Man Curse (9 page)

She marched forward, nudging me back with the strength of a soldier. I could have sworn she sniffed the smell of sex in the air.

“Did you have someone in the house?”

“No.”

She looked around, surveyed the bathroom, checked the trash, opened the toilet, looked behind the radiator—and there, crumpled up, with a tiny brown stain in the crotch, was Joey's underwear. Fuck.

“Tell me the truth, Meena.”

“Ill, what's that?” I said, feigning dumb. Hoping to win an Oscar.

“Meena . . .” she said, holding the underwear with her two fingers at the tips, nose turned up. Suddenly the floor, my toes, anything besides direct contact with her eyes became interesting.

Still, I knew it was better to lie. Being honest was a death sentence; the truth was something she wouldn't accept or believe anyway. She always thought I was lying, even when I wasn't, so I self-fulfilled her prophecy by becoming a vivid storyteller.

“Did you have sex?”

“No.”

“Did you have sex, Meena?”

“No,” I repeated a little more passionately, yet not too sassy for fear of encouraging a slap.

She picked up the air freshener and sprayed. Sucked her teeth and hissed under the breath, “Stay here.”

Left alone for a long, uncomfortable stretch, I waited with knots tangling my insides. Mom returned with a small box. “I want you to use this.”

The word “douche” stood out in black letters between her fingers.

“Read the directions and use it to clean up.” She waited for the words to sink in. “Go ahead. Do it now!”

I hurried to pull down my pants. She watched, closing the door behind her. “I'm so disappointed in you. Don't think about watching TV. Unplug that phone and put it on my bed.”

Standing in front of the toilet, I stared at the instructions, following the diagram that showed how to squeeze the vinegar mixture between my vaginal walls. Pulling out the plastic device, I stuck the contraption between my legs. It felt strange, like the cylinder of cardboard holding a tampon in place. I squeezed the device as cold liquid poured inside me, dripping into the toilet water. When done, Mom opened the bathroom door. I handed her the empty box.

“Go upstairs,” she said. “And unplug that video game, too.”

That was the last thing she said about the situation. After thirty days of punishment, void of phones and the ability to venture anywhere, I never called Joey again, dodged his calls and after-school doorbell rings. Taking an alternate route home from school, I felt ashamed of being caught. Embarrassed about having to use vinegar to clean. Scared of my mom's wrath. So I simply didn't call Joey. Our love faded away into oblivion.

“Yeah, I remember Joey,” I said to Meredith with a deep sigh. “He was actually pretty nice.”

“So how come you didn't ever call him back?”

“Scared of my mom.”

“You never call the nice guys back,” she said, laughing. “Remember poor Monster?”

Beenie Wilson. One of the linemen on the varsity football team, he was six-two, 290 pounds, and dark as a skid mark. His overwhelming weight at sixteen made room for the nickname “Monster,” especially since you could hear his heavy wheezing as he carried himself to class.

“I dare you to kiss him,” Doreen said one afternoon at lunch. “Not a peck. But tongue and all.”

“Ill,” I said, feigning vomiting. “Why would I do that?”

“Because it's a dare!” she said, smacking my arm. I lost balance and tripped down the hallway. “Girl, if you trip again . . . You need to loosen up. It's just for fun. There he goes . . .”

Monster was leaning on his locker, breathing as if he were on a ventilator, wiping sweat from his forehead.

“I can't just walk up and kiss him,” I said, turning up my lip. “I need to get to know him a little.”

Doreen sighed. “What is this?” She looked as if she couldn't believe me. “You are so corny. Catch up to the times,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Just kiss him. If you do it, I'll buy you lunch for a week.”

Doreen knew I hated packing my cold, mushy peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a plastic bag of potato chips every day. Always envious of those who bought pizzas, hamburgers, fries, and tacos, I'd borrow a dollar from different people daily, just to get a plate of hot cafeteria food. Mom never gave me an allowance. But I knew whose parents did.

“Okay, I can do it,” I said, watching Monster talk to his friends. “But in my way. Watch . . .”

I followed Monster into the stairwell and tugged on his shirt. “Hey, Beenie,” I said, smiling brightly. “Is that Polo?”

He seemed surprised, eyes lighting up, euphoric that a pretty girl would talk to him.

“Um, y-yeah,” he stuttered. “I got it for my birthday.”

“Okay! What's your sign?”

“Virgo.”

“Uh-oh, perfectionist. I'm an Aquarius. We're supposed to be good together.”

He laughed out loud, obviously not expecting that.

“Well, you look nice today,” I said, rubbing his arm. “That shirt brings out those muscles. I'ma call you later.”

He did a double take. “You got my number?”

“Not until you give it to me.”

Beenie moved faster than I'd ever seen: throwing off his backpack, kneeling down, ripping out a notebook page, and scribbling his digits on a piece of lined paper in huge numbers across the center of the page.

That night we talked, laughed, and gossiped like two lost friends who hadn't spoken in years. I was surprised as we moved from sports to music, TV, movies, and parental complaints. Not only did the conversation flow, but he even brought up things I'd said in class a year ago. Apparently Beenie had a crush on me since the seventh grade. He admitted to being jealous and angry when he heard about my incident with Michael Tubman freshman year, while his teammates snickered about me in the locker room. But they didn't think of me as a slut, I was relieved to hear him point out. I was just another girls' track team challenge achieved.

By the end of the week, I asked him to be my boyfriend. Each day, he bought me lunch, shunning his friends, sitting with mine, giving me doting attention. Doreen would snicker and stare. Meredith kept a confused look on her face. And the moment he walked away, they made me feel embarrassed to be with what they saw as a monster.

“You like him?” Doreen asked, checking herself in her compact mirror. “You're like Beauty and the Beast. You can do better, girl. Don't settle.”

“You two are an odd couple,” Meredith chimed in, looking at me with what had come to be a familiar perplexed expression. “But if you're happy . . .” Her words trickled off into a place of uncertainty.

“Oh my God, she is not happy.” Doreen laughed out loud. “She's a genius. Meena is working for that free lunch.”

“Well, he buys me lunch every day,” I said, digging in my bag. “He's actually kinda nice.”

“Girl, please. He just wants some coochie. Have you even kissed him yet?” Doreen waited for an answer, tapping her foot.

“No, you haven't,” she said. “That's what I thought. 'Cause he wouldn't be all up on you like that. I mean, the whole point of the bet was for you to kiss him.”

“You'll know if it's meant to be,” said Meredith. “If the kiss is right, you'll know . . .”

“And if not, cut your losses,” snapped Doreen. “Be out.”

After lunch, in the northeast stairwell, I moved next to Beenie for our first kiss. Grabbing his arm, I pulled him close. He opened his mouth wide and with a jolt forward threw his tongue down my throat. The Monster grabbed tight, bumping his teeth into mine, swallowing my mouth, touching my gums. I couldn't breathe. His breath smelled of salt-and-vinegar potato chips covered in ketchup. Globs of saliva covered my lips as he woofed them between his sticky smackers. Instinctually I moved back, nearly falling down the stairs, until Beenie caught my arm and pulled me up. Saved by the school bell, I ran to class without a word. That night, I ignored his phone call, feigning sickness to avoid him. And the next day, in that same kiss-of-death stairwell, I killed our short-term romance.

“This isn't gonna work,” I said. “We're just . . . different.”

His eyes flooded with tears; he was like a giant teddy bear begging for a hug.

“Beenie was nice,” I said, glancing at his picture on my wall, phone cradled next to my ear. “I shouldn't have done that to him.”

“Yeah, well, we were stupid in those days,” Meredith said, as I stared at a picture of her, Doreen, and I dressed as sexy cats at the junior-year Halloween party. “I mean, it is what it is. But breaking up with a nice guy like Beenie wasn't you. That was Doreen and her peer pressure. She was so mean and fake. Negative and manipulative. I'm glad we're not friends with her anymore.”

“Amen.”

“Although . . .” Meredith's words trailed off.

“What?”

“I heard she just got married.”

“Doreen? To who?”

“Your old boo.”

“What? Who?”

“Jason Novack.”

I glanced at a group picture of the girls' and boys' track teams. The lone white guy, in the middle of a group of brothers, was Jason. At six-four, he was not only the tallest in the school but one of the most popular. A junior who'd made his way to being a standout starter on the boys' varsity basketball and track teams, he hung out with all black guys, listened to hip-hop music, and seemed more like a brother with soul than a white boy with Czech roots. He wasn't known for dating anything other than blondes until the day his sister Jennifer gave me a ride home after track practice. Since our after-school schedule coincided with that of the basketball team, Jennifer scooped Jason up and dropped me off on the way to their house. I'd never noticed him until he opened the car door for me, grabbed my bags, and escorted me to the steps of my porch. Before then, he'd been just a beige blur in the hallways. But the flirting turned to late-night phone calls, in-school letters, and a card and carnation on the day he finally asked me to be his girlfriend.

Things began well between us. On rare days when we didn't have practice after school, I'd go to his house and laugh as he'd sweat. Exuding nervous shivers, he'd turn red as I took advantage of being more experienced than him; I was his first sexual encounter. I sucked on his neck and slowly kissed his lips. I pushed myself onto his body, pressuring him to have sex with me. His pale skin would turn reddish purple with a short, sixty-second suck to the neck. And I loved it, enjoying the power of control over a boy who hadn't gone all the way with anyone other than himself. He fell in love, calling me nightly to share his heart. Things changed when he invited me over to meet his parents one evening.

“So, Meena, what does your mother do?” His mom asked this while cutting her chicken into tiny pieces. “I believe Jason said she works in finance. She deals with money, I assume?”

“Oh, no, she just answers the phones,” I said, dousing my chicken with salt, thinking Mrs. Novack must've forgotten to season the food. “But she's trying to get a new job at another company, 'cause she wants to make more money.”

“Oh.” She smiled, sipping a glass of white wine. “Well, what does your father do?”

“I don't know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I haven't seen him since I was a baby.”

Silence followed that answer. There was an awkward tension as the Novack family—Jennifer, his mother, and father—looked down at their plates simultaneously. Nervous gas bubbled in my belly. I went to grab the salt again, but Jason's mother gave me a sharp cut of the eyes that sliced my pride. I slipped back my hands and retracted them into my lap. I couldn't wait to leave.

Later, Jason admitted that he'd gotten into a major fight with his parents after his mother began lecturing him about “black people.”

The only thing I remember him saying about that conversation are the words his mother apparently screamed across the dinner table: “This is a white family!” She threw Jason the subtle reminder when I walked out the door. She reminded him again after seeing his hickies and running from the table in tears. He, in turn, ran the other way, out the house and down the street to a pay phone, where he called me.

I wanted to understand him and not be offended. I knew this was his parents' ignorance and no fault of Jason's. But at seventeen, I didn't know how to deal with what I felt. Embarrassment? Shame? I wasn't sure, but I couldn't get over the reality that I was dating a child of racists. The anguish and emotional uncertainty of having never dealt with racism projected my anger onto Jason with a fury of mean insults. I began to act out toward him, the way my mother treated me: nagging, complaining, verbally abusing, and publicly humiliating him about everything—from his clothes to the way he walked. Suddenly he became a corny white boy in my eyes, not cool enough for me. Not deserving of my respect and attention. Becoming aware of our differing skin tones brought on embarrassment. Suddenly I noticed people staring at us. We'd walk in empty spaces, and I'd drop his hand when anyone we didn't know approached. And eventually, I broke up with Jason, publicly, so everyone would know, picking a loud fight in the hallway and berating him in front of the school. The result was a beet-red shade I'd never seen his face turn. He hung his head low and ran into the boys' locker room. We never spoke again.

“Jason Novack . . .” Meredith's words trailed off. “I will never forget that breakup. That boy almost cried in the hallway. He really loved you.”

“I know,” I said with a sigh, staring at an old Valentine's card he'd written that still hung on my wall. “I still feel bad about that. But his parents . . . they messed everything up. What the fuck? Do you think that's man-curse shit?”

“No, that's racist shit.”