Little Divas (5 page)

Maybe Aunt Honey didn’t know what she was talking about. If Daddy were planning on making me switch schools, wouldn’t he have said something before now? School was starting in just a few weeks. I mean, not that it mattered. I was going to King whether he said something about it or not, but still.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said halfheartedly as I tucked the money into my purse.

“You’re welcome, pumpkin,” he said. Then he smiled at Rikki. “You’re quite the charmer, you know.”

Rikki giggled, and then her foot jerked out and hit mine. She gave one of her ponytails a determined tug, and I knew that that was body language for how excited she was that her plea to Daddy had worked.

“You’re too cool, Uncle Ray,” Rikki said.

Uncle Lance and Aunt Honey
finally
joined us on the sidewalk, and Uncle Lance sure looked tired. His thick, bushy eyebrows, coal-black ones just like Daddy’s and mine, were hunched together, but he tried to look pleased. “Good to have you with us again, Raymin,” he told Daddy.

“Good to be here,” Daddy replied proudly.

“Join us for dinner, Ray?” Aunt Honey suggested. Mary and Rikki get their creamy, coffee-colored skin and warm brown hair from her. That day Aunt Honey was dressed in a svelte purple suit and shiny black pumps with skinny heels, but I knew she was anxious to get out of her church clothes, to go home and let her hair fall out of its bun. She likes to sit down somewhere and “prop her feet up” like she always says, but not before preparing a huge Sunday dinner.

Daddy said that he was going to have to pass, but thanked her for the invitation. Since I was staying the night again, that would give him time to go home and get caught up on some paperwork. He reminded me to be on my best behavior before heading toward his Cadillac.

I didn’t dare tell Rikki that what I really wanted to do was go back to their house and chill, maybe watch a
Cosby Show
marathon on Nickelodeon or something. Rikki would have called me stupid if I’d have said such a thing, and when she calls you stupid, she definitely has a way of making you feel like you actually are.

When we were out of earshot of Aunt Honey and Uncle Lance, Rikki tugged at my arm, leaning in close enough that I could smell the watermelon Hubba Bubba on her breath. “I bet the Court is gonna be packed today,” she said.

Rikki climbed into the front seat of Mary’s car, and I securely fastened myself in the back. Just as we were getting ready to drive off, Uncle Lance flagged Mary down and she pulled the car up to the curb. Uncle Lance’s eyes were narrowed. “Home by seven o’clock,” he said, eyeing Mary’s unbuckled seat belt. “And I mean it.”

Mary snapped herself into safety. “I know, Daddy,” she said, her voice sounding overly sweet and innocent.

But Uncle Lance was still a little hesitant. “And I thought you said you were tired of looking at ice cream? ‘Daddy, all I do is look at ice cream all the time,’ that’s what you said.”

Mary gave him one of her big innocent smiles.
“Oh, Daddy,”
she sang. “This is different from work; it’s just for fun. Just kicking it with my little sisters.”

I always feel a tingle of pride when Mary refers to me as her little sister. Being an only child, I feel kind of happy to think of having a big sister, especially one as nice as Mary, even if it is just pretend. I’ve never one time in my life heard Mary call anyone or anything stupid.

Uncle Lance opened his billfold and reluctantly counted out a few dollars. “You ask me, ice cream is ice cream.”

No, it isn’t, Uncle Lance. No, it isn’t.

five

My teeth were
clenched so tight that I was getting a headache. The whole way over to the park, Rikki kept looking over her shoulder at me, building up some anticipation like we were getting ready to have the time of our lives.

Officially the park’s name is Grace Nelson Park, but you only know that if you look for the wooden sign at the entrance. Over the years the name has become less and less visible because the two bushes on either side of it have gotten so plump that they are closing in on the words. Now all you can see are the letters “son Par.”

Everything goes down at the center of the park at the bottom of a long hilly road. Mostly it’s just a big wooden jungle gym, a long row of swings, a huge teeter-totter, a few tire swings, and a small pond full of ducks. But the
real
reason why on any given day in the summertime every person under the age of eighteen makes their way down there, the magnet for everyone, is the basketball court. It was pretty crowded that Sunday.

Mary parked at the top of the hill and turned off the ignition. Once our ears got used to not hearing music, we could hear the laughter from down the hill, the jive talkin’, and insults spiked with occasional curse words. Every few minutes bass could be heard from a car cruising through the lot.

Archie wasn’t there yet, but he would be. He’s older than Mary, a senior to her junior, and he’s very cute.

We heard a loud thump and some shouts and looked down the hill to see that two boys had fallen on the basketball court. Both of them were cursing out loud. Rikki gasped when she saw that the one holding onto the basketball was Darwin Mack, the object of her obsession. But he got up, brushed himself off, and started playing again. It looked like there was a little blood on his knees, but that didn’t seem to matter; such things never do down at the Court.

Rikki smacked her lips. “Who knocked down my baby? Don’t make me have to go down there.”

Mary strained to see. “Sharee Jones’s little brother, it looks like.”

Rikki and I looked at each other, and said at the same time,
“Travis?”

Mary stared some more. Then she shrugged. Matter-of-factly she said, “Yeah.”

I shook my head at the possibility.

Yeah, right.

“Travis Jones is not that tall,” Rikki said.

“I don’t think so,” I agreed. “No way.”

After glancing at the red Ford Escort parked a few spaces over, Mary insisted, “Well, that’s definitely Sharee’s car. I’m sure he probably rode with her.”

Rikki said, “Travis isn’t that dark, either.”

“Or that tall,” I noted, even though Rikki had already pointed this out.

Mary had an answer for that, too. “Well, you know they spent most of the summer in California with their grandparents. So, with all that sun… You know, he probably just grew.”

“Wait a minute,” Rikki said as she squinted. “I think that
is
him.”

No way.

I still did not think so.

Uh-uh.

Rikki nudged me. “Maybe laying out on the beach in all that sun
did
make Travis darker.”

“Who cares,” I snapped. “He’s still ugly.”

Rikki sighed and rolled her eyes. “He likes Cassidy,” Rikki informed Mary.

“Awww,” Mary sang. “That would be
so
cute, Cassidy. My little sister and Sharee’s little brother.
Awwww
…”

Yuck.

And just then, I couldn’t believe it. The boy who I thought was way too cute and way too tall to possibly be Travis made a basket. He threw his hands up in the air and did a stupid victory dance, the exact one that Travis always does in gym where he moves his neck back and forth like a duck. I did not want to believe my eyes, but Travis Jones was almost as tall as Darwin now. How in the world did that happen?

Rikki laughed, also recognizing the duck dance. “That
is
him!”

“Go tell him hi,” Mary suggested. “Ask him how Cali was. Maybe he met someone famous. Maybe he’s got autographs. Maybe he’s got pictures.”

I was so annoyed that I felt my teeth gritting. “Who really cares if he does?”

“Cassidy
hates
Travis,” Rikki explained. “He killed her goldfish.”

Swoosh,
Darwin’s shot from the three-point line went in, all net.

Rikki started clapping. “Look at Darwin down there ballin’. Come on, Cassidy, let’s go. I should go down there, be like Cheryl Swoops, Lisa Leslie or something. I bet I can hoop too if I try.”

Disgusted, Mary sighed. “Would you stop with that tomboy stuff, Rikki.
Please?”

Heavy bass announced the arrival of a four-door Buick Park Avenue. When it pulled up beside us, Mary started squealing.

“Hop in the back,” Mary instructed Rikki.

As if she didn’t already know what to do.

As if she wasn’t already doing it.

All the Buick’s passengers, varsity football players, got out and headed down toward the pond. I watched as they stopped to talk to a group of girls sitting down at a picnic table.

Archie Fuller was real cool, one of the few popular boys who was smart in school. Mary says that’s because he’s a football player and he
has
to get good grades. He’s not allowed to suit up if he doesn’t.

Today he was wearing a maroon T-shirt with a picture of a growling bulldog on the back, his nickname, “Arch,” ironed on in thick white letters. He got into the Cavalier and closed the door, and the cool, breezy scent of his cologne or aftershave or something filled the air. Immediately Archie started adjusting the passenger seat, until it was pushed up against my knees.

“Is that too far back?” he asked.

Mary glanced back at me, pleading with her eyes.

So even though my knees had the weight of a stack of dictionaries pushing back against them, my answer was no. “I’m okay,” I said.

Mary looked relieved, but Rikki rolled her eyes. Now
she
was disgusted.

“Come on, Cassidy,” Rikki said. “Let’s go down to the swings.”

Mary had another look in her eyes this time, softer, but still pleading. I really did want Mary to be happy.

“Fine,” I told Rikki as I peeled my knees off the leather on the back of the seat.

I would walk down by the swings, but
not
by the basketball court, not anywhere
near
that Travis Jones.

Once we were a few feet away from the car, Rikki smacked her lips. “Now that we’re gone, I bet Mary’s in the car gettin’ all poetic on Arch.”

I actually thought that Mary’s poems were beautiful, better than most of the ones at school, that’s for sure, the boring ones that are in our blue and gray literature books. I folded my arms across my chest as we walked down the grassy knoll and didn’t say a word.

On my first Saturday night at Aunt Honey and Uncle Lance’s after Mom left, I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamed that Mom was behind a big, scary-looking waterfall, and she couldn’t get to me. Because of all the water, I couldn’t see her face too good. And even though it was a dream, I could feel the cool, misty breeze and the beads of water popping against my face. The water was making Mom look like a milky-white ghost.

The strangest part about that dream was that the closer Mom got to me, the more terrified I became. I must’ve been crying in my sleep, because the next thing I knew Mary was sitting on the side of Rikki’s canopy bed, shaking me, frantically trying to wake me up. She was holding me, asking me what was wrong, and telling me it was going to be okay.

Rikki was on the other side of the bed with the pillow over her head, groaning that she was trying to get some sleep, but Mary’s voice was a caring whisper. “It’s okay, Cassidy. You just need to wake up.”

My face was damp, and my teeth were sore from clenching.

“What was it?” Mary stroked the side of my face. “What were you dreaming about?” She wiped the tears off my face.

“I dreamed that I couldn’t see my mother. And she was trying to get to me, but she couldn’t.” As soon as I spoke the words, panic struck again, and I had to sit straight up. “I can’t remember what she looks like,” I said. Even being wide awake, I still couldn’t picture my mother’s face.

Mary continued rocking us both back and forth. “Shhh… shhh…” she said. “It was just a dream, Cassidy. Think sweet thoughts now.”

And so I did. Eventually I could remember Mom’s face, her round cheeks, and even that tiny mole at the corner of her left eye. It even started to sound as if Mary’s voice was Mom’s, and finally I began falling back to sleep.

The next morning, beside my pillow, there was a beautiful piece of lavender stationery covered with Mary’s flowing handwriting in thick black ink.

As Rikki and I continued down the hill, I thought about how I had paper clipped the poem into my journal, but didn’t write anything down about my nightmare. I just wanted Mom to see how beautiful Mary’s poem was.

Maybe I’m not being totally honest when I write in my journal, but I promised Dad that I would try not to make Mom feel bad about leaving. Plus I don’t want Mom to come back and read that things were rough, especially between Dad and me. She’d just think she was right after all. Then again, with this Clara Ellis thing, maybe she was. Maybe things would be different if she were here. I don’t know.