“THINK BACK TO the first day of school, when you met your teachers. How did you figure out what kind of teachers they were going to be?”
“Their attitude.”
“Okay,” said Lena, “their attitude. But how did you know what kind of attitude they were going to have? What did they do?”
“Like, if they yell at you the first day and say you can’t come in the class without a notebook. Like how Ms. Grady—”
“Okay, Rico, but we’re not mentioning names.”
“Sorry, miss. If a teacher yells at you the first day and says you can’t be in class without a notebook and asks if you thought you were coming to the circus.”
A few other students laughed.
“So, one of the ways you can figure out what type of person you’re dealing with is by paying attention to what they say.” Lena wrote on the marker board as she spoke.
FIVE METHODS OF CHARACTERIZATION
“Yes,” agreed Rico. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
Rico Jones, a short, expressive kid with a tattoo on the side of his neck, was the student Lena had first thought of when the topic of neck tattoos came up at happy hour. He seemed capable of original observations on any subject. During class discussions, he sparkled. Reading, however, was a different story. When called upon to read aloud, Rico was like a car with a weak battery, starting and stopping, losing momentum with each try, finally resigning himself to bump slowly along the page in a clatter of mispronounced words. Lena knew if she didn’t point out his errors, he’d never learn to fix them. Yet the thought of correcting teenagers’ reading in public filled her with humiliation on their behalf. In her hesitance, she often let errors slide.
“What else do authors do to help you get to know a character?”
Rico raised his hand again.
“Someone I haven’t heard from yet.” Lena looked around the room.
“Their actions?”
“Good. Their actions. Good.” Lena wrote, 2. Character’s actions.
The clock was ticking toward the bell. She hoped her students would come up with the remaining items on the list without too much prodding. The Curriculum Standard of the Day, posted online even later than usual today, had caught Lena in the middle of an entirely unrelated lesson. Now she was trying to cover the required material as an add-on during the last fifteen minutes of class.
“How about in the first few seconds? What forms your very first impression?”
“Their attitude?”
Before Lena could point out that someone had said that already, another voice chimed in. “Their clothes?”
“Good.” Lena wrote, 3. Physical description. “And not just their clothes, but the way they look, the expressions on their faces. Anything physical that the author thinks is important enough to describe.” She knew she was filling in information students hadn’t actually supplied, but she didn’t have time to do the whole guide-on-the-side-not-sage-on-the-stage thing that professional-development trainers were always talking about.
“Raise your hand if you’ve ever known about a teacher before you even stepped into a classroom.”
A few hands went up.
“Okay. So number four is what other characters say about the character. And there’s one more thing—something the author might know, but no one else does.”
Near the back of the room, someone unzipped a backpack.
Quickly, Lena wrote, 5. Character’s thoughts.
“Okay. Just copy this list into your notes. And at the end, write this.” She talked loudly as she scrawled on the board in giant letters. “A plot is the development of character over time. Then you can pack up, and we’ll talk about this again during our fiction unit. Just remember: No character? No story. Perfect character? No story. Character who never changes? No story.”
The bell rang. Students folded the day’s worksheets and shoved them into their pockets. One girl removed her sweatshirt, the better to display her cleavage and nonuniform shirt in the hallway. Another left the classroom and began making out with her boyfriend almost immediately. On a normal day, any of these actions would have annoyed Lena, but today nothing could put her in a bad mood.
She had a date tonight.
There was something about Nex Level’s features that made Lena never want to look away: the intensity of his eyes as they focused on the road, the hint of a scar above his eyebrow. It made him look unafraid, as if, in some other life, he might have been an African warrior. Lena wondered if everyone noticed this about him, or if it was something only she saw.
“Whatchu looking at, boo?”
“Nothing.” She hoped the lightness in her voice kept him from thinking she’d been staring. “Just trying to figure out where you’re taking me.”
He stopped at a red light and turned to look at her fully. “I was gonna bring you by this poetry spot I go to on Wednesdays. Let you show off your talent a little bit.”
“Sounds good.” The words felt overly eager coming out, as if they held traces of how many times she’d rehearsed her newest poem, hoping for exactly this.
“Only problem is, this place ain’t downtown, like Club Seven—actually, it’s kinda hood. I don’t want to take you anywhere you feel uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry about me. I work at the Hill, remember?” She dropped the nickname Nex Level had used for Brae Hill Valley when they’d met, hoping to spark his memory.
“Oh, right. Yeah, you’ll be aright.”
They were on the freeway now. Slow, thumping music pulsed through the speakers. Lena tried to think of something that might be worth talking about over the music but instead settled on looking out the window until Nex pulled off at an exit she’d never taken before. It was a ramp she’d always assumed led to an industrial road, and there were, indeed, darkened factories visible in every direction. Yet up close, she could see there were also houses. They were in a neighborhood—one so economically and physically ravaged that she tried to conceal her alarm.
Never had she imagined the city held such a place.
The poor neighborhoods in Philly were cramped blocks of row houses that pulsed with life. Young men swaggered on corners, and in summer, families drank together on front steps while bedtimeless children swirled around their feet. The area where she worked and lived also bore the marks of a bad neighborhood, with its check-cashing stores, curbside car repairs, and stray dogs.
But the streets rolling past Lena’s window now were so desolate they might have been backcountry roads. Empty, litter-strewn lots stretched into the distance, dotted with only a few sagging houses and boarded-up remnants of stores. On one dark sidewalk, a woman wearing a shower cap pushed a stroller, turning occasionally to yell at a toddler who trailed behind her. On another, a pair of teenage boys walked slowly, as if there were no destination they could ever imagine being in a hurry to reach. Lena averted her gaze as they looked in the direction of the car. Nothing stirred but the sounds from cars headed the other way, the rumble of their music merging briefly with the beats inside Nex’s car as if by the hand of some cosmic deejay.
“Don’t worry.” Nex’s voice pushed its way between her thoughts. “We’re not getting out here.”
“Me? I’m not worried.” Lena realized her hand was resting near the door’s Lock button. She moved the hand, now unsure where to put it, settling it finally on her knee. “I was just thinking this poetry spot must not be too crowded.”
Nex released a deep laugh that dissolved her hesitations.
She wanted to make him laugh again.
They turned onto what seemed like the main street in the area, finally arriving at a strip mall whose parking lot, considering the emptiness that surrounded it, was remarkably packed. Most of the stores were closed at this hour, but a hive of activity surrounded an open door in the corner. The line to get in stretched past the darkened windows of the other businesses. Cars idled in the lot, waiting for spots to open.
“Okay,” joked Lena, “I take back what I said about it not being too crowded.”
Nex laughed again. His eyes shined.
Lena wondered what he might have looked like as a child.
There was only one remaining spot at the end of the lot, blocked off by two orange traffic cones. Nex jumped out to move the cones, then pulled into the spot.
“You sure you can park here?”
“Reserved parking.” He winked at her as he turned off the motor. “My friends own this poetry spot. I told them I can’t be waiting around trying to park a car—not when there’s this girl I’m trying to impress.”
Lena knew game when she heard it. Hell, she had game herself. Yet in spite of this, she pictured Nex telling his friends who owned the club, There’s this girl. She let herself out of the car and followed him to the open door. A fat bouncer leaned on a stool in front of it. He locked hands with Nex, their grips drawing each other closer until their chests crashed and receded.
It was only then that the bouncer looked at Lena, standing a few feet behind Nex. “Ten thirty. Ten dollars for everyone.” Gold glinted from his bottom teeth.
“Nah, this our new poet right here. She a teacher.”
The bouncer’s eyes assessed her with approval, then turned friendly. “A teacher, huh? Wish they had teachers like you when I was in school.”
“Heh.” She was never quite sure how to answer that remark.
“Where you teach at?”
Lena waited for Nex to jump in and say the Hill. Finally, she answered, “Brae Hill Valley High School.”
“Oh, shit. That’s where I went.”
The statement warmed her like an embrace. “Yeah?”
“I heard y’all won your first game last week against Booker T.”
“Yeah… We won!” Lena vaguely remembered students talking about the victory but hoped she wouldn’t have to offer any details in front of Nex Level. She was relieved to feel him moving toward the door.
“So, whatchu teach?”
But Lena pretended not to hear. Answering the question felt less important than making an entrance at Nex’s side.
“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” The bouncer’s voice followed her as she stepped into the dark club.
It was true. This wasn’t like Club Seven.
It wasn’t a club at all, really, but rather an empty storefront space lit by strings of seasonless Christmas lights. The inside was larger than Lena would have guessed, and she found herself following Nex as he slipped through the mass of packed bodies. Everyone was black, she noted—there were no token white poets here. And most were women, many of whom seemed eager to greet Nex Level as he made his way toward the “bar”—really just a folding table in a back corner where someone was mixing drinks from a cooler. Lena reached for Nex as she tried to keep up. He gave her hand a quick squeeze and then let it fall.
When they reached the folding table, she pressed in next to him, standing on her toes to whisper her drink order in his ear. None of the women in the crowd looked at her directly, but she felt the beams of their envy pointing her way, and she gripped her cup in one hand as they pushed their way toward the stage, reaching for his fingers with the other.
Again, he squeezed her hand and then released it.
“You’re not a big hand-holder, huh?” she asked, when they’d finally found a spot with a good view. She hoped she sounded casual.
“Nah. Not into that public affection stuff. Sorry.”
“No, it’s cool. I’m really not, either.”
“See? Now, that’s what I like about you—I can take you anywhere.” He put a hand on her lower back and let it rest there.
The poets onstage became a blur. She was conscious of nothing but his warmth and her own cautious pressure as she leaned into him without turning in his direction.
He could take her anywhere.
It wasn’t until they were back in Nex’s car that Lena, exhilarated by the night and high from her success onstage, worked up the nerve to ask the question. “Hey, I was hoping you could come to my class one of these days—do some poetry for the kids.”
“Come on, now. I bet they get plenty of inspiration from you.”
“Definitely. I just think they would really like some of your police-violence stuff. Like the one you did… at… the…” And then she stopped, because she knew then that he would lean in and kiss her. It was inevitable at this point. She had smoothed scented oil onto her wrists and neck and collarbone, and she was giving him a look that had never failed her. It was a look that suggested some shared secret. It had worked on every man she had ever drawn in to her.
Now, sitting in Nex Level’s car, several drinks in each of their systems, his smooth, dark face leaning toward hers, it felt as if all her years of writing poetry, all the time spent perfecting this very look, had come to this moment.
She knew better than to think this would lead to love. She wasn’t even sure she believed in love. But he’d said he could take her anywhere. And Nex’s version of anywhere was exactly where she wanted to go.
The kiss was long, soft, and surprisingly gentle. As they parted, she noticed for the first time the tattoo on Nex Level’s neck. It peeked out above the top of his shirt like a shared secret.
Knowledge, it said.
Suddenly, there was nothing she would not have done to get him to come to her classroom—and nothing she would not have done to hide how badly she wanted him to come.
“So…?” She hoped she wouldn’t have to elaborate.
He looked into her eyes and smiled. “So… what do I get out of the deal? You gonna cook me dinner or something?”