“Exactly,” Mr. Winston said over the clatter of chairs scraping the floor and backpacks zipping. “Now, onward to enjoy your weekends, my noble six hundred!”
In math I spent the entire time thinking about how Momly’s arm was probably at an obtuse angle when it broke. Maybe 230 degrees. That’s if it snapped backward, which made the most sense to me. I also thought about the 180-degree turn I was going to make as soon as I saw T-N-T. Let them know that I ain’t gonna be buffing the floor by myself anymore. That I ain’t no junk. The floor being the Frida assignment, of course. Maybe math actually was good for something. Somehow convincing yourself to stand up to hair flippers (and fake flippers), understanding bone-breaking angles, and estimating how long it would take to eat three (hundred) tacos.
Lunchtime. Friday’s menu: tacos. Pick your meat. Chicken, beef, or shrimp. Pick your shell. Hard or soft. Cheese, shredded or liquid. Lettuce, tomato, sour cream, salsa. Three tacos, $4.25. Everybody’s favorite.
I didn’t do no lunchroom laps today. Instead I just got my food and headed to the table where Becca and Macy and Sasha and the others were sitting. The table I’d been sitting at two days in a row, well, except for yesterday. I slipped in next to Sasha, lifted one of my tacos, and bit it in half.
“So what did I miss yesterday, Becca?” I asked. I was prepping to deliver the blow, that I, Patina Jones, was done being the Frida Leader. I was sick of it, and I didn’t put up with this on my track team, so I was definitely not putting up with it at this school. TO DO: put T-N-T on notice that the Frida Freebies were a wrap. Dunzo. Becca, who was holding her taco like it was a grenade about to explode hot sauce and lettuce, widened her eyes.
“Oh, I was about to tell you. Ms. Lanford changed the rules,” she said. Sauce was dribbling out of the end of the taco and onto her hand. Newbie!
“Changed the rules?”
“Yeah. She’s not grading us all together anymore. We all are responsible for different parts of the project. That way it’s fair, y’know?” Becca explained. She put down her taco and dabbed a napkin to her hand. “I think it’s better this way.” Then she flashed a sneaky grin. Um . . . me too, Becca. Me too, I thought. But there was something about that look on her face that made me want to thank her. Made me think she had something to do with it. Anyway, this was great news. And it made Friday even better, and I don’t know if it was the combination of it all, or what, but I was suddenly feeling . . . I don’t know. Like I had some kind of magical thing happening in me. This must be how Maddy felt all the time. Strong in a special way.
Once I got to history class, guess who spoke to me first. Guess. You get two chances, and one clue. They got almost the same name.
“Hi, Patty,” Taylor said as I came into the room. Caught me off guard.
“Hey, Taylor.” I didn’t put no funk in it. Not even when TeeTee spoke. No need to be mean to them. Plus, I understood what it felt like to want to fit in. Or at least to feel like you “fit out.” I don’t know if I would’ve been fronting like them, but I get it.
“Welcome back, Miss Jones,” Ms. Lanford said as I sat down. “I’m sure your group members will be happy to see you, especially since I’ve adjusted the rules.”
“Becca told me.” I tried to keep from grinning.
“Good. You will still have to give a group presentation, but now each of you will have to cover a specific part of the life of your subject. I got word that not everyone has been pulling their weight, so I wanted to make sure I’m giving fair grades.”
I was psyched, I’m talking totally gassed about this. But once we got into our groups, I discovered the other girls had already chosen which parts they wanted. TeeTee chose Frida’s love affair with Diego, no surprise there, though judging by Taylor’s face, there had been some drama over that choice. Taylor, I guess because her first choice was taken, decided to go with Frida’s death. Becca was going to talk about the art, which I would’ve loved to talk about since I was the one who had been doing so much research on it. But it was okay. Becca was . . . she was cool. So that left me to talk about Frida’s childhood, which to be honest, I was fine with because I already knew so much about it, including the newest thing I’d learned the night before, that after Frida was diagnosed with polio, which messed up her right leg, giving her a limp, her father encouraged her to play sports—soccer, even wrestling—even though girls didn’t really do that back then. He thought it would be good for her leg, but turned out what it was really good for was her confidence. And I kept thinking about that, not just in class, but for the rest of the day—that that’s kinda what running was to me. A way to shut people up. A way to . . . I guess, sometimes even shut myself up. Just turn it all off. Leave everything, all the hurting stuff, the unregular stuff that seemed so regular to me, in the dust.
TO DO: The family thing (beads, bedtime stories, and . . . back to turkey wings, of course)
MOMLY TEXTED ME a smiley face at almost the exact same time me and Maddy climbed into Uncle Tony’s SUV after school. I knew she had planned it that way—Momly plans everything—to make sure I wouldn’t be checking my phone in class when I heard the ding. I showed it to Maddy, and she smiled big-time.
“Hold that pose,” I told her, and snapped a photo of her—head cocked, big gappy-mouthed cheese—and texted the photo back to Momly.
“Are we going to go see her tonight?” I asked Uncle Tony. “Especially since I don’t have practice.”
“Actually, I think it’d be better if you girls waited until tomorrow,” Uncle Tony said, turning his blinker on so he could pull out into the street. He looked to the right and to the left, to the right and to the left again, being extra careful, waiting for the coast to be clear. “She’s pretty spacey right now since she’s on heavy-duty pain meds since it’s the first day. When I spoke to her earlier, she was talking about putting beads on her fingernails.”
“On her fingernails?” Maddy cried out.
“See what I mean? Painkillers can be a zonk; sometimes it’s just best to give people a rest day.”
“So tomorrow then?” Maddy pushed.
“Hmmm. I’m pretty sure she’s going to come home tomorrow,” he explained, finally turning.
“Can we go pick her up with you?” Maddy followed up, the thump, thump of her feet in my back.
“Well.” Uncle Tony gave me a look. “Skunk’s gonna do me a favor and take y’all to the track. Patty has to run.” He looked at me to make sure that was okay, and I nodded to let him know that it was.
“But I don’t.” Maddy made her point clear.
“Don’t you wanna see Patty race?” Uncle Tony asked.