Deal With It

by Monica McKayhan

  “Lloyd!” Alyssa and Roni said it at the same time, and then both of them giggled.

  “What’s wrong with Lloyd?” I asked. “They were love songs!”

  I could always share things with my cousins that I couldn’t share with anyone else in the world. Not with my mother…not with my girlfriends. My cousins and I had started sharing things when we were five. They were like the sisters I’d never had. Whatever we shared never left the walls of our pink bedroom. There were secrets that these walls had kept for many years—like the first time Brandon and I had rubbed up against each other, or the first time Roni had kissed Tyler, French-kissed. And the walls still held the details of the time that Alyssa had showed Kevin her pink-and-white panties in Grandpa Drew’s backyard—and Kevin had showed her his tighty-whities. The older we got, the more serious the secrets became.

  “Why didn’t y’all listen to some Usher?” Alyssa asked. “With his fine self.”

  “Or some Robin Thicke!” Roni said.

  Alyssa jumped onto the bed and got closer to me. “How was it?” she whispered.

  What an embarrassing question, I thought as I could feel my face turning beet-red. If ever there was a chocolate-brown girl that could turn beet-red, it was me.

  “Quit. You’re embarrassing her,” Roni said.

  “I want details! I’m still a virgin, and I wanna know if it’s even worth it to go there,” Alyssa said.

  “You’re still a virgin? With a boyfriend in college?” I asked.

  “Yep, for now,” Alyssa admitted. “Roni, you’re a virgin, too, right?”

  Roni looked away as if hiding something.

  “Roni,” I said, “you are still a virgin, right?”

  “Let’s change the subject.” Roni’s face became serious.

  “Are you holding out on us?” Alyssa asked. “Tameka, she’s holding out on us.”

  “I’m not holding out! I just don’t want to talk about it.” Roni left the room, and I could’ve sworn she was crying. The bathroom door slammed. Something wasn’t right.

  Alyssa and I looked at each other, dumbfounded.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alyssa said.

  And that was the end of that conversation.

  A family meeting was called when our parents returned, and the details of Grandpa Drew’s funeral arrangements were shared. The service was scheduled for Saturday afternoon at the church where we attended Sunday school when we were little kids. Two family cars would pick us all up at the house and drive us to the church.

  The conversation turned sort of eerie when Aunt Helen said, “The funeral home did such a nice job of embalming him, don’t you all think?”

  A nice job of embalming him? Was she crazy?

  “Mom, that’s kinda gross.” Roni rolled her eyes and said what I was thinking.

  “Well, they did,” Aunt Helen insisted and then turned to her brothers, my daddy and Uncle Rich. “I think we should bury him in his navy-blue suit. The one he wore to Rich and Annette’s wedding. And I like his red tie, the one that I bought him for Christmas last year.”

  “Well, I like his gray pin-striped suit. It’s not so dark and gloomy,” Aunt Beverly interjected. “And I can’t stand that red tie.”

  “Well, the gray suit doesn’t really go with his skin color that well. He always looked so handsome in navy blue,” Aunt Helen said.

  “Daddy didn’t wear dark colors. He was a happy man, and I think we should bury him that way,” Aunt Beverly said.

  “It doesn’t really matter to me what he wears,” Uncle Rich stated. “It’s not gonna matter after the coffin is closed, anyway.”

  “Well, we need to decide for the services,” Aunt Helen snapped. “People are gonna see him there, and he needs to look nice.”

  “Let’s ask Mel and Annette,” my daddy said.

  Mommy smiled at Daddy. “I tend to agree with Beverly. Daddy Drew was a happy and upbeat man, and a gray suit sounds much better.”

  Aunt Annette, with her Puerto Rican accent, spoke up. “The gray suit does sound a little better to me, too.”

  Aunt Helen stood. She looked upset. “I think the decision making about my daddy should be left up to his children, not his daughters-in-law,” she said.

  Mommy and Aunt Annette looked disappointed. Grandpa Drew had loved them both like daughters, and he would’ve been upset at Aunt Helen for excluding them from anything. Luckily, they knew how Aunt Helen could be sometimes. Besides thinking that my mom had ruined my daddy’s future by getting pregnant at sixteen, she also thought that Uncle Rich should’ve married someone from his own race. Although Aunt Annette was mixed with two races, African-American and Latina, it was the Latina side that Aunt Helen had a problem with.

  “Daddy loved Mel and Annette as if they were his own daughters, Helen. You know that,” Aunt Beverly said. “But if you insist on a decision coming from his blood children, then I vote for the gray pin-striped suit.”

  “Me, too,” Daddy said.

  “Gray sounds better to me also,” Uncle Rich stated. “And personally, I like his burgundy silk tie. The one he wore to your wedding, Helen.”

  “Fine. I guess I’ve been outvoted, then. Y’all can bury him in whatever you want to. I don’t really care,” Aunt Helen said and then headed for the kitchen. “Children, you need to go get washed up for dinner.”

  At the dinner table everyone ate in silence. So much sadness in a house where there had once been so much joy.

  twenty-two

  Indigo

  In the security office at Macy’s, I waited for Daddy to come and rescue me. I was angry as I peered across the room at Jade. Her chest moved up and down as she breathed heavily. She was waiting for Uncle Ernest to come and rescue her. It was hard to believe that Jade and I had come to this point when we’d once been like sisters. Our families had lived next door to each other for years. I’d eaten at her house a thousand times, and she at mine twice as many times. I couldn’t remember how many sleepovers we’d had, or how many times we’d come to this very mall—together. We’d created a million dance routines and gone trick-or-treating more times than I could remember. We’d borrowed each other’s clothes, CDs and jewelry and never returned any of them.

  Daddy had that usual frown on his face, a wrinkle in between his eyes. I knew that frown all too well. It was the one that he usually got when I’d really messed things up. It was a look of disappointment.

  “Indi, what’s going on?” He looked at me and then at Jade, a puzzled expression on his face. “Jade?”

  “Hi, Uncle Harold,” Jade said softly.

  “Hello, sir.” The fat security guard stood, reached for my father’s hand. “I’m Officer Jones.”

  “Harold Summer.” Daddy shook his hand.

  “Which one is yours?” Officer Jones asked.

  “That one.” Daddy pointed my way. “What has she done?”

  “She was involved in a physical altercation with this young lady,” said Officer Jones. He pointed at Jade.

  “You mean a fight?” Daddy was shocked and confused all at the same time. He looked to me for an answer, but I really didn’t know what to say. I just shrugged to let him know that what the officer had said was true.

  “They didn’t cause any damage to the store, and the store management has decided not to press charges, considering they are minors,” Officer Jones said. “However, I did have to call the local police, and they are on their way over. They’re gonna want to question the girls, and I’m not sure if they’ll want to charge the girls with disturbing the peace or—”

  “Let me get this straight,” Daddy said. “You mean to tell me that these two young ladies—this one and this one—were fighting each other?”

  “That is correct, sir,” Officer Jones stated. “Right in the middle of the store.”

  “Whoa.” Daddy exhaled, lifted his baseball cap and scratched his head. “What’s this about, Indi?”

  I just shrugged.
/>   “Jade?” Daddy said. He looked her way for an answer. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

  “Sorry?” It was more of a question than a response that Jade offered.

  Uncle Ernest walked in, still wearing his work clothes—gray slacks, a starched white shirt and a colorful tie. Jade’s little sister, Mattie, held on tightly to his hand. She wore white tights underneath her green, white and blue plaid school uniform.

  “Jade, what’s up?” Uncle Ernest asked immediately, and then his eyes scanned the room. “Harold, what’s going on?”

  “Well, apparently the girls got into a fight at Macy’s,” Daddy began. “Neither one of ’em seems to have anything to say. So I don’t really know what to make of it.”

  “Hello, sir. I’m Officer Jones.” The security guard reached for Uncle Ernest’s hand. “I’m holding the girls here until the local police arrive. They were involved in an altercation….”

  “With each other?” Uncle Ernest was just as shocked as my dad had been.

  “Yes, with each other,” Officer Jones said. “They didn’t do any damage in the store, and store management has decided not to press any charges, but the local police will need to take a report. They’ll probably just release the girls to your custody.”

  I was embarrassed. What had seemed like a good reason to knock fire from Jade an hour ago seemed silly now. Especially with both of our fathers looking at us as if we’d just got done murdering somebody.

  “I’m disappointed,” Uncle Ernest said, “in both of you.”

  “That makes two of us,” Daddy chimed in.

  Jade sat in a chair across the room. Her shirt was ripped, and she held it together with her hand. Her hair was all over her head, and there were scratch marks all over her arm. I held a wet paper towel against my busted lip. I felt my ears for my hoop earrings; the left one was gone.

  When the Morrow police officer showed up, pen and pad in hand, I just knew we’d be arrested. He questioned me about the incident, and then he questioned Jade. Then he introduced himself to our fathers. He told them that we were free to go, but that we would have to appear in juvenile court. All of this because Miss Martin had picked the wrong person as dance-team captain. If she’d just picked me, all of this could’ve been avoided.

  The ride home was quiet and uncomfortable. Daddy didn’t bother to say anything to me, except to ask if I was cold. When I nodded a yes, he pumped up the heat and warmed the car.

  After we arrived home, I tried to tiptoe up the stairs to my room, but my father’s voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “Wait a minute, young lady,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  I knew it was coming—a lecture. Especially when he’d been completely quiet the whole ride home, except for when he’d run down all the details for my mother on his cell phone. Outside of that, he hadn’t mumbled one single word. He’d probably spent that time thinking of how he was going to punish me.

  Mama wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and followed me into the family room. I sat on the edge of the sofa, Daddy sat in his recliner near the window and Mama just stood.

  “I need to know what on earth would make you and your best friend since grade school get into a fistfight,” Daddy started. “In the middle of Macy’s department store, for chrissake!”

  When he yelled, I jumped.

  “I, um, it all started with Miss Martin,” I said.

  “Miss Martin?” Mama asked. “The dance-team coach? What does she have to do with this?”

  “Um…she chose Jade as team captain a few weeks ago. And it wasn’t a fair choice. I’m a much better dancer than Jade, and she knows it.”

  “And?” Daddy was being impatient.

  “And Jade’s been acting all funny lately. And she came up in Macy’s, talking junk, like she’s all cocky and stuff! She’s changed since Miss Martin made her the team captain. She’s not even the same Jade anymore.” I embellished, but just a little. “She said my butt looked flat, and that’s when I lost it.”

  “She said your butt looked flat?” Mama asked. “That’s what this is about?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

  “Indi, that is ridiculous!” Daddy yelled.

  “I don’t really know what to make of all this, Indigo Summer. But Barbara and Ernest are having this same conversation with Jade right now. I imagine that Jade’s details are probably just a little different from yours,” Mama said, “but we’ll get to the bottom of this somehow.”

  “In the meantime, though, of course, you know you’re grounded, right?” Daddy asked.

  “Yes, sir.” I’d already kind of figured that out.

  “That means no cell phone, no sleepovers, no extracurricular activities,” Warden Daddy said. “You will go to school and come straight home. You will do your chores, complete your homework and then go to bed…in that order.”

  “For how long?” I asked cautiously, ready to duck in case somebody wanted to swing.

  “Until further notice,” Daddy said.

  “Do you have homework right now?” Mama asked.

  “I have math homework, which I need Marcus to help me with,” I said.

  “Well, that won’t happen.” Daddy stood. “You won’t be seeing Marcus except at school.”

  “Can I still ride to and from school with him?” I asked.

  “You will ride the bus to school in the morning. And your mother or I will pick you up from practice at night.” Daddy added, “That understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled.

  “You can go on and get started on that homework, then,” Mama chimed in.

  “I need help with it,” I pleaded, hoping they would understand the importance of my talking to Marcus—at least one more time.

  “I’ll come up and help you myself,” Daddy volunteered. “I’m not a math whiz like Marcus, but I can solve a problem or two.”

  Daddy helping me with math? This was going to be the worst punishment ever. Life as I knew it was over.

  twenty-three

  Tameka

  With my pjs on, I sat on the side of the bathtub in the small bathroom. After checking to see if my visitor had decided to show up and discovering that it was still late, I flipped open my phone and checked the calendar again. It was now eight days past due, and the clock was steadily ticking. I shut my phone and then splashed cool water on my face. The loud banging on the door startled me.

  “I gotta use it!” Nate yelled.

  There was never a moment’s peace at Grandpa Drew’s house, especially when Nick and Nate were there. I swung the door open, and Nate was on the other side, dancing around in his SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas. He shot right past me and commenced to pull down his bottoms.

  “Well, good morning to you, too,” I said, leaving the bathroom and shutting the door behind me.

  The smell of pork sausage and bacon filled the house. Blueberry muffins were definitely in the oven, and knowing Aunt Helen, there were homemade biscuits, cheesy eggs and fresh fruit on the table, too.

  “Meka, can you help me take my pajama shirt off?” The other twin, Nick, had met me in the hallway in his briefs, with his pajama shirt halfway over his head.

  I pulled it off for him. “There you go, squirt,” I said.

  “Thank you!” he yelled and then took off down the hallway in his underwear.

  In the pink room, Roni was still curled up in the bottom bunk, light snores creeping from her mouth. In the top bunk, Alyssa sent a text message to someone, probably her much-older boyfriend, T. J.

  “Good morning,” I said to her.

  “Morning,” Alyssa said, never looking up from her phone. “Aunt Helen wants us to come down for breakfast. I tried to wake Roni up, but she’s not budging.”

  “Roni!” I shook her.

  Roni rose up in bed and looked around in a daze. “What? What?”

  “It’s time for breakfast,” I said.

  “Oh,” she growled and then plopped her head back down, smashed a pillow
into her face. “Tell the barracuda lady I’m not hungry.”

  “Come on. Get up!” I insisted. “Let’s eat and then get dressed. I want to go over to the mall today. Maybe my dad or Uncle Rich can drop us off.”

  “Too late for that,” Alyssa said. “Uncle Paul and Daddy went to play golf this morning. They’re not back yet.”

  “Well, whose car did they take?” I asked.

  Alyssa peered out the window. “Your dad’s car is in the driveway.”

  “Cool. Then my mom can take us to the mall,” I said.

  Roni pulled herself up from her bed. “What is with you people? It is too early in the morning for idle conversation.” Roni was definitely not a morning person. There were days that she could actually sleep until noon if someone let her. I liked sleeping in on the weekends, but after a while your head started feeling funny. Too much sleep was never good.

  I started straightening my bed and fluffing my pillow. I threw my overnight bag onto the bed, unzipped it and searched for something to wear. I decided on my Ecko Red jeans and a matching top. I selected my hoop earrings and a new bra and panty set that I’d picked up at Victoria’s Secret.

  Mommy appeared in the doorway. “Don’t worry about getting dressed, girls. Aunt Helen wants you downstairs at the breakfast table right now. Just wash your faces and brush your teeth. You can come down in your pjs.”

  “Wouldn’t wanna keep Mother waiting,” Roni said sarcastically. She slipped a pair of house shoes on her feet and headed out of the room.

  Alyssa hopped down from the top bunk.

  “Mommy, can you take us to the mall after breakfast?” I asked.

  “That should be fine,” Mommy said and slipped one arm around my neck and the other arm around Alyssa’s neck. “We don’t really have any plans for the day, and I’m sure you girls are bored to death.”

  Aunt Helen stood facing the kitchen sink. Her new husband, Grant, held on to her waist from behind, nibbled on her ear. I hadn’t seen him since we arrived yesterday. I had never heard him come in the night before, and Roni, Alyssa and I had been up pretty late—talking about everything under the sun—at least until three o’clock in the morning. By the time my eyes had begun to flutter, Grant still hadn’t been home. Maybe he worked nights, I thought as I took a seat at the kitchen table, between Jason and Alyssa. Or maybe he just didn’t want to stay at Grandpa Drew’s house with the rest of us.