“Why do I have to go, she’s the one acting all stupid, make her leave,” she said, glaring at me steadily.
“Just check on dinner, please,” he said.
She sucked her teeth and grabbed up the apron, then stomped back through the dining room. I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t believe this was happening. My dad actually kicked me and my mom out for her.
“Come on, sit down,” he said to me after she left.
I didn’t move. I just stood there with my arms crossed over my chest, waiting for him to make this right.
“Look, Kenisha, this thing is between your mom and me. This has nothing to do with you or with Courtney, do you understand?”
“Nothing to do with me,” I repeated. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m living in D.C. now.”
“You need to be with your mother, and Courtney and I need some time alone to be together. I’ll bring you back, I swear, but not right now. I need to do this for me, for all of us.” I started shaking my head. The bogus nobility of his crap was too pathetic.
“I know this is painful and confusing for you right now, but in a few weeks, you’ll understand. What I did, I did for you. I love you and in a way I still love your mother, but I’m not in love with her. We needed to go our separate ways. It was time.”
I just stared at him for a long time as he talked. He was such a cliché. “I can’t believe you. You’re like some sick joke, trading down. Can’t you see she’s just using you?”
“Kenisha, stop it.” He raised his voice.
“No, better idea,” I said calmly, “you stop it. You put Mom and me out for her. She’s just a few years older than me, and you gave me drama when I wanted to date? But it’s okay for you to screw her?”
“You don’t judge me, I’m your father!” he yelled. “This is my life and I’m entitled to be happy. Courtney makes me happy. You’re too young and inexperienced to understand all this.”
“Oh, I’m too young,” I said. “Okay, since I’m too young, I’ll get experience. I’ll go out and find me a fifty-year-old man like Courtney and then maybe I might just understand.”
“Stop it, you’re my child.”
“She’s somebody’s child.”
“That’s none of your business.” He paused and looked at me, realizing that I wasn’t buying his crap. “Maybe you’d better leave. I’ll call you a cab.”
“Don’t bother,” I said, already heading to the front door.
“Kenisha, wait, Kenisha,” he called out, but I just kept walking. “Kenisha, Courtney told me that you have a list of my clients on your computer. I need it back.” I started laughing. As far as I was concerned, this Jerry Springer show was over.
CHAPTER 11
An Unexpected Ally
“When a perfect life turns out to be anything but and everything you thought was true isn’t and the road back to where you want to be turns out to be all uphill, I guess you have to push pause and just start climbing.”
—myspace.com
My dad always had issues about getting older. He did everything in his power to act and fake being young. He talked it, dyed his hair, listened to more rap music than I did, drove a pimped-out ride and dressed like he was eighteen, baggy low-riding jeans and all. He tried to play basketball with the young guys, but he couldn’t keep up and just made a fool of himself. He always had young women circling around him, so now he had this young skank on his arm and he thought that his life was complete. Wrong.
I decided to walk over to Jalisa’s house a block away. She wasn’t there. Natalie said that she was at work.
“You okay, girl?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, starting to get frustrated and filled up, but I refused to let the tears come again. “I just stopped by to say hey.”
“Listen, I’m on my way to work, so I can drop you off at the mall or at Jalisa’s job if you want. You can get your mom to pick y’all up afterwards.”
“Okay.”
She grabbed her purse and we got into her car. She started talking about catching up with my mom, and I realized that she had no idea we had moved out. Jalisa had never told her. So she talked, but before I was supposed to reply, her cell rang and she picked up.
Thank God. ’Cause I seriously was not in the mood to deal with Natalie. So she was talking on the cell and driving and we drove past LaVon’s house. I was just about to tell Natalie to pull over and let me out, but then I saw Chili’s car in the driveway.
Okay, I knew that Chili had a thing for LaVon’s older brother, but as far as I knew he was in the military and stationed in New Jersey or New Mexico or something like that. So what was Chili’s car doing there?
But by the time it occurred to me to tell Natalie to pull over, she was already down the block and around the corner. Natalie drove fast. So I figured I’d call Chili and find out what’s up with that later.
So we got to the mall and Jalisa was there working. She wasn’t off for another hour and a half, so I decided to just hang around and wait. I called Chili, but she wasn’t answering. I called LaVon again. He picked up.
“I was just gonna call you,” he said as usual.
“So why didn’t you?”
“You know how it is,” he said.
“How’s Chili?”
“She a’ight, I guess,” he said, then tried to cover. “Why you asking me, how am I supposed to know?”
“I went by your house a few minutes ago and I thought I saw her car parked out front.”
“Nah, that was my boy’s car. He stopped by to check out the game. We just chilling.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What, you don’t believe me?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you just gonna 411 and get all up in my grill.”
“Just bump it,” I said, annoyed that I’d even called him.
“So you moved, right,” he said, rather than asked.
“Yeah, yesterday, it went okay.”
“How’s D.C.?”
“It’s all right, my grandmother’s house is small. It’s old, real old, serious wood everywhere, the good stuff, and it’s got three stories and this huge backyard. My bedroom is on the third floor and from the window you can see almost ten blocks away ’cause it’s the tallest house in the neighborhood. You should stop by and check it out.”
“Check out your grandmother’s house, nah, pass on that.”
I smiled and chuckled to myself, remembering the one time LaVon met my grandmother, like, three years ago at my birthday party and she almost smoked him. She embarrassed the mess out of him right in front of his boys. It was a trip. His boys bounced on him about that for weeks, threatening to call her whenever he acted up. “You still scared of my little old grandmother?”
“I ain’t scared of nobody, I just don’t want to deal with that D.C. traffic.”
“Oh, please, you go to D.C. all the time.”
“Why you stressing me out about this, it’s not like we gonna do anything if I do show up. So what’s the big deal?”
“What?”
“Yeah, a’ight, whatever,” he said, obviously getting distracted by something or someone.
“So you still have company?” I asked, but he didn’t reply. “LaVon, LaVon.”
“What?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“Yo, let me check you later,” he said.
“That’s all right, I gotta go anyway, but why don’t you come over to the mall later. I’m waiting for Jalisa to get off in an hour and we can hang out.”
“Huh? Yeah, what?”
I hung up. Like my dad, his trash-talking was getting old, too.
So I was sitting there in the food court pissed off when Diamond walked up and stopped at my table. She stood there with all these bags and I looked up at her.
“Hey,” Diamond said.
“Hey,” I said.
“I heard about you moving,” she said. What, did everybody know now? “Chili told a friend of mine. Sorry.”
“About what?”
“Your mom and dad.”
I need to seriously shut Chili’s big mouth up. “Yeah, whatever.”
“Can I sit down?” she asked.
I seriously wasn’t in the mood for more drama, so I just waved my hand. I didn’t care anymore. She sat down.
“Look, it’s not me. You were my girl since we were four years old in dance class. So you talking this about me and LaVon is wrong, you need to look someplace else with that.”
I just nodded absently. I really didn’t feel like dealing with all that right now. She shrugged, then stood up, grabbing up her bags.
“What’d you get?” I asked her, deciding that I didn’t want to be sitting in the food court alone.
She stopped and held up a bag. “A top, a belt and some jeans.”
“At Urban Chic?” I asked, seeing the logo on the bag.
She nodded. “Yeah, they just got some nice things in.”
“Let me see what you got,” I said. She pulled out the top and the belt and I checked it out. Diamond always did have nice taste. At one time she talked about being a fashion buyer. I could seriously see her doing it. She pulled out her jeans and they were the same ones I’d bought a week ago, before any of this happened. It seemed like years ago now. “I just got these, too,” I said.
“Oh, yeah.”
I nodded. “They fit tight, but they’re nice. I like the designs on the pockets.”
“That was why I got them,” she said.
“I like their new window displays.”
“Me, too, they have this one on the side. It’s like a photo shoot with the mannequin wearing this green top…”
“…with the gray belt and burgundy designs,” I jumped in, finishing her thought just like always.
“Yeah, that’s the one, I love that outfit, but…”
“…never buy window display,” we said in unison, then smiled and laughed. It felt good to laugh with Diamond again.
“So are you waiting for Jalisa to get off?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, then looked at my cell to check the time. I still had another forty minutes.
She nodded. “I’m gonna stop by that new shoe store on the corner. You want to come with? I mean, I understand if you don’t, it’s okay, I mean…”
I stood up. “Sure, let’s go.”
So we walked the mall and at first it was strange but we were talking and it was all awkward and all, then we started joking around, playing, laughing and talking about people and then I hardly remembered why we’d stopped being friends. Then I remembered Chili and Diamond had this huge argument one day after Chili’s boyfriend dumped her and tried to talk to Diamond. Everybody got pissed at Diamond, including me. That was when everybody started saying that Diamond would screw anybody’s boyfriend. Her rep sank just like that.
But most girls didn’t like Diamond anyway ’cause most guys did like her. Diamond was seriously America’s Top Model, American Idol and Project Runway all rolled into one. She wasn’t just cute, she was open-mouth, staring in disbelief, drop-dead beautiful. But she didn’t act it, so that was why they all hated her. They were all jealous. But I wasn’t jealous, I was just pissed ’cause Chili told me that she was going after LaVon. I guess Chili was mistaken.
“I don’t know if I’m going back to Hazelhurst.”
“Why not?”
“You know my mom and I moved out,” I said. She nodded. “We’re living with my grandmother in D.C., so I might go to school there. If I do, I hope it’s the one for art, music and dance like Jade. I heard she busted out big there.”
“I like Jade, she was always cool.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“She acts funny with me, like I pissed her off or something. I have no idea what I did, but she is seriously hating on me.”
“Did you ask her?”
“Nah,” I said.
“You should ask her what’s up.”
“Like she’d tell me.”
“She might,” Diamond said.
So I started thinking. Maybe I should just talk to Jade and find out what’s up.
“Chili told me that she saw you and LaVon together,” I said, completely changing the subject.
“You were my girl, Kenisha, I would never do anything like that. Chili’s lying.”
I nodded ’cause after everything I started to see things differently. Jalisa was right, the three of us had been friends since we were four years old and I should have trusted that friendship and given Diamond the benefit of the doubt.
So my cell rang. It was Jalisa, she had just gotten off work. She walked down and met me and Diamond at the shoe store, then we checked out a few other stores, then we went back over to the food court and grabbed something to eat. It was late, so Diamond drove Jalisa home and took me to the Metro station so I could catch a train to D.C.
On the train I started thinking about everything. It was a screwed-up day from beginning to end. Tomorrow had to be better.
CHAPTER 12
My Eyes Wide Shut
“I see shadows now, gray and black shadows. I guess when you’re blind, people expect you not to see. But what if you’re not and you still can’t see? I open my eyes and still see nothing.”
—myspace.com
A few days went by without much drama. I spent most of the time either at Freeman’s or in my new bedroom. I hadn’t spoken to my dad and that was just fine with me ’cause he was on my last nerve anyway. He did leave me a few messages on my cell to tell me that he wanted me to get my mom to drop off those papers he’d left in his office and for me to return the client list on my laptop. He had to be kidding, like that was actually going to happen.
First of all, all that stuff was packed up, sitting in some huge storage bin in Virginia, and if he wanted his client list, then he needed to come correct and step up.
I hadn’t spoken to LaVon since that night at the mall, on the phone. It was his senior year at Kentwood Prep and he had basketball practice all the time, so I guess he was supposed to be focusing on that. I didn’t really care about that, either.
Since I was usually in my bedroom in the morning and out in Virginia in the afternoon, then back late, I hadn’t actually seen my mom since I talked to her the night I met with my dad. She stayed in her bedroom mostly. I heard crying one time when I passed by and one time I heard her in there talking to Jade about something. I kept on going.
Jade was nothing like I’d remembered. I knew every body said how cool she was but I wasn’t seeing any of that. We shared the third floor, but we didn’t talk and she was gone most of the time anyway.
Although, since I was up early this morning, I bumped into her. She was in the closet and the door to her side of the bathroom was open. “Morning,” I said, then looked in the mirror and pulled my hair back with a clip, then picked up my toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Good morning,” she said, about to leave the closet to go back into her bedroom.
“You know we should talk, maybe,” I said.
“About what?” she asked.
“I don’t know, anything, whatever.”
She looked at me. “Fine, we just did.”
“No, I mean for-real talk.”
“I have to go,” she said, then looked at her watch as if to make the point that she was too busy. “We can talk later.” So that was that, the end of conversation.
So today I went downstairs and my grandmother was in the kitchen cooking, seemed like she was always cooking. It smelled good, though. I sat down, expecting to have our usual detached conversation, which usually ended up with her telling me that I needed to speak like an intelligent person, as she put it, and not like a street urchin. What in the world was a street urchin?
“Morning,” I said as I walked in, sat down and grabbed a homemade blueberry muffin from a pyramidlike stack on a platter in the center of the kitchen table.
“Good morning,” she said, then
glanced up at the clock. It was a little after nine, way early for me.
I knew that was what she was thinking ’cause she gave me that look. I usually didn’t come downstairs until noon, that way I didn’t have to deal with anyone ’cause I knew Jade would be out someplace, my mom would be in her room still asleep and my grandmother would either be at church or in the yard with her plants. Today I just didn’t feel much like sleeping in.
“I know you’re not just going to sit there like that and not get over here and help me.”
“I don’t cook,” I said, nibbling on the muffin.
“Didn’t your mother teach you anything about cooking?”
“She cooks, we order in or we eat out. I can’t cook.”
“Good, that means you can learn. Come on over here.”
I stood up slowly and went over to the stove. I watched her a minute while she stirred something in a huge silver pan. “Here, take this spoon and stir while I get some fresh herbs from the garden.”
“Maybe I should get the herbs,” I said, looking at the pale stuff she was stirring and having the feeling it would burn as soon as she walked away and left me alone with it.
“Do you know what rosemary, thyme, chives, parsley and basil look like?”
“No,” I said.
“Then maybe you’re better stay here and stir,” she said simply, and left me just like that.
Okay….
So I stood there stirring this strange, tannish, palish looking stuff in this pan, and I looked around wondering what in the world I was doing there and when or if she was even coming back.
“Hey.”
I turned and saw the lawn mower guy open the screen door carrying a grocery bag. He came in like he was one of the family. “Oh, man,” I muttered under my breath, “this is all I need.
“Hey,” I said barely audibly, still stirring.
“So you cook, huh?”
“Yeah, I cook,” I said, lying, of course.
“What are you cooking?” he asked.
Oops. I looked down into the pan and for the first time realized that I had no idea what I was doing. So like a complete fool I just kept stirring. I swear I was gonna say something, but for some reason nothing came out.
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