Who Am I Without Him?
Copyright © 2004, 2005 by Sharon G. Flake
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
For information please address Hyperion Books for Children,
114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.
Printed in the United States of America
Revised edition
First Jump at the Sun paperback edition, 2005
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book is set in 13-point Deepdene.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.
ISBN 0-7868-1504-3
Be sure to visit
www.jumpatthesun.com
to find more books by Sharon G. Flake
To my nieces and nephews:
Denise, Michelle, and Donyell Wallace; Marie
and William Flake; Lisa and Joseph McCann; Veronica
Flake; Gregory Flake; and Tamika White. I love you all
and hope that your lives are always filled
with breathtaking beauty, love
everlasting, laughter, good fortune, good friends, kindness,
faith, and few tears.
PEOPLE SAY THINGS about me. Bad things. Momma says I give 'em reason to. That if I would just be a
good
girlâlike the girls who wait for the bus with me in the morningsâthen things wouldn't go so hard for me. But I don't wanna be like
them
girls: so plain and pitiful, boys don't even look their way or ask their names. I wanna be me. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Is it?
Me and them girls been standing on the same corner waiting for the same bus for a year now, and I don't even know their names. But I hate 'em just the same, mostly 'cause that girl with the red hair and gray eyes looks like the girl Raheem once left me for. She was a good girl too, so they say. She got straight A's. Worked in the principal's office, headed up the cheerleading team, and played flute for the marching band. You'd figure a girl like that wouldn't be no thief. But she was. She stole my man right from under meâfor a little while, anyhow.
“What you looking at?” I ask the girl in the green plaid skirt.
She keeps her mouth shut and her squinty, brown eyes looking down at the ground. And right when I go to tell her she better not even think about looking my way, I trip over my own two feet. The good girls laughâall four of 'em. Now, what they do that for?
“I should . . .” I say, going for the one with the red hair and run-over shoes.
She and her friends run to the other side of the street like they being chased by boys with bricks. I'm right behind 'em, with my fist balled up. But then, I see Raheem. Sweet, pretty Raheem. So I forget about them girls, and go back to be with my Boo.
Yellow phlegm flies out Raheem's mouth and onto the curb, right when I walk up to him. “Hey, baby,” he says.
I give him a big one on the lips. “Hey.”
He takes off his shades and eyes a girl passing by. Then out the blue he tells me to go to school without him, 'cause he's got things to do.
I push up against him. Stick my tongue in his ear and roll it around the fat gold stud I gave him for his seventeenth birthday. “Come on, Raheem. I skip English every day so me and you can ride to school together.”
He yells at me. “Did I ask you to miss class for me?”
I snap out on him then, asking him why he's always wasting my time.
He hooks his thumb through my gold hoop earring and pulls down hard.
“Ouch! You trying to split my ear?”
He turns away from me and starts walking. But he don't get farâI don't let him. I apologize. Then I press kisses to my fingers and touch his warm lips. I try not to sweat Raheem when he gets a little rough with me or says he's coming over my house and don't show up. He's the cutest boy in school: an amateur boxer with a six-pack and honey-brown muscles that girls reach for even when they don't know him. I can't keep him on no short leash; but I forget that sometimes.
Raheem puts his arm over my shoulder and tells me again to go to school without him.
“No,” that's what I wanna tell him. But Raheem likes girls that do what he says and don't talk back. So I remind him that he's got a test third period. If he don't pass it, he flunks the class. If he flunks, he don't graduate next month. “So you just need to take your butt to school with me.”
He rubs the back of my ear. “I know you been waiting on me,” he says in a voice so sweet my knees almost give way. “But I ain't going. I got things to do.”
I can't help it. I get mad all over again, and it's me that turns away from him this time. He tickles my neck. “Come on, baby. Don't be like that.” He kisses my lips. Says it's me and him forever.
I give in. Tell him what he wants to hearâI'll take the bus by myself. I'll do your homework, wash your clothes, lend you money, anything. . . . Just keep being my Boo. But then he takes off them sunglasses to wipe something out his eye, and before I say another word, his eyes crawl over one of them good girls, like worms sliding across wet dirt.
I am loud like my mother. When I holler, you can hear me up and down the street and around the corner. So when I go off on Raheem, people across the street turn and stare. “You my man! What you doing looking at her for?”
Raheem's hand smashes the words back into my mouth. “Girl! Don't make me . . .”
I apologize just like my momma does when my daddy slaps her. Like Raheem's momma does too.
Raheem says he's gonna forgive me this time. But I better check myself, 'cause he needs a cooperative woman. “Not a whole bunch of drama.”
He's right. A boy like him can get any girl he wants. He ain't gotta take no stuff off nobody. “Sorry,” I say, thinking 'bout how jealous girls be when they see me with him.
Raheem and me been together two years now. He my third boyfriend. The other ones, they was all right. But him, well, he's better than I deserve, I figure. I mean, like my mother says, I won't never win no beauty contest. But my body, well that's something else.
It's the Mona Lisa. The sun and the moon
, Raheem wrote in a poem once. It's too big in too many places, that's what I think. But Raheem likes it. That's all that counts, right?
Raheem don't never stay mad long. So a few minutes after our bus-stop fight, me and him are talking and laughing again. But when he bends down to wipe his sneakers, the good girl with the red hair and the dirty brown skirt comes back to our side of the street. She looks his way and smilesâjust a little. He stands, she bends way over and pulls up her long white socks. He smiles. She winks. I go to tell him what I seen, but his eyes let me know I'd better hold my tongue. I do.
Raheem rubs my butt. “You know you my Boo. Can't nobody take me off you.” Then he asks me to spot him five. Before I get inside my purse, he unsnaps it. Takes out my wallet and puts ten bucks in his back pocket, right when the other girls return.
“Don't be going in my . . .”
“What's yours is mine, ain't it?”
The good girls watch him kiss my neck and whisper in my ear. “Yeah, he mine,” I say loud enough for them to hear.
The redhead presses her books to her flat chest and rolls her eyes at me. I point to her. Say for her to step into the street if she got a problem with me.
Raheem tells me not to be like that. “You the only one I want,” he says, crossing the street, heading for the doughnut shop.
I look over at the good girls. The redhead looks back my way, shakes her head, and just like that, I feel
dirty
âlike somebody rolled me in chicken fat and left me outside for the birds to snack on.
I wanna give them girls something they won't forget, but the bus is coming. The good girls step into the street, just when Raheem makes it back over to me. He wipes white powder off his mouth with the back of his hand and tells me he'll come to my place later.
“Promise?”
He takes off his shades. Crosses his heart. “Sure.”
When the bus finally pulls up, there's all this commotion, people pushing to get on. I head for the back, following right behind the good girls. A blind man steps on my foot. I tell him about it, too. Some fat woman blocks my way, so it's a few minutes 'fore I get back to where them girls are. When the bus jerks and takes off, I hold on to the rail and peek out between all the bodies to get one last look at my man.
“Oh no you didn't!” I say, digging my elbow into some girl's stomach. Slapping my hand up against another girl's back, trying to get to the front of this thing. But it's too late. The driver won't stop, even though I'm yelling at the top of my lungs for him to please, please let me off.
I lean over and stare out the window and see the redhead standing on the corner with Raheem. She must have sneaked out the back of the bus as soon as she got on. Raheem's all up in her face. Sunglasses off. Arms wrapped around her neck. His sweet, brown lips pressed tight to hers.
I wanna kill 'em both. But then my mother's words come back to me.
You ain't no beauty prize.
The bus keeps rolling, just like my tears, down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. “Who I'm gonna be without him?” I whisper. I wipe my face clean on the bottom of my skirt, stand up, and head for the back of the bus. Then, well, I start thinking. Raheem don't never stay gone too long. Besides, he is cute. Really, really cute. And when you got a man like that, you can't be expecting to keep him all to yourself, not all the time anyhow.
The driver stops two blocks away. He eyes me. “Getting off?”
If I go after her, I think, Raheem's gonna be mad at me.
“Hey, you. Off or not?”
But if I act like I ain't seen nothing, he'll be by my place tonightâlike usual.
“Next stop, Seventeenth Street,” the driver says, closing the door and pulling into traffic.
I sit down, cross my legs, and stare out the window. I'll go to his class, I think, and tell his teacher he was sick this morning. That he'll take the test tomorrow.
When the bus stops again, the good girls fly out the back door and head for their school.
I bang on the closed window. “You better run! Better not let me see you tomorrow, neither!”
The driver tells me to settle down. I let him know I paid my money and I can talk as loud as I like. He says something else, but I don't know or care what it is. My head's back to thinking on Raheem. Tonight, when I see him, I'm gonna . . . I'm gonna . . . make him something nice to eat, I think. And act like I ain't seen nothing at all.
I Don't Write Letters?
Dear Diary:
My name is Devita Mae. I am writing to you because that's what you gotta do in this classâ write. It wasn't like that at first. At first all we did was talk. For real. The teacher we had was old and tired, and when we wasn't watching movies that didn't have nothing to do with class, we chewed gum, talked on our cells or to each other, and got A's for it. Then our teacher left. He retired. A new one came, and well, she ain't sixty-three years old, that's for sure. She looks sixteen. I think she's twenty-three. And you know what? The boys wanna do classwork all the time now. Raising their hands. Asking her to come over and help them with papers so they can smell her perfume and play with her hairâwhen she ain't looking, that is. And oh yeah, they're writing papers all the time now. Getting A's when they used to be flunking.
Diary, the reason I gotta do you at all is because of Jaquel. He was trying to impress the teacher. So he raised his hand and said, “Why can't we do something different in this class? Like, I don't know, write books or movies or something.” Dominique (oh yeah, she lets us call her by her first name) said she'd think about it. She did. Only now we have to do diaries (well really they're journals, but I like diary better), and yeah, write letters to each other. I laughed right in Jaquel's face when she said we had to write letters. Boys don't like doing that. Only, when she said they had toâsmiling and just about winking at 'emâthey all pulled out papers and pens and started writing like they were signing million-dollar checks over to one another.
Anyhow, Diary, I'm not all that mad. See, the teacher picked me and Jaquel to write to one another. I like him and I'm hoping one day he's gonna look at me like he looks at Miss Dominique Dumar Dupree. (Sounds like a movie star's name, huh? Lucky her. She looks like one too.)
Well, Diary, here goes. Jaquel and me are supposed to write letters back and forth to each other for fifteen minutes each period, and write to you every evening for half an hour. Now you know what's gonna happen: I'm gonna write to Jaquel just when I'm supposed to, and I will get to you when I can.
Nov. 1
Hey Jaquelâ
What you doing?Dear Devita Mae:
What you think I'm doing? I'm sitting in this
class with you doing what I hateâwriting
letters.Hi Jaquelâ
Thought you liked writingâthat you wanted to
write plays and movies.Devita Mae:
Boys don't like to write. But we like cute teachers. I was just saying that stuff 'cause when you do, she comes over to your desk and stands there smiling . . . wearing them tight dresses . . . looking fine. She make you wanna . . . well ain't nothing wrong with having a pretty teacher all up in your face, is it?Jaquel . . .
She's married.Married don't make you ugly, Devita Mae.
Nov. 5
Hey Devita Mae Calloway:
Can't write to you today. Gotta finish up geometry. So don't write me back.
Dear Diary:
I'm supposed to be writing Jaquel. But he's talking to Lisa, not doing math like he said. Dominique is at her desk, grading papers, drinking expensive water that I saw someone drinking on TV. She doesn't see that the boys are talking or text-messaging people. I raised my hand to tell on Jaquel, but then I put it down. I guess he will write me tomorrow. So for now, I'll just read the notes he wrote to me last time. They don't say much, but I like touching the paper that he touched. Smelling 'em, because some of the cologne he uses gets on 'em after he scratches his neck or arm. That boy smells so good!!!!!!
Nov. 7
Devita Mae:
Those your real eyes? I say yes. Mason says no.Why are your letters so short, Jacquel?
Dominique said she will grade us on length too, you know. Guess what? I saw this movie the other day. The guy in it kicked this dude's butt. It reminded me of the fight between you and Justin.Devita Mae:
Justin didn't whoop me!!! That's a lie people
tell.P.S. I bet your eyes are fake. What else is fake on you?
Jaquelâ
It's not a lie when you see it with your eyes.
Hey, I made a poem.Devita Mae,
A sentence is not a poem. Here's a poem. I
mean a rap song.Devita Mae
Got eyes of gray
I see them every day
But come night
What happens to her sight?
I think she puts them in a jar at night.Hey Jaquel:
Ha! Ha! U r so not funny. Do me a favor? Stop writing to me on scraps of paper that look like you picked them up off the floor. And WRITE ME LETTERS!!!! That's what we're supposed to do. I want a good grade in this class, so this is what we are going to do from now on. We are going to write our letters in this here composition book. That way things won't get lost. Dominique said she won't read every letter we write, just the pages we have marked. So, write me a real letter.
Now!Devita Girl,
What do you want me to write in this here letter? I mean, I thought I was doing things the right way. But you're a girl, and girls are always trying to change us dudes. So I guess I shoulda known something like this was coming. The last time I wrote a letter I was 10 years old and at Camp Roaring Waters. My mother wrote me every day. Sometimes I got three letters in one day. I wrote her right back. Since then, I have written one letterâand here it is, so stop tripping!!!!Jaquel:
I went to Camp Minnehaha when I was little. It was right next door to yours. I cried every day. I wanted to go home to my mother. They weren't supposed to, but they let me call her on the phone. And you know what? My mother told me to quit crying like a baby and go and have some fun. She wrote me every day like your mother did. I still have the letters. Girls always keep letters, you know. Do you have the letters your mother wrote to you?Dear Devita Mae:
No.
Nov. 10
Hey, J:
Answer me this. Why do boys lie? Earle said
he'd call my girl Marlina. That was two weeks
ago. How come he didn't call?It ain't your business. Mine neither.
Dear Jaquelâ
Y do boys do girls like that?Devita Mae Eyes of Gray,
Just 'cause a boy says he'll call doesn't mean a
girl's gotta bum-rush him. He'll call. . . . Give
him time.Time? He had two weeks. That's 336 hours. That's enough time.
Why you care? U want him to call you or something?
Dear Jaquelâ
Boys don't know nothing about girls!!!Hey, Devita Mae.
Then girls should only date girls. That way they will always get what they want, and not have to explain stuff so much . . . and not bother boys and try to make us act like girls.Jaquel:
Here is what I'm thinking. Sometimes we can write long letters, other times we will keep it real short. Anyhow, guess what? I saw a girl on the bus the other day. This guy was staring at her, and told her she was cute. She licked her lips and said thanks. Then she went over to him and like five minutes later they was kissingâ hard wet kisses. People on the bus kept staring 'cause they knew she just met him. I was like, girl you are nasty. Then my friend said, he's nasty too, kissing a girl he don't even know. What makes a guy do that? I mean, what makes him want a girl like that?Was she pretty?
Dear J:
She was pretty.Was she stacked, Devita Mae? Top and bottom?
Yeah.
Devita Mae:
There's your answer. A cute girl you just met
lets you kiss herâman that's living!!!A nasty cute girl lets you kiss her. She might have a disease. She might do that with every boy.
Devita Mae:
I wouldn't care if she did it with every boy, as long as she did it with me. Anyhow, who's gonna turn down free candy?Dear Jaquel:
You are nasty, too.Devita Mae:
All boys is nasty!!!!
Nov. 15
Dear Jaquel Dicksonâ
My eyes are real.What about your hair? In the bathroom we bet sometimes. I bet that your eyes were fake, but your hair was real. My boy Reggie said it wasn't true 'cause your hair is too long to be real.
Why are you and your boys talking about me in the boys' room, anyhow?
'Cause when you are taking a leak, Devita Mae, you have to talk about something. Ain't you sick of writing, Devita Mae? I am. So I made up my own rule. I will not write to you for the rest of this week. I will text-message this girl I met in Chicago last summer. See ya.
Nov. 18
Dear Diary:
The girl in Chicago is named La Donna. I hear she is cute. I hear she is smart, and that she's got Jaquel wrapped around her little finger. My friend Florence talked to Jaquel's friend Michael and he told her about La Donna. Florence didn't say it was me asking the questions. Good news though. Michael did say that La Donna broke off with Jaquel three times last month. Maybe she will dump him again, real soon. Or maybe I will just steal him away from her. I am cute, you know.
Nov. 19
Dear Jaquel:
Your boy Earle called Marlina. He talked for two
hours. Could you talk to a girl for that long?No!
You never had a girlfriend, huh, Jaquel?
Plenty!!! Got one right now. And any girls that call me talk quick! But you're not that kind of girl. I see you in schoolâcan't shut up, like most girls.
Yo, Jaquel.
How come you checking me out?I gotta watch u. You sit across from me in class. Duh! Besides, dudes always gotta be looking. You never know when you need a replacement girl.
A replacement girl? You make her sound like an extra pencil. I would hate to be your girlfriend.
You would love to be my girlfriend, Devita Mae. Every girl wish she was mine.
Watch out, Jaquel. That big thing floating around the room is your head; too much hot air made it pop off and fly away.
Nov. 29
Devita Mae:
How come you missed school yesterday? Dominique wanted to see our composition book. I didn't have nothing to show because you take it with you every time. I'm not complaining. I don't wanna carry that thing around. But it got me to thinking. If I was at war, would I be writing letters all the time? I'm saying this because my cousin wrote my mother recently. He is overseas. He told her he writes his mother every day, and he writes his girlfriend twice a day. He's a hard core dude. . . . Would kill you if you looked at him crooked. I told my dad the war made him soft as butter, writing all them letters, crying 'bout how hard it is over there. My father said, let's see what happens if you go to war. He told me I would be writing so many letters my fingertips would start to crack. “War scares the words right outta you,” he told me. I got to thinking about the letters we write here. Guess my cousin wouldn't complain none, if all he had to do is sit in class writing to some girl. Beats getting shot at, I guess.Hey, Jaquel.
I think it's romantic, him writing his girlfriend twice a day. Think about it. He's at war and all he's got to do is think and dream about her. I bet he kisses her picture every night before he goes to bed. I bet he talks to it and carries it in his pocket while he's fighting the enemy. I want a guy like that.Devita Mae:
You watch too many movies!!!
Dec. 3
Dear Jaquelâ
Thank you for telling me about your family. Now I will tell you about mine. I am the oldest. Know what that means? I do all of the work, and get all of the blame. At home I watch movies a lot . . . read a bunch too. My mom and dad both work at the same job and do all the same things together, like cooking, gardening, and roller skating. When I grow up, that's what I wantâsomeone I can do everything with.Hey you:
I am tired today so I am not gonna write all that much. My mom and dad have been married for 15 years. Know what that means? I was born before they got the marriage license, ha, ha. I want a pretty wife. My dad says I better want more than that. But he's old, so what else is he gonna say? But I do want a wife who is a good mother. And I do want lots of kids and I don't want her to work. My mom never worked. I liked coming home from school and smelling cookies and snapping string beans with her. You remind me of my mother, kinda.Dear Jaquel:
You asked me a long time ago and I didn't
answer. So here goes. This is my real hair.I knew it! My boy Reggie owes me five bucks.
Jaquelâ
This is my real hair. I got more real hair in my bottom drawer at home. I never buy the cheap stuff; it itches. Ha! Ha! Pay Reggie what you owe him.That's jive. See, boys don't know if a girl is real, plastic, or made out of wood. Why I want to spend four hours talking on the phone to a girl with fake eyes, fake nails, fake hair, and a fake chest?
Blame boys. If a girl is just her own plain self, you all don't give her any play.
Devita Mae Girl:
You gotta look good for me.Dear Jaquelâ
R u cute?U know it. Do you think I'm cute?
You know it. What about me? You like what you see?
Yeah. I like what I see.
Hey Jâ
Do boys have fake parts?No! But we fake it sometimes.
Hmmm. How?
If we like you, we act like we don't. If we want to call you, we play it cool and wait a few days before we do. And if we don't like you all that much, but like how you look, we fake itâgo out with you anyhow until we get you to do like we want.
Jaquel:
Don't take this the wrong way, but you and me
. . . we would make pretty babies.Devita Mae Calloway:
Don't mention no babies to me! I got things to do once I graduate . . . like party in college and go to grad school for my Master's in business and open my own record company. But you right about one thingâI'm gonna make some pretty babies!! 'Cause I'm fine like that. But ain't no babies coming here till I'm done with my fun, done with school, and making big money.P.S. There's some pretty babies in you too. Guess you got it like that.
Dec. 5
Dear J.
What you do on the weekends?Watch TV. Play Football. Eat. Eat. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Oh yeah, when I ain't doing those things, I'm a junior fireman. Making the world safe. Ha, ha.
You probably start more fires than you put out. Me, I work in a bathroom at a club downtown.
Flushing toilets? Mopping floors? Gotta pay for that weave, huh?
Very funny, Jaquel.
I don't do toilets. I sell candy, mints, and mouthwash. Stuff like that. People give me big tips. Oh yeah, I give 'em warm washcloths for their hands.Devita Mae:
Who wants to eat where they poop? And who
wants to spend 8 hours in the john?Jaquelâ
Saturday I made $50.
Who cares. Bathrooms stink.
You saying I stink?
No way, Devita Mae. Hey. What perfume
were you wearing the other day?
London After Dark.
Nice.
