Another D for DeeDee

by Bibi Belford

  “And so will Papi,” I say, but in a whisper. “So will Papi.”

  •

  When I wake up Saturday, it’s a perfect day outside. My crayons would make it a Granny-Smith-Apple day combined with a Periwinkle sky. But inside my head it’s a gray day. A drizzly day. A mummy-tomb day. I should be worried about checking my levels after my eating binge last night, but I’m more preoccupied with my sleepover fiasco. Replaying everything that happened. I should have listened to River. What do I care that Nancy likes me? Why do I want to be friends with girls who make fun of people?

  I wait for River to pick me up at nine o’clock while I eat a healthy breakfast. Then I wait some more. I pack some snacks. And watch TV. And wait some more. It’s past nine-thirty, but everyone here is still sleeping. I guess Mami and Danny had late nights because of me. Is River still sleeping? Is his mom still sleeping? Where is he?

  I call his number. “Hi, you’ve reached River the Geek. Leave it at the beep.” I smile hearing he stole the funny answering message I created and put it on his phone.

  I wait thirty more minutes and quietly open my door and walk down to River’s apartment. I press my ear to his door. I hear music, so I knock.

  “Why DeeDee, I thought you were at a sleepover.” Mrs. Ramos-Henry looks confused. She doesn’t invite me in.

  “I was. Last night. But River said he’d pick me up at nine to go to the skatepark.”

  Mrs. Ramos-Henry stands very still and stares at me around the door at me. Finally she asks, “Did something happen between you and River?”

  “No.”

  “I took him to the skatepark already. He said you didn’t want to go with him because you were at a sleepover. I’m sorry.” And she shuts the door.

  What? What? What? I don’t understand. What happened? I get my phone out of my pocket. He must have called me. Left me a message. Something must be wrong with my phone. Maybe it was off. Maybe I accidentally messed it up. Maybe I erased it. I frantically press buttons, trying to find missed phone calls.

  Nothing.

  I race back to my apartment and knock on Danny’s door.

  “What?” Danny growls. “I’m sleeping.”

  “I need a ride. It’s important.”

  “I’m in bed, DeeDee.”

  “But I missed my ride to the skatepark. I have to go. I have to.”

  The door opens. Danny stands there in his boxers, his hair shaggy and his eyes baggy. He blinks at me.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. I think I missed River’s call. But I’ve got to go. Especially, now. Para mantener las puertas abiertas, to keep the door open, you know.”

  Danny understands. He walks into his room and pulls on jeans and a T-shirt.

  He doesn’t say much in the car. In fact, he doesn’t say anything. When we get to the skatepark, he stares out the window like he’s far away in la-la land. Is he tired? Is he thinking?

  “Hey, let me out here,” I say.

  “Are you going to tell River what happened?” he asks when I open my door.

  “No. Are you kidding? I hope he never finds out.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to tell the truth right away,” says Danny with a faraway voice that matches his faraway stare.

  “Don’t forget to pick us up,” I say, worried he might drive right off into la-la land.

  “Yah. Okay,” he says, shaking himself and stretching out his arms. “I’ll be here at noon or earlier if I hear back from Freddie.”

  “Thank you, Danny. Te quiero.”

  I hear the whirring of skateboard wheels before I even see the skaters. I hold the tip of my board and stand at the edge of the concrete, feeling very small. Around me swirl and swoosh skaters like birds. Floating. Flying. Soaring. Twisting. Speeding. Carving. Doing tricks I can’t even name. The clickety-clack of the wheels on the cement cracks drowns out the rumble of the South Shore train. The window-eyes of giant condo towers watch over the skaters.

  I’m nervous about going to the skatepark. I’m not very good. What if people laugh at me?

  It’ll serve me right, that’s what. I can’t even think about River without remembering I shared his secret. I stretch my sweatshirt pockets down. Pulling it low. Over me. Shrinking me. The concrete reflects the sun, rich with sparkling diamonds, making me feel poor and ordinary. A raven-haired boy sweeps past, so close I smell his last cigarette and as he pop shoves it right in front of me, his sleeve brushes my cheek.

  Whoa, he’s awesome. I start looking for River. I see all sizes of boys but no girls. I skate down the ramp without running into anybody. People aren’t alone here. They’re in partners and groups or they have somebody watching from a bench.

  I need River. I stay by the edge of the park. Slowly pushing. And then I see his curly hair. I do my best to speed down one of the middle ramps and make an impressive stop right in front of him.

  I tap him. “Hey, why didn’t you come get me this morning? Did I miss your call?”

  He doesn’t say anything, just nods at me, and motions me to follow him to a flat area on the other side of the ramps.

  “We can skate back here until we’re warmed up,” he says.

  “Hey, why didn’t you pick me up?”

  But River only sets his board down and pushes off, doing a wide arc and returning to me. “Okay, copy me. We’ll play H-O-R-S-E, the same as basketball, but boarding.”

  “You’re going to lose,” I tell him and copy his arc perfectly.

  He makes it harder and harder and I do fine until he ollies, getting about three inches of air under his board. Last time we went out he could barely get an inch.

  “When did you learn that?” I ask.

  “I practiced when Danny took me to the high school on Thursday.”

  “You know I can’t do those.” I pout at him.

  “So? Control and timing. Push with your back foot to pop the board up and at the same time, slide your other foot to level out the board.”

  I try, but my board goes nowhere and I topple over backwards. I can’t slide my foot at the same time as I push down.

  Then River starts skating switch, swapping his back foot to the middle of the board and his front foot to the tail. He points at a kid who’s taking a ramp and I watch as the kid goes up with his right foot front, but down with his left foot front. Now I get why fakie is important for ramps.

  Pretty soon, I’ve got H-O-R-S and he only has H. Time to play hardball. I tuck my T-shirt into my jeans and run, holding onto my skateboard with two hands. I set it down and flip up into a handstand. I’ve never tried this before but I can do a handstand anywhere. I’ve even done them on the balance beam we used to have at Lincoln Elementary.

  Holy jalepeño. I’m upside down and the board is moving. But not for long. I can’t steer. I careen straight into the wall, bailing in the nick of time. I pick myself up, collect my board, and look back at River. He’s watching a skater flying up a vert ramp, catching some air, then flipping his board as he spins before catapulting back down.

  I tap him and say, with little jealous bite in my voice, “You missed my trick.”

  “I’m admiring his air.” He nudges my skateboard. It clatters to the ground and starts rolling. “You’re the only person I know who doesn’t play fair in H-O-R-S-E. I can’t do handstands—or did you forget?” I can’t figure out his voice. Is he teasing or is he upset with me?

  “Hey, Spidey,” a big kid calls to River, and he does a chin-up kind of nod.

  I point after him. “Friend of yours?”

  “I’ve come here since I was seven.”

  “Why Spidey?”

  River holds up his two-finger hand, webs me like Spiderman, and then I get it. But I don’t understand. Isn’t he mad about the names? Is he just pretending it doesn’t bother him? How did he learn to turn it to cool and not cruel? It’s as if he knows himself so well he doesn’t need to hide from anybody. He isn’t embarrassed to talk about superpowers and Star Trek or be Dopey Dinosaura’s friend.


  Why can’t I do that? I want to skateboard for Spring Fling because everyone will think I’m cool. But I’m not very good at skateboarding. I’m good at dancing. I think about Nancy’s party. I tried so hard to be Dina Dee. And it didn’t matter in the end. I didn’t make any friends, and I broke a promise to a true friend.

  River skates a few yards away from me and up to a tall boy with light yellow, almost white hair. They start to sign to each other.

  I steer clear of the other skaters and make my way over to them.

  “Hey,” I say when I get close, but River doesn’t look at me.

  I do a little spin out move with my board. I notice both River and the kid staring at me and sort of laughing. I get the feeling the kid is signing about me.

  Oh no you’re not. You aren’t even making fun of me. I stomp over and stare at him. The kid stares back at me.

  “Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” I say and balance my skateboard against the wall.

  “This is my friend Jeremiah,” says River, signing at the same time.

  Jeremiah signs to me and says, “Nice to meet you,” in a silly voice.

  “What’s his problem? Are you guys making fun of me?”

  “No, DeeDee, Jeremiah’s deaf. He and I went to Learning Center for the Deaf together, but he’s at Joyner Middle School now.”

  I feel stupid. Of course. Signing, and the way he talks. I wonder if kids at Joyner make fun of him for that. “Does he know my sister?”

  River asks at the same time as he motions, but I can see some of the motions are hard for him to do with his fused-together fingers. Then he translates the motions his friend is making.

  “He says yes. Danita is nice but you’re prettier.” To Jeremiah he says, “You’re a flirt.” He puts his thumbs together and wiggles his fingers like butterfly wings.

  Jeremiah winks at me and says something with hand motions but River looks embarrassed and doesn’t translate it for me.

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” says River.

  “Hey, that’s not fair. Why doesn’t Jeremiah have speaker things in his head, like you?”

  River translates this to Jeremiah, who shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and signs back to River.

  “He wants you to know being deaf is not a sickness to cure. It’s his community, uh, let’s see, culture, and he’s proud to be a part of it.”

  Then Jeremiah points down at his skateboard, says, “See you.” He waves to me and I watch him grind the curb.

  “I don’t get it. Why would anybody want to stay deaf?”

  “I doubt you’d understand.” River sighs like I’m so airheaded he can see through my skull.

  “Okay, whatever. If you don’t want to explain.”

  “Fine. I’ll try. It’s complicated. My mom had a hard choice. I’m a CI user to the Deaf community. And hard of hearing to the hearing culture. So now I don’t really fit into a culture.”

  “But that’s crazy. Why should other people care if you want to hear?”

  “That’s easy for you to say, but how would your family like it if you didn’t want to be Mexican anymore?” There’s a knife-edge tone in River’s voice I’ve never heard before. Almost as if he’s challenging me to argue so he can chop me into little bits.

  “I guess they’d be sad.”

  “And confused and angry, if you suddenly couldn’t speak or understand Spanish.”

  “But that’s different. You can still speak sign language to your friends.”

  “Yah, but some of them think CI users are traitors. And nobody likes a traitor.” He looks at me when he says this and my face flushes. I remember how I felt like a traitor in detention when I made fun of how he eats. And when I told his secret at the sleepover. And how Papi might be a traitor to his family.

  “In fact, sometimes I just take my CI external processor off so I fit in.” River holds up his hands. “These are the biggest reason I got CI. Communicating with these isn’t easy.”

  “But you have lots of friends.” I point around the skatepark.

  “They’re acquaintances. Not friends.” River watches Jeremiah as he attempts the wall. There’s no spark in River’s eyes. And no grin on his face.

  Wow, this CI thing must really bother him. Like my diabetes bothers me. “You have tons of friends at school. I don’t speak sign language and you don’t speak Spanish, but we’re friends, right? What’s the big deal?”

  River doesn’t look at me.

  “Mami says, ‘Con amigos como esos, no se necesitan enemigos.’ That means with bad friends you don’t need enemies.”

  “Yah, I see that,” River says under his breath.

  “And why’d you leave without me this morning? Danny was mad he had to drive me.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted to go.” A storm rages in River’s voice.

  “Why? You know I wanted to go.”

  “Not after the sleepover.”

  “I told you I would be ready. I even came home early because I was homesick.” I take a step back from River.

  “That’s not what I meant.” River pronounces the ending letter for every word he says, which is unusual for him. “I meant after what happened at the sleepover.”

  In all the days I’ve known River, he’s never lost his temper with me. Even when he told me he didn’t know if I wanted to be his friend, he just looked sad. But now, there’s no more dance in his eyes. Instead, they smolder, and his nostrils flare out.

  “What? Nothing happened.” My mouth is dry, so dry, and my heart just punched my stomach.

  River pulls out his phone. “Yah? Nancy called me last night. In the middle of the night.” He twirls his board and bites his lip, not looking at me. “You broke your promise. Talk about traitors.”

  I hang my head. A flame of shame rises up from my toes and burns all the way to my ears. Why do these things happen to me? Why didn’t I listen to Danny and tell River the truth right away? “I’m sorry,” I say. “I tried to do the right thing, but it didn’t work and Nancy made me so mad I lost my temper.” My heart punches me again, punishing me for always messing up.

  “Fine.” And with a screech of his wheels, he skates away from me.

  I follow him. “I’m sorry, okay? Can we just forget about it?”

  He doesn’t look at me. “Sort of hard to forget.”

  “It was truth or dare. And both choices were awful. So I was mad. I don’t think right when I’m mad. And it’s not as if Nancy will ever invite me back.”

  “Your other friends might, and you’ll do it again, just like you always do.”

  I want to say, Oh, yeah. I forgot about all those other friends. But I don’t. “No, I won’t. I promise. And I’ll let you beat me at Dance Forever.”

  “I always beat you, anyway. You know, you don’t have to hang out with me because you feel sorry for me.”

  I’ve never heard that sound in his voice. Bitter. Outside-of-the-lemon-rind bitter. Coffee-without-sugar-and-cream bitter. And I remember how horrible I felt when I learned Mrs. Cruella told the class to be nice to me because of my diabetes. Oh no, you don’t, I think. Don’t you throw me in the basket with those people.

  “Oh My Gatos. I don’t feel sorry for you. If I want to hang out with a loser I’ll call up Noodlenose. I apologized, didn’t I?”

  “Well, maybe I don’t believe you anymore. Maybe I’m tired of the way you treat people.” And with a push-shove, he’s gone.

  I don’t follow, partly because I can’t go that fast, and partly because I don’t know what else to say. Always keep the door open for a true friend. Well, not if they lock it and throw away the key. I watch River sail around the park. I find a bench and eat a granola bar.

  I hate Nancy. This is all her fault. And Sherie’s. I hear Danny’s voice. Maybe truth or dare can teach us both a lesson. Accept who we are and dare to stand up for ourselves and not trade the truth for other people, no matter what. Before it’s too late. Before we lose good friends an
d disappoint people who love us.

  It isn’t Nancy’s fault. It’s my fault. I’m Dinora Diaz. I’m not Flaquita-Danita with the flat tummy. And I’m not Noodlenose Nancy with the fancy house. I have diabetes and love dancing and colors and skateboarding. And I’m River’s friend. Maybe, I think. But now he might be my ex-friend.

  My phone chirps and I check my text messages.

  Group text from Danny to me and River:

  Time to go. Meet you in the car.

  I look around and see Danny walking to his car that’s parked on the street. River skates toward me, then veers away and grinds to a stop. He jumps off his board, ignores me, and heads to Danny’s car. I stay a few feet behind him.

  “Dinora Diaz?”

  I stop and turn. A teenage boy is getting up from a bench at the edge of the park. His foot mushes out his cigarette and he comes over to me.

  It’s Freddie, from the trailer park. He must have met up with Danny after all. His red ball cap is sideways and he’s so tall, taller than Danny, taller than I remember.

  “How you been?” He looks at me. Dark eyebrows. Dark eyes. A tattooed teardrop in the corner.

  “Good. We moved to an apartment. I miss the trailer park.”

  “I know. I haven’t seen Danny since …” He stops, “Since today.”

  Freddie touches my skateboard. “I see you went pro with that skateboard thing?”

  “I’m not very good.”

  “Nice ride. Show me what you got.”

  “I can’t. I’m leaving.” I point to Danny’s car.

  “Oh, well, next time, then. Hey, Danny says your dad’s still gone.”

  I freeze. Waiting.

  “Uncle José says they were together in Mexico, but he doesn’t know what happened to your dad. I guess he didn’t make it.”

  I hear Freddie’s words but I can’t see his face anymore. Everything is black. The sky. The concrete. My head.

  “Say hi to your sister and your mom,” says Freddie.

  I nod like I’m a robot and take a robot step toward Danny’s car.

  “Hey DeeDee,” Freddie calls after me. “Sorry about your dad. Real sorry.”

  My heart wobbles and falls down into my belly. My skateboard clatters to the ground.