With this boy named Warren, home has extended out to this part of Brooklyn too—no matter how many fancy buildings with doormen, expensive slices of gourmet pizza, and older white people looking at us with puppy-dog eyes there are. Still, we’re just two homies from the hood getting to know each other.
“The Benitez sisters have a reputation, but not that kinda reputation,” Warren says, bringing me back to the moment as we head back home. We walk up Jefferson Avenue from the L train. “Word on the streets is that Papi Benitez carries around a machete just to keep guys away from his daughters.”
“My father does not carry around a machete.” I laugh. “He doesn’t have to. Me and my sisters don’t get down like that.” I accidentally bump into him. I remember that this is what Janae and Ainsley were doing at the park—purposely bumping arms.
We reach the corner of my block, and I have to decide if he crosses that line between my block and my front door. My block is my block and any-and everybody can come chill on our stoop. But bringing a boy to my door is a whole other level. I remember how Darius brought my laptop over, and I didn’t think twice about it then because he was nothing and it was nothing.
But this is something. Warren is something.
We’re already on our stoop, and I take the first step. I don’t look up to see if any of my sisters are looking out the window, or if Madrina is at her window, but I somehow know that she sees me, even if she’s deep in her basement with a client or going over her songs and prayers.
I stop on the second step and I turn to him, a few inches taller. “Well, thank you for walking me to my door.”
He laughs. “You need to raise the bar, Zuri. Of course I’ll walk you to your door. And I suggest you don’t trust any guy who doesn’t.”
“Oh, you’re schooling me on other guys now?”
“I’m just sayin’. But I plan to be around for a while, so get used to this.”
I don’t say anything to that. I don’t protest. I’m soft now, like Mama’s sweet, warm pound cake. And he’s close enough to kiss me, so my heart starts to beat faster like conga drums, and I hope that no one is looking out the window; I hope that I’ll know exactly what to do when his lips touch mine; I hope he steals a kiss quickly, while I’m standing here, waiting, breathing, with my heart pounding.
“So I’ll text you tomorrow, a’ight?” He steps back with his hands in his pockets.
I frown, confused.
He keeps stepping back until he’s completely out of our front gate. “Later, ZZ.”
He holds two fingers up, then puts his hand back into his pocket and turns around. Just like that, he walks away, and I feel like the biggest idiot in all of Bushwick. I want to drag him back to this stoop and have a complete do-over. I’m supposed to be the one to turn away while he’s waiting for a kiss. Not him!
“Bye, Warren!” someone calls out above me. I know it’s Layla without even looking up.
From the corner, Warren turns around and waves to my sister.
“Come back soon, okay?” Layla calls out again.
Clearly, he’s used to getting unwanted attention from girls too young for him, and maybe even girls too old for him. Or from girls, period. So he knows exactly what he’s doing by just walking away like that. And it works.
I just stand there with my arms crossed, not ready to go back upstairs and face my sisters. That’s when I see Darius walking up to his door while looking back at our building and rubbing his chin. He must’ve seen me. He must’ve seen Warren.
I smile to myself, watching Darius fumble for his keys. I’ll be seeing Warren again, for sure. And that’s when I’ll steal the ball and take it to my court. This game is still mine. And Darius will be watching from the sidelines.
Ten
IT’S ALMOST A hundred degrees outside, and Charlise is dressed in a white button-down shirt and black pants as if she’s coming home from a job on Wall Street. But she works a few blocks away at a new restaurant.
“You look like a butler,” I say as she sits on the stoop next to me.
It’s too hot to do anything else. Back in the day, we used to turn on the fire hydrant and run through that cool water as it flew up into the air and flooded our whole street. But Robert and Kyle threatened to call the fire department because it was a waste of water and taxpayer money, they said. Those two white boys who moved in down the block a few years ago have always had a way of making us feel bad for doing the things we love: playing loud music, laughing from our bellies, yelling out our windows, and turning on fire hydrants when it’s hot.
“I’m getting paid good butler money, though,” Charlise says, as she unbuttons her shirt to reveal a black sports bra underneath. Something about the bra and the opened white shirt makes it look inappropriate, but Charlise is known for walking around the hood in just a sports bra, basketball shorts, and her Adidas sandals. She leans back on one of the steps and spreads her legs wide open, as if she’s giving every part of herself some air.
At the same moment, Colin comes out the front door. We don’t look back, but I know it’s him, because I can smell the sweet cologne his aunt makes him wear. Madrina says it’s to attract the right kind of girls—sweet ones who will be good to her beloved nephew.
“Whassup, ladies?” Colin sings.
I don’t say anything to him while Charlise stands up from the stoop to let Colin pass. I want to tell her to button up her shirt because I’m sure Colin is staring a little too hard at her boobs right now.
“What’s going on, Colin?” Charlise says.
“Chillin’. What’s going on with you?” He steps closer to Charlise as if he’s about to grab her hand, and this little exchange makes me raise my eyebrows, because Colin and Charlise used to hate each other when we were younger.
“I started working at this restaurant on Halsey. You should come by sometime,” Charlise says, and I raise my eyebrows even higher.
“Oh, a’ight. What are you, a chef or something?”
“I’m a hostess. And I hope you like asparagus.”
“Yeah, whatever. Tell me when, and it’s a date.”
This time I look at them both with my mouth wide open. There goes that word again: date. “Colin, you’re not gonna like any of that food,” I say, but that’s not really what I want to say. I want to tell him to stop flirting with my friend as if he forgot he used to chase her around with water balloons right after she’d gotten her hair done just so he could see her get mad.
“I’m open. I’ll eat anything,” Colin says, licking his lips and looking at Charlise up and down.
I roll my eyes hard as Charlise starts to laugh. “Colin, you’re such a cornball!” I say.
“Not as corny as your boys across the street, though,” he says, pointing his thumb back at the Darcy house.
“Word,” I say.
“Word,” Charlise repeats. Then she says, “Okay, then. I’ll text you and let you know when you can stop by. I’ll have a special meal waiting for you. Do you know what a prix fixe is?”
I turn and pop my eyes out at her, but Charlise just stares at Colin, smiling.
And when he leaves our front stoop and walks down the block with a little bop to his step while looking back at Charlise, I say, “I know you’re not that thirsty.”
“Actually, I am.”
“Charlise. Are you serious?”
“No. Not really, but why can’t I just mess around with him? He does it to a bunch of other girls.”
“’Cause you’re not a dude, Charlise. You’ll get a bad reputation,” I say.
“See? That’s the problem. If we treat guys the way they treat us, then we’ll get a bad reputation? That’s messed up.”
“Well, do you care about your reputation?”
She pauses, looks up at the bright blue afternoon sky, rubs her chin, and says, “My reputation for playing ball? Yep. My reputation for playing guys? Nope.”
I want to say the same thing, that I don’t care about my reputation. But I do, because I already have one. All my sisters do. We have to be careful about who we fall for, especially me and Janae. Just because guys from around the way like us—even if we don’t give them no play, it’s still easy for them to talk shit about us. Papi is watching us, but so is the rest of the neighborhood.