Efrain's Secret (14 page)

“It’s me,” says his little brother Carmelo.

Nestor goes to unlock and open the door. There stands Little
Mellow Man. He looks exactly like Nestor did when he was that age, I swear. “What’s up, Little Man?” Nestor asks.

Melo speaks in a voice so low I can barely hear him. “Can I play Strike Force?”

“What’s that?” I ask.

Nestor replies, “Bowling game on the Xbox.” Then he says, “Maybe later. E. and I are about to go out now, and you know I don’t want anyone in my room when I’m not around. Okay?”

Melo’s eyes fall to his feet. “Okay.” He’s so sad as he shuffles away from the door. Nestor closes and locks it again.

“Malo.”
I say.

Nestor gets defensive. “What?” He walks to his closet and pulls out a pair of Skechers boots.

“He didn’t just want to play with the Xbox.” So unlike Nestor to miss the obvious. “Melo wants to play with
you.”

“Nah, it’s all about the Xbox, bro.” Nestor shrugs as he sits on his bed and pulls on his boots. “I really got it for him anyway. I’m usually too busy to play.”

“So put it in the living room so he can play with it whenever he wants.”

“Forget it. Nobody here knows how to take care of anything. Claudia lets her kids get into everything, and Melo gets carried away, breaking stuff because nobody’s minding him…. That’s another reason why I don’t let nobody in here when I ain’t around. I’d have nothing if I did.” Nestor knots his boots. “And neither would Melo.” He stands up. “Ready to bounce?”

“Yeah.” I grab the remote and turn off the massage chair.

Once we walk out of his room and down the hallway, Nestor stops at the living room. Poor Melo. Boredom has him on the brink of death as
Blue’s Clues
plays on the television. Claudia’s baby lies facedown on a comforter while her toddler bounces
around in a swing. “Little Man, when I come back from Brooklyn, you want to go with me to Harlem Lanes? I’ll show you how to bowl for real like a big boy.” Melo’s eyes flare, but he doesn’t smile, as if he’s afraid to say yes for nothing. “Yeah, Mellow?”

“Okay.”

I say, “I’ll hold him to it, Mellow Man.”

“Come over here and show me some love.” Melo scrambles off the couch, runs over to Nestor, and throws his arms around his legs. “That’s what’s up. My Little Man.”

We finally leave the apartment and head down the stairs. “Yeah, he’s a good kid,” says Nestor. “I gotta spend more time with him.”

Abjure
(
v
.) to reject, renounce

“Efrain, get up.” Scrawny fingers grab and shake my shoulder, and I get a whiff of flaky chocolate. I open my eyes to see Mandy’s dusty brown fingertips with butterfly stickers over chipped purple nail polish. “Efrain …”

Man, the last thing I want to do is get up. I hit the block after taking Candace home and didn’t get into bed until almost two this morning. My mother even woke up when she heard me come in and asked me what took me so long. I muttered some nonsense about staying late because we were short and the manager needed help with inventory. Moms mumbled something about calling next time so she won’t worry but quickly fell back asleep. She believed it because she has been in that situation plenty of times. I crawled into bed just to stare at the ceiling for another half hour before I finally crashed, so I don’t want to know about a damn thing before noon.

“Efrain!”

I smack Mandy’s hand off my shoulder. “Amanda, if you don’t stop bothering me, I’m going to tell Moms you be using her nail polish.”

“Jerk!” The brat goes and chops me in the neck.

“Just for that, I’m going to tell her you’ve been eating the Cocoa Pebbles out of the box, too.”

Now she looks scared. As hard as Moms works, she keeps this apartment immaculate and hates it when we do unhygienic
things like eat dry cereal out of the box and drink juice from the carton. Mandy yells, “Chingy’s here, stupid.”

Just like I’m not allowed to hit her, she’s not supposed to call me names. “Why couldn’t you just say that, then, instead of shaking me and whining in my ear?” I know I shouldn’t stoop to her childish level, but Mandy’s being such a brat, and it’s first thing in the morning. First thing in
my
morning anyway. “You need to stop spending so much time around little kids and babies ’cause you starting to act like one.”

“Shut up, Efrain.” She whips around like a top and storms toward my door.

“Yeah, that’s really mature.” I throw back the covers and climb out of the bed. “Get out of my room.” She slams the door behind her. Hopefully, Chingy won’t mind if I just meet him on the basketball court at St. Mary’s in a couple of hours.

When I open the door, Chingy flies into my bedroom. In a flash, he spots the Joe’s I wore last night draped over the chair by my desk. Chingy snatches the jeans and clenches them in his fist. “New gear, huh?”

“Yeah, I got those on sale,” I say. Yeah, I OD’d a bit when I went shopping with Nestor. Don’t I deserve some new clothes that aren’t already a year behind the style when I get them? I bought Christmas presents for Moms and Mandy, too. And nothing I bought could I take home anyway, hiding everything at Nestor’s except for this one pair of jeans.

“The five-finger discount?”

This is so unbelievable, I laugh for a second. “How’re you going to roll up into my crib and accuse me of boosting some jeans?”

“’Cause that’s how you get down now, right?” says Chingy. Then he throws the jeans at me. If I had not been quick on the catch, the button would have caught me in the eye. “That’s how you living, right?”

I fling the jeans onto my bed. “Yo, why you tripping?”

Chingy saunters over to me. “At least when Nes went foul, he was man enough to be open about his shit. I give him that much. He didn’t front like some altar boy.”

“Ain’t nobody fronting, man.” The words don’t come out as angry as I feel them. I can barely hear myself say them.

“Then how come I have to find out that you’re slinging rock at Hunts Point from Leti, GiGi, and them?”

I can’t believe those
bochincheras!
None of them have actually seen me do anything to be running at the mouth, never mind exaggerating like that. “You’re supposed to be my boy, but you jump to believe the first person to talk sideways about me?”

“Don’t even try to turn this on me!” Chingy interrupts. Now he’s in my face. “How long, son?”

Although I don’t back away, I can’t look him in the eye. “Since around Halloween.”

“And all the times we’ve hung out since then, were you dirty?” So ever since GiGi and her friends yapped, Chingy’s been running scenarios through his head. He’s been imagining us hanging out—playing ball, eating pizza, heading to the movies, or whatever—and the cops suddenly rolling up on us, finding crack vials on me, and then hauling us both to jail. He done worked himself into a tailspin like the Tasmanian devil.

“No, man, I swear. I don’t bring my work home. And I certainly don’t mess with that shit myself.”

Chingy smirks at me. “That’s what I’m talking about. Fronting like you’re some kind of saint. Living dirty and calling it work. Keeping secrets.”

I say, “Maybe if you weren’t so damn righteous, I would have told you.” That hits Chingy because he falls back some and doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Who can confide in you when you’re so freakin’ judgmental?”

Chingy backs up toward my door. After opening it, he pauses to look me in the eye. “You’re right, E. I am righteous. I am judgmental. I’m lots of things, some of which ain’t too cool. But at least with me, what you see is what you get. I’m out.”

“C’mon, Rashaan—”

Chingy slams the door behind him. I stand there for a few seconds contemplating whether or not to go after him. I decide against it since my sister is home, and God knows how much of our argument she already heard. Snatching a fistful of Cocoa Pebbles out of the box is nothing compared to what Mandy may have on me now.

Disdain
(
v
.) to scorn, hold in low esteem

As I walk Mandy to school the next day, she chatters on about some stupid dating “reality” show. At first, I just laugh with relief that my argument with Chingy is out of her mind and off of Moms’ radar. Then again, I thank God Moms can’t hear all this mess about stripper poles and booty claps and whatnot. Just yesterday my little sister was all about Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls. I give it to my mother for preserving Mandy’s innocence for as long as she has, but I’m scared to death that any day now she might morph into Marlene! And it’d be nobody’s fault but Rubio’s. Had he been on point, Moms wouldn’t have to work such long days, and my sister wouldn’t have television for a babysitter. Hell, she’s probably watching that garbage at
his
place, since we can’t afford BET and VH1!

I drop off Mandy at her school and head to the corner of 141st Street and St. Ann’s Avenue as always. Today I wait for Chingy to come running up his block yelling
Son, did you see the way Strahan sacked Hasselbeck?
But he never shows.

I jump into my seat in Spanish class just as the bell rings. I feel lucky to arrive on time yet avoid
las chismosas
when Señorita Polanco starts to pass out a test on the future tense. I had planned to study for it, but it completely slipped my mind with everything else crowded in there. Luckily, after I take a moment to gather my wits, most of last week’s lessons come back to me.

I have social studies second period, my first class of the day
with Chingy. He stands by the window with Marco and Stevie yammering about last night’s Giants game. Instead of heading over there, I go to my seat and dump my books on the desk.

Leticia clacks down the aisle in high-heeled boots as if she were still in the running to become America’s next top model. “Hi, Efrain!”

I don’t even look up. “Hey.”

“Did Chingy tell you?” she says. “GiGi and me think we saw Nestor and you at the Fulton Street Mall the other day. We weren’t sure, though, ’cause we were on the other side of the train platform and haven’t seen Nes in a looong time. I mean, GiGi swore up and down it was you, but I was, like,
If that’s Efrain, where’s Chingy?”
The bell rings, and Chingy takes his seat next to me. “Chingy, why weren’t you with Efrain and Nestor on Fulton Street?”

Chingy squints at her. “Where was I supposed to be?”

“Nothing, I’m just saying y’all used to be like the Three Musketeers, but I never be seeing the three of y’all together no more, so I’m, like, what’s up, you know?”

“Chingy was doing like Chingy do. Keepin’ it real.” After a sneer in my direction, Chingy adds, “And keepin’ it right.”

I say, “Whatever.” The bell rings, and I open my textbook just to have something else to look at.

Leticia’s eyes volley back and forth between us. “What’s with you two?” she asks. “Y’all fighting?”

Both Chingy and I say, “Mind your business.”

Leti hisses at us, “Later, then, for you
two pendejos.”
And she whirls around in her seat, her hair whipping in the air.

Ordinarily, that would have been enough to set things right between Chingy and me. We would have laughed at the way we both dissed Leticia and made an unspoken agreement to forget our argument ever happened. But that was before yesterday.

The tension between Chingy and me becomes more obvious with every passing class, even in gym, when Chingy doesn’t choose me for his team. “Get over it, fellas,” Coach Moretti cracks. “She’s not the first; she won’t be the last.” Now all the herbs who were oblivious to the static are tuned in, talking about
er, huh, what?

So I spend my lunch period in the library. I don’t want to listen to Chingy and the rest of the guys who sit at our table jawing for forty-five minutes about the Giants’ game anyway. Until we get right, sixth period will sound like
SportsCenter
all day, every day, and I have more important things to do, like study. Never again will I get caught out there unprepared for a test. Never! But five minutes into my vocabulary list of the one thousand most common words on the SAT, I conk out until the seventh-period bell rings.