“YOU THINK HOWARD will take a collection of poems in place of an essay?” I ask Janae as she’s laid out on the bed as if someone has stolen all her joy, all her sweetness, and turned her into a stagnant pool of salty water. Even though Ainsley is out of the picture, he’s still latched onto my sister’s heart. Janae’s not crying, but she’s taking up a whole lot of space with her heavy sighs, and moping around as if she doesn’t have her whole life ahead of her.
“No. You have to learn how to express your thoughts without any metaphors or flowery words,” she mumbles. She’s mindlessly scrolling through her phone. It’s noon and she’s still not dressed.
Mama’s footsteps are headed toward our bedroom door. “Zuri, I need you to go to the check-cashing place and get the money order for Madrina’s rent,” Mama says.
“Come with me, Janae,” I say as Mama starts to walk away.
“Let her be, Zuri!” Mama calls out.
“Why, Mama? You want her to lie up in the bed all day? It’s nice outside.”
“She’s recovering from heartbreak. Let her be.”
“Are you kidding, Mama?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll catch it one day too, Zuri. Just leave your sister alone.” Her voice trails off as she heads into the kitchen.
I exhale, shake my head, and stare at the lump that is my sister beneath the old Dora the Explorer sheets. “Oh, hell no, Janae! You’re letting that stupid boy win. You gotta come out on top, big sis! Let him see that you don’t care. Let’s get outta here and make sure that you look extra cute. Come on, Nae-nae! Please!”
I shake her, but she doesn’t move. I tickle her, and finally her salty self melts back into her gooey sweetness. She keeps laughing long after I stop tickling her. She laughs so hard, tears stream down her face while she sits up, bends over, and holds her belly.
I finally have my sister to myself. Our faces are fresh, our hair is done, her dress is flowing, my T-shirt is poppin’, and we look cute as we walk through Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. Guys were hollering at us ever since we stepped onto the B26 bus going down Halsey, then after we transferred to the B25 going down Fulton. Still, those guys are not flies and mosquitos. Most of them actually look really good. But Janae and I are focused.
We finished Mama’s errands, and we have the whole afternoon to ourselves without our little sisters, even though they begged Mama to come with us. I had to tell Mama that I was taking Janae out to nurse her heartbreak.
We get a nice booth overlooking Flatbush Avenue at Junior’s, and Janae insists that our meal is her treat.
“I saved up most of my money from working at the bookstore on campus,” she says as she sips her milkshake.
“I can’t wait to get a job,” I say, stirring the ice cubes in my soda. “You know I put in my application to just about every store on the Fulton strip. I shoulda done what Charlise did, stay local and get those white people and their boutiques to hire me.”
The waiter comes to serve our food. Part of me worries that we’ve ordered too much and that Janae may not be able to cover it all. And that worry shifts to other worries. Things I’ve held in the back of my mind. I wonder if Howard is the right decision, if they’ll give me a full scholarship and financial-aid package like Syracuse did for Janae, if I should start dreaming about other schools too. Or what if I get to Howard and I don’t like it? What if I want to come home?
“What’s wrong, Z?”
I tell her. I let Janae know all my fears. I lay them out on the table one by one: change, quiet, money, college, job, space, family, home.
“Z,” Janae starts. “Things are gonna have to change, and you just have to open up to it. My whole world opened up the day I took that Greyhound to Syracuse. It’s like, I knew I wasn’t going to be the same person after that. And all it took was a five-hour bus ride. I didn’t realize how closed off from the world we were.”
I sigh. “But what happens if I get into Howard and it’s not for me?”
Janae cocks her head to the side and looks at me just like Mama does. “Then you should go visit.”
“Visit where?”
“Zuri! Howard,” she says.
My insides jump at the idea of going anywhere outside of New York by myself. By myself! But then reality sets in. “Even if Mama and Papi let me go, with what money?” I dip a Buffalo wing into a cup of blue cheese.
Janae pulls out her phone and spends a couple of minutes scrolling. I see her typing something.
She shows me her phone and I read the screen, confused. She’s bought me a round-trip bus ticket to D.C. To Howard. For tomorrow!
I look up at my sister in shock.
“Just go, for a day. I’ll deal with Mama and Papi.”
“Really?” I can barely get the word out, I’m so excited. A whole day to myself, exploring Howard.
“Yes, really. What are big sisters for?”
Of course my whole family has to escort me to Times Square at the crack of dawn, where I’ll be hopping on a six-o’clock bus to D.C. I am so hyped about this trip that I haven’t slept. I keep this giant ball of joy inside me so no one takes it away.
I worry that Papi will change his mind any minute. He’s concerned that I’ll be traveling alone. “I wanna make sure they see my face. And I wanna look each one of those bus passengers in the eye,” he says.
But Mama is excited. It’s starting to sink in that she’s about to have two “baby girls” in college.
Mama packs three Tupperware containers of food for me to eat on the bus, and foil-wrapped snacks to eat over the course of the trip. Marisol typed up a budget for me. I’m supposed to spread out the twenty bucks Papi gave me over the whole day.
And after waving to my family until the bus pulls off, I finally make it out of Manhattan.
I mostly stare out the window, watching this part of the country pass. New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
I take selfies and pics of the fast-moving world to send to my sisters and Charlise. I text Warren, but he doesn’t text back right away, like he normally does. The last text I got from him was from last night, telling me to have a safe trip. Him and our almost-kiss linger in my mind as the bus zooms toward D.C.
D.C. is almost like Brooklyn, but much cleaner with way fewer people crowded onto the streets. And less black and brown people too, though I wonder if they’ve been boxed in somewhere else, like in Brooklyn.
“D.C. used to be called Chocolate City,” the woman sitting next to me says. She probably noticed how my face has been glued to the window for almost the whole ride.
“Well, I see a whole lotta vanilla,” I say.
“Yep. I’m from Bed-Stuy. We’re starting to see a whole lotta vanilla there too.”
“Is that happening all over?”
“I don’t know,” the woman says. “I haven’t been to all over. Have you?”
I don’t answer her as the bus pulls into Union Station. From there, I take the Metro north, up to Howard University.
I walk toward the entrance, and it’s exactly how I’ve seen it in videos and pictures. The brown brick buildings are regal. Giant green lawns spread across the campus. It kind of looks like Maria Hernandez Park, but without the playground, or the surrounding brownstones and buildings. Most important, without the new white people. There’s just people like me, as far as my eyes can see. And it already feels like home.
All of Howard is clean and airy. No clutter. No sirens and loud music coming from outside. No bodega gates rolling up, and shopping-cart wheels on jagged sidewalks. Being here expands my whole world much farther than I could’ve ever imagined, and I text Janae one giant THANK-YOU in all caps followed by smiley faces, hearts, and balloons.
We have to meet our tour guides in the Administration Building. Inside, there’s a long table with a sign hanging in the front that reads WELCOME TO HOWARD. Two girls are seated behind it, wearing big smiles and the cutest outfits I’ve ever seen. Their hair is done in long braids, and one of them has fancy designs on her nails. So I walk over to them.
“Hi, Zuri!” one of the girls sings after I introduce myself. “I’m Diane, and this is Sage. We’re juniors here at Howard and we’re student ambassadors.”