Having a little brother was supposed to bring diversity to her life, but unfortunately a newborn baby in the house brought Tracy nothing but agony.
Jason cried all night during his first year with them, and Tracy was forced to assist her mother in changing him, feeding him, watching him and keeping him busy, which had severely reduced her free time.
Twelve and going on thirteen, Tracy was about to enter her last year of junior high school. She had been watching Jason on weekends during the school year because her father’s work shift had changed. He had been working nights and on weekends with plenty of overtime.
Patti pissed a bitch about her husband’s new work schedule, but Dave still had to pay the bills. “If his ass would move back in, he could save four hundred dollars from that damn apartment of his,” she hissed to her daughter. Dave seemed to love working, but Patti thought of it as another convenient excuse for him to remain absent from the family.
It was aggravating for Tracy to have to keep an eye on Jason while her friends went out to the mall and to the movies. She started to argue with her mother as if they were married. And once summertime rolled around, Tracy was sick of watching Jason. He shouldn’t be my responsibility anyway! I’m not his mother! she snapped to herself.
“Mom, he can just sit here and watch TV by himself.”
“I told you to watch him while I clean up this house.”
“But I gotta get ready to go with my girlfriends.”
“I don’t care, girl!”
“God! I’m tired of this!” Tracy huffed, as she sat and watched Saturday morning cartoons with her brother.
Patti had gotten Dave to lug the television set from the basement into the living room, so she could have something to keep Jason busy. She was not in the basement much, and neither was Tracy, so there was no sense in leaving the television set there.
Jason, named after Patti’s late father, was two and a half years old and talking. He had Dave’s dark brown skin and his mother’s dark, almond-shaped eyes, a precious sight to see. But once he had gotten restless from watching cartoons, he jumped off of the living-room couch and ran back into the kitchen.
“TRA-CY! Get in here and get him!”
Tracy, Raheema and three other friends caught the H bus on Greene Street and went to the Cheltenham Mall. They were all anticipating going to high school in a year, and most of them were interested in boys.
Raheema, the only Catholic school student, didn’t know as many people as Tracy and the other girls. Catholic schools were smaller than most public schools.
Once they had arrived at the mall, the five girls ran in and out of the arcade looking for cute boys to talk to them. Many of the boys knew Tracy from school, so she was no big deal to them, but Raheema was a new pretty face. She got more attention than the other girls. All of the boys wanted to talk to her.
After a while, Tracy started to intervene, filled with jealousy. Yet she grew tired rather quickly of getting in Raheema’s way. Dag, Raheema’s lucky! she thought to herself as she began to watch, spiteful of all the attention her next-door neighbor was receiving.
“Ay, what’s your name?” a dimple-faced boy asked Raheema. He was standing next to a pinball machine inside of the arcade.
“Ra-Ra,” she said, smiling and backing away.
The dimple-faced boy seized her hand to keep her near. “Where you live at?”
Raheema yanked her hand away. “Diamond Lane.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No. I don’t want a boyfriend,” she told him.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t.”
“Well, can I talk to you as a friend?” he asked her nicely.
The other girls watched enviously.
Raheema then turned to them to rescue her from the jam she felt she was in. She asked no one in particular, “Aren’t we ready to go?”
“Answer his question,” Tracy said. She was purposefully trying to keep Raheema crammed.
“Well, if she won’t talk to you, I will,” Tracy’s girlfriend, Jantel, interjected while walking toward him. Jantel was a deep brown and skinny. She was very forward and athletic. She was one of the fastest girls on the track team at school. In fact, Jantel was faster than many boys her age.
The dimple-faced boy stood there in a daze, waiting for Raheema to respond to him.
Raheema shied away from him and slid behind the rest of the girls.
Tracy whispered, “He’s cute, Ra-Ra. Why don’t you want to talk to him?”
Raheema said aloud, “Because I don’t want to.”
“Dag, you stupid,” Tracy told her.
Raheema did the same to every boy who approached her at the mall that day. The other girls had no idea why Ra-Ra acted like she did. They all wished that they could take her place somehow.
“Uuw, look y’all, it’s try-outs for cheerleading,” Jantel said, noticing several fliers stapled to the telephone poles. As usual, Jantel led the pack on their way home.
The other girls ran over to join her as she read it aloud. Cheerleading was a sure method of meeting some top-quality boys. And football clubs in the Police Athletic League traveled around the city to play other teams. It was a great idea. They would become an important part of a new social organization.
Tracy hurried home to tell her mother about the cheerleading. Patti told her that she could join. She had not seen her daughter that excited in a while. The first day for try-outs was coming up in a week.
It was the beginning of August. Tracy turned thirteen in September. Raheema was a teen already, but she didn’t even bother to ask her parents about joining a cheerleading team. She thought it was out of the question. Keith would never let her join something so sexually suggestive, with little girls shaking their little hips and wearing little skirts while chanting sing-songs.
Tracy and her friends went to try-outs on that first Saturday in August. Thirty other girls were out for the same thing, but only fifteen of them could make the squad.
Tracy worked hard on her cheers at try-outs and stayed to watch the football players while they practiced. She was sure she was going to make the team. And she was right. Jantel had survived the cut with her.
The football players were immediately attracted to Tracy, but she had her eyes on the star running back. Steve had the admiration of all the boys on the team, and the coaches seemed to brag about him every day. Steve was going to be her next boyfriend. Tracy was sure of it.
She began to picture being with him even before the season started. After every touchdown he scored, she would wait on the sidelines and he would wink his eye at her. Then he would buy her a hot dog and soda and let her wear his jersey after the game.
Tracy expected to be the most popular girl on the team. She wanted to be the captain of the cheerleading squad, too. During the halftime shows, all of the parents and spectators would have their eyes glued to her.
Once the team started having scrimmages, Tracy asked enough about Steve to find out his age, address and the school he went to. She was not chosen to be the cheering captain, but that wasn’t that important. Steve being her boyfriend was Tracy’s priority.
Tracy then found out that Treasure, the captain of the cheering team, had already asked Steve for “a chance” to “go with her,” or in other words, to be her boyfriend. Steve liked her too, so he told her that he would. Yet Tracy didn’t believe that Steve really liked Treasure. He doesn’t like her more than he likes me. She just asked him first, Tracy assured herself.
Steve scored three touchdowns in their first game, and all of the fans were yelling out his name. Tracy was really pressed for him then. Part of her fantasy was coming true. Steve was the star of the team.
Tracy waited for him after the game and asked Steve how much he liked Treasure. Steve was pleased that Tracy was interested in him, but he was still loyal to his new girlfriend. He told Tracy that he liked Treasure a lot. Treasure even wore his jersey.
Tracy was on regular speaking terms with Steve after the second game. He began to notice Tracy a lot, but he still “went with” Treasure, or in other words, was still her boyfriend.
Tracy began to hint to Steve that she liked his number. Steve would always smile and fall silent instead of responding to her. He realized what Tracy was hinting at. She liked him, and she wanted to wear his jersey instead of Treasure. Tracy was slowly but surely wearing Steve down.
After their third game, which was played at their home field, Tracy noticed him walking home by himself. Steve’s friends had remained behind to watch the older boys play.
Tracy debated whether she would talk to him or not. It was still early that Saturday afternoon, and his girlfriend, Treasure, was nowhere to be found. Once Tracy decided that she would, she left Jantel and ran off to catch up to him.
“Hi, ‘Stevie.’ Are you going home already?” she asked him from behind.
Steve was as brown as Tracy’s brother Jason, and his low haircut made his perfectly rounded head look like a well-roasted peanut. He held his Wilson helmet in his hand.
“Yeah,” he told Tracy with a smile. Tracy’s assertiveness made him seem bashful.
“Why?” she asked him.
“Because, I have a homework assignment to do. I have a science project that I have to turn in on Monday.”
“Oh,” Tracy perked, remembering that Steve attended an advanced private school. Yet she failed to believe that he was that dedicated to doing homework on a Saturday. “Walk me home, Steve. Please,” she responded to him.
Steve resisted her. “Well, I wanna finish my project today, so I can watch football tomorrow. The Eagles are playing Dallas,” he told her.
Tracy grabbed onto his arm. “Aw, come on, Stevie. Please. I don’t live that far.”
Steve let out another bashful smile. “Okay.”
Dag, that was easy, Tracy thought to herself. She had expected to do more begging.
“So you still go with Treasure?” she asked him as they began to walk.
“I don’t know,” Steve answered. Treasure had not been paying him much attention after the second game. She didn’t even wear his jersey anymore.
“Well, do you still like her?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He sounded like he had said it out of obligation.
Tracy pressed him, smiling in her blue and gold uniform. “Do you like me?”
Steve grinned and said, “Yeah.”
I got him! Tracy told herself. She giggled, filled with self-assurance. He had given her the confidence she needed, and Tracy was set to go for the kill.
“Let me see your helmet,” she said, reaching out for it.
Steve gave it right to her. Tracy took it and smiled. She then accidentally dropped it on the ground while trying to hold it erect. Steve picked it up and made sure it wasn’t broken.
Tracy felt embarrassed by her clumsiness. “I’m sorry,” she told him.
“Don’t worry about that. This is a good helmet,” Steve responded. He beat on it with his right hand and said, “See?”
Tracy looked at him with sparkling hazel eyes as the sunlight hit them dead on. Steve shied away to avoid their magnetism.
Tracy could tell that he was nervous. “So are you gonna quit Treasure and go with me, Stevie?” she asked him bluntly. She could tell that Steve was a pushover.
He hunched his shoulders, still not looking Tracy in those scary eyes of hers. “I don’t care.”
“Well, can I hold your jersey? I’ll wash it for you and everything,” Tracy told him excitedly.
Steve wanted to say “no,” but he couldn’t overcome Tracy’s persistence. “Yeah, you can hold it,” he said, reluctantly, “but don’t mess it up. And don’t lose it, either.”
He took his blue jersey, with gold numbers trimmed in white, right off of his back.
“Thank you, Stevie. You so nice,” Tracy cheered, pinching his brown cheeks.
Steve cracked another smile.
Tracy then jumped onto his back, turning him into a horse. “Give me a piggy-back ride.”
“Okay,” he agreed, straining to carry her weight. “Let me put my helmet back on first.”
“Okay. I live right up the street,” she lied to him. She actually lived two blocks up.
Tracy smacked Steve on his helmet as he walked with her on his shoulders about halfway to the corner before putting her back down.
“Why you stop?”
“Because my back is hurting.”
“Aw, boy, I thought you was a strong running back,” Tracy huffed at him, disappointed.
“You can’t tackle me,” Steve said, teasing her.
Tracy retorted, “I don’t wanna tackle you.” She expected for Steve to get angry and stand his ground after a while, but he was already under her spell.
“Tracy, I have to go home now. Okay?” he told her, once they had reached her house.
Tracy rolled her eyes at him. “NO! I didn’t say you could go home yet.”
Steve pleaded, “I have to though. I have something to do.”
“Well, go ahead then. See if I care, boy,” Tracy warned him, childishly.
Tracy was dying for Steve to reject her so she could at least have a challenge. But he simply couldn’t. Tracy was too much for him.
“All right, I’ll stay,” he whined.
Tracy made Steve sit out on her steps while they played with her little brother until the sun started to go down. After realizing that her daughter was holding the boy hostage, Patti finally sent Steve home. Tracy then walked him to the corner and punched him in the arm. Steve told her he could take it and walked away giggling.
Tracy skipped back up the block, pleased with how easy it was to twist Steve around her pinky-finger. “I can make him do whatever I want,” she said to herself with a devilish grin.
A black Mustang convertible pulled up to the curb as Tracy walked back to her steps. Out jumped Mercedes. Tracy had not seen Mercedes since she had left home, more than two years ago.
“Look, I’m just going in to see my mother for a few minutes,” she said to the young man sitting behind the wheel in sunglasses.
“Aw’ight, I’ll be back,” he said. He pumped up the volume on his car’s radio and speeded up the street.
Mercedes walked to the steps and spotted Tracy smiling at her. “Hey, girlfriend, how you been doin’?” she asked. She hugged Tracy and backed away to see how tall she was getting. “Damn, you’re getting big, girl. You gon’ be able to hang out with the old-heads soon.”
Tracy blushed as she looked Mercedes over. Mercedes wore black designer shoes with a matching pocketbook and a blue leather skirt with a multi-colored sweater. Her neck was dripping with gold, and she wore huge gold earrings that shone in the dark. Her hair was fabulous and asymmetric. Mercedes looked gorgeous, like a teenage movie star who had returned for a visit home.
“Where you get those earrings?” Tracy asked her.
“My boyfriend bought them for me. But how you been, Tracy?”
Tracy was stunned. She practically forgot everything that she wanted to tell Mercedes. She was too wrapped up in Mercedes’ outfit, the car, the boyfriend and the glamour. “That was a decent car he had,” she commented, impressed.
Mercedes responded with a smile, “I know. Ain’t that car smooth, girl? Well, look, my old man ain’t in the house, is he?”
“No. Mr. Keith works overtime now, just like my father.”
“Good, ’cause I came to see my mother right quick.”
Tracy was astounded as she continued to observe. Mercedes entered her house with her old key. Her mother was watching television when she walked in.
“Hey, mom, how’s life been treating you?” Mercedes perked.
Beth was shocked. “Girl, it’s about time you came up here to see your mother! It’s so dag-gone far, going all the way down South Philly.”
They hugged each other and took a seat. Mercedes immediately pulled out a pack of Newports from the Gucci purse inside of her pocketbook. She lit one up and started to smoke without even asking her mother if she would mind.
Raheema came down from her room, saw Mercedes and frowned. She didn’t see what Tracy saw. Raheema’s idea of success was totally different. Mercedes was still just a teenager to Raheema, a teenager trying to be a grown-up.
Mercedes ignored her sister’s glare.
“When you start smoking?” Beth asked her.
Mercedes lied, “Like last year, sometime.”
“That stuff leads to cancer,” her mother told her as she fanned the smoke from in front of her.
Mercedes took another puff. “Look, mom, I ain’t come over here to be lectured.”
“Well, leave then. Nobody wants you back here anyway!” Raheema shouted at her. She headed back up the steps and went to her room. “She got some nerve!” she mumbled to herself as she slammed her bedroom door. “She just thinks she can come back here and do what she wants. I hate her! She ain’t nobody.”
Mercedes felt slightly annoyed by this. She decided that she would leave sooner than she had expected. Raheema’s still acting like a big-ass kid! she snapped to herself. She needs to grow the hell up! This is my God-damned life, and I’ll live the way I wanna fuckin’ live!
“Where you goin’?” Beth asked, as her oldest daughter stood up in haste.
“I’m gettin’ up out of here, mom. I see I’m not welcome anymore.”
Beth said, “Let me tell you a few things before you leave. Now you may think you got them streets and all, but that’s a life for losers. So please screw your head back on and do the right thing.”
“And what’s the right thing, mom, to move back in here with y’all?” Mercedes asked, sourly.
Her mother was speechless. That’s what you need to do, Beth thought to herself. But it was no use in trying to advise Mercedes. It would have been a waste of breath.
Mercedes walked out the door. The young man wearing sunglasses was parked and drinking a soda. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” she told him.
Mercedes threw her head back against the black leather interior. Her friend then revved up his sporty black Mustang. They left listening to Kurtis Blow as her mother shut the door.
Two teenaged girls went to sleep that night with different thoughts on Mercedes. To Raheema, her older sister was still a monster, but to Tracy, Mercedes had become a star. Raheema vowed that she would never be anything like her, while Tracy planned to try her best to emulate Mercedes’ glamorous style.
“Did you quit her yet?” Tracy asked Steve before practice.
“Yeah, I told her last night.”
“Well, how come you didn’t call me?”
“Because, you didn’t give me your phone number yet.”
“Oh, well, I’ll give it to you one day,” Tracy said, walking away from him.
“Did you wash my jersey?” Steve asked her, following close behind.
“Yup. I’m gonna wear it to school tomorrow,” she told him.
Tracy walked over to where a few of the cheerleaders had gathered and heard Steve’s ex-girlfriend, Treasure, talking about her.
“Tracy thinks she’s it, and I didn’t want Steve anyway.”
“If you got somethin’ to say, then say it to my face, girl,” Tracy challenged her.
“I didn’t say nothin’ to you,” Treasure responded, backing down.
“Yes you did. I heard you. I’m not deaf. How you gon’ sit up here and lie to me?”
The girls gathered around, expecting a fight.
Treasure said, “Well, you can have Steve if you want him, because I don’t.”
Steve hunched his shoulders. What did I do? he thought to himself in a panic.
“Yeah, you just mad because I took him,” Tracy commented.
Treasured stepped away, still mouthing, “Like I said, you can have him. He ain’t nobody.”
The heat cooled off when the cheering coach started them off practicing their drills. Tracy thought about what Treasure had said during practice, and felt cheated, like she had bought a loaf of stale bread. She debated Treasure’s comments. Was Treasure simply jealous, or was Steve just a flunky?
Tracy began to mess up her cheers as the other girls snickered at her. They didn’t seem to care much that she “went with” the most popular player on the team. Then again, Steve was not popular on the streets like other boys were; he was only a running back. No one paid any attention to him after the game was over. Everyone would shake Steve’s hand and talk about him during the game, but after that, Steve was pretty much a loner.
With the confusion over Steve on her mind, practice became much longer and harder for Tracy. After a team meeting, the boys were excused from practice earlier than the cheerleading team, so they all walked over to watch the girls. For the first time that season, Tracy could see who the best-looking players were while their helmets were off.
Steve was not all that cute compared to some other boys. It was up in the air as to whether or not Tracy should drop him. A lot of players look better than him, she told herself. Nevertheless, Tracy decided to hold on to him for a while. Steve still scored the most touchdowns.
“Ay, Carmen, that’s not the right way to do it!” a boy wearing a blocked haircut yelled.
“Shet up, Amir!” Carmen hollered back, smiling at him.
“I know, he always got something smart to say,” Jantel commented.
“He need to leave people alone,” Carmen added.
The block-haired boy sucked his teeth and spun around to show them his backside. “Y’all can all kiss my—”
“You get out of here before I tell the coach,” the tall cheerleading instructor interjected.
Amir curved his mouth after spotting her.
Tracy was excited for a second, wondering who he was. Amir looked as if he could be her twin. His skin tone matched hers perfectly, and only the coolest boys wore blocked haircuts.
Amir was the middle linebacker on defense, and he made most of the tackles. He had an obvious muscular build, Tracy could tell by his broad shoulders. He could tackle Steve, she thought. She couldn’t wait until after practice to ask more about him.
“Ay Jantel, give me the juicy fruit on Amir. You know, who does he go with, how old is he, where does he live? Girl, tell me everything,” Tracy piped.
Jantel broke into laughter. “Unt unh, girl, you don’t wanna talk to him.”
“Why not?”
“Because, he’s fresh. He be squeezing on girls’ butts and feeling all on them and stuff. That boy is freaky. I wouldn’t talk to him. But he talks to Carmen anyway.”
“Does Carmen know that he’s nasty?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah, but she don’t care.”
“She don’t?”
“Nope,” Jantel responded. Then she whispered to Tracy. “I think she be ‘doin’ it’ to him. I heard she fresh, too.”
“Oh my God. For real?” Tracy asked with a grin.
Jantel nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I heard.”
Tracy went home thinking about Amir. She didn’t want to be nasty with him, but she thought about him anyway. Steve had not been Tracy’s boyfriend for a week, and already she was planning on dumping him. Steve wasn’t any fun. Tracy needed to chase just as much as boys did. It was a game of choosing and chasing and dumping.
Tracy walked into her house and noticed her little brother smiling at her. Jason stared at her with his dark almond eyes as though Tracy was a ghost. Then he began to laugh. Tracy walked over to him, wondering what was going on.
Dave jumped out of the closet on her. “I GOTCHA!”
Tracy screamed as her father grabbed her from behind, “OOOWWW!”
He let her go and started to laugh himself. “I didn’t know I could scare a big old girl like you all that bad.”
“Yeah, dad, you surprised me,” Tracy told him while she caught her breath.
Jason dashed and jumped on his father’s legs.
“Dad-dy,” he yelped.
“Yeah, what’s up, little man?”
“He talks a lot, now,” Tracy said.
“I know. I talked to him while you were at practice. How’s the team turning out?”
“We 3–0, dad.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty good. Your mother told me you had one of them sitting on the step for three hours,” he said to her.
Tracy started to giggle, embarrassingly. “Aw, dad, why mom telling you my business?”
“Because you don’t have no business yet. And if you think you got some business, then I plan to stay in your business,” Dave told his daughter with a grin.
Tracy smiled back at him and decided to tell him her business. “Well, that was this running back named Steve. He makes most of the touchdowns.”
Her father nodded and started to reminisce. “Yeah, I remember when I played little league. I was the middle linebacker, crushin’ kids.”
“You played on defense, hunh, dad?” Tracy asked him, curious. Amir was middle linebacker, too.
“That’s right. I liked to hit. Them cats on offense were the soft guys.”
“Did you have a girlfriend?”
Dave smiled with boyish charm. “Well, I don’t think I wanna tell you about that.”
Tracy laughed, assuming that her father had had plenty. “Did the running backs have a lot of girls?” she asked him.
Dave answered, “Yeah. They had the most. All the girls were into the touchdown thing. They weren’t really into the hitting. They all liked the quarterback, too.”
“So what type of girls did you get?” Tracy pressed him.
Dave smiled again, knowing that he was planting some bad seeds in his daughter’s head. “I ended up with the girls who ran around chasin’ boys. I always got them rough tomboy girls. We had a bunch of fun though,” he answered her. “Your mother was a tomboy.”
Dave left back out that night, as usual, after filling Tracy’s head with his memories. Tracy was no tomboy, but she was more aggressive than most girls her age. She never planned on sitting around being prissy, and waiting for boys to talk to her. Tracy was a boy-chaser indeed.
Tracy observed Amir for the rest of that week. It became clear to her that he was known around the neighborhood as a bad kid. He had been run off of many neighborhood streets by angry parents. Amir was always into something.
Tracy watched Amir making tackles more than she watched Steve run hand-offs during their fourth game. It became exciting to hear those hard, cracking hits. Every time Amir would get someone good, the crowd would moan, “WHEW! Damn, that boy can hit!”
Amir knocked two opposing players out of the game. He had done it before, yet Tracy had paid the defense little attention before her father’s comments.
The fans talked about Amir’s brutal hits more than the touchdowns that fourth game. What a coincidence it was for Steve to be overshadowed right when Tracy was thinking about dropping him for Amir.
After the game, Tracy and Steve went to the movies along with Jantel and a few of Tracy’s other girlfriends. She wanted to leave Steve at home, but when Carmen hugged Amir after the game, Tracy decided that it was better to have something than nothing.
The movie line at the Cheltenham Twin Theater was long, filled with teens and a few adults. They all had to wait in line a half hour to see a new Chuck Norris film. Several boys from other teams were there. They all walked up and shook Steve’s hand as they talked about the upcoming games. That cheered Tracy up a bit, but it was not enough to keep her satisfied with him.
Steve bought her popcorn and found good seats. They sat quietly as Tracy’s girlfriends ran their mouths about who was who and who was cute and who was not while watching boys walking up, down and through the aisles. Tracy was bored. All she could think about was Amir and Carmen. She then asked for some candy. Steve gave her a dollar out of his allowance money for her to go and get what she wanted from the refreshment stand. Tracy then faked going to the bathroom several times before the movie started to look at other young couples, noticing how happy they seemed.
Life seemed dull with Steve. He never gave Tracy any tingles, except for when he scored touchdowns. She was beginning to see that she didn’t really like him as a person. She only wanted the star of the football team.
A pack of wild, yelling boys stomped into the theater after the previews had started. Tracy noticed a few of them from school. The boys jumped from seat to seat, joking around with each other. Tracy and her girlfriends began to pay them more attention than they did the big screen. They continued to wrestle each other right up until a few angry parents cussed them out.
“AY, AMIR, get me some popcorn while you up there!” one of the boys yelled.
Tracy couldn’t believe her ears. She watched the shadowy figure walk up the aisle. He was the right size and height, wearing a baseball cap. Oh my God, he’s here! Tracy thought, excitedly.
“I’m going to get a hot dog,” she told Steve.
“Yeah, I bet,” Jantel commented with a laugh.
Crowds of people packed the refreshment lines all hurrying to be served before the films started. Tracy eyed Amir’s broad back, with three people separating them. She slowly walked nearby and showed herself off like a young model, hoping that Amir would notice her tight yellow sweater and Sergio blue-jeans.
“Dag, this line is all long,” she said to no one in particular. She was begging for Amir to respond to her.
Amir smiled at her. “You gon’ have to go to the end of the line, like everybody else,” he said. Then he began to laugh.
“Shet up, boy,” Tracy snapped at him, holding his name at the tip of her tongue.
Amir let her get up in front of him as the line moved. When it stopped, he leaned against her butt. Tracy felt him and wondered if he did it on purpose.
The line moved again. Tracy was reluctant to move with it, not wanting to move away from him. Amir then pushed her ahead.
“What’s your name?” he finally asked her.
“Tracy,” she said without turning to face him.
“Where you live?”
“Right around the corner from you,” she lied. Tracy thought that he would be shocked by this.
“How you know where I live?” he asked her instead.
“Because I’ve seen you around,” she responded, still moving forward.
“Well, how come you never said nothin’ to me?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you gon’ be out tonight?” he asked her.
“If it ain’t too cold,” Tracy answered. “I’m on your cheerleading team,” she finally revealed to him. It was eating her up inside that he didn’t know who she was.
“Wow, tell me something I didn’t know,” he said to her with a grin.
Tracy laughed softly, relieved. Amir had noticed her. “How you know?” she quizzed him.
“You hang out with Jantel and that girl Raheema.”
Tracy sucked her teeth at hearing her next-door neighbor’s name. “How you know her?” she asked with a grimace.
“Who?” Amir said, making Tracy have to say it.
She sighed and said, “Raheema.”
“Oh. My friend was trying to talk to her. I saw y’all hangin’ out in the mall before.”
“Oh . . . Do you think she’s pretty?” Tracy just had to ask.
“Yeah, she’s all right,” Amir told her.
They both seemed to forget about the movie. They stood inside the lobby and talked even after they had been served.
Amir asked, “Why, are you jealous of her?”
“NO! I ain’t jealous of her!” Tracy responded radically.
“Yes, you are,” Amir rebutted. “But I like you more than her.” He ran his hands over Tracy’s neck and shoulder and then through her hair. It gave her a chill. Tracy wanted more, but then Amir left her abruptly. Chuck Norris was in action.
Tracy followed him back inside the theater and returned to her seat with a bag of candy.
“That sure was a long trip to get a hot dog, Tracy,” Jantel joked. Her friends broke into laughter.
“Yeah, what took you so long?” Steve asked Tracy.
“The line was long,” she said with an attitude.
“Oh,” Steve said. He quickly dismissed it. Tracy was angry at how gullible he was for believing her. It was a waste of time to go to the movies with him. He is so boring! she thought to herself.
Tracy was glad to get back home from the movies with Steve. When she had arrived home, she found Raheema sitting out on her front steps.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, hoping that Raheema was leaving soon. Raheema had definitely become a rival to Tracy.
“I have to spend the night over your house because my parents are going out all night,” she answered, blandly. Raheema was not pleased with the idea of having to be baby-sat any more than Tracy wanted her over there.
Tracy saw it as an opportunity to settle their differences. She wanted to get to the bottom of things with her neighbor. Raheema was rejecting some top-quality boys for no good reason.
Tracy asked, “Do you know some boys named Amir and Todd?”
“Yeah, that boy named Todd wanted to talk to me,” Raheema told her, not at all excited about it. “He used to try and wait for me whenever I came home from school. I don’t know why. I kept telling him that I didn’t want any boyfriends.”
“What does he look like?”
Raheema gave Tracy a good looking over. “He’s a little lighter than you and shorter than you,” she said.
Tracy was taller than Raheema by at least three inches.
“You didn’t like him?” she asked.
“He’s all right.”
“So didn’t you want to talk to him?”
“I did talk to him. I told him that I didn’t want a boyfriend.”
Tracy sucked her teeth. “Girl, what is wrong with you? How come you get all of the boys?”
Raheema smiled. Tracy was really pissed off about the attraction that boys seemed to have toward her.
“I don’t know,” Raheema responded to her. “I don’t even pay them no mind.”
They walked inside the house.
“You don’t like boys at all, do you?” Tracy asked.
“I like your little brother. Jason doesn’t want anything from me like the other ones do.”
Tracy sat down on the couch. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“Boys only want one thing,” Raheema said, still standing.
“And what’s that?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” she answered, feeling embarrassed that she was asked to say it.
“Well, you probably never gon’ have a boyfriend then.”
“Tracy, like I said, I don’t want any boyfriends. I don’t want to be used.”
“Why you thinking that? I’m not used. I don’t give them nothin’,” Tracy bragged. They quieted down a bit once they heard Patti walking around upstairs and approaching the steps.
“Well, how are you two doing?” Patti asked them.
“Okay,” they mumbled in unison.
Patti looked at them suspiciously and mumbled, “Mmm hmm, you two are down here gossiping. Well, when you want some real answers about the dating thing, you just let me know. I can tell you two a lot of things about what not to do. But other than that, you’re on your own, because these damn men are definitely trifling,” she told them before heading inside of the kitchen to get herself some ice cream. “Damn selfish fool gon’ tell me that things are fine the way they are,” she continued to mumble to herself from the kitchen.
Raheema and Tracy began to smile at each other. But Tracy was a little embarrassed. She knew who her mother was talking about, and she was sure that Raheema was smart enough to figure things out.
They continued to sit, silently, until Tracy’s mother had passed them again. Patti then reached the top of the steps and told them, “You can go on back to your boy-talk now.”
Tracy and Raheema smiled at each other again.
“Are you ever gonna get married?” Tracy asked Raheema.
Raheema looked at her incredulously. “What? How you go from boyfriends to getting married?”
“Just answer the question,” Tracy snapped.
Raheema took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
Tracy looked over Raheema’s light skin and long, dark brown hair. She had given up on trying to figure her out.
“What did you do today?” she asked, changing the subject.
“I did my homework and watched TV.”
Tracy frowned. “That’s all you did today?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Ain’t you bored with your life or something? God!”
Raheema hunched her shoulders. “No, not really. I mean, sometimes I get bored, but everybody gets bored once in a while.”
“Yeah, but at least we do more than you,” Tracy told her, standing up.
Tracy went up the steps pondering how dull Raheema’s life seemed. They ended up playing board games while discussing their futures until three-thirty in the morning. They both slept hard that night with the future on their minds.
Raheema wanted to become a successful doctor or a lawyer, and live in a big white house. She still didn’t know if she would marry or not, but if she did, she would not hesitate to divorce any man who would use or abuse her. She would wait her entire life for a loving, respectable husband if she had to do so.
Tracy wanted a house filled with kids and a fun-loving husband who would fulfill all of her dreams. Her husband had to be exciting, generous and full of surprises. Tracy didn’t care what her occupation would be. As long as she had a handsome husband who met all of her criteria with money to boot, she would be happy. “As long as we’re not poor,” she had told Raheema.
They awoke late Sunday morning and watched the Eagles play the Giants. Raheema didn’t show any interest in football. She ate sandwiches and talked about her teachers.
Ever since her sister, Mercedes, had left the house, Raheema had received nothing but A’s in all of her classes. Mercedes’ leaving seemed to be an inspiration point for Raheema to do the best that she could in school. Keith praised her and put her older sister down in the same sentence. “Raheema’s studying the way a smart girl is supposed to study, not like that crazy sister of hers. I can’t even remember her name,” he would comment with a laugh. But he really did miss his first daughter. He couldn’t get Mercedes off of his mind. Whenever his friends came over, he would tell them the same story of how Mercedes was his “darling girl” who had turned rotten on him, and how Raheema had turned out to be the good girl. “The Jekyll & Hyde Sisters,” he called them.
Tracy, on the other hand, had gotten A’s and B’s and had never missed a day in school, except for when she was suspended for fighting. Neither Patti nor Dave worried about Tracy’s schoolwork. They continued to treat her like a little woman. Patti let Tracy do almost anything she wanted. Tracy’s not a bad girl, she thought. She knows what to do and what not to do. I trust her. And her father trusted her as well. Tracy had had a good behavior record.
Steve heard about Tracy talking to Amir in the lobby at the movies during practice that week. Amir hung out with a rough crowd. Steve was intimidated by him, so he didn’t want any hearsay going around. He decided to keep the fact that he knew to himself, but he surely didn’t trust Tracy anymore.
It was an unusually hot day for October. Everyone seemed to be at the playground where they practiced. Tracy watched out of the corner of her eye to notice if Amir’s friend Todd was there. Tracy was curious to see what he looked like.
After practice, Tracy talked Jantel into following Amir home with her. She was scared to say anything to him with his buddies still around. Amir spotted them and refused to speak.
Tracy sneered at him. “Oh, you don’t know me now?”
“Nope,” he told her, laughing with his friends.
Tracy smiled at his sarcasm. “Come here for a minute, Amir.”
“Hold up, y’all, let me see what she wants.”
“Yo, we’ll get back with you then,” his friends told him.
Amir walked over to Tracy. Close up, and with his hat off, Tracy noticed that his block-shaped hair had dents in it from wearing his helmet. And unlike Steve, Amir didn’t shy away from her hazel eyes.
Tracy asked him carefully, “Why don’t you walk me home?”
Amir shook his dented head. “Naw, ’cause I’m ’bout to do something.”
“Come on, Amir. Please,” she begged him.
Amir began to laugh at her, unmoved by her pleading. His friends then yelled from down the street, “YO AMIR, WE ’BOUT TO HAVE WATER BALLOON FIGHTS!”
“OH, BET!” he hollered back, immediately taking off to go and join them.
Dag, I had him, Tracy thought.
“Let’s go around there,” she said to Jantel.
“All right.”
They ran two blocks up and watched as the boys chased each other like buffoons, screaming and hurling water balloons. Amir then threw one at Tracy. She got hit before she had a chance to duck. Water splashed all over her clothes and hair. One of his friends followed his lead and bombed away at Jantel. The girls quickly became target practice. After getting splashed a few more times, Jantel started to cry, but Tracy was still having fun.
An angry parent roared from his patio, “AMIR, LEAVE THEM DAMN GIRLS ALONE!”
Tracy and Jantel headed on their way back home.
Tracy asked, “What ’chew start cryin’ for?”
Jantel whined, “They hit me in my eye.”
“YO TRACY, HOLD UP!” Amir shouted down the block to them. Tracy turned and waited for him at the corner. Jantel marched home while rubbing her left eye. Once he had caught up, Amir walked home with Tracy.
“Why she start crying?”
“Because one of y’all hit her in her eye.”
“Well, you ’bout to go in the house?” Amir asked.
Tracy smiled, anticipating something “juicy.” “I don’t know. Why?” she quizzed him.
Once they had reached Tracy’s house, Amir sat on her steps and looked up at the moon. “ ’Cause,” he told her, hinting at companionship.
Tracy grinned and sat down beside him. “You got me all wet,” she complained, feeling a cool draft.
Amir said, “Come here. Let me see how wet you are.” He sat Tracy right down on his thigh pad. “Dig it, you are wet.”
“Shet up, boy,” she teased.
Amir looked at her lips. Tracy could sense what he was thinking. He then wrapped his hands around her waist before she had a chance to respond and kissed her. Tracy couldn’t resist him. Amir’s arms were pretty strong, and Tracy began to like how tightly he held her.
Amir suddenly backed away.
“What ’chew stop for?” Tracy asked him, curiously. She looked up at her house and then next door to make sure no one saw them. She then hopped off of Amir’s lap in a panic. Oh my God! What am I doing? she asked herself. I could have gotten busted, right in front of my house.
Tracy hopped down a few steps to distance herself from him. “ ’Cause what?”
Amir paused. “You wanna come over my house Monday?”
“I’on care,” Tracy said without thinking. She simply went with the feeling, and the feeling from Amir was good.
Amir grinned, surprised that she had agreed. “How old are you?”
“Thirteen. Why?”
“Oh, I was just asking. So you coming to my house, Monday, after school, right?” he asked again, just to make sure.
“Aw’ight,” Tracy chirped, still filled with sneaky excitement. She then got up to go inside the house as Amir took off running, carrying a big smile on his face.
Tracy thought about the next thing that comes after kissing that night. It tickled her stomach to think about the possibility of “doin’ it.” I don’t know, she told herself. I don’t know if I want to.
Tracy bragged about her football team’s record at school. They were still undefeated and on their way to a sure championship. Students wore jerseys from other teams and argued with her up and down the halls in between their classes. Tracy had forgotten all about going over to Amir’s house. She wasn’t ready to go past kissing yet. She had hardly done that. Amir had been the first and only boy Tracy had kissed since Aaron Barnes, at least five boyfriends ago. Having a boyfriend was like watching television to Tracy. She didn’t have to get too involved, she would just change the channel and watch something new.
Tracy came across three girls inside of the lunchroom. They had some interesting gossip to nose in on.
“I know, he is nasty. He only want you for one thing,” a slim brown girl was saying.
“Yup, and that’s why I don’t talk to him no more,” a darker brown girl responded.
“But Todd is cute though, ain’t he?” a lemon-skinned girl interjected.
“Yeah, but forget Amir. Bunk him, y’all, ’cause he’s just a user.”
The shock was enough to ruin Tracy’s day. Raheema was right. It came back to Tracy that she was supposed to go over Amir’s house after school. I’m not going to that boy’s house, she thought. He ain’t gettin’ none from me. That boy thinks I’m stupid. He’s out here trying to get everybody.
“Ay, girl, what’s up?” Amir called, as soon as Tracy stepped out of her building. Several football players from her school shook his hand. Tracy wasn’t impressed. She kept pacing by, ignoring him.
“Where you goin’?” he asked her.
“I’m going home.”
“I thought you said you was gon’ come over today.”
“Did you get out of school early?” Tracy asked, avoiding his question.
“Yeah, we get out earlier than y’all every day. I’m in high school.”
Tracy frowned at him. “You don’t trust me or something? I said I was gonna come.”
“Oh, I’m supposed to trust you so you can sell me out?” Amir retorted.
“You can’t take my word for it?” Tracy asked him.
Amir shook his blocked-shaped head. “Nope.”
“Well, you go find yourself somebody else then,” Tracy responded to him, walking away.
Amir went back to his friends.
“Yo, what happened, man?”
“Fuck that girl, cuz’,” he answered, sourly. “She ain’t nothin’. Bet, here comes Carmen.”
Carmen walked out from the building, switching her firm young hips and wearing a bright red jacket. She stood out from everyone, and her soft brown skin smelled of cocoa-butter cream.
Amir waited for her to walk near him. Carmen tried not to notice. Amir stepped in her way.
“Where you goin’?”
“I’m goin’ home,” Carmen responded nervously.
“No you ain’t. You goin’ wit’ me,” he told her, snatching her by the hand.
Carmen asked, “Where we goin’?”
“We goin’ to my boy’s crib. Why, you don’t wanna go wit’ me?” he snapped, letting go of her hand momentarily.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, shet up and come on then.”