Getting Played

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “That one’s for you.” She nods.

  I smile. Damn, this made my day. “Thanks, Grandmom. This is the first good thing to happen all day.” I give her a hug, and I surprise myself, ’cause I have a hard time letting go. I just hold on to her.

  “Had a bad one, huh, baby?” she asks, gently patting my back.

  I nod. Suddenly the thought of everything begins to weigh down on me—no transfer papers, Darien maybe getting out and now Gia. “Yeah, something like that,” I say, pulling a chair out.

  She stops what she’s doing and turns to me. “What happened?”

  I sit heavily. “I went to the school office again today. My transfer papers weren’t there again. The woman behind the desk said to check back Monday morning. They’ve been telling me that all week.”

  “All week?” she says, surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  My grandmother sits down and holds my hand as she takes a deep breath. I look at her face. Her eyes are soft and caring. She knows how much I want to go back to Hazelhurst. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she says quietly. “Well, first thing Monday morning I’m going up there to see what’s going on.”

  “I’m gonna call my dad again. He was supposed to send Hazelhurst a check for my tuition. I guess he forgot with everything going on with the baby and all. I’m hoping that’s the only holdup.”

  “I’m sure that’s all it is,” she says, much less reassuring than I expected. She immediately starts drizzling the sweet glaze on top of the cake.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I say. Then I look at her expression as she works. She looks like she is concentrating, but I can see there is something else. I can’t tell if she meant what she said or not. I’m thinking not. My dad has never been one of her favorite people, but she put up with him—first because of my mom and now because of me. “I’m a go change my clothes,” I say, then stand up and look around the kitchen before heading out.

  “Are you going for your run?” she asks.

  I think about it a few seconds. For the last two weeks I’ve run after school. It calms me down, but I really don’t feel like it today. “Nah, not today, I’ll go tomorrow morning,” I say. She nods.

  “Oh, I almost forgot, you received a few phone calls today,” she says.

  “Huh? Me?” I ask awkwardly, knowing that nobody I know even had my grandmother’s home number. She looks at me sternly expecting a better reply. “I mean, that’s weird ’cause nobody knows your number.”

  “Apparently someone does. One caller was a young man, the other was a girl’s voice. Neither wanted to leave their name or a phone number. They both said they’d call you back later this evening.”

  I nod. It was weird though. I didn’t think anybody knew my grandmother’s home number. But I guess somebody does. Hell, even I have to look it up on my cell. “Grandmom, I’m going to go up and change. I’m meeting Jalisa and Diamond at the dance studio tonight. We’ll probably go to the Pizza Place after that.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be at Charlotte’s most of the evening.”

  “Okay.” I leave the kitchen, grab my stuff off the step, then go upstairs to my room. I start to charge my cell, then see Darien’s broken-ass trophy on the floor almost under my bed. I smile. It was my trophy now. It was the biggest one from that night in his bedroom. I don’t know why I didn’t just give it back to Ursula, but I didn’t. I kept it. Seeing it always made me feel good. I found it the next morning after everything happened. I must have dropped it on the front porch when I was trying to open the door that night. But right now, seeing it sitting there, and knowing Darien might get out, was making me sick. I pick it up and put it behind the door, out of sight, out of mind.

  I wash up and change my clothes. I am packing my dance bag when my cell rings. I check the caller ID. It’s Jalisa. I pick up. “Hey, girl,” I say happily. It is always good to hear from my girls.

  “Hey, you ready? We’re almost there.”

  “Yeah, give me a minute.”

  “Too late, we’re here.”

  “What?” I ask. There is a knock on my bedroom door, then giggling and laughter outside. I open my bedroom door to see my girls standing there smiling and laughing. It is so good to see them. I just start laughing, too.

  “Hey,” Diamond says, as we hug. “Your grandmom let us in. She said to tell you she’s on her way out and to not get in any trouble tonight.”

  “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen,” Jalisa jokes, as we hug, too. “Girl, you stay knee-deep in drama twenty-four-seven.”

  “Excuse me, but I do not get in trouble,” I say. “Much.”

  Diamond and Jalisa look at each other and then at me and break up laughing. I have to laugh, too. “Man, I can’t wait for Monday. It’s gonna be so perfect having you back at school again,” Jalisa says.

  “I know, right,” Diamond adds happily. “Watch out, Hazelhurst Academy, the girls are back in town.” They laugh, then see I’m not smiling.

  “What’s wrong?” Jalisa asks.

  “My transfer papers weren’t at Penn today. They don’t know anything about me going to Hazelhurst on Monday.”

  “But you passed the exam,” Diamond says.

  “Yeah, you aced it. What else do they want?” Jalisa adds.

  “I don’t know. I need to talk to my dad and make sure he paid the tuition on time. You know how they get about money. Anyway, that’s the only thing I can think of holding it up.”

  “A’ight, that’s cool then. You just have to pay when you get there on Monday morning.”

  “Ah, man, I can’t wait to see Chili’s face when you walk your ass back into class.” We start laughing again. “She’s such a joke. She’s got this little stomach and she walks around poking it out wanting everyone to see that she’s pregnant.”

  “Yeah, and now everybody’s saying that it’s not even LaVon’s baby. They’re talking about her being with some college basketball player,” Diamond says.

  “I heard that. I also heard he was married,” Jalisa adds.

  “Seriously, I can believe it,” I say.

  “Chili is such a skank and a liar.”

  “She’ll say anything to get what she wants.”

  “And right now she wants LaVon, my sloppy seconds.” We laugh for a while this time.

  “Okay, come on now. I feel like dancing.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Me, three.”

  Diamond and Jalisa head to the stairs. When I go the other way, they turn to look at me. “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs,” I say. They look at me strangely. “Want to see something cool? Come on, check this out.” They come back and follow me to the closet door. I open it and they see boxes and linens.

  “It’s a closet,” Jalisa says. I push the shelving on the side and it easily slides over. There is a small landing and stairs. “Oh, cool, check this out, stairs,” Jalisa adds.

  “I didn’t know you had a back staircase,” Diamond says.

  “Not a lot of people do.”

  “Did it come with the house?”

  “I guess. My grandmother was born in this house and even her grandmother was born here. It kinda gets passed down through the generations. She told me it was once owned by these abolitionists and they hid escaped slaves. So when the hunters searched the house, the runaways would either hide in here or run down and out the back door.”

  “That is so cool,” Diamond says.

  “I know, right,” Jalisa adds.

  “Where do they lead?” Diamond asks.

  “Duh, Diamond, downstairs,” Jalisa says. “Come on, let’s go down.”

  “Nah, I just wanted to show you. I hate going down these stairs when the pantry light’s not on. It’s too dark and spooky.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s cool.” Jalisa has already started down. “It’s not bad. It’s stairs. Just keep walking.”

  Diamond follows her and I go last. Seriously, I hate these stairs. I close the closet door and push the shelves and follo
w. Jalisa and Diamond laugh and talk the whole time. At least that makes me feel better. “Where’s the light switch?” Jalisa calls up to me. I hear her voice, but we are in complete darkness.

  “To the left, by the door. Hold your hand out and just keep straight. You’ll bump right into it,” I say. But I know there is no way she’ll find the pantry door. Then all of a sudden, the door opens and the lights go on. I blink and look around. I am still near the second floor while Jalisa and Diamond are already down in the pantry.

  “Oh, my God, that was so cool,” Jalisa says.

  “I know. If I had these, I’d never use the front stairs.”

  I finally get to the bottom. “I really hate those stairs.”

  They laugh as we go into the kitchen. We grab some water bottles and walk down the hall to the foyer. Then they stand on the front porch as I lock the deadbolt on the front door. Outside I see Terrence walking up his steps to his porch. He waves and speaks to Jalisa and Diamond. We look at each other. He nods. I do, too. That’s it and nobody says anything.

  We pile in Diamond’s mother’s small car and she drives us to the dance studio even though my grandmother lives just a couple of blocks away. She parks and we walk into Freeman like we own it. But for real, this is our place. This is where we met when we were four years old. They still have pictures of us on the walls. Mostly everybody knows us here. The young kids all look up to us. We dance tap, ballet, jazz and modern, but our favorite, of course, is hip-hop. We say hi to some dance instructors, then go upstairs to the private studios. That’s where the advanced students go. We don’t actually have class anymore, we just do our thing and practice hard.

  We change out of our street sneakers and start dancing. The music’s rhythm goes hard. It energizes us. We dance our routine, something we’ve been working on for a few weeks. When it’s good enough, we’re gonna show it to Gayle Harmon for one of the dance videos she choreographs. So we dance and play around and try out some new stuff Diamond came up with. Jalisa and I both add on to it. It’s really starting to look good. Seriously, it’s really hot. Some dance instructors from downstairs come up to see us, including Ms. Jay, the studio manager.

  They are cheering and applauding by the time we really get into it. I had gotten my sister’s fiancé, Tyrece Grant, to do the music, so it was dope. We are all three doing the same step, but to a different downbeat, with different timing and different dance styles. I have on my dance sneaks, Diamond has on ballet slippers, and Jalisa has on her tap shoes. We are hot. When the music ends we have like half the school upstairs in the studio with us. They are applauding and cheering. I usually don’t like the whole in-front-of-a-crowd, audience-recital thing, but this time I really like the attention. It feels great.

  So we leave about two hours later. It’s dark outside now, and I’m happy Diamond drove her car. We decide to stop at Giorgio’s Pizza Place before going home. We eat a slice and then share a cookie like we always do. “Okay, enough of this. So, you gonna say something or what?” Jalisa asks me all of a sudden. Diamond and I look at her. I have no idea what she’s talking about and apparently neither does Diamond.

  “Say something about what?” I ask her.

  “Please, girl, don’t be acting like we didn’t see all that before,” she says.

  Okay, I’m not fakin’. I look at her completely stumped. I swear, I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “What’s up with you and lawn mower guy?” Jalisa asks.

  “Jalisa,” Diamond says, hitting her arm.

  “What, I’m just asking—it’s not like we didn’t see that.”

  I shrug. “Nah, it’s okay. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what’s up with him. He’s acting all strange now. Maybe it’s school drama, I don’t know.”

  “Is it because of that jerk Darien?” Diamond asks quietly.

  “Darien?” I ask. She nods tentatively. I shrug again. “I don’t know, maybe. But he was okay with everything right after it happened. The next morning we were out walking and talking. Now all of a sudden he’s all mad at me. I don’t know.” I shrug again.

  “Can’t you get him to talk about it?” Jalisa asks.

  “Yeah, maybe talking will help,” Diamond adds.

  “I keep asking him, but he won’t talk. He keeps saying everything’s fine, when I know it’s not. It’s just messed up. I know he’s got something going on.”

  “Guys are weird anyway,” Jalisa says, looking at Diamond. I look at both of them, knowing something is up. They know I am gonna ask, so Jalisa says it before I do. “I broke up with Isaac the other day. He was trippin’, acting all jealous like he owns me or something.”

  “He hit her,” Diamond says.

  “He did what?” I say, too loud and completely shocked. The insides of me start shaking. This is scary. I’ve been around abusers before. My mom was a hitter. She’d slap someone in a hot minute. Then Darien was a bully, and I knew, given the opportunity, he’d try something stupid. What he tried to do was beyond abuse. But I never knew a girl who actually got hit by a guy before.

  “He hit me,” Jalisa says.

  “Oh, my God, Jalisa, are you okay?” I ask quickly. “Did he ever hit you before?”

  She nods. “Yeah, he did it before. But not hit me. He got mad once and pushed me and then another time he grabbed my arm really tight and left a mark. But I didn’t say anything to anybody, ’cause I thought it was my fault.” She looks away. Diamond grabs and holds her hand. It is obvious she already knew about all this.

  “When did this happen?” I ask.

  “A couple of weeks ago,” Jalisa says.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask both of them. They don’t say anything at first. All of a sudden I am feeling completely left out. Jalisa needed me and nobody said a word. They look at each other, so I ask again. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I insist.

  “We didn’t say anything to you ’cause you were trippin’. It was right after that party we went to at your friend’s house down the street, remember. You were hanging out and partying with that Darien guy, so I didn’t want to say anything to you. But it’s all right now. Everything’s copasetic. I told Isaac I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Jalisa,” I say sorrowfully. They were right. I was into my own thing and believing what Darien was telling me. “After you told him, what did he say?” I ask, starting to feel really bad that I wasn’t there for my friend.

  “Nothing. What could he say? He was like, ‘whatever.’ He told me I was a tease ’cause I wouldn’t have sex with him. You know what, I’m glad I didn’t ’cause he’s an asshole. He stopped speaking. Big deal, what a joke, I can’t believe I was actually into him like that.”

  “Forget him,” Diamond says. I nod in agreement.

  After that we don’t say much more about it. We get started talking about surface things, school, homework, music, clothes and things like that. I’m listening to Jalisa and Diamond, but still wondering about Terrence and what Isaac did to Jalisa. We’re just about to leave when I see Ursula walk in. I reintroduce her to Jalisa and Diamond, even though they already met at the party she had at her house last month. We all start talking. “So, what are you doing here this late?” I ask her.

  “Picking up my paycheck,” she says.

  “You work here?” I ask surprised, ’cause I don’t remember seeing her here before.

  “Yeah, I just got the job a few weeks ago. I usually work weekends. Sierra hooked me up. I think they still need somebody if you’re interested.”

  “Nah, I’ll pass,” I say. Seriously, the last thing I want to be doing is smelling like somebody’s pizza every week end.

  “You should try it. It’s not that bad. Actually, it’s pretty cool,” Ursula says.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say, knowing damn well I have no intention of working in somebody’s stinky pizza place.

  “A’ight, take care,” she says.

  “You need a ride home?” Diamond asks U
rsula.

  “Nah, thanks anyway. Sierra’s meeting me.”

  “Okay, see you later,” I say. Then we head out. Diamond drops me off at my grandmother’s house.

  “Are you staying at your dad’s house this weekend?”

  “Yeah, I need to talk to him about school. I think he’s avoiding me, so that means I need to camp out at the house until he comes home.”

  “You want to go over there tonight?”

  “Nah, a friend of my grandmother’s just died. I was gonna hang around here and then head over to my dad’s tomorrow. I’m a go to his office first. He’s usually there hiding from Courtney Saturday mornings.” I get out of the car.

  “A’ight, we’re hanging at the mall tomorrow night.”

  “Cool, I’ll see ya’ll there,” I say. I hurry up the steps to the porch as they drive away. I stay outside a few minutes watching until I see the red taillight turn the corner. I turn around and look at Terrence’s porch. There’s nobody outside and his car is gone. I decide to text him. No surprise, he doesn’t answer, so I just go inside.

  As soon as I do I stop ’cause something seems different. I don’t know what it is, but something’s off. I look around the living room and dining room, then go into the kitchen. The first thing I see is the back door open. I know that is wrong. My grandmother always locks the house up when she goes out. But she did look troubled before, so maybe she forgot. I walk to the open door and look outside. There is no one around, so I close and lock the door.

  It’s around ten-thirty. My grandmother isn’t home yet, so I just go to my room. I get on Facebook and write on some of my friends’ walls. Then I hit MySpace and post about dancing. Afterward, I tweet a quick update and then email my sister, Jade. She is online, so we IM for about ten minutes.

  I go downstairs to get a piece of cake. Then I stop in the living room to turn the lights on, knowing that my grandmother will be in soon. As I head back upstairs, I hear the key in the latch and turn around. She walks in the door. I don’t think she saw me. She looks tired and weary. “Hi, Grandmom. You okay?”