by Janet Walker
* * *
The following Saturday, Tracy stepped into her mother’s apartment to find that neither Diane nor Charles were at home. “Yes!” she said, peeking into their empty bedroom. In her hand were three plates piled high with seafood and fruit, each covered with aluminum foil. She opened the refrigerator, about to deposit the plates, and hesitated. It was deep in the afternoon, which meant Mama was already off from work. She could walk in at any moment, see the plates, and claim them; she was greedy that way. Tracy closed the bottom door of the fridge and opened the smaller top door, the freezer, which was empty except for ice trays. Mama wasn’t likely to look in an empty freezer, so Tracy felt it safe to slide the plates onto the thick irregular surface of ice that formed the freezer floor. She shut the door, spun away, and grinned when she heard three firm knocks at the front door. She hurried to the entrance and yanked it open. On the other side stood the tall husky boy whom, it seemed, she had always known. Tracy flew into his shirt, softly tackling him.
“Scooby! I didn’t know you was gonna come this soon.”
“Whoa! Don’t knock me down,” he said, objecting playfully.
She let him go and pretended to be angry. “Boy, where you been?” she accused.
“Where I been? Where you been, is the question,” he said, stepping across the threshold. “Ain’t nobody seen you. And can’t nobody call you. Why your mama phone always disconnected?” he complained.
“’Cause her and Charles smoke and drink up all the money—you know how they do.” Tracy closed the door behind him. “And anyway, I been here,” she explained.
He nodded. “Yeah, here. But not at the court. I was happy to see your aunt car driving by. More happy when you stopped and told me to come over. I woulda called you at her house, but I lost the number. You still come home every weekend?”
“Yop.”
“Then why nobody ain’t been seeing you? You in hiding or something?” he teased.
Tracy looked at him seriously. “Yep,” she answered, nodding gravely.
Scooby frowned. “For what?”
“Jinya Daggett.”
Scooby became taut. “Why?”
Tracy sighed. “Remember that night you took me to the store to get cigarettes? After Jinya them took ’em?”
“Yep.”
“My mama got mad.” She hesitated, looked at him.
“She beat you?” he asked gravely.
Tracy looked away. Flicked him a glance. Although she knew Scooby was aware of the abuse, she had been conditioned to remain silent about it and so had never admitted it even to him.
“So when my aunt came to pick me up, I had to lie to her about how I got hurt. Told her Jinya them beat me up and took Mama cigarettes.”
Scooby groaned with regret. “Something told me not to leave you that night, Tracy. I thought your mama might do something. I’m sorry I let that happen!”
“Boy, what you apologizing about? You ain’t let nothing happen. You can’t control what my mama do to me. Only I can do that.”
Scooby’s brow crinkled with compassion and his eyes grew pink and watery. Tracy observed the tearfulness and was astounded by it. “You crying?”
A tear dropped down his face. Tracy opened her mouth to reprimand him again, but when her own eyes clouded she simply looked at him and said nothing. The tip of her nose reddened, which it did when she wanted to cry.
“If I had known, Tracy, I never woulda let her do that to you.”
“It’s ah’right, Scooby.” She touched his cheek gently, a womanly gesture she had never done to anyone before. “It’s ah’right,” she assured firmly.
The moment passed, and Scooby wiped his eyes and smiled through his tears.
“And don’t worry,” Tracy continued. “She ain’t gonna put her hands on me no more. I done decided that.”
Scooby lifted a brow dubiously. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Tracy nodded emphatically. “I ain’t no beating bag, I’m a Grace Girl! Ain’t nobody gonna hit me no more. And I ain’t picking up her drugs for her no more, or her cigarettes. What kind of mama ask a child to do that, anyway?”
Scooby regarded her in silence, impressed. This was a new Tracy, a bold one, and while he was not convinced she would be able to defy her mother, he was glad she had arrived at the point in her life when she realized she should. He smiled.
Tracy saw his smile and jumped with excited remembrance. “I got us something! Wait!” She hurried to the fridge, where she opened the freezer and extracted the plates. With them in hand, she came back and stood before him. She peeled the aluminum foil away from one plate and said, “Look.”
Scooby’s eyes widened at the sight of the food. “That’s shrimp?”
“Yop. Miz Grace bought it for us. We had a banquet today to celebrate the end of training.”
“You gotta lot.”
“Yop. Even before I saw you,” she admitted gently, “I was hoping you would stop by so we could eat it.”
They looked at each other, their smiles tender. Since they were children, they had always shared with each other any good fortune that came their way. However, today’s sharing was extra special because it marked the end of more than two months of awkward distance between them, awkwardness that began when Scooby stood in her room and confessed not only that he had a new romantic interest but also that he had always liked Tracy in that way. The sharing of food with him, they both knew, meant she had recovered from the embarrassment and forgiven him.
Tracy jumped with excitement again and handed Scooby a plate. “Here, take this one with the fruit on it. Put it in my room. I’ll put these in the microwave and get us some Kool-Aid.”
He nodded happily and quickly obeyed. A party in her room, just like old times.
Soon, they sat on her bed, sucking from their fingers the juices of pineapple, mangoes, peaches and strawberries, and the grease of cooked shrimp, crab, lobster, and flounder.
“I can’t believe Jazz Nelson wife bought all this for y’all. Season ain’t even started yet.”
“Yop. They say she do this every year to thank the basketball girls for working hard in training. We been resting all week—no practice. But we start back Monday ’cause we got our first game Wednesday night.”
“I can’t believe you playing in it.” He smiled. “Proud of you.”
“I ain’t just playing. I’m starting,” she boasted.
Scooby paused, food in fingers. Pleasure and surprise lit his face. “For real? She gon’ let you start already?”
“Yop. She told me last week, and she told everybody else today.”
He looked hurt. “Why you ain’t tell me?”
“I tried,” she protested. “I called your house and told Gerald to tell you to call me.”
“You know Gerald don’t give no messages. Selfish behind.”
“Well, maybe if you stayed home sometime, ’stead-a always at that girl house, somebody could reach you.”
Scooby broke into a blushing laugh.
“Ha-ha nothing,” said Tracy with mock sarcasm.
“Now, see there, tell you what you know,” he retorted playfully. “Me and Sheree don’t even go together no more, see there?”
Tracy lifted a brow. “Really? Why?”
Scooby shrugged. “California girls different,” he said simply. He looked at her plate. “You gonna eat your deviled crab?”
“It’s on my plate, ain’t it?” she replied. “Ain’t you got enough? Greedy behind.”
Scooby accepted the insult with a chuckle. They ate some more, chewing vigorously and swigging their sugary red beverage.
“Here—the butter.”
“What I need that for?”
“Dip your lobster in, fool.”
“How I’m s’posed to know that? I ain’t never ate lobster before!”
They grinned.
“Jazz Nelson was there today?”
“Nope. But let me finish telling you about last Saturday. We was in her office, right, an
d she was so nice to me. Called me baby, like I was her child or something. And said I play like Cheryl Miller!”
“Reggie Miller sister?”
“Yop. And she said if I keep playing like I’m playing, by the time I graduate, colleges’ll be throwing money at me to get me to play for them. And she said she’ll help me, too. Man, Scooby! I couldn’t believe it! I used to think she was mean, and now I know she was liking me all this time.”
“That don’t surprise me, Tracy, you a nice person. Uh,” he asked hesitantly, “you gon’ eat your last hushpuppy?”
“Yeah!” she cried defensively.
“Ah’ight, just asking,” he placated. “But look, I kept telling you you ought to be playing ball for Haines. But you wouldn’t never listen to me.”
“I did listen to you. You know what happened when I tried to play. Got nervous.”
“Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But don’t sound like you freezing up at Beck,” he remarked proudly.
“Nope. And stop dripping butter on my bed.”
“Sorry—damn,” he complained, pretending to be annoyed by her nagging. They smiled. “You told your aunt what Miz Grace said about college?”
“Yop. She was—well, she wasn’t, like, excited about it, but she wasn’t against it, either. She really want me to be a Jehovah Witness. And they don’t like college.”
“Don’t like college? Why?”
“I dunno. I think ’cause they say you supposed to put Jehovah first, not making money and all that. And then the paradise earth coming, and you won’t need doctors and stuff ’cause nobody gonna get sick and die. She said she hope I think about getting baptized and becoming a pie-neer, something like that.”
“What’s that?”
“You spend all day in field service, knocking on people doors and having Bible studies with them.” She shook her head. “I don’t wanna do that. I wanna play basketball. For Miz Grace!” she declared gleefully. “I’m gonna play, too,” she added seriously.
“You should. You too good not to. Now, pass me the tartar sauce.”
“You can’t say please?”
“Please.”
“Here—and get some manners. Now, listen to me now, I’m talking.”
“I’m listening!” he insisted.
“At the banquet today, she gave us our uniforms. Wait,” she said, getting up from the bed. She sucked her fingertips clean. “I’ll be right back.” She rushed to the bathroom, washed her hands, then returned to the bedroom, where she opened the closet. On the inner side of the door hung two outfits on hangers, the Beck basketball uniforms, still enclosed in plastic. Tracy brought them over to the bed so that Scooby could see them.
“Don’t put your greasy hands on them! Look—don’t touch!”
“Skuze me!” Scooby mocked.
“The beige one is for home games. The burgundy is for when we play at other schools.”
“Man,” Scooby said seriously, “they pretty, Tracy.”
Tracy smiled proudly. “I know. And see my number? Twenty-four? Guess what?”
“What?”
“After the banquet, Miz Grace came up to me and told me she gave me that number ’cause it was her number when she played in high school and college.”
“For real? She like you like that?”
The girl bowed her head and shrugged a shoulder.
“She must,” Scooby concluded and smiled sincerely. “I’m happy for you, Tracy, for real. You gonna be a superstar. Now—you gonna eat them fries?”
