“You know, if that happens . . . you can go to Banneker without me.”
Her head popped up. “Huh?”
“I mean, you can go there . . . with Jacob.”
“What you saying? I’m not going to school without you!”
“Okay,” I conceded, taking out my coloring book, needing something to accomplish to soothe my ego.
“We got a plan! Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“Day Day!” a little voice called out. “Day Day, where are you?”
“Shhhh! August, we over here! Keep your voice down!”
Little feet pattered in our direction before August burst around the corner. He grinned, running full speed through the stacks—his Transformers book bag half open, drinking a juice box with cookie crumbs on his little face, and braids undone.
“Why you such a mess? Tuck in your shirt.”
“Look! Ms. Paul gave me some juice,” he said, tumbling onto the floor.
“Still don’t explain why you such a mess. And what happened to your hair?”
“It itches,” he whined, scratching at his scalp.
“That don’t mean you take them out in the public,” she groaned. “Come here, boy! We can’t go home with you looking like this. Mom will kill me!”
August grinned and somersaulted over to Monday. She pulled a long-tooth comb out her book bag and sliced into his ’fro.
“Ow,” August cried. “Owwww!”
Monday sucked her teeth. “Oh shut up! Ain’t nobody hurting you!”
August whimpered, fidgeting with the buttons on his shirt. Born with ants in his pants and rocks in his shoes, he couldn’t keep still for more than a minute.
“Day Day, can we go swimming?”
She swatted at the side of his head again. “Boy, quit playing. You don’t swim!”
“But—”
“Shut. Up,” she snapped. “Shut it!”
Their brother-sister relationship felt more like a mother-son dictatorship with her harsh disciplines. Spending afternoons corralling him exhausted her.
By the time I finished coloring in the red tail of a baby dragon, Monday was nearly done.
“Dang, you did that quick.”
She shrugged. “I’m just used to it.”
“I know, but I mean, you can probably do other people’s hair that quick too. Maybe even open yourself up a braid shop and make some money.” I laughed. “You see all them bammas in school with their hair looking crazy. You can hook them up. Boys got money to get their hair did.”
Monday didn’t respond, just worked intensely, weaving through to the ends of August hair. Suddenly, the comb fell out of her hand. August scooped it up, quickly turning it into a toy.
“Girl,” Monday gasped with a huge grin. “Yo! You’re a genius!”
The next day at school, Monday had more sass in her step.
“I can’t believe you’re about to do this,” I whispered, watching her gaze at Jacob, Trevor, Carl, and a bunch of other boys from class huddled in the yard.
“You came up with the idea,” she teased, touching up her freshly done hair. An intricate pattern of tiny braids weaved like a basket into two pigtails. She must have spent half the night on them.
“Yeah, but not like this.”
She grinned, shoving her bag into my hands filled with her supplies: a comb, a spray bottle filled with water, hair grease, and tiny black rubber bands.
Monday had a reckless fearlessness that made me want to grab her by the neck and stuff some sense in her ears like wet clothes in a dryer.
“Naw, mix up top? Meet press stop!” Are you nuts? Don’t do this!
With a deep breath, she headed toward the boys. Drawn to the wreckage I was sure would come, I followed.
“Hey, y’all,” Monday started. She held her chin up and kept her voice light and easy. “I got a question!”
The boys, stunned by her voice, did a double take and fell silent. Shayla and Ashley, chilling near the entrance, moved in closer while the entire yard watched on. I clutched her bag tighter, ready to run.
“Uh, yeah?” Trevor chuckled, looking at the other boys, appearing as confused as ever.
Monday smirked. “Any of y’all need your hair done?”
The boys glanced at one another, baffled. “What?”
“I can braid y’all hair. Seven dollars a head. Anyone interested?” She asked, her eyes falling squarely on Jacob, his hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.
“Seven bucks, that’s all?” Carl asked—his thick hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in a minute.
“Yeah.”
He grinned. “Aight. Bet.”
“Carl! How you know she knows how to do hair?” Trevor challenged. “Your dumb ass gonna come out looking crazy.”
“’Cause, she’s a girl! And look at her hair! She hooks her little brother’s up too, and he be looking on point. My cousin charges me fifteen, and I be broke as a mug.”
The guys shrugged, still looking unsure before Carl waved them off. “Man, y’all lunchin’,” he said and turned back to Monday. “Where we doing this?”
“Over here.” Monday grinned, directing him to a bench behind us.
The boys formed a semicircle around them as if Monday was about to perform a magic trick, Jacob hanging to the far back. She inhaled deeply before prepping Carl’s hair, spraying it with water to soften, deftly detangling and combing out the knots. Carl winced at her heavy hands, and the boys snickered. She carved out several sections, clipping back the parts she wasn’t ready to work with, fingers working fast over his strands. Shayla and Ashley stood by, pretending to be deep in conversation, glancing over their shoulders every thirty seconds. Thirty minutes later, the guys stood in awe. Monday nodded at me, and I held up my small compact mirror.
“Yo! Shorty hooked me up,” Carl exclaimed. “I told y’all!”
Trevor nodded in agreement. “So, can I go next?”
Later that evening, Monday and I giggled over chicken and mambo sauce in our makeshift tent, reliving the afternoon in detail.
“OMG, I was so shook,” Monday squealed, braiding one of my doll baby’s hair. “And Shayla’s face . . . OMG, she was so heated!”
“Girl, I couldn’t breathe watching you! I could’ve never done that!”
“Yes you could’ve. Just got to pretend to own that shit until you do,” she said, stuffing her mouth with a dizzy smile. “Okay, so! If I charge seven dollars a head and do, like, four boys a week, that twenty-eight dollars a week.”
“What about girls? You can probably do their hair, too!”
“Hell, yeah. And YOU!” She sits up on her knees to face me. “You could start charging people to do their nails. We can open up a whole beauty shop at school.”
“We can be like, um, what’s the word?”
“Entrepreneurs?”
“Yeah! That!”
She dug in our carryout bag, grabbing two cans of Coke. “To making money . . . partner.”
I smiled, cracking my Coke open. “Right, partner!”
We crashed our cans together and chugged. Monday giggled, trying to drink the fastest.
“Ha! Beat you!” she cheered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Aight! You win,” I gasped, coming up for air. “You want to watch a movie downstairs before bed or whatever?”
“Yeah. But let’s change into our sweats first and bring our blankets,” she said, crawling out of the tent, turning to shimmy out of her sweater. “You know we just going to fall asleep down there.”
Climbing out the tent, I froze midway, my mouth dropping at the sight of her purpling skin.
“Dang, what happened to your back?”
Monday yanked down her shirt and spun around, stunned. Her eyes widened with terror, as if she forgot who I was.
“I . . . I . . . uh . . .” Her face went blank for a solid thirty seconds until she coughed out a throaty laugh.
“I fell out of bed,” she said with a shrug, clutching
the bottom of her shirt. “You know how I be sleeping all crazy.”
She didn’t sleep crazy. She slept with an invisible boulder on her back. Rarely moving, barely breathing, dead to the world.
“Again?” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe you should be on the bottom bunk.”
“Ha! April’s not having that. She’s already taking half the joint up with all her stuff.”
Monday’s room was such a mystery to me. I always asked her to describe it since I could never go to her house. She would give a vague description, ending with a shrug and an “It’s not big enough.” But I had my own predictions: a large cream room, pristine ivory carpet, golden bunk beds with fluffy pale pink comforters, crystal lamps, and a speaker box for an iPod. I don’t know why I envisioned it this way, maybe because I wanted the best for her.
“So, what movie do you want to watch?” she asked. “I’m thinking something funny!”
And just like that, she was back to normal. Even though it looked like an army of trolls had beaten her with baseball bats, how could I not believe? She was my best friend. If she was lying, it had to be for a good reason.
Right?
The Before
The essay prompt made my stomach clench up in a way no body part should be able to.
Prompt: Discuss why you wish to attend Benjamin Banneker Academic High School.
I had absolutely no idea.
Monday and I would have worked on this essay together. Alone, the only answer I could muster sounded straight foolish: my best friend wants to go, and we are a package deal.
“Claudia? Did you hear me?”
I focused back on Mr. Hill, my guidance counselor, sitting behind his neatly organized desk in his narrow monotone office.
“Um, sorry what?”
“I said, Banneker is a tough choice,” he sighed, cleaning his glasses. “Besides needing a 3.0 GPA and scoring proficient on the DC CAS, you’ll need a dynamic essay and recommendation letters from the principal, your math and English teachers, and myself. There’s also an interview, which usually happens in the spring. Are you sure you’re up for all of this?”
Benjamin Banneker High School is one of the top ten selective schools in the city. Selective meaning tough, and I had enough trouble with school. Why Monday wanted to go there so bad, I didn’t know. But knowing how obsessed she was, I assumed she must have been preparing to apply, and I should do the same.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He pressed his lips together, readjusting his tie. “Claudia, they are also very strict about your final performance and GPA. From what I’ve seen . . . your grades . . . are taking a beating this semester. Is everything alright?”
Science labs, history projects, and Monday were the only reason my GPA hadn’t sucked—until now. In the few short weeks Monday had been gone, books had gone unread, homework forgotten, tests and papers too exhausting to complete. Why did the hours feel so long, yet the day sped by?
“Yeah, stuff is just harder this year. I ain’t the only one, though! Other kids been complaining, too!”
Mr. Hill nodded and smiled. “So I’ve heard. But they’re offering peer tutors in the Learning Center after school. Maybe you should stop by.”
Like a hot coal was down my tights, I shot up, the words Learning Center a trigger.
“No! I mean, naw, I’m good,” I said, slipping the Banneker application between my textbooks and backing toward the door. “I’ll do better. I swear.”
“Well, okay.”
The class photo hung on his wall by the door sparked an idea.
“Mr. Hill, do you know why Monday Charles doesn’t go to school anymore?”
“Monday Charles?” he mused. “Oh. Oh right! Monday. Um, I’m not sure. Believe she moved, correct?”
I frowned. “Naw, she didn’t move.”
“Oh. Well . . .”
“I tried to call but her phone is disconnected.”
“Hm. I think I have two numbers for her. I’ll dig it up and give her a call.”
“Really?” I grinned. “Thanks, Mr. Hill!”
Mr. Hill stood up. “Anytime. And you’re sure about the student tutors at TLC?” he insisted. “Because I can—”
“Thanks for the talk, Mr. Hill. See you later!”
I spun, almost knocking myself out on the closed door, leaving the flaming words behind me and running down the hall before they could catch me.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” I mumbled to myself in the lunch line, my legs bouncing as I stared at the prompt in the application peeking out of my textbook. The walls of my bubble were caving in fast around me. If Monday didn’t come back soon and help me push them back, I’d suffocate in a world of my own making.
“You think Monday’s mom sent her away because they were lesbians?” a voice whispered behind me.
“Probably,” another said. “You heard how they got caught in the bathroom last year, right? Doing nasty shit.”
I refused to turn around, no matter how much their words burned holes through my bubble.
“Those were just rumors.”
“Hmph. Can’t be rumors when you seen it with your own eyes.”
“Guess Monday got down with both guys and girls. Living that ’ho life . . . just like her sister.”
“You heard about them closing Ed Borough, right?”
“Yeah . . . but the city said they gonna let people move back. Once they build new houses or whatever.”
“Ha! I got a cousin who used to live at Cappers. City did the same thing to them. Bulldozed them down, and ain’t none of those families got to move back. Think they turned Temple Courts into a parking lot. She and her sister probably living in West Bubblefuck right now.”
The library held millions of stories in a glass house. One good stone throw and the stories could leak out. That’s how my bubble felt. One sharp stone and all my secrets would come flooding out. But Mr. Hill will find her, she’ll be back soon, I thought.
“Hi, Ms. Paul!”
Ms. Paul looked up from her desk over a stack of books.
“Hi, sweetie. How’s it going?”
With Monday not around and Ma and Daddy busy with work, the house felt like an echoing shell. The library at least provided some relief.
“I’m okay. Gonna hang out in the media center.”
“Alright, I’ll let your mother know you’re here.”
“Cool,” I said, heading toward the back.
“Oh, Claudia! You know, I haven’t seen Monday in a while. How’s she doing?”
“She’s . . . fine,” I lied. “Just busy.”
“Oh, okay. I was so used to seeing her bouncing around here all summer, I thought she moved or something.”
“You used to see her . . . during the summers?”
She chuckled. “Almost every day. Her sister signed her up for the literacy camp every year.”
Monday never mentioned going to camp. In fact, she swore she did nothing but hang out at home with her brother and sisters or chill on the basketball court, watching the games.
“Well, anyways, I saw her on the late-return list and thought maybe she moved and forgot to drop her book off.”
No way. Monday was relentless about returning her books. She would walk through the pouring rain before incurring a late fee.
I winced a smile. “Well, I can let her know you’re looking for it. Which, uh, book was it again?”
Ms. Paul pulled out a paper from the drawer and slid her finger down the sheet.
“Eh . . . it was Flowers in the Attic.”
My stomach hardened and I backed away from the counter. “Okay. Thanks, Ms. Paul. I’ll remind her to bring it back.”
Rushing over to the media room, I stopped to collect my frantic thoughts. Monday took that book out a week before I left for Georgia. She took that book out a bunch of times. I remembered the cover, the funny title, the dents she made in the pages as she read it in our tent. Why does she still have it?
Since the t
hird grade, Monday and I went as a trick-or-treat duo. Fairies, clowns, witches . . . eggs and bacon. But we were about to enter high school and needed a more grown-up, sophisticated look. I toyed with the idea of angels or French maids until I flipped through a magazine and landed on the perfect costume: sexy cops—complete with fuzzy handcuffs.
Of course that was the plan.
Saturday night, a week before Halloween, I sat at the kitchen table, ready to pull my hair out over a huge history project due the following week. Monday and I always worked on projects together. I handled creativity: posters trimmed with perfect designs, titles made out of cut-up construction paper, replicating old cities with paper-towel rolls and newspapers. Monday handled the content. We landed As every time. We. Always we. I didn’t know how to work alone. I stopped by Mr. Hill’s office almost every day to follow up on Monday. Every time, he said he’d get back to me, and it started to feel like that day would never come.
“Weeks been going by so fast that I didn’t even notice Halloween coming around the corner,” Ma said, peeling apples in the sink, prepping candy apples for a kid’s costume birthday party. Her catering orders picked up around the holidays.
“If it wasn’t for this party I would’ve plum forgot!”
I sighed, digging through my textbook, pulling out phrases and quotes. Cheating, I know, but I didn’t know what else to do. My project stank of failure. And the words . . . they didn’t look right. Something about them felt off, no matter how many times I scribbled them down. I crumbled up another piece of paper, throwing it on the ground with the rest of the snowballs that surrounded me.
“Heck, I’m surprised you haven’t brought up costume shopping yet. You too big for costumes now?”
I shook my head, aimlessly coloring in the margins of my notebook. Steam swirled inside my bubble, a closed lid on a pot about to boil.
Ma glanced over her shoulder at my half-eaten dinner.
“Sweet Pea, what’s wrong? You not hungry?”
Biting my lip, I turned away from the questions that rubbed salt in the wounds Monday’s absence created. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Everything okay?” Over and over again.
Monday's Not Coming Page 5
