“What you mean? Where were you?”
She bit her lip with a dramatic pause. “With Jacob Miller.”
“What!” I screamed.
She jumped, covering my mouth with her icy hand.
“Shhhh . . . you got anything to eat? I’m starving.”
We grabbed two bowls, a box of Cheerios, sugar, and some milk before running to my room and curling up in our tent.
“Okay, tell me everything,” I said, my skin buzzing with excitement, holding my doll baby Pinky in my lap.
A face-splitting smile grew over Monday’s spoon as she slurped.
“I snuck out the house last night.”
I gasped. “Are you for real? How you do that?”
“I climbed out my bathroom window and jumped down.”
“What? How you not dead?”
She chuckled. “’Cause I jumped onto the trash cans right below.”
“You stone cold crazy! Why?”
She shrugged. “He asked me to. He wanted to see me.”
“You gonna do everything that bamma tell you. You could’ve broke your leg or something. You can’t dance on no broken leg.”
She rolled her eyes and giggled. “I was fine. I’ve done it before . . . when I had to.”
That’s weird, I thought. Why the hell would she have to climb out a window? Maybe they practice for fire drills or something.
Monday dug around her Cheerios. Her thoughts seemed to drift away—somewhere far, without me. I snuggled closer.
“Well? What happened?”
She bit her lower lip, her eyes glowing. “He asked me to do his hair, said he wanted it to be special and didn’t want everyone around. His mom went to the casinos for the night, so we had the whole place to ourselves. I sat on the sofa and he sat right between my legs on the floor. Girl, I was so nervous! My hands were shaking. But I hooked him up. His hair looks crazy good, you’ll see. After I was done, he turned on a movie.”
I leaned forward, clutching Pinky, hanging on to every word. “And then what happened?”
She gushed, hugging her knees. “And then . . . he kissed me.”
“OMG! He, like, kissed you kissed you?”
“Yes, girl! We were lying on the sofa—kissing and stuff.”
“OMG,” I shrieked, burying my face in Pinky’s hair. I popped my head back up. “And then what happened?”
She smirked. “What you mean?”
“Did you . . . you know, do it?”
She chuckled bashfully over her spoon. “No. But he wanted to. But I told him I couldn’t until he told everyone we go together at school on Monday.”
“So, he’s, like, your boo now?”
She nodded, smiling huge. “Yeah, I guess so.”
I buried my face in Pinky again and let out an “Eek!” I’d never been so excited!
“Wait a minute. What about your mom? How you gonna explain where you were?”
“I’mma tell her I was at your house,” she said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal. “She won’t know the difference.”
I hugged Pinky tighter. So many questions running through my head. I didn’t even know where to start.
“What was it like? Kissing him? How’d you know what to do?”
“It’s just like the movies. When the guy puts his tongue in your mouth.”
“Ew. That sounds . . . nasty.”
She laughed. “It’s not. It felt good. Just got to make your lips soft and open your mouth a little.”
I picked up Pinky by the yarns of her hair, flopping her from side to side, mulling it over as a twinge of jealousy surfaced. Monday snuck out the house. She kissed a boy. She was doing all these major things—without me.
Monday’s eyes ran over my face. “What?”
“I didn’t say nothing.”
“Yeah, but you’re thinking something.”
I shrugged. “Just thinking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Claudia. You my best friend. Ain’t no boy gonna come between us.”
I didn’t know that was even a possibility.
“I know. I ain’t worried about that.”
She shrugged. “We just got to get you a boo now.”
“You know I don’t like anybody,” I sighed, focusing on Pinky’s hair.
“So. You’ll learn to like them. I’ll ask Jacob. Maybe one of the boys got a crush on you.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. You real pretty. One of them feeling you and ain’t saying. But now that me and Jacob go together, I bet they’ll holla.”
I tensed, clutching Pinky. “But what if they find out that . . . you know?”
Monday turned serious. “Trust me, they won’t. Plus, they so dumb they probably won’t know the difference. They’ll be dying to get with you!”
I bit my lip, holding in another scream. She patted my leg and scooted out of the tent.
“Where you going?”
“Come on, leave Pinky there. We got work to do. We got to do our nails and our hair for tomorrow. It’s gonna be a big day!”
The next morning for lineup, I arrived early. I didn’t want to miss Monday’s big moment, anxious to see how Jacob would let everyone know that him and Monday were together. Would he just start holding her hand in the hallway, sit next to her at lunch, or would he make some big announcement like he was running for president? Would he kiss her—in front of everybody? I didn’t know if I was ready to see Monday do something so . . . intimate.
Monday flat-twisted the front of her hair, leaving the back out semi-straight. I painted her nails apple red with rhinestone studs on the tips, and she borrowed some of April’s makeup. Standing next to me, her skin glowing, she almost looked like a different person.
Jacob stood in his normal circle, cackling with the other boys. His hair did look fly. Monday wove his braids in zigzags, leaving the ends out slightly unraveled. We stood in silence for thirty minutes and he never said a word to her. Didn’t even look in her direction. Not even when the bell rang.
“Aye, who hooked you up?” Carl asked Jacob on the way to history. “Braids look on point, cuz.”
Jacob shrugged. “Some girl around my way.”
“Dang, can she hook up mine like that too? I’ll pay her whatever.”
Monday fidgeted with her book bag, glancing at me, worry in her eyes.
Scrambling to find comforting words, I whispered, “He’s just nervous. Maybe he doesn’t want everybody knowing just yet. Boys are stupid.”
“Yeah, stupid,” she agreed, her voice timid.
I linked our pinkies. “Be cool. He’ll come around.”
But as the day went on, nothing happened. Not that day, the next day, or the next. He blew by her like she was a ghost. While everyone complimented him on his braids, he remained mute on Monday. And there were only so many reassurances I could give her before they started to sound like lies.
The Before
The week after Thanksgiving, with everyone’s bellies full of Ma’s sweet potato pie and peach cobbler, Mr. Hill called Ma to request a special meeting after school. My mid-quarter grades never showed up. Either God answered my prayers or they held them back for other reasons. Reasons I was deathly afraid of.
I waited in the main office, my legs bouncing, praying for another miracle. Mr. Hill strolled in, head down in his files, chewing on a toothpick.
“Mr. Hill!” I jumped up from the bench.
“Oh. Hey, Claudia,” he said, eyes shifting behind me. “Are, uh, your parents here yet?”
I noticed my name printed on top of the thick folder and gulped. Whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good. But if I had Monday, she could help set everything right.
“They’re . . . on their way. So, um, did you talk to Monday yet?”
“Monday? Oh, oh right. Yes, I called, but the phone was disconnected.”
“Yeah. I told you that. You said you had another number?”
“Oh. Thought I did. But I sent a letter to the las
t address on file to have her call the school.”
“A letter? But—”
“Ah, Mrs. Coleman! Nice to see you again.”
Ma arrived first, dressed in a sandy-colored long-sleeve dress with her black church blazer. Then Daddy, still in his army-green uniform.
We entered the big conference room with light seafoam walls and long brown cafeteria tables. Ms. O’Donnell sat on one side of the table along with Mr. Hill. Her presence alone made me want to vomit.
“It’s no secret that Claudia has been having a rough time this quarter,” Mr. Hill began.
Ma frowned, her voice laced with a warning. “Clearly, it’s been a secret to us since this is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“We thought it might be best to assess the situation first,” Mr. Hill said with a half smile. “Didn’t want to raise any unnecessary alarms.”
“How is our daughter a ‘situation’?” Daddy asked, his voice low, bellowing in the half-empty room.
Mr. Hill nodded at Ms. O’Donnell, who refused to acknowledge my glare. She sniffed and opened up a teal folder in front of her. “Take a look at some of her work over the past few weeks. Notice anything?”
Daddy lifted up my book report and I forced myself not to snatch it out of his hands. He read it over, his eyes going wide before passing it to Ma with a blank expression.
“Her letters . . . they’re all backward and stuff,” Ma muttered reading through it.
“Correct,” Mr. Hill said. “Most of her in-class assignments are like this. Clearly she’s having difficulty with spelling and basic reading comprehension. I checked with the rest of her teachers, and they have all made similar observations. One even mentioned she seemed terrified of reading aloud and assumed she was just being shy.”
Pressure pushed against the thinning walls of my bubble and squeezed. I shuffled and reshuffled a card deck full of excuses and kept coming up blank.
“Her homework from previous years, however, seemed to be impeccable,” Ms. O’Donnell said. “I’m curious, Mr. and Mrs. Coleman, do you help Claudia with her assignments?”
Ma raised an eyebrow. “You mean do we do her homework for her? No!”
“Baby, please. Relax,” Daddy whispered, rubbing her back.
“She’s always done it on her own,” Ma said, her voice drifting before glancing at me. “Or with . . . a friend.”
I gulped, her gaze burning a hole in the side of my neck, trying to smoke the words out of me.
“Well,” Mr. Hill sighed. “We’d like to have her tested and continue evaluations, but our best guesstimate is she could have dyslexia.”
The word burned through the air—a word that lived on the back of my tongue, gagging me every time I pretended to read a book. A word I had tried to shield and protect myself from for years. But once spoken, it shot out like a hot needle and popped the bubble I lived in. Exposed to the new crisp air, I shivered, like I never knew cold existed.
Ma and Daddy stiffened, sharing an awkward exchange of glances.
“That doesn’t . . . make any sense,” Ma stammered. “Her work has been just fine! I mean, the other day she came home with ninety-two on her last math test. We hung it up on the fridge! How can she score damn near a hundred on a test and write like this?”
“I spoke to Ms. Montgomery about that,” Ms. O’Don-nell explained. “She prints her test and quizzes on blue paper. Commonly, students with dyslexia process information differently. When presented in such a way, color reduces confusion. It’s one of the key identifying traits I picked up on.”
Ma shook her head, struggling to find the words.
“But she’s never had problems before, and she’s been in this school since the first grade,” Daddy said. “Isn’t this something you should have caught a while ago?”
“Yeah,” Ma huffed. “How come they didn’t check for that on them standardized tests y’all be stressing over every year?”
“It’s possible she’s flown under the radar,” Ms. O’Donnell said, glaring at Mr. Hill.
“With all these teachers up in her face every day, I don’t understand how my child could fly that plane alone and no one notice until the year before she’s supposed to go to high school,” Ma snapped.
“Sometimes these issues materialize in other ways, as a form of distraction,” Mr. Hill started carefully. “Could explain some . . . behavioral issues Claudia’s had over the last year.”
Daddy holds Ma back from lunging at them.
“Issues? You mean when you let crazy people take pictures of my child and spread them all over the internet? You mean like when that boy touched her butt? Issues like that? She had every right to box that boy’s ears in.”
“Yes, but that hasn’t been the only fight she’s been in,” Mr. Hill said.
Ma’s eyes dropped to her hands, her expression softening. Daddy glanced between us and I stopped breathing. “Wait a minute! What other fights?” Daddy asked.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Ma whispered, not looking up at him.
Daddy shook his head, his lips pressed together. “So what are the next steps for something like this?”
“Well, like I said, there are a few official steps and procedures,” Mr. Hill said. “But once it’s all worked out, Claudia will be identified as a student with learning disabilities, which qualifies her for certain supplemental tools to help her manage and succeed.”
Tears prickled against my eyelids. Without my bubble protecting me, every bone in my body ached to run and dive into my tent. With Monday. The world felt raw without her.
“I know it may not seem like it right now but this is actually a good thing,” Ms. O’Donnell offered with a painful smile.
“I don’t see how my child suffering with this for so long—undetected—could be a good thing,” Ma said, though not as fierce as before. “Clearly this has affected her studies and could affect her choice of high school.”
“You are right. It’s unfortunate we are just learning this now, and it’s too late to right all the wrongs,” Ms. O’Donnell said. “But knowing is half the battle. Claudia is an extremely bright student. Every teacher has said such. With the proper tools, she’ll accelerate without question!”
“And we will, of course, do our best to push her through to graduation,” Mr. Hill added.
Ms. O’Donnell rolled her eyes at him. “But our main objective will be to provide resources. Immediately.”
Mr. Hill seemed to hold back a comment, giving Ma a pained smile.
“I think it’d be best if we discuss this in private,” Daddy sighed before standing. The teachers leaned back, thrown off by his height and build. “Thanks for your time. Come on, Claudia.”
The three of us walked in silence to the car before Ma finally broke.
“Well, they got some nerve! First, they start accusing us of doing her work for her, then they admit they messed up, then they talking about this is a ‘good thing.’ A good thing? How they in her face all day and not see something right in front of them?”
“Not now, Janet,” Daddy said.
“And that Mr. Hill, talking about how they gonna ‘push her to graduation.’ Sound like they just wanna get rid of her—make her someone else’s problem instead of trying to help her. Sounds like they worried more about their ranking than our daughter!”
Daddy spun around to face her. “Janet! I said. Not. Now.”
Ma’s mouth hung open. Daddy huffed and continued toward the car.
We sat parked in silence for almost ten minutes, Daddy deep in thought, gripping the steering wheel.
Ma sighed loudly and clicked on her seat belt. “Well, I don’t understand what you mad at me for.”
Daddy turned to her, his eyes narrowing. “Fighting in school? You never said nothing about that. What else has been going on while I’m on the road? What else you not telling me? What else have you been lying about?”
Ma glared at him as she coldly crossed her arms. “Take me home.”
Daddy’s eyes softened. He knew he’d gone too far. He cleared his throat and started up the car. As we drove by Ed Borough, Monday swallowed up my thoughts. None of this would have happened if she were here to help me. They would have never found out. I can’t believe she would leave me high and dry like this. She knew I needed her. She knew!
“Daddy, did you ever talk to Monday’s daddy?” I blurted out.
Daddy grunted. “You need to stop worrying about your friend and start worrying about them grades. I don’t want to hear another word about that girl. Not one more word about Monday until your grades are up! You understand?”
December
I saw Jacob Miller not too long ago, coming out of the movies with some girl at Gallery Place Chinatown. We hadn’t seen each other since “it” happened—when the police were questioning everybody about Monday.
He’d fallen hard from grace after they found her. Bouncing from school to school, kicked off basketball teams, smoking, drinking until he couldn’t stand up straight. As Ma would say, he don’t know his ass from his elbow anymore. They say what happened changed him. I don’t believe that. I think he still using Monday. But if it did change him, then good. I hope it fucked with his head the way he fucked with Monday’s. I don’t feel a bit sorry for him.
But Ma says everyone deserves forgiveness.
That’s why if Ma was a color, she’d be pink with her sweetness. A tender flower, a bubbly pop of chewing gum, two scoops of strawberry ice cream. Silly in her girly ways, her color deepens with love, until she glows fuchsia—bright and bold, unstoppable.
But when she is not fed the riches that life promises, Ma pales, remaining but a tint above white, a color aching in want.
One Year Before the Before
“I can’t believe he’s gonna carry me like this. He SWORE he would say something.” Monday wrung her hands around an empty water bottle, staring at the tiles on the floor in the school bathroom. Three weeks since their first kiss, and even though they linked up over the weekends, he still ignored her at school.
“He told me this weekend. He said he would finally tell people now. Shit, I’m so stupid.”
Monday's Not Coming Page 8
