Chasing Butterflies (15 page)

W
elllll
. . .

I’m still in hell.

And I’m
still
petrified.

And God
still
has yet to answer any of my prayers.

The most important of them all—for
right
now: getting me the heck out of here!

I’ve been here less than a week. And I’m wishing on every twinkling star to make like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
, and find my way back home.

Somewhere over these nasty brick buildings and polluted skies.

I want to go home.

Now.

This was all a mistake. I should have never let Aunt Terri or Omar to convince me to come out here.

I could have refused.

I should have refused.

But I didn’t.

And now I feel like I’ve been locked in a closet with narrow walls and the smell of mothballs—not that I’ve ever been locked in one, but I imagine this is what it might be like—and I’m watching my entire life unfold through a tiny keyhole.

I feel boxed in.

And I’m scared.

That I’ll never make it out of here, out of this apartment, this city, this state, in one piece. I pull out my cell and call Aunt Terri. The phone rings, and she answers on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Aunt Terri. It’s me. Nia.”

“Oh, hey, Nia. How’s New Jersey?”

“Horrible,” I whisper into the phone. “They have these nasty bugs that seem to come out late at night and take over the whole apartment; especially the kitchen.” I catch my breath, and swallow. “And I have to share a room with this really nasty girl. All she does is snarl and stare at me. No matter how nice I try to be to her, she just insists on being the opposite. Aunt Terri . . .” I pause, fighting back tears. “You have to get me out of here. Now. I can’t do this. I—”

I stop midsentence, realizing that Aunt Terri hasn’t said. Not. One. Word.

“Hello? Aunt Terri?”

There’s a long silence on the other end.

Finally she speaks. “Well, Nia. What’s the problem... ?”

I shake my head in disbelief, staring at the screen.

My lips quiver. I am on the verge of tears. “Aunt T-terri,” I mutter. “I don’t like it here.”

“You just got there, Nia. You haven’t even given it a chance.”

“I don’t want to. I want to go home.”

“Nia. You don’t have a home,” she says curtly.

Her words stab me in the chest, and I feel myself slowly bleeding out.

A sob gets stuck in the back of my throat. “I-I-I meant I want to come to you. In Georgia, Aunt Terri.”

“And you will, Nia; just not now. You agreed to go out there for a few weeks to get to know your biological father and his family . . .”

I cringe.

“. . . and I expect you to hold up to your end of the deal until this matter with your father’s estate is cleared up.”

Tears flood my eyes. “I just want to go home, Aunt Terri. I don’t care where; just not here.” I burst into tears. “I miss my daddy. And I’m so alone here.
These
people are crazy,” I say into the phone, sobbing. “They curse and smoke, and fight each other. I can’t stay here.
Please,
Aunt Terri. I beg of you . . .”

“Listen, Nia,” she says sternly. “You need to pull yourself together. I know you miss your father, and you’re still grieving. But all that crying isn’t going to do anything but make you sick. Not one shed tear is ever going to bring him back. So . . .”

Basically. Get over it.

“. . . you need to toughen up, Nia. Stop focusing on all the negatives, and figure out a way to make it work. God’s given you a new family. And a second chance.”

“B-b-but I don’t want a
new
family or a
second
chance. I want to get out of here. Why are you tossing me away like this? What did I ever do to you, Aunt Terri, huh?”

“Nia. Stop this. You haven’t done anything. Like I already explained. There are some things that need to be handled
first
, before you can come here.”

“W-w-w-will you send for me in t-t-three w-w-weeks like y-you p-p-promised?”

She sighs heavily into the phone. “We’ll see. Right now, everything is up in the air.”

Uh?

Everything like what?

“P-please, Aunt Terri.
P-please
,” I beg, my body shaking uncontrollably.

“I have to go, Nia,” she says brusquely. “I’ll call you in a few days. Okay?”

I sniffle. Then I reach for a wad of tissue and blow my nose. “Ohh. K-kay.”

“Now pull yourself together, before you make yourself sick,” she says.

“B-b-but I’m already s-sick,” I mutter just as she disconnects the call.

I hang up with Aunt Terri, knowing for certain—now more than ever—my dubious fate.

I’m no longer trapped in a closet.

I’m trapped in a box.

Being pushed out to sea.

And a rogue wave washes over me.

“Ooh, don’t even try it,” I hear someone say. “I know you hear me talkin’ to you.”

Pen poised over the page, my eyes flutter up from my journal.

It’s Quita.

Excuse me, Sha’Quita.

Standing here, neck tilted, hand on hip.

She hasn’t spoken to me in three days. Now all of a sudden she wants to speak.

A big pink bubble swells out from between her glossed lips.

“Hunh?”

She rolls her eyes.

Pops her bubble.

“I
saaaaaid
, why you sittin’ out here on the steps like you lost?”

Because I am.

She snaps her gum between her teeth.

I take her in.

Allow my gaze to soak in as much of her as I can stand.

Clad in a pink halter top with the words B
OSS
B*
TCH
stretched across her breasts in glittery silver lettering, with a pair of white skimpy short-shorts, her hips stretching the material to maximum capacity—and a pair of strappy sandals.

Her hair, I mean weave, is dyed pink. Hot pink. And it sweeps down past her waist.

She slings it over her shoulder.

Forgive me for saying this, but she looks circus ready.

No, no, like she’s about to audition for a low-budget rap/porn video.

What a sight.

I blink away the image of her wearing a big pink nose juggling four bowling pins, while booty-popping to a Lil Boosie rap song.

“I’m writing,” I say, shielding my eyes from the blaring sun with a hand.

“
Mmph.
Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Um, apparently not. “I like writing.”

She twists her lips. “Seems like a waste, but whatever, boo-boo. Do you.”

I force a smile.

Blink my eyes several times, hoping she’d disappear; that I am hallucinating.

“What you be writin’ about in that thing, anyway?”

Oh, well. So much for wishful thinking.

I shrug. “Stuff.”

She smacks her lips together. “Stuff like
what
? ’Cause I know you ain’t writin’ no juicy tales up in that diary-thing, anyway.”

“It’s a journal,” I correct, closing it.

She blows another bubble, lets it pop against her shiny lips when she blows it too big, then sucks the gum back into her mouth.

She narrows her eyes and grunts. “
Mmph
. Same difference.”

I think to say something more, but decide against it. I don’t have the energy, or the desire, to explain to her the difference. Because, contrary to popular belief, there is a difference. But I don’t think she’d get it even if I explained it a hundred different ways, in several languages, that diary writing and journaling are very different. Period.

“Actually, it’s not,” I offer clumsily, clutching it to my chest.

She snorts. “Oh, so you a Miss Know-it-all now, huh?”

No. You are. “Not at all. I was simply stating a fact.”

“No, hon, what you doin’ is tryna come for me, when I didn’t call for you. But I’ma let it slide.”

I force a tight-lipped smile.

But, as I’m looking at her, I’m slowly starting to think—no, believe—that she might have been dropped on her head as a baby.

Forgive me.

I know that’s not nice.

Still...

I blink a few more times.

No such luck.

She’s still standing here.

I take a deep breath, then glance down the street. There’s a group of young girls who look much younger than me, despite their overdeveloped bodies, jumping rope.

And at this very second, I wish I could run over and join in.

It is hot out.

Ninety-four degrees.

And the humidity makes it worse.

It’s almost stifling.

But those girls are jumping rope and laughing and having fun, as if there’s a summer breeze blowing, keeping them cool, without a care in the world.

And here I am.

Full of trepidation.

Full of worry.

Staring at this Sha’Quita girl who is so full of—

“So, you just gonna sit out here
alllllll
day, Cali Girl?”

I swallow.

Well, it beats sitting up in that nasty apartment alllllll day.
I look at her. “Please don’t call me that. My name is Nia.” I give her a look that says,
Should I spell it for you?

Her eyes pop open all dramatic and whatnot. “Bye, Felicia. I’ll call you what I want.”

Felicia?

“It’s Nia. My name. Is. Nia. How would you like it if someone started calling you Shaniqua?”

She gives me a blank look.

And pops her bubblegum, hard.

“Sweetie, I don’t care what some basic broad calls me. I’m
still
that
bish
.”

I cringe inwardly.

I don’t know why girls think it’s cute or cool to refer to themselves or each other as the
B
-word. I’ll never understand the logic in it.

It’s coming from a bunch of wayward girls with illogical thinking.

“Well, I do care,” I say unapologetically.

She blows another bubble, then pops it. “Well, I guess you’ll have to get over it, boo-boo.”

There’s simply no winning with this girl.

Ignorance is at an all-time high.

It’s so sad.

I give her a pitiful stare. There are no words for her.
Click-clack.

Clickety-click-clack
.

Her jaws chomp a mile a minute on that poor piece of gum.

I reopen my journal and glance down at the page where I’d left off, then look up at Sha’Quita before finishing the line in my entry.

As I hold my pen over the page to write another line, Sha’Quita grunts. “
Mmph
. Annnnyway. Are you gonna tell me what you be writin’ about or
nah
?”

Right now about you, but that’s really none of your business.
“Mostly poems,” I say, deciding to be cordial, placing the cap on my pen and closing the book again. It’s obvious she doesn’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.

I take a deep breath.

“Yeah.”

She laughs. “Ooh, let me find out you tryna be the next Harriet Tubman, tryna free ya’self from ya demons.”

Blank stare.

“Or the next Erykah Badu.”

Say what?

I give her a confused look.

She sucks her teeth. “Ohmygod, Cali Girl! Please don’t tell me
you
don’t even know who Eryka Badu is. She’s the poet who sings all of her poetry, like Floetry does. You do
know
who they are, right?” She raises a brow and waits for my response.

Um. Okay.

Keep waiting.

Doesn’t she know Erykah Badu is a songwriter and neo-soul singer,
not
a poet?

Well, apparently not.

Heck, she probably doesn’t even know who Harriet Tubman is.

I leave her stuck in her ignorance.

“
Mmph
. No wonder you stay draggin’ ’round that raggedy backpack. You one of them Bohemian wannabes. You probably got a hairy bush, too.”

I frown.

How vulgar.

I clutch my journal to my chest, wondering if she even knows how to spell
Bohemian
. I think to ask, but there’s no way to without it escalating.

I don’t need the added drama.

Sweat rolls down the center of my back. And all I can think about it is how badly I want to be in my backyard under a palm tree, sipping one of my favorite lattes.

“So what are your plans for the rest of the day?” I decide to ask; not that I care.

She pats the top of her head, her jaws working overtime, chomping away. “Who knows, the day is still young. Me ’n’ my girls might go out to the park ’n’ smoke a li’l later. Why, you tryna hang?”

Wait.

Did she just
ask
me if
I
want to go somewhere with her?

It must be bad dope—or whatever it is she smokes—that has her asking
me
to go anywhere with
her.

I shift my body on the step, thankful I’m sitting on one of Daddy’s UCLA sweatshirts.

“No. That’s okay.”

“
Mmph
. Fine with me. I ain’t really want you to come, anyway.”

Like I care.

I shrug, looking back up the street at the girls jumping rope. They’re still going at it. There are now a few boys on bikes intently watching each girl alternate jumping in and out of the rope. I imagine their eyeballs bouncing up and down like mini basketballs as they eye each girl’s bouncy boobs and jiggling butts.

One of the boys hops off his bike and walks over toward a fire hydrant, holding something in his hand. From here, it looks like some kind of tool. But I can’t be sure.

He calls another one of the boys over, and—

“So why you be actin’ all uppity?”

I blink. “Excuse me?
Uppity
?”

“Yeah, like you better than somebody.”

I’m offended.

But I know she’s entitled to her opinion.

Still, being called
uppity
feels like a slap in the face.

“I’m not uppity. And I definitely don’t think I’m better than anyone.”

“
Mmph.
I can’t tell. You walk ’round here wit’ ya head all up in the air, like you some Queen of Sheba . . .”

I almost want to laugh at her absurdity. She says that as if being referred to as the Queen of Sheba is supposed to be an insult. Sheba was the seeker of truth and wisdom, something we all should strive for. And she was a woman of great beauty, wealth, and power.

I sigh, wondering if she knows exactly who the Queen of Sheba really was.

I reckon not.

She grunts. “
Mmph
. Heifers like you kill me. Kee-Kee told me to let it ride, but I ain’t the one for bein’ phony; I’m real wit’ mine.”

Now I feel the need to defend myself. “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. But that’s not who I am. I accept people for who they are.” I just don’t have to deal with them.

“Girl, bye. Lies. You stay wit’ ya nose all twisted up, like we beneath you. Don’t think I don’t peep it. Just like when you saw those few little roaches ’n’ started actin’ all scary ’n’ ish, runnin’ out ’n’ buyin’ roach spray like they were tryna attack you. Girl, bye. Them roaches weren’t even thinkin’ about you.”

Sweat starts to line the edges of my forehead. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.

It’s hot out here.

“I apologize if I made you feel some kind of way,” I say sincerely. “I was caught off guard, that’s all. And . . .”

“And you a stuck-up
bish.
But that’s beside the point. So what if we got a few roaches here ’n’ there. They ain’t gonna kill you.”

Is she kidding me?

That apartment is infested with them.

She rolls her eyes, popping her gum. “You be actin’ like you ain’t ever see a damn roach before.”