“Your family is cursed,” Ja’nae says, throwing the basketball at the hoop. Making a face when it bounces off the rim and rolls into the bushes. Her short, fat arms look funny. But she makes the shot the next time.

It’s four days after Shiketa jacked Momma up. Momma’s still in the hospital, so I don’t want to hear all this stuff Ja’nae is talking. Zora knows that, I guess. She says for Ja’nae to be quiet and play. She’s over by the fence polishing her toes. Ain’t mentioned nothing yet ’bout missing no money.

We at our girl Mai’s house. She ain’t here. “She made a run with her dad to the market,” her mother said, “for more chicken backs and collards.”

Zora, Ja’nae, and me came to get Mai so we could go by the hospital and see Momma. She’s supposed to be getting a CAT scan this morning, so Dr. Mitchell said I shouldn’t come down until noon. I wanted to go to the hospital by myself. But Ja’nae asked me what I wanted to do that for. “It’ll be more fun with friends,” she said. Like we was going to the movies or something.

Ja’nae dribbles the basketball, walking my way. When she does, I smell baby powder. “I mean it,” she says, wiping sweat off her forehead with a sweet-smelling cotton ball. “Everything bad happens to you and your mom. Everything.”

I smack the basketball out her hand. Run it up to the basket. Sink it in. “Now who’s cursed?” I say, strutting my stuff like them NBA players do.

I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Now Zora is naming all the bad stuff that’s happened to me and Momma over the last few years. “Your father went on dope. Then you two moved in with friends till they kicked y’all out,” she says, putting down the polish. “You were homeless for a while, then you moved into the projects and were robbed,” she says, wiggling her toes so they can dry faster. “Seems like a curse to me.”

I tell her she don’t need to talk. Her family got problems, too. But when I go to bust on her, all I can say is her parents are divorced and her mother’s always at their place butting in her dad’s business. That’s it. Nothing.

Ja’nae puts her two cents in. I yell at ’em both to shut up. Then I pick up my stuff and start to leave.

Mai’s mom comes over and puts her arm around me. “Why are you two being so mean?” she says, pointing to them.

Zora looks up from her nails. “We didn’t mean—”

“Make yourselves useful,” her mom says. “Go help Mai and her dad with the bags. I just heard the car pull up to the front of the house.”

Zora ain’t trying to go help nobody do nothing, even though Mrs. Kim tells her again to get moving. But before Mrs. Kim can put her in check, Mai shows up. “Hey,” she says, picking up the basketball and shooting.

Mrs. Kim’s soft hands feel sweaty holding mine. “All the bags in?” she asks Mai.

Mai smacks the ball to the ground over and over again. “Dad’s bringing ’em.”

Her mom goes off, saying how lazy and inconsiderate Mai is. She gives Mai the same tired speech my mom gives me. “You only think about yourself. We should stop doing for you all together and then see how you like it.”

Ja’nae ain’t like the rest of us. She likes cleaning and helping out. Before Mai’s mom even started speechifying, Ja’nae was in the kitchen unpacking food.

Mai’s mom is the color of chocolate chips. She’s African American. Her dad is Korean. Ja’nae likes to get him to talk the way they do in his country. So with the screen door open you can hear him saying the Korean names of the fruits, vegetables, and meat they’re unpacking in there. Ja’nae repeats after him.

Mai’s mom pushes open the door and goes inside. “Ungrateful,” she says, talking about Mai.

I look at my watch and tell Zora and ’em that it’s time to leave. “Momma should be back from getting her CAT scan now.”

Mai picks up the ball and lays up another shot. When her sleeve rolls back, Zora and me go nuts.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Zora says running over to Mai. “When did you do it?” she says, staring at the tattoo on Mai’s arm.

In red and black swirls as tall as my baby finger, Mai’s tattoo says 100% BLACK.

“I got it yesterday,” she says, putting down the ball. Letting us get a good look at her arm. “Don’t touch it. It still hurts.”

The tattoo drilled into her skin is swelled up like wet paint after a rain. Mai blows on it, like she’s trying to cool hot tea.

“My father went off when he saw it,” she says, holding the ball still with her foot. “He says I branded myself, like a slave. Like he know something about that.”

Zora’s making a face, like she’s looking at something disgusting. “My dad would kill me if I did that. He says it’s not sanitary.”

“My grandfather would cut my arm off and beat me over the head with it,” Ja’nae says, walking up to us. “Anyhow, what you wrote on your arm ain’t even true.”

What’d Ja’nae say that for? Now she and Mai going at it. And Zora’s putting in her two cents. Only I don’t care about no stupid tattoo. I want to see my mother. Now! I tell ’em that too. But ain’t nobody listening.

Mai gets up in Ja’nae’s face. “You don’t need to be talking about anybody else,” she says, pointing to her hair. “That mess in your head ain’t real neither.” She’s talking about Ja’nae’s new braids. “And neither are those blue contacts you got on, Zora.”

Mai’s eyes fix on me like she’s trying to find something fake about me too. So I curl up my fingers to hide the nails I glued on at Zora’s last night. Then Ja’nae says something else, and the three of ’em go at it again.

“Stop it!” I yell. They stare at me. I cover my face with my hands. “Please stop.” I say, wishing somebody would have told that to Shiketa the day she went after Momma with that pipe.