Anthony turns to me. “Where is your guitar?”
“Why? I’m not in this.”
“I’m going to put your guitar in storage for one month. Thank Jehovah London had sense enough not to take the pill, but you are an accomplice to reprehensible behavior.”
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite!”
He takes a step toward me. “You curse at me? In my home, acting like a common ’hood rat?”
“Oh, you would know about the ’hood, wouldn’t you? Cuz you’re really from Englewood. That’s as ’hood as it gets.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you. Pretending you’re something special. Living in Simi Valley. Eating keen-wah? I see right through you!”
“Tiffany, I’m sick of your disrespect,” he bellows. “Sick of it! You do not speak to your father this way.”
“Father? Is that supposed to be a joke? You think I don’t know?” Tears spring forth as the weight of everything that’s transpired begins to erupt out of me like hot, burning lava. “You think I don’t know you wanted me gone?” I can hardly breathe, hardly catch my breath. “You’re as bad as Aric. You’re worse! Now you want to cut off London’s hair to make her suffer. How did you suffer for your reprehensible, heinous act? How much money did you give my mom for the abortion she never got?”
Anthony turns as white as a ghost. “Do not pretend you know the truth about what really happened between your mother and me.”
“But I do know,” I cry. “You ran. You’re a runner. Your life’s ambition is to be better. A cut above everybody else. But guess what? You rep Englewood perfectly. Absent black father. Deadbeat dad. A fucking stereotype.”
He slaps me across the face with the back of his hand. Hard. It stings, so I cover it with my hand in an attempt to dull the pain.
“Anthony!” Margaret cries. “What’s the matter with you? You can’t hit her!”
“I’m...I’m so sorry. I swear, I have never hit one of my children this way before. Tiffany, I apologize.”
“Fuck you,” I declare. “I’m going home.”
* * *
“Please, Grams. Please let me come home.”
“And stay where?”
“With Keelah?”
“Tiffany, how is that gonna work? Keelah and them live in section eight housing. Her mom is struggling with all those kids and her daddy ain’t worth but about two cents. You can’t stay there!”
“It’s not fair! I hate it here. I wanna come back to Chicago.”
And suddenly my world exploding sounds like the best idea ever. If Anthony Stone is not my real father...I get to go home.
“Tiffany, you need to go and apologize. You can’t say ‘fuck you’ to your dad. What is the matter with you?”
“He hit me!” I start to cry again.
“I know. But sometimes our emotions get the best of us and we do things that we don’t mean. Things that don’t necessarily represent who we really are.”
Of course she’s right. And now who’s the hypocrite? Didn’t I just break Aric’s nose and ask for his forgiveness? I didn’t mean to hit him, either.
“Besides,” Grams goes on. “If Anthony hits you again I’m gonna fly out there and kill him. I will wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until all the life drains from his body. And then I’ll happily go to prison and live out the rest of my days in peace. Anthony is aware. I already talked to him.”
“You did?”
“He called me right before you did and confessed everything.”
“He sucks. He’s the worst dad ever.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do!” I really let loose, wailing into the phone. “I hate him!” The door to the garage creaks open and I stand, hands balled into fists, ready not to apologize, but to scream and yell some more, but it’s only London standing at the doorway. She steps into the quiet garage space. Her hair still hangs in long waves down her back; her eyes are almost swollen shut from crying. “Grams, I’ll call you back.” I quickly hang up. “Why do you still have hair?”
“Dad changed his mind. Apologized for losing his temper.”
“I should’ve let you throw the box away. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” She fidgets. “Tiff. There’s something else.”
“What now?”
“Dad went through your schoolbag. He found your anxiety pills. He took them.”
“What!” I storm past London, back into the house, not even caring that my ankle has begun to throb again. I bear the full pain, moving swiftly down the hallway toward Anthony and Margaret’s bedroom. I pound on the door. A second later his deep voice replies.
“Come in.”
I burst into the room. Anthony is sitting on the bed beside Margaret. They both look up, startled to see me standing there in a rage. “I need my medication back!”
“I’ll let you two chat alone.” Margaret excuses herself. The bedroom door shuts behind her.
“Look, you can have my guitar, okay? But you can’t have my medication. I need it. I was diagnosed.”
“Diagnosed with what?” he asks pointedly.
“OCD and anxiety.”
“You understand I’m a doctor, right?”
“You’re not a psychiatrist! It’s my medication. I take two a day. Morning and night. It helps me. I know your rules say no drugs or whatever, but I need them. I do.”
“I don’t necessarily subscribe to all this psychiatric labeling. A few days without them. Let’s see what happens.”
“Oh, my fucking gosh!”
He stands, enraged. “What do I have to do to get through to you, Tiffany? What will it take for you to stop this insolent behavior and inappropriate speech?”
“I have some seriously bad news for you. This is my real behavior. This is how I speak. It’s who I am. Maybe if you’d been around for the past sixteen years instead of the past six minutes, you’d recognize that.”
“Then I have some equally bad news for you. This is who I am, too.”
I scoff. “Highly doubtful.”
“Enlighten me, Tiffany. Why is who I am doubtful to you?”
“Because,” I state seriously, “I may not know you, but I know my mom. She would never have fallen in love with a guy like you.”
Anthony winces. He looks genuinely wounded and I regret that those words came out of my mouth.
“Tiffany Sly. It is a parent’s job to guide. Children need to be raised with authority—”
“See, there’s your problem.” I throw my hands up in the air. “You’re trying to raise me.”
“Because that’s my job.”
“Really? I thought your job was to get to know me.”
He sits back on the edge of the bed. “I think we could use some space. I’m going to sit by the water. Cool down.”
Good idea. “Can I take a walk on the pier?”
“Take Heaven and Nevaeh with you.”
“I wanna be alone. So I can calm down. I don’t wanna fight with you anymore.” Only I do want to fight.
I imagine being suited up in the boxing ring. Anthony and I coming from our respective corners. The referee making us touch gloves before the bell rings signaling the beginning of the round. But it wouldn’t be a regular boxing match. I would only throw things at him—spaghetti, mushy soup in giant bread bowls, rotten tomatoes—and the crowd would laugh. At the end, when he was dripping wet from old, rotten food, I’d be given the world title. The Throw Things at Your Dad champion of the world.
“Then just take Nevaeh. Thirty minutes, Tiffany. I’m setting a timer on my phone.”
“You’re setting a timer? What am I, four?”
“Be back in thirty minutes or I come and get you two.”
“Fine. Whatever you say, Anthony.”
18
I pull the straps on my backpack and move slowly across the pier sans crutches, biting my lip with each step I take as Nevaeh talks faster than I can listen. Faster than the Flash can run. Pain shoots around my ankle and up my leg. Uggh. I want nothing more than to take a seat on one of the few wooden benches lining the pier, give myself a break from the discomfort, but I forge ahead, my eyes burning as fresh tears spring forth. I wipe them away before Nevaeh can see. Not that she would notice. She’s too busy in deep conversation with herself.
“So what do you think, Tiff?”
“About what?”
“About what Zac said.”
“Oh, right. Um, I agree.”
“You think I look like a Fraggle?”
“What? No. I mean...I don’t agree. Sorry.”
“Exactly, right! I mean, who does he think he is? Zac Ziegler is such a turd and I do not look like a Fraggle. What’s a Fraggle?”
“Do you have your phone?” She shakes her head and her curly ponytail sways back and forth. I hand her mine. “Google it.”
“How? There’s not internet on our phones.”
“I’m logged in to the pier’s free Wi-Fi.”
Her eyes stretch wide. “Dad would get so supermad if he knew you did that. He says absolutely no internet on the phones. Ever.”
“He told me I get internet because I’m new here and I need a while to adjust.”
“Really? Cool.” She takes my phone and fiddles with it as happy and relaxed-looking passersby stroll past us on the pier. A mother and teenage daughter walk arm in arm within earshot.
“Let’s go see the dinosaur movie,” the mother pleads.
The teenage daughter snorts. “Mom. Dinosaurs are so over.”
The mom laughs. “Exactly. That’s why I want to see it.”
The two move past me and I stare longingly after them.
“I hate Zac Ziegler!” Nevaeh exclaims. “Fraggles are hideous puppets? He called me a puppet!”
“They’re kind of cute. I think he was giving you a compliment.”
“Whatever. They’re stuffed like puppets. They’re orange and yellow like Sesame Street puppets.”
Up ahead, a man is passing out flyers. I lower my eyes as we approach him. There were always these types of men on the streets of downtown Chicago. Passing out leaflets advertising shows or selling products. Mom always advised me not to make eye contact and not to take whatever they were passing out.
“Excuse me, young ladies?” the man says kindly.
I look into his eyes. Crap. I shouldn’t have looked at him. He’s an Asian man, much shorter than me, wearing board shorts, sandals and a loose-fitting T-shirt. He holds up the flyer.
“Thanks!” Nevaeh says happily as she takes the flyer. I give her a disturbed look. “What?”
“You can’t talk to strangers and take things from them. That’s not safe.”
“Tiff, chill. This is Malibu. Even the homeless are safe here. See, look?”
I scan the bright yellow half sheet of paper. All it says is 11:11 Awakening. I take it from Nevaeh and flip it over, assuming I’ll see an address and time for a local play or comedy show, but the flip side is blank.
11:11 Awakening? “What does this mean?”
“I’ll Bing it! Because everybody always says Google it and I’m all...Google ain’t the only search engine, you know.”
I stuff the paper into my back pocket, waiting while Nevaeh does her internet research.
“Weirdness,” she says as she reads. “It’s the symbol for the awakening of the mind. Some people think this is all a hologram and we’re all dead asleep. Like in a dream. And 11:11 is the symbol for waking up.”
“Hologram? What do you mean?”
“Like The Matrix! Like planet Earth and everything we see is like a hologram or like a dream or something.”
“And what happens when you wake up?”
She shrugs, clearly over it. “Mom says Zac only teases me because he likes me. But I’m all...there is no way he likes me because I’m pretty sure Zac Ziegler only likes himself. Like he wants to grow up and marry himself. Like he wants to have a baby with himself.”
Nevaeh drones on and on and I return to my thoughts of rage. I should’ve never taken my braids out. Never should have allowed Anthony Stone to think he can control me for even one second. Him and his religion. You gotta love Jehovah God, Tiffany, but don’t talk to our supernice neighbors. A burst of happiness explodes in my heart. Didn’t Jo say they were having a family barbecue today?
“Hey, Nevaeh?”
She pauses in her chatter with a perturbed look on her face, braces shining in the Malibu sun. “Huh?”
“Can I have my phone back?”
“Oh, sure.”
She hands it back. I could ask Marcus to come and pick me up! I shoot him a quick text, imagining the look on Anthony’s face when his timer goes off and I’m not back yet. I’ll tell Nevaeh to tell him I extended my walk indefinitely so I could practice appropriate speech.
“Hey, Nevaeh...head back to the house without me, okay?”
“Why? I’m having fun.” She links her arm through mine.
I sigh. Nevaeh really is like a Fraggle. Sweet, colorful, adorable and awesomely nutty. If I do end up leaving here, I wish I could keep her as a sister. “I’m actually going to Marcus’s house. They’re having a barbecue and I got permission to go.”
“Really? You think Dad would let me go, too? Please, Tiffany. Can I come with you?”
There is no way I can take Nevaeh. Right? Anthony’s head would implode. I grin at the thought. It would sort of serve him right to have an imploded head. Besides, it’s not really a big deal. We’ll go. Have a great time. He’ll see that the McKinneys aren’t so bad. Sure, he’ll be a little pissed off. Okay, a lot pissed off. But Nevaeh will do something Fraggle-y. Like tell him a ten-minute story about a rock she found and I’ll get a quick lecture about how this isn’t the “’hood” and in Malibu teenagers don’t sneak off and kidnap their little sisters. All will be well. “Let me call him and ask.” I fake call Anthony and pause for a few seconds, like I’m waiting while his phone is ringing. “Hey! It’s Tiffany and Nevaeh.”
“Hi, Daddy!” Nevaeh calls out.
“He says hi,” I say with a smile. “Hey, I know you said I could call Darryl and ride back home to the McKinneys’ barbecue. Can Nevaeh come, too?” I pause. “Of course. We won’t be long at all. I’ll take good care of her.” I pause again. “Awesome. Thanks! Love you, too!” I fake end the call. “He says it’s cool.”
“Yes!” She raises her arms in the victory symbol just as a text comes in from Marcus.
It says: Not feeling so hot today. Mom #2 has me on lockdown. Can the driver bring you?
Darryl the snitch? No way I can actually call him. Suddenly I recall Juan the driver telling me to call him if I ever needed a ride. Triple five, eleven, eleven!
I see a hot-dog vendor a few paces away and pull a five-dollar bill out of the front pocket of London’s Clueless skirt and hand it to Nevaeh. “Buy me a hot dog?”
She frowns. “We’re not allowed to eat food from the pier vendors.”
“Goodness. What are you guys allowed to do? Just buy me a bottle of water.”
“Sure.” She takes the money and skips off.
I quickly dial Juan.
“This is Juan speaking.”
“Juan. Hi! It’s Tiffany Sly?”
“The giant? Moving to Simi Valley? What’s up, kiddo?”
“Any chance you can pick me and my sister up in Malibu and take us back to Simi?”
“You’re in luck. Just dropped off a client in Culver City. I’m about ten minutes away from Malibu. What part?”
I give him the address. “But pick us up...” I look around and notice a seafood
restaurant. “At this little seafood restaurant across the street. Pick us up there.”
“Gotcha. Be there in, like, fifteen.”
I power down my cell. “Ready, Nevaeh?”
She hands me a cold bottle of water. “Superready.”
* * *
The ride with Juan is much better than our first. He drives well below the speed limit the entire time and Nevaeh’s chattering keeps me distracted and amused. When Juan finally pulls up to our cul-de-sac, I realize I pretty much know Nevaeh’s entire life story. Including something that she doesn’t know. I now know that Nevaeh has an intense, mondo, major crush on Zac Ziegler. Though she would probably never admit to it and I certainly don’t want to be the one to break the news to her.
“Thanks again, Juan,” I say, pushing open the door. “Charge the same card from last time. Add a twenty percent tip.”
“No doubt, little homey! Hey, I’m always around.”
Nevaeh and I move across the street toward Marcus’s house. The door swings open as we approach and a cute teenage African American boy tosses up the peace sign with his two fingers. He’s wearing black glasses, striped shorts, a black T-shirt and mismatched socks pulled up midcalf. “Hey, yo.” He looks back and forth between me and Nevaeh curiously.
“Hi. Is Jo or Monique or Marcus here?”
“Aunt Jo? She’s upstairs. Auntie Monique’s in the backyard cookin’. Marcus? He’s in his room praying to the Zen God or something. You guys wanna come in?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
We both step inside.
“Tiffany?” Jo descends their giant staircase looking vibrant and happy. As usual, her short hair is styled perfectly and she wears a Berkeley sweatshirt with jean shorts and flip-flops. “I thought you guys were in Malibu this weekend?”
“We are. But, um, Dad said we could come to your barbecue.”
“Really now?” She doesn’t exactly look convinced.
“Yeah. He wanted to come, too...but, uh, sends his regards.”
“I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I always say I believe in miracles.” She makes it down the stairs and embraces me warmly, then looks at Nevaeh. “Don’t tell me.” She scratches her head. “Heaven?”
Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now Page 20
