You Don't Even Know Me (12 page)

My mom usually notices things. But she couldn't tell that something was going on between Aretha and me. I helped Aretha take in the dining room table. All four of us put the legs on. We all helped bring in the china cabinet too. Aretha's shoes were high. Not the kind you wear when you move in someplace. The kind you'd wear if you wanted someone to notice you. I noticed. Some guys on the block did too. But they wasn't out there helping her. I was. So I got mad that she stopped whenever they wanted to introduce themselves.

“Aretha! I don't have all day,” I said.

Ashlee dropped a box on my toe. I think it was on purpose.

Aretha knows how to get guys to do things she wants. She kissed me on the cheek. “I'm ready,” she said, taking me by the hand, ignoring Mom and Ashlee.

“Alright now, you too old for my baby,” Mom said, joking. Then she kissed me on the other cheek.

That just messed everything up, though; made me feel kind of guilty for what I was thinking. “Hey, Ash . . . let me get that for you,” I said, picking up the box. She rolled her eyes and went inside.

Pretty women spend a lot of time trying to get guys to look at them. My mother and Aretha do that. During a break, they sat on the steps smoking. They crossed their legs at the ankles and talked loud. So of course guys stopped. They gave them compliments and even asked for Aretha's phone number. I stood behind her then. “Naw, I don't think so,” she said, twice.

“I told you,” my mom said. “That boy thinks he's my husband—yours too now.”

Aretha leaned way back, looking at me standing behind her. “I never had a husband,” she said. “I don't think I'd know what to do with one.”

“I had one. We know what to do with them, huh?” Mom said, looking back at me.

My father had another family that he never told us about. They lived in Denver; we lived here. Once Mom found out, she left him. We just get by on the money she makes working at the Dollar Store. I'd never be that kind of man, I tell her. And I couldn't be what Sedgley said I should be either. Someone to take a woman's money.

“You're tall,” Aretha said. “Come inside and help me get something off that top shelf.”

The guy on the pavement looked up. Then smiled at me. “Lucky,” I heard him say.

“What you talking about?” Mom asked.

He told her about the lottery number he was thinking of playing. I follow Aretha, wondering what she would do if I kissed her. I mean, I could, if Ashlee and my mom weren't around.

“Stand here.” She pulled a chair up to the breakfront. “Hold it steady.”

She held on to my shoulder. Put one foot on the chair and then the other. “Don't let me fall.”

I held on to her waist while her arms stretched and grabbed a glass punch bowl. “Now why did I want this?” she said, giggling.

I looked behind me for Ashlee, who was in the kitchen when we walked through. I listened for my mother. And when Aretha stepped off the chair without the bowl, I pulled her to me. Neither one of us moved. We just stared at each other. I've kissed a couple of girls before. I knew what to do. But she wasn't a girl. She was a woman.

“Well?” she said.

It was like getting a PlayStation 3 and just staring at the instruction book. So she kissed me; hard.

“That's my mother!”

Ashlee looked at her mom. “You make me sick.” Sheran out the room.

My mother's gonna kill me, I thought.

Aretha wiped lipstick off my mouth. “She won't tell,” she said, going to find Ash. “She won't.”

I just stood there thinking about my mother.

The door to Ashlee's room slammed. I heard them arguing inside. Ashlee was asking how Aretha could do something like that to her again. Again? I thought.

“You're old!” she said. “And that's . . . that's like, abuse.”

Aretha blamed it on me. Said I helped her up, then I kissed her. “You know how young boys get around me.”

“I know how
you
get around boys,” Ashlee said. “You almost went to jail for that before, you know.”

“Ashlee!”

“What if some old man did that to me?” The door opened, then slammed shut again. “What if I found me somebody old as dirt? Like some of those weirdos who come up to me sometimes.”

“I ain't old!”

“That's the problem,” she said. “You think you my age. You think you're a teenager. You're grown. So grow up!”

The door opened. My mother walked into the house. Ashlee ran out her room, crying. “What's wrong?” my mother wanted to know.

“Nothing,” all three of us said.

My mom always says she wasn't born yesterday. “Ashlee, what happened?”

Ashlee looked at me. Then she looked at her mom.
Ask them
, I thought she would say. But she just walked out the house.

We went to the door behind her.

She walked up the street.

My mom said Aretha better go after her. “She don't know her way around here.”

Aretha said that Ashlee was the type that needed time to cool down. “She'll be back,” she said, walking into the U-Haul. “Let's just finish up.”

I was worried about Ashlee, but mostly I was thinking about that kiss. If Aretha wanted me to remember it, she did a good job. The whole time we were unloading I thought about it. You get to be good at things by practicing. I wondered how many guys she had practiced on. How many were my age?

“Ashlee can be so dramatic,” she said, taking blankets into the apartment.

“Him too,” Mom said. “Just don't let him get his way. He pouts.” She stopped and squeezed my lips together.

“Don't do that.”

“He's my baby, though,” she said, blowing me a kiss.

“Mom. Don't.” I looked over at Aretha.

“Boys do like their moms, now, don't they?” Aretha said.

We walked upstairs and into Ashlee's room. “Girl, I would kill somebody over this boy,” my mom said.

Aretha cut her eyes at me.

“He ain't never give me no trouble.” Mom talked about some of her friends and their kids. “I'm the troublemaker in this family,” she said, laughing. “He has to keep me in line.”

She told Aretha about the time I made her quit working at the bar. And that day some dude she was dating thought it was okay to beat up on her. “He a blessing,” she said. “But when he gets married, I'm not sure his wife is gonna like him trying to boss her around.”

I took the blankets and put them up high. My mom walked out of the room first. Then Aretha. Then me. Her hands were behind her back. One reached out to me. I wanted to grab it, hold on to it. But my mom might've seen, and boy, it would be on then. She'd kill Aretha over me.

They almost called the police on Ashlee—my mom did, anyhow. Aretha seemed okay with her coming in after midnight. That was a few weeks ago. It's like Aretha dropped me after she got all moved in. Or maybe it was because of Ashlee. She hasn't spoken to me since.

“Listen,” my mom says, putting her makeup on. “I'm going out. Aretha was supposed to go with me, but she canceled at the last minute.”

I still think about her. Bump into her in the hallway sometimes. She smiles, but that's it.

“When you coming back?” I ask my mom. I fasten her necklace. “Who you going with? You got a ride?”

“A couple of girls I work with gonna be there. Somebody will bring me home.” She buttons her blouse and reminds me to eat the rest of my dinner. Then she says, “How do I look? Skirt too short? Blouse okay?” she says, kissing me. “Love you. Anything go wrong, you have the cell number.”

An hour later she's walking out the door. I'm watching television, listening to music, when I hear another door shut. I've been watching Aretha, standing in the hall sniffing her perfume after she leaves in the morning for work. Sedgley says be patient, she's not done with me yet. “But don't be no fool. She your mom's age. She don't want you around for long.”

I open the kitchen window. It's her. I hear her talking. I hear a guy too. They're on the porch.

I listen for Ashlee, because I still avoid her. Then I walk down the steps. It's a free country, I tell myself. I can sit on the porch if I want.

“There's your husband,” Mr. Dorsey says. “Or is he your boyfriend?”

Aretha laughs. “Please.”

Mr. Dorsey sounds serious. “Don't get yourself into no trouble with the law, girl.”

She looks over at me. “He's Ashlee's friend.” She winks at me, then turns back to him. “So, what were we talking about?”

I sit there listening to her flirt with him. I smell the cigarette smoke and see her legs, shiny from the lotion she uses, with the glitter in it. I should leave. But I stay, staring at him the whole time. Every once in a while he looks at me and says, “That boy like you.”

“You think? Naw,” she says, walking over to the railing and asking him for a light.

I get a good look at her. And I swear she keeps looking over her shoulder at me. If she was my mother, I'd tell her that skirt is too short and her top shows a little too much. If she were my girl . . . I stare at my feet. Sedgley says don't ever think of older women as yours. “They like some dudes. They trying to have fun, not go to the prom with you.”

“Bye,” I say, making sure they both hear me. It's not too late. I think I'll hook up with some of my friends, so I go inside for my cell and my money.

She's by herself on the porch when I finally come back out.

“Hey.”

I keep walking.

“Malik.”

I look over at her.

“Sit.”

It's a command, not a request. I don't like it when my mother does that. But I sit at the other end of the lounger.

“I ain't mean to give you the wrong impression.” Sedgley said she just used me to help her move in. “I ain't that kind of person.” She moves closer to me. I stand up. Then sit back down. “Miss Aretha.”

“Aretha,” she says, giving me that smile. “I ain't that much older than you.”

She lights another cigarette and blows smoke in my face for a really long time. I hate smoke, but I breathe in as much of her as I can. “Your mom, there's some things she shouldn't know, you know?”

I look at her.

“Ashlee either,” she says, putting her finger up to her lips, standing and holding her hand out to me. “Not all secrets are bad,” she says, offering me a smoke.

I look up at her. At the cigarette, then the door. My mother would kill me, I think, staring at the cigarette.

When you see me,

See me.

It's the least that you can do.

About unplanned pregnancy

America's Pregnancy Helpline

1-888-672-2296

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

1-202-628-7700

[email protected]

About thoughts of suicide

USA National Suicide Hotlines

Toll-Free / 24 hours / 7 days a week

1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433)

1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)

1-800-799-4889 (TTY)

About sexual abuse

1-800-656-HOPE (1-800-656-4673)

About HIV/AIDS

CDC National AIDS/Sexually Transmitted Disease Hotline

1-800-342-2437 (English)

1-800-344-7432 (Spanish)

1-800-243-7889 (TTY)

(24 hours)

About violence at home

loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline

1-866-331-9474

1-866-331-8453 (TTY)

The National Crime Prevention Council's Circle of Respect initiative is a national campaign to create safer and more caring communities, by cultivating a culture of respect in America. An inherent disrespect is at the heart of many public safety issues that individuals face across the nation. Through this campaign, people from every background will be inspired to live in ways that embody respect for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our communities in the places where we live, learn, work, and play.

 

Circle of Respect: Are You In It? Learn more at
www.circleofrespect.org
.