Tutored

by Allison Whittenberg

  He was still thirsty, though; Leesa had no juice or milk in the house. Soda was all she had, which anyone could tell you just made you thirstier the more you drank. He’d had three cans of Pepsi since he’d been back from social services.

  As late as it was, he knew he wasn’t going to get to look over his books for those GED classes. He wondered what that girl would say. What was her name? He hated that voice she used, like she was auditioning for a Shakespeare play. Why couldn’t she just make it plain?

  This would drive him crazy: what was that big-eyed girl’s name? Sure, she annoyed him, but in his two months in this city of so-called brotherly love, she was the only candy striper he’d met. Was it Janet? Betty? How could he forget it so quickly after the run-in he’d had with her? For a second or two, he felt bad about the way he’d treated her.

  After another blunt, the baby finally went down, and his mind then turned to how glad he was to be under the covers. He didn’t give what’s-her-name another thought.

  8

  “Keep a positive outlook and positive things will happen to you.” That quotation was the heading in Wendy’s daily planner. She tried this mind-over-matter approach as she sat in the center awaiting a client. She was wearing a raspberry V-neck T-shirt and a crinkly mahogany-colored rayon skirt. Her delicate features were arranged in an expression that was far from a smile but also far from a scowl.

  And then he came in.

  As he approached her, he held out a piece of paper. “Sign that to say I was here,” he told her.

  She up-and-downed him without expression. “Pardon?” she asked.

  “Sign—”

  “I heard you.”

  “Well?” he asked.

  She peered at the sheet, then turned her head. She reached into her bulging canvas bag and pulled out a thick textbook.

  “You can do that on your own time,” he told her.

  She further ignored him by opening her book to chapter nine and reading silently, occasionally marking a passage with her yellow highlighter.

  He observed her for a while, sighing and resting his weight on alternating sides of his body, hoping she would react to his impatience. Finally he said, “I never took you for a goldbricker.”

  That made her look up. “What did you call me?”

  “A goldbricker. You’re goldbricking.”

  “And that means?”

  “You’re supposed to be tutoring people.…”

  She placed her highlighter down and pushed her book to the side. “Exactly. I’m supposed to be tutoring people, but people haven’t been coming in here to be tutored.”

  He frowned. “I’m here, ain’t I?”

  “You just want your paper signed. I’m on to you.”

  Hakiam took the seat beside her. “Look, you. I—”

  “You? You mean to tell me you don’t even know my name? Give me that paper.”

  When he did, she wrote quickly on it and handed it back to him.

  He crumpled it up. “Look, how dumb do you think I am? I know you’re not Paris Hilton.”

  Wendy laughed extra-loud just to needle him.

  “I don’t have time for this mess. I’ve been up all night.”

  She held her hand up to halt his talking. “One word, Hakiam: priorities.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “It means if you want to waste your time hanging out with the homies—”

  “Homies?” he asked, reeling at her dated slang. “Listen, you, I was watching a baby last night.”

  Her thin eyebrows arched. “A baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A baby baby?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “You have a baby. You didn’t tell me that last time.”

  “It ain’t mine.”

  Wendy took the cap off her highlighter and went back to reading her book. “You ought to get on The Maury Povich Show.”

  Hakiam grabbed her hand. Not wanting him to touch her, Wendy jerked back.

  “Listen,” he said. “It’s my cousin’s little girl. She’s not even supposed to be here yet. She was born early and my cousin works nights at the late-night window and she said I could live there for free if I just watch her every now and then.”

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “What a setup. What’s the little girl’s name?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Everybody has a right to be called by a name, don’t they? Even I have one, not that you bothered to remember.”

  “Look, that baby kept me up half the night with her wailing. I had to light up—”

  Wendy slammed the book shut. “You smoked marijuana in front of an infant?”

  “I didn’t hear her complain.”

  “Secondhand smoke around a baby is very dangerous. It could lead to respiratory problems—”

  He rolled his eyes and repeated, “Respiratory problems.”

  “Oh, so now you think asthma is funny?”

  “I think asthma is hilarious.”

  “That’s a very ignorant thing to say.”

  “Well, maybe I’m a very ignorant person,” he said.

  “And proud to be so. Besides contaminating the lungs of a premature infant, your own cognitive ability was compromised. What if an emergency happened and you had to react quickly? And where was her mother during all this?”

  “I already told you. She was at work at the late-night window.”

  “What’s her name, Hakiam?”

  “Why do you got to know everyone’s name? What difference does it make?”

  “Don’t brush this off. You have to be very careful when a baby is in your care.”

  “You know this ain’t my kid, right? You’re getting all worked up over nothing.”

  “Nothing? Nothing? You don’t even know what nothing is. You said she was born early—how early?”

  “I don’t know. Couple weeks. A few months. I forget.”

  Wendy shook her head. “There’s a big difference between weeks and months. The normal gestation period—”

  “What is this, sex ed?”

  “I’m just making you aware that in an infant the lungs are the last organs to develop—”

  Hakiam spoke over her. “She ain’t no more fragile than anyone else.”

  “Are you just trying to argue with me or are you totally insane?”

  “I ain’t come here for this shit. I’m here to be tutored in English and math and all I get is static from you. I’m trying to finish this thing and you have to be a bitch about everything and stand in my way.”

  Wendy packed up her belongings, rose from her seat, and slung her bag over her shoulder. She looked him right in the eye and told him, “Drop dead.”

  She was almost to the foot of the stairs when he recovered from her remark. He asked, “Hey, where are you going? Your sign says you’re here until five p.m.”

  Wendy spun around, pointed her index finger at him, and said, “You better pray that nothing happens to that little baby, because if it does, I will make sure you get life in prison.”

  She turned around again and escaped from his sight.

  He called after her, “Make up your mind, which one do you want? Do you want me to get life or drop dead?”

  9

  At six that evening, Hakiam’s eyelids felt raw again. He reached his cousin’s place about that time. It was Leesa’s evening off from her job, so he hoped to get a full night’s rest and let Leesa do diaper duty.

  He came across her asleep, curled up like the baby by her side on the mattress. He frowned. Leesa had told him to always put Malikia in the crib. It had something to do with the fact that an adult’s body could easily roll over and crush an infant. That was the lecture Leesa had given him, but, like most people he’d met, she had a different set of rules for herself.

  His eyes swept to Malikia. She had her tiny hands balled up into tight fists, like she could handle herself.

  He went into the other room and rooted through the fridge, only to be d
isappointed. It was a near-empty cavern containing just a few bottles of soda and half a stick of butter. No juice, no dairy products, no meat thawing, and no fruit. No eggs to fry up. Not even a slice of bread to toast. He slammed the refrigerator door and damned those voucher people.

  What a household, he thought. Of all the places he’d been bounced to throughout his life, this took the cake (if only there were a cake to take).

  Now he was wishing Leesa could have gotten the free-food voucher from social services. If she’d had the right ID, he could have made a meal of something. He couldn’t wait till she rescheduled; he wanted something now.

  Then he saw that on the kitchen table under her bag, there was a Styrofoam box with B & FF written on it in red marker. He opened it to find a hamburger, half eaten, and some french fries sopping with grease and ketchup. He pulled up a seat and chowed down on what was left of the meal, picking up on biting where Leesa had left off.

  “Hakiam, what are you doing eating up my food?” Leesa said to him as she entered the room with Malikia stationed on her hip.

  Luckily, Hakiam had eaten fast and was on his last bite. “I got to eat something, don’t I?” he asked. “You ain’t got nothing in the fridge. Nothing at all. What if Malikia needed some milk?”

  “Babies can’t drink cow’s milk, doofus,” Leesa told him.

  “So she can’t have no variety? She supposed to drink that same powdered shit day after day?”

  “Babies drink formula or breast milk. That’s it,” Leesa said, and turned to Malikia, frowning. “I can’t tell you how much money she could save me if she’d just take it from the tap.”

  “Don’t nobody want to hear about your booby-milk sob story, Leesa,” Hakiam said.

  Leesa grabbed the box that he was eating from. “You didn’t leave me one freaking french fry! And I’ll talk about my boobies if I want to.” She gave him a nudge on the side of his head. “Now what am I going to do for dinner?”

  “Get your hand out of my face, Leesa. I’m sure that place you got that burger from is still open.”

  “Oh, so it’s up to me to buy some more food.”

  “Yeah, you. If the check from social services don’t come on time, you got to have another plan. You can’t just stand around here starving. You better—”

  “Hold up,” she told him. “I know you ain’t trying to holler to me about all what I should do in my apartment.”

  “You mean the HUDs, don’t you?”

  She walked the empty box over to the trash can. “You got all the mouth in the world. It ain’t your place to say nothing about nothing.”

  He waved her away. “It ain’t too much to ask that you have something here to eat.”

  “You want something so bad, then why don’t you walk your happy ass down to the store and get it and quit giving me a shitload of drama about it? Shit, Hakiam, you’re supposed to be helping me out.”

  “I am, ain’t I?”

  “Big help you are sitting around here eating what you know was my food.”

  “You promised me that I could have room and board.”

  “I said room.”

  “You said board, too.”

  “I know what I said, Hakiam.”

  “Well, I ain’t even got room. I got couch. You got the only room.”

  “Listen, I don’t got to put up with this from you. My mom offered to take Malikia in—”

  “Well, maybe you ought to let her do it.”

  “Maybe you ought to shut your mouth and be grateful you got a roof over your head.”

  About this time Malikia started wailing. Leesa checked her T-shirt to see a big wet stain on it.

  “Goddamnit,” she said. “She got me again. That’s the second time today.”

  All Hakiam wanted was a life with no sharp hard places. He wished he could get his own apartment. Someplace by himself. A two-bedroom: one to sleep in and one for entertainment. You know, shoot pool, lift weights, just chill. Then he thought, Why stop there? If he was going to dream, he was going to dream big. How about having a big mansion all to himself, with aluminum siding and big picture windows with pressed drapes and a long driveway surrounded by bushes trimmed into perfect rectangles? That was a much better vision than fiddling around some dinky, falling-apart hood apartment waiting on some government cheese.

  He left Cincinnati for this? He could have saved himself the seventy-five-dollar bus fare and the bumpy ride he’d never forget.

  Only a couple of weeks into this arrangement and it already stank like rotting flesh. It was like being in a marriage. A bad one where all he argued about was money (and the lack thereof). They would go round and round about the emptines of the icebox, and cable TV (she claimed she “needed” it; he thought it was a waste and would rather have Internet access), and the electricchargecardbill, and the heattelephonebill, and on and on. And where did she get off nudging the side of his head? No, it didn’t hurt, but it was the way she did it. No respect. Not a damn bit of respect. Let him put his hands on her just once and he bet she’d turn it into a federal case. The paltriness of his life ran through his mind, keeping him from sleep.

  After another hour, he started hearing a driving beat and laughter and loud talk. He got up and walked into the front room. He nodded. No wonder Leesa had said it was okay for him to sleep in her room. There was a noisy, crowded party that seemed like it had first been confined to the kitchenette but had now spilled out into the hallway.

  He made his way over to his cousin, who was in the kitchen, and asked her how come she hadn’t told him about this.

  “I hope you ain’t think I got to run everything by you. This is my place, remember—my place,” she yelled, almost losing her balance.

  Hakiam rolled his eyes. Leesa was so drunk, she was practically in a state of collapse.

  “Hey, how’s Philly treating you?” some guy asked.

  Someone else offered him a taste. Hakiam had nothing against alcohol, so he took a swallow or two.

  Hakiam thought he better stay up just to keep an eye on Leesa. Especially since the party was at a weird stage, the part when the club atmosphere expanded to a bursting point and more and more people started coming in. The music kept on going. That beat had a life of its own. Plenty of faces, but each face felt like one he’d seen many times. How could that be? He’d only been there for a few weeks.

  And then he saw her. Her. She looked like she’d just walked off the cover of one of those booty books. She had a pair of ripe butt cheeks that stared at him from her red hot pants, and when she turned back around he saw more of her anatomy. Nice tight waist, gorgeous high-shelved breasts. Big smile. A little too toothy and spacey, but hey, when you have a body like that who needs a good face?

  Was it he who glided over to her or vice versa? It all happened so fast. He found out her name was Yasmine and that she lived just a few blocks away, on Fifty-first and Claire Street.

  Hakiam was all ready to throw in. He was about to get into deep conversation with this fine thing. Since he’d been in this City of Brotherly Love, he hadn’t gone out with one honey. He was well overdue for some affection. Could she be the one? Could that emptiness all end right here and now?

  He reached out to pull a strand of her weave from her eyes, and she kind of tossed her head back and did a laugh as he told her his name and that he liked her outfit, what little there was of it.

  But then, out of the corner of his eye he saw this dude roll up on them. He was cut, like he spent a lot of time in a gym (the kind that required a membership or the kind that they have in the penitentiary). He had a certain masculine candor of “if you keep messing with my girl you’re going to find yourself getting up off the floor.”

  Hakiam hated when guys got like that, all stingy. He’d seen this a thousand times. She presents herself as a free agent, but in reality, she’s locked into a contract that can’t be broken.

  That dude gave him a second heavy look, and Hakiam wasn’t going to wait for a third.

 
That was when he decided to call it a night. It had to be a record for the shortest time he’d ever spent at a party.

  He went into the back room and collapsed on his cousin’s bed next to Malikia. She was no fool; this baby had her little hands drawn up to her ears now to shield them from the sounds.

  That made him chuckle a bit, that the infant wasn’t a fan of hip-hop—maybe she’d be into jazz. One thing was for sure, at least: she could sleep. Hakiam went back to spending his would-be rest doing the proverbial tossing and turning as night melted back into day.

  10

  Was there anything worse than being seen out in public with your parent? And at a mall, no less. A mall that was heavily trafficked by kids from your school. Wendy’s father was there with Wendy in tow to buy winter curtains for the front room, which meant that they were deep in the department-store wing. At least none of her peers hung out there. Still, Wendy had to endure her father’s analysis paralysis as he looked at each swatch and fragment, comparing not size, not color, not texture, but cost.

  Wendy eyed a pin-striped set and pointed it out to her father. “Eighty-one dollars. Forget it!” he exclaimed.

  The woman at the counter wore a strained smile. She blew air into her bangs as she looked over at him. Wendy wondered if the woman had any other customers that threw such a conniption so easily.

  He asked the saleswoman, “Why is this pattern four dollars more?”

  The woman tried to explain. Wendy and her father had been there for the past forty minutes; people had bought new cars in less time.

  They say you should let your emotions out little by little, so that you don’t explode all of a sudden. Wendy attempted to keep that in mind as her father asked, “Couldn’t you knock off twenty percent?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, the price is as marked,” the woman said.

  “How about fifteen?”

  “I can’t do that, sir.”

  Wendy bit off a hangnail as her dad, ever the persistent one, continued, “How about ten? A ten percent discount. You offer that when people open a line of credit here, don’t you?”

  “Do you want to open a line of credit?” the woman asked.