Sellout (6 page)

“I live in Tilly’s building,” he said, releasing his hair. “We used to hang when we were younger.”

I remembered having friends here when I was younger, but this broad-shouldered, handsome boy couldn’t have been one of them. This boy had round eyes and high cheekbones. And he smelled amazing, like a warm chocolate brownie with caramel icing and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. The brown-and-white Sean John T-shirt he was wearing matched the brown-and-white Adidas sneakers on his feet. He was tall enough to be out on the court with the other ball players. He pulled a brown stretchy headband from the pocket of his pants and gathered his hair back again. He must have been growing that hair for years.

“I think you have the wrong person,” I told him, turning back around to head home.

“I remember a little girl who screamed anytime Tilly tried to braid her hair,” he said to my back. I slowed down but kept my back to him while he continued. “This little girl would only play with me and she always had to choose the game. I always wanted to play ball, but she always wanted to play house or jump rope or something. It usually had something to do with a little white baby doll with blond hair that never left her arms.”

Khalik had grown up.

I turned around to look at him again and smiled, breaking yet another one of Tilly’s rules. My childhood crush I used to tell Heather about had transformed into a man, a goodlooking man.

“You’ve changed, Khalik,” I told him, sizing him up again.

“You think so?” Khalik asked, moving closer to me than I should have let him, according to the rules. He looked me up and down and moved another step closer, eyeing my skirt and lingering on a spot where my stomach was peeking out below my tank top. “You too.”

“Not
that
much,” I told him, taking a step backward and pulling down on my top.

“Oh…you mean you still carry that ratty old white doll around?” he asked, laughing and searching around me for the doll.

“No, I guess I have changed a little,” I said, backing up a few more steps. “So, how’s your life? What have you been up to?”

“I’m out of school for the summer and just hanging out with my boys. You know how it is,” he said. I wished I knew. I wanted to be home hanging out with my own friends. “What about you? You here for a quick weekend in the city?”

“Actually, I’ll be here for a few weeks this time,” I told him. “You still live in the building?”

“Yeah, I’m headed there now,” he said. “How’s Ms. Tilly?”

“Still cooking up a storm, as usual,” I told him. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

We turned to walk the rest of the way together to the
building. It was just starting to get dark. Knowing Tilly, she was probably watching us from her window and had been the whole time, which would explain why she hadn’t come for me yet.

Khalik opened the front door and held it for me to pass through.

“So, maybe we can catch up before you leave,” he said, stepping inside behind me. The memory of us holding hands, and roller skating on the very floor we were standing on, came to me and I laughed out loud. Khalik looked hurt. “Alright, Tash, you ain’t got to be rude about it, I was just asking.”

“No, no, I mean, yes,” I said, hiding my smile. “I was just remembering us skating on this floor. You used to fall all the time.”

Khalik started laughing, too.

“Nah, the way I remember it, you were the one always bustin’ your ass,” he said. He caught my eye and smiled. “Hey, I’ll catch you later then, Tash.”

“Okay, good night,” I told him, and started up the stairs.

When I got in, Tilly was on the phone. I reached for my cell phone right away to call Heather. I couldn’t wait to tell her about the encounter I just had with Khalik.

“You remember that guy I used to tell you about?” I asked Heather. “You know, the one that lived in Tilly’s building?”

Khalik is the only boy I ever really told her I liked, other than Matt Billings.

“Let me guess, you saw him, and you’re getting married and never coming back?” she said.

“You got it, and we may elope,” I told her.

“NaTasha!”

“Just kidding, but if he did ask me, I’d have to think long and hard about my decision,” I told her. “How are things in Adams Park? Are you dying of boredom yet?”

I could picture Heather lying faceup on her bed, staring at her own star stickers.

“Well, actually, I have some big news for you,” she said. “Matt is throwing a party in a few weeks and he asked me to invite you.” When Heather got excited, all her words slurred like she’d had too much to drink. The news spilled out of her mouth like water from a fountain.

“Who
is having a party?” I said, interrupting her.

“Tash, what other Matt do you know?” Heather squealed. “And, get this, he asked if I had ideas for a theme!”

Matt Billings called Heather to invite us to a party. That was
huge
news.

“Wait,” I said. “Why didn’t he call me himself if he wanted to invite me to a party?”

“Oh, you know how guys are,” Heather answered. “They run into one friend and ask for all her friends. You’re missing the point, Tash. We are going to Matt Billings’s party!”

Matt must not have heard about the dance recital at all. He would never invite me to a party if he had heard what happened to Stephanie. Maybe I could show my face in Adams Park after all. I was hiding out in Harlem being laughed at by
a bunch of delinquents while my best friend was enjoying my summer vacation at home talking on the phone and planning a party with
my
Matt Billings.

“Tash?”

“I don’t know, Heather, I’ll have to call you back,” I said. “I may be busy getting married that weekend.”

TILLY CONVINCED ME to give the girls at Amber’s Place another chance.
I told you it wasn’t going to be easy,
she reminded me.

We headed into the center, and I hoped share time wasn’t a regular thing. But when we got there the girls were already in their groups and were beginning to share. I looked at Tilly for a way out, but she nodded to my group and walked toward her own.

“Hey, Tash, welcome back,” Red announced as soon as she saw me. “We’re going around the circle and telling everyone one thing we hate about ourselves. Join us.”

Like I had a choice. Where else was I going to go? Tilly had brought me about as far north as you could go on the subway and I couldn’t find my way back if I wanted to.

I sat down next to the girl who had hugged her stomach during the last session. She had her black hair pulled into a ponytail high on her head, accentuating her big, blue eyes. She smiled weakly at me. Her skin was sweaty and pale like Elmer’s school glue. I wondered if she had the flu or something.

“Okay, Susan, go ahead, you can continue,” Red said, pointing to the pasty-skinned girl.

Susan moved her hands from her stomach and put them on both her cheeks and stared between her feet. All the girls in the circle followed her gaze to the floor.

“I hate my feet,” she said quietly. “And I hate my knees, and my fat thighs and the extra flab around my belly, the way my skin swings on my elbows when I move my arms, and my saggy boobs.”

The girls around her began to giggle until they saw the tears falling from her eyes. Her sadness was like a wave of gloom that hit us all at the same time. She was serious. The only body parts she left out were from the neck up. I wondered if she was happy with anything up there. I didn’t think so.

“Susan, that’s quite a list,” Red said, flipping pages in her notebook. She scooted to the front of her seat to touch Susan’s knee. “You only had to give us one, and I hope at some point you’re able to come to grips with your body. We all do at some point in our lives.”

The girls were oddly quiet. None of the taunts or insults thrown at the previous session was happening. All eyes were on Red. Susan had tear after tear running down her cheeks. She didn’t try to fight them back at all.

“I’m not finished,” she said quietly, interrupting Red, who withdrew her hand and motioned for Susan to continue. All eyes went back to Susan again. “I also hate having a boyfriend who hates all of these things about me, too.”

She wrapped her arms back around her stomach. I thought about putting my arm around Susan’s shoulders. I would do that
for a friend. But these girls weren’t my friends. Susan would move away from me if I tried to comfort her. Touching was probably breaking some rule I didn’t know about anyway.

“Girls, we’re doing this exercise so that you can release any of your anxiety or negative feelings,” Red said. “I’m hoping the act of saying our fears and hates aloud will free you in some way. Susan, would you like to reflect anymore?”

Susan shook her head. She probably wouldn’t talk ever again for the rest of her life. In fact, her honesty had silenced everyone in the group. I glanced around our circle again. Susan wasn’t the only one with tears in her eyes. I lowered my head and prayed for the uncomfortable silence to disappear. I would have even welcomed the new-girl jokes to make this tension go away.

“Rochelle, why don’t you go next,” Red said, shifting in her seat to face the girl on Susan’s other side.

Rochelle pulled her thick, shoulder-length hair behind her ears and leaned back in her seat. She looked more ready to sleep than to share with a group about her feelings. I watched her eyeball each member of the group before starting.

“I hate my parents,” she said, wiping an invisible hair from her face. “I hate that my mom was strung out and my daddy wasn’t never around and jumped in and out of jail. I hate them for making me. When I was little I swore I wouldn’t be nothing like them, but look at me. I’m just like them. I hate when people see me coming and they grab their stuff like I’m gonna steal something or when I’m in a store and the salespeople walk right past me like I don’t need no help finding nothing. I hate a lot of things.”

Red rocked slowly like this information was heavier than she expected. I wanted her to say something soothing, but she just kept rocking back and forth.

“Does anyone want to speak to Rochelle?” she asked after awhile.

No one moved. No one spoke. No one looked around. Susan was still hunched over, wiping tears from her eyes. Quiana looked like a mannequin, stiff and unaffected. The other girls just listened.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I asked quietly. My mouth obviously wasn’t following directions from my brain, which only happened at the most inopportune times like this one.

Rochelle looked surprised. “What?”

“Well, you said you’re like your parents, but you’re not in jail like them, you’re here with us,” I stated. “Maybe you aren’t as similar to them as you think.”

Red smiled and nodded her head in agreement with me. Rochelle wasn’t as impressed. Her sad face quickly turned sour. She glared at me like I was the one who had just said all those bad things about her family members. I immediately regretted getting involved.

“I just got out, new girl,” she said, snapping at me. “And when I go home tonight, I’m going past the drug dealers on my street and the hustlers trying to pimp me out and my parents’ friends crashing at our place because they got kicked out of their own. I’m just like them.”

I thought of Tilly’s apartment with its matching decor and the quiet and the comfort.

“I just thought…” I started.

“I know what you thought, NaTasha,” Rochelle stopped me, “and you don’t know nothing about me or my life or anyone else’s in here for that matter. No one in here comes from the cushy stuck-up suburbs and no one here lives the perfect life you do, so I don’t even know why you’re here.”

All the girls looked at me now. Even Susan.

“Sorry,” I told her.

“Yeah,” Rochelle said.

Thankfully, Red didn’t miss a beat. “We all have different experiences in our lives, no matter where we come from. NaTasha does come from a different place, but we all have problems,” Red said. She had stopped rocking and turned to me. “Maybe, NaTasha, you’d like to share with the girls something you hate.”

I didn’t, but I had to dig myself out of the grave I’d just dug with Rochelle. The girls wanted blood and I knew it. Every eye was on me. They wouldn’t let me get away with the silent treatment today. No way.

My head started to pound. I smoothed my jeans, glancing up at all the eyes watching me. My heartbeat was in my throat. The girls were waiting.

“Sometimes, I hate the color of my skin.”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble. It was a shock even to me. I had never said them out loud, even though I’d felt it my whole life.

Susan gasped and stared at the others to see what they’d do. Quiana grinned and folded her arms across her chest,
happy to have some dirt against me. Rochelle leaned forward and popped her knuckles and challenged me to a staring contest that I didn’t want to participate in. Red rocked back and forth for a while before speaking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Thank you, NaTasha, I know how difficult that was for you,” Red said. “Can anyone offer an encouraging word?”

Silence. My whole body was hot and I needed a blast of fresh air right away. When it was clear no one else was interested in holding a conversation, especially to give nice words to me, Red dismissed us for the day. I ran out of the circle toward the exit faster than I knew I could move.

If I knew anything about Quiana and Rochelle, they would have the word out at Amber’s Place by the end of the day. Confidentiality my ass. My group had no loyalty to the new girl. After hearing their own stories, it was clear those girls knew nothing about following the rules.

It was only a matter of time before every girl at the center would know my greatest secret. Tilly would be heartbroken. I had to find her.

When I found Tilly I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell her about the silence I had created at the end of our session. Or the dirty looks I’d gotten as a result of my confession.

“Hey, baby, how was group today?” Tilly asked, hugging me tight. She hadn’t heard yet. “These girls go through some stuff, don’t they? Many wouldn’t have a chance if it wasn’t for this place.”

I wasn’t sure what I was doing here, besides giving the girls something to take their minds off their own issues. I was the bait and they were the hungry fish at the bottom of the sea. I couldn’t believe I fell into their trap.

“It was fine,” I said, with my head down. “But I just want to go home.”

Tilly probably thought I meant her apartment, but what I really wanted more than anything was to go
home
home. And the more I thought about Matt and Heather planning a party together without me, the more I was sure I should be volunteering my time helping Matt Billings plan his party instead of spending time with these hateful girls at Amber’s Place. They didn’t want me around and I didn’t want to be here.

“Tash, you’ll mean more to these girls than you even know, so don’t give up just now,” Tilly said.

I thought about how good it would feel to get my things and run out of here.

“Baby,” Tilly continued, “this place helped your mother when she tried to drop out of school, it helped me when I was down and out, and I’m hoping it will help you, too.”

Tilly said some girls started waiting for my mom after school. They would pull her hair and tear at her clothes like she was a rag doll. Tilly told me it got so bad, my mom wanted to drop out of school, but Tilly wouldn’t hear of it. They talked it over and went searching for Amber’s Place, the only safe haven at the time for girls like my mom. Tilly was forever grateful and had been volunteering there ever since.

That all sounded good, but helping these girls would be more difficult than ever now.

“You won’t regret this, trust me,” Tilly said.

I know I had a sour look on my face. Tilly ignored me.

“The girls have exercise class now, why don’t you join them?” she said, like I was on some cruise vacation choosing my leisure activity for the afternoon.

I shook my head no.

“Come on, NaTasha, I have to meet with Red anyway, and I’m pretty sure they are playing your favorite today, volleyball.”

I wanted to follow Tilly into Red’s office to make sure she wouldn’t find out my secret. Red had promised confidentiality, but who knew with this group. I did love volleyball, though, and the last thing I wanted was to make Tilly suspicious.

“Which way do I go?” I asked her.

“Shaunda will show you,” Tilly said, waving over a tall, light-skinned girl. The girl had long dark hair and stood a foot taller than Tilly and me. And she was beautiful. Her hazel eyes were slightly slanted and her cheeks showed signs of the tiniest dimples when she smiled. Shaunda had to be some kind of supermodel. She smiled her perfect smile and kissed Tilly on the cheek.

“I think you girls will have a good time together,” Tilly said. “You already have a lot in common. For starters you both love that ball game. Let me know who wins.”

Tilly waved and swung her hips dramatically in the direction
of Red’s office. Shaunda and I laughed and headed in the opposite direction.

“So, NaTasha, how long are you in for?” Shaunda asked me as we walked down a quiet hallway. The artwork of leaves and tree branches on the walls resembled those in a doctor’s office waiting room. I looked at her like she was crazy. “You’re new, right? Well, what was your sentence?”

There was no way I could have possibly looked like one of these criminals. How could this girl think I was here because I had to be?

“Actually, I’m just visiting for a couple of weeks,” I told her. Now it was her turn to return the crazy look. “Really, no sentence, no crime, just visiting and here to help out if I can.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, let’s go.”

It didn’t sound like she believed me, but she didn’t ask again, either. We turned the corner at the end of the hallway and pushed open a set of double doors that led to a gym.

The gym walls were painted a light purple, with a long row of bleachers lining one wall. The room was small and stuffy, like the walls were slowly caving in on us. A single tattered volleyball net separated the gym floor space, which we ducked under to join the other players.

One bag of uniforms lay up for grabs near the locker room doors. I wasn’t surprised to find Quiana and Rochelle in the front, choosing their uniforms first and tossing the rest aside. Shaunda grabbed hers, and I was thankful to get one at all.

“I’ll show you where to change,” Shaunda said, leading me in the direction of the locker room. It turned out to be
more like a large closet with a few sinks and toilets. Shaunda unlocked a locker far away from the others and told me to put my things inside.

“I was never good about trusting people,” she said, making space for my things, “but if Tilly says you’re okay, then you must be.”

“So, what else do the girls do here besides volleyball and group sessions?” I asked her, putting on my T-shirt and shorts.

Shaunda pulled the striped uniform shirt over her head and it reached just above her pant line. She tugged at the shirt in discomfort and looked over to see if I was watching.

I unhooked Tilly’s pearls and hid them in the corner of the locker. Wearing the pearls was like my shield of protection. It made me feel stronger, but on the court they’d only be in the way.

“Well, some girls are here for safekeeping,” she said, answering me. “Some are here by order of the court. We do arts ‘n’ crafts, too. It’s like an all-American day camp in here.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I’m having tons of fun already,” I said sarcastically.

“I can tell,” Shaunda laughed and closed the locker. “Oh…and just so you know, hiding your goods in these lockers isn’t going to make a bit a difference. If someone wants your stuff, they’ll find a way to take it. I learned that the hard way.”