It's All Good

by Nikki Carter

  “I came to your party, Gia. Isn’t that enough?”

  Valerie’s foolishness is a welcome distraction. She’s totally making me forget about Ricky’s kiss and my noodle legs.

  “Thanks for coming, Valerie.”

  “You’re welcome. Act grateful for a change, chica.”

  Valerie and I share a laugh for a moment. Then she turns serious.

  “Gia, I think I know who posted the pictures on Facebook.”

  Somebody needs to explain to Valerie that my birthday party is not the time to discuss her random drama. Even though my birthday isn’t actually until tomorrow, it’s still my night. Valerie stays putting the spotlight on herself.

  I mean, can Gia get a close up? (Okay, for real. That was the last time.)

  “Who, Valerie? Who did it?” I hope my tone displays every bit of the irritation that I’m feeling.

  “I think it was my mom.”

  My eyes have got to be bugging out of my head. “Are you serious? Your mom? How do you know?”

  “She was telling one of her sisters how she ‘took care’ of Susan, and I was thinking, what?”

  “And? Took care of her how?”

  “Well, I booted up my mom’s computer and looked in her picture folder. The pics that were supposedly Susan were in the folder, but they had some other girl’s face on them,” Valerie explains.

  “Your mom Photoshopped some pictures?”

  “I know my mom doesn’t know anything about Photoshop. She must’ve paid someone to do it.”

  “But why? Why didn’t she just start her own Facebook page?”

  “I thought about that,” Valerie replies. “Maybe because most of my friends on Facebook only accept friend requests from people they know ...”

  “... and she wanted to make sure all your friends saw it,” I say, finishing Valerie’s sentence.

  “I guess so,” Valerie says.

  “So what are you gonna do? You gonna snitch on your own mama?”

  “Naw, chica. Never that. My mami has my back, regardless.”

  “But what about the prom and graduation?”

  Valerie shrugs. “I’m just gonna have to chalk it, I guess.”

  “That’s a craptastrophe, Valerie! Man!”

  “Craptastrophe? There you go, chica. Always making up words.”

  “Nuh-uh, that’s on the SAT list!”

  I guess I’m looking so serious that she doesn’t know whether to believe me or not. I love messing with Valerie. She’s so easy!

  “I’m joking you, Val. It’s not really a word.”

  “Don’t play like that, Gia. I’m already gonna have a tough enough time getting into college!”

  “Word. I’m putting you on my mama’s prayer list.”

  Valerie laughs. “Does it work?”

  “Well, she’d been praying for a husband and she finally got one. So I’m thinking maybe.”

  Valerie replies, “Then why don’t you put yourself on there and pray for some chemicals to fall into your hair?”

  “Ha, ha, Valerie. I did used to pray for a relaxer, but God has shown me the error of my ways. Now I embrace the nap-fabulousness that is moi. Deal with it or kick rocks.”

  “Gia, you are super funny. You should be on that show on BET. The one with the comedians. I think it’s called Who’s Got Jokes.”

  Hmmm ... I can see that. First of all, Bill Bellamy is the truth! He’s kinda old, but he’s still rocking a little fineness.

  Ricky interrupts my television fantasy. “Gia, will you dance with me?”

  I smile up at Ricky, because he finally figured out how to ask a girl to dance. But then I panic because it’s a slow song. Alicia Keys’s “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” is coming from the speakers and Ricky is taking my hand.

  It’s like I’m in a daze, but I feel Ricky put my hand on his shoulder and he puts one of his hands on my waist. Then he grabs my other hand just like we’re about to couple skate. Okay, maybe I can make it through the song if I think of it like that. We’ve couple skated a million times. But not since he gave me the Tweety bracelet and then put his chap-free lips on my face.

  Oh. My. God.

  For a second I think it’s my hand that’s trembling uncontrollably, but then I realize that it’s Ricky’s hand doing the shaking. Then, I get it. He’s just as nervous as I am.

  I give his hand a squeeze to let him know that it’s okay.

  I mean, even though we’re slow dancing, and that’s completely outside of BFF parameters, Ricky is still my bestie. And nothing can change that!

  Did I mention that I’m having my first slow dance?

  18

  I open my eyes and blink a few times. Oh right, it’s Sunday morning, my seventeenth birthday. And the day after the best birthday party ever!

  Was it all a dream? Ricky kissing me and asking me to slow dance with him! Wow. It still doesn’t seem real.

  There’s a knock on my door and I realize that it’s time for the Stokes family tradition. I guess it’s going to be the Stokes-Ferguson tradition now, since we’re a blended family and everything.

  “Happy Birthday to ya!” My mom bursts into the room singing the Stevie Wonder version of the happy birthday song.

  If you haven’t heard of this version, Google it. I haven’t got time to educate you on this right now. I’ve got birthday presents to open, you know what I mean?

  Candy and LeRon follow Gwen into the room carrying boxes. My gifts!

  “Thank you! Now hand over the loot!” I say.

  I open the first gift and it’s from Candy. It’s a little Juicy Couture purse. I lift my eyebrows all the way up and so does my mom. Has Candy gone back over to the shoplifting dark side just to get me a birthday gift?

  Candy sucks her teeth. “Are you kidding me? I bought it on eBay. Don’t be too rough on it. The Juicy logo might fall off.”

  Everyone laughs out loud at this. Candy done bought me a fake purse off of eBay. Jesus be a fence all around me.

  “Open mine,” my mom says.

  I open the box and it’s a digital camera. It’s one of the good ones too. I can make movies with this and everything.

  “Cool! Thank you, Mom!”

  LeRon hands me his box last. I clap and squeal when I see his gift. It’s the iPod Shuffle that I’ve been nagging my mom for since it came out.

  “Thank you, LeRon!”

  I jump up and give him a hug, which I don’t think he expects at all. He stumbles back a little bit but smiles anyway. Hey, it’s my birthday. I’m in a great mood.

  “After church, we’re going out to dinner,” my mother says. “Your aunt, uncle, Hope, Ricky and his parents, and Kevin are all coming too. Your pick, Gia. Where are we eating?”

  “Cheesecake Factory!”

  “Sweet!” Candy shouts and high-fives me.

  When we get to church, Ricky pulls me away from my family and into the church foyer.

  “Happy real birthday, Gia,” he says as he hands me a little box.

  “Ricky, you didn’t have to get me anything. You threw the party.”

  He puts his hand up. “Shh! Just don’t be looking for a Christmas present. The Gia fund is all tapped out.”

  “There’s a Gia fund?”

  Ricky laughs. “There was.”

  I open the tiny box and inside is a charm for my bracelet. It’s a little boot.

  “A Hi-Steppers boot?” I ask.

  Ricky grins. “Yeah!”

  “Cool. Thank you, Ricky.”

  Now it’s my turn to make him uncomfortable. I give him a hug and kiss similar to the one he gave me at my party.

  “Ooh, I’m telling! Y’all kissing at church!”

  Grrr! This is Kevin ruining a moment. A perfectly innocent moment, I might add. But Kevin doesn’t play about the rules of church. As a matter of fact, he’s like the church police.

  “Boy, ain’t nobody doing nothing!” I fuss. “Ricky was just giving me my birthday present.”

  “Oh. Well, wa
tch yourselves. The Lord can see you.”

  I shake my head as Ricky and I burst into laughter. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m glad Kevin came and broke things up, because I had no idea what I was going to say next.

  “What did you get me, Kevin?” I ask.

  “See, what had happened was ...”

  “How you gonna be a bestie and not give me a birthday gift?”

  Kevin laughs. “I’m just playing. Hold on a sec. I’ll be right back.”

  Kevin rushes back into the sanctuary.

  “He better hurry up. Service is gonna start soon,” I say.

  Ricky says, “Before he interrupted, I was going to say that it’ll be easy to shop for you now. I’ll just get you charms every birthday.”

  “Well, at some point you’re gonna have to buy me a new bracelet, because you’re going to run out of room on this one.”

  “That’s gonna take some years.”

  “I know. But doesn’t one of the Fs in BFF mean forever?”

  “Umm ...”

  Kevin taps me on the shoulder and saves Ricky from responding.

  “Here you go, Gia. Hope you like it.”

  I take the small, neatly wrapped package from Kevin. The paper is cute—pink with little Tweetys all over. My friends are so thoughtful.

  “It’s a journal. Thanks, Kev! I was on the last couple of pages on my current one, so this is perfect.”

  “Last pages? Wow, what are you writing about?” Kevin asks.

  “None of your business! Dang, you’re nosy.”

  I press the new journal to my chest and walk away from the boys and into the sanctuary. Hope is sitting in our usual seat and Sascha is visiting. She never visits on a Sunday, so I wonder what’s up.

  Hope scoots over so that I can slide into the pew, next to her. Service hasn’t started yet, so we still have some time to chat.

  “Hey, Sascha. You weren’t at my birthday party,” I say. “What’s up with that?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, Chase didn’t want to come. He thought your mom was going to be there and he didn’t want to run into her.”

  “So you two are still together?”

  Sascha nods. “Gia, I’m staying with him no matter what. I really love him.”

  “Even if he hurts you and tries to force you to do things that you don’t want to do?”

  “If we broke up and he started dating someone else, it would kill me, Gia. I don’t think I could take that,” Sascha says.

  The sadness in her eyes makes my heart hurt for her.

  “My mom says that love doesn’t hurt,” Hope offers.

  “That’s not true,” Sascha chokes out between sobs. “It does hurt. Especially when they don’t love you back.”

  Sascha excuses herself and runs to the back of the church toward the ladies’ restroom.

  “Do you think we should go after her?” Hope whispers as the service is starting.

  I shake my head. “No. There’s not really much more we can tell her right now. We’re the ones telling her to break it off with Chase.”

  “But she should!” Hope exclaims, grabbing my arm for emphasis. “Wait a minute. Is that a new charm?”

  What is this girl? Secret Service? FBI? How is it that her eyes went directly to my charm bracelet? And how is it that I’m now under interrogation? She might as well be shining one of those spotlights in my eyes like they do in the spy movies.

  “Yes. It’s a new charm. You like?”

  “Did Auntie Gwen get it for you?”

  I smile knowingly. “Nope. She didn’t.”

  “It was Ricky!” Hope squeals way too loud, especially since the grown-people choir is on their way to the choir stand.

  Most of the young people at our church sing in the youth choir, so we call the mass choir that sings almost every Sunday the grown-people choir. Some Sundays Kevin sings with them too, which is funny. Every time he does it we call him gramps for a week. He does not appreciate it. But alas, we don’t care.

  Hope leans in and whispers, “So did y’all make it official? Do y’all go together yet?”

  “No! And I don’t know if I want to, either. Look how foolish Sascha is acting. If that’s what love looks like, it’s not a good look.”

  “Man, they’re crazy, Gia. You and Ricky wouldn’t be like that.”

  “Don’t keep saying, ‘you and Ricky’ like we’re a couple. If Gwen hears you say that she’ll take my head off.”

  “Well then, stop denying it. You know that you and Ricky are catching feelings.”

  Okay. Boo to Hope for sounding like one of those old-school throwback rap songs from when we were babies. Catching feelings? I vote no to revamping retired slang.

  “I’m not catching anything, Hope. Just nix the whole boyfriend bit for now. We’ll get there when we get there. It seems like you and Kevin want it more than we do.”

  Mother Cranford keeps cutting her eyes at us. That’s called her evil be quiet side eye. I know she’s about to start tripping, so I elbow Hope in the ribs.

  Hope is so dense that she doesn’t get the signal and keeps talking. “It’s like we’ve sat through this movie since the ninth grade, Gia. We want to see the end!”

  I poke Hope again and then nod my head toward Mother Cranford, who is now scowling. Why do we always sit near her anyway? Hope smiles sweetly at her and I focus on Pastor Stokes, who is just now getting up to speak.

  I know that Kevin, Hope, and even Candy are beyond ready to see Ricky and me move into coupledom. But the way things are creeping along for us, it might not be until the sequel!

  19

  When I get to school on Monday morning, Valerie is standing next to my locker looking beyond irritated.

  “Candy, I’ll catch up with you later. Let me holler at Valerie and see what she wants.”

  “All right then, Gia. Talk to you later.”

  I walk up and say, “Hey, Valerie. What it do?”

  Valerie rolls her eyes and gives me a slight nod. “Gia, I know that you live in silly town ninety-nine percent of the time, but I need you to come back to reality for just a second.”

  Grouchy much?

  My nostrils flare but I hold the sarcasm at bay. “How can I help you today, Valerie? How may I be of service?”

  She thrusts a wrinkled-up piece of notebook paper in my face.

  “What’s this? Your homework?”

  “Just open it and read it.”

  On the paper is a letter to Susan Chiang. It’s a pretty nasty note, actually, saying that she should’ve never won Homecoming Queen because she’s ugly and fat. Then it says some super mean things about her race, which I’m not even going to repeat. That’s how sick it is.

  “Valerie, did you write this?”

  She gives me a look of disgust. “No. Of course I didn’t write that. Now, ask me where I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “In the trash in my mom’s office.”

  “What? What are you saying?”

  “I’m sure my mother wrote this. It’s her handwriting.”

  I feel completely and totally confused. Parents are supposed to be the smart, sensible ones. They’re not supposed to do stupid stuff. And writing something like this letter is beyond stupid. Gwen would ground me until infinity for something like this.

  “But why?” I ask. “This doesn’t make any sense. What is she planning to do with it?”

  Valerie makes a snorting sound. “You should be asking what she already did! She posted it on Susan’s wall on Facebook.”

  “What! Did she post it under your profile?”

  “No. She has a new one. She’s calling herself Derek, but the picture is of my cousin Javier.”

  “And he’s on Susan’s friend list?”

  “Not anymore. But Javier is cute, so a lot of girls accepted the friend request, not knowing it was my mother.”

  I shake my head, trying to understand. “Have you actually seen your mom logged on to the computer? How can you be sure it’s her a
nd not your cousin?”

  “First of all, my cousin can’t even speak English. He lives in Puerto Rico. And I’ve been having my girl Phoebe keep an eye on Susan’s page, just in case. When she told me about the crazy post on Susan’s page, I searched my mom’s office and found the letter in her trash can.”

  Wow. Valerie’s mother needs to watch an episode of Law & Order or something. Who would keep evidence in their office?

  “You’ve got to tell someone, Valerie.”

  Valerie lets out a sad-sounding chuckle. “Seriously, Gia. You want me to snitch on my own mother?”

  I bite my lip and try to imagine what I might do if Gwen did something like this. Okay, whatever. My mother would never, ever, do something like this.

  “But the stuff that your mom wrote ... It could really hurt someone, Valerie.”

  “It’s just words,” Valerie disagrees. “Sticks and stones, right, chica?”

  Valerie crumples the letter in her hand and then tosses it in her bag. She flags down Jewel and Kelani, and even though they look like they don’t want to, they wait for her.

  Before Valerie leaves she says, “Keep this between us, Gia. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I slam my lunch down on the table. Hope, Ricky, and Kevin look up at me as if they’re waiting for an explanation.

  “Don’t ask,” I say.

  Why did Valerie tell me about her mother stalking Susan on Facebook? Why would she put that burden on me, and then ask me to keep it a secret? That is the opposite of everything that is right! Wrong on every level!

  “Okay,” Hope says, “since we can’t ask Gia what she’s spazzing about we can talk about my stuff.”

  “What stuff?” Kevin asks.

  Hope pulls out two photos of dresses. “Which looks better? Lots of ruffles or lots of lace?”

  “So, what if someone’s mom is doing something that needs to be told to ... I don’t know! The police!” I blurt across the table.

  Ricky and Kevin’s attention switches from Hope’s ugly dresses to me.

  “Whose mother, what did they do, and why is it that you always have the scoop about stuff?” Kevin asks.

  I run my fingers nervously through my afro. “Trust me, Kev. I wish I didn’t have this scoop. This is a scoop I would gladly return to sender.”