Chapter 45

IT’S BEEN RAINING all week, seven days straight. I’m watching it run down the windows, make puddles in the streets. He got on a see-through poncho. Not that it do any good. His clothes still getting soaked. His sneakers drown in water every time his feet take a step. That hat he wearing dripping water in his face. And the cars don’t stop. They fly up the boulevard faster than ever, like that’ll keep ’em drier. Sometimes seem like they splash him on purpose.

Once the rain slow down, I walk out the door. Leave the building. Cross the street. On the way, I check for loose change. Soon as I get in the store, here he come. “I’m not stealing nothing. I got an interview,” I tell the guard. He ask me to leave anyhow.

I done my hair up real nice. It got wet on the way here. I put on my best pants, a shirt I don’t like ’cause it’s old lady like, but the kind the cashier girl wears. “Here.” I pull out the paper that says the time of my interview and who it’s with. I printed it out at the motel. The owner let me, ’cause he say I better get something quick. “See. That’s me. Charlese Jones. This is the store, right?” I point to the name and address and hope he don’t hold that Tylenol thing against me. Nobody else will hire me.

We still near the front door. Close to the aisle with the seasonal stuff. Skeletons and scarecrows face us. Spiderwebs and candy corn sitting on shelves behind my back. He talking loud. Says before I do the interview, he got to “inform the manager about my prior activities in the store.”

“What that mean?” I say, like I don’t know.

He explain. My eyes go from his face to his feet. “Mister,” I say. “Please.” I clear my throat. “I need this job. I got a child.” I don’t want to. But I gotta look in his face to see if I stand a chance of getting what I want.

He move out my way. Says he can do it now or do it later. But he’s gonna do it. And once it’s done, my application will end up in the trash. “So, you’ll only be wasting your time, and his.”

He smiling like he done me a favor.

I turn around and go back to where I came from. Soon as I’m back inside almost about to cry, she call me. “How you doing, Char?”

I look at all the pictures I colored since I been here. One whole wall is full, top to bottom. “I’m all right. You?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.”

That make me feel better, her needing something from me. “Awright, talk?”

“Don’t get mad.”

“You been talking about me or something? I knew I shoulda—”

“I wouldn’t do nothing like that, Char. It’s about—Caleb.”

“Oh.” I walk over to Cricket.

“I didn’t want to tell you because—”

“What? He gay? I knew it.”

“Char.”

“Okay, so he ain’t gay. Wish he was. Then he’d have a good reason for not liking me. So, what he do? Feel you up, try to kiss you.”

“You know he’s not like that.”

I don’t want to hear about Caleb. Not about him being with her. I liked him a lot. He ain’t notice me at all, unless I was being mean to him. I might as well have been invisible, air. But if I hada kissed him—man—he would never ever forget me. He’d be hurting for me hard, chasing me like the cops. “Well—what he do?” I walk up to the window and watch him, wondering if water boy is a good kisser.

“Nothing. That’s the problem.”

“Oooh, Maleeka ready to—”

“I’m in high school, Char, and I never been kissed.”

I shut up and listen. She the only one out of seven of her girls who ain’t been kissed ever, she tells me. Some ain’t even virgins anymore, she say. “So, I gotta get kissed—quick. And by Caleb.”

“Why him? Why now?”

“’Cause I lied and told them—”

“Maleeka Madison done something bad for once.” I crack up. “And I didn’t make her.”

“Char—I’m serious.”

I tell her you can’t kiss a boy ’cause you lied and told somebody you already done it. Caleb likes Maleeka. A lot. Who don’t know that? If he ain’t kissed her, he’s got reasons. “And you shouldn’t do nothing stupid just because of them girls.”

He packs up. Looks up. Waves at me. I keep a red shirt in the window now so he know which room is mine.

Caleb never tried nothing, Maleeka say, and she’s glad because she wasn’t ready to do nothing, not even kiss.

“Then why you gonna do it now?”

“We’re going to a party. They said I should invite him. They all got boyfriends. They’ll be kissing and … well, you know.”

I think about the time we played spin the bottle at a party in sixth grade. Somebody took their top off. I got kissed by a boy I ain’t like and punched him. He came to school with his lips swelled up. High school parties are worse. I went to one the first time I was in seventh grade. Maleeka ain’t ready for that.

Cricket’s on her knees trying not to fall over. In her mind, she think she ready to crawl. Like Maleeka think she ready for more than she is. “Ain’t I taught you nothing, girl? You still following people, doing whatever they want?”

“But, Char—”

I scream at her on purpose. “Quit kissing everybody’s ass!”

“Don’t holler at me! Don’t you holler at me never no more or—”

“Yeah. Do that. Go off on people. Otherwise, they won’t respect you.” I swallow. “I didn’t—before anyhow.”

She don’t say nothing, but I bet she shaking her head yes. She laughing when she say maybe I should give lessons on how to quit getting bullied and learn to speak up for yourself.

I smile. She ask how things is going for me. For the first time, I tell her the truth. “It’s hard. I be hungry a lot. Last week, I bought some material and safety pins and made diapers.” I look at ’em piled in a corner by the door, washed, ready for folding.

“Come home, Char.”

I talk about the women who work on the corner. Tell her ’bout my rent situation. “I worry he gonna put me out. But he ain’t done it yet, so—”

If I give her my address, she’ll send me some money, she tells me. She gets an allowance now. Has her own bank account. “You would do that for me,” she say.

“No, I wouldn’t. Not back then.”

“You helped me, Char … lent me them clothes. Without those—”

“Maleeka? You crying?”

“Everybody wants to look nice and feel pretty.” She asks for the address again.

I change the subject back to where it started. “So, how come y’all ain’t kissed?”

“I guess it’s because I’m scared. He could be too.”

“Scared of kissing? That’s like being scared of breathing, walking, laughing.” I tell her I was born kissing. That don’t sound good, so I say I’m the best kisser in the world and, if she want lessons, I will give them to her once I get back. That don’t come out like I want either, but she get what I mean.

Seem like we talk all afternoon. Neither one of us want the call to end, but her cell is running out of juice. Plus, Cricket needs a bath and bottle and clean pajamas on before she go to bed. “Hey, Char?”

“Yeah.”

“I like us this way.”

“That’s because you corny, lame, a nerd,” I say. But inside I don’t feel like that at all. I’m watching her, learning, like she a book or something.

“Bye.”

“Hey—tell them girls your friend will bust ’em in the head if they don’t leave you alone.”

“I will, Char! And thanks.”

I lift Cricket up so fast, I take her breath away. We dance around the room to a song I’m singing. Before I know it, she ready for bed, asleep. Once she’s down for the night, I sit at my desk, facing the window, coloring. I color most things on this page black. Some people don’t like that color. But stars can’t show through without it, and a date ain’t as much fun either. In my mind, I color my old neighborhood. Turn cars on the corner Razzle Dazzle Red, and the clothes girls wear around our way Sonic Silver, Unmellow Yellow, Mango Tango, and maroon. I color the sidewalks cinnamon, and sprinkle sparkles everywhere.

In bed beside Cricket, I close my eyes and see myself at home in my own room, in my own neighborhood, happy.