My cousins are hurting. My aunt is hurting. My mother is hurting. And there is no one here to help. How is this the good life, when even the air in this place threatens to wrap its fingers around my throat? In Haiti, with all its problems, there was always a friend or a neighbor to share in the misery. And then, after our troubles were tallied up like those points at the basketball game, we would celebrate being alive.
But here, there isn’t even a slice of happiness big enough to fill up all these empty houses, and broken buildings, and wide roads that lead to nowhere and everywhere. Every bit of laughter, every joyous moment, is swallowed up by a deep, deep sadness. This is what happens to Matant Jo, who is back in her dark room again. This is what happens to Chantal when she studies so hard and she still has to find ways to pay for school. This is what happens to Donna, who doesn’t seem to know the difference between love and hurt. And Pri just fights the choking air. She fights everything.
And in the middle of all this is Dray. And his uncle Q. One I can’t handle; the other I can do something about.
So that night, a rage builds up inside me. I am hot red. I am burning coals. I am a sharp dagger and Scotch bonnet peppers in rum—Ezili-Danto’s favorite things. But this is only a wish because my mother—the powerful mambo—is not here with her songs and prayers and drums and offerings to make it so. But soon she will. I will make it so that at the very tip of my dagger will be Dray’s blood. I have to cut him out of my cousin’s life for good.
TWENTY-FIVE
IMANI GOT A C on her paper. She didn’t care that I saw her essay when Mr. Nolan put it on her desk. Like me, her hair and clothes are different than they were a few weeks ago. But not in the same way. She wears a big sweater over her uniform and a long coat that almost covers her legs. Her hair isn’t combed and she doesn’t even put lip gloss on. It’s like she doesn’t care how she looks anymore. So I ask after class when we’re in the girls’ bathroom, “What happened? I thought this was your best class?”
She shrugs. “I just wasn’t feeling this paper, that’s all.”
“What? You wasn’t feeling this paper? I don’t feel a lot of the papers or the homework, but I still do it. And I get a good grade. You helped me, so I have to help you.”
“I don’t need your help, Fabiola.” She’s washing her hands at the sink and doesn’t even look into the mirror like all the other girls do.
“Okay. So why don’t you come to my house one day?” I ask. I miss laughing and joking with her and Daesia and Tammie. I’ve been spending so much time with my cousins, and thinking about my mother, that I could use some good laughs. Imani would make me forget my problems, but only for a little bit.
“If I go to your house, then that means that I would have to get a ride from your cousins, and I am not getting in no car with no Three Bees, I mean, Four Bees. Stop trying to make me the Fifth Bee.”
“We can take the bus. And we don’t have to be in the same room as my cousins,” I try to convince her.
“Look,” Imani starts to say. But she waits for the last girl to leave the bathroom. “I don’t want no drama, but you have to promise not to tell your cousins.”
I erase the hopeful smile from my face and step closer to her. “I promise. You are my friend. Now, what happened?”
She picks up her bag from the floor, opens it, and takes out a plastic bag. She pulls out a dress—a black one, shiny, too small, and too tight probably. “Nice,” I say, even though I can’t picture her wearing something like that.
“No. Not nice,” she says. “Fabiola, this was at my front door in a gift box with a note and flowers. I was so glad I got to it before my mother did. She would’ve kicked my ass!”
“You have a lover, Imani?”
“Dang, you’re so dumb!” she says.
“Hey! Tell me what you are saying. I don’t understand.”
She takes something else out of her bag. A card. She hands it to me. It reads, Can’t wait to see you in this, Gorgeous. Dray.
“What?” I shout. “When did you get this?”
Imani shushes me. “Please don’t tell anybody. I don’t wanna start no mess. I just need him to leave me alone.”
“How is he going to leave you alone if I don’t tell Donna? You saw what he did at that game, right? Did he send you this before or after?”
“It was like a few days ago, before the game. I thought he’d leave me alone since he got back with Donna. But he keeps texting me.”
“Let me see,” I say, reaching my hand out for her phone.
“Are you kidding me? I deleted everything. I don’t want no trouble!”
She takes her book bag and walks out of the bathroom.
I chase her out. “I will make him stop,” I say. “I promise he won’t bother you.”
“How?” she says. “He thinks just because he has all this drug money, and a nice car, and all these friends who will do whatever he says, that he can have whatever girl he wants. You go ’head and try to stop that. He might come for you, too. He probably has.”
“I promise I’ll help you, Imani. I got this.”
I stick to Imani, Daesia, and Tammie as they walk down the block toward the nearby bus stop on Vernor and Campbell. Most of the kids from our school wait there.
Pri texts me.
I tell her I’m at the bus stop.