Teenie (10 page)

Beresford’s been going on and on about a new laptop computer his company gave him. He keeps pronouncing it “labtop,” no matter how many times I correct him. He’s already made me promise about fifty times to help him set it up. Once I promise for the fifty-first time, he goes back over to the table and jumps right into one of his long-winded stories. This one sounds familiar, so I set my responses to autopilot. “For real, Daddy? Wow, that’s crazy.” Now he’ll start talking about how somebody, probably Priscilla, did something wrong and how
he had to pick up the slack. I wonder how this lady keeps her job, because according to my dad, she is a waste of brain matter. Here it comes.

“Martine, I tell you that woman is incompetent. She left out the entire section detailing the violations, the most important part of the document. And you know who had to fix she mess?”

Hmm, let me guess. “You had to do it?” My mouth is wide open with shock, to get him to think I actually care.

“That’s right. But as soon as you show me how to use that labtop, I’ll be able to review her mistakes on the subway.”

“
Laptop
, Daddy,
laptop
.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she was teefin’ and robbing the SEC blind.”

My dad has these sayings—I call them Beresisms—and “teefin’ ” is one that he uses most frequently. Teefin’, or stealing, is done by a teef (thief) or, when my dad’s really angry, a teefah. It’s no wonder that growing up I thought Queen Latifah was a criminal mastermind. Lord, this man is strange.

My parents have always made sure to include God in our house. We pray before we eat every meal and go to church every Sunday. My dad usually does the honors. “Lord God, we thank You for this food. Bless the hands that prepared it and make it nourishment to our bodies. In Jesus’s blessed name, amen.”

When I was four years old, Beresford let Kari say grace, and my brother said, “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub.” My father sent him to his room, and I had to stuff my mouth full of broccoli to keep from laughing. Wazi got sent to his room too because he couldn’t stop smiling. I don’t realize I’m
smiling about it until Beresford asks, “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about the game-winner today.”

“Hmm,” my father grunts as he shovels a spoonful of rice into his mouth. “I read in the papers that Grady had a much stronger team.”

“Yeah. They’re usually really good, but our best player really played well.”

My dad nods his head. “Martine, all the plantain is gone?”

“There’s plantain? I didn’t see it.” He raises his hand to stop me from getting up and says, “I’ll get it.”

As he stands and walks to the stove, he bumps the edge of the table, and his spoon falls on the floor. To call that thing a spoon is a stretch because Beresford has made some serious alterations to it. When I watch him use it, I think about one of those cheesy infomercials that say, “It slices! It dices!” He calls it his spife—part spoon, part knife—and keeps it in a special box wrapped in an embroidered cloth with his initials on it. He used to just keep it in the cloth, but now he locks it in a box because Kari tried to eat with it when he was little and cut his lip.

It’s razor-sharp on one side, and Beresford uses it to cut chunks of steak, chop up vegetables, peel apples, and crack open chicken bones so he can suck out the marrow. Both of my parents suck the mess out of some bones, and I think it’s so gross. My dad managed to carve two hooks into the spife so he can eat spaghetti. I don’t know how he does it, but he flicks his wrist around and gets a bunch of noodles curled onto it.

My father picks up his prized possession, rinses it off at the sink, and sits back down to eat again. I get up from the table and walk to the stove. “How many do you want, Daddy?”

“What? Oh, the plantain. I forgot—sorry. I’ll take four pieces.”

I might as well get a little extra gravy while I’m up.

“So how was school today?”

Finally! I’ve been waiting for him to ask me that. This is probably my best shot to bring up YSSAP. While he was busy talking about Priscilla the Klutz, I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to change the subject. “School was great, Daddy. I had a pop quiz in American studies.”

“How did you—?”

“A hundred,” I say, cutting him off. If I let him start talking again, I’ll never get to ask him. “Then later on, in math class, we started going over some new material. And after that, I found out that I’m on a waiting list for YSSAP—it’s a program to study abroad for a semester,” I say, handing him one of the pamphlets. “All I need to do is raise my average one point and I qualify for a scholarship,” I add, because there’s no way my dad would pay the regular tuition.

I can feel hope swelling in my chest as he sits and listens to every word without interrupting. He even puts his spife down. I start having visions of fiestas, drinking sangria with my new friends Juan Carlos and Adriana—well, maybe a sip—taking a weekend trip to the beach in Majorca.

“Why Spain?” he asks, revealing the slightest bit of interest maybe?!?!

“It was either Spain or France, and aside from saying
bonjour
, I don’t speak a lick of French.”

Beresford is going to let me go. I can feel it!

“The program is all about cultural experience. We would be going on weekly trips to museums, Basque country, and, you ready for this? Here’s the best part. You know how you’re always saying that the media and history books never show the achievements of black people, right? Well, they’re even going to take us to Alhambra, the Moorish fortress in Granada.”

He smiles and nods his head as he flips through the brochure.

I’ve got momentum, so I keep pressing. “It’s very affordable, and I could even chip in and get a little part-time job to help with any spending money I might need.”

“Affordable? How much is affordable?”

“Well, there are some expenses that I would be responsible for.”

My dad looks down and rubs his head in frustration. He brings his eyes back up and says, “How … much … does … it … cost?”

I pause, then blurt, “Thirteen thousand dollars.”

“No.”

“But, Daddy. I can get a scholarship. I would just need spending money.”

“Young lady, have you seen the exchange rate recently?”

“But …” He picks his spife back up. That means stop talking. I’ll try my luck with my mother in the morning.

• • •

“Oh Lord. My belly gon burst,” Beresford says, leaning back in his chair in a glazed stupor.

While I’m putting the food away, all I can think about is going back upstairs to start finding an outfit for tomorrow. I have no choice but to put YSSAP on the back burner until I can speak to my mother about it. It’s not like I could talk about it if I wanted to. Beresford is blabbing away full speed again. I feel like stuffing the sponge in his mouth, because I’m sick of the sound of his voice.

My brothers used to watch
Charlie Brown
when we were small. The classroom teacher had this droning voice, like
Wah womp womp womp
. That’s what Beresford sounds like today. I usually try to listen a little more when he criticizes Priscilla, the “blasted half a idiot,” which in his eyes is ten times worse than being a regular idiot, because then at least you have an excuse. I’m still upset with how quickly he rejected me when I was telling him about Spain, so I see no point in listening to him.

“
Wah womp womp
Priscilla.
Wah womp womp womp
.”

“Oh no, that’s terrible, Daddy.”

“
Wah womp womp
incompetent.
Wah womp womp
half a idiot.”

“That sounds like it’s really frustrating to deal with.”

I can’t push the scraps of food into the garbage fast enough. It’s my turn to wash the dishes. Hmm, let me see if I can weasel my way out of this. I turn the water on and soap my plate and the serving spoons that are on the counter. Here goes.

“Wah womp womp …”

I clutch my stomach and start to groan a little.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Cramps.”

Beresford grabs the dishrag from me as soon as he hears the word. “Oh, oh! Go upstairs and relax. I will take care of the dishes.”

Works like a charm.

Y
oung lady, have you seen the exchange rate recently?
I’ve heard my mother call Beresford a stubborn jackass before, and I couldn’t agree with her more. He is so close-minded sometimes. If it’s not something he likes, it must not be worth trying. If he had said, “I’m too cheap to pay,” I wouldn’t be so pissed. How in the world did he bag a hottie like my mother? I hope Greg doesn’t get this way when we get older.

Garth is the only one of my friends on Messenger. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to Greg and congratulate him for his game-winner, but he’s not online.

I don’t feel like hearing about some new planet that has
evidence of water or how chimps are more closely related to humans than other apes. Matter of fact, I’m getting even more annoyed that I remember him telling me that stuff. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

I log off and start looking for an outfit to wear tomorrow. I’m not wearing velour two days in a row, so I’m going to have my work cut out for me if I’m going to impress Greg. How did I ever wear half of this stuff? How many pairs of penny loafers can one person have? Who the hell wears penny loafers anymore anyway? I have the same style of shirt in five different colors, no variety at all.

The TV is on. I have a slim hope that I’ll get some inspiration from it. Some of the shows I flip through are total garbage. How they stay on the air is a mystery to me. Anyway, everything these girls have on is tight, and after the tongue-lashing my mother gave me for wearing that Wade dress, that’s not a direction I want to go in.

I shut off the TV and walk over to my closet again. The more I think about it, the more I realize I need to go up to the attic, though the thought of it scares the crap out of me. Wazi and Kari told me that our deceased sister Beresforda’s ghost haunts the attic. I’ve watched way too much TV to be messing around with that ghost stuff. Looking at the things on my bed, I know there’s got to be a ton more up there. One more glance into my closet, and my curiosity gets the best of me.

• • •

I stand at the bottom of the stairwell leading up to the attic. This must be the one part of the house that no one cleans or fixes. The stairs are all rickety and old-looking, like they lead to the lair of some evil witch. The paint on the wall is chipping. A musty, closed-up smell seems to be coming from the top of the landing. The rusty chain hanging from the light clinks against the wall after I pull it a few times. Of course the stupid thing doesn’t work. There are some cobwebs in the corners near the top of the stairs and a thin layer of dust on the banister. When I reach the top of the stairs, I push the door and almost turn around when I hear that creaky sound-of-a-door-opening-in-a-horror-movie noise. I stand still for a while and listen out for any more noises. If I hear anything I don’t recognize, I am not waiting around to see what it is. I take a deep breath and paw along the wall until I find the light switch.

When my eyes adjust to the light, I realize that the attic is in much better shape than the staircase. I’d be willing to bet money that my mother has a big say in how things are organized up here. Come to think of it, I can’t ever remember seeing my father up here except when he’s carrying things up for my mother. He keeps all his tools and crap in the basement. It’s actually rather clean and orderly up here, except for that musty smell, kind of like a mix of burnt toast and mothballs.

My mother has her things packed up in boxes, thankfully, with writing on the top detailing what’s inside. I push aside the box of miniskirts and drag the one filled with spring shirts
back to my room. I go back up to turn the light off and spot a huge wardrobe off in the far corner. It’s so big I wonder why I didn’t notice it when I first came up the stairs.

This is usually the part in the movie where I am screaming at the screen, trying to tell the character not to go near the closet so the monster can suck out her eyeballs, but I am drawn to this thing the longer I look at it. It just looks so mysterious and full of surprise, like the closet in
The Chronicles of Narnia
. From across the room I can see the detail that went into making the closet. There are small figurines carved into the framework and shiny brass knobs on the drawers. I’m having a hard time understanding why this thing isn’t in the hallway. That’s before I notice that it’s leaning toward one side. When I get closer, I realize that one of its legs is missing.

I open the closet door, still afraid that something might jump out and try to eat me. When I take a good look at what’s inside, I smile, because I know I’ve hit the jackpot. There’s a Peg-Board on one of the doors with a ton of costume jewelry, everything from earrings to faux pearl necklaces. A garbage bag full of scarves lies packed away on one of the shelves. On the bottom of the bag, there’s a funky, multicolored shawl that is definitely coming downstairs with me. I see a pair of Sergio Valente jeans folded on the top shelf and some Chuck Taylor Converses still in the box. The sneakers look almost new, and the jeans are ripped in all the right places. I start smiling at my haul, until the hairs on my neck stand up when I remember Beresforda. For a split second, I wonder if these clothes are hers, but my brothers said that she weighed like
three hundred and fifty pounds. Still, there’s no sense lingering up here any longer than necessary.

I yank at the shawl. It’s caught on something. I give one last good tug, and a pot falls from the top of the closet. I feel faint when I see a huge crack on the side of it, before realizing the crack was already there. Looks like someone did a pretty lousy job trying to glue the thing back together. Considering how far it fell, I’m really lucky it didn’t break.

I reach to pick it up and I try to figure out what it is. It’s a pretty cool-looking vase with a top on it. I pull the top off and look inside of it. The dust inside is kind of grayish and chalky. There’s writing on the bottom.