When we got upstairs, the lights were mostly out, which meant Mama was sleeping. D followed me into the kitchen, where Mama had left a night-light on and a plate of food for me. I asked D if she was hungry and she nodded. I wasn’t, so I pushed the plate of food over and she sat down at the table and started eating.
I turned on the small lamp we had on the countertop. In the goldish light it gave off, D looked old and tired and beautiful. She ate slowly, letting out deep breaths every now and then.
“What’s up, girl?” I asked.
“Could I spend the night here, tonight?” D looked up at me and waited. She was wearing a green T-shirt with a huge D on the front. A thick silver bracelet on her wrist that I’d never seen before.
“Flo gonna let you spend the night?”
D rolled her eyes. “I told you, that lady don’t own me.”
I heard footsteps and when I looked up, Neeka was standing in the doorway, her eyes wide as anything. She’d had keys to our house forever and used them whenever she came over. I couldn’t remember the last time Neeka had knocked or rang our bell.
“My mama says I got ten minutes,” Neeka said. “So talk fast, D.”
Neeka came into the kitchen, leaned against the counter and folded her arms.
“But talk soft because my moms is sleeping,” I said.
D took another bite of her food and pushed the plate away. It was almost empty.
“Y’all really want the real scoop?” she asked.
Me and Neeka looked at each other, then both of us nodded.
D took another deep breath. When she started talking, she wasn’t looking at us—just staring past us into someplace in the hallway darkness.
“When I was in the group home,” she said, her voice real low, “I heard the counselors having a meeting one time. We was supposed to be up in our rooms, but the rooms were small and smelly and there was always some drama going on, so I’d snuck downstairs and was sitting behind the couch. I guess I was about seven because I remember I was small enough to squeeze behind that couch.”
She blinked, then leaned on her fist and stared down at the table, tracing tiny patterns on it with her finger.
“I was reading a magazine, just sitting there—not really trying to be listening to their meeting but I could hear it anyway. Mostly they was talking about junk I didn’t care about, but then I heard this counselor say, Why do we keep calling them homeless and foster and runaways. These kids ain’t none of that, he said. They’re throwaway kids. Their parents don’t want them.”
I could feel the floor shake from the vibration of D’s leg jiggling under the table.
“You ain’t no throwaway, D,” Neeka said. “I bet there’s a million mamas would want you.”
D shrugged. She didn’t look up, just took another breath and kept on.
“I heard him say that and I knew the next foster situation I ended up in, I was gonna make work no matter what. ’Cause I wasn’t gonna be no throwaway kid.”
She looked at me. “I wasn’t gonna be like Brenda’s baby.”
I nodded, my head spinning. She was our friend and we didn’t really know her. Every minute it was like there was a little bit more about her that made everything so . . . so complicated. I couldn’t even imagine trying to walk through the world after somebody said I was a throwaway kid.
“So when Social Services said they had a family that wanted a little girl, I scrubbed my face and ironed my clothes and had a counselor do my hair. I wanted to be . . . ” She frowned, like she was just remembering. “I wanted to be perfect. The mama in that family couldn’t have kids, and they wanted to buy a house, so they had all these foster kids because you get money when you take in foster kids. I don’t know how much, but it helped them buy that house and all.”
Neeka and me looked at each other again but didn’t say anything. It’d been almost two years and we were finally starting to get somewhere on the history of D’s life.
“Well, they got their house and then she got pregnant and they found out it was gonna be twins, so they started getting rid of the foster kids—one by one. I was one of the first ones to go. So I went back to the group home and I stayed there for a while.
“I was in a whole lot of other places when I was a kid, and sometimes I was with my mama and sometimes I wasn’t.”
Neeka couldn’t hold herself back anymore.
“Where is your mama?” She asked. “She live somewhere close by?”
D looked up at Neeka and shrugged. “Sometimes she do. Sometimes she don’t. I think her Big Purpose got all scattered or something, so she goes chasing after it.”
“How long you been with Flo?” I asked.
“Going on three and a half years. Flo’s been the longest foster mama. Even though she be acting all bent out of shape about how I dress and making me go to church and all that nonsense, she takes care of me. She lets me roam because she says, the way she figures it, I been around so much, I must know the city just like the back of my hand. So as long as I show up at that door when I’m supposed to, she lets me go. And she’s not trying to buy a house or have any kids or anything.”
D took another deep breath. I could see she was trying hard not to cry. I got a paper towel from the roll on the counter and handed it to her. We had been whispering, and when nobody was talking, the quiet sounded louder than anything. The kitchen was hot and smelled like garlic. Any other time, I would have loved the smell. But that night, it made me a little bit nauseous.
“Now Flo’s telling me my moms wants to give it another shot,” D said. She wiped her eyes with the paper towel.
“Said the state and the city and everybody thinks she’s ready. Said she got a place upstate somewhere and there’s a room for me and all. Flo’s letting me go that easy. And I guess that’s right because I ain’t hers really, right? But I ain’t my mama’s either ’cause she been so off and on for so long.”
I went over to D and rubbed her back. She was crying softly now.
“I always thought I wanted that—to have my moms back. To be living with her. To have a room that was just made for me, a house I could be taking my friends to and all . . .”
“But we’re Three the Hard Way,” Neeka said. She looked confused and hurt. “You’re our girl, D.”
“I know. Y’all mine. I feel like I keep trying to do the right thing and somebody always gotta make the new rules for me—get to tell me how to do my hair, what clothes to wear, where to sleep, where I’m gonna be living.”
“You really leaving, D?” Neeka asked.
D nodded. “Flo say if it don’t work out, I can come back and live with her.”
D leaned back against me, her head on my stomach.
“But it don’t go like that.”
“You’re a part of us, D,” Neeka said.
But D just looked at her and gave her that crooked half smile. And everything in those beautiful green eyes said, I don’t believe you but hope so.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A week passed. And then another. We didn’t hear from D and she didn’t come around. Summer was getting close to being over and me and Neeka went shopping for school clothes with Mama and Miss Irene. We got the news that Tash really was coming home, and the whole way on the trains to Manhattan and in the stores, Miss Irene and Mama talked about how good it would be to have him out of jail.
When we got to Thirty-fourth Street where all the stores were, me and Neeka walked slowly through the aisles, looking at jeans and shirts and cute skirts we’d wear come the school year. We bought a few matching outfits even though people probably wouldn’t mistake us for sisters anymore. I was almost a full head taller than Neeka now and I still had my cornrows. Neeka had relaxed her hair so that it was bone straight and hanging around her shoulders.
Miss Irene had gotten a babysitter for the twins, and Jayjones was taking some basketball lessons from a private coach he’d gotten with his KFC money. It was nice to be walking through the stores with just Mama, Miss Irene and
Neeka without all the kids running wild around us. If D had been there, it would have been perfect.
“You think she’s already gone?” I asked Neeka.
We were trying on shoes. When the salesman brought out the first pair, Mama shook her head.
“Take those back,” she said to the salesman. “They’re too high. That child’s thirteen, not thirty.”
I rolled my eyes and tried on a flatter pair.
“I don’t know,” Neeka said. “I hope not. You can’t just be disappearing like that on your girls.”
“Remember when we first met her,” I said. “How she just showed up and then she was gone and we didn’t know if she’d come back again.”
Neeka nodded.
“But she came back. And when she came back, she stayed.” She crossed her arms over her chest and let out a breath.
“She stayed,” she said again, softer.
“Crazy how we don’t even have digits or an address for her,” I said. “And who knew there was like two hundred Fosters in Queens alone.”
“Yeah,” Neeka said. “How we gonna be her girls like that and not even know the basicstuff you needed to know about her.”
She put on the shoes the salesman brought, took a few steps in the shoes, then turned and walked back toward me.
Miss Irene shook her head.
“Oh, Lord, y’all sure are growing up,” she said.
Mama looked at me and Neeka. And slowly nodded.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
September came up on us quickly. It had gotten cool and cloudy out and me and Neeka sat on her stairs wearing our new jeans and sweaters. Neeka had just gotten Tupac’s tape and we were listening to it on her Walkman, each of us with one earphone over our ear. It was hard to listen to it and not think about D.
Upstairs, Miss Irene was getting the place together for Tash, who was coming home. She’d made a whole lot of food and even got some helium balloons from Party City. There was a red tablecloth on the table and red plastic plates and forks because that was Tash’s favorite color. All morning long, Miss Irene had been humming to herself and smiling, happier than I’d seen her in a long time.
Jayjones and Neeka’s dad had gone to meet Tash at the bus station, but me and Neeka had stayed behind, helping out. Then, when the Neeka’s sisters started acting the fool, pulling on the balloons and climbing under the table, me and Neeka decided it was more peaceful down on the stairs.
“These beats are tight,” Neeka said, moving her head to the music.
The album had hit double platinum and everybody either had a real copy or a bootleg. Neeka’s was bootleg—Jayjones had made a tape of a tape, so it was a little bit fuzzy but still sounded good.
Neeka took my earphone and put it over her own ear. Then she got up and did a couple of fancy moves.
“Can’t stop this girl,” she said, dancing to the music.
She had her back to the street and when I looked over her shoulder, I saw D walking toward us. Only she wasn’t alone. There was a tall white woman with her. I stared at her with my mouth hanging open, pointing, with my finger down by my leg, trying to get Neeka’s attention.
“Turn around, Neeka!”I said, trying not to move my lips. I waved and D waved.
Neeka turned around then and saw what I saw.
“You think that’s somebody from the foster care place?” Neeka said.
The woman had curly light-colored hair and D’s same strange green eyes. She was dressed in purple, everything purple—baggy purple pants, too-big purple shirt, black Nikes with a purple stripe. If I’d seen her on the street, I would have thought she was just some freak trying to look fly. But she was with D, so I didn’t know whatto think.
D was smiling, her same old crazy half smile, like she’d just been gone away for a day or a week, not for over a month. But I saw her smile and I felt like my whole body was relaxing, like it had been all tense all the time she was gone and now it could just sit itself down.
We hugged and then we looked at each other and then we hugged again. The whole time, the white lady stood there smiling, like she knew us from way back when or something.
“Ma,” D said. “These are my girls.” She said our names and the woman’s smile got bigger.
“Hey y’all,” D said. “This is my moms. We been spending some time together, that’s why you ain’t seen me around for a while.”
Me and Neeka lifted our hands and said something that sounded like Hi. We were too busy being shocked that this white woman was D’s mama to say anything else.
“Okay,” D said slowly. “You can put your eyes back into your heads now.”
“Cool to finally meet you both,” D’s mama said. “Lordy, have I heard some earfuls about you.”
She smiled again. Up close she looked like she’d done some hard living. There were lines around her nose and mouth and her skin looked a bit rough. One of her teeth was a little bit crooked, and when she smiled real wide, I could see that one near the back was missing.
“Where you been?” Neeka said, taking off the headphones. “We don’t even have your phone number. How you gonna be friends with some sisters all this time and disappear without leaving some digits behind?”
“I didn’t know I was gonna turn that corner and not be back for a while,” D said. “You know I’m not like that.”
She looked up at Neeka’s window. Miss Irene had tied some red balloons to her window box.
“Y’all having a party?”
Neeka nodded. “Tash is coming home today. If we’d’a known how to reach you, we would’ve called.”
After a minute she said, “We missed you, D! You can’t be leaving your girls hanging like that!”
D looked at me and Neeka. Then she turned to her mama and said, “I’m gonna walk over there and talk to my girls a minute.”
D’s mama nodded, then checked her watch. “Our bus leaves in two hours, Desiree. We still have to pick up your things.”
“Desiree?” I said. “Your name’s Desiree?”
Neeka looked on like Desireehad grown two new heads.
“That’s my birth name,” she said. “Desiree Johnson. She’s the only one be calling me that.”
We walked a little bit away from Desiree’smama.
“I thought your last name was Foster,” I said.
D shook her head. “Nah, it’s really Johnson. I just dropped the Johnson and added Foster because I was in foster care so much.”
“We didn’t even know your name,” I said, more to myself than to D.
“You didn’t tell us your mama was white,” Neeka whispered.
“I didn’t think that mattered,” D said. “What difference would it make? You gonna like me less or more because I got a white mama?” She looked at me. “Or because my name wasn’t my name?”
“We would have known you some,” Neeka said. “That’s all. We would have been able to put the D puzzle together a little bit more.”
D smiled.
“I came on this street and y’all became my friends. That’s the D puzzle. I talked about roaming and y’all listened. I sat down and ate with your mamas and it felt like I was finally belonging somewhere. Us three’s the puzzle. It’s just a three-piece puzzle.”
Neeka shook her head. “You never really told us who you were, girl. We was all the time trying to figure it out.”
“But all you had to do was ask.”
Neeka put her hands on her hips. “We didask.”
“And now the answers are coming,” D said. She looked over at her mama. Her voice dropped down a bit. “And anyway,” she said, “the D puzzle ain’t never going to be all together. I ask her who my daddy is and she says, A man who likes to roam.I ask her what it was like when I was a baby and she says, Alcohol erased that memory, but I don’t drink no more. So the puzzle’s always gonna have all these missing pieces, all these holesup in it.”
Some church ladies moved by us, said hello and headed on up into Neeka’s place.
“Y’a
ll know I ain’t coming to say good-bye,” D said. She was carrying a shoulder bag and she set it down on the curb and reached inside it. “I got something for you.” She pulled out a brand-new package of clothesline rope and handed it to Neeka. “The way I figure it, somebody else might come down this block one day and be wanting to be friends with y’all. If she don’t have a rope, at least you will.”
I felt my eyes starting to get stingy. I wiped them real fast and looked away from D. From Desiree.
“Y’all let me play with you once. And when I get upstate, I’m sure there’s gonna be some sisters looking for somebody to take the other end of the rope and it’s gonna be me all over again. And then I’m gonna get on a bus, head down here and show you how they rocking it up there. But I ain’t saying good-bye. I ain’t never saying good-bye to you.”
“We’re Three the Hard Way,” Neeka said softly. She was looking down at the rope in her hand, like it was taking her way back to the beginning.
“We always gonna be Three the Hard Way,” I said.
Neeka had the earphones draped over her shoulder. She took them off and handed D—Desiree—the Walkman.
“It’s Tupac,” she said. “Keep the whole thing. I know how you love his gangsta behind.”
Desiree didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she put the Walkman in her bag and threw her arms around Neeka. They stood there, holding each other for a long time. When they pulled away, they were both crying. Then D hugged me.
You’re a part of me,she whispered, her mouth close to my ear. You’re in my heart.Forever and always, all right?
I nodded. If I said one word, I knew I’d start crying and not be able to stop.
“Desiree . . . ” D’s mama called.
“I’m coming!” D yelled, not turning away from us. “She better cool it or else I’llbe telling her to step. Be my turn to leave her.”
Neeka smiled. “You know you’re going with that woman. You want a mama too much to let her get away again.”
D nodded. She put her hands in her pockets and looked over at her mama. After a moment, she brushed her hair away from her eyes with her hand, squinted into the sun and smiled.
After Tupac & D Foster Page 8
