Rebecca Yates placed some stuffed mushrooms on her plate. At four-and-a-half months pregnant, her belly was starting to pop. “He was only fifty-four years old. He left behind three kids and eight grandkids.”
The four women—all long-standing committee members for the Crystal Ridge Memorial Day 5K—exchanged pointed looks as Paige came skipping into the kitchen, Faith and Hope following after her like a pair of hungry ducklings.
“It’s time to take my medicine,” Paige announced, stopping in front of the refrigerator.
Camille grabbed the measuring spoon and carefully poured out the correct dosage of amoxicillin—thick and pink and smelling like bubblegum.
Paige drank it down, then licked her lips before placing the spoon into the sink. “Okay, let’s go up to my room and play American Girl dolls. My Nana got me a new mermaid outfit. It would look really silly on Felicity. Who wants to put it on her first?”
Faith and Hope shot their hands into the air.
The ladies waited until the girls fell out of earshot before continuing the worrisome conversation.
“Patrick thinks the kid will be tried as an adult,” Rebecca said, moving on to the fruit-and-cheese platter. Patrick was her husband and a police officer for the Crystal Ridge Police Department. “He’s already been in on multiple counts for drug possession and vagrancy.”
Rose Hawthorne—the oldest of the women and also PTA president at the high school—poured herself a glass of wine. She had two stepkids in college and a daughter going into her sophomore year at Crystal Ridge. “These are the students coming to Crystal Ridge in the fall.”
Rebecca swallowed her bite of mushroom. “Not if we have anything to say about it.”
“I’m not sure that we do,” Deb said.
“Of course we do,” Rebecca replied, her tone filled with exasperation.
It was an exasperation Camille should feel too. An exasperation she had felt as soon as she read the announcement on the website yesterday. But then she found that long text conversation on Neil’s phone, and she’d been distracted ever since with a question that wouldn’t stop circling her mind.
Who was Jas?
“I’m concerned about class sizes,” Rose said.
“Same here.” Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “I mean, what’s going to happen if every single South Fork student decides to take the State of Missouri up on this law? How are we supposed to accommodate an entire district of students, especially when so many of them are failing?”
“It’s a lot to ask of our teachers.”
Deb slid onto one of the stools. “The more we talk about this, the more worried I get.”
Was Jas short for Jason? Some buddy from Neil’s CrossFit gym? They seemed to share a mutual love for hunting—a sport Camille had a hard time understanding. The whole thing was entirely too redneck for her corporate exec of a husband. Of course, she grew up in Southern California, where hunting wasn’t a thing. Where people didn’t have a bunch of guns in their garages. A sticking point that had caused arguments between them when they brought Taylor home from the hospital.
Camille wanted to get rid of them.
Neil had scoffed. “They’re locked in a safe in the garage. You think our newborn is going to crawl inside and crack the code?”
So the guns remained—hidden away and rarely used. Between the demands of his job and three kids underfoot, life didn’t afford many opportunities for hunting excursions.
Rebecca moaned. “These mushrooms are to die for. Somebody needs to stop me, or I’m going to gain sixty pounds with this baby.”
“Oh, stop,” Deb said. “You hardly gained any weight with Emma.”
“That was eight years ago. My metabolism isn’t what it was then.”
Rose lifted her glass of wine. “Welcome to pregnancy in your midthirties.”
A knock sounded at the door, followed by a swoosh of noise as the new arrivals removed their shoes in the foyer.
“Sorry we’re late,” Kathleen called, coming around the corner into the kitchen brandishing a pan of her signature Scotcheroos. “But I brought something to make up for it.”
“Just what I need,” Rebecca muttered.
Bennett and Cody trailed into the kitchen after their mother.
“My eldest is dying of boredom, and my middle got a new video game and is desperate for someone to play it with.”
Bennett held up Call of Duty, a version Camille didn’t recognize. “Is Austin downstairs?”
The muscles in Camille’s chest went tight. She wasn’t sure she wanted Austin playing something so violent, but she also wanted Bennett to want to be here, and at the moment—holding up his new game—he looked bright and excited.
Cody took off his baseball cap and ran his hand over the top of his blond hair. “I texted Taylor and asked if I could tag along with her and Alexis. She didn’t seem too annoyed with me.”
Camille smiled, perhaps a little indulgently. “You know you’re always welcome,” she said.
Taylor and Alexis shuffled into the kitchen, and Bennett disappeared into the basement with his new video game.
“Speak for yourself.” Taylor grabbed Cody’s hat and plopped it on her head. She looked adorable. And a little bit too…Victoria’s Secret catalog, with her too-short shorts and her lightweight long-sleeve shirt with a wide neckline that fell over her bare shoulder.
Sex.
The word stole into Camille’s mind like a thief, and for one panicked moment she wondered if Taylor was having it. She wondered if she was having it with Cody. It came so out of the blue that she wanted to laugh at the absurdity. Taylor and Cody were church kids. They went to FCA every Wednesday night. And Taylor was only sixteen. Her sixteen-year-old daughter was not having sex. For goodness’ sake, she only got her period two years ago—an age not uncommon for runners but mortifying to Taylor nonetheless.
“We’re going for a walk,” Taylor said, heading for the door.
“Where to?” Camille asked.
“I don’t know. Around.”
“Do you have your phone?”
Taylor shot Camille a withering look—because of course she had her phone—then walked out into the humid evening, Alexis and Cody following.
“So what did I miss?” Kathleen set the Scotcheroos in front of Rebecca and winked. Then she turned to Camille, seemingly unfazed by the flirtatious vibe between their two teenagers or that downstairs, their two eleven-year-olds were shooting people to death in some Call of Duty virtual reality. But then, Kathleen had always been the more laid-back parent between the two of them. “Is next year’s 5K all planned?”
“Our plans have been sidelined by the transfer news,” Rose said.
“And the stabbing in South Fork.”
Kathleen leaned in, her voice lowered. “I heard that it was gang related.”
Camille got out a butter knife and began cutting the Scotcheroos into equal-sized squares, an image of her husband flexing for the camera with a bunch of people she didn’t know stuck in her mind. Since when did her husband flex?
It was like the time they rented Napoleon Dynamite on DVD. Neil had laughed hysterically while she found the entire thing spectacularly stupid. Not ha-ha stupid either but legitimately dumb. She remembered looking at him and thinking: I don’t understand your sense of humor.
She had the same alarming thought now, only bigger. Because this wasn’t about Neil’s sense of humor; it was about him. This stranger who texted Chuck Norris memes and poked fun of someone called Hairy Gary with a mystery friend named Jas.
“You’re awfully quiet.” Rose gave Camille a nudge with her hip. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine.” She felt them all staring as she finished cutting the Scotcheroos. “I’m just concerned, like everyone else.”
“You’re not usually so docile when you’re concerned,” Kathleen teased as R
ose poured her a glass of wine too. “Hey, didn’t you invite that woman from the doctor’s office?”
“I never heard from her,” Camille said, momentarily distracted from her distraction. She’d really hoped Jen would call. The woman had seemed so reserved. Camille had a soft spot for people like that. She always wanted to pull them under her wing, coax them out of their shell. Maybe it was because they were too often mistaken for stuck-up, when usually they were just shy. Or maybe she simply liked being the person who got to talk the most in a relationship.
Whatever the case, there was a moment this afternoon when Camille considered calling Dr. Porter’s office to see if they might give her Jen’s number. She didn’t have Jen’s last name, but surely anyone would know who Camille was talking about the second she mentioned Jubilee. Camille was pretty confident nobody in Dr. Porter’s office would be forgetting that patient anytime soon. And equally confident that no matter how much everyone in that office loved Camille, they wouldn’t hand out patient information.
“Who’s the woman from the doctor’s office?” Rebecca asked.
“Someone I met in Dr. Porter’s waiting room yesterday when I brought Paige in for her strep test. She just moved to town and adopted a little girl the same age as Faith and Paige.”
Deb perked up. “Where from?”
“Liberia.”
“Liberia,” Rebecca parroted. “That’s in west Africa, isn’t it?”
“She’s only been home a couple months.”
“Oh man, those early days are such a fog. I can’t imagine having to move in the middle of them.” Deb served herself a Scotcheroo, placing it carefully on a napkin. “I would have loved to meet her.”
“Hopefully, you’ll still be able to.” Deb was the only other mom in the group with kids at O’Hare. The other ladies had children who went to different schools in the district. “Her daughter’s going to O’Hare.”
Rebecca stuck a toothpick in another mushroom and raised her eyebrows ominously. “If O’Hare has any spots left.”
Nine
Ever since Anaya was a baby, Mama would take her to Auntie Trill’s salon whenever it was time for another press and curl, which happened every second and fourth Saturday of the month. The two women would set their babies side by side, swapping notes on their size and their skin tone and the texture of their hair, until those two babies grew into little girls with box braids and strong opinions, jumping rope and playing hopscotch outside the front window.
When Anaya turned eleven and told ReShawn she would rather die than have her hair detangled one more time, ReShawn dared her to cut it off. Anaya, feeling brave and bold and rebellious, took Auntie Trill’s clippers and, to Mama’s great horror, gave herself a buzz. Had she known how mercilessly the neighborhood boys would tease her, she never would have gone through with it. But she hadn’t known, and it was a good thing, too—because if she’d never gone through with it, she never would have become Auntie Trill’s shampoo girl.
Every Sunday at church, while her mama was lifting her hands, asking Jesus to come and set to right all the world’s wrongs, Anaya was praying that He would make her hair grow fast, just long enough to cornrow so Auntie Trill could put in crochet braids. When her prayers were finally answered, Auntie Trill struck a bargain.
I ain’t doing your hair for free.
And so, Anaya agreed to work for it. At first, it started with shampooing. Auntie Trill had the unfortunate habit of scheduling three appointments at once, which meant there was usually one customer in her chair, another under the dryer, and another at the sink. Auntie Trill didn’t need any hands for the woman under the dryer, but she couldn’t shampoo and braid at the same time. So she taught Anaya how to shampoo, deep condition, and massage so well that the women in the chair would close their eyes and moan their approval.
Eventually the shampooing turned into answering the phone between washes, scheduling appointments, sweeping the floor, and helping walk-ins find the perfect moisturizer for their kinky 4C curls.
All for nine dollars an hour.
An amount that had ReShawn turning up her nose. To her, the salon felt like an obligation—a millstone around her neck, because Auntie Trill wasn’t quiet about her desire to pass the business to her one and only daughter. The louder Auntie Trill got about it, the more ReShawn stayed away. And whenever she did come, she was always wrinkling her nose and telling her mother to stop using that tea tree oil.
To Anaya, the salon wasn’t a job so much as it was…home. A safe haven filled with everything good and familiar, from the slow jam of old-school R&B music Auntie Trill loved to play to the burst of laughter that came whenever she or one of her customers broke out into an impromptu groove session. It was the place people went to hear the latest neighborhood news, and if you asked Anaya, tea tree oil smelled exactly like nostalgia.
She worked there in high school, she worked there through college, and she kept on working there now, while she waited for her phone to ring with news about the position at Crystal Ridge. It had been fourteen days since the interview, and Anaya’s thoughts had stuck themselves on a torturous loop of vacillation. So had her prayers. She needed the job so Mama could stop working so much and resume night classes. But how could Anaya take the job?
Currently, Whitney Johnson sat in Auntie Trill’s chair, wincing and grimacing because of her tender head, while Anaya used her fingertips to massage old Cynthia Martin’s scalp. Cynthia sang in the choir at church. She used to slip Anaya candy from her purse with a conspiratorial wink in the lobby. She had soft hands that always smelled like Nivea Creme, and at the moment they were snapping to the slow beat of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” She was either oblivious to or pretending not to hear Auntie Trill and Whitney chattering away about the only thing the people of South Fork seemed capable of talking about these days—the uncertain future of their school district and the students who attended.
“My cousin works at the district office, and she said the place has been flooded with parents asking about the transfer ever since school let out.”
“It costs money for each student who transfers. Don’t these fools know where that money’s coming from? Just ’cause it’s free for them don’t mean it’s free. We gonna feed our tax dollars into a rich district that don’t need any while our own schools go bankrupt, and then what?” Auntie Trill shook her head. “And all these people walking around like their prayers been answered.”
Mama was one of those people.
Whitney scrunched up her eyes for a short second—another one of her winces. “Maybe a little competition is exactly what this district needs. It’ll force the administration to finally get off their hind ends and do something.”
“They ain’t gonna be able to do nothing with all that money going out.”
“Trill, parents gotta do what’s best for their child.” Cynthia opened her eyes just long enough to shoot Anaya an encouraging wink, because that was exactly what Anaya’s mama was doing for Darius—something Mama and Auntie Trill kept arguing about.
“What’s best for their child? We need to start doing what’s best for the whole community, not just what’s best for our own children.”
Anaya picked up the bottle of deep conditioner, trying not to think about what Daddy would say if he were still alive. Of course, if Daddy were still alive, Darius never would have started hanging out with those boys; he wouldn’t have needed a fresh start. If Daddy were still alive, Anaya probably wouldn’t have busted her Achilles tendon and they wouldn’t be under the financial strain that they were now. Nor would Mama be put in the awful position of having to choose between her son and her community. It wasn’t fair. A mother shouldn’t have to feel the desperation that came when her bright child was stuck in a school that offered zero college prep classes. A school that had overcrowded classrooms and underpaid teachers, many of whom were subs, because subs didn’t require health insu
rance. A school that might as well be a pipeline to the Missouri prison system, especially for boys without fathers.
Boys like Darius.
Boys like Armand Davis, the seventeen-year-old who stabbed and killed his abuser. Of course, the media wasn’t spinning it that way. They were making Armand out to be a violent thug instead of a mentally impaired kid who’d spent his whole life in and out of foster homes. A kid who needed a doctor, not a prison cell.
“Mmm-mmm, I love the smell of that conditioner,” Cynthia said. “It’s like being on a warm beach surrounded by sunshine and coconuts.”
Anaya smiled.
“I gotta get me that shirt.”
She glanced down at her T-shirt, surprised. She was wearing the black scoop-neck Darius got her for her birthday. The one that said Made in Wakanda. It had quickly become a favorite among her collection. “You’re into Marvel?”
Cynthia gave her eyebrows a saucy lift. “I’m into Black Panther.”
Anaya’s smile cracked wide open.
“What are you two grinning about over there?” Auntie Trill asked.
“Happier things than what you two are frowning about over there,” Cynthia called back.
Anaya helped Cynthia sit up. She wrapped a plastic cap over her head and brought her to one of the dryers, where she would sit so the conditioner could soak in, nice and deep. As Anaya helped the old woman get situated, Cynthia patted her hand. “What’s this I been hearing about you and that young Mr. Wright getting back together?”
The words pushed Anaya off a cliff. As she fell, she smelled sweat and felt the fast pulse of dance music. She shut her eyes, blocking out the sudden, intrusive memory before it could crystallize.
“Is it true?” Cynthia asked.
“No ma’am.”
“Well, that’s too bad. I was hoping for more to smile about.”
“They been spending a lot of time together.” This came from Auntie Trill, who had snuck up behind them to help get the dryer placed just so over Cynthia’s head.
“We’re not spending time together. I volunteer at the youth center.”
No One Ever Asked Page 6
