by Mia Mckenzie
“Dad. You promised not to call me that.”
“I would never make that promise,” he says. “Where’s your stuff?”
“At home.”
Charlotte’s lips go tight again. “What do you mean, ‘at home’?”
Vicky gives her a look that can only be interpreted as: Bitch, are you deaf? “I mean, my stuff is at home. Like I just said.”
Charlotte’s mouth opens, but no words come out. She looks at Kenny.
“Vicky, stop it,” he says, half-interested at best. Then he’s like, “We can swing by Faye’s house and get your stuff. But we have to be quick about it.”
“It’s my house, too,” Vicky says. “I literally live there.”
“Okay, Vicky,” Kenny says. “Fine. Jesus. Let’s just go, please. I have to drop you off in Bala Cynwyd and get back to Center City by eight for a dinner thing.”
Vicky looks at me, like, See?
I give her my best look of solidarity. “You can call me if you need anything.”
I follow them outside and watch Vicky get into the back of the beamer, looking more miserable than I have ever seen her. Charlotte waves goodbye to me, cheerfully, like we’re homies or some shit. The mumbly hip-hop blasts on once again, and they drive off.
Five minutes later, I get a text from the kid: Remember u said u’d punch Marco in the kidneys? Can u do that to Charlotte?
I only have enuf upper body strength to beat up children. Sorry.
17
It’s been a month since I climbed out a window to escape Vicky, and now I kick it with her several times a week. Some days, I pick her up from school, after spelling club or activist club—which is also a thing—and we grab fries or smoothies on our way back to her house. On weekends when she’s not in Bala Cynwyd, we take the el downtown and walk to the parkway, hit up the art museum, or take the bus to Rittenhouse Square and eat Froyo in the park. Sometimes we just kick it at Vicky’s house, with snacks and card games or Steven Universe. A couple of times, Faye invites me to stay for dinner, but I don’t, because Nick is always there. For the last couple of weeks, since I found out who he is, he’s been with Faye every time I’ve seen her. I’d rather keep my distance from that whole thing. Whatever desire I had to put my hands and mouth on all of Faye’s everything is mostly buried under the weight of that potential drama, hanging in the air like humidity before a thunderstorm every time the three of us are in the same room. Except Faye doesn’t even seem to notice it, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. In any case, I’m still planning to tell her about Nick. At some point. Soon.
“You like Nick, huh?” I ask Vicky one Sunday afternoon. It’s early May, warm and rainy, and thunder has been rumbling in the distance for hours. We’re playing Uno on the porch.
“Yeah,” she says. “He’s cool. Why? You don’t like him?”
“He seems like a creep.”
“How?” she asks, throwing down a Skip card.
“I don’t know. I just think Faye could do better.”
“Nick’s cool,” Vicky says again. “Plus, he helps people.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a lawyer,” she says. “He goes to court with people for free sometimes. And he coaches youth hoops at Baobab.”
“What’s that?”
“The community center,” she says. “He helps a lot of kids who have crappy parents and stuff. He let this boy, Brian, live with him for like two weeks ’cause his mom and dad were high all the time.”
“That was nice of him. I guess.”
Vicky changes the color and then asks, “How come you don’t like anybody?”
Who, me? “I like tons of people.”
She twists her lips and tilts her head in an expression that says, Oh really?
“Okay, maybe not ‘tons,’ ” I concede. “But some. I like some people.”
“Who?”
“You want me to list all the people I like? Is alphabetical order okay?”
She shrugs. “I just think maybe you have trust issues or something like that.”
“What are you, my shrink now?”
“Your…what?”
“Shrink. It’s another word for therapist.”
“Why?”
“Because some Amazonian tribes used to shrink the heads of their enemies.”
She looks confused. “What does that have to do with therapy?”
“I have no idea. Point is, if I have trust issues, it’s for good reason.”
“What reason?”
“That I can’t trust people. That’s the reason. People don’t show up.”
“Show up where?” she asks, looking even more confused.
“I just mean people can’t be counted on when it matters,” I tell her.
“Counted on for what, though?”
“Whatever a person needs in that moment.”
Vicky chews her lip very slowly, like she’s thinking it over. Then she says, “How are you supposed to know what somebody needs?”
“They tell you.”
“But what if they don’t?”
“Then you figure it out. If you really give a shit.”
I usually try not to curse in front of the kid, and she looks at me now with surprise. Then she says, “Well, how do you figure it out?”
The truth is that I don’t figure it out. Because I don’t really give a shit anymore. I stopped giving a shit a long time ago. But it occurs to me now that these are all messed-up things to say to a twelve-year-old—that people don’t show up; that I no longer care enough to figure out how to show up myself. Especially because it seems like people do show up for Vicky. I shouldn’t dump all my shit on this kid; I shouldn’t weigh her down with my cynical view of the world and everyone in it. It’s gross and weird to do that to a child. So, I don’t. Instead, I tell her what is true about me. “I’m afraid to get close enough to know what people need.”
“How come?”
I sigh a very long sigh. “Because people have let me down and I don’t like the way that feels. So now, I mostly try not to expect people to show up in the first place, so I’m not hurt when they don’t.”
I have never admitted this to anyone. It feels like a pretty big moment. If this were a movie, there would be a long silence between us, during which an emotionally intense score would play, low and heart-wrenching, in the background. But this is real life and twelve-year-olds don’t appreciate therapeutic pauses, so Vicky just shakes her head and says, “That’s wild.”
And I burst out laughing.
“What?”
I shake my head. “Nothing, kid.”
Vicky plays a Reverse card and says, “Well, what about me?”
“What about you?”
“You can’t trust me to show up?”
“You’re a kid.”
She shrugs. “So what?”
“So, it’s not a kid’s job to show up for an adult,” I tell her, realizing that this is, in fact, why I do kinda trust her, in a way; why letting her see my raw, bloody innards doesn’t feel as risky: I have no expectations of her in the first place. Because she’s freaking twelve.
I play a Draw Four and Vicky groans, just as her bestie, Jaz, arrives. Jaz is chubby and light-skinned, and she stutters, especially when she talks about boys. I like her because she always laughs at my jokes.
“Where’s your stuff?” Vicky asks her.
“I can’t stay over because it’s a school night.”
“Ugh, that sucks. Your mom’s worse than Aunt Faye.”
Jaz nods. “Yeah, she’s such a bitch.”
“Jesus,” I say. “Is this how twelve-year-olds talk about their parents now? I didn’t start calling my mother a bitch until I was at least thirteen-and-a-half.”
Jaz laughs.
&nbs
p; “You don’t even talk to your mom,” Vicky says.
“Okay, but I’m not twelve. I’ve had many more years to build legitimate resentment.”
“You don’t have to be forty-five,” Vicky says, “to have problems with your parents. Don’t be so ageist.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. Hate your parents to your heart’s content. But you know I’m not forty-five, right?”
She looks surprised. “You’re not?”
“No!”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
She shrugs. “That’s almost forty-five.”
OH, BIIIIIITCH.
“You don’t talk to your mom?” Jaz asks. “Why not?”
“I talk to her. I just saw her like a month ago.”
“Wait,” Vicky says. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Am I supposed to tell you everything?”
She frowns at me, like I’m being obtuse. “Um…yeah.”
“Well, my brother tricked me into going to the hospital to see my mother. Now you know.”
“Is she sick?”
“No,” I say, realizing I probably shouldn’t be telling her that, considering.
“Then why’s she in there?” Jaz asks.
“She’s out now. It was nothing,” I tell them. “She’s fine.” Besides the whole traumatic brain injury thing.
“When am I going to meet her?” Vicky asks.
Wait, whut? “I…haven’t really thought about it. Is that something you want to do?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Why?”
“To know who I come from.”
“You come from your mother. Like, she literally birthed you. And your father, too. Half your genes are from Barack No-Bama.”
Jaz guffaws at that, doubling over.
I smile at her. “Good one, right?”
She nods through the tears that have sprung to her eyes, holding her belly as it shakes with laughter. Wow, this kid really appreciates comedic genius. Good for her.
“You know what I mean,” Vicky says.
I guess I do. But honestly, the people she “comes from” on this end aren’t that great.
“Does she know about me?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“Because I don’t talk to her. Remember?”
Vicky frowns. “You could have told her about me when you saw her in the hospital.”
“There was kind of a lot going on, Vick. And it’s probably something I should build up to.”
Faye comes up the front steps, carrying bags, with Nick following close behind her.
“Who wants bagels?” she asks.
Vicky jumps up like the little kid she swears she’s not. “I do!”
“Me, too!” says Jaz.
Faye looks at me. “Skye?”
“Thanks. But I have a thing with Viva.”
“Next time, then,” she says.
“Yeah.”
* * *
—
Next time comes just a few days later, when Faye texts and invites me over for dinner. This is the third invitation she’s extended since we buried the hatchet or whatever, and I’m starting to feel like it’s rude to keep saying, “I have a thing with Viva.” So, I text Vicky and ask her to find out if Nick is going to be there, but discreetly. An hour later, Vicky texts me back and says he’s working late and won’t be around. I text Faye and tell her yes and thanks and should I bring anything? She replies, A nice bread that’s good with soup. I Lyft all the way down to Woodland Ave to get the chewiest, most delish French bread I know of, from a little bakery that’s on the corner of the block I lived on when I was in elementary school. Back then, the block was all poor and working-class Black families, but now it’s mostly college kids spilling out from Penn. Directly across from the bakery is the corner where, during one go-cart-racing afternoon when I was seven, Lakeisha Moore whispered in my ear, “I like like you,” and then ran away. I chased her down the alley and over the fence into her family’s backyard and she kissed me against the back wall of her house. Her breath smelled like cherry Now and Laters. It’s my earliest memory of doing gay shit, though I’d felt gay shit pretty much in the womb. The bakery wasn’t here then. It replaced a barber shop where my brother and father got their hair cut for years. But it’s Black-owned and has the best baked goods this side of the Schuylkill, so it’s worth the detour before I double back to West Philly.
“Vicky’s not here yet,” Faye says when I get to their house. “She’s at Jasmine’s. She should be on her way back.”
I hand over the bread.
She smiles, thanks me. “Would you like a drink? I was told bourbon is your thing, so I picked some up.”
I’m pretty sure Nick didn’t tell her that, so she must be talking about Vicky. She’s not pissed, though, so I’m guessing the kid didn’t mention the circumstances under which she learned this fun fact about me.
I say yes to the bourbon, then watch her open a cabinet and take out a tumbler. Her movements are slower and easier these days, with less of the tense stiffness present in the olden days of a couple of weeks ago, before the truce was called.
“You’re not one of those people who doesn’t drink, are you?” I ask, eyeing the single tumbler and realizing I’ve never seen liquor or even wine in this house.
She looks at me and frowns a little and I’m like: oh no. She’s probably a whole-ass recovering alcoholic and here I am undermining her sobriety, on some you’re not one of those people, are you? type shit. UGH. But then she says, “I don’t like the taste.”
“Of bourbon?” I ask.
“Of any of it.”
“Any of it? At all? Not even…in cocktails?”
She shakes her head. “I have a drink occasionally, when I’m out with people who are doing that. But it’s never really been my thing.”
I think back to what Vicky said about Faye’s wild teenage years and I figure maybe you don’t really need liquor when you have cocaine? I probably shouldn’t ask, right?
For dinner, Faye has made a butternut squash and kale soup, in a slow cooker. It smells heavenly. “It’s Vicky’s favorite. Considering how hard it is to get her to eat vegetables, I’ve been cooking it almost every week.”
Considering how hard it is to get me to eat vegetables, I’m quite looking forward to it. “You cook a lot?”
She shakes the top of the slow cooker over the sink, and the condensation falls in droplets onto the stainless steel. “With a kid, you really have to. But I probably cooked at least a couple of times a week when I lived alone, too.”
“Did you live alone before Vicky?” I ask, trying to sound casual, not like I’m trying to get all up in her business, which I definitely am.
“Yes,” she says, stirring the soup. “For a while, after my divorce.”
“You were married before?”
She nods. “Twice, actually.”
“To men?”
She stops stirring and looks up at me. She shakes her head. “Not exclusively.”
Not. Exclusively. Well, okay, then.
Now I want to ask who she was married to. I want to ask why she’s so into marriage, which she must be, considering she’s on the precipice of her third one. I want to ask why, with that many marriages, she doesn’t have her own kids. Can she not have kids? Does she just not like kids that much? I want to ask so many things.
“What about you?” she asks. “Do you cook? It’s probably hard to do while traveling so much.”
The boomerang back to the cooking conversation is jolting. I want to be like, Wait, hold up, let’s talk more about your failed relationships, but that would be pushy, right? So, I just follow her lead and let the moment pass. “I used to have a rule,” I tell her, “that I had
to cook for myself whenever I was staying somewhere with a kitchen.”
“Used to?”
“I haven’t really been on top of it lately. Which isn’t great for my wallet. Or for squeezing my ass into my jeans.”
“Exactly how much do you travel?” she asks.
“I lead groups ten months a year.”
She looks at me with surprise, like she didn’t expect it to be that much. I think she’s going to ask me how I manage it logistically, like everyone else does, but instead she asks, “Why?” It’s not a judgmental, what’s wrong with you type of “why” but it still makes me a little bit uncomfortable.
“I…like it,” I say.
“What do you like about it?”
For a few seconds, I can’t remember anything I like about it. I sit there staring at her with my mouth open, waiting for reasons to come flying out, and she stares curiously back at me. Then, finally, my brain kicks in, like an engine rolling over, and I’m like, “I like seeing new places. Trying new foods. Experiencing different cultures. Meeting new people. Getting laid by women with foreign accents. The usual stuff.” Nice work, brain!
“Well, if I traveled half as much as you do,” she says, grabbing a knife in one hand and the French loaf in the other, “I’d go crazy. I’m too much of a homebody to handle anything more than the occasional trip.”
“To where?”
“When I was in college,” she says, “I studied art for a year in Florence, and I developed a real affection for that city. I used to go back every year or so.”
“Florence is great.”
She nods. “Vicky loves the ocean, so we spend part of our summer break in Virginia Beach. Kenny has family down there, so she gets to see her cousins.”
Faye’s phone buzzes on the counter and she glances at it, then frowns.
“What’s wrong?”
“Vicky is…dawdling.” She sighs. “She’s always been difficult to wrangle home. Ever since she was little.”
“Has she?” I ask, my ears perking up. I haven’t heard much about little Vicky yet.
“Cynthia and Kenny used to have such a hard time getting her to leave the playground,” Faye says, “that they started telling her Santa and every single one of his reindeer were waiting for her at home.”
