Who Asked You?

by Terry McMillan

  “Okay, Grandma,” I say, and do it.

  As soon as she heads for the bathroom to take her shower, I roll my eyes at Ricky.

  “Okay, so I didn’t study. Was that a crime?”

  “Cheating is. And so is getting suspended, even if it’s only for one day, Ricky. Why didn’t you study?”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “You seem to be falling asleep a lot. Are you taking your meds?”

  “Off and on. Anyway, I’ve already been lectured enough, please don’t you start.”

  “Just tell me some of what she said.”

  “She asked me if I remembered our talk after our mama died, and I told her I did.”

  “You mean about staying out of trouble and what could happen?”

  He just nods.

  “Then make sure this is as bad as it gets, you hear me?”

  “I hear you. Damn, Luther. You sound just like a grown-up.”

  “I’m your older brother and I just want to remind you that Grandma is getting up in age and can’t handle a lot of stress or this kind of bullshit, and if this is the beginning of more to come, this is how kids end up in foster care.”

  He nods like he gets it.

  “Personally, I’m not worried,” I say.

  “Me either,” he says. “Can we order the pizza now?”

  Grandma is driving us to the bus stop. It doesn’t take us long but since she has to take a different freeway to get to work, this is faster. Plus, we’re old enough to catch a bus and we’ve got monthly passes and now we even go to a charter school, which is also pretty cool, but starting in September I’m going to be going to Dorsey High and I can’t wait to start summer football training. A lot of famous NFL players went to Dorsey, and I hope I’m going to be added to that list one day. I love football. Everybody thought because I’m tall I was going to play basketball, but basketball isn’t as much fun to me because you don’t get to run anywhere. Grandma let me go to football camp last summer, and I’m going again this summer just to get stronger and make sure I can get on the junior varsity squad.

  “Are you boys coming straight home after school?”

  “I have track practice,” I say.

  “I do, too,” Ricky says, lying through his teeth.

  “I have physical therapy today, so you can warm up that lasagna and make a salad if you want to.”

  “We’ll save you some,” I say, and give her a kiss on the cheek when we get to the bus stop. Ricky leans over from the backseat and does the same.

  “Be careful,” she says after we get out of the car. “And give everything you do everything you’ve got today.”

  “We always do,” I say, and close the door. She says this every morning and I like it. She said it’s called a mantra. Sort of like praying. If you say something over and over and over it has the power to come true. I don’t think Ricky really says it, though.

  We see the bus about five or six stops away and there’s a lot of traffic but Ricky and I stand with a group of other kids around the bus stop pole so that some older people can sit down since it’s starting to rain.

  “You better check yourself, Ricky,” I say to him. Most of them can’t hear what I’m saying to him, because almost all of them are listening to music on their iPods. Grandma said maybe we might be able to get one for Christmas, but I really don’t care. Looks like Ricky won’t be needing one, because I saw one on his bed this morning. I just didn’t feel like saying anything.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Luther,” he says as he reaches into his backpack and whips out that iPod and puts those little headphones in his ears.

  I snatch them out.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.

  “Where’d you get these?”

  “That’s none of your business,” he says, and snatches them back. Some of the kids are starting to look at us even though most of them know we’re brothers so they know this isn’t going to lead to any action.

  “I smelled that shit and Grandma did, too, and wherever you’re getting it and however you’re getting it, you better not bring it anywhere near Grandma’s house or I’m going to kick your ass myself. You got that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Luther.” He plugs his earphones back in and gets in line ahead of me when the bus pulls up.

  When I get on, he’s already sitting next to a Mexican kid, and I walk right past him like I don’t know him and sit next to a black girl, who happens to be pretty but I pretend like I don’t notice. Most of the kids on this bus are black, Mexican, and Korean, and now a lot are Armenian, even though I don’t know why.

  “Hey,” I say to the girl.

  “Hey,” she says back.

  And that’s that.

  I look out the window, wishing I had that little umbrella Grandma has told Ricky and me to keep in our backpacks because “you never know when it’s going to rain and you can’t go by what that weather girl says.” Today, like most days, Grandma’s right, and now it’s starting to pour down. I really like the rain a lot and I don’t know why. Maybe because nothing ever falls from the sky here in Los Angeles and rain makes it feel like a different season. I know one thing for sure: I want to go to college somewhere where it gets cold, and maybe even snows. I like snow, even though I’ve never touched it before. It’s pretty and looks clean and soft, and I would love to throw a snowball or make a giant angel like I’ve seen on TV. Plus, it seems like it makes more sense to have four seasons instead of just one.

  “Noxema, did you finish your book report?” I hear the girl behind me say to the girl sitting next to me.

  “Of course I did. You know my mom would kill me if I didn’t.”

  That girl did just call her Noxema, didn’t she? I had a little sister with this same name and I’m just wondering how many of them could there be in this neighborhood? I don’t want to stare, since she’s sitting right next to me, but she did just say that her mom would kill her so maybe she isn’t who I’m thinking she could or might be.

  “What grade are you in?” I ask her without thinking about it.

  “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Sixth. Are you in high school?”

  “Almost. I’ve never seen you on this bus before.”

  “We just moved.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Why are you so nosy?”

  “I’m just curious because a long time ago I had a little sister with your same name.”

  “And what happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. Her father took her from our mother when she was a baby.”

  “Really,” she says, like she’s not that impressed. “Who is ‘us’?”

  “That boy up there with the fat neck wearing earplugs.”

  “Oh, that’s Ricky. He’s bad news. Sorry to tell you.”

  “I thought you said you just moved here?”

  “I just moved to this neighborhood but I didn’t have to change schools and my parents just started letting me take the bus.”

  “Why is Ricky bad news?”

  “I don’t know if it’s cool for me to be telling you stuff about your own brother.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He’s been hanging around people we don’t like to hang around.”

  “You don’t mean like a gang or something, do you?”

  “I don’t know. But he’s in my science class and he sleeps through most of it and sometimes at lunch he’s selling joints.”

  “And you know this for a fact?”

  She turns around to look at her friend, who is nodding her head up and down.

  “Okay. Well, thanks for the heads-up.”

  “So let’s get back to the whole parent thing, or do you smoke the stuff, too?”

  “Are you kidding me?
College is in my future.”

  “Anyway, I was adopted when I was two because my father was raising me all by himself, but he got killed in a head-on collision and I ended up in foster care and my parents adopted me, so I could be your sister. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  And she starts laughing. Like cracking up. I don’t think this shit is one bit funny. I mean, what if I’m really sitting next to my half-sister?

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You believed me.”

  “What if you are our sister?”

  “That’s impossible because I live with my real parents. I just made that shit up. I make a lot of shit up just to see if I can make people believe me. And you did. I want to be an actress.”

  “What about what you said about my brother?”

  “Oh, Ricky? That shit is true. So pay attention before he ends up in juvie.”

  When the bus comes to a stop, all the kids jump up and rush off. Ricky ignores me. I’ll be so glad when I don’t have to take this bus and so glad when I don’t have to look at Ricky’s face in the cafeteria or in the hallway, because he is starting to not only get on my nerves but I would really like to kick his ass because of some of the shit he’s doing that he knows he shouldn’t be doing. That girl Noxema waves to me, and for some weird reason I don’t believe what she said to me. I’ll bet she is our sister. She’s just too scared to admit it. But then again maybe she doesn’t know. And maybe I shouldn’t care.

  Tammy

  I absolutely love my new breasts! Sometimes I just stand in front of the mirror and stare at them. They’re beautiful. They didn’t look anywhere near this good before I had the twins. It’s amazing what money can buy. Now, if only I had someone to touch them and appreciate them as much as I do, I will have turned a major corner.

  I admit I’ve become partial to low-cut tops except at work. It is not appropriate to show so much as an ounce of cleavage in a courtroom, especially if the criminal is male. They love to find a focal point when they’re on the witness stand and even more so when they’re lying. I do not want my breasts to help them make shit up. I believe even Montana may be jealous of them!

  My daughter has let Trevor back into her life and occasionally into my house, but at least he has made his mark in television. He has managed to become a roll of toilet paper and a bumblebee (for Bumble Bee tuna); he got to prove how effective an insect repellent can be when you’re in the woods; and I think in the last one he drove a carpet-cleaning van. In not one of them did he get to open his mouth to utter a syllable, so he’s still not in the SAG union.

  Jackson, I’m pleased to say, has been living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the past two and a half years and had the nerve to make a baby with what has to be senior citizen sperm. He also has his own big rig. He has sent pictures of him and his homely wife and that little girl who already looks like she’s old enough to order a drink. Sometimes, if they’re lucky, children grow up and don’t favor their parents, or if they’re real lucky, pull just the right amount of genes from both to pass as attractive. I will pray for that little girl, whose name escapes me right now. Oh, yes, I forgot to remember, Dick. It’s Jane. It’s obvious they put a whole lot of thought into it.

  Anyway, I’ve been trying to fix up the room Jackson slept in when he was here, because Max is coming home from Paris in three weeks for a week or two and is bringing a young lady he said he’s going to marry. (It’s amazing how young folks just spring life-changing events on you without any advance notice and you don’t have one minute to even digest it and sometimes you don’t even know if it’s worth swallowing.) She is Senegalese and her skin looks like brown satin. Sometimes I wish I were black. Her name is Awa. I wanted to know what it meant so I Googled it. It means she is seen as enthusiastic and passionate about anything and everything, that she is one who lives in the moment and takes pleasure in the small things. Maybe I should’ve put more thought into naming Montana. Awa is beautiful and tall and has perfect white teeth, the kind movie stars pay big money for here, but I know those are hers. She graduated from the Sorbonne (which I had to Google just to make sure I pronounced it right) in art history. I don’t know if that makes her employable over there, but she’d be shit out of luck here in L.A.

  Since my cooking skills are minimal I have asked my soul sister who lives across the street and who I just realized is also my BFF (Best Friend Forever) to help her white sistah-girl out in the kitchen with a few basic meals that reflect blackness so I can impress my future daughter-in-law that I’m down on many levels. On second thought, I’ve been around black folks so long, who knows, maybe I am black and just look white? LOL. (I just learned this new acronym, too.)

  So BJ is on her way over here in a few minutes. She has not said one word about my breasts. It’s been well over a month since the surgery. Although the boys are old enough to care for themselves most of the time, me and BJ work different hours these days, and I only see her a couple of days a week, especially since Lee David’s been gone. She doesn’t talk to me about a lot of what’s going on over there anymore. I know Dexter moved out and is still living with that stripper, and I wish to hell my daughter would do the same (move out, not strip) but I have not figured out how to put my flesh and blood out of my house without getting eaten up alive by guilt. Preschool costs almost as much as college these days. As it turns out, Montana has turned to her father for help without telling me. Over the last few years, Howard kept his word and reimbursed me for his half of the kids’ college fees, which is why I was surprised when he called one day to ask me if Montana still needed his help with her tuition. What tuition? I couldn’t answer that question. He is also disappointed in our daughter but basically said he didn’t want her to feel bad, because he remembered what it was like to be young and in love. I had to stop him right there.

  So, Montana is back in school. This time she’s hoping to become an esthetician. If she manages to finish this program, she’ll definitely be able to finally make some money, since people in L.A. will spend their rent money on anything to make them think they look beautiful. Including men, since so many of them are now what they call metrosexual these days, which in my opinion is another word for gay. I don’t have anything against gays. From what I gather, when Montana worked at Bed Bath & Beyond over the Christmas holiday, their credit cards always got approved.

  “Open this door, Martha!”

  BJ knows I have watched Martha Stewart’s show over the years, but most of that shit takes too long to prepare and costs too much and I could never find half the ingredients anywhere near this neighborhood and then a lot of the stuff I did make had a peculiar taste and then you didn’t know what to eat it with that didn’t compete with the one dish that seemed to take all damn day to make. She sure makes it look easy on TV. BJ told me about some little girl named Rachael Ray on the Food Network that makes meals in thirty minutes. But now I really don’t give a damn because I don’t spend that much time in the kitchen except for holidays and when I have houseguests, like now.

  “It’s open!” I yell, and make sure my apron is hanging on the hook near my little pantry. I’m wearing a yellow V-neck T-shirt that highlights my new additions, and which I will not cover up until BJ says something about them. Even if I have to put her on the spot. As soon as I know she’s in the kitchen I turn around and lean against the sink. “Did you bring some recipes?”

  She stops dead in her tracks. “I see them, Tammy. Everybody on the block sees them when you water the grass. When you go to the mailbox. They’re big and round and they look fake as hell but as long as you’re happy, I’m happy. What I wanna know is what did you do with all your old bras?”

  “You think they’re too big?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly, even though I can’t return them and if you don’t like them I really don’t give a shit, because I love them. But what do you think?”

  “I think they’d make
good headlights if they light up. So, what is it you want to learn how to make today?”

  “Where are the recipes?”

  “I’m black, Tammy. In case you haven’t noticed. We don’t use recipes.”

  “Then how in the hell are you supposed to know how much of anything to put into whatever it is you’re making?”

  “You taste-test as you go along.”

  “Give me an example. Say, mac and cheese.”

  “I don’t eat macaroni and cheese, because I’m lactose intolerant, but I make it for the kids. Didn’t you say this young lady is African?”

  “Yes, but she was raised in France.”

  “So why are you trippin’, as the boys would say? She wouldn’t know soul food if you threw it at her. Make the same boring meals you’ve been making and call it a day.”

  “I know how to bake a ham and fry chicken, but it’s not half as good as yours. Maybe she’s never had fried chicken. Just tell me how to make it taste like yours.”

  “You got a chicken handy?”

  “No, but I can get one. When is your next free day off?”

  “Two days from now, Thursday.”

  “Okay, then just tell me this. Can you show me how to make a sweet potato pie, collard greens, homemade cornbread, and your lasagna I like so much?”

  “You know what might be even better?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Has she ever been to the States before?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then refuse any help in the kitchen and make sure to send them out sightseeing, and how about I’ll make most of this and you can just pretend like you did?”

  “But that’s just wrong, BJ, and I want to learn how to make some of this stuff.”

  “Then why in the hell did you wait twenty years to ask me?”

  “That’s a good question. Are you all right? You seem a little testy.”

  “What would make you say that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been a while since we just sat down and chatted.”