I stare out into the water from the bedroom window watching the family Stone. Heaven and Nevaeh are on boogie boards and seem to be having tons of fun. Margaret is chasing after Pumpkin, who looks like the Michelin Man geared up with floaties on her arms, legs and chest. All she needs is a floatie over her head and she’d be a human floatie. London is lying in a conservative one-piece bathing suit on a brightly colored towel, soaking up the sun’s rays, while Margaret frantically tries to keep Pumpkin away from the ocean, even though, with all those floaties on, she certainly seems ready to brave the water.
I smile. Though it’s not one of those smiles that reaches your eyes. I suppose it’s a sad smile. They’re like a scene out of a Hallmark movie. They are the perfect family, and I, the perfect outsider. The one thing that isn’t quite like the others, perched high above, staring through a glass window. I don’t belong here. I don’t.
I retrieve Little Buddy from under the bed and strum the strings to tune him. Before I know it, an hour has passed with me strumming on my guitar and my fingers are beginning to feel numb. Perhaps I can get some homework done. Not that it matters, really. I don’t imagine I’ll be here much longer.
I slide Little Buddy back under the bed and grab my backpack, unzip the front section, retrieve my pills and toss one into my mouth. As I stuff the bottle back into my bag, I notice the Plan B box and pick it up. I forgot I hid it in my backpack. I check the time—only 11:00 a.m. Good. London’s still got time.
“Tiffany?”
Anthony’s at the door.
“I’ve been calling your name for like a minute. You didn’t hear me?”
“No.” I sit up. “You’re back already?”
“False alarm. Contractions stopped.” He surveys my mess of books and school papers on the bed, his gaze finally resting on what’s in my hand. “What is that?”
“Huh?” Oh. No. I’m holding the Plan B box in my hands! “Um.”
He moves into the room and quickly snatches the box away from me. “Is this yours?”
I’m not quite sure what to say. Not quite sure what to do.
“Tiffany, did you hear me? Is this yours?”
“It’s not hers. It’s mine.”
London’s at the door, wrapped in a towel.
“Yours?” he replies incredulously. London nods and Anthony sits down on the bed beside me, resting his hands on his knees. “I see. When? When did you get it?”
“Yesterday. Marcus McKinney took Tiffany and me to Santa Monica. To a drugstore. I got it then.”
“London, go and get your mother.”
London exits the room; within a moment she returns with a sun-kissed Margaret, who holds Pumpkin on her hip. “What’s going on?”
“Have Heaven and Nevaeh take Pumpkin outside to build a sandcastle,” Anthony says sternly.
More than a little flustered, Margaret quickly moves down the hallway. It’s only a short moment before I hear the sound of Pumpkin crying outside with Heaven and Nevaeh trying to comfort her. A minute later, Margaret returns.
“Close the door,” he orders, and Margaret obliges.
“What’s going on?” She’s thrown a pretty red sundress over her swimsuit and her hair is piled into a bun on the top of her head.
“Can I please be excused?” I ask.
“No, Tiffany. You stay.”
“This is not Tiffany’s fault, though,” London explains with perfect calm as she sits beside me. “She only came to Santa Monica with me to help. She was just being supportive.”
Anthony’s pacing back and forth in the small room. “Tiffany is old enough to know right from wrong.”
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Margaret asks impatiently. Anthony tosses her the Plan B box and she gasps. “Plan B? For who?”
“For London,” he replies stiffly.
London wrings her hands together and stares at the floor. Her eyes begin to well with tears.
“London?” Margaret’s voice is shaking. “You broke your purity vow?”
London nods, tears spilling down her cheeks. “And...the condom...broke.”
“What do we do, Anthony?” Margaret cries. “London, did you already take the morning-after pill?”
“I didn’t take it. I changed my mind and decided I’m ready to accept the consequences of my actions.”
Margaret wails. “London, why? How could you have been so careless? How could you have gone against our faith and what we believe?”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” London sobs.
Margaret’s crying so hard. London’s crying, too, and Anthony is still pacing. And then there’s me, sitting in the middle of it all, wishing I could pull a lever where a trapdoor would open and swallow me up and spit me back out in Chicago.
“How long have you been having sex, London?” Anthony asks.
“Yesterday was my first time.”
He turns to Margaret. “London should see Dr. Avery.”
“As early as possible. Can we get her an appointment for Monday? She’ll need STD testing, too, Anthony.”
“Jesus Christ, London. Who is the boy?” Anthony asks.
“Aric Cook,” she replies so softly I almost don’t hear her.
Anthony turns to Margaret. “Didn’t we just get a phone call from the Cooks? Is that why they were calling? About this?”
I grimace. Better save that conversation for a later date. Now is not the time.
“Aric Cook is my boyfriend,” London explains.
“London, please. You don’t have a boyfriend and never did.” Anthony finally stops pacing. “Did Aric meet you in Santa Monica at the drugstore where you got this godforsaken medicine?”
London shakes her head.
“Is he here now? Supporting you, as you could very well soon be pregnant with his child? Where is Aric Cook?”
London shrugs, looking as if it just hit her that she has no idea where the hell Aric is.
“Exactly,” Anthony declares. “We have house rules for a reason. He is not old enough to understand what it means to be in a committed relationship and neither are you. He is simply a boy at your school who used you for sex. That is it.”
London leans forward and sobs into her hands. Margaret rushes to her and comfortingly rubs her back.
“Margaret, I want you to braid London’s hair. She’s about to make a donation.”
London looks up. “What?”
“Locks for Love. Since you easily give up things that are precious and valuable without thinking how it will affect others, I don’t imagine you’ll have a problem with it.”
Holy shitballs! I did not see that one comin’.
“Mommy!” London cries. “You can’t let him do this!”
Margaret shakes her head. Tears stream down her cheeks, flushed red.
“Say something!” London wails. “Protect me from him!”
Only Margaret says nothing and London continues sobbing so hard I fear she might have a triple stroke and die.
Anthony turns to me. “Where is your guitar?”
“Why? I’m not in this.”
“I’m going to put your guitar in storage for one month. Thank Jehovah London had sense enough not to take the pill, but you are an accomplice to reprehensible behavior.”
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite!”
He takes a step toward me. “You curse at me? In my home, acting like a common ’hood rat?”
“Oh, you would know about the ’hood, wouldn’t you? Cuz you’re really from Englewood. That’s as ’hood as it gets.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you. Pretending you’re something special. Living in Simi Valley. Eating keen-wah? I see right through you!”
“Tiffany, I’m sick of your disrespect,” he bellows. “Sick of it! You do not speak to your father this way.”
“Father? Is that supposed to be a joke? You think I don’t know?” Tears spring forth as the weight of everything that’s transpired begins to erupt out of me like hot, burning lava. “You think I don’t know you wanted me gone?” I can hardly breathe, hardly catch my breath. “You’re as bad as Aric. You’re worse! Now you want to cut off London’s hair to make her suffer. How did you suffer for your reprehensible, heinous act? How much money did you give my mom for the abortion she never got?”
Anthony turns as white as a ghost. “Do not pretend you know the truth about what really happened between your mother and me.”
“But I do know,” I cry. “You ran. You’re a runner. Your life’s ambition is to be better. A cut above everybody else. But guess what? You rep Englewood perfectly. Absent black father. Deadbeat dad. A fucking stereotype.”
He slaps me across the face with the back of his hand. Hard. It stings, so I cover it with my hand in an attempt to dull the pain.
“Anthony!” Margaret cries. “What’s the matter with you? You can’t hit her!”
“I’m...I’m so sorry. I swear, I have never hit one of my children this way before. Tiffany, I apologize.”
“Fuck you,” I declare. “I’m going home.”
* * *
“Please, Grams. Please let me come home.”
“And stay where?”
“With Keelah?”
“Tiffany, how is that gonna work? Keelah and them live in section eight housing. Her mom is struggling with all those kids and her daddy ain’t worth but about two cents. You can’t stay there!”
“It’s not fair! I hate it here. I wanna come back to Chicago.”
And suddenly my world exploding sounds like the best idea ever. If Anthony Stone is not my real father...I get to go home.
“Tiffany, you need to go and apologize. You can’t say ‘fuck you’ to your dad. What is the matter with you?”
“He hit me!” I start to cry again.
“I know. But sometimes our emotions get the best of us and we do things that we don’t mean. Things that don’t necessarily represent who we really are.”
Of course she’s right. And now who’s the hypocrite? Didn’t I just break Aric’s nose and ask for his forgiveness? I didn’t mean to hit him, either.
“Besides,” Grams goes on. “If Anthony hits you again I’m gonna fly out there and kill him. I will wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until all the life drains from his body. And then I’ll happily go to prison and live out the rest of my days in peace. Anthony is aware. I already talked to him.”
“You did?”
“He called me right before you did and confessed everything.”
“He sucks. He’s the worst dad ever.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do!” I really let loose, wailing into the phone. “I hate him!” The door to the garage creaks open and I stand, hands balled into fists, ready not to apologize, but to scream and yell some more, but it’s only London standing at the doorway. She steps into the quiet garage space. Her hair still hangs in long waves down her back; her eyes are almost swollen shut from crying. “Grams, I’ll call you back.” I quickly hang up. “Why do you still have hair?”
“Dad changed his mind. Apologized for losing his temper.”
“I should’ve let you throw the box away. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” She fidgets. “Tiff. There’s something else.”
“What now?”
“Dad went through your schoolbag. He found your anxiety pills. He took them.”
“What!” I storm past London, back into the house, not even caring that my ankle has begun to throb again. I bear the full pain, moving swiftly down the hallway toward Anthony and Margaret’s bedroom. I pound on the door. A second later his deep voice replies.
“Come in.”
I burst into the room. Anthony is sitting on the bed beside Margaret. They both look up, startled to see me standing there in a rage. “I need my medication back!”
“I’ll let you two chat alone.” Margaret excuses herself. The bedroom door shuts behind her.
“Look, you can have my guitar, okay? But you can’t have my medication. I need it. I was diagnosed.”
“Diagnosed with what?” he asks pointedly.
“OCD and anxiety.”
“You understand I’m a doctor, right?”
“You’re not a psychiatrist! It’s my medication. I take two a day. Morning and night. It helps me. I know your rules say no drugs or whatever, but I need them. I do.”
“I don’t necessarily subscribe to all this psychiatric labeling. A few days without them. Let’s see what happens.”
“Oh, my fucking gosh!”
He stands, enraged. “What do I have to do to get through to you, Tiffany? What will it take for you to stop this insolent behavior and inappropriate speech?”
“I have some seriously bad news for you. This is my real behavior. This is how I speak. It’s who I am. Maybe if you’d been around for the past sixteen years instead of the past six minutes, you’d recognize that.”
“Then I have some equally bad news for you. This is who I am, too.”
I scoff. “Highly doubtful.”
“Enlighten me, Tiffany. Why is who I am doubtful to you?”
“Because,” I state seriously, “I may not know you, but I know my mom. She would never have fallen in love with a guy like you.”
Anthony winces. He looks genuinely wounded and I regret that those words came out of my mouth.
“Tiffany Sly. It is a parent’s job to guide. Children need to be raised with authority—”
“See, there’s your problem.” I throw my hands up in the air. “You’re trying to raise me.”
“Because that’s my job.”
“Really? I thought your job was to get to know me.”
He sits back on the edge of the bed. “I think we could use some space. I’m going to sit by the water. Cool down.”
Good idea. “Can I take a walk on the pier?”
“Take Heaven and Nevaeh with you.”
“I wanna be alone. So I can calm down. I don’t wanna fight with you anymore.” Only I do want to fight.
I imagine being suited up in the boxing ring. Anthony and I coming from our respective corners. The referee making us touch gloves before the bell rings signaling the beginning of the round. But it wouldn’t be a regular boxing match. I would only throw things at him—spaghetti, mushy soup in giant bread bowls, rotten tomatoes—and the crowd would laugh. At the end, when he was dripping wet from old, rotten food, I’d be given the world title. The Throw Things at Your Dad champion of the world.
“Then just take Nevaeh. Thirty minutes, Tiffany. I’m setting a timer on my phone.”
“You’re setting a timer? What am I, four?”
“Be back in thirty minutes or I come and get you two.”
“Fine. Whatever you say, Anthony.”