Dime (6 page)

“You know what they do?”

I nodded without looking up. He didn't get annoyed that I had only nodded and not spoken.

“You sure?”

I nodded again. “But I can't do that.”
Except with you.
I shivered the way I seemed to when I was around him and now at the thought of doing
that
with him. I glanced up fast and then back down. “I'm a virgin.” I was more than a virgin. I felt my face heat up.

“You ever even been kissed?”

I shook my head, my face even hotter from how he wouldn't let me kiss his mouth the way I wanted to when I hurt my head.

“Dime.” He was gazing at me again, like I was the only person in the world. “They do it because they want to. Ain't nobody expecting you to do nothing you don't want.”

He looked away and rubbed his face, as if he felt tired or sick.

“Are you mad?” It was hard to ask.

“Nah, I ain't mad,” he said. “I couldn't never be mad at you.” He dipped a fry in ketchup and ate it, chewing slowly. “Just stressed.” He frowned at something he was thinking about. “Don't worry about nothing.”

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

“What for, Beautiful?” He leaned forward, resting his forearms in a triangle pointing toward me.

“Just. I don't know.”

He slid his hands over to mine and covered my fingers with his. I loved how strong they felt. Just like his voice, only solid.

“You know I'm a take care a you, right?”

I nodded, trying not to smile about it too much, trying not to burst with how good it felt.

He picked up both of my hands in his and bent his head to kiss them. “All right then.”

*  *  *

He must have been more stressed than I even knew, because I heard them arguing in his room before L.A. went out the next afternoon.

“You know how it go,” he was saying in a low, mad voice. “You know how it go. It the same every time. What you bothering me for about it now?”

I couldn't hear what she said, exactly, except I could hear how mad she was too.

“You just do what you do, and it going to go down how I say. Six months, L.A., like I told you. Then we going to—”

She interrupted him, with something about a
little bitch
. Then I heard a thump, and it was quiet. I think maybe he swatted her or pushed her onto a bed or maybe a chair. I looked over at Brandy, who was waving her hands in the air, trying to dry nail polish. She changed it once a week, working over flattened grocery bags so she wouldn't stain the kitchen table.

“She talking about you,” Brandy said. “ ‘Little bitch' is you.”

I knew L.A. didn't like me much, but hearing that hurt. At least Daddy stopped her. I loved how he protected me. “Get used to it,” Brandy told me. “They fight a lot. Not going to be about you all the time neither.” She blew on her tips. “It ain't ever personal with L.A. anyway.”

“. . . back to where your uncles and them can do you for free, without even taking care a you?” I heard Daddy ask, and then something muffled. “So you just . . .” Then Daddy got quiet again. It stayed quiet for a long time.

“L.A. tell you all about her special self yet?” Brandy asked me.

Now I heard something else. At first I thought it was L.A. crying, but then I realized it was her making another sound. Then the music went on in there, loud, and Brandy rolled her eyes. “I hate that song.”

I hated knowing what they were doing in there. Hearing them argue bothered me, but it bothered me more picturing what was going on now.

Brandy shook her head. “Now she going to be late, and he going to blame her.”

I stared at my books until Brandy spoke up again. “L.A. had a lot of boyfriends before Daddy,” she told me. “But once anybody find Daddy”—she spread her purple nails in a fan on top of the table—“hardly nobody choose to leave.”

*  *  *

This was the third Sunday, and the third time we all ate dinner together, early, at four. L.A. and Brandy were going out to work after. Tonight Daddy looked distracted. He wasn't glancing at his phone and thumb typing at all. He was just nursing his forty and staring at the center of our round table, not eating.

Brandy looked at me over our spaghetti and meatball plates and then at L.A.

“What?” L.A. said. She wasn't so smart sometimes.

Brandy jerked her head at Daddy.

“What is you looking at?” L.A. asked impatiently.

Brandy sighed so loud it was almost a groan. “Daddy, you okay?” she asked. Now L.A. looked more carefully at Daddy.

He rubbed his face. “Nah.”

L.A. sat back and crossed her arms. She glared into the air above the table, not looking at any of us.

Daddy shook his head. “Dime, you got to go back home.”

Back to Janelle? Back with Jywon and being kept home from school and the shouting and the smacks and that ugly smell of gin? Not here? Not with Daddy, whispering and warm?

“Close your mouth, girl,” L.A. told me, still glaring. Was she mad I was going to have to leave? But I thought she didn't even like me.

Daddy's face was sad. He frowned, crunching up the scar in his eyebrow. “Saw her by your block,” he told me. How did he know where Janelle lived? He must have asked around. He must have found out. He must have wanted to know more about me, because I was so quiet I could hardly tell him anything. “She all liquored up,” Daddy said. “She ain't doing good.”

I didn't want to go home to Janelle all liquored up. The last few times, she threatened me with the big knife we used for chicken and carrots. What if she got my eye? Why was Daddy saying I had to go back to her?

“She need you, Dime. You a smart girl. You mature.”

I heard L.A. snort. Daddy ignored her, and so did I.

“You got to go help her out a her mess.”

“Don't make me.” How could I leave him? He was the only one who ever took real care of me.

“This ain't no place for you,” Daddy said. “Ain't right, me keeping you.”

L.A. lifted her head and began to eat her spaghetti. She slurped the noodles hard, rude, but Daddy still ignored her.

“Please.” He had never kissed me properly. Only that one time, so light and fast. I at least wanted him to kiss me properly. “I don't want to go.”

“I'm real sorry, Dime,” Daddy said. He squeezed my leg beneath the table and left his hand there. “I ain't making rent. Might have to get me a tenant for that alcove.”

I remembered the afternoon he'd taken me out and we'd had hot chocolate. “But before you said—”

“I know what I said,” Daddy interrupted. “I'm a try to figure it out.” He shook his head. “Meantime, it is what it is.”

Brandy drank her Sprite. I could tell she was purposely not looking at me. Would she be glad to see me go, or would she miss me?

“Go pay your Janelle a visit.” Daddy was still holding my leg, massaging it a little, trying to make me feel better. “You pay her a visit, stay awhile, and maybe I come up with something by then.”

L.A. stood up so fast, she knocked the table, making the silverware clatter. Daddy slid his hand off my leg. She grabbed Brandy's plate and her own and began to clear the table.

“I wasn't done,” Brandy protested.

“You done,” L.A. said. “We late anyway.”

Daddy ignored them, as if they weren't even there, just looking at me, sad.

*  *  *

After L.A. and Brandy left, Daddy didn't disappear into his room. He sat on his chair, staring at me cleaning up in the kitchen. He wasn't holding his phone or asking for a forty. I kept cleaning and cleaning because I was confused and nervous and trying not to cry, thinking about leaving Daddy.

“Dime,” he called after I had wiped the counter three times.

I turned around to him.

“You know I don't want you to go.”

“Yeah.”

“Come here.”

I went to him. He pulled me right onto his lap, my legs dangling sideways off the chair. “You know why I wouldn't let you kiss me that time you cut your head?”

He was holding my face in his hands, the way he had the very first night I'd met him, only this time my body was on his, so close. I felt hot and shivery and scared and crazy. I shook my head, and he didn't get mad at me for not answering with words.

“Because you so special.” He dipped his head toward mine. He kissed my lips softly. I couldn't think over the feeling of rushing everywhere inside me at once. “You young, but you act grown.” He looked into my eyes. “Can't help myself none. I just love you.” He kissed me again, using his tongue for a quick second, and I felt the surprise all over my body, like the electric shock from the bad outlet in Janelle's kitchen, and then he pulled away again and sighed and made a little rumbling sound.

He loved me. I had hoped he loved me. I had thought maybe he loved me, but now he was telling me so. I pressed my body into him, holding my face up, wanting more.

“Nah, Dime,” he said, pulling back, pulling himself together again. “You only thirteen.”

“Please,” I said.

“Wish you could stay,” he told me, resting his forehead on mine.

“Let me.”

“Uh-uh,” he murmured. “Ain't going to work out.”

But he picked me up, just the way he had picked up Brandy that time she had her nightmare. He carried me to his room. I was so small compared to him, I felt like a newborn baby. He shut the door with his foot and lay me down in a bed with slippery, smooth sheets.

He stroked my arms with his big palms and kissed my cheeks and my mouth. “One more minute,” he whispered. “One more and then you got to go.”

“Let me stay.” I whispered it so quietly because it was hard to talk with how good my body felt beneath his strong hands and soft lips and because it was hard for me to talk anyway.

He sat up suddenly, frowning and bunching up his eyebrow scar as if he was mad, but I could tell he wasn't mad. “You best go, Beautiful,” he told me. “Before we do something that ain't right.”

“No,” I said. “Please.” I reached out for his hand and put it on my cheek. “Please.”

“Dime, you killing me,” he said, and I loved how much he loved me.

“Please.”

And then he was stroking me again and kissing me. “You sure, Beautiful?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You don't want to stay a virgin?”

“No.” I was almost crying with wanting so badly for him to hold me close.

He kissed my lips again, and opened my mouth with his for much more than a second. I pulled back, scared. He pulled back too, kissing my forehead instead, stroking my arms and stroking my legs and stroking my whole body over my clothes, and by the time he bent to kiss my mouth with his tongue again, I wanted him to, and he knew just how to kiss and stroke until nothing felt surprising or scary but just good, and he took a long, long time peeling off my jeans and T-shirt and pink bra and panties and a longer time stroking and kissing me even more, quietly, all over everywhere, everywhere, making me feel so good, so so so good that when his body finally eased into mine, it felt like we were flying.

*  *  *

It was impossible to say good-bye. He kept kissing my face.

“You so beautiful,” he kept saying, pressing his forehead against mine. “You so beautiful.”

Somehow, finally, we separated. He opened the door, gently pushing me out of it, and I had to walk to Janelle's. It was still freezing out. I zipped my new coat and shifted my fancy bag with my new things inside it from one hand to the other. I tried not to cry.

It was a long walk, long enough for me to cry anyway and remember every single moment of what had just happened. Every kiss and stroke. Every sensation from every part of my body. I couldn't believe I wasn't a virgin anymore. I couldn't believe how lucky I was that my first time had been with Daddy, who loved me and knew how to make me feel so good. How could I leave him now? How could I go back to Janelle's? But he had said that she needed me, that I was supposed to be with her, and he needed his alcove back to rent out, or else he wouldn't have a place to live.
I love you,
he had said, after we flew together, and he was cuddling me in those smooth, smooth sheets.
You so special. I do anything for you. But your Janelle need you, and it ain't right me keeping you just because I want you so bad.
Then he rearranged our bodies so that he was spooning me, pressing his warm nose into the back of my neck and holding me close.

*  *  *

A man I'd never seen opened the door. “Jywon out,” he said.

“Who is it?” I heard Janelle shout, and then she was next to the man, who stepped aside.

“You back now?”

I nodded.

She grabbed my bag, but she was holding a gin and Coke, and some of that spilled over my things. “Damn it.” Then she took a drink. “Well, get in here.” She opened the door wider, and I walked past her and the man.

“This her,” Janelle told the man.

He looked at me and nodded. “She just like you said.”

“This Earl,” Janelle told me. “Earl as in James Earl Jones. He stay with us now.”

She never used to introduce her men. She kept them separate from us kids. “Where are Vonna and Sienna?” I asked.

“Back with they people. Vonna's mama out of lockup and did her program, and Sienna's grandma out of the hospital. Apparently, she ain't going to die anytime soon after all.” Janelle began to laugh. I had seen her drunk before, but not like this, not even the two times she went after me with that knife. It was like she was a different person inside Janelle's body.

“I'm sorry.” She always loved the little ones. And she'd had Vonna for years. I hadn't thought I might never see Vonna again. I hadn't thought that much about Vonna these past few weeks, but now that I knew she was gone, I missed her. “I'm really sorry.”