“How?”
“Well, I snore now, and it drives him crazy. Plus, my belly keeps bumping up against his back and it wakes him up.”
“It’s his baby, too.”
She shrugged. “James is a little boy in a man’s body. He doesn’t adjust well to grown-up issues, like being a husband to a pregnant woman.”
“I’m sorry, girlie,” I said. “You guys will get through this.”
“We’ll be all moved in next week.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I remembered. “I can’t wait to see it.”
“It’s sort of a mess, but at least I can have my own room.”
“Your own room?”
“James thinks it will be better if we sleep apart until the baby comes.”
“Kelly!”
She raised a hand. “I’m too tired these days to fight him. Actually, I think I’ll sleep better, too.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I mean, those two were the epitome of love and all that stuff. How could things be going so wrong? Especially now with a baby on the way.
“So, you ready to walk down the aisle?” She grabbed my hand and her eyes popped at my ring.
“I think so. I’m so worried….”
“About what?”
“A lot has happened.”
“Like what?” She leaned in.
Then I remembered the agreement I’d signed. Ugh. It was bad enough I’d talked to Whitney about it. But Kelly was a whole different story. She was a strict moralist; I couldn’t depend on her not to do anything with the information.
“I’m just worried about leaving my life behind.”
“What life?” She laughed. “I’m just kidding. But haven’t you guys talked about this? What you’re giving up to be with him?”
“Yeah. I mean, not really.”
She gave me a curious look that said, Are you sure?
“Marriage is a big commitment, Ames. I’ll be the first to tell you to go ahead with it—especially since we set you up with him—but I’ll also tell you to take your time and think long and hard about it. There’s no turning back once you’re in it. You have to know that you can live not just with him, but with everything about him.”
“Wow, Kelly. Things must be really rough for you guys right now,” I said.
“And then some,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I’d never decided to have this kid.”
I looked at her, hoping she’d say she was kidding. But she didn’t.
“I’m serious,” she said as if reading my mind. “This pregnancy is bringing out the absolute worst in James.”
We heard footsteps approaching and James appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Hey, Ames. Welcome back.”
I smiled at him.
“So when’s your big day?”
“Sometime in December,” I said. I’d stay with this storyline until I could figure out exactly what I was going to do.
“Cool, we’ll definitely be there.” He walked away, gathering up posters from their old room.
“So clueless,” Kelly muttered.
“What?”
“The baby will be here then. We can’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, Kelly,” I said.
Later that night as I tried to sleep I thought back to what Kelly said. Think long and hard. No turning back. Big commitment. Everything about him…
I dialed Drew’s number, my heart pounding.
“I miss you so much,” he said as soon as he heard my voice. My heart betrayed me. “I miss you, too, Drew.”
I wanted to yell at him. Scream at him for not telling me the whole truth, but I couldn’t. It didn’t seem right. He was too far away. I was hurting too much just being separated from him.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“For what.”
“For everything…I didn’t want to involve you in any of this.”
“Are you talking about those papers?”
He didn’t answer.
“Drew, you can trust me. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“I know that. But will I ever see you again? I just get this feeling that you’re gone forever.”
I shut my eyes tightly. I wanted to stop seeing his face. It made it that much harder. “I have to think. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” he said. “Whatever you decide, I’ll understand.”
I held the phone in my hand long after he’d hung up. I didn’t know. I really, really didn’t know what to do.
Chapter 34
It felt strange being back in school. The building seemed huge compared to the schools back on Dominica. I sat in the lounge, sipping coffee and preparing for my first class.
Lashelle blew in. “I heard you got engaged!” She grabbed my hand and ogled my ring. I didn’t mind so much the ogling, it was the grabbing that bothered me. That and the fact that Lashelle had lost a ton of weight, enough that her butt no longer required its own zip code.
“Looks like we both went on a diet,” she said, grinning wildly.
“Yeah, you look good, girl!” I said.
“You, too.” She laughed. “I had to get in shape for my wedding, chile.” That’s right, I remembered. She and gangster-looking dude had gotten married in August.
“Too bad you missed it,” she said. “But I have pictures.” She pulled out a folder of what looked like thousands of photos. This was going to be a long morning.
“So, tell me all about your summer and your new guy,” she said.
I told her as much as I could as I leafed through her photos, which were actually quite nice. I noticed that most of the teachers were in attendance, even Mr. Bell. Guess my absence didn’t endear me to the school community. Oh, well.
“So, you’re leaving?”
I nodded. “This is my last term here.”
“Wow! That’s a big step.”
“Not really,” I said. “I’ll be back to visit my mom from time to time.”
“Yeah, but it’s a whole new place. A new culture.” I understood where Lashelle was coming from. The look on her face actually said awe and admiration and so I let her go on and on about how “different” my life was going to be. It didn’t matter, I thought, there were a million different ways to get out of this. I could always just say that I changed my mind.
There were a few familiar faces in first period. I looked at my list and matched up names and faces. I surveyed the back row and remembered Treyon Dicks. I was surprised that he hadn’t been kept back again. Well, he must have done something right, I thought.
The day went surprisingly well. Maybe I’d been more laid-back after my summer on Dominica, or maybe my new kids were just a better group. Or maybe I’d been too emotionally battered to worry about how badly my students were behaving.
I heard a high voice calling me as I walked wearily to the lounge to get my stuff and head home. It was Tina from last period last year. Boy, she sure had filled out. Her boobs were almost as big as mine!
She gave me a big hug and I hugged her back, genuinely happy to see her so bubbly.
“Ms. Wilson, I read all the books you told me to over the summer.”
What books? Ooooh!! The list of books I’d given her.
“You did?!”
“Yes, I decided I want to become a writer. I had so much fun reading them, Ms. Wilson. Do you have any more?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Yes!” I wrote down three more books for her that I thought she might like: Meriden, Brown Girl, Brownstones, and Sula. I hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble for that last one.
“Thanks, Ms. Wilson!”
“Hey, Tina.” I stopped her before she could flit away. “Where’s Treyon? I haven’t seen him all day.”
Her face fell. “You didn’t hear?”
“What?”
“He got sent away in July. He shot…killed…some dude down at Four Corners one night.”
I stood there stunned. Treyon was in prison?
“They t
ried him as an adult…You all right?” Tina asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks.” I walked back to the lounge still in shock. How could that be? He was just a kid. A baby, really. His life would be over now.
I saw Lashelle packing up her bag to leave.
“Did you know that Treyon Dicks got sent to prison?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said sadly. “A shame, huh? That kid that got killed was his age, too.”
“I just can’t believe it.”
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” she shrugged. “But he was always out there looking for trouble.” And she said her good-byes and was gone.
I sat in the lounge for a long time, thinking about Treyon. And Tina. And the school and myself. I hated it here. I hated the fact that these kinds of things happened to kids like Treyon and that kid he shot. When I’d taught at Meadow Academy it had been difficult but for a whole other set of reasons. The kids there were always challenging me intellectually. Many were rich and either hungry to learn or lazy brats who cared about nothing. But their lives were not this tragic. It sounds corny, but I was excited about teaching at a public school because I expected more fulfillment. I wanted to feel needed after what I’d been through. Last year I hadn’t felt anything at all. But today had changed something. That look on Tina’s face had given me a feeling that I wanted to feel over and over again. I felt that I’d lost an opportunity with Treyon, one I could never get back. And I wanted to make that right.
It turned out that Treyon Dicks’s family lived one street away from the house that I grew up in. I had called his mother earlier in the day and she said I could stop by to visit after school.
I was surprised that his home seemed quite stable and his mother quite normal. Then why had he been so crazy? He’d been in juvenile detention three or four times that I was aware of, and goodness knows what other trouble he’d been involved in.
Treyon’s mother was a petite woman with a soft voice. She worked the night shift as a nurse’s aide at Boston Medical Center. There were pictures of Treyon all over the living room, on the walls, in frames on the coffee table, spilling out of photo albums. She was obviously still torn up about what had happened. She brought me a cup of tea in a white china cup.
“He was always rebellious,” she said softly. “I wasn’t around much because I was working all the time. But his older brother was supposed to take care of him.” She said this last sentence with enough rage that it told me she held this older brother responsible.
I asked her more questions about him. What did he like to do when he was out of school; who were some of his favorite sports teams, hip-hop groups? She didn’t know much, but she showed me his room. I saw that he liked Fifty Cent, the Game, and that he had a lot of old CDs. I opened up his stereo to see the last CD he was playing. It was A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders. That was one of my favorite CDs of all time, too.
Notebooks cluttered the floor and table next to his bed, along with pieces of paper he’d scribbled on. I knew what they were. All the boys in school had their portfolio of rhymes that they carried around. I gave in to the curiosity and picked up a notebook on his bed. The first song jumped out at me.
Ms. Wilson, I hate you bitch
Fake ass hair, you a snitch
Make a nigger wanna kill somebody
Fat ass ho, make your nose all bloody
I stopped reading and took a deep breath. He must have written that on the day I sent him to Mr. Bell’s office. Maybe I deserved that.
I told Ms. Dicks to keep in touch with me and to let me know if she needed anything. She smiled weakly as I closed the door and walked out of the yard. I hoped she knew that I was serious.
“Well, maybe one Sunday you can come up to the prison and visit with us.”
I told her okay and gave her my number. But I was sure that Treyon did not want to see me. And I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to see him. But I hoped she would tell him that I’d stopped by and that I cared.
I walked to my car and felt the pull. I hadn’t seen my mother since I’d returned to the U.S. I had talked to her once, and she was as rude as she’d been the entire summer. The fact that I’d left her alone, and that she’d had to do her own grocery shopping and errand running, had made me even more of an ungrateful daughter in her eyes. But I decided to go over there even though I knew I was making a huge mistake.
I didn’t knock. I used my key and let myself in. It was four P.M. She was probably napping anyway. The house seemed very clean, cleaner than usual, and I could smell food. I walked to the kitchen. Could she possibly be cooking?
“Ma?” I called out. No answer.
She wasn’t in the kitchen, but there were some takeout bags on the counter.
“Ma?”
The house was still. I walked up the creaky stairs and thought I heard something. I stopped and it was silent. When I got to the top of the stairs, I definitely heard something. Voices. Groaning. “Grace. Oh, goodness, Grace.” That was a man’s voice in full ecstasy. I guess he was having his way with my mother. Oh, well. I walked down the stairs. And instead of leaving, I decided to wait. Why not? She had to know that I knew that she wasn’t as lonely as she liked to let on that she was. She was seeing someone. At least sleeping with someone. And he’d brought her food! Ha! Let’s see her pull the “woe is me” act when she comes down here.
I turned on the TV and watched Oprah. I turned up the volume loud enough so they’d know that someone was in the house. I loved Oprah. She looked so fabulous now that she’d lost the weight.
A male voice boomed from the top of the stairs. “Who’s there?”
Oh, please.
“It’s Amelia, her daughter.”
“Amelia?” Grace’s voice sounded weak and embarrassed.
“Ma, I’m waiting downstairs.”
She hurried down the stairs a few minutes later, her hair all over the place, her face flushed and sheepish. She looked great. Young and pretty.
“Look at you,” she exclaimed. “You lost all that weight!”
“Who’s upstairs with you, Ma?”
She glared at me. “Don’t ask me no questions. You hear?”
I rolled my eyes. Sure. Pull the, “I’m the mother” crap.
“I brought you a present, but it’s back at the apartment.”
“What is it?”
“A dress.”
“What kind of dress? Something I can wear to church?”
“In the summer.”
She looked at me. “Let me see that ring.”
She held my hand, peered at the ring, and looked in my face.
“I missed you,” she said.
I nodded. I swallowed a knot of something that was rising in my chest.
“So, my little girl’s getting married,” she said. She looked a bit sad but there was a little smile on her face.
“I don’t know, Ma.”
She looked into my eyes. “What happened?”
“It’s complicated.”
“He got another woman?”
“No,” I stood up. “Just other stuff.”
“Like what?”
“His business…We have some trust issues.”
“Trust issues? That’s it? Girl, there ain’t no man out there who don’t have some issues.”
“Yes, Ma.” Here we go, I thought. She would tell me now how my father drank too much and only gave her a twenty-dollar allowance a week through their entire marriage.
“See, like my friend Dean, upstairs. Now that’s a good man. But he got too many kids. He got at least eight kids. But I can live with that. As long as he taking care of them.”
“Ma, he has eight kids?”
She nodded.
“I hope you’re using protection,” I said.
She ignored my comment. “All I’m saying is I already told him you getting married. Gerard thinks you getting married. Amelia, I haven’t been on a plane in over ten years.”
I sighed. So I had to marry Drew so she could get o
n a plane again?
“Ma, it’s just not that easy. I have some things to think about.”
“All right,” she said.
“When am I going to meet Dean?”
“Not today,” she said. “Call your brother.”
Chapter 35
I pulled up to the apartment and a feeling of dread came over me. I didn’t want to go in. It was so empty. So cold even though it was early September. I missed the warm sunshine of Dominica. The nosy people. Even crazy Vanessa. And I missed Drew. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to go back now.
As I sat in the car thinking, a tow truck pulled up next to me.
“Hey, sis, I heard you got back.” It was Gerard. Wow, he was still working for that tow company. That’s the longest he’d ever kept a job in his whole life.
I got out of the car, and he pulled over behind my Beetle.
“Girl, look at you, all skinny and stuff.”
I put my hand on my hip. “What do you think?”
“You look good!” Gerard said. “Lemme see your rock.”
I held out my hand. “Dude must have some serious dough or that’s some good cubic zirconium.”
“It’s not cubic zirconium!”
“Aiiiight. Slow your roll, Amelia. You not the only one getting married.” He looked at me triumphantly.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. D’Andrea asked me to marry her.”
“D’Andrea asked you?”
“Something like that,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” I said dubiously. The last time I saw D’Andrea she sounded as if she wanted him dead.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Why you think I kept this job so long. I told that girl I’d do right by her.”
He was serious. He wasn’t looking all faux brave and defiant anymore.
“Gerard, you’re getting married?” I asked incredulously. I was so touched I wanted to cry. I don’t know why, either.
“Yeah, you’re my inspiration, girl. I can’t be up in Ma’s house anymore now that she got this mailman dude coming around, and D’Andrea said I can’t stay with her unless I put a ring on her finger.”
Good for D’Andrea!
“Does D’Andrea know this yet?’
Letting Loose Page 27
