Teenie (16 page)

“Martine! Go wash up and come downstairs and eat! We ain’t waitin’ for you no more!”

That’s the third time I’ve heard Beresford yell up. I’m sprawled across the bed with my face down and my head under the pillow. I’ve been in this position since I got home, and I don’t have any intention of moving. My stomach is killing me. Thanks to Garth, I know that my stomach has its own nervous system, and my emotions can really make my guts twist and turn.

I don’t want to talk to anyone. Wazi and Kari can go jump in a volcano. I’m sick of them making fun of me. Then there’s my dad telling me what a bad daughter I am because I didn’t
tell him about what Cherise was doing. I wish I’d never even heard of Greg Millons. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about his psycho terminator girlfriend trying to carve her initials into my face. I just want to press rewind and do things over.

I don’t get it. I never cause any trouble. Truthfully, I have got to be one of the most considerate people on the face of the earth. I clean up after myself, I don’t talk back to my parents, I eat—no, I actually
like
to eat—my vegetables, I study hard, I don’t curse, I treat people with respect, I even leave the toilet seat UP when my brothers are home!

My mother says that I should treat people the way I expect to be treated.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
. Maybe I should flip that one around, something like
Before others do unto you, do unto them
.

“Yo, Niblet!” I hear a banging at the door, and Bakari pushes in. I pull the pillow tighter to the sides of my head to keep the light out of my eyes. “Mommy and Daddy said we can’t eat until you come, so bring your narrow butt downstairs.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“What?”

I lift the pillow from my face and say, “I’m not hungry!”

“Oh, aight. Good. More shrimp for me.” He slams the door and thunders down the stairs, saying, “She ain’t coming.”

Friday is usually date night for my parents and I have to fend for myself when it comes to food. Since my brothers are home, my mother cooked. My parents will know something is wrong when I don’t come running for her famous curry shrimp. One of them will be here soon, so I hurry into the bathroom and turn the shower on.

I stop undressing when I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My hair is a mess and my eyes are puffy and bloodshot from all the crying. My face feels like my leather jacket, and there’s a deep groove on my right cheek from having it pressed against the edge of my bed. Before the mirror fogs up, I notice a scratch on the side of my neck where Greg grabbed my hood.

The sound of my mother getting close to the bathroom door breaks my train of thought. I can tell it’s her even before she yells, “Martine!” from the sound of her house slippers dragging across the hallway floor.

“Yes, Mommy!” I have to raise my voice to get it above the sound of the water hitting the bottom of the tub.

“You not coming to eat? I made your favorite.”

“I don’t feel so well! I’m gonna take a shower and go to sleep!”

“You want me to make you some soup?”

“No, thank you! I’ll be okay!”

The door handle starts jiggling, and I hear my mother say, “Martine, open the door.”

“I’m okay, Mommy! It’s just a little gas! I’ll be fine!”

My mother is not going to give up that easy, so I’m not surprised to hear her say, “Martine, open this door right now.”

“Just a minute!” In less than five seconds, I strip off the rest of my clothes, jump in the shower, turn the cold water on while I cover my mouth to keep from screaming because I get scalded by the hot water, push the showerhead toward the wall to let the water temperature drop, and reach from behind the curtain to open the door for my mother.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“I’m not feeling so good. My stomach hurts.”

“I’m going to make some soup.”

“That’s okay. I don’t—”

“I’m going to make you some soup and bring it upstairs for you. Make sure you finish it all.”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“And since you not feeling well, I don’t want you on that computer or phone all night.”

“Yes, Mommy.” It’s not like there’s anyone I want to talk to anyway.

With the twins downstairs, I’ll be able to stay in the shower as long as I want. My father will be too distracted grilling them about school to keep track of how long I’m in here. No matter how many times I wash myself off, I still feel dirty. I start to soap my body again, but just sag to the bottom of the tub crying.

Sitting under the water reminds me of playing in the fire hydrant with Cherise when we were younger. Instead of smiling at what should be a nice memory, I cry even harder. All the kids on Cherise’s block were jumping around, wetting passing cars, and screaming their heads off like it was the happiest day of their lives. It looked like so much fun, but I was afraid to join in because I knew it was illegal to turn the hydrant on. I’ve always been afraid. Doing things the safe way is all I know. After pulling at my arm for like fifteen minutes, Cherise persuaded me to join her and the rest of the kids. I had such a good time that day. Thinking back makes me realize how much I miss her.

I feel lost without her. She’s the only person I can really talk to about this stuff. If Cherise were around, there’s no way Greg would have been able to dupe me like that. Now I guess I can understand where she was coming from when she said she was tired of carrying me. What am I good for? I want my mother to hold me, but I can’t stop crying long enough to call her.

All in all, I spend about forty-five minutes getting pelted by the water. The tips of my fingers are all wrinkled up, so I finally find a reason to get up. I’m just so confused. I’ve gone from sadness to anger to regret and back to sadness again. Now I just feel numb, and very tired. I can’t dry myself off fast enough as I’m thinking about how badly I want to sleep.

I
wake up to laughter, and it takes me a few moments to realize that I am on the receiving end of yet another prank by the twins. This morning, they used one of their old tricks, tickling my nose with a feather. They filled my right hand with some mess so when I went to brush away the feather, I smeared the stuff in my right hand all over my face.

They’re laughing hysterically like two hyenas, closing the door just as my shoe bangs against the wall where Kari’s head was. It’s my fault for leaving my bedroom door unlocked. I had gotten used to them not being around, relaxed, and paid for it with a face full of shaving gel. A half a year in college, and they still act like little kids.

I look over at the clock and realize that I have overslept. When the twins are around, I usually wake up before them to
keep them from catching me with one of their pranks. It’s almost noon by the time I get into the shower. I slip on a big hoodie to cover the scratch on my neck.

When I finally make it downstairs, my mother is putting away the dishes from what must have been brunch. It smells like I missed some good stuff, but I still don’t have much of an appetite.

“Morning, or should I say afternoon, sleepyhead.”

“Good afternoon, Mommy.”

“You feeling better?”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

My mother reaches out and touches my forehead and then the side of my neck to see if I have a temperature. She just missed touching the scratch.

“You don’t feel warm. Did you eat something bad yesterday?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t remember what I had for lunch.”

“You probably just need purging.”

If my mother can’t figure out what’s wrong with a quick exam, she says we “need purging.” I’m in no mood to be sitting on the toilet all day. I’ll pass on her homemade prune smoothie—Drano Juice, as Wazi named it.

“What you got planned today? You and Cher—?” She pauses mid-sentence, remembering Thursday’s falling-out. I’m sure the look on my face tells her that Cherise and I haven’t patched things up yet.

“I have some studying to do. YSSAP stuff.”

“Come with me to Flatbush Avenue. An hour won’t kill you.”

“No, thank you. I have a paper due, and a math test on Monday. Plus I have to finish washing—” I look up at my mother and realize she wasn’t making a request. She looks over at me until I say, “Okay, let me go and grab my coat.”

The corner of Flatbush and Church avenues is like the center of the Caribbean universe in New York. If someone is from the West Indies and they live in Brooklyn, they’ve spent at least one day in their life out here. My mother has been bringing me here since I was really small, and she knows to park a few blocks away instead of trying to deal with the crazy traffic.

Before my father started getting promotions, my parents used to buy everything here, from fruit to clip-on ties for my brothers. My mother came down here so much she was on a first-name basis with cashiers in like fifteen different stores. They practically rolled out the red carpet for her whenever we walked into Bobby’s Department Store.

It’s been a while since we’ve been on Flatbush. Now my mother does most of her shopping at Target and the twenty-four-hour supermarket. Flatbush was always a little different for me be cause we would visit such a variety of stores. I have to admit that it doesn’t feel as fun as it used to. That could probably be because of my mood, but it is beyond crowded out here. Some little kid bumps into me and knocks the grocery list out of my hand. He’s so busy sending a text on his cell phone that he doesn’t even notice. To think, this little shrimp, he can’t be more than seven years old, and even
he
has a cell phone.

“Martine! Come on!” My mother is standing at the entrance of the fruit stand, hollering my name down the street.

“Yeah, Martine, you better hurry up.”

I turn around and see some cross-eyed boy smiling at me. I roll my eyes, pick up the list, and storm away from him.

By the time I weave my way through the crowd and into the fruit store, my mother has two cases of water and a basket full of yams and plantains resting next to our shopping cart. She has a trick for every fruit and vegetable to figure out if it’s ripe. I still don’t understand how she knows which honeydew melon is the sweetest just by plucking it. The ones I pluck all sound the same to me, but they never pass my mother’s inspection. With the plantains, I think she’s looking for a certain number of black spots: not too ripe, but just right. The one thing I
can
do is pick good okra. If the top snaps, I put them in a bag because that means they’re fresh. This afternoon, she’s already working on them before I get over to her.

“What are you doing, Mommy? You always let me do that.”

“You outside acting the fool. I don’t have time to wait on you to do it. I have to go to work.”

“Why so early?”

“Early? Remember what time you woke up this morning? Shoot, it’s getting late,” she says, glancing at her watch. “Listen, I have to run over to the fabric shop across the street.” She hands me three twenty-dollar bills and the car keys and says, “Pay for this stuff and wait for me in the car.”

“Okay.” I watch my mother hustle out of the store. As I turn back, I realize that the checkout line has grown to about ten people. Great.

After picking up the basket of yams and plantains, the basket
of melons and cantaloupes, and the basket of string beans, broccoli, okra, squash, and carrots, my arms are burning like mad. I’m hoping to catch a break when I say, “Is it okay if I leave the water down here?”

The little old Korean lady smiles at me, shakes her head, and pats the counter, signaling me to lift the cases of water from the floor so she can scan the bar code. If she wasn’t so little and old, or so cute, I would have made her come over and pick them up. I guess I’m at an age where I’m too old to pretend I can’t lift it up and too young to flirt with one of the men in the store to help me. Lord knows where flirting got me yesterday.

After I pay, I start lifting the stuff down off the counter, and that’s when I realize that it’s going to be a pain in the butt to get it all into the shopping cart. Packing is not my forte, plus it doesn’t help that the guy standing behind me is yelling, “Hurry up! I ain’t got all day.”

“Please don’t ever yell like that again until you use Listerine, sir.” Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I just said that. Judging by the look on the man’s face, neither can he. At least he’s not yelling anymore.

I’m having a hard time dealing with the cart, and that’s even before I realize how heavy and hard it is to maneuver. I manage to get close to the door after a bit of a struggle. There is a jam-up by the front, with people sifting through the peaches and plums. I’m about to say excuse me when the man I just finished yelling at starts pushing his way past me. I’m already halfway out the door. Instead of waiting for me to get out, he
decides to squeeze by on my right side. As he moves by, he bumps into the bucket of codfish soaking in salt water and it spills all over my pants leg and down into my shoe.

“You stupid mother—” I don’t get to finish my sentence because the little Korean lady is yelling her head off. She wants me to pay for the fish. I scurry out of the store as fast as my squishy shoe will let me. I’ve got the cart moving top speed when I get to the corner where I have to turn. I take the turn too hard, and one of the back wheels pops off and rolls into the middle of the street.

So I have an overloaded cart with three wheels and the right side of my leg is soaked in salty fish water. If there’s any way that I could ever feel more uncomfortable than I do right now, I never want to know about it. My mother is already waiting at the car for me with an annoyed look on her face. When she notices the wheel missing, she walks over to me and starts lifting bags from the cart to lighten the load.

“What happened, Martine?” She catches a whiff of my stinky pants leg and says, “Phew. Never mind. I don’t even want to know.”

I’m not allowed to get into the car until my mother wraps plastic bags around my shoe and the bottom of my pants.

“Good Lord, Martine. Why couldn’t you fall into some lavender or something?” She’s fanning her face.

“It wasn’t my fault, Mommy. Some stupid man pushed me.”