“Come with me to the supermarket later,” I say. “I can cook you a good meal. Come over.”
“This is like the tenth time you asked me, Fab. Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to, one, the Three Bees’ house, and two, the west side.”
“Donna stopped bothering you, right?”
“Yeah, that don’t mean shit. I could just be walking to class one day, minding my own business, and her twin might decide that she remembers why she had beef with me in the first place.” She takes a big bite from her sandwich.
“I got your back, Imani,” I say.
She coughs and almost chokes. “What’d you say?”
“I got your back.”
She laughs and has to spit out her chewed-up food. “Say it again.”
I don’t because I’ve heard that before. A laugh followed by “say it again” means that I’ve said something that makes me sound stupid.
“Daesia!” Imani calls out to her friend who’s coming to sit next to us. “Fab said she got my back.”
“Oh, you the Fourth Bee, now?” Daesia asks.
I shake my head.
“Who’s the Fourth Bee?” another girl asks, and sits right next to me. Her name is Tammie.
Imani points to me with her chin while still laughing.
“No, I am not,” I say, taking a bite of the too-salty ham.
“But we good, though, ’cause she says she has my back,” Imani says. I can’t tell if she’s serious or making fun of me.
“If you got her back, then you gotta have our back, too,” Daesia says. “We’ve been friends with her for much longer than you.”
“I’m not a Fourth Bee,” I say really loud, so everyone who might be listening can hear me.
“If she says she’s not the Fourth Bee, then she’s not,” Imani says, and smiles at me.
“Good, ’cause I wouldn’t want to be around you if you were,” Daesia says. “Why do they have to be so nasty to everybody?”
“’Cause people were nasty to them,” I say.
“Not us,” Tammie says.
“’Cause they don’t even see us unless somebody’s man does,” Imani adds.
“That’s not true,” I say.
“Donna didn’t even know my name until she saw me on Instagram sitting on Dray’s lap.”
“Is that why you started hanging with me?” I ask.
Imani laughs again. “No. You just looked lost, that’s all. And you have to say the h sound when you say ‘hanging,’ okay?”
So I say, “Hanging.”
Imani makes a breathing sound from the back of her throat and I try to do the same. Now Daesia and Tammie are laughing.
“It’s a lost cause,” Tammie says. “Why don’t you teach us some Haitian curse words instead?”
I smile, because not even my own cousins have asked me to do that. So I start with bouzin. Then I move on to kolan guete, and zozo, bounda, coco. All the words that would make my mother rip my lips from my face if she heard me right now. Watching my friends try to twist their mouths to say these words, I laugh as much as my cousins do when I try to say American curse words. I laugh so hard that my belly hurts; tears come out of my eyes.
Until someone slices through all our laughter with a stupid question: “Is your name Fabulous? You Pri and them’s cousin?”
I don’t answer, because at this point, everyone knows who I am. I don’t even turn to see who this girl is.
“Excuse me, I asked you a question. Do you go by Fabulous?”
I turn to see a regular girl, not tall, not short, not fat or skinny. Just regular. Except for the way she asks me the question, as if it’s an accusation.
“Yes, and you are?” I ask.
“Tonesha. Your cousins know me. You messing with Kasim?”
“Oh, lord. Here we go,” Imani says. I know this feeling. These questions and warnings are an attack. It doesn’t matter if it’s in English or Creole. In Port-au-Prince or Detroit—a bouzin will always be a bouzin. And I remember my cousin’s words: If these girls think you’re scared and that you’re not gonna fight back, they will mess with you.
“Yes, he’s my boyfriend” is all I say.
“Not for long, bitch. My cousin Raquel already claimed Kasim.” Tonesha starts to walk away.
A fire burns in my belly. No girl, no matter how tough and mean she is, is going to scare me away from Kasim. He is mine and I am his. “Tell your cousin to stay away from my boyfriend!” I yell.
“What?” The girl turns around just as the whole cafeteria lets out a series of Oooooohs.
I don’t give her the satisfaction of repeating myself.
Tonesha looks around at everyone in the cafeteria, as if making sure that her audience is in place. She steps closer to me. I don’t move.
“Yo, I don’t care if you’re from Haiti or motherfucking Iraq,” she says, pointing her finger in my face. “You need to back up off Kasim. And that shit is a warning.”
Another series of Ooooohs!
Someone calls her name and tells her to leave me alone. But she doesn’t.
“Get away from me, bitch,” I say, staring right into her eyes.
Imani grabs my shoulder, but I tighten my body. I won’t be the first one to back down. I am like a rock now.