“I talked to Nikki’s mom, and I’m taking you over there for a while.”
“The doctor still won’t let me see Peaches?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“Not yet, baby. But it’s not good for you to be cooped up here by yourself.”
“Isn’t she getting better?”
Mama looked down and sighed. “She is. The final lab results confirmed it’s a more serious type of meningitis than they first thought, though. Since she’s so young, the doctors are being extra cautious. We need to continue to pray that she’ll be home soon. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She clapped her hands like that gave her energy to talk.
“Now, about this running off the other day.” I knew that was all Mama was going to say about Peaches then.
“Bad idea, huh?”
“You can say that again.”
I deserved any punishment she dished out.
“Whether you’re here or with your daddy, you know better than to disobey either one of us like that. And that includes Frank.” She sighed. “Millicent, too.”
“I shouldn’t have snuck out,” I said before sniffles took over.
“Your daddy and I think you’ve learned your lesson here. Right?”
I nodded into the pillow.
She rubbed my arm, and it soothed my chill bumps. “Get dressed and come downstairs.” Mama stood and walked toward the door.
Before she opened it, Frank’s and Tangie’s voices exploded in the hall.
“If you want to participate in any protest, that’s all fine and good, but just like before, I’m gonna be there with you,” Frank said sternly.
“But I should be able to do stuff like this on my own. A lot of other high school kids are gonna be there!” she shouted.
“Oh. Good for them. They are, you’re not. Not without me, anyway.”
“I’m not a baby. I know this is about Marshall.”
“The answer is no.”
“It’s only three years, Daddy. You were seven years older than Mom. And who knows how much older than your new wife.”
“This isn’t about me and your mother, or me and Katrina. This is about me letting you put yourself in harm’s way, and about a boy who kept you out way past your curfew. Probably at some frat party.”
“It wasn’t a frat party. He’s not even into that. I told you what happened.”
“End of discussion.”
“I hate you! You make me sick!”
I sucked in my breath, hoping Tangie didn’t get smacked too hard. Mama put her hand to her mouth. But there was only silence as Tangie just stomped the rest of the way up the stairs and slammed her door.
After a few moments, Mama asked, “Think it’s safe to go out now?” She tried to smile again, but she couldn’t make her lips do it all the way. “That was a doozy,” Mama said.
“A double-doozy.” I wondered what Tangie was up to. It didn’t seem like Marshall wanted her to tell Frank about the protest for Roderick Thomas. Was that even the one she was talking about? I couldn’t think about that now. My thoughts immediately went back to Peaches. I had to figure out a way to see her so I could fix things like only her big sister could.
Less than an hour later, we were in front of Nikki’s. Mama parked the car, and Nikki and Tammy came running up.
“Hello, Mrs. Matthews,” they said.
Neither remembered that Matthews was her old name, not Frank’s last name, which was Goodwin. I liked that Mama didn’t correct them.
“Hello, girls. Nikki, where’s your mom?”
Nikki pushed her bangs out of her eyes. The rest of her hair was in ponytails with the back loose. “She’s in the kitchen.”
I looked around to make sure I didn’t see Lucinda Hightower walking around in perfectly ironed summer clothes and with her nose tooted up. I wasn’t in the mood to hear her bad-mouthing Tammy, or watching Nikki acting like a minion.
As soon as Mama stepped on the porch, Nikki’s mom (who I call Ms. Cora) opened the door. The sun made her reddish-brown hair shine like a fireball.
Tammy picked up the jump ropes. “We can double Dutch now.”
“You can jump first, Georgie,” Nikki said, which she’d never said before in her whole entire life.
Ms. Cora and Mama were still in the doorway hugging each other and rocking. Mama tried to keep her cries quiet, but her shoulders shook like they were pumping out the tears.
“Did you hear me?” Nikki said, her attitude popping with her gum.
“I’m not hard of hearing,” I said. “One…two…three!”
I jumped into the middle of the ropes. As soon as they were under my feet, I felt better than I had since Peaches had gotten sick. The sidewalk was a trampoline that made me spring higher than I ever had before. But after the fifth routine, the sadness just dusted itself right off. I felt even worse for trying to have fun while Peaches was stuck in that hospital bed. And the way Mama cried to Ms. Cora, Peaches couldn’t be getting better. As I thought about that, the rope tangled at my feet.
“Why you stopping?” Nikki asked, short of breath. She turned around and used her inhaler.
Tammy slapped her palms against her knees. “I don’t care why, ’cause I’m ready for a break. I got freeze pops at my house. My mama’s not home. We could get three apiece.”
Nikki rolled her eyes. “You want our lips to freeze off?”
“Fine, two then,” Tammy said.
Tammy re-braided the ends of her hair. Ever since I’ve known her, two cornrows on each side of her head was her only hairstyle, even on picture day. The thing with Mama was that she couldn’t do hair either, but when she did, she tried different styles. I’d close my eyes and hope for the best. Nobody is good at everything.
“C’mon, Georgie,” Nikki said. “My mom don’t mind if I go to Tammy’s without asking.”
“Well, my mama is still in there, so I gotta ask.”
“You spending the night with me. That means you get to do what I do.”
Spending the night was news to me. But I didn’t want to tell her about the mess I’d made when I snuck over.
“Wait right here,” I said.
“The side door is open. Go in that way so you don’t mess up the living room carpet. Jevon made me do all his vacuuming this morning.”
“Got it!” I said as I cut across the lawn.
I opened the door and walked up a few stairs. But before I could announce myself, I heard Mama.
“The hardest part, Cora, was when I wasn’t able to be in the room with her when they were doing all the testing. Before they put her under, I could hear her crying for me. They don’t know when she can come home. My mother had to beg me to come home to change. I just don’t want G-baby sitting in that room missing Peaches.”
“That’s understandable, Trina. She can stay here as long as you need.”
“Thank you. That will help out. So much going on at once. Frank and Tangie at each other’s throats. Can’t talk to George a second without biting his head off.”
“He understands, Trina. It’s just stress.”
“She’d been admitted before he thought to call me. What sense does that make?”
If Mama is mad at Daddy, I know she’s just as mad at me.
“Cora?” Mama’s voice sounded as tiny as Peaches’s. “Cora…what if…”
“Don’t you even finish that. Like we talked about last night, if she needs the transfusion, we’ll cross that bridge then.”
“Her vitals,” my mama said, and sniffled. “They’re so weak. I’ve been reading up on it, Cora. It’s possible…”
Transfusion? Mama didn’t have to finish it. I could. What if Peaches can’t get a transfusion and she dies? That’s what Mama was gonna say. I knew it! Nobody needs a transfusion when they are getting better. I bit my lip to keep my teeth from chattering, slipped quietly out the door, then took off running.
I ran faster, trying to see how fast I could go. And the more my knees and arms p
umped and the wind whipped across my face, the faster I ran. Mama was fibbing about everything. Peaches wasn’t getting better at all. We could lose Peaches forever, and it was all my fault.
“Wait up!”
I couldn’t tell if the voice was Nikki’s or Tammy’s. I didn’t know where I was going, but it had to be a place where I could figure out what to do.
Then, a rock underneath my foot sent me flying like a kite. All I felt was wind and sunshine. I wished I could sail through the air forever. Even when I tumbled to the ground, the sharp pain and skinned knee didn’t stop my mind from racing. How to get to Peaches? How to save Peaches?
“Oh no!” Nikki rode up. “You okay, Georgie?” she said, getting off her bike.
“I’ll go get your mom,” Tammy said.
“No, that’s the last thing I want.” I looked down at the bright red blood on my knee. Mama didn’t let me watch those hospital TV shows on Netflix, but I saw one episode of Grey’s Anatomy at Grandma Sugar’s. I watched all the way to the end, and now I was glad I did. The patient was getting weaker no matter how much medicine they gave her. And, just like Peaches, she needed a blood transfusion, but the doctors couldn’t find anyone with the right kind of cells or something in their blood. She almost died.
Maybe they couldn’t find the right kind of blood for Peaches. We were sisters, so we had the same blood. I had to get down to the hospital to tell the doctors to use my blood. Mama was fibbing to me about Peaches. I had to get back to that hospital on my own.
Nikki searched a fuzzy Juicy Couture purse on her handlebars and pulled out her inhaler. “Can you make it to Tammy’s?”
“Yeah,” I said, and stood up, which took forever because I was trying not to bend my knee so it wouldn’t bleed anymore. Needed to save every drop.
Tammy ran ahead of us. I held on to Nikki’s handlebars like a crutch as we both walked beside her bike.
“Where did you get that purse? It looks familiar,” I said, and tried not to roll my eyes.
“Jevon took me to the mall with his girlfriend, and I bought it. It’s not exactly the same as Lu Lu’s, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Didn’t she tell you not to call her that?”
“No, she told Tammy, then you. Not me, ’cause we’re friends. She was over here earlier watching videos.”
“Whatever.” A few minutes later, Nikki leaned her bike against Tammy’s steps, looped the purse across her chest, then helped me onto the porch. Tammy burst out the screen door holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, Band-Aids, and a handful of freeze pops.
I reached for the alcohol.
Nikki took a cherry freeze pop and started reading the ingredients on the back. Then she tore it open.
“Lucinda said I should watch how much sugar I take in each day to help with my flexibility.”
“Uggh. Stop acting like she’s Simone Biles. You didn’t hear how mean she was to Tammy?”
“She was just teasing.”
“Give me the orange and grape, please,” I said.
It took Tammy forever to decide what flavors she wanted.
As I dabbed alcohol on my knee, I tossed talk about Lucinda Hightower out of my head and focused on a way to get to Peaches. I didn’t understand how the transfusion would work, but I was sure it involved a lot of tubes and needles. The hardest part would be getting there. Since Tammy’s mama worked for MARTA, maybe Tammy knew what bus to catch. Even as I thought about that, Mama’s words from this morning echoed in my thoughts. I was risking getting in trouble bigger than I’d ever known. She might let me skate once, but twice—no way.
“You gonna tell us what made you run like a lunatic?” Nikki asked.
“You don’t even know what a lunatic is,” I said as I secured the Band-Aid on my knee.
“Do so!” Nikki shot back.
“What is it, then?” I said.
She bugged her eyes at me. “Somebody who runs out the house like you did. Are you gonna spill it or what?”
“Nah, not right now.” I opened my freeze pop and sucked on it so hard my eyes shut for a second.
Nikki put her hands on her hips. “You better spill it tonight.”
Tammy jumped in. “I want to know, too.”
“She don’t have to tell you,” Nikki said. “She ain’t your best friend.”
“So what? That don’t mean she’s not my friend and I can’t know.”
Paying them no mind, I kept sucking on that pop until my lips were numb.
I was so busy tuning Nikki and Tammy out that I hadn’t even noticed when they both stopped talking. At Sweet Apple Elementary School cafeteria, they never shut up. Well, unless something out of the ordinary was happening, like Lucinda Hightower and her crew sat at our table, which only happened twice: once when “Lucinda’s table” was used to display science projects and the other when Lucinda was on the outs with her best friend, Sandy Franklin, the second most popular girl in school.
Nikki elbowed me. “Ooooh, somebody’s got company.”
When I glanced up, there was Kept Back Kevin Jenkins riding his bike straight toward us. I waved to him, not caring if my lips were purple.
“Ooooh, look at you waving! You like him, too,” Nikki said.
“I don’t!”
After skidding to a stop in front of Tammy’s gate, Kevin said, “Thought you lived out in the country now?”
“I’m visiting,” I said.
“All weekend?”
“Yessss!” Nikki said. Nikki pushed my shoulder and whispered, “Go up there, geesh.”
“I was going,” I said, and limped over to him. He smelled like peanut butter. There was a circle-shaped Band-Aid under his chin that looked like a tiny beard. Before I spoke, he said, “Messed up knee, huh?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“What happened to you?”
“Tripped.”
“Sister still sick?”
“Meningitis,” I said.
The word made us quiet, like a teacher was in front of us.
“Hey, can I go riding with you?” I said.
“Handlebars? Or you got a bike here?”
I shot a glance over my shoulder at Nikki and Tammy, who were on the steps, giggling. “Nikki, can I ride your bike?”
“This bike?”
“I don’t see another one, do you?”
“Uh, no can do. But you can ride my old bike. It’s back at the house.”
Nikki acted like her bike was painted twenty-four- karat gold.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s go get it.”
My knee was stinging something crazy, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. Skipping past us, the gigglers headed to get the bike. Kevin and I trailed behind.
“How’s your mom?” I asked.
“She’s at home. Still smoking. Always sending me to the neighbors to borrow cigarettes. That’s why I’m taking my time. Might even take me till the streetlights come on.”
“She’ll worry by then.”
“About her cigarettes. Not about me.” He spun the bike pedal. “It don’t matter. Not now anyway. Have you gotten to see your sister?”
“No. They won’t let me. And my mama said she was asking for me.” I stopped walking for a minute. “Can you help me?”
“What you need me to do?”
“You know the way to the hospital on your bike?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you take me there?”
“It’ll take about an hour, and we’ll have to cross some busy streets. Don’t know if you can do it with a hurt knee.”
“That doesn’t matter. I can do it.”
“Okay, then.” He stayed on his bike and let his feet paddle against the concrete. “You can get on the handlebars if you want.”
Even if it stung, I bent my knee so I wouldn’t walk like Frankenstein. “We’re almost there. It’s okay,” I said. Nikki and Tammy were a few steps in front of us. I couldn’t imagine what they’d say if I went speeding past on the handl
ebars of Kept Back Kevin Jenkins’s bike.
When we were close to Nikki’s house, she left Tammy and sashayed toward Kevin and me.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“He best stay back,” Nikki said. “My dad’s here, and he don’t allow strange boys inside our gate or in front of our house.”
I faced Kevin. “After I get the bike, meet me at that big tree right next to Tammy’s?”
“You can’t go by yourself with him, Georgie,” Nikki said after Kevin left. “You want to get us both grounded for the whole summer?”
“Where y’all riding to anyways?” Tammy joined in.
“He’s taking me someplace is all,” I said.
“It can’t be to his house,” Nikki said.
“You know I’m not going to a boy’s house.”
Nikki crossed her broomstick arms. “Tell me where you’re going, or I’m not giving you the bike.”
“He’s taking me to the hospital.” I told the truth like a dodo bird thinking she’d know how serious it was.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s far. Why don’t you go on the MARTA?” Tammy said.
I thought for a second. “Your mom works for them. What if she sees us?”
“Oh, yeah. Forgot about that,” Tammy said.
“If you’re going, I’m going, too,” Nikki said.
I shook my head. “You can’t ride that far….”
Nikki’s hand raced to her hip. “Because I got asthma? Is that what you finna say?”
“Don’t want you getting sick, too,” I said, remembering the time she had an attack during gym once and had to leave in an ambulance.
“That’s what inhalers are for, thank you very much.”
“You two can go back and forth if you want to. I’m going home,” Tammy said. “I don’t wanna get in trouble.”
“Well, you gotta stay inside,” Nikki said to Tammy.
“What for?”
“Ugh. Do I have to spell out everything? If my mom or dad sees you without us, we’re doomed.”
Tammy squinted. She brought her hands up to her hair and started re-braiding. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”
Love Like Sky Page 7
