“Oh you love Sunny, but not me and Lu?”
“I mean . . .” At that moment, Maddy’s arms wrapped around my waist. I could feel her rocking back, trying to get me to lift off my feet. I kissed her on the top of the head, immediately noticing fewer beads on her braids, which was normal. They fall off during the week like acorns from a tree. “Hey, hey.” I tried to get her to stop squeezing. “Tell Momly I’m coming. First, say hi to Ghost.” Maddy waved, then turned and ran back toward the car. Now, back to Ghost. “I mean . . . I wouldn’t wanna get in the middle of y’all relationship.”
“Stop.”
“Dancing so sweetly with each other.”
“Stop.”
“So precious.”
“I’m leaving.” Ghost turned around and walked toward Lu, who was sitting on a bench, unlacing his track shoes.
“C’mon, Ghost. Ghost! Don’t be that way!” I begged to his back.
“Bye, Patty.” He threw his hand up, dismissing me.
“I love you, Ghost!” I shouted. “But just not as much as I love Sunny!” Of course, Sunny heard me, which I wasn’t thinking about when I said it. We caught eyes, but I didn’t wanna make it weird, or for him to think it was anything more than a joke, so I added, “Because you pay attention to details.” Then held my hands up, spirit-finger style. “Thanks for noticing my Flo Jos. See you tomorrow.”
TO DO: Eat turkey wings (for the millionth day in a row)
THE RIDE HOME always goes like this:
Momly turns the radio news down, then asks how practice was. I tell her it was fine. She asks if I’m tired and even if I am, I tell her I’m not, just because I don’t want Maddy to hear that I’m tired and think I won’t be able to help her with stuff like her homework, which every day when I ask her about it, she tells me Momly already helped her, and before I can even say anything, Momly just says, “Didn’t want you to have to worry about it,” which I just nod at. Then I tell Momly I’ll help her make dinner as soon as my homework’s done, and she says, “I’ve already started cooking,” and by then, Maddy’s already started kicking the back of my seat for the rest of the ride, which drives me crazy, but also in some weird way, kinda relaxes me. Like a massage and a message—I’m here, Patty. And I’m fine.
And today was no different. I was tired. Acted like I wasn’t. Maddy’s homework was done, and I had a little left of mine to do before dinner. Nothing too major. I knocked out my math assignment. English homework was to think about cannons, which basically meant English homework was to think about history homework, which was going to be reading up more on Frida Kahlo so I could be ready to add some new information to our project. Not like anyone else was going to. I figured T-N-T and Becca were probably at home, I don’t know, tanning or something. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had one of those skin cooker things in their houses. Those beds you lay on that come down over the top of you and roast you, and you come out looking like rotisserie chicken. Meanwhile, I was researching.
THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT FRIDA, so far:
(1) She was from Mexico.
(2) She was diagnosed with polio when she was six, which made her right leg skinnier than her left.
(3) When she was eighteen, she got into a bus accident that broke her spine, crushed her right leg and foot, and made it impossible for her to have babies. Doctors said she would never walk again.
“Patty? Um . . . Patty?” A squeaky voice, way too silly to be real, came from the other side of my bedroom door. Uncle Tony. He dropped the Daffy Duck talk. “Dinner’s almost ready. You almost done with your homework?” My uncle’s voice, when he’s speaking like a regular human being, is deep, but not in a scary way. He has one of those voices that you wish you could touch, wrap yourself up in like a blanket. A voice like a dad. And, I guess . . . like an uncle. A favorite uncle.
Me and Uncle Tony been close for forever. He’s one of these big-kid grown-ups, a goof troop, all jokes, all the time. And when I was younger, he was one of the only people who could make my mom laugh—like, a laugh that seem to come up from her feet—after we lost my father. And up from her belly, after she lost her feet. As a matter fact, he was one of the only people who could make any of us laugh back then.
“I’m almost done,” I said, bookmarking the websites I’d been browsing. “Tell Momly I’ll be right out to help.” I jotted one last note. Something I’d read that I didn’t think was that important to the project, but . . . maybe.
(4) Frida was close to her father.
And that, more than anything, was what me and Frida had in common. Only difference is, Frida’s dad didn’t die when she was young. So she didn’t know what that was like. She didn’t know what it felt like to be broken until she was older. And not only did I know the feeling of something breaking inside me, I also had to watch my mom go through it and basically get paralyzed in a whole different way. In her brain and in her heart. Matter of fact, after Dad passed, that’s when Ma got all churchy-churchy. The beginning of catching the spirit and dancing in the aisle and “praying for peace in the eye of the storm.”
But she had no idea the storm was just getting started, because that’s also when she started eating. Like, a lot. And not just regular food, but sweets. All my dad’s favorite recipes. Sweet potato cheesecake and peanut butter brownies and white chocolate cookies and, of course, the delicious yellow cupcake with strawberry icing.
“Your daddy used to say this thing was so good they’d make you slap your mama,” Ma would say, nibbling the top of the cupcake. “So you better not have too many of ’em.”