Imani All Mine (17 page)

Mama was crying by then. I started crying too. So did Imani. Like she even knew what she was crying for. We both moved to Imani at the same time. Pulling her close. Holding her between us. Keeping her between us. Where she should be. Not Mama on one side and her on the other.

I liked it being just us with no Mitch. He all the time be busting up in the middle of things. Coming in right where he don't belong. Because he don't belong at our house. On our couch sitting right next to Mama. Laying up in the bed with her. When Mitch come over and he be playing with Imani, wrestling with her on the rug like they in the WWF, getting her hair all fuzzy, I don't say nothing. I don't say nothing when she whine and want to follow after him and Mama. Go upstairs with them at night like they her mama and daddy. I let her go. Sometimes they take her. Sometimes they don't. But I'm glad when they do. When Imani go and get in bed with them. Get right in the middle of them.

When Mama told me she was going to Toronto with Mitch, I ask, Don't you want to take Imani with ya'll?

Mama just laughed. She was all excited about her trip. She say she never been in a hotel before, only a motel. I ask Mama what was the difference, and she say it was money.

She say, You ain't scared to stay in here by yourself, is you? Maybe I can get Odetta to stay with you.

I say all loud and anxious, Don't do that!

Mama cut her eyes at me, and I thought she might be suspecting something. So I quick got control of myself and say, like I was calm and mature, I'm old enough to stay by myself for two days. Anyway, Imani going to be with me.

Mama say, And she the only one I want here with you. I'll still get Odetta to stop in and check on you.

I ask, What she need to check on me for? She need to be watching her own house.

Mama cut her eyes at me again. She say, Odetta is going to check on you.

I know Mama meant what she say, but by the day she was leaving, packing a small suitcase she'd borrowed from Miss Odetta, I already had plans to be with Peanut. It wasn't like I really even invited him. He invited his own self. I just called him the day before while Mama was at the beauty shop.

I almost backed out of the call even though Coco had done told me Peanut broke up with that mixed girl. I'd put off calling him, because I thought he know some dog had brung me some bone about him. I seen in
Seventeen
that you should be casual with a boy. If he know you chasing him, he going to run. Then I seen this other article from a different month that say ain't nothing wrong with making the first move, ain't nothing wrong with flirting. Just thinking about that advice, that clashed worse than stripes and plaids, made all the nerve drain out of me.

I let the phone ring once and was hanging it up when Peanut say, Who's this?

I ain't say nothing.

He say, Come on, now. I can hear you breathing.

Hearing his voice like that, soft in my ear, made words come to me. I say, Peanut, what kind of phone manners you got? Answering a phone like that. Ain't your mama taught you nothing?

Peanut laughed. He knew it was me. So, Tasha, What's up?

I say, Nothing. I was sweating back. Funky. I ain't know what to really make conversation about, so I ask him about school.

He say he was only passing one of his classes.

I ask, What you passing?

He say, I ain't saying, but I'm aceing one. There's still a chance I can pass the year if I hit the books.

I say, Hit the books? If you was Mike Tyson, you couldn't hit them hard enough to pass.

Peanut ask, You think so?

I say, I know so. We only got one marking period left. It's obvious you ain't passing math.

Peanut say, Girl, I need to hook up with you. You the one the brain. Maybe we can study.

I told Peanut Mama was going away on the weekend.

He say, Well, we can hook up then. I'll come over and see you and Imani.

I say, Look, I want you to come see
me
.

I told Peanut about Miss Odetta keeping a watch on me. Peanut say, Don't worry about her. He say he could come to me at night out the back and over the fence. I told him I'd call him after Miss Odetta done checked in on me.

When I got off the phone with him, I found my pack of birth control pills. It was a mess where I had missed and skipped and took them out of turn, so I took two that night and another one the next day to try to get things straight again. The ones left over I flushed down the toilet.

I couldn't wait until Mama left for Toronto. Mitch was late picking her up and she was all packed and standing at the front door, peeping out the curtains, waiting for him. There was a look on her face like she was half worried that he wasn't coming.

I was half worried about that too. All I could do was think about Peanut since I'd talked to him. I was sitting on the floor of the living room playing with a puzzle with Imani when Mitch finally pulled up.

Mama ran and sat on the couch to look like she was waiting patient, casual, and wasn't even stutting him. When Mitch come in, he say he had to stop to get the car washed and oil changed. He say, We'll bring you girls back something. He picked Imani up and kissed her. I cut my eyes at him and gave him a don't-you-be-even-trying-to-kiss-me look. Mitch read it loud and clear. He patted me on the shoulder and say, Be good darlings. Mama say, You remember what I say.

Miss Odetta ain't even come check on me that night. She called a little before nine. I had put Imani to sleep and had a bath. I called Peanut and he picked up on the first ring and he come to me all in the dark of the night. Even the house was dark, because I wanted Miss Odetta to think I had gone up to bed.

I couldn't believe how quiet Peanut was when he come flying over the fence. He was like some animal. His feet hit the ground so quiet, you wouldn't have thought he weighed no more than a cat when he done got big. Bigger than I ever thought he would be.

Some longness has pushed into his bones. He almost tall as me, and his shoulders and back have got thick with real muscles that I could feel hard and strong when I hugged him in the kitchen.

I don't know when Peanut changed. When he started looking more like a man than a boy. It seemed sudden to me, but I know it happened a minute at a time. A day at a time. A night at a time while I was in love alone. Sitting in my bedroom with my light on. Cramming Latin in my head. Fighting the battles of the Trojan War. Solving all the problems in the algebraic world.

Peanut looked so good, I got shy with him. I couldn't look right straight in his face. He ain't have his books with him, and I was glad. I led him by the hand through the kitchen and into the living room, where we did it on the couch. Not all fast like he used to but a lot slower. A lot more like Peanut knew what he was doing. I held tight to him, smelling him all fresh like soap and deodorant while he kissed me. Feeling his long lashes tickling my face. His thin little mustache tickling my neck. We breathed every sound we wanted to make deep inside each other's throats, and the house was so quiet I could hear him moving in and out of me. In and out. He stayed long enough for us to do it again and for us to have cold pizza and pop. I don't know what time it was when Peanut got up to leave. He say he ain't want to go, and I ain't want him to. But he say he'd come back the next night.

 

Which he did. But later than the night before. Miss Odetta had come over that afternoon to see if me and Imani needed anything. I told her we didn't, and she say she'd check on me when she come back from the store. It was almost ten, and she hadn't come back. I'd already got Imani to sleep, and Peanut had already called, wanting to know if he could come over yet. At almost ten-thirty there was a knock at the front door. For once in my life, I was happy Miss Odetta was coming to my house, but when I opened the door I seen June Bug standing on the porch, smelling like he been drinking.

He say, Mama sent me to check on you. She got a terrible headache and can't make it. Without being invited, June Bug stepped on inside. You ain't got nobody up in here? he say, walking from the living room into the kitchen.

I followed right behind him. I say, It's just me and Imani. She sleeping already.

He say, Maybe I should check on her.

I grabbed him by the arm and say, No, you don't. You ain't going upstairs. I don't want you waking my baby.

He say, You know, you sure is growing up. Looking all good. When did you get this fine, girl?

I say, June Bug, you got to go.

He say, All right. I'm out handling my business right now, but we going to get together and talk sometime. I want to talk to you.

I say, Please, you ain't got nothing to talk to me about.

June Bug car was out front of our house, and somebody was honking his horn. You going to be all right all alone? he asked.

I asked, Is your mama going to be all right all alone? June Bug laughed.

I closed the door and peeked out the curtains. The light come on in the car when June Bug opened the door. Look like he had five other guys with him. Dealers. June Bug got in and they sat there for a while. Then I heard this bass music so deep, it rattled the glass in the front door. I thought the music was coming from June Bug car. It wasn't. It come from this car I seen gliding up the street, driving real slow, with no headlights on. I watched it pass like a ghost.

People been saying that's a game these boys be playing if they want to get in a gang. They be driving around and sometimes they be at red lights waiting for you to flash them or honk at them for them to turn on they lights. If you do, they'll wait for a green light and shoot at you when they go past. Even if they just riding down the street and you flash them, they'll do it. I let the curtain fall aside and heard June Bug nem pull out fast, they tires squealing. I guess they was all late for work.

I went on and called Peanut, and I don't know why my heart was beating all fast when June Bug was here today. If June Bug really knew something, he would know I ain't no girl no more. Not because Mama say I grown, not because Imani made me grown. Peanut did.

I became a woman that last night he was over. Peanut just kept pushing in and out of me and each time he did, I breathed inside of him and he breathed inside of me and pushed harder. I let him. All the way deep until a sound rose from a place in me that Peanut could not hold inside his mouth. He tried to push it back down in my throat with his tongue. But it floated out into the quiet of the house. A low moan that hung in the air while Peanut kept on moving and I held on to him. I could see myself in his eyes. Peanut was smiling down at me, and when he finished, he whispered, You know what this mean, don't you, Tasha?

No, I say.

Peanut say, Tonight, I made you woman.

I wasn't ready for Peanut telling me that. I ask, For real?

He say, Yeah, for real. Don't you feel like a woman?

I looked away from him, not saying nothing at first. He turned my face back to his, and I seen myself again. Right in the center of his eyes. I say, I do. But don't tell nobody. Don't tell.

NINE

L
AST NIGHT
at Imani birthday party when
I
seen her face shining in a silver circle of candlelight, I made a wish to never tell. One to keep pressed inside my two lips so it can come true. Be true. For real.

I wished
him
dead. I wished
him
dead. I wished
him
dead.

Maybe I would've never wished it, never even thought of it, if I didn't get detention on Thursday. Mr. Toliver was the one who gave me a tardy. I can't say I wasn't late for his class. I was. Half the class was late, because between periods there was a fight in the main hall. Mr. Toliver say if we ain't stop to watch it, we would've been on time. I can't say what everybody else was doing, but I ain't stop to watch nothing. Not when I been done used up my last tardy. I missed the bus last month, got to school late, and got sent to my first detention. From then on, every time I'm late, I got to stay after school for a whole period. The kids be calling detention
jug
. I don't know why.

Jug is down a long hall in the basement. The hall all narrow and lined with rows of naked pipes that make spooky sounds when water run through them. When you walk down that hall, it's like you been swallowed by some big monster and in the end you come to its stomach. The jug.

The room real cold. It ain't got no windows, and the walls made out of cement blocks. All around the wall in the back, kids done started some kind of artwork. It ain't up high where you can see it easy, but it's along the line of the chair backs. It's a kind of mosaic made out of gum.

Even with rows of lights buzzing over your head, the room still ain't all the way light. It's like the light get swallowed up on its way down to you. Don't no fresh air get in the room, and it always smell like somebody just pooted. Not one of them loud ones, but one of them S.B.D.s. Silent But Deadly farts. Ain't no talking, eating, chewing gum, listening to headsets, or sleeping. You can do your homework or read or sit and stare off into space.

So what I look like trying to go there? What I look like stopping to watch some girls scratching and punching and kicking and trying to pull each other extensions out by the root? Even if I had the time, if I had a tardy I could use up, I would've kept on going.

When there's a main fight, it be like a fire. It's so hot that sometimes other little fires jump off from it and start burning. I almost got caught in one of them accidental fights like that once.

These two boys was going at each other like crazy right outside the gym. The next thing I know, I got jerked halfway around by my extensions. I ain't have no time to think. Heat filled my head up, and I spun right around swinging. Automatic. The girl let go of my hair and caught hold to my jacket. I could see right then she wasn't even fighting me. She was trying to get away from this other girl who already had her in a choke hold and was backing her into the lockers. She let me go and started scratching that other girl hands. I got out of that heat quick and went into the lavatory to check my head. My scalp felt like it was burning, but no braids had been pulled all the way out. A handful at the top of my head was loose.