It’s weird, but for a few minutes I can see Adonna screaming at me, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. And I can see her hitting me, but I can’t feel anything. It’s all happening so fast but in slow motion at the same time, and I’m numb and can’t figure anything out. I mean, Adonna. My best friend,
my aunt
, is attacking me.
Adonna
.
Then I feel it, a punch, right across the jaw, and, man, it hurts. Like hell.
I start to hear the crowd, too. I hear “Oooh, shit” and “Damn, girl” and I know they’re cheering.
For Adonna
.
I hear Adonna, too. “Fuckin’ backstabbing ho,” she calls me a second before she slams me against the fence again.
It stings. It hurts. But I’m not about to cry in front of all these kids. And I’m not gonna let her beat me down without fighting back. I mean, I grew up in Bronxwood, too. She’s not the only one.
That’s when I notice it—Adonna’s weave. She actually went out and got a weave. And I don’t care. I’m going for it.
She’s just about to punch me again and I move fast for all that fake hair. I grab it and wrap it around my fist and pull as hard as I can. And that weave must have been sewed in real good, because I can feel her hair rip away from her scalp as she screams. I pull again and I’m not gonna stop, either. She screams again and tries to grab my hand to stop me.
Now the crowd is laughing. At Adonna.
Two seconds later, a whole bunch of school security guards come outta the building and break up the fight. One piece of Adonna’s weave is hanging off on the side and she’s trying to hold it in place so nobody can see, even though more than enough kids got camera phones and everything, and they probably got the whole fight on video.
“You’re such a fucking bitch, Kendra,” she yells as two guards pull her away from me.
“Keep trying to cover your fucking bald spot!” I yell back.
She’s trying to get away from them so she can come after me again, but the guards got a good grip on her and they take her up the stairs to the school with hardly any problem.
I stand there looking at all the kids from my school. They’re starting to walk away, some smiling, some laughing, some looking like they got cheated outta what should have been a better fight. And I can’t believe it. I can’t believe any of this happened.
Then, before I can even figure out what I’m gonna do, a female security guard grabs me by the arm. “Come on,” she says, pulling me back to the stairs.
“I didn’t do anything!” I yell at her.
“The dean will be the judge of that.”
The
dean
. This is so unfair. Why do I have to go to the dean when I was minding my own business and got attacked for no reason? It’s not right.
The security guard manhandles me up the stairs and back into the school. Adonna is up the hall ahead of us, and her weave is really torn off. I can’t help but smile. She’s so
sad
, running out to get a weave just to try to hold on to Nashawn. I mean, I don’t even know who she’s competing with. She already got him. And what kinda girl attacks her own niece over a boy, anyway?
Both me and Adonna end up in the dean’s office. Well, she has to go inside and talk to the dean and I’m left on the long wooden bench next to his secretary’s desk. The woman is sitting at her computer typing away at, like, two hundred words a minute or something, and it don’t look like she’s planning on leaving anytime soon. I always thought the people in the office got to leave here five minutes after we do, but I guess they still have work to do.
She starts printing out something, and when she gets up to go to the printer, Dean Frey comes outta his office looking like he really has better things to deal with besides this. He looks at me like he’s sizing me up and whispers something to the secretary. Then he goes back into his office without even saying anything to me or getting my side of the story.
The secretary sits back down and says to me, “Sweetheart, Dean Frey wants me to call your parent or guardian to—”
“
What?
” I can’t believe this. “Why am I getting in trouble when she’s the one that—?”
“You’re not in trouble. The dean knows it’s not your fault.
We just want someone to know what happened to you. Maybe you should go to the doctor or—”
“The doctor? For what?”
The secretary leans closer to me and says, “It’s a legal thing, sweetheart. We don’t want anyone suing the board of education because they weren’t informed about what happened to their kid. What’s the phone number?”
I sit there for a while thinking who I should call. My first thought is Nana. She got mad last time when she wasn’t the one the school called. But she threw me out, so she don’t get to be mad anymore. I could call Renée, but she’s still at work and I don’t wanna bother her. So I tell the secretary to call my father because at least I know he’s gonna be there.
Turns out, Adonna had the dean call Kenny, too, because he comes to the school for both of us. “This shit don’t make no kinda sense, Babe,” he says when he sees me. Then he goes straight into the dean’s office, and I can hear him and Adonna arguing in there.
I sit there on that hard wood, getting more and more mad myself. Adonna didn’t have any right to call Kenny to come and get her. I mean, yeah, he’s her brother, but he’s not her father. She should have called Grandma and left Kenny for me.
A few minutes later, the door opens up and Kenny, Adonna, and Dean Frey come out into the waiting area. Adonna has her arms folded in front of her and her face is all puffy like she been crying, probably because I messed up her perfect hair.
“Ms. Williamson,” Mr. Frey says, “are you okay?”
I nod.
“The nurse is gone for the day,” he says, like it didn’t matter that I just told him I was okay.
“I don’t need a nurse,” I say.
“You know fighting goes against the school’s policy, the one you agreed to abide by when you entered this school in September.”
I’m pretty sure this man is a robot because I have no idea why he’s telling this to me, unless he’s programmed to say this to every student no matter who did the fighting and who did the defending.
“I know,” I say. “Tell that to her.”
Me and Adonna’s eyes lock on each other and she tries to give me her tough-girl look, but I’m not buying it and I’m not gonna be the first to look away, either. For the first time, I’m not backing down.
“It was
after
school,” Adonna says, finally looking away, making me feel like I won, even if it’s kinda childish. “I don’t know why I’m being suspended for something I did after school on my own time.”
“You can’t be that stupid,” I say. Then I think about it and say, “But you are.”
“Why don’t you go back to spreading your legs, Kendra?”
“Why don’t you figure out how to keep your man satisfied, Adonna?”
Kenny clears his throat real loud. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing or hearing,” he says. “Look at the two of you. Please don’t tell me y’all are fighting over some boy.”
Both me and Adonna suck our teeth and turn away from each other.
“Say something!” Kenny yells, but I don’t know who he’s talking to, me or her.
Adonna does one of her bored sighs. “Can we go home already, Kenny?”
I stand up and turn back around. “I thought you were here to take
me
home.” I stare at Kenny, who looks from me to Adonna and back to me again, like he really don’t know what he should do. Like I’m not his daughter.
Kenny shakes his head and says, “I’m not taking you both together and having y’all tear up my truck, that’s what I do know.”
Adonna rolls her eyes and tells Kenny, “I know you’re gonna choose her over me, so go ahead.”
“I’m so tired of you being jealous of me and Kenny,” I say. “He’s my father, you know.”
“Take him, then.”
“Fine.”
Kenny grabs Adonna and starts pulling her outta the office. “I’m gonna take this one home first,” he says to Dean Frey and the secretary. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes for that one. And, Babe, don’t you leave this office. I swear. I’m not playing.”
Sitting there on that bench, when they leave, I’m so pissed off I can’t even think straight. The dean goes back in his office and the secretary takes out a Nora Roberts novel and starts reading, and all I wanna do is get up and leave. I mean, why do I have to wait for him, anyway? Why do I need him to take me home? He made his decision, right? He picked Adonna.
Then, outta the corner of my eye I see Nashawn in the doorway, trying to get my attention. “Come here,” he mouths.
I look over to the secretary, who hasn’t looked up from her book. “I can’t,” I mouth back, shaking my head.
He tries again and holds up a finger. “One minute.”
I shake my head again. I’m not gonna fall for that. One minute. Yeah, right. I know what he wants. It’s all he ever wants from me. And if I leave this office, I’ll probably end up somewhere with him again and now there’s no excuse, because I know he’s only using me. He wants to be with Adonna, and I was just being stupid all this time.
But I look over at him again and now he has his hands pressed together, like he’s begging me or something. And part of me wouldn’t mind hooking up with him again, just to feel something except mad. Just to be with him again. That would be nice. And I do have fifteen minutes before Kenny gets back.
But no, I can’t. I’m not gonna do it. Yeah, it would be good for a few minutes, but then what will I have? Nothing. And how’s it gonna feel to see him and Adonna together after that?
I shake my head at Nashawn one last time and then look away so I won’t be tempted by him again. I’m gonna sit here and wait for Kenny, and I’m gonna be strong now. Especially when it comes to Nashawn.
“I can’t believe this,” Kenny says for probably the hundredth time since we got into the truck. “I can’t believe y’all are fighting.”
And the way he says
fighting
feels like I’m getting punched all over again, because now he’s disappointed in me for the second time this week and nothing I say is gonna make him understand. I’m probably too far down in his eyes.
I look outta the window as we cross a bridge, over the Harlem River. I’m almost back home, whatever that means. Kids are walking across the bridge, coming home from school, laughing and having fun with each other, and that only makes me feel even more friendless.
We stop kinda short at a red light and I hear some cans in the back of the truck start to roll around. Kenny’s not paying attention to the road. He’s too busy not believing what happened between me and Adonna.
“Y’all was best friends,” he says, like I don’t know that. “And y’all are fighting over a boy. Two beautiful, smart girls fighting over some idiot boy.”
I stay looking outta the window, but I do feel the need to defend myself. “We weren’t fighting over a boy,” I say. “You’re making me seem like some desperate girl that’s gonna fight somebody for a boy when I’m not even like that. She’s the one that tried to beat me up in front of the whole school just because her boyfriend, or whatever he is to her, just because him and me…” I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. And I don’t have to. He already knows everything.
He starts driving again. “So you trying to tell me you didn’t do nothing wrong? That this whole thing is Adonna’s fault, right?”
“Right,” I say, but my voice is quieter because, now that he put it like that, it’s kinda hard to convince him that the
whole thing
is Adonna’s fault. I mean, the fight was
definitely
her fault and that was definitely wrong on her part, but everything else? I don’t know. I mean, I know I made some mistakes. I can admit that. But does that give her the right to put her hands on me?
Renée is walking down the block just as we pull up to the curb in front of the brownstone. She looks beautiful in a tan summer dress with a short little jacket. Kenny shuts off the engine and watches her, and I know I should probably tell him about Gerard, just so he’ll know.
But before I can figure out how to say it, Renée comes up to the truck and leans her head in on my side and says, “How much is an ice cream sandwich?”
Kenny looks at her and says, “For you, free.”
“You’re not going to make any money that way,” she says.
“Don’t remind me of how much money I already lost today.”
I wanna open the door to get outta the truck before he tells her about the fight and she starts getting on my case, because I heard enough already. But Renée’s standing right in front of my door and she’s not moving.
“Okay, tell me what’s going on,” she says to me. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Excuse me, but I wanna get out.”
“Answer my question.”
I’m starting to feel trapped there between the two of them. “Can I please get out?”
Renée don’t move, so I crawl between the two front seats and head for the back door, snatching a couple of Chick-O-Sticks on the way. Kenny gets outta the truck, too, and he stops me from walking past them into the brownstone. “Tell Renée what happened,” he says.
I fold my arms in front of me. “I was leaving the school and minding my own business and Adonna tried to beat me up, and for some reason
he
thinks that’s my fault.”
Renée gets this crazy look on her face. “You’re
fighting
?”
“I didn’t do any—”
“What you gonna do about this?” Kenny asks Renée, pointing to me.
“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”
“Like I said.”
For the first time, it actually looks like he’s getting mad at Renée, which could be a good step for him if he wasn’t getting mad at her over me.
“If you know what to do with her, you do it,” Renée says, turning her back to him, and me, and stomping up the stairs of the brownstone like she’s two.
He goes after her and catches up to her at the top of the stairs. “You know what? She wasn’t having none of these problems before you came home. You wanna know what her problem is? It’s you.”
I swear, he’s so mad I can see the spit flying outta his mouth when he talks. I stand at the bottom of the steps, wishing I had somewhere else to go.
Renée stares at him with her eyes all squinty. “Get out of my face, Kenny,” she says all calm.
But Kenny’s not done yet. “The other day—when was that? Saturday?—yeah, on Saturday. You know you had that girl crying her eyes out in my truck ’cause you was moving here without her. You know that? You know all this shit that’s happening with her didn’t start ’til you came back. You get that?”
Renée looks like she’s all bored. “What do you want from me, Kenny? You know what her problems are, and you and her are so close, then why don’t you figure out what to do with her? She’s your daughter, too. When are you going to get off your ass, get a real grown-up job, move out of your mommy’s apartment, and become a man? Because maybe your daughter wouldn’t have to jump in bed with the first boy who pays her some attention if the father she loves so much were actually more mature than she is.”
I look down at the ground. Just stand there, not looking at Kenny, because I can’t stand to see the look that’s probably on his face.
With my head down, I hear the front door of the brownstone open and slam closed. I hear Kenny walk down the stairs and, a few seconds later, the sound of the truck’s engine start up again. When he’s gone, the truck speeding down the street to
the corner, it hits me for the first time, even though it’s hard to believe I never thought of it before like this, but I now get it—
These are my parents
. And they have no idea what they’re doing.
Upstairs I watch Renée, who is obviously pissed, take off her jacket, change from her shoes to her sandals, and put on a fresh coat of lipstick in the bathroom mirror. I wanna say,
Why did you have to do that to him? You have no right to speak for me, like I’m the one that feels that way about Kenny when I don’t
. But I can tell she’s not gonna wanna hear anything from me. Her face is set, and she looks exactly like Nana does when she’s so mad she’s about ready to boil over. I know enough not to turn up the heat.
So I go into the kitchen as quiet as I can and pour myself a glass of water. I’m waiting for her to say something about the fight, about how upset she is with me, but instead she picks up the phone and calls her friend Jennifer and makes plans to meet her somewhere. “I need to get out of this apartment,” she tells her. “I can’t even tell you what kind of day I’ve had.”
When she hangs up, she grabs her bag and heads straight for the door, not even looking at me. She couldn’t get outta the door any faster if she was flying.
If I was still with Nana, she would be breaking on me right now. She would tell me that just because I’m from the projects that don’t mean the projects have to be in me. And that I have to remember my home training when I’m in situations like that and not let
that girl
lead me to do things I know are wrong.
I sit down at the kitchen table and drink my water. No matter what happens, I’m still here alone. Better get used to it.
The phone rings at about six, and as soon as I say hello, Nana is going off.
“Tell me what I’m hearing around here ain’t true, because I know,
I know
, the child I raised isn’t fighting in the street. And don’t say shit—pardon my French—don’t say shit about Adonna starting anything because—”
“I’m not getting into this with you,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm even though I can’t believe she had the nerve to call here.
Nana’s still going, though. “…and that
other
grandmother of yours has the audacity to come up to me in the lobby and tell me that you got
her daughter
suspended, and half the building is standing there listening, and I have to hear that y’all are fighting like some kind of—”
“Nana.”
“Don’t you even think about talking back to me or I will come over there and—”
“Nana, I’m not listening to this. Not from you. Not anymore.”
“Girl, don’t you let your mouth get your ass in trouble.”
It’s getting harder and harder for me to keep calm. “You know what, Nana? You don’t get to yell at me anymore. Because you’re the one that threw me out, remember? So you don’t get to be a mother to me anymore, because I have a mother now.”
There’s silence on the other end of the phone.
“Bye,” I say, and hang up real fast.
My heart is racing. I can’t believe I did that. I mean, I didn’t
actually hang up on her, but I might as well have. I didn’t just stand and take it from her like I used to.
But still, I know there was probably a nasty scene between Nana and Grandma in the lobby, and I hate to think I was even a little bit of the cause of that, because the two of them barely get along as it is. And now Renée and Kenny are fighting, too. It’s like all it took was for me and Adonna to fight for the whole family to fall apart.
And I’m alone.
Part of me, a big part, wishes I knew Nashawn’s phone number, because I would call him and even go over to his house again and not sit here alone waiting for Renée, who probably won’t even talk to me when she gets back. I mean, if I was with Nashawn for a little while, at least that would be something.
But I don’t have his number so it don’t even matter. And I know I told Renée I wouldn’t do anything with him anymore, but I don’t think she even cares one way or another. I mean, we had this whole long talk yesterday and I told her everything I was feeling and still, where is she right now?
I turn on the TV but don’t actually watch anything. I just like having it on. Then I eat some cereal and leave the bowl in the sink. By eight thirty, when Renée’s still not home, it’s hard trying to tell myself that I’m not mad, because I am. I mean, I get into a fight, but she don’t even ask me what happened and if I’m okay or anything. My whole life is messed up right now, and even though me and her are living in this tiny little apartment, it’s still like she’s far away from me. Nothing changed.
Renée is still not back when I’m ready for bed so I turn off the TV and all the lights and try to get comfortable on the
Aerobed. But it’s hard. I can’t sleep. My brain is like on rewind and fast forward at the same time and I can’t stop it.
And in between thinking about the fight and Kenny and Renée and Nana, and how I have to go back to school tomorrow and face all those kids that were watching the fight and hoping I’d get my ass kicked, in between all of that, I’m thinking about Nashawn. I’m seeing his face in the doorway of the dean’s office and how he begged me to come out. Just thinking about his face and remembering the way his body felt when we were together in his bed, it’s enough to keep me awake and frustrated.
I slip my hands into my pajama shorts, close my eyes, and try to get myself back to that place, that feeling. It takes awhile, but soon my breathing gets a little heavier and my mind takes me back there. And it feels good, it does, but it’s not ’til I’m done that I realize it’s not enough. That’s not all I want from him. I want
him
. All of him, not just what we been doing.
And that’s what hurts, knowing that there’s no chance for that. Because when it comes to me, all he wants is what he been getting already.