Life Is Funny (19 page)

“You recognize me?” I sass him back.

“Well, you asked,” he says, and his cheeks each go rusty, which I guess is his way of blushing.

“Don't get all embarrassed,” I tell him. “What am I supposed to know you from?”

“This perfume commercial,” he says. “Some magazine ads.”

I shake my head. “Sorry,” I go.

He gets rusty again. “Forget it,” he mumbles. “Mostly I just go to college.”

“You make a lot of money?” I ask.

“Enough,” he says.

“You got a girlfriend?”

“You planning on marrying me now?” he goes.

“No.” I toss some weeds at him. “I have a boyfriend,” I say. “He's my heart.” Saying it out like that makes me miss Gingerbread so bad my eyes hurt.

A leaf somersaults toward the pond and then sort of skate-blows over it.

“Well, I got my heart broken awhile ago,” Sam says.

“That is hard to believe.”

He's not mad. I can tell because he's all smiles, teasing himself right back at me.

“She's way prettier than I am,” he says.

“That is hard to believe,” I go again.

“You can see for yourself when she gets here,” he tells me.

He sits up again, and now I lie back. I watch a cloud change shape in slow motion.

“When she gets here?”

“We're still friends. And Tom and Marge love her. She's coming by on her way back from Italy next week.”

“She's Italian?” I never met anyone Italian before.

“No. That's just where models go a lot of times when they start off.”

The cloud floats farther away and loses a piece of itself.

“So how'd she break your heart?”

“It's a long story,” he says.

“Yeah, well, my secretary tells me I got a little time today,” I say.

“Tough.”

*  *  *

Night is different here, too. It's quiet of people and engines. It's empty of light after the sun goes down. There're no voices or car alarms or music. There's no TV blue blinking in rows across the way, traffic lights, or neon signs coloring your white wall orange. There're no car brights creeping across your ceiling. There's just this quiet that's different from what happens in class after the teacher screams for it, or after Aunt Eva tells me to hush, or after you set your alarm and turn the light off for bed. It's just this darkness that's different. It's a quiet and a darkness that make you tiny and huge at the same time, make you hear a sort of hum that you never heard before, make you see spots and shapes in the blackness you never saw before, make you think,
What was it like when I was floating around inside my mother?

*  *  *

I feel real guilty I ever thought anything nasty about Tom because he is one nice man. He and Sam and Marge show me how to brush the horses. I'm too scared of the damn things to ride one yet. The brush has a strap that goes around the back of your hand. You have to move it in circles, and you have to do it hard, and it makes you breathe raggedy and sweat like you'd never guess. They show me how to pick up the horses' feet in my hands, and scrape dirt clumps out of those horseshoes with a metal tool. They show me how to put on a saddle and buckle the girth, which is like a belt that goes down under that horse's stomach to keep the saddle on and works the exact same way that strap on the brush keeps the brush on my hand. They show me how to hold my palm flat and up, with a chunk of sugar in the middle, for the horse to nibble off.

“You sure you weren't ever on a farm before?” Tom asks the first time I bring in eggs on my own.

“You sure you weren't a comedian before?” I ask him back.

“I hear that,” he plays me, and he and Marge look at each other and then laugh like maniacs.

“Do they ever act their age?” I ask Sam.

“Do pigs fly?”

I suck my teeth, trying to act aggravated. “Yours probably do.”

*  *  *

On the fifth night I start to cry in my bed in the darkness and quiet. I just cry and cry, and when I get my shit together enough to stop, I turn on my light, walk down the hall, and think about dialing Gingerbread. Only it's way too late for his parents, and nobody said I could call collect there anyway, so I dial Aunt Eva, praying my mama doesn't answer the phone.

“What did they do to you?” is the first thing Eva says.

“Nothing,” I tell her.

“You're crying,” she argues. “You tell me what happened.”

“I just miss you,” I go. “I wish you were here.”

“You have a headache?” she asks.

“No.”

She listens to me sniff for a while.

“Think of a name for the baby,” she goes.

“Isn't Mama naming it?”

“Maybe,” Eva says.

“Hysteria,” I tell her.

“Lord, Keisha, did you call just to torture me?”

“How about Myocardia?” She's trying not to laugh now, and I'm done crying.

“What if it's a boy?” she plays along.

“DeMote,” I say, and she snorts.

“Is Mama there?”

“Sleeping in the big bed.”

“Where's Tory sleeping?”

“She's got Nick's room now.”

“Where's Nick?”

“Still gone,” Aunt Eva says.

“Give Tory a hug for me,” I say.

She goes, “I love you, Keisha,” which starts me crying again, and I can't even say it back.

*  *  *

My first letter from Gingerbread goes like this:

Dear Keisha,

Summer school sucks. My daddy says how you doing? Mara and DeShawn broke up again. I'm teaching Tory basketball. She's pretty good except she's so in love with me she can't hardly hang on to the ball. Jealous? I miss your big feet. I want to make you squirm soon. My heart.

Gingerbread

I keep his letter stuck inside my leather journal under my pillow. I haven't written in the journal yet because for one, I don't want to mess it all up, and for two, I don't hardly know what I'd say.

*  *  *

We're in their vegetable garden, all of us, talking about what movie to rent for tonight when Sam's ex bangs out through the back screened door.

“I'm here,” she calls, stopping short on the first wood stump of the wood stump path that goes to the garden.

Lord. I see her picture all the time. And I know her from school. Sort of. She's a few grades ahead of me. She makes Sam look like dog meat. Not that I go that way, but if I did. Lord.

“Where's your stuff?” he asks her, while Tom and Marge step through the tomatoes to give her squeezes.

“The loft,” she answers over their shoulders. “Your mom's not coming this year, right?”

“Not this year,” Marge says, backing off, and when Tom lets go, too, Sam's ex sees me.

“I'm Grace,” she goes. “You're Keisha, right?”

“Hey,” I tell her.

“Hi.” Then, a second later, she crosses her arms. “Ok
ay
,” she says. “I hate staring.”

“Yeah, but your fly is open,” I lie, and she looks down fast and then rolls her eyes when Marge and Tom and Sam hoot at her and go,
“Ooohhh.”

Walking to the stable, I ask her, “Do we go to the same school?”

“You look kind of familiar,” she says. “I dropped out, though.” She rubs her eyes. “I had to go to Italy in April.”

“I remember you more from when we were smaller,” I say. “You were such a bitch.”

“I was not. I just looked good. You hung out with that Mara girl and a couple of Jessies.”

“Mara and me are still tight,” I go. “The Jessies both moved.”

“Would you stop staring?”

“What's it like to be famous?” I say.

“She's not famous,” Sam goes.

“Nobody knows my name or anything,” Grace tells me, like she doesn't care.

“They call you ‘the bus bitch,' ” I tell her. Her ad is on the side of every damn bus in Brooklyn. “I hear boys shitting every day about chopping off their right arms if they could get with you for an hour.”

“You never offered to do that,” she complains to Sam, slapping his shoulder. We all three dodge some horseshit, and a ladybug lands on my arm. I make it crawl onto my fingertip so I can watch it better.

“The ninth-grade girls skip their belts a loop,” I tell her.

“That ad was a mistake,” Grace explains. “The dresser fucked up. Nobody caught it.”

“It's fashion now, honey,” I tell her.

She sighs and goes, “I hear that.”

I throw Sam a look.

“It's not like you invented it,” he tells me.

“It's not like she's black,” I tell him.

“Racist,” he goes.

“Don't start with me,” I go back.

“Shut up,” Grace orders, and it makes me laugh.

“What?” she asks, all tense.

“Nothing,” I say. I put the ladybug in her hair, and she doesn't even notice. It looks like a bright bead on brown velvet. You can smell the horses already, and we're not even inside the barn yet. “Are you going to ride?” I ask her.

“No way.” She shudders. “I'm scared to death.”

*  *  *

We chill in the hay and watch Sam get Hermes saddled up. I don't know why books talk about hay being so soft you can sleep in it because this shit sticks you like a pricker and itches, too.

“How long are you staying?” Grace asks me.

“About four more weeks.”

“Do you like it here?”

How do I answer a question like that? She pulls off her sandals. Her toenails are painted bright blue. Even her feet are fine. “This is a good place,” she says. “Marge and Tom are amazing.” She wiggles her toes. “And I get away from my mom here.”

“What's wrong with her?”

She puts her hands back behind her head, like I'm doing. We watch Sam lead Hermes out of his stall.

“See you,” he says. We wave.

“She's just a bitch,” Grace tells me. “Plus she's crazy.”

“I hear that.” I sigh.

Grace waits a second, while one of the cats pounces on my chest. “Also,” Grace says, “she's drinking again.”

I feel something I haven't felt since I got here. It's a wail at the back of my neck. By nighttime it's going to be slamming all over my whole head.

“She's got a problem with it?” I ask Grace.

“Problem is an understatement,” Grace says. Then she looks at me. “You got a problem with that?”

I start laughing. You have to laugh. Life is just funny sometimes. As long as you remember. The cat takes off.

“What?” Grace goes. She sits up, and I keep laughing. “What!” Grace goes again.

“My mother's a dope addict.” I giggle. “You got a problem with that?” She just stares at me with those cut-off-your-right-arm eyes.

“Shit.” I sigh, pulling myself together. “You know any good baby names?”

*  *  *

They rent two movies, but damn if my migraine isn't full blown by dessert. I can't see too good, I can't think too straight, and when I try to explain about the ice in the scarves, they all think I've gone foolish. Marge sits on the side of my bed while I'm curled up like the baby inside my mama.

“You want me to call anybody for you?” Marge asks.

“God,” I tell her. “I got a list of stuff I need someone to ask him.”

“You have a wonderful sense of humor,” she tells me.

“Thanks,” I moan. “Could you put that hammer down now?”

I can feel her smiling.

“You know, we could make this a regular thing,” she goes after a while.

“I'd rather you go ahead and peel off my fingernails,” I tell her.

“Not the headaches, Keisha,” she goes. “The visits.”

Sometimes the slamming turns to squeezing. It's like somebody's got a Keisha head–sized nutcracker, and Lord, are they hungry.

“You could come here every summer. If you want.”

“For real,” I moan through the pressure. “Why do you even care?”

“It's selfish,” she tells me. She doesn't even hold up to think about it. “It's just that Tom and I get lonely. We really enjoy company.” She touches my shoulder, light.

“I hate it here,” I go. The pain made me.

“That's a damn lie,” Marge says. Then she kisses me, real soft on the top of my bursting head, and sits awhile.

*  *  *

The next morning they're all four of them tense, outside. They're butt stuck on the stump path watching the tea-bagged water in a glass pitcher slowly turn brown under the sun. Sun tea, Marge calls it. By lunchtime it'll be done brewing, and she'll throw in mint leaves from the garden.

“I've already checked,” Grace is saying, kind of aggravated, like she's said it a million times. “They'll hold my acceptance for the two years.”

“What happened?” I ask Sam.

“She's dumping college,” Sam says.

“I'm not dumping anything,” Grace argues. “I'm just postponing.” She squints up from her wooden stump. “I took a two-year contract in Europe,” she tells me. Like I'm supposed to know what that means. Then she turns back to Marge and Tom. “Didn't I make sure to take the GED even though I missed the last three months of school? I could have just bailed on the whole education thing, but I didn't.”

“Two years' working is a lot different from three months' testing the waters,” Tom says. His eyebrows are touching in the middle of his forehead. I never saw them do that before.

“The whole point of the testing the waters,” Grace reminds him, close to sarcastic, “was to get signed for real work.”

“Well, I wish you'd gotten signed for real work by someone from America,” Tom says, “because a few years of the fast life in Europe could make you think you don't need to go to college.”