Behind You (6 page)

“And you'd probably get a Pulitzer for it.”

“Oh, please, no. Who wants that much attention?”

“We read a book of yours in English Lit last year. And when I first got to Percy, we read
And Back Again
.”

Nelia raised an eyebrow. “Really? I'd think that was a little young to be reading that book.”

I shrugged. “It was for a Women's Lit class—I think it was mostly older kids taking the course. I thought the book was really beautiful—and really scary.”

Nelia smiled. “I couldn't even imagine.” She looked out over the block and shivered a little, then rubbed her hands over her arms. “When I'm writing, really in the heart of writing—it's like I'm not even there. Sarahbeth . . . you know, the main character . . .”

I nodded.

“She was so . . . so
foreign
to me. And every time something unexpected happened, I had to put my pen down . . . and shake it off. I couldn't
imagine
reading that book. Writing it was enough for me.”

“But . . . I mean, then where does the stuff . . . the stuff you write about come from?”

Nelia shrugged. “I don't know really. I just write it down and ask no questions.”

We looked at each other without saying anything. The girls had finally stopped singing and now there was piano music coming from one of the buildings across the street. Then, after a moment, a guy's voice, singing. I recognized the song—an old one by Fleetwood Mac. My sisters, who are both way older than me, used to listen to it all the time. It was a beautiful song about things changing.

“He has such a stunning voice,” Nelia said.

We sat there listening awhile. The song made me think of so many things—of Anne and her girlfriend living in San Francisco. Of school and the kids who couldn't understand why the missing still hurt. Just last week, I'd overheard some girls talking in the hallway at school—maybe they had meant for me to hear, I don't know.
She's such a widow,
one of them said.
Give me a break, he was her boyfriend for less than a year. Get over it already.
I'd kept walking, ignoring them. Bounce back. Move on. Hide your tears. Get over it. That's how the world seemed to work. We get an hour to grieve, a few days off from school or work, then we're supposed to be right back in the world, as good as anything. I looked over toward the music and closed my eyes, blinking back the stupid tears that were welling up in them. That's why I was here—sitting on Nelia's stoop, close enough to touch her. I needed someone who understood that the hurting doesn't just stop, that the absence is so much bigger, so much more painful, so much more
present
than the presence was.

“Do you know who's singing?” I asked.

“That's Carlton. Miah's friend. You must have met him.”

I smiled, remembering him. “I met him a few times. He was sweet. And funny.”

We sat there, listening. His voice was amazing—soft and lilting. There was such a sadness to it. The Carlton I'd met hadn't had that sadness to him. But none of us did—not back then. Not before . . .

“You should go see him,” Nelia said. “You're right—he is sweet.” After a moment, almost to herself, she said, “Sweet and sad.”

She picked up her binder again, opened it. “Number 434. Just ring the bell at the top of the stairs.”

I stood up and she pointed across the street. “That brownstone over there. Follow the music.” She smiled, then hugged me again, picked up her pen and leaned into the pages.

WHEN I SIT DOWN BESIDE MY MOTHER, SHE SHIVERS. WHEN I touch Ellie's shoulders, she smiles like she knows it's me. Maybe she does. Who could have told me that the wind was some passed-on soul stopping to touch your face, your hands, your hair. Who knew a surprising cool breeze was someone who had gone before you, saying, “You're loved.”

Some days I wish hard for the chance to kiss Ellie again. But today—this moment—the two of them sitting on the stoop is perfect.

This is what I know now: In your life there will be perfect moments. And in your afterlife too.

My grandmother watches me and shakes her head.
Leave the living alone,
she says. But she doesn't understand. It's not easy to let go. Even if you turn your back on the world you left, you're still pulled toward it, you're still turning around—always—to look behind you. To make sure everyone's okay.

SATURDAY MORNING, I WENT OVER TO A PICKUP GAME AT FORT Greene Park. I knew some of the brothers playing, but a bunch of them had come over from Bed-Stuy and Brownsville. One brother had on a Percy shirt. He had pretty good game, so I decided to ask him.

“What do you know about Percy?” I said.

He looked me up and down. Not in a mean way, but more in a
Who the hell is this light-skinned brother?
way. I'd seen the look a lot from darker-skinned brothers. It was a “chump until proven un-chump” look. I kept my gaze steady.

“What
you
know about it?” he asked back.

“I know they should have slammed Dalton in their final game last year, but didn't.”

“True that.” Then he let himself grin a little and held up his hand. I slapped it.

“Kennedy,” he said. “I play ball there.”

“Carlton. I'm over here at Tech.”

The other guys were standing around the basket, tossing the ball around and taking shots. Me and Kennedy were standing midcourt. He was tall, about my height. I noticed right away that anytime he wasn't smiling, he was frowning.

Someone tossed him the ball and he took a shot—hardly even turning to look at the basket. The ball went in, though—nice and smooth too.

“I got Kennedy,” I said. We were choosing up sides, and seeing his jump, I knew I wanted him on my team.

“I seen you play,” Kennedy said. “You play a'ight.” He smiled again. I looked back over to the other guys and picked another one. It went back and forth like that for a minute.

“You know Miah?” I asked Kennedy.

He'd bent down to pull up the tongue in his sneaks, but he stopped midpull and looked up at me. “Who ain't know Miah? After he got shot, everybody in New York claimed a piece of him.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Kennedy kept on looking at me. “He lived around here, didn't he?”

“On my block.” I didn't look at him, just kept picking guys until each team had five players. “We went way back.” After a minute I said, “Grew up together. Knew him since we were both five or six. He was my boy.”

“So you really knew him—not just fronting like a lot of people.”

“Yeah. We were pretty tight.”

“The cops messed up. Nothing new, though,” Kennedy said. “I didn't know him tight like you did, but he was always cool with me.”

“Miah ain't all gone. He's still here.”

Kennedy looked at me. And I looked back at him.

“You don't feel him?” I said.

He stared at me for another minute, then shrugged. “You know,” he said. “Whatever.”

“Check it,” somebody said, and we started throwing the ball around. I took a shot and missed it. Kennedy retrieved the ball and chucked it back to me. We were just playing around, hadn't started a real game yet.

I dribbled the ball through my legs and behind my back, shot it and watched it sail in.

“Let's stop playing around and get this game on,” one of the guys said.

I nodded. “Hit or miss, yo,” I said.

Kennedy held his hands out. I threw him the ball and he took the shot, a sweet sinker. The game was on.

 

By the time I got home, it was late in the afternoon and I was sweaty and hungry as anything. The house was empty. My mom had cleaned and the hardwood floors smelled like the oil soap she used to clean them with. I made myself some lunch and ate it standing at the kitchen counter. I smelled bad and could feel myself stinking up my mother's clean kitchen, so I finished eating and went upstairs to take a shower. The whole time the water was washing away the funk, I was thinking about Kennedy—not only about the great game of ball he had going on, but also about the way he looked at me when I said that thing about Miah still being with us. There was something in that look that let me know that he felt it too. His look kept flashing in my head and then disappearing and replacing itself with how beautiful all those guys looked running up and down the court. I turned the water to cold, wanting to shut it all out. I didn't want to think about anything—not about Miah, not about Kennedy, not about the beautiful bodies of ballplayers . . .

After I got dressed, I went back downstairs and sat at the piano. The windows were wide-open—whenever my moms cleaned, she did that—like she was hoping the whole block could see what a clean house we had. I smiled and shook my head, not bothering to close them. That song “Landslide” had come to me again—all the words—and I tapped a few keys, ready to play it. I sang the song softly at first, letting the words move through me. I could feel myself beginning to sing louder and louder, wanting to forget, to sing right over the part of the day that made me feel ashamed—thinking about those beautiful bodies. And remember the good stuff—scoring, Kennedy's look, our team winning by ten points. Maybe I had sung the song twice or three times when the doorbell rang.

I waited a minute, hoping whoever it was would go away. But they didn't. The bell rang again and I figured I might as well answer it.

At first I didn't know who she was. She'd changed over the months. Her hair was longer and her clothes seemed—different. Then I remembered I'd only seen her out of her uniform once and that was at Miah's funeral. That day, she was dressed in black like everyone else. But this time, she was wearing jeans—the kind that fit low on the hips in a way that looked nice on her. She looked paler than I remembered. For some reason I'd remembered her as being the same complexion as my mom, but she wasn't. Her skin was whiter.The kind of skin that burned right up in the sun.Then she smiled. And I remembered that smile, remembered the way Miah always grinned when he talked about it.

“Hey, Ellie,” I said.

She looked surprised. Then her smile got bigger. “So you remember me?”

I stepped back and let her in. “How am I gonna forget the love of my best friend's life?”

Ellie looked at me. “Is that what he called me?”

“He called you a lot of things.”

“I heard you singing.”

“Yeah. I sing.”

We stood in the foyer a minute without saying anything, just sort of looking at each other. It was starting to get dark out and the inside of the house seemed too dark.

“I was visiting Nelia,” Ellie said. “She showed me where you lived. Thought I'd, you know, stop by and say hey.”

“Hey yourself. It's nice to see you.” I put my hands in my pockets, then took them out again. “Come in,” I said, backing up a bit. “You want some water or juice or something?”

Ellie shook her head, looking around as she walked, taking everything in, I guess. Our house was full of art that my dad collected—African masks, drums, oil paintings, things like that. She walked over to the couch and sat on the edge of it.

“It's pretty here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's a nice place. Lived here most of my life. You're uptown, right?”

She nodded. “Central Park West. An apartment—not a house. Brooklyn makes me wish we lived in a house, though. So much more air.”

“Sometimes it's a lot of hot air, though. People hanging out, talking junk. I love Brooklyn, though. It's home to me.”

We got quiet again. I didn't have any idea what else to say to her. She was Miah's girl and now Miah was gone. In some fairy-tale type novel, she'd probably end up being my girl, but this wasn't that kind of story. She was pretty enough and all, though. Maybe Kennedy . . .

“Hey—do you know this guy Kennedy? He goes to your school?”

A small frown, and then she said, “Yeah—I know him somewhat. He's not very friendly.”

“It's New York,” I said. “Who is?”

She nodded. “That's true. How come you ask? You know him?”

“He was over this way, playing ball in the park today. He's got good game. That was the first time I met him, though. Miah'd talked about his game a couple of times and I'd seen him play.”

Ellie nodded. “He's supposed to be pretty smart too. I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but—he pretty much brushed me off.” She shrugged. “I think it was my fault, though. I said something about him sounding like Miah. Sounds like, from what he said, he hears that a lot.”

“You know how people are. He was probably getting compared to Miah right and left. Especially at a place like Percy.”

“Yeah. He kind of suggested that was the case.” She looked across the living room. The windows go from the ceiling to the floor almost. I watched her staring out at the block. It was almost dark now. “I don't know. I was just trying to make conversation.”

I got up and went into the kitchen and took two bottles of water from the fridge, then came back and tossed one to her. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why
try
to make conversation . . . why
try
to make it with Kennedy? Either convo happens or it doesn't.”

Ellie opened the bottle of water and took a sip. “To connect. To remember. To forget. All of the above. Wrong reasons and right reasons.”