Back To Us (2 page)

A much more pleasing scent greeted me when I opened the door to my apartment. My brother had left the remnants of his favorite Chinese takeout – spare ribs – in the Styrofoam container they came in. How he could eat that fluorescent pink meat I had no idea. There was also a half-eaten tray of General Tso’s chicken, which was my personal favorite, but the baby roach crawling over it was enough for me to walk away from it despite the gnaw of hunger I felt.

I walked inside my bedroom and flopped down on my bed. My brother and I shared a two bedroom railroad apartment. It was small, consisting of my bedroom and his, a small entryway with nothing but an old futon couch for seating, a kitchen and bathroom. It was pretty rundown looking, the floors were linoleum and actually curled up in the corners of the rooms, but with New York rents being as expensive as they were, it was the best we could afford. I didn’t invite people over very often because I was embarrassed by just how bad my apartment looked. The fact that my neighborhood was definitely on the sketchier side didn’t help things either.

The door to my brother Mike’s bedroom was closed, but I could tell he was home by the stench of marijuana wafting into my room from his. He seemed to think pot chilled him out, but in my opinion it made him paranoid and sometimes kinda mean, so I avoided him when I knew he was smoking. Besides, he was probably still pissed at me for adopting a cat from my friend Susan. Buddy needed a home, and I needed to get rid of the mice that were creeping me out. Roaches were bad enough, but mice were just plain nasty. I was getting tired of hearing my brother call me high maintenance every time one ran by and I screamed and climbed onto the nearest piece of furniture. Getting Buddy had been the best decision I’d made. I came home from class the day after he moved in and found three dead mice in the kitchen and I never saw another one in the apartment after that. To me, Buddy was a hero and worth the price of my brother being pissed at me, but Mike was right to be annoyed. I should have asked if he’d be okay with it first.

I turned on my TV and flipped through a few channels, but didn’t find anything of interest to watch so I got up and headed to the kitchen to make something to eat. A few minutes later my brother strolled into the kitchen, too.

“Hey, J. How was work?”

He actually remembered, I was impressed. “Good. I really like it. It’s just a bitch getting there.”

“Where are you working again?”

“Upper West Side.”

“Oh yeah, that kinda sucks.” My brother started clearing his mess from the kitchen table. “I left you some Chinese if you’re hungry.”

“Nah, I’m good. I had Chinese at lunch so I’m kind of in the mood for something else.”

Telling my brother the truth, that I wasn’t into eating food that had a roach crawling on it, wasn’t worth the bother. He’d probably just give me his “so what” look, because if I was high maintenance, my brother was the polar opposite. Lying was easier.

“I’m heading out for drinks with Mel later, you wanna come?”

Melanie was my brother’s girlfriend. They’d been dating for over a year, and Mel was really cool, like a best friend and a sister wrapped up in one. Normally I would have said yes, but I was low on cash and drinks were expensive. “I would, but I gotta get up early for work tomorrow, so I probably shouldn’t stay out late.”

“Never stopped me.”

“Yeah, but you can get by on like three hours of sleep. I can’t do that.”

I finished eating the hotdog I’d made and gulped down an iced tea while my brother got ready to head out. About ten minutes later there was a knock on the door.

“See you later, J,” my brother said as he went to answer the door.

“Tell Mel I said hi.”

The house was quiet after Mike left, so I turned on the TV again, not really caring about finding something to watch, I just wanted to hear something other than my thoughts. Buddy must have sensed I was feeling lonely because a few minutes later he jumped into my lap. By midnight I was still up, sort of waiting for my brother, even though I knew he probably wouldn’t be back for the rest of the night. No longer able to keep my eyes open, I fell asleep. In the morning I checked my phone to see if Mike had called. He hadn’t. I loved my brother and I knew he loved me back, but he was pretty bad at showing it sometimes. It wasn’t out of malice, I knew that, he was just kind of clueless sometimes. Things didn’t occur to him. Things like “my little sister might be worried about me so maybe I should call her or text her and let her know I decided to crash at my girlfriend’s house instead of coming home.” Or maybe it was just me that was clueless, and I expected too much of my brother. But it was just the two of us, so sometimes I worried about him.

The morning air smelled like garbage, which wasn’t that unusual on hot and humid days. It was like the air just sat still and the smells of the streets got trapped. By the time I made it to the train station sweat was dripping down my back and I was grateful that I didn’t have to wait long for my train to show up because I was in desperate need of air conditioning. As luck would have it, I even managed to get a seat.

Just as I walked through the doors of the community center my phone started to chime. My brother had finally texted.

Sorry I forgot to text you last night, stayed at Mel’s and probably will again tonight

The message made me feel better and I smiled.

“Message from your boyfriend?”

I looked up and realized Don was talking to me. “What?” I asked, even though I’d heard his question just fine.

“You look happy, just figured it was your boyfriend sending you a sweet message.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say in response. It wasn’t really his business whether or not I had a boyfriend, and if he didn’t work at the community center I probably would have told him that; but with me as desperate for a job as I was, I couldn’t afford to piss him off and take the chance he’d say something to Mrs. Connor that would cost me my job.

“No, just my brother,” I answered too quickly. It would have been better if I’d told him that, yes, it was my boyfriend, my very jealous boyfriend, texting me. At least that way he’d know I was off limits.

I rushed past Donald before he could ask any more prying questions. On my way to the classroom I bumped into Mrs. Conner. “I was just looking for you,” she said.

“What’s up?”

“The boys’ basketball team practices this morning, and when they’re done a few of the players will be going to the computer lab. I want you to head over there, get things set up, and when the boys show up, help anyone who needs it.”

“Sure, of course, no problem.”

It was another half hour before anyone showed up. I felt kind of bad sitting around knowing I was getting paid to pretty much do nothing. To pass the time I took out my phone and started reading one of my e-books. If I’d known I would have so much downtime I would’ve brought an actual book to read with me, I hated reading on the small phone screen, but it beat just sitting there doing nothing.

When I heard voices and laughter coming from outside the door I tucked my phone away and went to open the door.

Five boys, still sweating from basketball practice, walked in followed by Justin. “Make your way over to those computers over there,” he said, pointing to the back of the room.

As the boys sat down in front of the computers, Justin turned to me. “Jessica, right?”

I nodded. “You can call me Jesse, though, that’s what most people do.”

“How’s everything going so far?”

“Good,” I replied, trying to think of something clever to add, but I was never good at making conversation.

Justin stood and looked around the room awkwardly for a few moments. For someone who coached basketball he wasn’t that tall, only a few inches taller than me and I was right at average height. But he had strong broad shoulders. I noticed that even with the loose-fitting shirt he wore. “Okay, well. I. . .better get back to my office now,” he finally said.

“We’ll see you Thursday, right coach?” One of the boys called out as Justin turned to leave.

“No practice Thursday, remember?”

“Awww, man,” a few of the boys replied in unison.

It turned out the boys didn’t really need my help. They spent most of the time joking around with each other and talking about girls and acted like I wasn’t even there.

“Mrs. Connor told me you guys were supposed to be looking for information on colleges,” I said after a while.

“Don’t need to,” one of them said. “I’m going to whatever school I get a basketball scholarship at.”

“Lucky you.” I wished I’d done that. Maybe not basketball, but some other sport that gave out scholarships. Even with financial aid I was going to be over fifteen thousand dollars in debt by the time I graduated. But at least I’d have a degree, and that was a huge step up from the future my father had predicted for me.

“You’re going to grow up and be a prostitute and die from AIDS,” he used to tell me, even before I really knew what it meant. By the time I was old enough to truly understand, I wasn’t living at home anymore. I’d been handed over to the state of New York because I was too wild and unruly, at least in my father’s eyes. I wondered what he would have thought of the eight other girls who lived in the group home I was eventually placed in. At fourteen, I was still pretty innocent compared to my new housemates. That changed quickly and I wondered if I’d ever not be bitter about it. Although no matter how rough it was in the group home, it was still better than being abused by my father.

I ran into Justin again during my lunch break while trying to figure out how to get the dinosaur of a microwave they had in the break room to work. He was eating at the big round table in the middle of the room and must have noticed me having a hard time.

“That thing is a fossil,” he said as he walked over to help me. “I should buy another one and bring it in, but I keep forgetting.” Justin pointed to one of the buttons on the microwave. “You gotta press this one first before you do anything else.”

“Thanks,” I said feeling embarrassed at my inability to operate a simple appliance.

“No problem.”

I turned to look at him. His dark hair was cut into a close-cropped fade, and I found myself wondering if he’d let it grow longer when summer was over.

“Did the boys behave themselves this morning?”

“Yeah. They were fine. But I kind of felt bad ’cause it didn’t seem like they needed my help that much.”

“Well, they might have been a little shy. Sometimes we boys don’t like to admit we need help, especially to a pretty girl.”

I didn’t need to have a mirror in front of me to know that my face turned several shades of red. If those words had come from Don I would have been annoyed, instead I found myself feeling flattered, and shy.

“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it.” The microwave dinged letting me know my lunch was ready. Justin grabbed it out of the microwave for me and brought it over to the table. I sat beside him not knowing what to make of his chivalry.

Before I could thank Justin, Don walked in, spotted the two of us and strolled over to give Justin a fist bump. “Hey Jesse,” he said before pulling out a chair next to me.

“You two didn’t want to be alone, did you? Am I interrupting something?” Without pausing for a reply, Don leaned towards me and said, “You know, Justin here, he’s a real good man.”

“Not as good as good as you, Don,” Justin joked going along with Don’s banter.

“And modest, too.”

“Hey, c’mon, man. You’re embarrassing her,” Justin said. He apparently wasn’t as oblivious as Don was to my discomfort at their conversation.

“Am I?”

“No, not at all,” I replied, lying through my teeth. What I wanted to do was get up and finish lunch in my classroom, but walking away seemed awkward. I fell silent while Justin and Don started talking baseball. I didn’t really have anything to add to their conversation. It wasn’t that I didn’t like sports, I just never had enough free time to follow who was in the playoffs or who was being traded to what team. Most New Yorkers I knew were die-hard Yankees fans, and summers were often filled with long conversations about the team.