Of Hustle and Heart (5 page)

CHAPTER 8

ZACARIAS

T
he early evening hours are peaceful and nourishing to my soul. I leave the restaurant early because I need to find a little peace within myself to cap off the day. I’m satisfied and proud of how well the senior picnic at the high school turned out, and once I made it back to the restaurant, all was well there too.

Whitney comes for me as soon as we finish unloading the catering van and get everything back into its place. All I can say about her is at least she has the good sense to wait until I’m in the back office to go off the way she does.

She’s angry, accusing me of avoiding her phone calls while I was out. Her accusations are so absurd that I’m sure she’s joking. She starts off calm, rattling off a list of offenses. As long as I sit still and let her attack my emotional and mental strength, she’s fine—pleasantly derogatory, in fact. When she attacks my integrity, saying I was probably too busy with some pack of senior whores to call her back, I draw the line. Enough.

“Stop,” I say casually, pinching the brim of my nose.

She tilts her head at me. “Stop what?” Her voice is airy and light.

I lift my eyes to hers, exhausted. “Stop saying all this stuff.”

She sits across from me, her long legs crossed at the thigh. “Why did you avoid my calls?”

I take in a deep breath and slouch in my chair. “I’m too tired, Whitney. Please.” I plead with her not to do this to me. I don’t have the energy to defend myself, but she continues anyway.

“There has to be a reason. And the only reason I can think of is that you were distracted.”

“I
was
distracted—I was working!” I raise my voice, growing impatient and irritable with this nonsense.

“It was a buffet, Zack!” she shoots back. “All anybody had to do was get a plate and serve themselves. Not hard.”

“I’m leaving,” I say as I stand up behind my desk.

“You can’t leave,” she says with a laugh as she moves to stand in front of me. “I’m not letting you out of this room until you tell me.”

“Tell you what? Why do you think I would ever…?” I throw my hands up and nudge past her.

“Zack!” She tries to grab my hand, but I pull away.

“What do you think would go on at a high-school picnic? What do you think I am?” I’m offended. No other way to put it.

“I heard some of the guys from the catering team talking about how the girls were looking at you,” she says. “Did you talk to any of them?”

“No,” I say, but she looks at me as if she’s finally caught me in a lie. “You think I’m some pedophile, that I troll the nearest high school, looking for teenagers to cheat on you with?”

“Did they flirt with you? Just tell me.”

“If you think I’m such a tool, why are you with me, Whitney? Why do you leave and then keep coming back?”

In all sincerity, I want to know. I can’t wrap my head around why any woman would attempt to preserve a relationship that wasn’t good for her. I’ve never done anything during the course of our nineteen-month relationship to deserve her distrust. I’ve never cheated—not even in my heart—and she knows this. Or at least she should.

She doesn’t have an answer. She stands next to me, looking into my eyes, her own on fire, burning with something unfamiliar to me. She doesn’t look like a woman who wants to love me. She looks at me as if she wants to control something inside me.

When she first came to Rico’s for a job a year ago, I was gullible enough to allow her that control over me. She wanted my time, and I gave it to her. She wanted to know my mother, so I forced Madeline to tolerate her. She wanted to control me, and I mistook that for love.

I shove past her, car keys in hand, even though she tries to block my path. My stomach is so twisted in knots that it constricts my breathing.

“I don’t deserve this,” I mutter.

It is physically painful to have her or anyone accuse me of betrayals I never committed. She calls out to me, but I don’t stop. I am tired; I just want peace. When I left Albert Chesney earlier, I was relieved and in a good place. All I wanted was to come back to Rico’s and back to Whitney—the girlfriend I’m trying so hard to love. I wanted her to embrace me, to celebrate the event’s success with me. I wanted her love; I wanted her to be mine. But she refuses. She constantly refuses.

When I get home, I don’t shower; I barely have the energy to disrobe. As I bury my face in my pillow, I wonder if I locked the front door. I’m too tired to go check it.

I consider whether I’ll want to talk to Whitney tomorrow, once she calms down. Though my eyes are burdened with the weight of exhaustion, I suddenly imagine the high-school girl—the hungry one—sitting in the corner of my room next to my dresser. She doesn’t smile at me, but she seems poised to watch over me while I sleep. It’s curious to me that my exhaustion would summon her. I fall asleep quickly with my mouth open, drool crusting on my arm and pillow.

The next morning, I wake up unrested. I’ve overslept, and if I want to make it to work on time, I’ll have to put a rush on it. I don’t have it in me. I roll over and dial the restaurant’s number. Bruno answers. He apologizes for not showing for the picnic, blubbering and spewing out reasons I couldn’t care less about. I listen for a minute and then interrupt him.

“I’m not going to make it in today, so you’re in charge,” I say. “Do me a favor and take care of everything.”

After lying around for another forty minutes or so, my growling stomach pushes me out of bed. I get dressed in a plain T-shirt and a pair of black basketball shorts and head out in search of breakfast. I drive around for twenty minutes, while my phone’s vibrating alerts go nuts on me. I finally check it at an intersection—four calls and five texts from Whitney and one text from my mother. I love them both. I hate to keep either of them waiting. But I need more time before I face either of them.

I pass by a doughnut shop. It reminds me of the Cinnabons they’d served at the picnic, and I find myself thinking about the high-school girl again. I bust a U-turn and pull into the drive-through. The line is horrendously long, so I decide to go inside. I stand in line behind two women who can’t seem to stop themselves from looking back at me. I ignore them, distracted by my gurgling stomach and the pastries in front of me. But when one of the women drops some change on the floor, I kneel down quickly to retrieve it for her.

“Here you go,” I say as I hand the coins back to her while she gushes at me.

She wants to talk, flirt, make conversation, but I don’t give her the opportunity. Instead, I force my attention back to the food. I rub my stomach and picture Whitney peering through the glass doors at me. Of course, she isn’t really there.

The pink-frosted doughnuts and strawberry milk—I imagine the high-school girl, Zina, would order that. Whitney likes plain, glazed doughnuts and ham-and-cheese kolache but the high-school girl has a zest, an excitement, about her and a presence louder than a V8 engine. She’d get the pink or red frosted doughnuts and kolache full of jalapenos and sausage. A smile plays at my lips, and when it’s my turn to order, I ask for exactly that.

I make it back from my doughnut run to find my mother’s car parked along the curb in front of my condo. She has a key to the two-bedroom flat my brother John and I share, so I know she’s in there waiting for one of us. I don’t want a visit from my mother. She can’t contain herself when it comes to my relationship with Whitney, so she pries and badgers, wanting to know every detail, about every up and down I go through with her. One moment she dislikes her and in the next finds potential with her.

“I saw mom’s car parked on the curb,” John says as he walks cautiously up the sidewalk and pauses a few feet away from me. I turn and look at him, wide eyed and anxious, hesitating outside our front door. I step back, afraid she’ll hear us.

“We can run for it,” John says, his voice silky smooth and quiet.

“You think she heard us drive up?” He considers it and shakes his head.

“Do you care if she knows we’re here?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t want her to think we’re avoiding her,” I say.

John laughs. “But we are.”

Then he looks at me, noticing the frown lines I’ve been unable to shake off since I left work yesterday and the ragged tone of my voice. He grabs my shoulder and stares at me.

“Hey,” he mumbles, “what’s wrong with you, bruh? You look fucked.”

“I’m not. I’m all right,” I say, pushing his hand from my shoulder. I lie to my brother, because right now I don’t want to talk to him either. In fact, I make a decision. I’d rather try to make a run for my room than stand out here under his suspicious gaze. If I have to bear my mother’s prying for a little while, I can live with that.

“I’m going in,” I say.

I unlock the front door, unsure if John will follow, but he does. He calls out, and our mother appears in the middle of the front living room.

“Good Lord! Where have you all been?” She flashes us a toothy grin. “I’ve been waiting for you two.”

“We know,” John says. “We saw your car parked outside.”

John takes his keys from his pockets and drops them on the hall table before he walks into the living room. He approaches our mother and leans over, softly kissing the corner of her mouth.

“We were avoiding you,” he says. He pauses only long enough to acknowledge her as he heads toward his bedroom and disappears inside, shutting the door behind him.

My mom smiles at me, her hazel eyes on fire; she’s eager to engage. She sits down in John’s favorite armchair and crosses her legs.

“Well,” she says, “John is silly and arrogant, as usual.” She smirks and lays her beige clutch across her lap. “He’s older than you. You’d think he’d at least try to fake your maturity level.”

“John’s not a fake,” I say. “He is who he is and feels the way he feels.” I remind my mother that some of her sons won’t bend over for her the way I do. She folds her hands in her lap and looks at me. I wonder if my brother can hear us.

“I wanted to talk to you about your birthday,” she says. “And I also want you and John to move back in with me.”

CHAPTER 9

ZINA

W
hile I stand at Ms. Boyd’s desk the next morning, waiting for her to write my pass to the nurse’s office, I catch Shannon’s smirk from the corner of my eye. He’s hunched forward over his quiz, tapping his pencil against the clean sheet of paper. The amusement in his eyes forces me to smile. He shakes his head at me, and I turn both palms upward and shrug.

“What?” I mouth at him.

He grins and turns back to the quiz he didn’t study for and has only thirty-five more minutes to finish. I stand at Ms. Boyd’s desk and grunt in pain, loud enough for Ms. Boyd to hear. I wipe invisible sweat from my forehead and mutate my breathing pattern into heavy, ragged breaths.

“Make sure you go straight to the nurse’s office, Zina,” Ms. Boyd says, without looking up. She reaches across her desk and grabs the red, monogrammed stamp pad that bears her signature. But I don’t respond; I haven’t perfected my sick voice. I can fake the gestures, the sounds, and the body language but not the sick voice.

“Mm-hmm,” I moan weakly as Ms. Boyd looks up at the vile faces I’m making and hands me the hall pass. Despite the distraction of Shannon Smith, I still manage to slide back into character in a pretty fine way.

As I walk back to my desk to retrieve my books and backpack, Shannon scrambles out of his desk. The noise he makes as he attempts to remove his six-foot-four frame from his desk is distracting and brash. But he finally manages to free himself and walks shamelessly toward me. He ignores the momentary glances of our classmates and reaches down to grab my backpack before I can. I watch him as he gathers up my stuff. He unzips my backpack and shoves my trig book and notebook inside.

“Is this all your stuff?” he asks.

He avoids making eye contact with me while he looks beneath my desk. He’s blocking Mrs. Boyd’s view of me, and I slip out of character long enough to force him to look at me.

“What’cha doing?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. He glances at me.

“I want to walk with you,” he whispers and then turns abruptly to ask Mrs. Boyd if he can escort me to the nurse’s office.

Mrs. Boyd smiles at the young gentleman she recognizes in him and agrees. Shannon slings my backpack across his shoulder and places a hand on my back, urging me toward the door.

In the hallway, I’m free to walk with the living. And I feel bad that I pulled Shannon into my lie.

“Why’d you wanna walk me?” I ask as he leads the way to the stairwell. He opens the door, holding it for me as I walk through. I look at him and wait at the top of the staircase for him to catch up. He is carrying my girlish book bag on his shoulder with no shame at all, as if my stuff is his. He doesn’t answer.

“Shannon, you don’t have to carry my bag.” I reach for it, but he jerks away and pushes my hand back.

“I got it,” he says. “What’d you think about the senior picnic yesterday?” His voice rumbles nicely in his chest.

“Umm…it was cool, I guess. Looked like fun,” I say.

“Looked like fun? You talk like you weren’t there.” He’s right. And I wasn’t there, not really.

“I was
there
…okay?”

He pauses on the bottom flight of stairs. I grab his arm to get him moving again.

“No, I ain’t happy that you came and sat by yourself. You didn’t look happy. I thought you’d have fun,” he says.

“I had fun eating.” I smile, but he ignores it.

“So what now?” he asks.

“So let’s move on. We still have graduation and—”

“And prom,” Shannon completes and smiles.

We exit the stairwell leading to the nurse’s office. I slow down because I’m planning to make a smooth exit through the side doors of the north wing. I walk behind Shannon, holding on to the straps of my backpack. He turns to look at me, as my pace slows. “You’re leaving, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m cutting out.” I smile. I don’t know what else to do. I want him to come with me, because I feel good about him being around. If he asks me to stay at school, I will, but I know he won’t.

“I can’t leave with you.” He pulls me underneath his arm. “But I’m not ready to turn you loose,” he says, pulling me into a headlock. I cuss and punch him in the side as I wrestle my way from underneath him.

“Don’t do that,” I warn. He grins as we continue down the hall. “So…where are
you
going?” I ask.

“I’m helping…taking you where you need to go.” His handsome face drops, and his arm tightens around my shoulder.

I’m still walking underneath Shannon’s arm when Beatrice, his girlfriend, walks out of the front office. She isn’t paying enough attention to notice us on her own. I guess she feels her boyfriend’s presence, or maybe she catches a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye, because she jerks around and looks from him to me with her mouth stuck open.

Here, Shannon sees her as she exits the office, and I promise you, the poor, stupid boy freezes dead in his tracks. He doesn’t know what to do. And the stiffness in his body lets me know he’s a little scared of what might happen next. It hurts me to know he cares so much about what Beatrice thinks when she sees us together. He cares about her more than I want to believe.

As the three of us stand in the hallway gawking at each other, I can tell Beatrice wants to slap the shit outta me—or him. Or both of us. I really can’t tell who she hates more. I wriggle away from Shannon slowly, because I don’t want Beatrice to think I’m ashamed that she’d seen us or scared me in any way. I’ll be very clear about that; I am not afraid of her. But I am afraid she’ll cause a scene in the hallway and fuck up my plan to ditch school for the rest of the day.

Beatrice places a hand on her round hip.

“What the fuck, Shannon?” she asks him as she gestures toward me with her free hand, her mouth turned up at the corner. “Where are y’all going?” She rolls her neck in the most agitating way.

“I’m walking Zina to the nurse’s office.”

Shannon hasn’t moved away from me, so I do him a favor and take a couple of steps away from him. I watch Beatrice carefully, my face as smooth as polished brown marble. There’s a whole host of things I would do if I were her. And I’m praying Beatrice’s self-proclaimed high-born status would compel her to do what a “good” girl would do. So far she’s living up to that high-and-mighty bullshit, though she rolls her eyes.

“Well, what the hell’s wrong with her? The nurse’s office is right there,” she says, jerking her head toward the office in the corner. “She can make it.”

Shannon takes a deep breath. “Yeah, I know.” His deep voice echoes softly in the hallway, and I get nervous.

“Shhhh.” I nudge him.

His eyes flicker at me. He doesn’t nod or anything, but I can tell he understands. The noise in the hallway is a problem, and he’ll try to keep it down.

“What the fuck, Shannon?” Beatrice says again.

I cringe as her voice is amplified in the cavernous hallway.

“Shhhh!” Shannon walks toward Beatrice, his hand extended in an effort to cover her mouth. She jerks away, and I start walking.

“Zina!” Shannon calls after me, though I wish he hadn’t.

I shake my head and keep walking.
Shannon…you’re so stupid! You’ll piss her off more
. I pick up speed and jog lightly past the nurse’s office. I’m halfway to the exit door, when I hear someone running after me. I don’t turn around to see who it is. I don’t care. Shannon sails past me and pushes the door open with his back.

“Hurry up, girl!” he beckons. I’m shocked to see him standing in front of me. “I think Mrs.—”

“Uh…excuse me,” Mrs. Welch calls out from the middle of the hallway as she grabs her walkie-talkie from her hip. “Shannon Smith!” She sounds startled, as if she can’t believe who she’s seeing.

Shannon flinches at the sound of her voice but doesn’t stop. He pushes the door open, grabs my arm, and yanks me through the back door, following quickly.

“Man, what happened?” I say as we run down the short flight of stairs that will take us to Chesney’s front lawn.

“She heard me and Beatrice going at it in the hall.”

“Dammit man, you and your stupid girlfriend,” I mutter.

Shannon kicks the next exit door open, and we run onto the front lawn.

“Wait,” Shannon says. He thumbs over his shoulder at the ledge over our exit. “Climb up there until she’s gone.”

He holds his hands out, palms up. When I step into his palm, he hoists me up. I stand and scoot over to make room for him. Shannon pulls himself up, and the two of us sidestep into one of the cement crevices that’s deep enough for the two of us to hide.

“Oh my God! Are there spiders?” I know I sound like a whiner, but I don’t care.

“Shhhh!” he says.

I bury my head into his back and wrap both arms around his waist. Shannon steps back enough so that his body covers mine and mushes me into the crevice.

“Shannon,” I whisper, but he shushes me again.

“They’ll see me. They won’t see you.”

I squeeze him tighter. “You’re not going back to class?” I ask as we stand there together.

“I don’t know. Depends on how long it takes your bus to get here.”

As we wait, I ponder my next move and try to calculate how much money I might make today selling the bootleg CDs.

“You’re sweatin’ a lot,” Shannon says, breaking our silence.

“Dude, duh! It’s hot as hell out here, and I have a lot of hair,” I mumble.

I feel drained from the sun. It beats down on us, and the trees offer little protection.

“I see that,” Shannon says, staring at the thickness of my African roots.

Then he reaches out slowly to touch my hair. I stand still, afraid to move, and close my eyes. But the sound of the bus’s engine and breaks wakes me.

I’m not standing at the metro bus stop in front of the school, so the bus picks up speed, prepared to zoom right past Chesney.

“Come on,” Shannon says, snatching me from the ledge. He helps me down, and I take off running toward the bus stop.