I LIKE HOW IT WORKED OUT FOR CHERRY WHEN she came in and told Leroy straight up how she wanted things to go. But Leroy knows I screwed up on the quarters. I don’t know if anything I’ve done since then can make up for it.
Instead, I try talking to Jolene. “I want to do more,” I tell her. “I want to go to Panther training.” Raheem has been, and Sam is going, along with most of the other guys I know. I don’t want to get left any further behind.
“You’ll go when you’re older, Maxie,” Jolene says, handing me the letters. “What you do around here helps too.”
“It’s boring,” I confess.
“Honey, it’s work. Trust me, you’d get just as bored of policing after a while.”
Somehow I find that hard to believe. There’s danger out there on the street, riding in the wake of the cops. You have to keep on your toes. Get to be a hero sometimes. That doesn’t sound boring at all.
“No,” I start to say. But Sam comes in the door right then, followed by a couple of guys I recognize from the clinic. I know he sees me, because his gaze passes through mine, but then he sweeps right along into the back room with the others. No greeting at all. Not so much as a second glance.
It confuses me when he turns so cold. Moments like this make it true what the girls always say, that Sam only makes me want to hide away and cry. It adds to my feelings of wanting to run, wanting to fight. It makes me want to pound the desk, mad that I still look for him, still want to talk to him and walk with him. I don’t know why I can’t forget him.
I try to shove Sam out of my mind, try to stop my voice from breaking. “Please,” I tell Jolene. “I’m ready to start now.”
“There is something we need done, Maxie,” Leroy says. I spin around, because I didn’t see him come over or realize he overheard anything I was saying.
“What?” It comes out breathless. “I can do it. I can do anything.”
“The youth classes have been looking a little lean the last few Saturdays,” he says. “You know the neighborhood kids. Make some rounds and get them over to The Breakfast and the Freedom School.”
The little girls turning double Dutch on the flat concrete playground watch us approach out the corners of their eyes. I can see them peeking more, the closer we get. Probably think we’re coming to cause trouble. Some of the older kids like to mess with them. I remember how it was.
The watching girls exchange glances and, almost as one, start chanting, cheering on the girl skipping ropes. “Go Lizzie. Go Lizzie.”
Solidarity, sisters. I smile, try to look friendly.
“Can we join?” Emmalee says. They giggle.
Shenelle Willis, Bucky’s little sister, is one of the girls turning the ropes. “Are you any good?”
Emmalee fixes a look on her that might have frozen the ropes in the air. “Girl, we were skipping before you were born.”
“Don’t mean you’re no good,” pants Lizzie, leaping out of the center. The girls keep turning. The empty ropes slap the concrete. These girls really know how to turn. The rhythm is perfect—it rocks something within me, lulls me back to the time when this was all there was in the world for me.
Emmalee and I look at each other. It has been a minute since we did this, but I can feel it all coming back. We shrug off our book bags, roll our shoulders to loosen up.
Shenelle grins. “Yeah.” They open their arms, creating a larger pocket within the ropes. Emmalee is taller than any of them, plus there’s two of us going in.
Emmalee rocks to catch the rhythm. We had a bunch of routines together back in the day, but only a few we came to consider classic. I can tell by the way she’s standing which one we’re starting in on. I turn my back, wait till I hear her rhythmic footfalls, then leap between the ropes to join her.
We’re jumping back to back for what feels like an eternity before Emmalee cues me to start the turns. All she does is suck in a breath in this certain way, and I know it’s time. Sure as the sunrise. To this day, it’s our little secret, something we stumbled upon by chance. No one could ever figure out how we both knew to turn at the same time.
This routine is our most impressive-looking, when it goes right. I concentrate hard on the timing. Hop in a circle, hop in a circle. Hop half a circle. Hands, clap. Hop in a circle, quarter turn, stop. Reverse. One hand slap. Quarter turn, stop. Reverse. Quarter turn, quarter turn, quarter turn, stop. Hop in a circle, double hand clap. Double spin, double spin, double spin. Jump! Regular rhythm. Hands clap. Hop turn, hop turn, hop turn, slap.
Yes! Our right hands clasped, we face each other, breathing hard. Jumping. The little girls cheer around us. We tighten our grip for the grand finale. Emmalee breathes and whoosh! We pull each other’s hands, switch places. Jump a moment longer, back to back. Leap out on opposite sides. We dismount with our fists in the air, triumphant.
Shenelle and the other girl stop turning. They cluster toward us. “Whoa, how’d you do that spin?”
“I want to learn to switch places!”
“Can you show us?”
“Sure,” Emmalee says. “Most of it isn’t that hard, once you know the ropes real well.”
I hang back and let her do her thing. I learned most of what I know about jumping from her to begin with.
Across the yard, Sam and Rocco chat up some boys around the basketball hoop. I watch them for a minute as Emmalee doles out double Dutch tips. Rocco’s right in the thick of it, switching off with a couple of guys shooting free throws in turn. Sam’s leaning against the half wall, talking with two boys on the sidelines. Not even once does he look my way.
I hate the uncertainty of us these days. The way he brushed by me earlier without so much as a hi. I hate not knowing what it means, or what to do.
Emmalee nudges me. “Come on, Max, let’s turn for them.”
“Sure.” I take the ropes in my hand. They settle in my palm. I’ve always preferred ropes like these, that don’t have handles. The thick gray cord loops around my fingers, familiar as yesterday. Emmalee sets the rhythm. My arms just follow, falling into place like they always did. It feels good, being back here. It feels lighter. I try to free my mind from the weight of things, and it almost kind of works.
But the little girls try all our fancy spins. Get tangled, time and again. They’re learning. I know better than to be annoyed with them, but I can’t help it. I just want to stand here, just want to turn and let the rhythm carry me away. I say things like “Good try. Turn your foot out a little more,” but I feel my voice growing tighter. I think Emmalee can sense it in me. She gathers her rope ends in one hand. Nods to me.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” I tell the girls. “If you come to The Breakfast, the Panthers are going to have some stuff for us to do afterward. Will you come?”
They erupt in a chorus of “Yes!”
We hand back the ropes. “See you then!”