Teenie (11 page)

Oh my God! This is an urn! With ashes! Beresforda’s ashes! I toss the urn onto the top shelf, and luckily it lands on its base and stays put after a little wobbling. I grab the clothes and run back downstairs to calm myself down. Oh boy, I forgot to turn the light off up there. If I leave that thing on, Beresford will have a heart attack. I run up the stairs, flick the light, and run back to my room.

“Martine. Why you keepin’ so much noise up there?”

“Sorry, Daddy.”

I
n the morning, my mother smiles at me as we go over the literature for the YSSAP.

“Only the best students in my school get to participate in this program. Imagine how this is going to look on my record when I start applying for college.”

“I think this is a great idea, Martine. This looks like it will be a wonderful experience for you.”

“I know, right? They’re going to take us to the Prado and the Dalí Theatre-Museum. And look at the pictures of the campus!” This is working out even better than I expected. Madrid and Barcelona, here I come. I’ll be taking afternoon siestas and will be fluent in Spanish in no time. Beresford’s going down! He’s outnumbered on this one, and he knows better than to go against my mother.

“So how does this scholarship thing work?”

“Well, it covers everything but my spending money, and I only need to put my average up one more point, to ninety-four, to qualify for it. The only thing is Daddy. He didn’t sound too enthused when I talked to him about it yesterday.”

“Don’t worry about your father. I’ll take care of him. You just worry about getting your average up to ninety-five.”

“Ninety-five? No, no. I only need to raise it a point, so that’s ninety-four.”

My mother looks over at me and repeats it again. “Ninety-five. Your actions have repercussions and, in this case, penalties.”

I zone out while she goes on about what a great opportunity the program will be. I don’t need to ask her why she’s imposing the extra point. It’s a shame that I didn’t even get to keep the clothes from the mall. Now I get double screwed.

My mother sees me thinking about it and asks, “Do you think that is unreasonable?”

HELL YEAH!! “Uhh, a little.”

“First of all, I want you to give Cherise back the money. Where she getting all that money from anyway?”

I frown and shrug my shoulders, hoping she won’t press the issue. I zone out. How in the world am I going to raise my average to a ninety-five? I might as well just give it up, because there’s no way I can do that.

“Are you listening to me, Martine?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“What did I just say?”

“Uhh … I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

“Pay attention because I’m not going to say this again. I got a card with store credit. You are to give the card to Cherise immediately. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“I don’t like this one bit, Martine. I left a message with her mother, and I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

I hope Cherise doesn’t get in trouble.

“And since you place such a high value on clothes, how about you do all the laundry and ironing for a month?”

A month, hmm, I better take it. “Okay, that’s fine.” I’d much rather do that than have to kill myself with the schoolwork. We agree, but then it feels like someone dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. Now I have to wash Beresford’s underwear. Ugh.

Three trains rumble in and out of the station before I give up waiting for Cherise. I would’ve gotten on the third train if not for a dusty, butter-toothed hobo who kept bothering me for my number. I tried to be nice and say, “No, that’s okay” to whatever he was offering. Still, he kept moving closer to me, overwhelming me with his hot-garbage body odor. Cherise would have known exactly how to get rid of him, but as annoying as he was, I just want to know that she’s okay.

I get on the fourth train, knowing I’ll probably be late for school. I can’t believe she stayed out with Big Daddy. Fun or no fun, I’d be way too chicken to take all of that risk. There’s so much that could go wrong. What if something
did
go wrong? What kind of friend am I to let her go out that late? It’s all my fault for not trying harder to convince her not to go.

• • •

The first fifteen minutes of Mr. Speight’s class are pure torture. The things that I’m imagining are happening to Cherise get scarier with each passing second. What if she’s hurt, or kidnapped, or lying in the middle of the woods somewhere crying out for help? I should tell someone in case any of those things are really happening.

I let out a huge sigh of relief when she walks into class. There aren’t any visible bruises, and when she gives me a quick smile, I start to feel a little better. As soon as Mr. Speight turns around, I pass her a note.

She grabs the note and starts writing. She’s writing a lot, and I keep glancing over at her, waiting for her to finish. She reaches over to pass it to me but doesn’t see Mr. Speight walking up behind her in the aisle between our desks. He grabs the note from her and throws it in the garbage without breaking stride or sentence.

“Biological warfare at its finest.” He’s talking about how the Spanish killed thousands of Incans by giving them blankets laced with smallpox.

When the bell rings, I pack my bag and hustle outside. “What happened?” We only have a minute to talk, because our classes are on opposite sides of the building.

“Where’s your next class?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t make me wait, Cherise.”

“I can’t mess around with my bio teacher! He fails you if
you’re late more than three times, and I have three already. So where’s your class?” She’s walking and talking, moving in the opposite direction from my next class.

“Fifth floor, other side of the building.”

“What?”

“Fifth floor!” Our voices have to get louder and louder as the hallway swells with students.

“Take a bathroom break and meet me in the northwest staircase on the third floor!”

“Okay. I have something to give you, so make sure you come!”

She stops and shouts, “What?”

I pull the store card from my pocket and hold it up.

She smiles, then raises an eyebrow, her face showing confusion. She frowns at me and shakes her head when she realizes that I’m returning the clothes money to her.

I wait five minutes after Spanish class starts, ask for a bathroom break, and run full speed to the stairwell.

“So he stood you up again?”

“Yeah. I wasted two outfits for nothing.”

“Well, how come you didn’t meet me in the train station this morning?”

“I just got in late and overslept. I like those jeans, Teenie.”

“Thanks.” Cherise’s stamp of approval puts a smile on my face, because I spent all of last night trying to get my clothes just right. I’ve got on a white wifebeater with a jeans jacket, the Sergio Valente jeans, and the Chuck Taylors. “So did you hear from him at all?”

“On IM. He said he was too nervous to talk to me. He said that he saw me and that I looked really nice in my dress but—”

“Wait, wait, hold up. He saw you? So that means he was there?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So what? Umm … I know you like watching movies and stuff. Think about this for a second. Right now, you and I are in the scene right before the naive girl”—I pause so she understands that she is the naive girl—“gets her skin peeled off.”

“Yeah, yeah. Who are you, Steven Spielberg now?”

We both laugh. “Well, I guess that’s the end of that, huh?” Cherise will finally come to her senses and realize this guy is bad news. He stood her up twice AND, even worse than that, was watching her like some kind of predator.

My heart starts beating normally until she says, “The end of what? He’s gonna take me on a shopping spree after school tomorrow to make up for the past two days.”

“Hold up. You’re gonna go out to meet him again?”

“Yup. He’s taking me to Macy’s.”

I’m waiting for her to smile so I know she’s joking. Please smile, Cherise. I’m still a kid, but now I see why parents beat their children. I wanna kick her in her butt so hard! “What is wrong with you? Aren’t you concerned at all about what’s going on?”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Teenie. He said he was just scared to talk to me, okay?”

“Listen to yourself, Cherise. He’s some big college kid. Why the hell would he be scared to talk to you? That just doesn’t sound right.”

“What’re you talking about, Teenie?”

“Are you blind or just stupid? This guy could be dangerous!”

“Please. I’ve got it under control.”

“Yeah, that’s what you think. Then before you know it, they try and do all kinds of nasty stuff. He could be a pedophile, Cherise. Can’t you see that?”

“A what?”

“A pedophile. A child molester. I’ve seen a whole bunch of specials about it. They pretend they’re someone they’re not and then they kidnap you.”

“Oh my God. Whatever. Get out my face with that crap. Didn’t I tell you to stop stressing me about this?”

This is normally the time when I shut up and fall back in line so Cherise starts talking about something else. “… and I spent like twenty minutes trying to iron the wrinkles out of this shirt until I realized that it’s supposed to look like this.”

“Cherise, this is serious.”

“See, this is exactly why I don’t like telling you stuff. You’re always stressing me about nothing.”

We stay quiet for a few seconds. I can’t let it go. “This isn’t nothing.”

“Will you drop it already?”

“I think you’re making a mistake. I think—”

“That’s your problem. You think too damn much.”

“But you’re not thinking at all.”

“Yeah, whatever. You been acting like Ms. Know-It-All ever since Greg started whispering in your ear.”

“It’s clear as day, Cherise. These guys pretend they’re someone else, buy you a whole bunch of stuff—”

“So
that’s
what it is.” She’s smiling and shaking her head. “You’re mad ’cause nobody ain’t buying you stuff.”

“Shut up. That’s not true, and you know it.”

“It
is
true. I know you heated that your mother took those clothes from you. I’d be mad too if I had to wear the stuff in your closet. You been dressing aight the last few days but you can only dig through your mother’s boxes for so long.”

“Why you gotta be so mean?”

“ ’Cause you messing up my image. I feel like I’ve outgrown you.”

“Outgrown me? What are you—?”

“You’re like deadweight and I’m tired of carrying you. You ain’t bringing nothing to the table.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Tell me, what do I get outta being friends with you? I always gotta be showing you what to do and telling you what to say.”

“Why you trying to play me like that?”

“You get A’s on every test but start sweating whenever a guy comes up to you. The guys you do know are the biggest shribs and wear rocked-over shoes. You spend more money on books than anything else. You know the capital of all fifty-two states but you never know what clothes to buy.”

“Fifty! There are FIFTY states in the U.S. and I bet you can’t even name ten! What’s wrong with being smart? You never say anything about me being smart when you’re copying
all my answers down during a test. I’d love to see how you did in school if I didn’t help you all the damn time. Don’t come out your face with that crap. You better think about who’s carrying who.”

“Oh, okay, it’s like that? Well, I guess that’s that. We’ll see who needs who more.”

“Cherise, wait. Don’t—”

Cherise turns and walks away from me but stops. “Can I have that store card, please?” I reach into my back pocket and hand it to her. “Thank you!” she says, turning to walk away again.

The way she blew up at me, it seems like she’d been thinking about that for a while. I try to hold back the tears, but it’s hopeless.

For the rest of the day, the sound of Cherise calling me deadweight rings in my ears like a car alarm. The more I think about it, the sicker I get. I’m upset by what she said, but then I find myself getting more upset at the fact that I let her get me upset in the first place.

The day just zooms by because my thoughts are consumed with that conversation. I’ve done my best to try and make sure that I don’t cross paths with her because I know I’ll cry if I see her. Lucky for me she skips gym with a bogus doctor’s note. I know I’m feeling bad because they’re playing basketball and I’m sitting on the side. I spend my lunch period in the library trying to study for my math test next week. I can barely concentrate for more than a few seconds before my thoughts go back to Cherise.

I don’t ever remember Cherise being this mad at me. The worst before today was when I gave Nicholas Bannister her phone number in seventh grade. She only stopped talking to me for an hour back then. Something tells me this one’s going to last a little longer.

But doesn’t she watch
Dateline
or
Forensic Files
when they talk about stalkers and rapists and stuff? Doesn’t she know that Big Daddy has the same profile as the men on those shows? My parents always told me that I should be honest. I thought that’s what friends were supposed to do for each other. But what if I’m wrong about Big Daddy? What if he really is a nice guy?

The bell ending eighth period sounds, and my classmates make a mad rush for the door. Markeith Lawson, the kid that sits behind me, knocks my bag over and all my books fall out.

“Hey! Markeith! Hey!”

He turns around and says sorry but keeps running for the door.

What a jerk. I feel like screaming, but I quietly pack my books away. My pen rolled all the way to the radiator on the other side of the room, so I’m the last one out of class when I’m usually one of the first. When I get to the door, I stand aside while the ninth period students barge their way into the room. I’m going to be late for bio, but I don’t really care. I just want to go home.

“Teenie, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” I don’t look at Garth when I respond. How could she say those things to me and why do I feel so bad? Why is she so mad at me when I was only trying to help her?