Ja’nae tells me to stop walking so fast. “It’s hot. And your legs are longer than mine.”

I slow down, and ask her again if she thinks I’m like my father.

She takes her time answering. “I guess not.”

I like Ja’nae more than the rest, ’cause she will stick by you no matter what.

“When you took the money from me that time,” she says, pulling up her long skirt, “I ain’t have to ask for it back. You felt bad, and just gave it to me. Even though I owed it to you.”

I don’t want to talk about the money, even though I can’t get Zora’s words out my head. So I ask Ja’nae how come she ain’t tell me ’bout her mother coming here. She kept it to herself, she says, ’cause she ain’t know if it would really happen or not. “Anyhow, everybody is mad at everybody else. Or mad at somebody else that done something to ’em. I just decided to keep it to myself.”

All the shades are down in Ja’nae’s house. So she’s going from window to window pulling ’em up, letting in the light. She’s talking on the phone to Ming too. Telling him to come over. “My grandfather ain’t coming home till late.”

She hangs up the phone and drags me from the living room to the kitchen. Her grandmother went to California to bring her mother back. So she’s gotta cook dinner for her grandfather for a week. She’s pulling out frying pans and pots; washing off chicken breasts and whole potatoes.

Ja’nae flours the chicken and puts it in a pot of hot bubbling grease. “Set the table. Four plates.”

I tell her I don’t wanna eat with her grandfather. She looks at me and smiles. “Sato’s coming.”

I stink. My hair is frizzed up from the sweat and heat. “I don’t want him here.”

Ja’nae comes over to me. “You scared he might kiss you or something?”

I make her get her chicken fingers off me.

She laughs. “We just gonna watch TV.”

While the chicken is frying and the potatoes and pork and beans are cooking, Ja’nae and me running ’round the house picking up newspapers. Then Ja’nae hands me a blue spray bottle and a rag. “We have to do the bathroom.”

“That’s your toilet, not mine.”

She asks me if I want my chicken smelling like the toilet. I take the rag and tell her she gotta pay me if she want me for her maid.

“Take it outta Zora’s money,” she says, trying to be funny.

I don’t say nothing to her. But all the while I’m cleaning, I’m thinking about Zora’s money and how hurt she was back there.

Soon as we get the table set and the food in pretty bowls, the bell rings. It’s Ming and Sato.

“I know you saved me some food,” Sato says, coming into the house all loud. He don’t even say hi when he walks in the door. He just walks right into the living room, sits down like a cowboy getting on a horse, and starts digging his dirty fingers into the biscuit bowl.

Ja’nae is like her grandmother, pushing all kinds of food Sato and Ming’s way.

Ming says he ain’t hungry. Sato piles chicken and potatoes on his plate like this is his last meal. After we done, I ain’t so sure telling them two to come over was such a good idea. Ja’nae and Ming are hugged up together over there on the couch. We’re watching a scary movie. Every once in a while, Sato leaves the room and comes back another way trying to make Ja’nae and me scream.

In the middle of the movie, Ming shuts off the TV. Puts on a CD and starts dancing with Ja’nae. It’s a slow song. They’re dancing so close you couldn’t get a notebook between ’em.

“Want to?” Sato says, pulling my arm.

I push him away. “No!” I say. “I mean. Hmmm. Cut the light on Ja’nae. I can’t see.”

Ja’nae ain’t listening. She’s giggling over there with Ming.

Ming moves her over my way. Drops some of Ja’nae’s sweet-smelling cotton balls on my head and says, “Don’t be scared. He ain’t gonna hurt you.”

Sato is standing in the middle of the floor with his hands in his pockets. “I’ll show you how to do it,” he says, real low. “It ain’t hard.”

I ain’t never danced with a boy before. But I ain’t telling Sato that. So I sit on the couch like a knucklehead, wishing I was home with Momma.