Only Aaron is relaxed. His posture is the same, his breathing even. You might wonder how I know what his breathing is like, but if you spent as much time as I did watching him, you’d be able to tell too.
Jasper is Aaron’s cousin twice removed and once hopped over, or something. Jasper has got no parents to speak of, but the ones he did have, once upon a time, if we are to believe that he was ever a child, were somehow related to Aaron’s daddy. He looks older than us by years and years. I think he’s only twenty-one or twenty-two, but the years are heavy on him, heavy with things that make Marcus watch him like he’s a snake.
“Jasper,” Aaron says, moving forward to clasp his somehow cousin in a boy hug. “Man, where you been? I didn’t know you were comin’ to the game tonight. It’s been a while.”
“You’re too busy for your old buddy Jasper these days,” Jasper says, spitting out the side of his mouth as he does. “One of your little teammates called me up, said they needed some stuff for a party tonight. I assumed you would be there.”
“Ah, sorry, man.” Aaron’s voice is taut as a tightrope wire: one wiggle and the walker will come crashing down. “I’m really not up for it tonight. But hey, good to see you. Been too long.”
Jasper shrugs. “Your loss, my man.”
“Next time,” says Aaron, grinning.
“Next time,” Jasper agrees as he slips away into the dark parking lot.
I feel rather than hear Monica exhale. She opens her mouth, but Marcus shakes his head at her, once, and she presses her lips together and rolls her shoulders back as if she just took off a backpack full of rocks.
“So,” says Aaron, voice bright as sunshine, “where are we going, then?”
“Where do you want to go?” Marcus asks. In the shadowy parking lot he looks so much like our daddy that I have to look away.
Sometimes I think about how our daddy will never get to see Marcus growing up into him. His lashes are curly like our daddy’s were, and his lips are the same shape too. He’s got our mom’s high cheekbones, though, and if you are really looking you can see how his eyes tilt up just a little bit at the corners.
I’m the opposite. I got my daddy’s dark skin and wild hair and my mom’s Chinese eyes and straight lashes. I don’t understand how a person can have such curly hair on their head and such straight eyelashes, but genetics are a mystery. And I definitely didn’t get my daddy’s or my mom’s high cheekbones and sharp jawlines. The kind models in magazines have. But almost all the models in magazines are white.
I’ve never, ever seen a model who looks anything like me. Not black, not Chinese, certainly not white. Marcus was approached last summer down at the mall by a modeling scout. She said he looked exotic and would photograph well. That didn’t sit too well with Marcus. He doesn’t like being called exotic or unique or different. All Marcus wants to be is the all-American golden boy.
No one has ever asked me to model. And I look even more “exotic” than Marcus.
Marcus’s voice snaps me out of my tumbled thoughts. “Moni, what do you want to do?”
“I wanna go to Gladys’s,” says Monica, in that tone that is right between a whine and a demand. “I’ve never been. And everyone’s always talking about it.” She means Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles restaurant, the one downtown. She pronounces it “Gladees”, the way everyone around here does. Like they’re all personal friends with Gladys Knight.
Marcus raises his eyebrows in a silent question to Aaron. Aaron shrugs in response.
Monica stamps her foot like a little girl and pouts, her glossy lips puckering prettily. “Come on. It’ll be fun. We can all go. Wing, you’ve never been, have you?”
I shake my head. “I thought y’all were going out to celebrate.” They always go out after games and I always go home. With my mom, Granny Dee, and LaoLao. The only reason I’m here now is I took too long getting the Cokes, and Lord knows my Granny Dee and LaoLao have the patience of a two-year-old throwing a tantrum when they want to go home. Sometimes I wonder if they were born with so much in common or if years of living together at our house has slowly melded them into the same person. Not that I’d ever tell them that.
Monica leans toward me and grabs my arm tight. “We are! We’re celebrating by going to Gladys’s. No better way for Marcus to celebrate than by being with his favorite people in the whole world.” What she means is, there is no way in hell that she is going to the party at Trey’s with Jasper, so this is the next best thing. But still. I like that she’s included me. As one of the favorite people.