I woke up feeling worse than when my head had hit the pillow the night before. I had gone to bed knowing my uncle was a thief who would steal from his nieces. That my uncle wasn’t sick from war, but sick from drugs. I tried to sleep, but all through the night I heard moaning. It wasn’t my uncle rattling around, but Big Ma saying, “My son, my son. Give me back my son, Lord. Bring him home.”
Except for the evergreens, there wasn’t a leaf on a tree that morning. Vonetta, Fern, and I walked to school, none of us saying a word. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone when I got to the playground.
My classmates were all gathered in one oblong mob with Frieda in the center. She seemed to be doing all the talking, and it seemed odd because that wasn’t how Frieda was. Talk, talk, talking so everyone would be fixed on her. Frieda was cool and never needed a crowd around her.
Then Michael S. looked up and did a head jerk my way. Frieda and Lucy moved toward me and brought the crowd of six-three with them.
Frieda stepped closer to me and said, “Hey. Is everything all right?”
My hard night’s sleep must have shown on my face. I tried to make my expression bright but I’m no actress. I just said, “Sure.” Had it just been Frieda and me alone, I would have told her about yesterday and Uncle Darnell, but they were all there, hovering. Waiting. I said, “Everything’s okay.”
Frieda Banks, with everyone there, practically sang, “Your grandmama came by last night looking for Darnell and she was crying, Delphine. I felt so bad.”
I looked dead in Frieda’s face.
I thought, Did I hear right? Did I hear what I thought I heard? Did I hear Frieda, my friend, my friend since we were little, trying to make me feel bad in front of the class? Did Frieda just snap the Dozens at me, talking about “your grandmama”?
I was mad enough to push Frieda into Lucy and send half my class falling like bowling pins. I was mad enough, but I didn’t push her. I didn’t want to be walking the paddle mile or bringing home a third detention slip from the office. I said with the right amount of neck-rolling, “Frieda Banks, if you care so much about why my grandmother was crying, then you can go to Herkimer Street and you can ask her.”
It wasn’t snappy, but I tossed my head and walked away.
How do you ignore a person who sits directly to your right? Someone you always shared a smile or an eyeball roll with? By the end of the first period, I became an expert at ignoring my used-to-be friend, Frieda Banks. If I accidentally caught her eye, I stared past her like I was using X-ray vision to see through the wall to her right.
Frieda tried to apologize all day and sent Monique over in chorus with notes I wouldn’t read. At least she knew better than to send notes through Lucy. I only rolled my eyes while Monique sputtered Frieda’s apology. Then Frieda told Rukia to tell me she was sorry and wanted to talk but Rukia said, “You might be the mountain but I’m not Muhammad.” Only Rukia and I knew what that meant. If Muhammad won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain will have to come to Muhammad.
I could carry a chip on my shoulder for a year and a day, but by dismissal I began to feel bad. Bad on top of the bad I was already feeling over everything else going on at home. Mrs., gone. Uncle Darnell, a thief. Drug sick. Gone. My sisters crying. Big Ma moaning. And no Jackson Five concert at Madison Square Garden.
I figured I’d let Frieda off the hook when I saw her alone. But when I was walking toward her, Danny the K called out to me from down the hall, “Delphine! Delphine!” When I turned, I saw them—Danny the K and Ellis Carter, but Ellis was walking away from him, like he didn’t want to be anywhere near his friend. The K called out to me again, but now I heard him clearly. He wasn’t saying my name. He was shouting, “Dope fiend! Dope fiend!”