Somebody's Someone (37 page)

“When I was a young girl and met my father for the first time, he gave me a lei. It didn’t look too different from the one that I am giving you. After my father gave me the lei, he also gave me a name, a Hawaiian name. It’s Kua-hava-e-atoa. It means ‘a lei that is strung wrong—but is still perfect in its own right.’ My father told me that the prettiest leis he’d ever set his eyes on were always strung a little wrong, so I should never look for things to be perfect.”

Her words was beautiful—no wonder her daddy loved her. All I could say was thank you. My mouth must’ve been clear ’cross my face by the way I was smiling and all. I couldn’t believe that she wanted to tell me such a thing, and that I was the one who got to hear her own daddy’s story. Nobody I knowed had ever told me nothing so nice ’bout a daddy b’fore. I wore that lei till the flowers fell off; then I saved the string it was strung on. I put it in the gold envelope with the rest of my personals.

I cleaned up my act a bit after Miss Claire came back. One day Miss Forde told me I would get to go on a home visit with Marlena and her family. I had got so caught up in Claire, I almost forgot ’bout my friend. And to tell the truth, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to visit anybody else. But Miss Forde thought it would be good for me to go with my old friends since she’d gone through the trouble to set everything up. Plus, she was starting to have second thoughts ’bout me spending so much time with Claire. So after going by and doing a investigation of the Ballentinos’ house, Miss Forde said they was qualified. According to the county, there was real strict rules that folks had to go by in order to have a ward of the court in they midst.

Once the weekend was decided on, I got real happy to see my friend Marlena. It had been a long time since I’d seen her. Marlena was the middle girl of four kids. She had a younger sister, Greta; a older sister, Stella; and a older brother, Sam. Marlena was the wildest one of the whole bunch. Everybody said she was wild ’cause she thought herself to be black. I didn’t know nothing ’bout that. But I did know that she could get any boy she wanted. She was sure boy crazy, and her claim to fame was that she’d gone all the way! Marlena could even take boys from the girlfriends they already had. I didn’t know what I thought ’bout that, bein’ that that’s what Nadine did to my mama, but I liked Marlena, so I guessed it was okay.

That first weekend at Marlena’s I met a boy. I already kinda knowed him from b’fore I went to the shelter, but back then I didn’t really pay him much mind. After all, I sure wasn’t ’bout to get caught up wit’ no nasty boy and wind up like Ruby. No siree, Irene.

The boy I met again, his name was Will. Marlena kept telling me that whole weekend that Will was “head over his heels” for me. I couldn’t see what in the world for. But I let her go. She told me that since I was livin’ round so many girls, that it might be a good idea for me to get to know Will—’cause I should spend some time with boys. “After all,” she said, “I’ve already gone all the way with my boyfriend Michael.”

“Ooh-wee, that’s nasty!” I told her. Then I wanted to know everything. What did “all the way” really mean?

Marlena told me that all the way means that you let a boy kiss you, and then if it feels good, you let him stick his finger in you to test you out and see if you wet. If you wet down there— then it meant that a boy could stick his thing in you!

“Oh, hell nah!” I told her. “Ain’t no boy ever doin’ that to me and leavin’ me with no baby I don’t want.” I told Marlena I knew all about that, and that it was fine by me if I never went all the way, and she could go all the way to hell, just for bringin’ it up to me. There was no way I was gonna end up going all the way. No way!

My first thought when I seen Will was, he was the biggest boy I’d ever set eyes on. He had to look down at me when we talked. He sure was pretty for a boy. He looked better than most girls I knowed. He was blacker than me, with skin the color of chili beans, and he had black hair that parted to one side. But his eyes is what I liked best. They was slanted up at the sides even when he didn’t smile. Maybe he was so beautiful ’cause he wasn’t from round these parts. He was half Guam, and the other half was from Hawaii.

I didn’t wanna be by myself with Will, so when he came by Marlena’s house, we all hung round her front yard, listening to Marlena’s brother, Sam, play Fleetwood Mac from their garage. My favorite song off that album was “Rhiannon.” I could sing all the words. Later that night, all us kids was hangin’ out in Marlena’s den room, listening to records and playin’ spin the bottle. We played the records so that her mama couldn’t hear our voices. At first, I didn’t really wanna play, in case I was being tricked into doing something I didn’t want to do. But seeing that they was all gonna call me chickenshit, I gave in. At first it was easy watchin’ everybody do things that was silly, like kiss somebody on the lips, or fart on the spot (the boys loved to make each other do that).

The time came for Will to get the bottle, and he spun it. It landed right in front of my crossed feet! I looked up and raised my eyebrows at him.

“What you want me to do?” I asked, fiddling with my pant hem.

“I don’t know. What do you want me to ask you to do?”

“Don’t be stupid!” Marlena yelled at Will. “Ask her to kiss you.”

“Will you kiss me, Gina?”

He had nerve callin’ me Gina. I never said he could. But then I kinda liked the way it sounded. It was like my name, “Gina,” rolled off his tongue but stayed close to his mouth, making me turn and wonder if he was twirling it on his tongue. Since Will was from a place off Hawaii, he talked different than the rest of us. That must’ve been why I liked the way he called out my name.

“Let’s go outside,” I told him. “I don’t wanna let everybody watch.”

The two of us walked outside in Marlena’s backyard where it was dark—we didn’t want nobody spying on us.

“Have you ever kissed a boy before?”

“Yeah,” I told him, not exactly lying. I’d kissed a boy when I lived with Ruby in North Carolina. But I’d forgot ’bout it until this very minute. I remember the boy’s breath smelling like a baby’s diaper.

“Have you ever French kissed before?”

“I don’t think so.” I said, “I ain’t never kissed no Frenches before.”

Will laughed and told me I was silly. “Well, I’m gonna show you how the French do it.”

Will bent his neck down so his mouth could meet mine. I had to get on my tiptoes on account that he was so damned tall. He opened his mouth and came towards me. I opened mine and closed my lips round his. Next thing I knowed there was two tongues in my mouth; mine and his—and his was searchin’ for something. I went along with what was happening and started searchin’ for his tongue too. We stayed like that for a long time. The longer we stayed the better it was. And b’fore I knew it I’d learned how the French kissed—and I liked it. Whenever Will would kiss me, it made me feel funny on the inside, kinda warm all over.

The rest of the night we all just sat round with one another and talked ’bout silly stuff. Since most of the kids we was hangin’ out with didn’t really know me, they was asking all kinds of questions ’bout where I was from. Marlena wanted to answer for me, but I cut her off and told folks what I wanted them to know.

“I live out in Martinez with one of my father’s friends.” I was startin’ to wanna use better words than the ones I always said, on account I wanted Miss Kennedy to see that I could be like her—I used
father
instead of
daddy. Father
sounded more proper anyway.

“He works for a famous man in Hollywood, and he doesn’t have time for me right now, that’s all.” Why’d I have to open my big mouth? ’Cause then everybody wanted to know who this famous man was. When I told ’em Barry White, most of ’em didn’t know who I was talkin’ ’bout on account they was what Marlena called rock and rollers. Not Will, though. He was nice to me, and we spent the rest of the weekend learning how to perfect the French way of kissing.

B’fore I knowed it my weekend was over and I was on my way back to the shelter. But Lord knows I couldn’t wait to see Will again.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A CHRISTMAS WANT

I THOUGHT THAT
I’d never spend a Christmas with folks who wanted me there just b’cause I was me. And I’d gave up a long time ago on believing that a fat white man with some talking reindeer and a red nose was gonna come down a brick pipe and bring me anything I wanted, especially after the pigs’-feet Christmas with Glenn. Far as I was concerned, the only people that could have something like that happen was the people in the books I read.

Without my knowing, Miss Claire had gone and fixed it with my social worker so I could go and spend four days with her and her peoples for Christmas. I could hardly believe this to be so. I’d wanted so bad to go with her that I just couldn’t let my mind think it. Plus, b’cause Marlena and her family went to they “I hate black folks” gran’mama’s house, I had nowhere else to go.

Claire told me that at first Miss Forde was a li’l uneasy ’bout letting me go with her. She said that there was rumors that she’d let me sleep with her when I stayed at her apartment and that that gave some folks a bit of concern. I knew this was my fault, since I was the one that had told the other girls when I came back from my visits with her what we did. Now kids was saying things that had everybody up in arms. Some of ’em would flat-out call me names, and say I was funny. Not funny where everybody was laughin’ at you, but funny actin’—like in gay!

“You sure do act like she’s your boyfriend,” they’d say, or, “Is you two funny, or gay or something, ’cause she ain’t your mama, so why you sleep in the same bed with her?” They was real stupid kids, and I could see why nobody wanted them. I wouldn’t want somebody who could think them sorts of things. Now, deep down, I was feelin’ kinda stupid for telling ’em where I was sleepin’ when I went to Claire’s. On the one hand I didn’t understand why folks seemed to have a problem wit’ it. After all, me and Sister shared the same bed for as long as I could r’member. And another thing, didn’t all kids wanna sleep next to they mamas? Miss Claire took me aside and tried to explain what the matter was.

“Sweetheart, there are a lot of people, who are ordinarily good people, that for one reason or another, have chosen to believe rumors as opposed to the facts. I’m really sorry that you’ve somehow become involved in this situation, and I plan to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I want you to act as if this had never happened; that way you won’t give others a reason to want to say anything negative about you. Just remember, sweetheart: it’s really important to keep your chin up when it wants to hang down. My only request is, please don’t discuss in detail what we do when we’re off the shelter grounds. We both have a right to our privacy, and it’s no one else’s business.”

I just loved the way that Miss Claire could take something dark and heavy and turn it into light. But the back-talking didn’t stop there. And no matter how hard I tried to act as if what other folks said didn’t bother me, sometimes it was doggone hard.

Sometimes if the kids wanted to be real smart, they’d accuse me of tryin’ to be a white girl. They was all getting mad ’cause I was tryin’ to say good words instead of the country ones that I’d used all my life. Like I said before, I used
father
instead of
daddy,
and I think somebody might’ve heard me say “Oh my God” a couple times too many. When they started in, all I would do was turn round and say what I learned as a real li’l girl when folks would call us kids names: “Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” They could say what they wanted, but I sure wasn’t gonna feel sorry for the kids who was making fun of me even if they was jealous, ’cause they didn’t cry no tears when I was stuck sittin’ in that shelter and they got to go home.

Mrs. Elizabeth Kennedy, Claire’s mama, was coming to pick me up at five o’clock, and I was bringing four changes of clothes, like Claire had told me, along with the two presents I had made for her and her mama. I’d promised myself to be as nice as I could, figurin’ that if Miss Claire’s mama liked me a whole lot, then maybe she’d wanna keep me, since all her kids was grown. I couldn’t seem to keep from always looking to get me a mama. It was like something inside me wouldn’t stop till it came to pass. I told myself to try and speak some of them words that I had heard Claire use, thinking that she must’ve got ’em from her own mama. I was prayin’ to the Lord that maybe older Miss Kennedy was gonna take me for her own so that I could be part of Claire’s whole family.

Early on in the week my social worker had come and taken me out to eat. She called it lunch. I called it nasty. She ordered me a runny li’l potbellied egg that was on top of a piece of bread, but instead of cheese, it had this lumpy yellow sauce that tasted like lemon gravy. Plus it had the nerve to have a tiny piece a ham on it. The eating place was called the Velvet Turtle. If you asked me, I’d say they caught that turtle, boiled it, and tried to pass it off as real food. Anyway, I picked at my “lunch” as Miss Forde told me ’bout this foster home I was gonna have to visit when I came back from Miss Kennedy’s. I realized right then that I didn’t care so much for ole Miss Forde. As she talked, the big mole that was stuck to the side of her top lip moved up and down. I couldn’t stop my eyes from playin’ with the mole on account it was so big. And I couldn’t stand how she wore funny li’l shoes with points that strapped what I’d ’magined to be her ugly li’l feet right in ’em. Anyway, her lips was dark and big—reminding me a li’l bit of Mr. Benny. As a matter of fact she looked like she could’ve been kin to him.

“I have a family that’s interested in meeting with you, Regina.” Sniff, sniff. Miss Forde also had a funny way of sniffin’ the air round her. She made me feel like she was smellin’ for something she might’ve lost—like her manners. After a while I started sniffin’ too. I just didn’t do it out loud.

“Is the people you want me to go see black or white?” I asked.

Her mole came to a stop as she kinda lowered her eyes at me. “What difference does that make, Regina?” By now her hands was taking her napkin from her lap and putting it in her plate. She stopped eatin’. I could see for my own self that maybe something I said wasn’t so good. I didn’t see why it had to be trouble; after all it was me I was talking ’bout, not her.