Teenie (17 page)

“I don’t know about you sometimes, girl. For someone who likes clothes so much, you sure do a good job of messing them up.”

I give my mother two thumbs down for her lame joke.

“And speaking of clothes …”

She lets it hang in the air, but I’m not about to pick up the conversation. After a few moments, she continues.

“So what’s his name?”

“What’s whose name?”

“The boy.”

“What boy?”

“The boy whose attention you’re trying to get.”

I mumble, “There is no boy,” but it’s not very convincing.

“Whenever things that weren’t important before all of a sudden become important, there’s ALWAYS a boy involved.”

I don’t respond. I focus my eyes on the traffic outside my window.

When we get to a traffic light, my mother puts her hand on my shoulder, then my chin. She turns my face toward hers. She moves her hands along her body and says, “It’s not about this, it’s about this,” tapping her finger on her temple.

As soon as we get back to the house, I race upstairs and straight into the shower. My mother wasn’t too happy about me leaving the groceries in the kitchen. I was not about to stay in those nasty clothes for another second. She knocks on the bathroom door, which is locked because otherwise I would be setting myself up for another prank from the twins.

“Martine.”

“Yes, Mommy?”

“Are you washing the white clothes today?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Okay. Don’t forget about your dad’s socks.”

“Yes, Mommy.” My dad goes to sleep with his socks on but slides them off his feet and pushes them to the end of the bed during the night. If he were here, I’d have half a mind to tell him to bring them downstairs himself. Saturday is dominoes with his Caribbean friends, so he’s probably in someone’s basement slamming tiles on a table and listening to loud soca music.

“And don’t put them stinking jeans in my washing machine. If you want to clean them, use the hose in the backyard.”

“Yes, Mommy.” I already beat her to that one. I’ll hide the sneakers and jeans in a garbage bag and throw them in the trash down the block when she leaves. I’m not even going to waste my time trying to clean them. It took me about twenty minutes to scrub the fish smell off my leg. I had to come out of the shower twice to find baking soda
and
vinegar.

When I’m done in here, I’m going to wash the last two loads, write my term paper for American studies, and study all day for my math test. I want to stay busy so I don’t start feeling bad about myself, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to get everything done. When my mother’s dad died, she worked like a maniac. Beresford said that was how some people coped with trauma, like their brains just slip away. That’s exactly how I’m going to approach this.

But of course, as with most plans, there are certain things that can’t be accounted for. As I load the white clothes into the machine, I notice four gigantic laundry bags full of dirty clothes.
They look like the big piles of crap from one of those dinosaur movies, and probably smell just as bad. I guess the University of Maryland doesn’t have washing machines. It seems like everything in the twins’ closets is jammed into these bags.

After I turn the machine on, I go upstairs to finish putting the groceries away. I’m busy thinking about how little time I have when I hear my mother coming down the stairs saying, “Martine, do me a favor. When you finish with the groceries, clean the chicken breast for me and season it.”

Great, more work for me to do. I’m about to ask her what happened to all of the shrimp when I look in the sink and see the Tupperware bowl that it was in completely empty. Solwazi and Bakari are so greedy. “Yes, Mommy.” I wish she’d told me about the chicken before I packed it in the freezer. “Do you want me to cook it too?”

A really loud “NO!” comes from the living room.

My brothers may have had reason to avoid my cooking a few months ago, but I’ve been practicing, and my mother says I have the touch. Anyhow, now that I know the chicken is for their greedy butts, I might just season it with some Ajax.

“Thank you for helping me this morning, sweetheart.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You feeling better?”

“I’m okay.”

“Alright. Just relax today, but make sure you don’t stay cooped up in your room.”

“Okay.” As long as she doesn’t say I have to hang out with my evil brothers, I’m fine.

“Oh. And make sure you spend time with your brothers. You don’t get to see them too often.”

You gotta be kidding me.

Kari and Wazi are in the living room, watching basketball on ESPN. I slide onto the chaise and try to get into the game.

“So what’s up, Nibs? How’s your first year of high school going?”

I shrug my shoulders at Wazi’s question and say, “Alright, I guess,” before pulling my T-shirt over my knees. The house is kind of cool this afternoon.

“You doing alright with your tests and whatnot?”

I nod my head. If I have to sit here with them, I will make sure to keep the conversation to a minimum.

Kari is unusually quiet, curled up in the fetal position on the leather three-seater. His eyes are closed, and he looks like he’s ready to roll right off the couch. I can’t resist the temptation to ask him, “What’s wrong?”

He starts groaning and writhing in pain. “I’m burning up. I feel like I gotta take a dump.”

“So go do it then.”

“I don’t have to. It just feels like I do.”

“Oh. Do you want me to make you some tea?”

“No. I just need some ginger ale.” He groans and says, “I’m really starting to burn up.”

“Well, since you’re so hot, why don’t you take off that sweater?”

“Just get the ginger ale please. I’m dying over here.”

I look up at Wazi and hear him say, “This game is whack” as he starts flipping channels. I guess that means I have to get up.

As always, my mother is well prepared for the twins being home. The refrigerator is jam-packed with food, and I have to move stuff around. I didn’t see any ginger ale when I put that stuff away earlier, and the fridge was basically bursting at the seams already. “I don’t see it, Kari. You want some tea instead?”

“It’s in there. I put it in there yesterday. It’s on the bottom shelf behind the potato salad.” He starts groaning louder and says, “Hurry.”

I squat down to get a better look at the shelf. That seems like a dumb place to put the ginger ale. Then again, it’s a typical move by one of the dim-witted Lashley men. I move the potato salad and see that there is something behind it. I grab the thing but the bottle feels kind of funny, like a ceramic pot or something. To get a better view, I bend down a little. When I realize what it is, I recoil with horror and let out a scream. They put Beresforda’s ashes in the fridge. Who puts ashes in the refrigerator?!

When I turn to confront them, I see them both leaning into the kitchen from the living room.

“Why’re you two always messing with me?!?!”

They are laughing as they run back toward the couches, Kari the loudest. Flames must be coming out of my nose and ears, because I can feel fire rising to my head. I’m biting down on my teeth so hard that I’m sure they’re going to crack soon. I fling the refrigerator door open and grab the urn. I walk over to Bakari and dump the ashes onto his chest. He is so shocked
that he doesn’t have time to react and sits there as the gray cloud of dust spreads to his face. When I look over at Solwazi, I see that his eyes and mouth are wide open. For a quick moment, I think about smashing the urn over his head, but I flip it at him and storm up to my room.

The lights in my room are off as I sit on the floor with my back to my bed. My shirt is over my head, and my head is jammed between my knees. I’ve been rocking back and forth and gritting my teeth since I came up here. I just feel like screaming at the top of my lungs. I take my shirt off and flick it into the hamper. Normally I’m not an impulsive person, but it felt really good to just react for once. This feeling lasts all of five seconds.

What the heck did I just do? My father is going to kill me. Even worse, after that, my mother will revive me and kill me a second time. I just destroyed the only remains they have of their firstborn child. What kind of monster am I?

When I hear a knock at the door, I start crying. Oh God, enough with the crying already. I can’t help it. It’s like a monsoon of tears. I grab another T-shirt and put it on right before my brother pushes into the room.

“Niblet, you okay?”

“Leave me alone.” I don’t need to look up to know that it’s Solwazi. He’s always been a little nicer than Bakari, even though it was probably his idea to put Beresforda’s ashes in the refrigerator. He usually ends up feeling bad when one of their pranks goes too far.

“Yo, we were just messing with you. I didn’t think it was all
that big, but you know, if it made you feel that bad, then that’s not cool. So you know, I just wanted to come up and apologize.”

He gets me a box of tissues and sits at the end of the bed. I wipe my face and blow my nose so hard that my ears get all stuffed up. When I look up, I see his lips moving but I can’t hear a word he’s saying. “What?” He repeats himself while I unclog my ears and catch him mid-sentence.

“… to the park to play ball. You wanna come?”

“I’m not feeling so great.”

“Oh, come on. We hardly get to play together. Me and Kari are going back to school on Sunday, so come hoop with us.”

“What are you doing home anyway?”

“ACC tournament. The team is away, so we came home for the weekend.”

“Redshirts don’t travel with the team?”

“Budget cuts.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s up? You gonna come play with us or what?”

“Go ahead without me. I really don’t feel like playing. I have to study anyway.”

“Come on, Nibs, don’t be like that.”

“Don’t be like what? Every time y’all come up in here, y’all gotta be messing with me. I never did nothing to you.”

Wazi stays quiet but never takes his eyes off me. He looks remorseful and I can tell that he is being genuine. “Okay. I understand what you’re saying. But on the real, what you did downstairs …”

He’s shaking his head. I knew I should’ve hit him with
that urn, should’ve just cracked him right upside his head. I don’t want to hear nothing now.

“Martine, that was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.” I wasn’t expecting him to say that. “You should have seen Kari’s face. He’s gonna try and act like it didn’t faze him, but trust me. He thinks you’re crazy now, so you don’t have to worry about him messing with you anymore. I know I’m not. I don’t want no ashes or any other stuff thrown on me.” He’s laughing, and as much as I want to keep from smiling, one starts to crack through. I’m starting to feel a little bit better too.

My high-tops come flying toward the bed. One bounces off the mattress and lands in the trash and the other hits Wazi in the back of the head.

“Ay, yo! What’re you doing, son?” Wazi’s rubbing the back of his head, ready to throw my shoe back at Kari.

“Y’all coming or what? I got ankles to break and jump shots to make.”

I guess I could play for a little while.

“Y
o, we got next.”

There’s only one court at Fortieth Park, so the other kids are all set to protest until they turn to see who called next. My brothers are basically legends here, and what they say goes. We used to come here every day during the spring when the twins picked me up from school. The basketball court is the only place where my brothers treat me with any kind of respect, even though they treat me more like a boy. I’ll accept that. At least out here they don’t view me as their object of amusement.

I go through my warm-up drills while they greet some of their friends from the neighborhood. Wazi and Kari were never skinny, but I am still surprised to see how much they’ve filled out. They’re both wearing sleeveless tees, and the girls
watching on the sidelines are getting all googly-eyed staring at their bulging biceps. And Kari has a tattoo! No wonder he was wearing that sweater in the house. He should know better than to have done that because Beresford will kill him if he sees it. Wazi sees me staring at Kari’s tattoo, which looks like some kind of African symbol or something. He shrugs his shoulders while mouthing, “I told him not to do it.”

I’m not the only girl that notices it. One of the little tramps on the sidelines is staring hard at Kari. He locks eyes with her, cracks a smile, and winks. He’s so cheesy. His face looks a little duller than his arms, though. He still might have some leftover Beresforda on his cheeks.

We don’t have to wait long for our turn to play. I’m trying to get focused, because when I play basketball with my brothers, I’m expected to play up to a certain level. Judging by the looks on the faces of the winning team, I know I have to bring my A game. As if their facial expressions weren’t enough, one guy says, “Yo, what’s going on here? Man, I ain’t playing with no girls.”

I haven’t seen him in this park before, but I don’t really come here without my brothers. He seems like a big talker, and I don’t like him already.

“Don’t sleep on her doggy,” Wazi warns. “Don’t say nothing when she hits y’all for like six, seven buckets.”

“Yeah, whatever, man. I ain’t playing with no girls. We won and we don’t want no broads on the court.”

“Yo, we got next. And she’s playing,” Kari says while stretching his quad.

The kid stares at my brother for a few seconds, then at me, before snickering and saying, “Aight. If y’all wanna play five against four. Check ball.”

It’s been a little while since I’ve played in a game, so it might take me some time to get comfortable. Luckily I’m matched up with a boy who’s about my age, so I should be okay. There is something familiar about him. He doesn’t act like he recognizes me, so I probably don’t know him.

One of my laces is dragging on the ground and I bend down to tie my sneakers. The goofy kid with goggles that’s on my team doesn’t see me fixing my shoes and puts the ball in play. While I’m on one knee pulling my knot tight, the kid I’m supposed to be guarding cuts to the basket and puts in the first point of the game.