فصل 21

TWENTY-ONE

Still no decision from the grand jury, so we’re still living.

It’s Saturday, and my family is at Uncle Carlos’s house for a Memorial Day weekend barbecue, which is also serving as Seven’s birthday/graduation party. He turns eighteen tomorrow, and he officially became a high school graduate yesterday. I’ve never seen Daddy cry like he did when Dr. Davis handed Seven that diploma.

The backyard smells like barbecue, and it’s warm enough that Seven’s friends swim in the pool. Sekani and Daniel run around in their trunks and push unsuspecting people in. They get Jess. She laughs about it and threatens to get them later. They try it once with me and Kenya and never again. All it takes is some swift kicks to their asses.

But DeVante comes up behind us and pushes me in. Kenya shrieks as I go under, getting my freshly done cornrows soaked and my J’s too. I have on board shorts and a tankini, but they’re new and cute, meaning they’re supposed to be looked at, not swam in.

I break the surface of the water and gulp in air.

“Starr, you okay?” Kenya calls. She’s run about five feet away from the pool.

“You not gon’ help me get out?” I say.

“Girl, nah. And mess up my outfit? You seem all right.”

Sekani and Daniel whoop and cheer for DeVante like he’s the greatest thing since Spide-Man. Bastards. I climb out that pool so fast.

“Uh-oh,” DeVante says, and the three of them take off in separate directions. Kenya goes after DeVante. I run after Sekani because dammit, blood is supposed to be thicker than pool water.

“Momma!” he squeals.

I catch him by his trunks and pull them way up, almost to his neck, until he has the worst wedgie ever. He gives a high-pitched scream. I let go, and he falls on the grass, his trunks so far up his butt it looks like he’s wearing a thong. That’s what he gets.

Kenya brings DeVante to me, holding his arms behind him like he’s under arrest. “Apologize,” she says.

“No!” Kenya yanks on his arms. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

She lets go. “Better be.”

DeVante rubs his arm with a smirk. “Violent ass.”

“Punk ass,” she snips back.

He flicks his tongue at her, and she goes, “Boy, bye!”

This is flirting for them, believe it or not. I almost forget DeVante’s hiding from her daddy. They act like they’ve forgotten too.

DeVante gets me a towel. I snatch it and dry my face as I head to the poolside loungers with Kenya. DeVante sits beside her on one.

Ava skips over with her baby doll and a comb, and I naturally expect her to shove them into my hands. She hands them to DeVante instead.

“Here!” she tells him, and skips off.

And he starts combing the doll’s hair! Kenya and I stare at him for the longest.

“What?” he says.

We bust out laughing.

“She got you trained!” I say.

“Man.” He groans. “She cute, okay? I can’t tell her no.” He braids the doll’s hair, and his long thin fingers move so quickly, they look like they’ll get tangled. “My li’l sisters did me like this all the time.”

His tone dips when he mentions them. “You heard from them or your momma?” I ask.

“Yeah, about a week ago. They at my cousin’s house. She live in like the middle of nowhere. Mom’s been a mess ’cause she didn’t know if I was okay. She apologized for leaving me and for being mad. She want me to come stay with them.”

Kenya frowns. “You leaving?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Carlos and Mrs. Pam said I can stay with them for my senior year. My momma said she’d be okay with that, if it means I stay outta trouble.” He examines his handiwork. The doll has a perfect French braid. “I gotta think about it. I kinda like it out here.”

Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” blasts from the speakers. That’s one song Daddy shouldn’t play. The only thing worse would be that old song “Back That Thang Up.” Momma loses her damn mind when it comes on. Really, just say, “Cash Money Records, takin’ over for the ’99 and the 2000,” and she suddenly becomes ratchet as hell.

She and Aunt Pam both go, “Heeey!” to Salt-N-Pepa and do all these old dance moves. I like nineties shows and movies, but I do not wanna see my mom and auntie reenact that decade in dance. Seven and his friends circle around them and cheer them on.

Seven’s the loudest. “Go, Ma! Go, Aunt Pam!”

Daddy jumps in the middle of the circle behind Momma. He puts both hands behind his head and moves his hips in a circle.

Seven pushes Daddy away from Momma, going, “Nooo! Stooop!” Daddy gets around him, and dances behind Momma.

“Uh-uh,” Kenya laughs. “That’s too much.”

DeVante watches them with a smile. “You were right about your aunt and uncle, Starr. They ain’t too bad. Your grandma kinda cool too.”

“Who? I know you don’t mean Nana.”

“Yeah, her. She found out I play spades. The other day, she took me to a game after she finished tutoring me. She called it extra-credit work. We been cool ever since.”

Figures.

Chris and Maya walk through the gate, and my stomach gets all jittery. I should be used to my two worlds colliding, but I never know which Starr I should be. I can use some slang, but not too much slang, some attitude, but not too much attitude, so I’m not a “sassy black girl.” I have to watch what I say and how I say it, but I can’t sound “white.”

Shit is exhausting.

Chris and his new “bro” DeVante slap palms, then Chris kisses my cheek. Maya and I do our handshake. DeVante nods at her. They met a few weeks ago.

Maya sits beside me on the lounger. Chris squeezes his big butt between us, pushing both of us aside a little.

Maya flashes him a stink eye. “Seriously, Chris?”

“Hey, she’s my girlfriend. I get to sit next to her.”

“Um, no? Besties before testes.”

Kenya and I snicker, and DeVante goes, “Damn.”

The jitters ease up a bit.

“So you’re Chris?” Kenya says. She’s seen pictures on my Instagram.

“Yep. And you’re Kenya?” He’s seen pictures on my Instagram too.

“The one and only.” Kenya eyes me and mouths, He is fine! Like I didn’t know that already.

Kenya and Maya look at each other. Their paths last crossed almost a year ago at my Sweet Sixteen, if you can consider that path-crossing. Hailey and Maya were at one table, Kenya and Khalil at another table with Seven. They never talked.

“Maya, right?” Kenya says.

Maya nods. “The one and only.”

Kenya’s lips curl up. “Your kicks are cute.”

“Thanks,” Maya says, checking them out for herself. Nike Air Max 95s. “They’re supposed to be running shoes. I never run in them.”

“I don’t run in mine neither,” Kenya says. “My brother’s the only person I know who actually runs in them.”

Maya laughs.

Okay. This is good so far. Nothing to worry about.

Until Kenya goes, “So where blondie at?”

Chris snorts. Maya’s eyes widen.

“Kenya, that ain’t—that’s not her name,” I say.

“You knew who I was talking about though, didn’t you?”

“Yep!” Maya says. “She’s probably somewhere licking her wounds after Starr kicked her ass.”

“What?” Kenya shouts. “Starr, you ain’t tell me about that!”

“It was, like, two weeks ago,” I say. “Wasn’t worth talking ’bout. I only hit her.”

“Only hit her?” Maya says. “You Mayweathered her.”

Chris and DeVante laugh.

“Wait, wait,” Kenya says. “What happened?”

So I tell her about it, without really thinking about what I say or how I sound. I just talk. Maya adds to the story, making it sound worse than it was, and Kenya eats it up. We tell her how Seven gave Remy a couple of hits, which has Kenya beaming, talking about, “My brother don’t play.” Like he’s only her brother, but whatever. Maya even tells her about the Thanksgiving cat thing.

“I told Starr we minorities gotta stick together,” Maya says.

“So true,” says Kenya. “White people been sticking together forever.”

“Well . . .” Chris blushes. “This is awkward.”

“You’ll get over it, boo,” I say.

Maya and Kenya crack up.

My two worlds just collided. Surprisingly, everything’s all right.

The song changes to “Wobble.” Momma runs over and pulls me up. “C’mon, Munch.”

I can’t dig my feet in the grass fast enough. “Mommy, no!”

“Hush, girl. C’mon. Y’all too!” she hollers back to my friends.

Everybody lines up on the grassy area that’s become the makeshift dance floor. Momma pulls me to the front row. “Show ’em how it’s done, baby,” she says. “Show ’em how it’s done!”

I stay still on purpose. Dictator or not, she’s not gonna make me dance. Kenya and Maya egg her on in egging me on. Never thought they’d team up against me.

Shoot, before I know it, I’m wobbling. I have duck lips too, so you know I’m feeling it.

I talk Chris through the steps, and he keeps up. I love him for trying. Nana joins in, doing a shoulder shimmy that’s not the Wobble, but I doubt she cares.

The “Cupid Shuffle” comes on, and my family leads everybody else on the front row. Sometimes we forget which way is right and which is left, and we laugh way too hard at ourselves. Embarrassing dancing and dysfunction aside, my family’s not so bad.

After all that wobbling and shuffling, my stomach begs for some food. I leave everybody else doing the “Bikers Shuffle,” which is a whole new level of shuffling, and most of our party guests are lost as hell.

Aluminum serving trays crowd the kitchen counter. I stack a plate with some ribs, wings, and corn on the cob. I scoop a nice amount of baked beans on there somehow. No potato salad. That’s the devil’s food. All that mayonnaise. I don’t care if Momma made it, I’m not touching that mess.

I refuse to eat outside, too many bugs that could get on my food. I plop down at the dining room table, and I’m about to go in on my plate.

But the damn phone rings.

Everybody else is outside, leaving me to answer. I shove a chicken wing in my mouth. “Hello?” I chomp in the other person’s ear. Rude? Definitely. Am I starving? Hell yeah.

“Hi, this is the front security gate. Iesha Robinson is asking to visit your residence.”

I stop chewing. Iesha was MIA at Seven’s graduation, which she was invited to, so why did she show up to the party she wasn’t invited to? How did she even find out about it? Seven didn’t tell her, and Kenya swore she wouldn’t. She lied and told her momma and daddy she was hanging with some other friends today.

I take the phone outside to Daddy because, shit, I don’t know what to do. I go out at a good time too. He’s trying—and failing—to Nae-Nae. I have to call him a second time for him to stop that atrocity and come over.

He grins. “You ain’t know your daddy had it in him, did you?”

“I still don’t. Here.” I hand him the phone. “That’s neighborhood security. Iesha’s at the security gate.”

His grin disappears. He plugs one ear and puts the phone to the other. “Hello?”

The security guard talks for a moment. Daddy motions Seven to the patio. “Hold on.” He covers the receiver. “Your momma at the gate. She wanna see you.”

Seven’s eyebrows knit together. “How did she know we’re here?”

“Your grandma’s with her. Didn’t you invite her?”

“Yeah, but not Iesha.”

“Look, man, if you want her to come back for a li’l bit, it’s cool,” Daddy says. “I’ll make DeVante go inside so she won’t see him. What you wanna do?”

“Pops, can you tell her—”

“Nah, man. That’s your momma. You handle that.”

Seven bites his lip for a moment. He sighs through his nose. “All right.”

Iesha pulls up out front. I follow Seven, Kenya, and my parents to the driveway. Seven always has my back. I figure he needs me to have his too.

Seven tells Kenya to stay back with us and goes toward Iesha’s pink BMW.

Lyric jumps out the car. “Sevvie!” She runs to him, the ball-shaped ponytail holders on her hair bouncing. I hated wearing those things. All it takes is one hitting you between your eyes and you’re done. Lyric launches into Seven’s arms, and he swings her around.

I can’t lie, I always get a little jealous when I see Seven with his other sisters. It doesn’t make sense, I know. But they share a momma, and it makes things different between them. It’s like they have a stronger bond or something.

But there’s no way in hell I’d trade Momma for Iesha. Nope.

Seven keeps Lyric on his hip and hugs his grandma with one arm.

Iesha gets out. A bob haircut has replaced her down-to-the-ass Indian import. She doesn’t even try to tug her hot-pink dress down that obviously rode up her thighs during the drive. Or maybe it didn’t ride up and that’s where it always was.

Nope. Wouldn’t trade Momma for anything.

“So you gon’ have a party and not invite me, Seven?” Iesha asks. “A birthday party at that? I’m the one who gave birth to your ass!”

Seven glances around. At least one of Uncle Carlos’s neighbors is looking. “Not now.”

“Oh, hell yes now. I had to find out from my momma because my own son couldn’t be bothered to invite me.” She sets her sharp glare on Kenya. “And this li’l fast thang lied to me about it! I oughta whoop your ass.”

Kenya flinches like Iesha already hit her. “Momma—”

“Don’t blame Kenya,” says Seven, setting Lyric down. “I asked her not to tell you, Iesha.”

“Iesha?” she echoes, all in his face. “Who the hell you think you talking to like that?”

What happens next is like when you shake a soda can real hard. From the outside, you can’t tell anything is going on. But then you open it, and it explodes.

“This is why I didn’t invite you!” Seven shouts. “This! Right now! You don’t know how to act!”

“Oh, so you ashamed of me, Seven?”

“You’re fucking right I’m ashamed of you!”

“Whoa!” Daddy says. Stepping between them, he puts his hand on Seven’s chest. “Seven, calm down.”

“Nah, Pops! Let me tell her how I didn’t invite her because I didn’t wanna explain to my friends that my stepmom isn’t my mom like they think. Or how I never once corrected anybody at Williamson who made the assumption. Hell, it wasn’t like she ever came to any of my stuff, so why bother? You couldn’t even show up to my graduation yesterday!”

“Seven,” Kenya pleads. “Stop.”

“No, Kenya!” he says, his sights square on their momma. “I’ll tell her how I didn’t think she gave a damn about my birthday, ’cause guess what? She never has! ‘You didn’t invite me, you didn’t invite me,’” he mocks. “Hell no, I didn’t. And why the fuck should I?”

Iesha blinks several times and says in a voice like broken glass, “After all I’ve done for you.”

“All you’ve done for me? What? Putting me out the house? Choosing a man over me every single chance you got? Remember when I tried to stop King from whooping your ass, Iesha? Who did you get mad at?”

“Seven,” Daddy says.

“Me! You got mad at me! Said I made him leave. That’s what you call ‘doing’ for me? That woman right there”—he stretches his arm toward Momma—“did everything you were supposed to and then some. How dare you stand there and take credit for it. All I ever did was love you.” His voice cracks. “That’s it. And you couldn’t even give that back to me.”

The music has stopped, and heads peek over the backyard fence.

Layla approaches him. She hooks her arm through his. He allows her to take him inside. Iesha turns on her heels and starts for her car.

“Iesha, wait,” Daddy says.

“Nothing to wait for.” She throws her door open. “You happy, Maverick? You and that trick you married finally turned my son against me. Can’t wait till King fuck y’all up for letting that girl snitch on him on TV.”

My stomach clenches.

“Tell him try it if he wants and see what happens!” says Daddy.

It’s one thing to hear gossip that somebody plans to “fuck you up,” but it’s a whole different thing to hear it from somebody who would actually know.

But I can’t worry about King right now. I have to go to my brother.

Kenya’s at my side. We find him on the bottom of the staircase. He sobs like a baby. Layla rests her head on his shoulder.

Seeing him cry like that . . . I wanna cry. “Seven?”

He looks up with red, puffy eyes that I’ve never seen on my brother before.

Momma comes in. Layla gets up, and Momma takes her spot on the steps.

“Come here, baby,” she says, and they somehow hug.

Daddy touches my shoulder and Kenya’s. “Go outside, y’all.”

Kenya’s face is scrunched up like she’s gonna cry. I grab her arm and take her to the kitchen. She sits at the counter and buries her face in her hands. I climb onto the stool and don’t say anything. Sometimes it’s not necessary.

After a few minutes, she says, “I’m sorry my daddy’s mad at you.”

This is the most awkward situation ever—my friend’s dad possibly wants to kill me. “Not your fault,” I mumble.

“I understand why my brother didn’t invite my momma, but . . .” Her voice cracks. “She going through a lot, Starr. With him.” Kenya wipes her face on her arm. “I wish she’d leave him.”

“Maybe she afraid to?” I say. “Look at me. I was afraid to speak out for Khalil, and you went off on me about it.”

“I didn’t go off.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Trust me, no, I didn’t. You’ll know when I go off on you.”

“Anyway! I know it’s not the same, but . . .” Good Lord, I never thought I’d say this. “I think I understand Iesha. It’s hard to stand up for yourself sometimes. She may need that push too.”

“So you want me to go off on her? I can’t believe you think I went off on you. Sensitive ass.”

My mouth flies open. “You know what? I’m gonna let that slide. Nah, I ain’t say you need to go off on her, that would be stupid. Just . . .” I sigh. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t either.”

We go silent.

Kenya wipes her face again. “I’m good.” She gets up. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yes! Stop asking me that. C’mon, let’s go back out there and stop them from talking about my brother, ’cause you know they’re talking.”

She heads for the door, but I say, “Our brother.”

Kenya turns around. “What?”

“Our brother. He’s mine too.”

I didn’t say it in a mean way or even with an attitude, I swear. She doesn’t respond. Not even an “okay.” Not that I expected her to suddenly go, “Of course, he’s our brother, I’m extremely sorry for acting like he wasn’t yours too.” I hoped for something though.

Kenya goes outside.

Seven and Iesha unknowingly hit the pause button on the party. The music’s off, and Seven’s friends stand around, talking in hushed tones.

Chris and Maya walk up to me. “Is Seven okay?” Maya asks.

“Who turned the music off?” I ask. Chris shrugs.

I pick up Daddy’s iPod from the patio table, our DJ for the afternoon that’s hooked up to the sound system. Scrolling through the playlist, I find this Kendrick Lamar song Seven played for me one day, right after Khalil died. Kendrick raps about how everything will be all right. Seven said it’s for both of us.

I hit play and hope he hears it. It’s for Kenya too.

Midway through the song, Seven and Layla come back out. His eyes are puffy and pink but dry. He smiles at me a little and gives a quick nod. I return it.

Momma leads Daddy outside. They’re both wearing cone-shaped birthday hats, and Daddy carries a huge sheet cake with candles lit on top of it.

“Happy birthday to ya!” they sing, and Momma does this not-as-embarrassing shoulder bounce. “Happy birthday to ya! Happy birth-day!”

Seven smiles from ear to ear. I turn the music down.

Daddy sets the cake on the patio table, and everybody crowds around it and Seven. Our family, Kenya, DeVante, and Layla—basically, all the black people—sing the Stevie Wonder version of “Happy Birthday.” Maya seems to know it. A lot of Seven’s friends look lost. Chris does too. These cultural differences are crazy sometimes.

Nana takes the song way too far and hits notes that don’t need to be hit. Momma tells her, “The candles are about to go out, Momma!”

She’s so damn dramatic.

Seven leans down to blow the candles out, but Daddy says, “Wait! Man, you know you don’t blow no candles out till I say something.”

“Aww, Pops!”

“He can’t tell you what to do, Seven,” Sekani chirps. “You’re grown now!”

Daddy shoots Sekani an up-and-down look. “Boy—” He turns to Seven. “I’m proud of you, man. Like I told you, I never got a diploma. A lot of young brothers don’t get theirs. And where we come from, a lot of them don’t make it to eighteen. Some do make it, but they’re messed up by the time they get there. Not you though. You’re going places, no doubt. I always knew that.

“See, I believe in giving my kids names that mean something. Sekani, that means merriment and joy.”

I snort. Sekani side-eyes me.

“I named your sister Starr because she was my light in the darkness. Seven, that’s a holy number. The number of perfection. I ain’t saying you’re perfect, nobody is, but you’re the perfect gift God gave me. I love you, man. Happy birthday and congratulations.”

Daddy affectionately clasps Seven’s neck. Seven grins wider. “Love you too, Pops.”

The cake is one of Mrs. Rooks’s red velvets. Everybody goes on and on about how good it is. Uncle Carlos pigs out on at least three slices. There’s more dancing, laughing. All in all, it’s a good day.

Good days don’t last forever though.