And now we are here, sitting in a room with guarded doors, cops staring us down, and loud, drunken people in lockdown rooms to the rear. A section of desks sits in front of us, but none of the uniformed people behind them are paying attention to what we’re doing.
Greg shifts in his chair, making the vinyl squeak. “Wonder where they took them?” He glances back at Mitchell, who shrugs.
I don’t respond. The more I think about Booker and Laz being shuffled off to a different part of the station, the more I think I’m going to vomit on this cold linoleum floor. What if they lock them up just to “teach them a lesson”? Or see Booker’s record and punish him even worse because he’s been in trouble before? I double over, clutching my stomach.
“Hey,” says a voice in front of us.
We look up to see the female cop who brought us back to the station. She is short and white with cool blue eyes. She doesn’t smile, but she has the least threatening face of all the officers we’ve dealt with.
“Time to call your parents,” she says, nodding toward a phone on one of the desks.
Greg clears his throat. “Can you go first? My dad is going to kill me and I’d like to cherish these last few minutes of life.”
I could say the same for my mother, but better to get it over with. I follow the officer to a desk; her name tag says WILSON. She points to the phone, tells me what button to push for an outside line, and steps back a couple of feet.
I should call my parents, but I keep thinking about Carlene. It’s probably foolish to think she could help me when she’s been missing since yesterday—especially when she left me standing on the street with no explanation. It’s possible she never wants to see me again. Or that she’s not sober enough to take a call. I swallow and look at Officer Wilson.
“I don’t know the number by heart.”
She sighs. “You don’t know your parents’ number?”
“I need to call my aunt. My parents are working late, and it’s better if I call her.” I stare right in her face as I lie.
“Fine. Get it from your cell phone, but put it away again after that. No games, calls, or texting.”
“Thank you.” I pull up Carlene’s number with shaking fingers, then slowly push it into the station phone.
As it rings, I think how silly it was to try her first. Mom, Dad, and I have all tried calling her, over and over again, and each time it goes to voicemail. If she’s relapsed, she probably won’t pick up. And even if she is fine, she might not pick up from a strange number. All I’m doing is buying time until I have to call my parents. And, like Greg, I’m afraid if that happens this is going to be my last night on Earth.
I don’t have many more rings left until it will go to voicemail.
I pull the receiver from my ear, getting ready to hang up, when I hear: “Hello?”
“Carlene?” My voice has shrunk to almost nothing.
She doesn’t sound any different than normal, but she pauses. “Dove? Where are you?”
“I’m, um, at the police station.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t arrested,” I say quickly. “I’m with my friends. I need you to come pick me up.”
“Oh, Dove.”
“I’m sorry, Carlene. And I’m sorry about yesterday. I promise never to bring that up again if you’ll come get me. Will you please come get me?”
I’m not dumb enough to think this is a secret we can hide from my parents—not with Laz in handcuffs—but I don’t want them to see me here. I don’t want to see the look on my mother’s face as Officer Wilson tells her I was at a party with bottles and bottles of alcohol. Don’t want to face that disappointment in here, with these sad blue walls and musty smell and people in uniforms who are walking around laughing and joking, like they’re not in the midst of ruining some people’s lives.
“I’ll come get you,” Carlene says after a long, labored breath. “Give me the address.”
I head back to my seat after I hang up. I glance at Mitchell. He’s leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.
“How’d it go?” Greg asks, standing up as I sit down.
“My aunt is coming.” And she’s not drunk or high, and I don’t think she’s mad at me.
“Is that better than your parents?”
“For now.”
“Wish me luck,” he says before he walks over to Officer Wilson’s desk.
“Hey,” comes Mitchell’s voice from behind me.
I turn to look at him. “Are your parents going to kill you, too?”
“At this point, they might as well round us all up and do it at once,” he says. He tries to smile, but I can see the fear behind his eyes, thinking of what his parents are going to say when they find out he’s being detained.
I try to laugh at his joke, but I’m feeling the same thing.
Mitchell starts and stops like he’s going to say something. He does it a couple more times, then clears his throat. “Listen, I… what we talked about at lunch that day…”
“It wasn’t the right place to ask you that,” I say. “Sorry it was weird. I guess I was just so shocked that we were talking again and—”
“I’m glad you asked,” he interrupts me.
“You are?”
“Yes… and no.” He looks down at his hands. “I’ve been thinking about it, but I’m not sure how to put it into words.”
I stay quiet, wondering if he’s going to find the right ones to explain whatever it is to me. I never thought Mitchell had trouble effectively communicating his feelings—I just thought he didn’t want to.
“I think you’re pretty,” he says bluntly. “I always have.”
I smile because I’m not sure what else to do.
“But I didn’t really want to kiss you, or have sex with you, or any of that stuff.” He hesitates. “It was fine when we fooled around a few times, but that’s it. Just fine. Not something I really wanted to be doing.”
He’s not making me feel great about myself, even though he started it out on a positive note, but I keep listening because I think I owe him that. He’s being honest and explaining what happened with us, and that’s all I’ve wanted since we broke up.
“It’s not just you, though,” he says. “I mean, at first I thought it was, but I realized I’ve never wanted that. With anyone else. You were just the person who people expected me to have sex with, so I didn’t understand it was an everyone thing, not just a Dove thing.”
“Okay…” I think I know where he’s going with this, but I don’t want to say a word until he’s finished.
“I looked it up,” he says. “And it seems like I might be somewhere on the asexuality spectrum.”
Even though that’s what I thought he might say in this moment, it never crossed my mind before now. Which makes me feel stupid. And I am embarrassed that he didn’t feel comfortable enough to say something or try to figure it out with me while we were together.
“So, surprise, I guess,” Mitchell says, playing with his hands now.
“Thanks for telling me,” I say. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know, but you were my first real girlfriend, so I figured you deserved to know.” He looks at me sideways. “You really had no idea?”
“I know a couple of people who identify as ace, but we’re not good friends,” I say. “And I know it’s different for everybody. And… maybe I’m just self-centered, but I thought it was about me the whole time.”
“You’re not self-centered,” he says. “I didn’t understand it and it drove me crazy sometimes, and—I don’t know. It just feels like I’m under so much pressure constantly, and that was one more thing to add to the list. Don’t laugh, but my weed guy called me out on being a dick for no reason and kind of helped me see the problem.”
“Your weed guy?”
He gives me a look like I should keep my voice down and I glance around, hoping no one heard me. It’s hard to believe, but for a few minutes I forgot where we are.
“Wow.” I make a face. “That guy told you all that?”
He looks down at his feet. “We figured it out together, I guess. I know I’m fucked up, and I’m trying not to be such a prick, but… it still comes out. So… I’m sorry about that, too.”
“You don’t need to apologize for figuring out your sexuality,” I say. “That’s normal.”
“Well, I haven’t figured it out yet,” he says. “I mean, I don’t know where exactly I fall on the spectrum. Or if I’m on it for sure. But it’s nice to know there’s something that explains what I’ve been feeling. And that other people know how it feels, too. Thanks for being cool about all this.”
“Thanks for apologizing for being a dick sometimes,” I say. Even if I do get why he acted the way he did.
The front door of the station swings wide open and a small dark-skinned man strides in, wearing khakis and a short-sleeved button-down.
Booker’s dad. Does that mean Ayanna is on her way, too?
I watch him talk to a man at a desk up front, away from us. He uses his hands a lot, and his face is pinched behind his glasses. He listens to the man for a few moments, then starts talking again. I can’t hear what they’re saying, and maybe that’s a good thing.
Greg slides back into his chair. “Oh, shit, that’s Booker’s dad, isn’t it?”
Mitchell looks over at him, too, as he walks up to make his phone call.
I nod. It’s only a matter of time before he sees me, and something tells me he’s not going to be pleased or surprised. “How’d it go with yours?”
“Lots of screaming and blaming before I could even explain why I’m here.” He stretches his legs out in front of him. “As was expected.”
The man at the desk must tell Booker’s dad to take a seat because he turns away from him, frustration in his eyes as he looks at the empty chairs around us. I quickly drop my head, but it wasn’t fast enough. There aren’t enough of us in here to hide.
I look up when he stops next to me. “Hi, Mr. Stratton.”
“I told you my son couldn’t afford to get in trouble again,” he says. “Why is he sitting in some room in handcuffs?”
“It’s not her fault, Mr. Stratton,” Greg offers. “We were all there. I told them to handcuff me, too. Booker and Laz weren’t doing anything we weren’t. They wouldn’t listen.”
Mr. Stratton ignores Greg, still staring at me. “I hope all this fun was worth it. Tonight is the last time you’ll be seeing Booker. I told you I didn’t want any more trouble and now they got my boy in cuffs again. He was doing good until you came around.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, but he’s already walking away to find the seat farthest from me.
“It’s not your fault,” Greg says, putting his arm around my shoulders. “Don’t listen to him, okay, Dove? It’s not your fault.”
Greg continues to comfort me, but I can’t stop shaking and my eyes fill with tears again. No matter what Greg says, it does feel like my fault. If I’d just gone off with Booker like he suggested when he got there, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe we could have slipped out of the house easily, and then he never would have been handcuffed and pushed against a wall and frisked by a strange red-faced man with a chip on his shoulder.
Carlene shows up about ten minutes later, smelling like jasmine and cigarettes. Officer Wilson says they’re letting me go on a strict warning since I’ve never been in trouble, but that if they catch me at another party with alcohol, I’ll get a citation or worse.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Carlene when we’re standing outside the station.
“It could’ve been a lot worse than a warning,” she says with a shrug.
“I mean, for this, too, but I’m sorry for the other day. Are you okay?”
Carlene puts her arm around me. “It’s okay, kid. I’m all right. My sponsor kept me on track. I didn’t mean to get upset like that in front of you.”
But she doesn’t offer to talk about what was bothering me—what’s still bothering me, even if it’s been pushed to the back of my mind for the past few hours.
“Are you back at the apartment?”
“I stayed with Emmett last night, and I called Kitty after I talked to you. I didn’t tell her where I was going,” she says. “But I let her know I’m all right.”
“Will you come back with me?”
Carlene hesitates.
“I don’t want to be alone when I tell them. And I have to tell them. Before Ayanna does.”
“I got you, kid. I can’t tell you how many times I had to go home and face my mother after something like this,” she says, linking her arm through mine. “I’ll even spring for a cab to get us to the apartment.”
MY MOTHER IS SITTING ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR, BACK PRESSED TO THE couch as she paints her toenails a shiny bronze.
She looks at Carlene for a long time, as if making sure she’s really her sister and not an imposter. I wonder if she’ll believe she’s sober. I wonder if she will even care about what Carlene has been doing once I tell her where I’ve been.
“What are you doing home, Birdie? I thought you and Laz were going out for a bite after the movie?” She screws the top back on the polish and stands, careful not to smudge her toes.
“I, um.” I look at Carlene, who nods as if to say Go on, you can do this. “Something happened. I’m okay, but I need to tell you something, and I don’t want you to freak out.”
Mom frowns hard. “Birdie, what’s going on?”
“Is Dad here?”
“Raymond! Come in here!” Mom calls, and a few seconds later, my father comes running down the hall.
“What’s wrong?” He looks around the room. He’s in pajama pants and a black undershirt, and he’s wearing his glasses, so he must have been reading in bed.
“I don’t know. That’s what Birdie was about to tell us.”
I take a deep breath and stare at the floor. “I went to a party tonight with Laz. We were drinking. The cops came, and… and they took me, Laz, and some of our friends down to the station.”
“They what?” my mother shouts.
“I wasn’t arrested. They just held us until someone could come get us.” I breathe in and out again; it doesn’t make this any easier. “But Laz and our other friend—they put them in handcuffs. And they’re still there.”
“Did they fingerprint you? Make you fill out any forms?” my father asks, walking over to stand next to my mother, who is seething.
“No, they gave me a warning. But I don’t know about Laz, or Booker—” His name comes out before I can stop it.
And my mother doesn’t miss a thing.
“Booker? The friend who went with you to the game?”
I can tell my father is staring at me, waiting to see what I’ll say next.
“Yes.” I lick my bone-dry lips before I speak again. “But he’s actually, um… he’s my boyfriend.”
“Your what?” Mom’s voice is getting louder, and it’s making me want to stop talking forever.
“I was going to tell you about him, but there wasn’t a right time and—”
But her rage has already shifted to her favorite target: Carlene. “And you just think you can go pick up my child from the police station without telling me? You think that’s okay, Carlene?”
“Kitty, don’t start.” Carlene’s voice is firm. “She called me. What was I supposed to do? Leave her there?”
My mother stomps across the room until she’s standing inches from Carlene’s face. “You were supposed to call and tell me, since I’m her mother. What is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with you?” Carlene yells
back. “Your daughter doesn’t even want to tell you she has a boyfriend. She’s sixteen. This is normal high school stuff and you’re acting like she committed a goddamn murder.”
“Did you know that she has a boyfriend?” Mom asks her. Then she looks at me. “Did you tell her about him?”
“Yes,” I whisper, wishing I could vanish on the spot.
Mom’s face falls in a way that makes me think this is the ultimate betrayal in her book—confiding in Carlene before I told her.
“Why would you do that, Birdie?” she whispers back.
Carlene doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “Yeah, I knew about him. He’s a good kid, but she’s afraid you’re going to think he’s not good enough, so she was scared to introduce you to him.”
“I don’t understand,” Mom says, still staring at me with a face so full of hurt it makes me want to look away. “Why were you scared for me to meet him?”
“It’s a long story,” I say. And is it even worth telling, since Booker’s dad made it clear that I won’t be seeing him again anyway?
“You’re too hard on her, Kitty,” Carlene says. “She’s also afraid to talk to you about sex, but don’t worry—I’ve got that covered, too.”
“I’ve talked to you about that, Birdie,” Mom says, defensive.
“Not since she was a child.” Carlene glowers. “What planet do you live on where you think teenagers aren’t going to have sex just because you don’t want to talk to them about it? She’s on birth control now, FYI.”
I hate how they’re talking about me like I can’t hear them.
If this were a movie, my mother would be breathing red-hot flames. “This is so like you, Carlene. I put myself out to help you yet again and you just keep crossing the line. And you know what? I’m done. I don’t want you in my house and I don’t want you around my daughter.”
“You can kick me out, but that won’t make her stop liking me.” Carlene is right in my mother’s face, nose to nose, her finger jabbing the air. “You really can’t stand how much Dove likes being around me. How we get along. Try to keep her away from me again, but it doesn’t change anything. She will always be mine, Katrina.”
The Revolution of Birdie Randolph Page 18
