by Mary Monroe
“You remember that boy Wade?” she asked, sniffing and rubbing her runny nose. Tina used to be pretty, but the drugs and fast life had taken a heavy toll on her. She already had dark circles around her eyes and a face that looked as hard as concrete. She didn’t bathe on a regular basis or do much with her hair. I felt so sorry for her and the way she looked. That was why I always volunteered to braid her hair for free, when I charged other girls twenty to thirty dollars to hook them up with the same hairdo.
Tina’s mother was always fussing about the water bill being so high, so Tina didn’t take baths but a couple of times a week. I really liked Tina and I tried to look out for her. Every time she came to my house I encouraged her to take a long shower and to use my deodorant. But I could only do so much for her. She still looked and smelled downright foul most of the time. That’s why she couldn’t keep a boyfriend. Some of the boys that she used to fool around with ran when they saw her now. And, some of the boys that I used to fool around with did the same thing to me, but for different reasons. I didn’t stink, and I did my best to make myself look good when I went out. I honestly didn’t know why I couldn’t keep a boyfriend. Just hearing the name of the one boy that I would have walked on water to be with made my heart skip a beat.
“You do remember Wade, don’t you?” Tina asked, grinning.
I blinked and bit my bottom lip, trying my best to keep from smiling. But Tina saw me smile, anyway. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, patting the neat braided designs I’d just completed.
“Wade Eddie Fisher? What about him? His mama came to my house yesterday to borrow some more money from my daddy,” I complained. “As usual, she was going on and on about him doing so good down there in Hollywood. I haven’t seen him in anything yet, and you know how much television I watch.”
“I seen him on a commercial for Pepsi,” Tina informed me.
“Humph! Well, a Pepsi commercial is a long way from him being in a movie,” I muttered bitterly. “The way he went around bragging about how he was going to take Hollywood by storm, I expected him to be costarring with Eddie Murphy by now.”
“But a commercial is better than nothing. I read in one of those magazines you gave me that people can make a lot of money doing commercials. Somebody with Wade’s looks and body can make a living just doing commercials.”
“I guess so,” I offered, the bitterness still in my mouth, coating my tongue like venom. On one hand, I was happy that Wade was doing so well and living his dream—if that was the case. But I still had a lot of resentment toward him for the way he had treated me at the restaurant that day, especially after all the sex we’d had in his messy bedroom. “Why did you bring his name up?”
“I seen his mama at Safeway last night. Poor Miss Louise. She was ahead of me in the checkout line. When the clerk ran her credit card through and it got declined, I had to loan her twenty dollars to pay for her groceries.”
“Well, if her son is doing so good down there in Hollywood, how come she can’t pay her credit card bills?” I asked, giving Tina an amused look.
“Hell if I know,” Tina said, with a shrug. “Anyway, she waited until I paid for my shit, and we walked out together. Wade was sitting in that old car of hers.”
“So what?” I asked, rising from Tina’s lumpy bed.
“They gave me a ride home, but along the way, Miss Louise stopped off at Mr. Bailey’s house, you know, that old barbershop man she’s been fucking around with all month. She wanted to borrow some money from him so she could pay me back. While I’m sitting in the car with Wade, he starts talking a bunch of shit about the old days. Who’s still in Berkeley, who’s dead, and who’s in jail. When I tell him that you are the only friend I got left, he tells me that if he ever settled down with a black girl, it would be you.”
“I don’t know why he told you that,” I responded, with a gasp. “But I know for a fact, he likes white girls.”
“That’s probably true. Most of the brothers I know do. But Wade likes at least one black girl, and that’s you,” Tina told me in a serious tone of voice. “Why else would he say some shit like that if he didn’t mean it?”
I didn’t know what to say next. For one thing, I was not impressed. As far as I was concerned, I was too good for Wade Eddie Fisher. But I was willing to give him another chance if he wanted it. “I wonder why he would say something like that about me.” From the look on Tina’s face, she was wondering the same thing herself. I had told her about the incident in the restaurant.
“Because you are the only one around here that didn’t laugh and make fun of him when he said he was going to Hollywood,” Tina explained. “He said he would never forget that.”
I gave Tina a thoughtful look. “But he forgot my name that day at Giovanni’s,” I said, with a pout, anxious to leave now.
“Oh, girl. You know how dudes trip when they are around their friends. Or maybe he had a thing going with that boy or something. Fags are coming out of the closets left and right these days.”
I had no reason to believe that Wade was gay, so I didn’t even bother to comment on that.
“Well, what Wade said might have meant something to me if he had told me himself.” I smirked, heading toward the living room, where Tina’s mother, Miss Honey, was passed out drunk in the middle of the floor. I hopped over her on my way to the door. It took me a while to undo the three locks on it.
“He’s having a party next Saturday night. You want to go?” Tina asked, squatting down on the floor to put a pillow under her mother’s head. This is what Tina did when her mother passed out. It did no good to haul Miss Honey to the sofa or her bed because somewhere along the line, she’d end up back on the floor, anyway.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, with a sniff. “If I don’t have anything better to do, I just might go.”
CHAPTER 25
I didn’t even mention Wade or his party to my parents. From the indifferent looks I received from each one over the next few days, I had a feeling that they didn’t want to hear about that boy and his party, or anybody else’s party.
My parents would go for hours at a time without speaking to me while we were in the same room. As a matter of fact, they would also go hours at a time not even speaking to each other. As far back as I could remember, they hadn’t even shared the same bedroom. My mother slept in the larger of the two bedrooms in our apartment; I slept in the smaller one. Daddy slept on the sofa bed in our living room. I knew enough about adults at the time to know that some couples had similar sleeping arrangements. It usually meant that one was having an affair but was staying in the marriage for other reasons. Usually “for the sake of the kids.” But that was not the case with me. I knew that my parents were not staying together because of me. Why they stayed together at all was as much a mystery to me as everything else with them.
I didn’t leave home at eight to go to Wade’s party that Saturday night like I had told Tina and a few other kids I would. I had stolen some jeans and a new pink T-shirt the day before from the Gap, some fresh new make-up and some condoms from Walgreen’s, and some perfume from Macy’s to wear to the party. I’d cancelled my plans to go to Wade’s party at the last minute. But I did go out that night at eight: to be with Miss Odessa.
It was the old lady’s seventy-fifth birthday, and she had been going on and on about it all week. She’d wept and wailed about how happy she was the Lord had allowed her to live so long. She praised God for keeping her safe in such a violent environment and for sending me to her.
One of Miss Odessa’s sons had sent her a cheap bouquet of flowers. Another one had dropped off a cake that was so lopsided, it looked like somebody had dropped it and then stepped on it. None of her daughters had even called or sent anything. Even though she tried to act like it didn’t bother her, I had a feeling that it did. If anybody knew what it was like to be ignored by family, it was me. As soon as I found out that Miss Odessa was going to be alone on her birthday, I decided that she was more important to me t
han Wade’s party.
While Miss Odessa was taking her nightly bath, I slipped out and ran down to the corner convenience store. The cashier behind the counter was new, so he refused to sell me some beer like the cashier he’d replaced. And, I didn’t feel like hanging around outside, waiting for an older person to come by who might purchase for me the beer that I wanted to give to Miss Odessa as a birthday gift. I ended up buying her a bag of rock candy and a birthday card with a black woman on it.
“Christine, shouldn’t you be out with some of your friends at the movies or the roller-skating rink or something? It don’t seem right for a popular young girl like you to be sitting here with me and my old self,” Miss Odessa commented, clutching the card like it was gold.
“Oh, I can see them anytime,” I said, with a wave of my hand, wondering what she would say or think if she knew just how and why I was so “popular.” I had a feeling she already knew. With us being right across the hall, it had to be hard for her not to notice how many boys I let in and out of the apartment when Mama and Daddy were at work. But like I said, she was not as nosy as the rest of the old people I knew.
“And, besides, today is a special day. Your special day. You’ll only be seventy-five this one time,” I chirped.
“I didn’t expect to see seventy-five this one time,” she said, almost choking on a sob. She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes off and on while we sat in front of her television, eating that lopsided cake. When she said she wished she had some beer, I told her that I’d pay for it if she’d escort me back to the store and buy some.
I left Miss Odessa’s apartment when she fell asleep in the middle of America’s Most Wanted, with her fifth can of beer still in her hand.
As soon as I entered my own living room, I immediately wished that I had someplace else to go. Since Daddy slept on the sofa bed in our living room, I couldn’t watch television once he turned in for the night. I couldn’t see him under all the blankets on the sofa, but I had heard him snoring before I got inside the door. The television in my room was on the blink, so there was not much else for me to do on a Saturday night. I went to my room and flipped through a few magazines I hadn’t read. But I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the fact that there was a party going on at Wade’s house and I wasn’t there.
Now that I felt better about Miss Odessa, I returned my thoughts to Wade. I was still mad at him for the way he had treated me. That made it so hard for me to understand what he’d said to Tina about me. If what he’d told Tina was true, I owed it to him to let him know I knew. Since I already had on my party clothes, I decided to go out and party, after all. Besides, my pussy had been itching for days, and if anybody knew how to scratch me right, it was Wade Fisher.
CHAPTER 26
There wasn’t much light in the living room as I strutted past Daddy, curled up in a fetal position on the edge of the sofa. Before I left, I walked back across the floor and leaned over my daddy and kissed the top of his head. If my parents could show me some affection only when they thought I was asleep, I decided that I could do the same for them. I turned and looked toward the room where Mama slept, and I started to walk in that direction. But I stopped when I heard her cough and mumble under her breath. When her bedroom light came on, I made a U-turn and was out the door within seconds, galloping down the street like a pony.
It was late, and I should have taken a cab the four blocks to Wade’s house. But after buying the beer for Miss Odessa, I didn’t want to spend any more of my money, in case I needed a few dollars to lend to Miss Louise. I knew that if I wanted to resume my relationship with Wade, one of the things I had to do was keep his mama happy.
I had to dodge a few nasty men on the street. They thought that because I was dressed like I was looking for a good time that I wanted to have it with them.
It must have been that I wasn’t meant to attend a party at Wade’s house. At least not that particular night. The music was so loud, it did me no good to knock on the front door for five whole minutes. And, right after I stumbled off the porch to go back home, the cops showed up, almost knocking me to the ground as they ran up the steps leading to the front door.
From the sidewalk, I stood and watched as Miss Louise came outside and talked to the cops. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but whatever it was, it must have been what the cops wanted to hear, because they left right away and Miss Louise rushed back inside.
Just as I was about to go knock again, two girls, one black and one white, spilled out onto the porch. I took a few steps back and stood under a streetlight, in the shadow of a tree with a trunk wide enough to hide my whole body. Then about five other girls stumbled out the door, and all hell broke loose. One girl slapped another girl, and all of a sudden every single one of them was screaming and throwing punches. I had never witnessed a smackdown like this one. I let out my breath and trotted back down the street and went home.
I would have slept until noon if somebody had not come banging on the door like they were coming through it. My parents rarely had guests, and none of my friends were crazy enough to be knocking on our door before noon on a Sunday. I snatched open the door, all prepared to cuss out a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
To my surprise, the visitor was about as far away from a Jehovah’s Witness as you could get. It was Wade.
“Hey, girl,” he said, leaning in the doorway.
He was taller and more handsome than ever. “Uh, hi,” I muttered, clutching the front of my thin nightgown. “What in the world are you doing here?” I asked, a grin brewing on my lips.
“My mama sent me over here to pay your mama back the ten dollars she borrowed last week,” he explained, reaching into his pocket. His jeans were so tight, it was a struggle for him to get his hand all the way in his pocket. And, I could see the outline of everything he had to offer between his legs. “One of your girls told me you was coming to my party last night. I didn’t see you,” he said, waving a crumpled ten-dollar bill in my face like it was a carrot.
“Oh, me. Uh, I had to do some stuff around the house,” I lied, gently removing the money from his hand. “I hope I can make it to the next party you throw,” I offered. His eyes were dangerous, and I realized that when I tried to stare him down. I even got dizzy.
“I hope you can make it the next time, too. But you know something, baby? We don’t have to wait on no party to hook up.” He paused and looked me up and down. “You sure have grown up since that … uh … day you came to my mama’s house on your birthday that time. I think about that day all the time ….”
“Yeah.” I glanced behind him to make sure Miss Odessa wasn’t lurking about. “Well, do you want to come in or what? I would like to hear all about Hollywood and all the show business you’ve been in.”
He scratched his head and started talking, with his eyes looking at the floor. “I’m just getting started. I haven’t made my mark down there yet.”
“You can still come in if you want to,” I said, opening the door wider. He looked behind him and over my shoulder. “My mama and daddy are at church. They won’t be back home for at least a couple of hours.”
“Do I want to come in and be up in here with you by myself?” he teased.
“That’s up to you.”
Wade brushed past me and strolled in like he owned the place. “You sure your folks won’t be home for a couple of hours?” he asked, smoothing his hair back with one hand.
I nodded. “And, I won’t forget to give my mama the money Miss Louise sent back,” I insisted, folding my hand with the money in it into a fist. Wade looked at my face, then over my shoulder again.
“Uh, I ain’t got nothing else to do today,” he said, shuffling his feet.
“So?” I shrugged and turned my head to the side.
“Well, you already seen my bedroom. Now can I see yours?” he asked.
CHAPTER 27
It was the first time I ever spent the whole night in bed with a dude. I knew that it was going to happen sooner or la
ter, but I never expected it to happen in my own house, with my parents just a few feet away. And, I never thought that it would be with Wade.
Wade and I had been holed up in my room ever since he had come to our apartment that morning. Other than to run to the bathroom or to the kitchen to get some snacks, we stayed in my bedroom.
One of the few things that I was proud of was my room. It was clean, and everything was where it was supposed to be. Even though the bed was older than I was, and the curtains were so stiff, they could stand up by themselves, I was proud of what I had. I was happy to entertain Wade in my room. And, it was not just about sex, even though it was mind-boggling. I enjoyed talking to Wade.
“I just hope you don’t forget me when you hit it really big down there in Hollywood,” I told him, gently jabbing him in the side with my elbow.
“I ain’t forgot about you yet, girl. Like I told Tina, you about the only sister I’d ever think about settling down with,” he admitted.
A muffled sound distracted me. I lifted my head and looked toward the door. “Shhhhh,” I said, my finger pressed against my lips. “My folks just came home from church!”
“Oh, shit!” Wade tumbled out of my bed and started hopping around the room like a man with one leg. “I thought you said they wouldn’t be home for hours!” he hissed, scrambling around for his clothes.
“That’s right. I did say that. But, baby, we’ve been in here for hours,” I reminded, trying not to laugh. “But you don’t have to worry about my folks coming in here. They don’t care what I do,” I told him, looking away because I didn’t want him to see the sadness in my eyes.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but your mama and your daddy is kind of strange. I noticed that a long time ago,” Wade said, returning to the bed.
