The Boy in the Black Suit (21 page)

Lovey, still buzzing from the flower joke, stood there gazing at me like I wasn't some screwed-up dude, but instead the coolest guy she knew. And for me, I looked at her as the only thing, as far as I could see, that could keep me from being more screwed up than I already was. I stepped forward. She leaned in closer, her eyes slowly opening and closing, and opening, and closing. My eyes were wide open, of course. I wanted to see this. And feel it. And taste it. And then:

A peck.

Record scratch.

Yep, just a peck, followed by, “I want to show you my all-time
favorite flower,” and that sweet smile. Not exactly what I was expecting. But still, a peck was still technically considered a kiss, right? It was better than nothing.

Lovey held my hand tight now, weaving her fingers in between mine. We walked along a rock path of what she called succulents, a word that for some reason I couldn't stop laughing at. Sometimes I feel like I'm so mature. Other times I know I'm as ridiculous as everyone else my age.

“Here it is,” Lovey said, pointing at her favorite plant, having her ta-da moment. “It's called Sempervivum.”

The plant wasn't like those pretty, dainty little flowers that we were looking at before, thank God. It was way better than those. It looked like a mix between a brussel sprout and some kind of weird star plant.

“Simple what?” I said, caught off guard by another crazy name.

Lovey sounded out the word like I was a little kid learning to read.

“Sim-per-
VIV
-um,” she said. “Means live forever.”

I squatted down. The plant's petals looked more like pointy green fingers with red tips, different from the petals I was used to seeing.

“Does it?” I said, looking up at her. “Does it live forever?”

“Of course not.” She shrugged. “But it definitely survives longer than most plants. All through the winter and everything. You barely even have to water it. It's like toughest of all the plants. The survivor.”

I looked back down at the Sempervivum, touching it,
squeezing the layers of odd juicy finger-leaves. They felt sort of human, which was a little freaky, but I couldn't front like I wasn't fascinated by it. It was pretty cool for a plant. I can't even believe I'm saying this, but it was. So I pulled the camera up, got in close, and snapped a photo.

The cab ride home was just as crazy as the cab ride to the garden was. Instead of the constant slamming on brakes, this cabbie was just speeding, whipping around corners, swerving in and out of traffic, doing his best not to hit the brakes at all!

“We gotta start taking the bus,” I said to Lovey as we walked up her stoop.

“Hell yeah,” she replied, turning to me once we got to the top. She shuffled through all the pictures we took and pulled out the one I shot of the Sempervivum. She slipped it into my jacket pocket, then tugged on my coat like she was about to button it, but instead pulled me close.

“Thank you for being open,” she said, her voice smooth as she leaned in and kissed me. This was
not
a peck.

“Thank you for taking me,” I said, returning the kiss.

“Did you learn anything?” she asked, her eyes closing as she kissed me again.

“Yep.” I smirked. “I learned that you're a good kisser.” I pressed my lips against hers again, this time kissing her longer and pulling her as close as possible. I wrapped my arms around her, and I could feel her hands gripping my back. After a few seconds she
pulled away.

“Damn right,” she said, moving toward the door.

I waited to go in, but before she actually opened the door, she turned back toward me, gave me one last kiss, and said good night.
Wahhhh!
I couldn't believe it. But it was cool, I just bounced down the steps like I wasn't trippin', even though I was. I felt good. Better than good.

When I got to the bottom, I heard the robotic sound of the camera snapping. I looked up and there was Lovey, standing at the top of the stoop, kneeling and being overdramatic like I was in the Botanic Garden, this time taking tons of pictures of me. I'm glad no one was walking down the street and saw her, because they would've thought we were doing a photo shoot or something. Totally embarrassing. She laughed.

“Real funny,” I said.

And she shouted out, “It's called payback!” while blowing me a kiss.

Chapter 16

FORWARD

“S
IMPLE WHAT
?”

“Semper
VIV
um, man. It's like this flower that's hard to kill. It kinda looked like a star inside a star inside a star.” I was on the stoop with Chris trying to explain this crazy plant. I could've pulled out the picture and showed him, but for some reason I didn't want to. I know that sounds stupid, but I kinda wanted to keep the photo to myself. Like a me-and-Lovey thing.

I had stopped by Chris's building when I left Lovey's because I was way too gassed up to just go be alone, but he wanted to get out of there because his mom was frying fish. And just like he didn't want that fishy smell all in his clothes, he also didn't want his mom all in our business, which she was always trying to be in. So we walked up the block to my house. It was actually better that we didn't hang at Chris's house anyway. I wouldn't have been able
to just sit in there without thinking about everything that went down with Lovey's mom. Talking about it with her made it all so fresh again, and to be honest, it was the last thing I wanted to think about. Not after such an amazing date.

“Man, that don't sound like no fun date to me. But then again, you ain't really no fun type of dude these days,” he said, texting somebody. He had been saying that for a few days now, ever since I told him what Lovey told me about her mother. It really messed with Chris, partly because, like me, he was there, but also because he felt like it was too heavy to put out there so early. But I tried to explain to him, Lovey and I just sort of have a thing. I guess it's trust.

“Yeah, whatever. Fun enough to make out with her,” I bragged. I know, I know. I kissed and told, but what can I say? I was excited!

He snapped his head toward me, bug-eyed. “What?”

I couldn't hold back the smile. And it was a big one.

“You heard me.”

He put his hand out for a grown man handshake, and after we shook, he leaned back like a proud dad again.

“My boy is all grown up.”

“Man, whatever.”

Across the street Mr. Ray was sitting outside too, talking to everyone who walked by. Brownie, whose real name was John Brown, stopped to yap to him. He was probably around six, and just knew that he was going to grow up to be a famous singer. He'd be outside dancing and singing his heart out all day, so whenever Mr. Ray saw him, he would ask Brownie to perform something old-school.

“The Temptations? Sam Cooke? What, you don't know no Sam Cooke?” Mr. Ray would tease, and Brownie would laugh and laugh.

Mr. Whitaker also stopped to talk to Mr. Ray. Mr. Whitaker (all the old guys called him Whit) was a minister who preached at a church around the corner. He wasn't a young guy, but not as old as Mr. Ray either. Just old enough to have a little bit of gray hair in his beard, but nowhere else. He always wore sharp suits, and my mom would always talk about how nice his shoes were. But the most important thing about Mr. Whitaker is that he was always in the street trying to bust up gangs and keep police from doing crazy stuff around here. He wasn't afraid of nobody, and that's why everyone liked him.

Mr. Whitaker had both hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels as he stood at the bottom of Mr. Ray's stoop, talking. Chris and I wasn't saying too much at this point, just because Chris was way too occupied with all the texting he was doing to talk to me. But it was cool. I knew it was a girl—it always was—and I was used to it. The dude had game.

“So how was it?” Chris said, still staring down at his phone, his thumbs moving crazy fast.

I tried to be cool. “It was just kissing, man. Chill.”

Chris looked up from his phone. “Just kissing?” He slipped his phone in his pocket. “It's never just kissing, man.”

Here we go again with Chris's theories on girls, even though I have to admit, he was usually right.

Chris started grilling. “Was her eyes open or closed?”

“What?”

“Look, man,” he said, “if a girl keeps her eyes open when she kisses you, then she's not sure about you yet, in that way. But if she closes them, then she likes you. Simple.”

Made sense.

“Okay, well, how am I supposed to know if her eyes were open or not. Mine were closed.”

“
WHAT!
You closed your eyes?” Chris barked. “You know what that means? Means you love her!”

“Man, you crazy. I like her, but I don't
love
her.”

The streetlights started flickering and Chris stood to his feet almost at the exact same time. Like clockwork. It wasn't even really dark yet, but I knew he was about to roll.

“Oh, yes you do. You love her. You just don't know it yet.” Chris stood on the step in front of me and shook his head like he was disappointed. “I thought you and me was gonna grow up and be old playas like the Ray brothers, but you closing your eyes every time you kiss a girl!”

We both busted out laughing and he gave me dap before heading back down the block to his crazy building. Building 516. I sat there on the stoop and thought about the nonsense Chris was talking. If you close your eyes, you love her.
Yeah, right.
Closing your eyes don't mean nothing. Maybe I just closed my eyes because I didn't want her to open her eyes and catch me looking. Then she might not think I was into it or something, like I didn't like her. Maybe that's why I closed my eyes. I wish I would've thought of this when Chris was standing there spazzing on me. But even if I
did tell him this, all he would've done was tell me I'm lying. And that might've been true.

When Mr. Whitaker finally left, Mr. Ray waved me over.

“Mr. Miller,” Mr. Ray called, holding his hand out for a shake. “Had a good day?” He gripped my hand tight.

“Pretty good,” I replied, zipping my jacket. The temperature was dropping and it was getting pretty chilly out. “What about you?”

“Not bad. Just been sitting out here, watching life and trying to learn something from it.”

“Yeah, I guess you can say I kinda been doing the same thing.”

“Oh yeah? I figured you spent your day watching Lovey, trying to learn something from her!” Mr. Ray knocked me on the arm. I never should've told him we were going out.

“Well, that too. She took me to the Botanic Garden, the one over there off Eastern Parkway.”

Mr. Ray looked surprised. “What the? The homeless shelter, the garden, these are some, uh”—he searched for the right word—“peculiar dates y'all going on.”

I took a seat. “That's where she wanted to go. It's a whole thing,” I started, but then I caught myself. Some things shouldn't be told. If anyone understood that, it was Mr. Ray. “It's a long story,” I said simply.

“Ah. Gotcha. Well, did you learn something?”

I thought for a moment about the day. The taxi. The kiss. The Polaroid in my pocket. “I think so.”

“Good.” Mr. Ray was obviously all out of cigarettes, because
this was definitely one of those times he would've been sparking one, taking a drag, and blowing the smoke high into the air. “Tomorrow we've got a funeral. Whit came over here to tell me that one of the boys he was trying to help clean up his act got killed a few nights ago, and that his mother wants a simple memorial service.” Mr. Ray paused for a second, and I could tell by how tight his face was that he was disappointed by the news. You would think he'd be used to this by now, but it was kind of cool that it still bothered him. He continued. “His mother said even though Whit was like her son's mentor, she didn't want to have it in his church because she was scared her boy's friends wouldn't be comfortable there. So it'll be at the funeral home. We'll just be carrying the casket, and maybe we'll provide a little food afterward, but nothing major. Whit said the boy's mother wants this to be smooth and quick. So come straight here after school so we can be ready by two.”

“Got it.” I stepped off the stoop, then paused. “Before I leave, you never told me if
you
learned something today.”

Mr. Ray stood up, brushed his pants off, and stretched his long body, which had to be stiff from all the sitting. “Matt, I been sitting here looking at all the kids playing in the street. The people walking down the block, some friends, some strangers, some I've known since they were the same age as those kids, stopping to talk to me or share a joke. And I realized that it's not that death is bad. It's not. It's just that life is so good. So damn good that you just wanna hold on to it, and everybody in it. But we can't. But what we can do, is appreciate it more. Y'know, smell the flowers.”
Mr. Ray gave me the old-man finger-gun and headed up the steps. “Have a good night, son.”

As I walked across the street to my house, I heard Brownie, who definitely shouldn't have still been outside, running down the block yelling Mr. Ray's name, begging him not to go inside because he finally learned an oldie—“My Girl.” By the time I reached my door, Brownie's little voice was belting out the words, some right, some wrong, and Mr. Ray's deep, raspy voice began singing right along with him.

When I got home I noticed that there was a message on the house phone's answering machine. It was my father, just rambling on and on about how Dr. Fisher was trying to kill him, and that all she was doing was breaking his legs more every day because she didn't want him to ever leave. His exact words were, “She got it bad for your daddy, boy. I can tell. And you better be careful, because you got my genes. Next thing you know, that girl, Love, be done broke your legs too.” He laughed hard enough to cough, then ended the message with, “Bring me some real food next time you come, okay? Love you, knucklehead.”

End of new messages.

Then it was straight to bed. It had been a while since I came home and went right to my room, took my suit off, brushed my teeth, washed my face, turned the lights off, and went straight to bed. No
TV
. No Tupac. The only thing I made sure to remember (after listening to my father's ridiculous message) was to open the
notebook,
THE SECRET TO GETTING GIRLS, FOR MATTY
, to the page where mom laid out how to make the OMG Omelette. I was planning to cook breakfast in the morning. It had been forever since I had done it, but I felt like I was ready; plus, I was tired of eating burned bodega bagels. And also, I made sure to take the Polaroid picture out of my jacket pocket. I had a place for it on my dresser, right next to the old photo of me, Mom, and Dad at the beach. But when I pulled out the Polaroid, it wasn't of the Sempervivum. Lovey had tricked me! She'd slipped a photo of me smiling into my pocket. I don't even remember her taking it. Shoot, I don't even remember smiling! I wrote
FIRST DATE WITH LOVE
on the white part at the bottom and stared at my face. It wasn't like I had a big cheese or nothing, but it was definitely a grin, and no joke, it wasn't bad. Maybe I had been smiling and didn't even know it.

I put the photo in its spot, next to the old one of me crying. I looked at the pair and could feel a little bit of laughter tingling inside me. Then I hit the light and got in bed. I pulled the covers over me, and when I yawned, it felt like the first time I had ever done it. Like I just let months of tired out of me. At the end of that yawn I was back in the church again. At my mother's funeral. But this time no one else was there. No preacher. No crying people. My dad wasn't there, and there wasn't even a casket. Just me and Mom, sitting in the front row. We hugged and she held my hand, and somehow we were talking, though neither one of us was actually saying anything. It was weird. I couldn't figure out where everyone else was, though. Maybe the funeral hadn't started yet. Or maybe the funeral was over.