is here
Nannies & grandmamas & strollers & loud babies wailing
Teenagers with their scooters & three-wheelers
Helmets that match their checkered Vans
Girls from the private school in their mandatory uniforms
Folded up above the knee sit against the entryway
& watch the coordinated chaos
Lay Li had to stay home
Her dad don’t play that go out & leave your siblings mess
So I’m stuck with my sister, Essa, (who hates me)
& our cousin Inga (who loves me)
Inga walks through the double doors like a queen
& I pull my hoodie off my head so I can see her clearly
She commands attention when she walks into a room
Her bun wrapped tightly in a knot at the top of her head
Her leggings & knee-high boots match her fanny pack
Slung effortlessly across her shoulder.
Essa also moves like royalty
Her head upright & her shoulders squared
When she isn’t angry with me
She beams like her dimples are a gift to the world.
I walk behind them both in awe & inspired
I straighten my shoulders
Paste a smile on my face
I’m more happy inside than I am on the outside
But I feel like this is what I should do
Even though I’m wearing my old cut-out jeans
It feels good to walk with my family
& not have to worry about if they like me or not
& when I think it can’t get no better
Inga turns around after we pass the pretzel spot
In the food court & winks
“I think you got a fan, Lil’ Cousin.”
SHE POINTS TO THE GROUP
Of guys sitting on a bench
with her short & shiny manicured nails
& before I can figure out who she’s talking about
The tallest one from the bunch moves forward.
He is wearing a pair of camouflage cargo pants
& flannel patterned shirt
His hat covers his brown eyes
But I can tell he’s looking right at me
He walks away from the group
& I see some of the boys from the court
Today they look at me different
It must be the outfit.
He walks closer to me
Five foot eleven
His hands in his pockets
I think my heart could fit in his hands
He smiles a little
& I decide I could like him
“What’s up? I’m Clifton,” he says.
His eyes never move from my face
& it’s so intense
It’s like I’m in the pool again
Underwater
Holding my breath
My arms are floating
Away from my body
I’m in the mall now
But in my head
I’m in the pool after practice
& I get the same calming feeling I get
When I jump into the deep end blue
& sink until I rise again
Left arm
Right leg kick
Right arm
Left leg kick
Butterfly
Till both arms lift out the sorta sea together
But I’m not in the pool
I remind myself
But in my chest
I begin to backstroke
to open my eyes & check out the sky
I wade in the teal azul when a fire burns my chest
Even in the cold pool, I know I must be careful
I don’t want to sink
If I’m not careful
like now
I could lose my breath
MY FIRST TIME OUT WITH CLIFTON
I know the world is going to end.
Mama don’t play that
“company over when grown folks out the house” business
& even though Essa is home with cousin Inga
they ain’t grown:
They’re just teenagers
With a curfew that ain’t dictated by the sun
going down & the streetlights coming on
They’re just teenagers
Who curse when the neighbors are looking
But never when they own parents are looking cause
They ain’t got a death wish
They’re just teenagers
With a taste for the kind of freedom
They’ve only seen on sitcoms
The kind with two-parent households
not homes like ours
More like Inga’s mom, Auntie Renee, who saves coupons
& works every day, clockwork ready for the water company
More like Inga’s mom, Auntie Renee, who on her day off
will drive by different houses with FOR SALE signs
plastered in their yard, with her eyes bright & dancing
singing Luther Vandross to whoever is in the passenger seat
More like Mama, who tells me to ignore Essa’s attitude
Cause she works too many hours & ain’t got time
To listen to our argument when she finally come home.
More like Mama, who calls me her baby (mostly cause I am the last born)
Who works too many hours to make it to my basketball games
& the house better be clean cause you don’t want to get
on her bad side
More like Mama, the sweetest woman I’ve ever known
Who still got rules that we betta follow cause ain’t nobody
in this house more grown than her.
THE RULES ARE EASY
No boys in the house when I’m gone
Nobody who don’t live here in the house when I’m gone
(Who left on the light?)
(Who do you think you are?)
Nobody mess up the kitchen before I get home to cook
Nobody eat all the cereal
Nobody eat all the bread
Nobody go begging for food like we’re poor
(You trying to make me look like a bad p
arent?)
(You acting like you don’t know no better?)
No, you can’t go over to that house
Yes, you can go to the park
Be back before dark
(Nobody walked the dog?)
(Nobody folded the clothes?)
(Who do you think I am?)
(I work all day and got to come home and work too?)
No fighting in the house
No running from fights
That school better not call my phone
Don’t steal snacks from the store—we ain’t broke
Make ramen for snack
Make a peanut-butter sandwich
Don’t use all my butter
Don’t eat all the cheese
Take the chicken out the freezer
(Ain’t nobody take the chicken out the freezer?)
Nobody call my phone unless the house is on fire
Watch your mouth
(Who do you think you’re talking to?)
I’m not one of your little friends.
SO, WHEN CLIFTON ASKS TO USE THE BATHROOM
after we walk home from the basketball game
I forget about Mama’s rule.
I am too busy thinking
about the cold shoulder
Lay Li tossed my way
It’s been weeks since she & I talked.
But it feels like eternity
When I see Lay Li sitting like the bleachers are her throne
I can still hear her voice in my head “You ruin everything!”
I walk in the orange-lit gymnasium
with my mall purchase, a pair of hot pink stretch pants
& I got a date (with a boy from a different school)
all on my own
But Lay Li ain’t even speak
& I thought for sure she’d be impressed.
I thought:
Here I go
just shining
like my own
s u n .
HERE I GO
beaming
with somebody
Lay Li ain’t had to trick into pretending to like me
& Lay Li acts like it’s nothing
Like I’m nothing.
All because I didn’t lie to Shawn
who likes her too much
& keep on asking me questions.
SHAWN WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT CURTIS
& why Lay Li & him broke up
in the first place
He doesn’t believe she left Curtis for him
He doesn’t believe much of what she say
Because word is out that Curtis is her first everything
First real boyfriend
First real love
First real kiss
First hand to touch her like the slow songs sing about
Now, nobody calls Curtis a lie
It don’t matter if he got caught in a lie
It don’t matter if he forget the first story he told
It don’t matter if he never answers the questions outright
He just nod & shrug & the boys say
I knew it!
& everybody think they know
& mostly they don’t
But the truth don’t matter when you got better stories to tell yourself
Now,
Shawn runs the West Side
& Curtis runs the South Side
Both sides hold court during away sports games
Where the most popular guys
Talk this & that
Brag about girls they bagged
The new kicks they got
The game they watched on television
The summer school they going to for summer
Who got smoked
Who got smoke
Who smoke
They talk as much as they say us girls do
& still they never say much
Lay Li say whether or not
Lay Li & Curtis hooked up
It ain’t nobody’s business
& I agree
BUT CURTIS LET IT BE EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS
& that’s how they broke up.
Lay Li decides
Finger snap: just like that
“Curtis never existed. He never happened. Never speak his name.”
I say “Okay.” Okay. But when Shawn asks if they ever really hooked up, I say
“Curtis is a dog!” instead of “Ask Lay Li.”
Which really feels like the same thing
Except it ain’t.
One says “I’ll lie for my friend.”
& other proves I will try
to lie for my friend
& fail.
Just like that: finger snap Lay Li decides I don’t exist too.
She’s talking into the phone until Shawn hangs up.
She calls back.
He won’t answer.
She calls again
She calls me jealous.
He won’t answer.
The ring is the loudest ring that never ends
Before she slams the phone on the table
Before she cries in her hands
Before I realize I’ve never seen her like this
Her makeup smeared & running a river into the brink of her palms
She picks up the phone & calls Shawn
No Answer
She calls Shawn again
No Answer
She turns to cry on my shoulder
For a moment, I exist again
My hand on her back patting softly in Morse code
I’m sorry I’m sorry It will be okay
“Maybe I can call him back?”
I ask
My mind racing trying to fix what I didn’t know was broken
But Lay Li stops crying
Wipes her face on her sleeve & looks me dead in my eyes
I don’t exist.
I don’t exist.
I don’t
I AIN’T NEVER BEEN GOOD AT LYING
To: Lay Li
I’m sorry
I didn’t mean to
But I ain’t never been a good liar
Mama told me so
She say
You got a way of repeating back a question until it sounds old & worn
Like shoes with bad soles
& no one can believe a story
with all them pauses
ANYWAYS, LIKE I WAS SAYING
I walk in the gym with Clifton
He two steps behind me—all lanky & lean
He make me feel pretty
He see me in a way I never thought
I wanted eyes to look at me before.
He looks at me
like the boys look at Lay Li
So I thought she’d understand when Clifton & I walked in together.
Cheerleaders strut by in their orange & green outfits
the tassels & orange pom-poms
are small & flurry globes & bounce like sparklers
to anyone with enough patience
to look closely.
This the part where Clifton look at me real close
I stop walking
My mouth wide open
He says “Your eyes are like diamonds”
& I want to smile.
BUT I KNOW BAD GAME WHEN I HEAR IT
Especially when the entire fourth grade in Ms. Meeks’s class
worked these same tired similes
The thing is
Clifton said it to ME
& he don’t know what I worked on
during fourth-grade English
Or how I walk the halls & everyone make fun of me.
The thing about bullies is
They only notice the people that don’t fight back
They take your kindness for weakness
But I’m not weak
I’m just tired of swinging
WHEN KIDS HAVE
a different daddy than their siblings
It’s hard to remember what comes first
The heart hurt or the stomach growl.
Essa got a different daddy
He’s okay
Not mean, like her
But my dad is a ghost.
Mama say
Some people can’t stay out of jail
Essa say
He ain’t never want you
her nails click in the air like they closing a casket
Cousin Inga say
Essa just jealous
But I know hate when I see it.
AFTER FOURTH GRADE
I learned “You think you so smart” is a threat
In high school, without no daddy to show me how to dribble
Or pivot
With a sister who act like she hate me
& a cousin who more sister than cousin
I figure, I’m safer if I stay away from light
Ain’t no daddy to say move right, right left
Mama work for everyone, so I don’t hold my breath
Just stay away from the spotlight
The light gets too hot for brown girls like me to feel safe.
This is when I learned to play not as smart
This is when I learned to keep my hands
in my lap during Mr. Wacobi’s class
This is when I learned to not run as fast
This is when I stop beating the boys
in running
& kickball