Before, After, and Somebody In Between (11 page)

Because who’s the creep who tried to buy it, and then copped an attitude when I told him to go blow? What was he up to today, skulking around in the stairwell? He could’ve marched right in and helped himself to anything in the house. A locked door wouldn’t stop him, that’s for sure.

I stare up at one of my Elvises with his massive sideburns and glittering white Las Vegas suit, trying to think of a plan that doesn’t involve bloodshed.

Anthony did it. He stole my cello. And I swear to God I’m going to make him pay, but how? How?

Suddenly, I know.

18

I cut gym the next morning because I’m black and blue, and the last thing I need is for Lopez to notice. I skip music, too, because I can’t face Mr. Hopewell. I spend last period in the school library, plotting my revenge.

“Where’s your cello?” Jerome asks as we walk home through the cold rain.

I pretend to be fascinated by something across the street so he won’t notice my quivering lips. “The contract’s up. I had to take it back.” I don’t dare tell him what really happened. Once I do what I have to do, he might figure it all out.

“Bummer.” Jerome pats my shoulder, but all that does is bring me even closer to tears.

I take a deep breath, and decide to launch my attack before I chicken out for good. “Hey, you want to study together? These chapters Finelli gave us are really a bitch.”

“Huh?” I hate biology, and he knows it. No wonder he’s suspicious. “You want to hit the library?”

“No. I thought we could study in your room.”

“Um, we’re not supposed to do that, remember?”

“We’re
studying,
okay? We can leave the door open. God, Jerome, don’t you ever get sick of people pushing you around all the time?”

He considers this, raindrops glinting on his glasses. “Okay.”

Aunt Gloria’s car isn’t there, so I don’t bother with the window. I walk right in with Jerome at my side, and Grandma Daisy, full of flour and sweat, greets us in the kitchen. “Fresh cookies! Y’all hungry?” I shake my head, and she tugs the hood of my outermost sweatshirt. “Child, you gonna catch pneumonia runnin’ around like that. Tell that momma of yours she needs to go out and buy you a real coat.” She pulls the sweatshirt off me so she can throw it in the dryer, and I bite my lip when she gives me an unexpected hug. Wonder how huggy she’ll be if she ends up on
Court TV
?

Bubby, trapped in a high chair, chubby cheeks dotted with cookie dough, smells like vanilla when I drop a kiss on his head. He goes back to squishing cookie dough into his tray, and I stumble to Jerome’s room through the cluttered hallway, wondering if I’ll ever feel like me again.

Jerome has already spread our homework over the grimy floor of his room. While he rambles on about mitochondria and osmosis and everything else I don’t care about, I stare at his mattress, wishing I had a better plan, and then I hear myself say, “You know, I’m too hungry to think. Maybe I will take some of those cookies.”

Jerome throws the book down in disgust, and I flip up the mattress as soon as he’s out of the room. No sign of the gun, but luckily the money’s still there. Balancing the mattress on my head, I rapidly peel away some bills. Five hundred, six hundred…how much do I need? Should I call and find out? No, no, no, this might be my only chance.

Nine hundred, a thousand …eleven hundred, twelve…
and then I hear Jerome coming back. The mattress slams down with a muffled plop, and I shove the wad into my jeans and put on an oh-so-innocent face. Twelve hundred bucks—Anthony will
die!
But he can’t prove I took it any more than I can prove he took my cello.

So now we’re even.

…

The next day after school, I blow Jerome off and ride the bus back to Tower City. “Option to purchase”—it says so on the contract. I point this out to that same grumpy lady who blinks at me over the rim of her tiny glasses. “That’ll be one thousand and ninety dollars and ninety-five cents.” Funny how I don’t need an adult around to
buy
the damn thing.

I hand over the clump of bills, take my receipt, and wander back out with a sickening sense of loss. Something important has been ripped out of me now, like an arm or a leg, or maybe something much deeper. Maybe a chunk of my heart. Maybe a sliver of my soul.

Whatever it is, I think it’s gone for good.

19

Days and days pass, and I can’t shake this awful feeling. I can’t think. I can’t eat. I can’t even breathe without hurting, and I itch all over like poison ivy. Even heroin withdrawal can’t be as bad as this.

When I can’t stand it another second, I go crawling to Momma.

Big mistake. She’s hasn’t been sober one minute since the day she quit her job. “How many times I gotta tell you? Nobody’s working! We ain’t got the money!”

“But Momma, if I keep playing, I can get a scholarship to Great Lakes.” I wave my rumpled brochure. “Mr. Hopewell says I got a real good chance. And look—ninety percent of their graduates end up at Juilliard. Don’t you get it? I could—”

Momma laughs, but not like she’s amused. “Martha, I hate to bust that bubble of yours, but people like us don’t get into no Joo-lee-yard.”

“What? What people?” Perfectly frozen, I wait for her to say it.

“Jesus Christ, do I gotta spell it out? Poor people, Martha. Hillbillies. White trash.”

“I am not white trash!” I kick the closest chair. “And if we’re so damn poor, how come you can buy all that beer?”

“Hey! If you had to put up with all the shit I’ve had to put up with in my life—”

She launches off on one of her poor-me rants, and I have to shout to be heard. “So what? Just because
your
whole life sucks, why do you have to screw up mine?”

But Momma can outshout me any day of the week. “My life didn’t suck till I married that father of yours, and you’re just—like—him! Always picking fights, always acting so high and mighty. And both of you with your goddamn music!” Momma kicks that same chair, hurtling it across the floor. “And now I gotta listen to you cryin’ about how I’m such a crappy mother.
I don’t deserve this!
”

“Well, you’re the one who lets
Wa-ayne
slam me around!” Saying his name is like biting into a turd.

“You keep this up, I might let him do it again.”

“Good! Then I
will
call the cops and both your asses can sit in jail.”

She comes after me finally, but I’m one step ahead of her. “Selfish! That’s what you are, a selfish brat. Me, me, me, that’s all you think about! Never mind that we ain’t got a pot to piss in. Never mind
me,
never mind that
I’m
finally happy!”

“You’re not happy!” I scream. “You’re drunk all the time!”

“Since when do you care? All you care about is that good-for-nothing cello.”

“It’s not good for nothing.
You’re
good for nothing!”

Stone dead silence. As Momma’s face crumbles into blotchy pieces, it hits me what I just said. But before I can think of a way to make it better, she draws herself up and points to the front
door. “Well, seeing as you hate me so much,” she says quietly, “maybe Wayne’s right. Maybe you oughta get the hell out of here.”

At first I think she’s kidding. Then I realize she’s not. “Momma, I’m sorry I said that, I just—”

“Don’t you tell me you’re sorry! You think you’re too good for this family? Go find yourself another one.”

Breathing hard, I force my feet into the kitchen. I dial Shavonne’s number with a shaky finger, but it’s busy… busy… and then busy again.

“Didn’t I tell you to beat it?” Expressionless, Momma cracks open another can of beer and stares at the TV.

“I’m trying, Momma. But I don’t know where to go,” I croak, fighting back tears.

“That’s your problem, missy. You better think of something.”

How can I leave with no place to go? Sick to my stomach, I throw some clothes together and climb the fire escape through a torrent of snow. The first thing I hear as I tumble through Jerome’s window is: “I told ya, man, I don’t know nothin’ about no money!”

Jerome’s mattress is hanging limply off the bed, and Jerome and Anthony are nose-to-nose. Neither of them pays me a bit of attention.

“Don’t you be frontin’ me, man. I had it stashed there for weeks. It ain’t even mine, and now they be wanting it back, so
stop fucking with me!
” Anthony howls that last part, and I can smell his panicked sweat.

“Well, it ain’t me who took it,” Jerome snaps. “I didn’t even know it was there.”

I sit perfectly still, lips cemented shut.

“You lying to me, nigga, you gonna be dead, you hear me?”

“I ain’t lying, man. Swear to God, I didn’t touch it.”

A car horn blasts and Anthony jumps, eyes bulging in horror. With an eruption of F-words, he shoves Jerome out of the way and bolts from the house.

Because it would look too fishy if I said nothing at all, I casually ask, “So what’s going on?”

Now that the coast is clear, Mario lugs a squirming Bubby into the room and plunks him in my lap. Bouncing Bubby, I pretend to listen while Jerome explains how Anthony owes money to some big-time dealer. Supposedly he had some of it stashed under the mattress, but gee whiz, now it’s gone.

Mario immediately gets defensive. “Well,
I
didn’t take none of his money. Whaddaya think, I’m gonna steal from my own brother?”

“Nobody said you took it,” Jerome says patiently.

“Well, I don’t believe that dawg had no money.” Mario scratches his broad belly, deep in thought, then, oddly, throws Jerome a quick hand signal before slouching off to his own room.

“What was that?” I ask faintly.

“What was what?”

“That thing he did with his hand.”

He gives me an incredulous look. “You asking me? I got enough on my mind.”

I stare out the window over the top of Bubby’s curls, afraid my shifty eyes are about to give me away. I feel like a crook, a criminal, the lowest of the low, and not just because I took that damn money. Anthony owed me. It was rightfully mine! I’m just so sorry Jerome got dragged into this whole mess.

Now the extra hundred-and-some bucks stuffed in my pocket are burning my thigh like a red-hot poker. I kiss Bubby to hide my face, and he squeals ecstatically and smacks me in the mouth with his sock monkey. “Ouch, don’t do that, silly!”

“Ba-ba-ba-ba-bah!” he replies, digging his nails violently into my chin.

Jerome settles back on the lopsided mattress. “So what’s up? You and your old lady fighting again?”

I nod. “She threw me out.” Saying it out loud makes it worse, and all the more real.

“How come?”

I jerk my head back as Bubby grabs at my mouth, and I tickle his belly through his Oscar the Grouch shirt. Bubby pushes me away and goes after my glasses instead. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumble, dodging Bubby’s happy, flying feet.

Za-zoom!
Like the Wicked Witch of the West minus the puff of orange smoke, Aunt Gloria materializes out of thin air. She knows I’m here every time no matter how quiet we try to be. “Why y’all trying so hard to aggravate me to death?”

“She can’t go home,” Jerome says quickly before I can shush him. “She had a bad fight with her mom.”

“You think I’m running a homeless shelter here?”

I hear myself begging, “Please! Just for tonight?” Momma might cool off by tomorrow, but what do I do in the meantime? “I promise I’ll be out first thing in the morning. Please, please, please?”

She sneers. “And where you think you gonna sleep?”

Maybe she does have a flicker of humanity after all. “She can have my bed,” Jerome offers. “I’ll sleep on the floor.” Outraged, she informs him, “Slave days is over, fool. You ain’t givin’ up your bed to no white girl in this house.”

Then again, maybe not.

“Not tonight, not tomorrow night, or any other damn night,” Aunt Gloria continues, spinning on her heel back toward the door. “I ain’t gonna be raisin’ no damn zebra babies!”

Okay, message received, over and out. Swallowing hard, I untangle Bubby and set him gently in the crib.

“
Ba-bah!
” he wails, clawing at my shirt. “Shush,” I whisper. “Go night-night.”

Bubby rocks in his crib, tears in his eyes, sock monkey in his mouth, and I stick my feet back through the window without a word to Jerome. If I’m embarrassed, he must be perfectly mortified. Zebra babies? As
if
!

What’ll Momma do when she finds out I’m still here? Why, oh why, does she hate me so much? Because I want to go to college? Because I don’t want to end up like her? I hunch up on my bed, keeping as quiet as possible as I scribble everything that just happened down in my journal. Beyond my door, I can hear Momma opening beer cans one after another. Well, when she passes out, maybe I can give Shavonne another try.

Slumped against the headboard, I fight to stay awake, but my chin droops lower and lower…and next thing I know, I’m watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. I have Bubby on my lap, and both of us laugh and clap at the dazzling explosions. Momma appears, smashed and naked, and stumbles through the crowd, calling “Yoo-hoo! Sugar pie!” Clutching Bubby, I try to worm my way through the throng of laughing people, praying she won’t see me—

At first I think it’s the fireworks that wake me up:
Pop-pop-pop-pop!
And the sound of exploding glass, the gunning of a motor, shouts from the street, and sirens in the distance. I can hear Grandma Daisy shrieking, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” and it’s the most terrifying sound I ever heard.

I throw open my window. More screams from upstairs—Aunt Gloria now, and can that be Jerome?
Whathappenedwhathappened-whathappened
? Teeth chattering in the frigid wind, I scramble
onto the fire escape and make it up maybe two steps before the brilliant beam of a flashlight illuminates the side of the house.

“Stop right there! Don’t move!
”

I freeze.

“
Show your hands!
”