With my sandals in my hand, I crept down the rear stairs. The dishwasher was running and Daddy was on the phone. It took me about a full minute to unlock that door, and I turned the knob so quietly I barely made a sound. Once on the porch, I took about another minute to close it, whipped on my sandals, then with Usain Bolt speed, I took off.
In less than three minutes I landed right in front of Nikki’s porch, and there she stood, her bangs and ponytails looking like her mama just did ’em for Easter Sunday.
“What took you so long?” she said, and popped her gum. “How’d you get here?”
“I’ll tell you all that later. But we don’t have a lot of time to talk. Tangie—”
“Stay right here. I’ll be back in a second. And watch my bike!”
If I was Nikki’s best friend, her second best was that bike. Or even vice versa. It was pink with turquoise specks in it. When she couldn’t find the color she wanted, her daddy took her new bike to a body shop and had them paint it all her favorite colors. When the sun hit it, it sparkled like glitter and rhinestones. I wished that I wasn’t sneaking over, so we could forget all about Millipede playing mama and Tangie hating my guts and just go bike riding like we used to do before I had to move away.
Even if only for a short while, I loved being back in our old neighborhood. It wasn’t boring like Snaily Snellville. Kids ran in and out of screen doors, and grown-ups sat on the porch early in the morning until late at night. There was the smell of barbecue, not just fertilizer and cut grass. Then in the middle of the day, the slow ring of the ice-cream truck.
As soon as I sat on the porch, Nikki was back.
“Here, give her these.” She handed me a Macy’s box. When I opened it, there were gold hoop earrings.
“Where you get these?”
“What’s it matter? My mama says they’re too old for me. I was gonna give ’em to Jevon, but I don’t like his new girlfriend like that. So they’re yours. Give them to Tangie. That will let her know you’re thinking about her and you got good taste.”
“Thanks, this is a start.”
“Know what the most important thing is?”
“What?”
“Stay out of her way. Like, don’t be a pest. Don’t ask her to show you how to do stuff. Don’t try to be her bestie. I bet that’s what you been doing.”
I shrugged. “Sorta.”
“I knew it.”
As I was thinking about the perfect way to present my gift to Tangie, a rusty car rattled up, and one of our friends from school, Tammy, got out. The car beeped once and drove off.
“Hi, Georgie,” Tammy said.
“Hey,” I mumbled, hating that my time with Nikki was interrupted. Tammy didn’t have a brother, sister, daddy, or even a stepdaddy, so what help could she be right now? At any moment, I expected to see Daddy turning the corner.
“Thought you were riding your bike over,” Tammy said.
“On my way until G-baby showed up. Your mama grilling out?”
Tammy shook her head before wiping the tiny rolls in her neck. “Nah, MARTA called her in. She might have to drive until midnight.”
“Bummer,” Nikki offered.
Tammy hunched her shoulders. “Used to it. Wanna walk to my house and get some snacks?” Since her mama didn’t cook much and left her alone a lot, Tammy’s house was like junk food heaven.
“We’re kinda in the middle of something,” I said.
“G-baby stepsister hates her guts. She needs me to fix it.”
“Do you always have to tell everything, Nikki?”
Tammy tilted her chin up before she spoke. “My mama’s boyfriend has a daughter. I talk to her sometimes.”
“Big whoop,” Nikki said.
“Is she older than you?” I was desperate.
“I’m the oldest.”
“Then why are you even flapping your gums? She needs help with a big sister,” Nikki said.
“You don’t have a big sister,” Tammy challenged.
“So! I got a big brother.”
While those two went at it, I twirled the Macy’s box in my hand like it was a Rubik’s Cube.
“Oooh. Look who’s coming,” Tammy whispered. I didn’t even want to turn my head because I knew it was my daddy.
It wasn’t until Nikki said, “I didn’t know she lived around here,” that I managed to crane my neck. When I did I almost wished it was Daddy instead of who was strutting down the street like she was in the Sweet Apple Elementary School Memorial Day Parade: Lucinda Hightower. Nikki ran to her bike and sat on it like she was showing off a new pair of Uggs. Tammy smoothed her hair that had been sticking up all around her head. Then they both started waving like they were in a fly-swatting contest. All Lucinda did was hunch her furry Juicy Couture purse on her shoulder. It was the same one that Nikki wanted for Christmas, but her mama said that Juicy Couture was for older girls.
“Hey, Lu Lu,” Tammy said.
“My name is Lucinda, not Lu Lu,” she snapped.
I just rolled my eyes. If my name was Lucinda, I’d pay kids my whole allowance to call me “Lu Lu,” “Lucy,” “Cindy,” anything but “Lucinda.” Plus, she knows that’s what her friends call her at school. It’s just that none of us were her friends. She stopped in front of Nikki’s porch and sighed like she was doing us a favor. Lucinda’s glitter eye shadow sparkled like crunched up bits of stars. Nikki’s mama caught her wearing eye shadow like that and took her phone away for a week. I wasn’t crazy enough to try it.
“You live over here now?” Nikki asked, still straddling her bike.
“Sorta, kinda. Staying with my auntie while my mama is out of town. Can’t wait for her to come get me. This whole neighborhood is snoring boring.”
“Yeah, it is,” Nikki said, avoiding my eyes.
“I didn’t know you lived over here, though.” Turning her nose up, Lucinda scanned Nikki’s street like even the air was one-star. Then her beady eyes lasered in on Nikki’s bike. “Least there’s somebody I can hang out with,” Lucinda said, like Tammy and I were invisible.
“That’ll be cool,” Tammy said. Nikki and Lucinda ignored her.
“Wanna go bike riding later?” Nikki asked Lucinda. Nikki must have noticed Lucinda taking note, ’cause she rubbed her hands along the handlebars like it was a cat.
“Didn’t bring mine,” Lucinda said.
“Don’t matter. I got an extra one.”
“If it’s as nice as that one, I’ll think about it. Don’t wanna sweat my hair out now anyways. Maybe tomorrow. Just us, right?”
“Yeah.” Nikki nodded.
Tammy refastened a clip in her hair. “We were finna walk to my house and get some candy and stuff. You can come with us.”
Reaching in her purse, Lucinda yanked out a phone with a pink rhinestone case. Nikki’s eyes widened like a baby unicorn sat in Lucinda’s hands.
“No, thank you. Anyway,” she said as she poked her finger with light blue polish at Tammy’s stomach. “You might want to miss candy for the rest of the summer. Unless you gonna audition for Santa Claus.”
Tammy was the only one of us in Ho, Ho, Ho: The Santa Claus Chronicles last year. Kids made fun of her because she was the biggest elf. I found her crying in the coat room afterward, and it wasn’t just because of that but because no one in her family made it to the play. Mama and Frank took her with us to Golden Corral.
Nikki laughed at what Lucinda said. I frowned and kicked her tire.
“When did you start making fun of your friends, Nikki?” I said. Tammy didn’t say anything, but she held her stomach like she was scared it would jiggle when she breathed.
“Lucinda was just teasing, geesch,” Nikki said. “Right, Lu Lu?”
Lucinda shrugged, then started scrolling through her phone.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with a girl having some meat on her bones,” I said. “Everybody don’t wanna be skinny like you.”
Lucinda looked up. “Skinny? Skinny or not, at least I’m not cut from every step
team I try out for.”
“I don’t get cut from every one!” I shouted. I hoped Nikki didn’t say anything. She was making me fire-hot mad the way she was cooing up to Lucinda, but I’d never forget how Nikki had quit a step team after I didn’t make it. I was great at dancing with Peaches, and even in front of Nikki and Tammy. But when too many people are around my legs get all tangled.
Nikki didn’t speak, but Lucinda wouldn’t ease up.
“Yes, you do! And what boy even looks at you twice? Ahhhh, none of them. Oh, except that raggedy one. What’s his name?”
I glared at Nikki and Tammy, daring either one of them to help her.
Lucinda put all her skinny weight to one side and rolled her eyes up like she was thinking hard.
“Kevin. That’s it. Kept Back—” she said.
“You better shut up,” I said. I balled my fist, and I was gonna sock her right in the middle of all that syrupy lip gloss until out the corner of my eye, I saw a car pull up.
“Georgie, get yourself in this car, now!”
“Where’s my daddy?” I asked as my eyes met Frank’s inside his car. My voice started cracking at the thought of how much trouble I was in.
“Let’s not start crying now, Georgie. There’s something I have to talk to you about. I need you to listen to me real good.”
“I know, sneaking out of the house. Daddy’s so mad he probably don’t even want to look at me, huh?”
“That’s not what we need to concentrate on right now. Your father called us. They had to rush Peaches to Emergency.”
“What?! What do you mean?”
“I don’t have all the details, but she started vomiting. And she was running a high fever.”
“Fever?” I repeated, like I’d never heard the word. My lips started trembling. Peaches told me herself that she wasn’t feeling well, and I knew she was warmer than she should have been. She trusted me to take care of her. My heart beat faster. What did I do? I dangled the fact that I was such a good big sister over her head and pretty much told her to suck it up. I’d spent all that time calling out Lucinda for thinking the world revolved around her, and I was just as bad.
I stared out the window so Frank couldn’t see the tears in my eyes.
“Can you take me to her now?” I raised up in my seat and put my hand on the dashboard like I could steer the car.
“We’re on our way. Your mom, dad, and Millicent are there. Tangie sends her best. But hospitals…let’s just say that we’ve been through a lot in them.”
Then it hit me what he’d really meant: Morgan. Tangie didn’t even have her baby sister on this earth and here I was mistreating mine. The tears flowed. I couldn’t stop them. Peaches was in the hospital because of me. She needed me, and I let her down. I wanted to admit to Frank what I’d done, but it was too terrible to tell.
I didn’t bother to wipe my tears. What was the use?
“Are we going to the hospital where they took your wife and little girl?”
“Yeah, we are. Emory.” He said the word as softly as Tangie placed the picture of Morgan back on her dresser after I’d let it crash to the floor.
Frank turned on the radio and an invitation to shop at Big Lots rang out. I guess the whole thing was upsetting him, too, even though Peaches wasn’t his “real” daughter—he’d forgotten about Mama’s no-car-radio rule. “Families don’t get enough time to talk as it is,” she’d say.
I jabbed my elbows into my knees and something crunched. I eased my hand in my pocket and pulled out the Macy’s box, then shoved it back. I was the worst big sister in the world. All I’d done to get Tangie to like me and I’d forgotten about the person who loved me more than anything. When tears trickled along my neck, I did my best to stop them and not make any crying noises except for an occasional sniffle.
Frank didn’t say anything. But at a traffic light, he opened up the glove compartment and handed me a few tissues. We got out of the car, and he reached for my hand as we crossed the lot. I grabbed it like I would catch a grasshopper, knowing I’d let it go but wanting to see how it felt. Frank’s hand was like a polished stone, hard but still smooth. Unlike Daddy’s, who rubbed his hands with cocoa butter to keep them “soft as a baby’s bottom.” He used to say to Mama, “If I sold a car as often as I shook hands, we’d be millionaires.”
Once we entered the hospital, Frank let go of my hand, and all I could think about was seeing Peaches.
“We need to go to the fourth floor,” he said, and pushed the up button. Instead of the alcohol, Chlorox-y smell that I remembered from when Grandma Sugar had what she called “a scare,” the hallway smelled of coffee.
Pediatrics, I read on the framed directions on the wall.
Frank held the elevator open for the lady and two girls behind us. A skinny boy held a McDonald’s bag, and the scent of french fries only made my stomach sink more. Peaches always ate up hers, then wanted some of mine.
As soon as the doors opened, the lady and kids got off, and Frank and I followed. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from crying. Frank put his hand on my shoulder, and I really wished that he would have held my hand again. But I didn’t know how to reach for his yet, like I would Daddy’s. Or maybe I didn’t want Daddy to see me holding hands with Frank. All my thoughts were jumbled.
“You okay?” Frank asked.
“Yes, sir,” I said, which was about the umpteenth fib I’d told that day.
Frank led me to a waiting room. It looked like a bigger version of Peaches’s room at home, with Disney and Sesame Street characters and sunshine walls. Several shelves and tables overflowed with books, board games, and puzzles. Close to a picture of Big Bird, Millipede sat on an orange sofa. No Mama. No Daddy. Just The Pede.
“Is Peaches coming home?” I blurted out.
“No word yet, young lady,” Millipede said.
“We should know something before long,” Frank said, and sat down.
Millipede gripped my shoulders and held me at arm’s length.
“You know you worried us like crazy, too!” she said to me. “Sick and all, Peaches wouldn’t tell us where you were. Your daddy guessed you were at Nikki’s.”
I wiped my eyes with the edge of my sleeve.
She pulled me close and rubbed my hair. I just didn’t have the strength to pull away.
“I didn’t think she was really sick. Not this kinda sick.” That might have been the most honest thing I’d said in a while. I really wouldn’t have left her if I thought she was hospital sick. That didn’t even matter now.
“I know that’s not my G-baby crying, is it?” I heard Grandma Sugar’s voice in back of me and turned toward it. She stood there with Eugene, one of the guys she took care of. She said that his body kept on growing, but his brain liked being a kid.
I ran over and hugged Sugar. It didn’t matter what time of day, or where we were, Sugar always smelled of her dusting powder, Wind Song. One sniff was apples and the other roses. I saved up and bought it for her every Christmas. Her baseball cap had Who Dat Nation on the front, and her silver-and-black hair curled along her neck.
“Sugar missed her G-baby. Your daddy can think all he wants that it’s George’s baby, but we know what it means, don’t we?”
“Grandma’s baby,” I said, hoping that hugging Sugar would make me not as scared, but it wasn’t working. The volcano of tears that had been bubbling in me erupted. Sugar hugged me tighter and patted my flattened ponytail. My whole stomach just caved in. If it wasn’t for Sugar, I couldn’t stand.
For what felt like an hour, I held on to Sugar.
“Now, now, sweetie. Peaches will be home before you know it.” She kissed my cheeks on both sides like rich people do on TV. She knows that always makes me smile even when I don’t want to. Then she eased me down in a chair next to Eugene, and I wiped my eyes.
“It’s small, small. It’s small, small,” Eugene said, and reached for my wrist.
I jumped. He sprung up.
“You know he won’t h
urt you, G-baby.”
Sugar held up her wrist, and he poked it.
“Not small, small,” Eugene said.
“Umph. You got good sense. Sit back down there and read. Later, we’ll go for another ride. Would you like that?”
Eugene sat down. “Dark dessert on the highway. Cool Whip in my hair.”
“Yeah, yeah. Those aren’t the right words, but we’ll sing ‘Hotel California.’ But you gotta behave yourself.”
He bobbed and sang out, “What a nice surprise…bring your apple pies.”
Sugar tapped his knee. “And hush up before you get us put out of here.”
“Hush up before you get us put out of here. Hush up before you get us put out of here,” he repeated.
“I was just bringing him over this way for an appointment when your mother called. I don’t see how she was driving at all. Said Peaches had already been admitted before she heard a word.”
Frank stood and she kissed his cheek, too. Then she said, “Milli,” and just nodded to her. “Any word?” she said to Frank.
“Not yet,” he said.
“Lord, I wish I could stay,” Grandma Sugar said. “Couldn’t find a soul to take over my shift. Tell Kat I’ll check back later. I’m sure this is just a stomach flu or something. Maybe, you know, ate something that didn’t agree with her.” Sugar glanced toward Millipede, who shifted in her chair. It wasn’t a secret that Millipede wasn’t on Sugar’s, or Mama’s, Christmas list. Mama don’t know it, but I heard her tell Sugar that Millipede went after Daddy “long before the ink dried.” And now it was all because of me that things weren’t gonna get better anytime soon, if ever.
Sugar kissed my forehead. “You call Sugar if you need anything. Peaches will be out before you know it. I love you both to the moon and back.”
Eugene was rocking. “Moon…Moon…The cow jumped over the moon…. The dish ran away with the spoon…spoon…. Hey, diddle, diddle. Hey, diddle, diddle.”
“Come on here, boy,” Sugar said. Before she took his hand, she dug in her purse. “Want to get yourself something out the vending machine while you’re waiting?” she asked me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Love Like Sky Page 5
