Deal With It (5 page)

“You want Coke or Dr. Pepper?” he asked, completely ignoring the fact that I’d just said
those three little words—those three little words,
which you never said to anyone unless you really meant them.

I wouldn’t make a bigger fool of myself by confronting him, so I simply shrugged my shoulders and said, “Coke’s fine.”

I watched as the pimple-faced, redheaded boy behind the counter at the concession stand filled my cup with Coca-Cola. He handed it to me, and I immediately stuck a straw in the cup. Marcus took a long drink from his Sprite and wrapped his arm around my neck as we entered the dark auditorium. We found a couple of empty seats, and Marcus plopped down beside me, handed me the huge carton of popcorn and opened his box of Milk Duds. I stuffed buttery popcorn into my mouth and stared at the screen as the action-packed previews began to play.

I wished I hadn’t spilled my guts to Marcus. Wished I hadn’t been the first to say “I love you,” but what was done was done. You can’t take back words once you’ve said them, and besides, it was the truth. I did love Marcus. I loved everything about him—his smile, the way he threw Skittles or M&M’s at my bedroom window to wake me up in the morning. I loved how he treated me and how he tutored me in math, even though I gave him a hard time. He cared if I succeeded, and he had manners—which my parents also loved. He did little things, like slip Little Debbie cupcakes into my backpack or send me text messages just to say hi. He listened to me when I vented about Miss Martin and the dance team and encouraged me not to give up.

Suddenly, his fingers intertwined with mine, and we watched the movie in silence.

After the movie, I was quiet in Marcus’s Jeep as we took I-285 back to College Park. He slipped a Lil Wayne CD in, and rap music filled the Jeep. As Marcus pulled up in front of his house, I was the first to hop out. I stood next to the curb, my hands stuffed into the pockets of my coat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Marcus, sometime after church,” I said.

Marcus headed around to my side of the Jeep, hugged me.

“Cool,” he said. “Send me a text before you go to sleep.”

I headed toward my porch, and Marcus headed toward his. With his hood on his head, he said, “Hey, Indi.”

I turned around. “Yeah?”

“I love you, too.” He smiled.

Took him long enough, I thought as I smiled, too. I was worried there for a minute, but Marcus took all of my cares away with those little words.

No other words were spoken. I just stepped inside my warm house, leaned against the front door after it was shut. My heart did a little dance.

Tameka

With
short pleated skirts on our hips and pom-poms on our fists, we strutted out to the center of the floor—Indigo on one side of me and Jade on the other. It was a routine that we’d created ourselves—every move, every swing of the hips, every sway of the arms had been strategically designed for us by us. Miss Martin had split the entire team up into groups of three and challenged each group to come up with their own routine, and the team with the best routine would have the privilege of performing it at a real game, during halftime. It was a challenge that Indigo, Jade and I welcomed. After all, we were the three best dancers on the entire junior varsity team, anyway. It was no surprise that our group won the challenge, and it was our routine that would be performed during halftime for the entire student body and their mamas.

As Usher’s track bounced against the gymnasium walls, we swayed to the music. The crowd was into it, standing in the bleachers and clapping their hands. I saw my mother’s face among the other faces in the bleachers; there was a huge smile
on hers. She usually came to every football and basketball game throughout the season, wearing the school’s colors and showing more pep than any of the other parents. She was standing and clapping, and when she moved to the left a little bit I noticed that my daddy was in the bleachers, too, sitting right next to her. He never showed up at our games and had never even seen me perform before. But he was there that night and was even wearing the school’s colors.

Knowing Daddy was in the bleachers gave me energy. I barely got to spend any time with him, because he was always working, but he’d promised to try and make it to the game. I’d told him about the competition, and how Indigo, Jade and I had won the challenge. I had even showed him the routine. I was hopeful, but not convinced, that he would be there. I was surprised to see his face in the crowd.

Daddy was reserved and very laid-back, which was why he wasn’t standing and yelling my name across the gymnasium like Mommy was. She was the exact opposite of him. She wasn’t reserved at all. In fact, I used to wonder what had drawn the two of them together in the first place, because they were nothing alike. I guess that proved that opposites really did attract. It was sort of like Vance and me. We were different. I loved to dance, and he stumbled over his feet when he even tried. He made exceptional grades in school; mine were mediocre. Both of Vance’s parents were professionals: his mother was an attorney and his father a dentist. Although my father was a music producer, my mother stayed at home, cooked and cleaned house. His parents were big on education—there were no other options for Vance besides college. My mother never graduated from high school. Instead, she got her GED much later in life. My parents wanted me to go to college, but if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. They just wanted me to be successful at whatever I chose. Vance’s father would probably
disown him if he didn’t attend Duke University. I guess, in a sense, we were opposites, too.

Daddy blew me a kiss as I took a bow at the end of my routine and rushed off the floor.

From the sidelines, I watched as Vance and the other basketball players rushed out onto the floor. Terrence Hill took the ball out of bounds and passed it to Marcus Carter. Marcus passed it to Vance, who set up the play for the team and took it down court. I watched as he dribbled the ball, his muscular legs showing beneath his shorts. He had a fresh haircut, and his chocolate-brown face was pimple free. The gold bracelet that I’d given him for Christmas was dangling from his wrist with every bounce of the ball, and when he licked his lips, he looked just like LL Cool J.

At the end of the game, with twelve seconds left on the clock, Jaylen Thomas sent the basketball floating through the air. The ball bounced off the rim and into the hands of the other team. Lenny Jackson, from the other team, rushed to the other end of the court, and their cheerleaders went crazy as he sunk the ball into the basket. The score changed, and they were ahead by two points. With two seconds left on the clock, it was over. We’d lost, and everybody knew it. Any chance of coming back was a long shot. Vance and his teammates hung their heads while the other team’s members jumped for joy, slapping high fives with one another as the buzzer sounded across the gym.

If only we could get those twelve seconds back, and someone other than Jaylen Thomas would’ve attempted the shot—either Marcus or Terrence, who were much better ballplayers. Jaylen was better at defense and had had no business with the ball at such a critical time in the game. Couldn’t he have just played defense and left the three-pointers to someone who knew how to shoot the ball?

The basketball team made their way to the locker room, their
heads hung low. Coach Hardy followed behind with his clipboard in hand, a wrinkle in the center of his forehead—the one he always got when our team lost. I gave Vance a half smile as he passed by. He didn’t smile back, just raised his eyebrows. He was disappointed. Nobody wanted to lose.

“I’ll meet you right here after you change, okay?” I said.

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

Indigo hugged Marcus, and he kissed her forehead. “Go, Tigers!” she said, showing support for the team even though they’d lost.

“Go, Tigers!” Jade said.

“Go, Tigers!” I said, and before long the entire dance team began to chant.

“Go, Tigers!” We all said it over and over again, trying our best to make them feel better.

Soon some of their frowns became smiles.

Outside after the game, I stood at the curb, next to my parents’ SUV, zipped my coat and threw a black toboggan on my head.

“Can I hang out with the rest of the team?” I asked.

“Hang out where?” Mommy asked.

“We’re just going to McDonald’s,” I said as Indi stood nearby. “Indi’s dad will bring me home.”

“Harold’s gonna pick y’all up from McDonald’s, Indi?” Mommy asked as if I was lying.

“Yes, ma’am,” Indigo answered.

“What time?” Daddy asked.

“He just said for us to call when we’re ready,” Indigo said. “Shouldn’t be much later than eleven-thirty or twelve, though.”

“Okay, that should be fine,” Mommy said as she opened the door of the SUV and hopped inside to shield herself from the brisk Atlanta wind. “Come on. Let’s go, Paul. It’s cold out here. If they’re just going to Mickey D’s, she’ll be all right. And I trust Harold to bring her home.”

“Thanks.” I kissed my mother’s cheek and waved to my daddy.

I watched as they pulled away from the curb and waited just long enough before rushing to find Vance’s old 280z in the school’s parking lot. He had the engine running, and his hoodie was zipped all the way up to his neck. I hopped into the passenger seat of the car.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He said it with very little enthusiasm. “Your parents okay with us hanging out?”

“I told them that I was hanging with Indi. When I hang out with you, there are too many rules and red tape, so I figured it was easier this way. But it’s cool. We’ll all be hanging out together at McDonald’s, right?”

“Eventually. But first I gotta stop by my house right quick. Gotta let Jinx out and feed him.” He pulled out of the school’s parking lot. “My parents are out of town, and there’s nobody else there to feed and walk him.”

Jinx was Vance’s Doberman, a dog that I often heard barking in the background when we talked on the phone. I’d never had a desire to meet Jinx in person, though. I wasn’t really an animal person.

“Okay,” I said. How long could it take to let a dog out to pee and to fix him a bowl of dog chow?

We pulled into Vance’s subdivision; rows of beautiful houses stood tall with their manicured lawns. Vance’s family lived in one of the more expensive neighborhoods in College Park, the kind that had a security gate. He hit the garage-door opener attached to his sun visor, and we pulled into the three-car garage. Jinx rushed toward the passenger door, and I sat still, my heart pounding fast. Vance stepped out of the car.

“Jinx, come here!” he yelled and then snapped a leash on his collar. “It’s okay, Tameka. You can get out. He won’t mess with you.”

I slowly opened my door and walked to the back of the car
as Vance took Jinx outside, near the curb. Jinx was playful and jumped around like a little kid before finally lifting his leg and relieving himself.

“Go inside that door,” Vance told me before bringing Jinx back into the garage.

I stepped inside the door and into a huge kitchen with shiny hardwood floors. The silver refrigerator was bigger than any I’d ever seen. With lots of cabinets, it had to be the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen, too. It looked like one of those kitchens that you saw on HGTV or on
MTV Cribs.
I adjusted the strap of my Coach purse on my shoulder and stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, waiting for Vance.

“Relax,” he whispered in my ear from behind. I hadn’t even heard him walk into the room.

He removed my purse from my arm and placed it on the kitchen counter, grabbed my hand and led me up a flight of stairs right off the kitchen. It was like one of those hidden stairways, like the one on
The Cosby Show
reruns.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I wanna show you around,” he said.

We took a stroll down the long hallway, my Nike sneakers making a squishing noise with every step. We stepped into the huge master bedroom, which looked like a mini apartment. It had a sofa, a huge flat-screen television hung from the wall, and the built-in bookshelf probably had a thousand books.

“This is my mom and dad’s room,” he said. “Big, huh?”

“That’s not even the word,” I said, looking around until my eyes landed on the huge bookcase. “I can see that somebody likes to read.”

“My mother is an avid reader. She reads, like, five books a week.” He laughed. “Come on. I wanna show you my crib.”

I followed Vance down the long stretch of the hallway and into a room that was smaller than his parents’ bedroom, but not
much. The entertainment center against the wall held Vance’s flat-screen television, a DVD player, stereo equipment and lots of other electronic gadgets. The comforter on his king-size bed was a tribute to the New York Jets, and posters of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade were plastered all over the walls. He hit the power button on his stereo, and Keyshia Cole’s voice rang throughout the room.

“You okay?” He hopped onto his bed.

“Yeah.”

“Have a seat,” he said and patted the spot next to him on the bed. “I won’t bite.”

I sat next to Vance, and before I could relax, his arms were pulling me closer. His lips touched mine, and I remembered all those dreams I’d had about kissing him. Only this time it was for real, and I decided to savor the moment. His fingertips began to caress my breasts, and at first, I wanted to pull away, but I relaxed against his touch. He stretched out across the bed, on his back, and pulled me on top of him. As soon as he began to pull down the zipper of my skinny jeans, I felt uncomfortable. I remembered our conversation the other night, the one that had left me sleepless until four o’clock in the morning. I wanted to be in Vance’s arms, but it was happening too fast. Sex was like being on a roller-coaster ride at Six Flags Over Georgia—once you were on it, there was no getting off. This was unknown territory for Vance and me, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

I pulled away and sat straight up on the edge of the bed.

“What’s up?” Vance asked, breathing heavily.

“I’m not ready for this,” I said.

“I thought you said you’d done it before,” he said. “Not scared, are you?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“I got you. I promise I won’t hurt you,” Vance whispered.

I had never seen this side of him before. Up until then, he’d been somewhat of a quiet guy, smart, with future goals and dreams. But today he was a teenage boy, with hormones raging out of control. It was confusing and a little scary.

“I’m not ready. I think this is something we should talk about first and make sure it’s the right time.”

“I tried to talk to you about it the other night, remember?” Of course I remembered. “Everybody’s doing it, Tameka,” he said, and then his lips touched mine again. “And it’s the perfect time. My folks are gone, and we have the whole house to ourselves. And…I got protection, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He reached into the drawer of his nightstand, pulled out three or four condoms and placed them near the lamp.

“I need to get over to Mickey D’s. That’s where I told my parents I would be. I wanna be there when Mr. Summer picks up Indigo so he can take me home, too. My parents trust me to be responsible, and I don’t want to mess that up.”

“You think making love to your boyfriend is irresponsible?” he asked. “I have girls throwing it at me on a daily basis, Tameka, but really I just want it to be with you.”

“Girls like who?” All I heard was the word
girls.
I wanted to know who these girls were, and if he was catching it when they were throwing it at him.

“Like, a bunch of girls. I don’t keep track.” He stood, grabbed the autographed football from his bookshelf, tossed it into the air.

I was flooded with jealousy at the thought of other girls pushing up on Vance. At that moment I was faced with a decision—the decision to give it up simply because that was what I was expected to do. Or walk away, think it through and not make a hasty decision. I thought about my mother and how she had taught me to never let anyone touch my “pocketbook” before I was ready. I could still hear her voice in my head, giving me the same lecture that she’d given me a million times.