“Your mom is cool,” Nashawn says the second the door closes. “Leaving us here alone like this.”
He comes closer to me and wraps his arms around me, but I’m still thinking that he called Renée my
mom
and how funny that sounds.
“You know, this never would have happened if I was still living with Nana,” I tell him.
“Nana? She the one that was gonna have you checked?”
I laugh. “Yeah. That’s her.”
We kiss. And outta the corner of my eye I see the futon and my Aerobed, and I can’t help but wonder how much time it takes for people to have a drink. I mean, I know I can drink a soda in, like, three minutes, but alcohol is different. It burns if you drink it too fast. At least that beer I drank at Nashawn’s house did. But then I remember that I’m being tested and I better not even let my mind go there. I can’t. “Let’s make some popcorn,” I say the second we come up for air.
“I’m stuffed from all that—what did they call it? Load of potatoes pizza?” He laughs.
“Something like that.”
I’m stuffed, too, but I still want popcorn. I need a little time to cool myself off. In a way I’m glad I made Renée buy popcorn, because it’ll give me and Nashawn something to do besides what we always do, to get to know each other with our clothes on. I mean, I’m not sure if that’s what Nashawn wants, but I know it’s what
I
need.
A few minutes later, with a big bowl of popcorn drowning in melted butter, we sit on the futon, turn on the TV, and try to find something good to watch. There’s lots of news on and some reruns of sitcoms from, like, ten years ago but nothing good. So we leave it on but mute the sound, and we eat and talk. About everything.
He tells me about his mom and how much he misses her, even though they get to keep in touch by e-mail and even phone calls sometimes. And I find out that he has family in South Carolina and Texas, but he don’t wanna go live with them, because he’s gonna be playing in a New York baseball league this summer and he’s hoping it can help him get a baseball scholarship to college.
I tell him about how Renée had me so young and how I had to grow up without her around most of the time. And how I went to two graduations before her last one and thought she was coming home both times, but she would just go back for another degree and leave me alone again.
We’re doing that good kinda talking, sitting close and looking at each other in the eye and, yeah, whenever there’s a little gap in the conversation, we’re kissing like we’re never gonna
see each other again. And these are sweet, buttery kisses, which are my favorite now.
“How’d you get a nickname like Babe?” Nashawn asks. He has an arm around me and I’m pressed up against him. “’Cause you
know
I’m gonna start calling you that, right?”
“You better not,” I say, even though having him call me Babe would mean something different than when Nana or Kenny do it. Or even Renée. “The only reason I got that nickname was because, when I was born, Nana wouldn’t let Renée give me Kenny’s last name. I was gonna be, like, Erika Singleton.”
“That’s Adonna’s last name, right?”
“Yeah. But Nana wasn’t having it. She said no way was she gonna let me have the last name of some fifteen-year-old boy that wasn’t ever gonna be any kinda father to me. So since I couldn’t have his last name, Renée named me Kendra instead. But Nana still wasn’t happy, so she just started calling me Babe. And unfortunately it stuck.”
“I like it,” he says, and kisses me on my neck. Then he whispers, “You are so beautiful, Babe.”
I almost automatically say,
No, I’m not
. But I stop myself because I know what I’m doing. I’m comparing myself to Adonna, and I need to stop doing that.
Pretty soon me and him are practically laying together on the futon and we’re still kissing, but now his hand is under my shirt. My body is on fire and my eyes are closed and I really,
really
don’t wanna stop this. Really.
But I have to. I have to. And not just because of Renée is testing me, either.
So I pull myself away from him and sit up. It’s not easy, but
I do it. And I’m still breathing kinda hard when I tell him, “I know we already hooked up and everything. But…” I can feel myself getting a little nervous. “I wanna go slow now. Okay?”
He flashes that little wicked grin. “Hey, okay. That’s cool. I can probably wait, like, a week.”
I grab some popcorn from the bowl, throw it at him, and laugh.
“Or two,” he says, and nods. “Yeah, I can probably wait two weeks if that’s what you need.”
I scoop up a whole handful of popcorn this time and throw it, aiming right at his face. Then I scream as he reaches out and grabs me. And the next thing I know, he’s tickling me and kissing me, and I’m real glad to get to see this side of him, because I like it. A lot.
Then, when we’re both kinda exhausted, we’re laying squished together on the futon again, and I ask him, “Do you mind waiting—I mean, really?”
“Nah, I’m okay.” He slips his arm around me and he pulls me even closer to him than I already am.
“Good,” I say. “Because I’m really not ready right now.”
I love the way he’s holding me like this. It’s what I been missing in my life for a long time, this kinda closeness. It feels right coming from him. And it’s enough for now.
“In the meantime,” I say, my mind racing with ideas, “remember, I’m a very creative person.”
“I like the way that sounds, Babe.”
“Me, too,” I say, flashing him my own kinda sneaky smile.
Nashawn is long gone and I’m laying on my so-called bed wide awake when Renée gets home. I guess her quick drink turned into something more because she left, like, three hours ago. She comes in and says, “I brought back banana pudding.” And she holds the paper bag up to show me.
“With the Nilla wafers?” I ask, sitting up.
“You know it!”
I hop up. “Where did you get it from?”
“This soul food place over on 138th Street.” She’s in the kitchen, getting the paper plates and plastic spoons out. And then I watch her scoop big hunks of the banana pudding out for us.
After she hands me my plate, Renée opens the futon into a bed. And when two pieces of popcorn fall out, she shakes her head and says, “I’m not even going to ask.”
“Popcorn fight,” I explain, picking up the pieces and throwing them away.
Renée makes herself comfortable, sitting up against her pillows. Then she pats the other side of the bed like she wants me to get in next to her. But I just stand there, not really sure that’s what she means ’til she says, “Come here.”
And that’s when I smile and get in bed with her.
“Oh, this is sooo delicious,” she says, as I make myself comfortable. “I’m going to get so fat living around here.”
I heap a big glob of the pudding onto my spoon and eat it. And, man, it
is
good.
“So what time did your boyfriend leave?” Renée asks, then licks the back of her spoon.
“I don’t know, maybe about an hour after you left. Or an
hour and a half. And I’m not sure if he’s really my boyfriend yet.” I can’t help smiling, though, thinking of how good it felt to be with him like that, just together. “And I know why you left us here alone, don’t think I don’t.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, but there’s a smile on her face. “Anyway you’re going to have to make up your own mind about a lot of things now, Babe. Nana tried to micromanage everything you did and, look, you still ended up having sex, right? Well, I’m not her.”
“Yeah, I know, but…” I start laughing because I can’t believe what I’m about to say. “But, can you be a little bit like her?”
Renée laughs, too. “
What?
”
“I mean, you can’t just leave me alone with the cutest guy in the tri-state area!”
“He
is
cute,” she says. “I mean, for a little boy.”
“Little boy? He’s a
junior
!”
“Oh, well, excuse me,” she says, shaking her head, smiling. “If I had known he was a junior, I would never have left you two here alone.” Then she gets serious and says, “You know, I still have that prescription. When you’re ready, just let me know and I’ll get it filled. No lectures, no judgments. Okay?”
I nod, feeling relieved by what she’s saying because, really, I don’t know how long I’m gonna be able to wait. Like Renée told me the other day, once you start, it’s real hard to stop. I mean, maybe you can, if that’s what you really want. But is that what I really want?
While we’re eating and quiet for a little while, Renée says, “On Saturday, when you got here, I didn’t mean to—” She
shakes her head real slow, thinking. “It just happened so fast and—”
“I know,” I say, feeling my body tense up a little bit.
“I just want you to know, it’s not about you,” she says.
I nod and exhale. “I know. I mean, kinda.”
Me and Renée finish our banana pudding and she tells me I better get to bed because she has to get ready for work. “I can’t play hooky two days in a row,” she says.
“I thought you said you were working from home.”
“Complete bullshit,” she says. “I was in that office and—you know when people say they can feel the walls closing in on them? Well, that’s the way I felt. I was sitting at that desk, thinking, ‘Is this going to be my whole life from now on? This office. This college? Teaching, grading papers, doing research, committee meetings?’ You know, it’s a lot all of a sudden, being out of school and working.”
And being a mother to me
.
“The pressure just got to me, so I told the head of the department I was going to the library to get some books and I practically ran out of there.” She laughs. “It felt so good, like when Kenny and I used to cut school and sneak off to the movies in the middle of the day so we could be alone.”
“Hmmm, that’s a good idea,” I say, laughing.
“Don’t even try it. I know all the tricks.”
“Not all,” I say, because the thing with me and Nashawn is, we don’t even have to leave the school, not as long as Mr. Melendez trusts me with the key to the theater. I mean,
if
we were ever gonna do any of that again, we always have our secret place. “It’s gonna be hard,” I tell Renée, “starting over with Nashawn. But he says he’s okay with it.”
“He likes you, that’s why.”
“I know,” I say, even though I still can’t believe it. “Just like Gerard loves you.”
“I love him, too. And I’m trying really hard to accept him the way he is. Because he doesn’t want to be a sergeant for anything!” She laughs, and she’s so pretty when she laughs. “The only time he opens that book is when he’s here, as if it’s possible to learn the material just by holding the book in your hand.”
I laugh, too. Then I tell her what Gerard said about liking his job now, and being a good role model to the kids in Newark.
“That’s my Gerard,” she says. “The cop.” She gets outta bed to throw away our plates, and when she comes back, I’m still in her bed, all comfortable.
“You know, I need a real bed,” I tell her just in case she don’t already know. “And a room with, like, privacy.”
“I need the same thing,” she says. “And poor Gerard needs me to have privacy, too.”
“I
ll
. Too much information,” I tell her. “Way too much.”
Renée looks around the apartment. “It’s a cute little place, though, right?”
I look around and say, “Too little.”
Renée nods and I know she gets it.
We can’t stay here.
It’s, like, a week a half later when I’m on my way back to Bronxwood for the first time, and the only reason I’m even going is because it’s the Fourth of July and they always have a big block party there. And because it’s the Friday that Renée and Gerard are going to Atlantic City for the weekend. So I’m back with Nana for a couple of days and having a hard time even figuring out what I’m feeling right now.
I mean, when Gerard’s car gets close to Bronxwood, I start to get kinda excited, especially because we always throw the best block parties, even better than all the other projects around here, and I know I’m gonna have fun as soon as I get used to being back here. But, at the same time, coming back here reminds me of how I left, and it’s kinda hard being here again.
It’s only nine o’clock in the morning and the street is already blocked off by barricades, so Gerard stops his car at the corner to let me out. Renée turns around from the front seat and says, “Tell Nana I’ll see her Sunday, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. “Have
fun
, you guys.” And I can’t help but
giggle, because I know what they’re gonna be doing in that hotel room.
Gerard puts his arm around Renée and says, “No doubt!” And he laughs, too, ’til Renée elbows him in the ribs. “Ow!”
I shake my head.
Men!
When I get my bag from the backseat and close the door, I tell them bye and start walking toward my building. Well, my
old
building, anyway. Practically everybody’s already outside. Some of the men are putting up decorations, standing on ladders to wrap streamers and stuff from the lampposts. This guy Tyrell from Building A is already setting up his DJ equipment on the sidewalk. And some of the women are unfolding their tables and covering them with those cheap plastic red, white, and blue tablecloths. They’re gonna be selling food and raising money for the community center’s trip to Rye Playland at the end of August, right before school starts again. I been going on that trip every year, and now I’m wondering if I’m ever gonna go again, now that I’m living with Renée.
“How you doing, Kendra?” Ms. Jenkins asks me as I walk by. She’s taking paper plates and plastic forks outta a shopping bag and putting them on her table. “I heard you moved in with Renée,” she says. “How’s it going?”
I smile. “Everything’s good.” And it kinda is, too.
“Glad to hear that. Make sure you stop by my table, because I’m going to be selling my famous fried chicken. I got legs, wings, and thighs. And I’m gonna have potato salad, collard greens, and corn on the cob. And the peach cobblers are in the oven right now.”
Ms. Jenkins’s cooking is something everybody around here
knows about, and my mouth is already watering just thinking about it. “I’ll be back,” I say. “Definitely!”
We laugh and I keep walking, going even faster past Ms. Grier’s table because I know she’s gonna try to get me to eat some of the food from her nasty apartment. When I come around to Kenny’s truck, he’s setting up, too. He has crates of sodas and bottled water sitting on the street by the back door and he’s bringing everything inside, trying to make room for all of it.
I haven’t seen him since that day when he picked me up after the fight and Renée said all those terrible things to him. It took me awhile to even call him, because I know how disappointed he was with me, and how mad he was with Renée. I don’t know, maybe I felt kinda embarrassed for him, too. But me and him been talking every day now and I told him I’ll be his assistant in the truck today because he’s hoping to make a lot of money from this block party, and I know he needs it.
“Kenny!” I say, standing outside the truck, waiting for him to come out and hug me. The smile he gives me through the truck’s window is almost as good, but I want the whole thing. Two seconds later, he’s grabbing me in one of his hugs and it feels so good.
I mean, me and Nashawn are officially together and his hugs are incredible—
he
’s incredible—but I still need Kenny’s hugs, too. Me and him stand on the sidewalk hugging and talking, and at the same time I’m kinda looking up and down the street and in front of the building to see if Adonna is around. Because me and her haven’t seen each other since the fight. Well, I saw her at school during finals and Regents, but she stayed away from me and I did the same to her.
But I know there’s no way I’m gonna be here today at the block party and not see her. It’s impossible. Especially working in Kenny’s Kandy, right in front of our building.
“Let me take my stuff upstairs,” I tell Kenny. “I’ll be right back, ready to work.” Then, under my breath, I mumble, “Should be a law against this kinda child labor.”
Kenny tries to grab me, but I’m too fast for him. “Wait ’til you get back,” he says. “I’m gonna get you.”
I laugh and walk down the path to my building. When I get upstairs I use my key to get in the apartment. I don’t even think about it ’til I’m opening the door and remember that I don’t really live there anymore and maybe I should have rung the doorbell. So, as I open the door, I call out, “Nana, I’m here!”
“No need to yell,” she says from the kitchen. She’s sitting there having breakfast with Clyde, and I’m wondering, hmmm, did he stay overnight or what? They’re both dressed, it’s nothing like that, but it’s kinda early on a holiday and maybe the reason he’s here is because he never left last night.
I mean, I always wanted Nana to get a life, but I still can’t think of her actually
doing
it with anybody. My mind just can’t go there. So I shake my head to clear out that kinda thinking.
Fast
.
Nana gets up and takes my bag from me. I haven’t seen her since she threw me outta here, and it’s really weird being back. But she did say she wanted me to come for the weekend. Now I’m wondering if we’re gonna be able to talk or if Clyde’s gonna be here the whole time.
Nana puts my bag on the floor in the living room and comes back to give me a hug.
Nana
. I mean, it’s a real fast hug, so fast
I could blink and it would be over, but still. I have to take what I can get, right?
I follow her into the kitchen and say hi to Clyde. He’s looking real comfortable sitting there in
my chair
having his coffee. Nana is back to the green tea, though.
“I bought that yogurt you like,” Nana says. “And some cereal.”
“Lucky Charms?”
“No, cornflakes.”
“Oh, man,” I say, and Nana actually laughs.
“You know I refuse to pay that kind of money for a box of sugar,” she says. “Is Renée letting you eat that stuff?”
“Yeah,” I say because Renée lets me eat whatever I want. Most of the time, she even lets me
do
whatever I want.
“Where
is
Renée and that boyfriend of hers?” Nana asks.
“They wanted to beat traffic,” I say, opening the refrigerator and seeing that Nana did good. She bought two strawberrybanana, a peach, and a blueberry. “But they’ll come upstairs when they pick me up on Sunday.”
“They better,” she says, and there’s something about her that’s kinda different. She looks more relaxed or something. Her face don’t look so tight and even her voice is, like, a little softer. I don’t know how much of it is because Clyde’s there or because I’m not living with her anymore, but maybe she’s just changing.
Breakfast with Nana and Clyde isn’t all that weird, as long as I keep pushing the thought that Nana has a boyfriend outta my head. By the time I get back downstairs, more people are outside and a whole bunch of little kids are running around in
the middle of the street acting crazy, like they can’t believe they don’t have to watch out for cars. And there are some young girls from my building out playing double dutch, which makes me think of Adonna because she used to be so good at that a couple of years ago. I glance up and down the block again, but I still don’t see her, and I’m wondering if she’s really not here. But no. I know her. She wouldn’t miss the block party just because of me.
I walk toward the truck. It’s a real nice day today, sunny but not all that hot. I just hope it gets a little hotter so Kenny can make money selling sodas and stuff. Because I want this truck to work out for him. I mean, I know I’m not supposed to be worried about him, it’s supposed to be the other way around, but I can’t help it. I see the way Renée has her own thing going on and how she thinks Kenny isn’t going anywhere. And I want him to prove her wrong and start making at least a little more money. And if that means he’s always gonna be right here at Bronxwood sitting in his truck, so what?
A couple hours later, the block party is really on. The music is pumping loud and the fathers are out there trying to organize some of the kids into races and stuff. And the rest of the kids are playing around in the fire hydrant sprinklers. Everyone else is just eating and having a good time.
And Kenny is making money. Not all that much, but he’s getting a lot of people, and sometimes there’s even a line outside. Me and him are working together good and he don’t bring up anything that happened the week before last. He just asks me about school and if I passed all my classes, which I did. That kinda thing. And I tell him about the play I’m gonna be working on this summer with Mr. Melendez, but how Renée is
only letting me do it two days a week because she signed me up for some kinda summer leadership program for teenagers at City College and that’s gonna take up the other three days.
“How
is
Renée?” he asks me about five minutes after I stop talking, letting me know he was thinking of her that whole time.
“She’s fine,” I say. “She’s teaching a class that starts on Monday, so…” I don’t know how to say this, but he needs to know. “So she went to Atlantic City for the weekend with, um, her boyfriend.”
Kenny nods his head a few times before he says, “Oh. Oh, alright. Yeah, Atlantic City.”
Lucky for him, this guy comes up to the window of the truck and asks for a loose cigarette, and Kenny has to go back to being Kenny, smiling and taking care of his customers like nothing ever bothers him.
I go back to taking some of the bottled waters outta the freezer and finding room for them in the refrigerator. Then I fill up the freezer with warm ones, just in case we need them.
When the guy leaves, Kenny starts laughing and moving to the beat of the music Tyrell is playing out there. It sounds alright, but it’s definitely something old, because I never even heard it before. “That kid is good,” Kenny says. “That’s the kinda music me and Renée used to listen to back in high school.
Real
music.” He’s smiling all big and everything, and it looks like he’s trying to go back in time or something.
Even after their fight, I don’t think he’s ever gonna get over Renée. He’s always gonna think about the way they were back then. When he was happy.
Finally, when the music changes to something from
this
decade, Kenny says, “So tell me what else is going on with you. And I wanna know everything.”
“I’m doing good,” I say. “Me and Renée are getting along okay. I mean, I still wish it was better than okay, but at least it’s something.
And
,” I go on, hoping I’m not smiling
too
much, “me and Nashawn are together now.”
“That’s the same boy that—?”
“Yeah,” I say. And I know he’s thinking about Adonna because so am I. I mean, I know for a fact she’s gonna be hurt that me and Nashawn are going out. Me and him played it off pretty good at school. We didn’t hang out together or anything, and we never said more than hi and bye at our lockers. But he did drive me home every day, and with all those nosy kids at that school, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told Adonna about it. That’s the way they are.
“I don’t know about this, Babe,” Kenny says. “That boy is playing games with you and Adonna, and I don’t want you…I know what he had you doing and—”
“Kenny.” I sigh. “You don’t have to worry about me, not when it comes to Nashawn. I mean, you’re my father. I can’t get into this with you anymore.”
“Look, Babe,” he says. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”
“I know.” But it’s hard having this conversation with him. It’s so embarrassing. “I know I
can
talk to you, Kenny, but I can’t. I mean, I won’t. Anyway, I talked to Renée already and she took me to the women’s clinic, and Renée has a prescription for me when I need it, so—”
“When you need it?”
“Well,
if
I need it,” I say, even though we both know I was
right the first time. “Hey, when you were my age, you were doing it with Renée, right? So you have to let me figure out when I’m ready, and you can’t expect me to tell you about it, because it’s gonna be my personal business.”
“I don’t like this,” Kenny says, grabbing me into a hug again.
“I know, I know,” I tell him, trying to enjoy this hug as much as the first one even though this time it kinda feels like he’s locking me in his arms and planning to never let me go.
But he does let go. Finally. I guess his stomach takes over, because he hands me twenty dollars and tells me to go get two plates from Ms. Jenkins before she sells out. “And don’t let Ms. Grier try and talk you into buying nothing from her.”
I make a face.
“And bring me back my change.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. I never gave him back change in my whole life.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re sitting up front eating. He’s in the driver’s seat and I’m in the passenger’s seat, and we been taking turns getting up and going to the window whenever somebody comes to buy something. But, really, the food is so good I’m hoping people would stop coming for a few minutes, at least ’til I’m finished the peach cobbler.
Finally, I work up the nerve to ask him, “Where’s Adonna? I didn’t see her once today.” And I been looking, too.
Kenny shakes his head. “I don’t want you girls fighting and messing up everybody’s block party.”
He knows where she is. “I didn’t say I was gonna fight with her.”
He’s looking over at me, trying to figure me out. “I don’t
know where she is, but she’s probably over there behind Building C, watching them stupid boys play basketball.”
I should have known that.