Sweet Tea: A Novel (8 page)

M
y two front teeth fell out. I ripped at the carpet fiercely, trying to find them. Then I was sitting at my desk, Monica Bradshaw throwing Jujubes at me, laughing and yelling, “Stick these in your mouth.” She sat behind Matt, running her fingers through his curly hair as pieces of candy fell to the ground. . . .

I woke up drenched with sweat, still seeing Matt’s face. It was noon. Luke and CeCe were already up. We had missed two days of school and I still hadn’t told anyone about Mama, though CeCe told Mama’s boss, who was kind and understanding.

I sat down at the kitchen table. CeCe was making grits on the stove. She put the pot aside and said, “Olivia, I think I should call your guidance counselor at school.”

My eyes widened. “Absolutely not! I don’t need to talk to her about this. This is a private family matter.” My guidance counselor liked me. She told me I had a future . . . potential. I didn’t want her to know about Mama. It might change the way she thought about me.

CeCe turned to Luke. “How ’bout you? Do you want me to speak to your guidance counselor?”

He shrugged. “What for?”

“Because—even though Mama’s in the hospital, we all have to go back to school. I know it’ll be hard to concentrate. If your counselor knows about our . . . family matters, she’ll make sure your teachers understand if you’re not quite yourself.”

“Go ahead, I don’t care one way or the other,” he said, and disappeared into his bedroom.

I knew CeCe was just trying to help, but my emotions shifted from moment to moment just like they did after Daddy died. In some ways, I felt like Mama was dying too. Random thoughts from my memory stirred throughout my mind. Thoughts about Mama when Daddy had been alive. I remembered an instance when we’d gotten to church once and Daddy made us all leave the moment we took off our coats and sat down. Mama had been wearing her nightgown instead of her dress.

After that, a flash went through my mind of Daddy squeezing toothpaste onto Mama’s toothbrush. Her teeth were blue and she was holding a tube of icing from Luke’s first birthday cake. It all seemed like a dream now, but I knew it had happened.

Then I reminisced about the time Mama first told us we had to sell the house and move into the trailer. I gave her an awful time about it. I refused to let anyone know about our move for as long as possible. The thought of someone calling me “trailer trash” crushed my ego. I despised the term before we moved and after we had, I feared it.

I shouldn’t have given her a hard time. I should have realized she was fragile, and I knew then, I should have shared my feelings with someone back when Daddy died.  Maybe it might have helped fill the void in my heart now. But it was too late. Instead, I found other ways to fill it. I sought out Matt. He’d called over the weekend and left a message on the answering machine to see how I was doing. Bessa and Jonzie left messages too, but I didn’t feel like talking to them just yet.

I snuck Mama’s car keys out of her purse. Although I knew how to drive, I didn’t have a license. Matt only lived fifteen minutes away. I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. It was well after suppertime and I didn’t think I’d be intruding.

When I reached his neighborhood, I couldn’t help but covet the beautiful homes, wishing I lived in one of them instead of our puny trailer. Monica Bradshaw lived down the road from him, in a house about the same size. I couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing me get out of Mama’s car. Her cherry bomb tank, an old Oldsmobile, stuck out like a cow on a pig farm. So I parked a block away.

Since I appeared more desirable than the last time he had seen me, I hoped Matt would be happily surprised. No cars sat parked in the driveway. I figured his parents were gone, and maybe we’d have an opportunity to finish where we had left off the night of the concert.

My nerves jumped like grasshoppers inside the pit of my stomach, but it would be worth it, I told myself. I locked Bessa’s advice out of my head, rang the doorbell, and waited. No one answered. I pressed it again and put my ear to the door. Music played, and I heard footsteps.

Finally, the door opened and a tall voluptuous girl around CeCe’s age stood there. Although Matt and I had been dating a couple of months, I didn’t really know him as well as I thought I had. I didn’t even know if he had brothers and sisters. I figured the girl at the door must be his sister. I gave her a nervous smile. “Hi, I’m Olivia, Matt isn’t expecting me, but I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by. Is he home?”

A pair of dark chocolate eyes coated in lavender shadow and liquid liner examined me thoroughly. She called up the stairs in a raspy voice, “Matt, you have a visitor.”

He came to the front door, wearing blue jeans and no shirt. Not much different than the last time I’d seen him.

“Olivia, what’s up? Watcha doin’ here?” He didn’t seem happy or unhappy to see me. But, he didn’t seem like the Matt I was with on Saturday night. And I had an inkling that Miss Liner Lids wasn’t his sister after she stepped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Hurry up, Matt,” she said. “I wanna get started.”

I swallowed hard. “I . . . I just wanted to say sorry for the other night. I’ll see ya.” I turned to leave.

“Wait!” He placed his hand on my shoulder. An angry warm feeling ran through my body. I turned back around to see him running his fingers through the top of his dark curls. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” I said, holding back tears.

“Come on, Matt. I’m waiting,” the smoky voice called, now from upstairs.

“I gotta go,” I said, and turned around.

“No, wait!”

I marched down the steps, not turning back, and listened for the door to close.

I sprinted around the corner toward the car, slid behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition, and turned the radio to blasting levels. I stepped down on the gas. The Rolling Stones song
Paint it Black
played and the music fueled my anger. I sang along. . . .
Black as night, black as coal, I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky, I wanna see it painted, painted, painted black . . .

My mind kept replaying the last moments: Matt with no shirt, the girl’s hands wrapped around his waist. Her voice calling him from upstairs. Long legs, dark eyes, fuchsia lips.

Red lights.

In my rearview mirror, I saw them and snapped out of my pity party. I peered down at the speedometer and it read eighty miles an hour. I slowed down and pulled to the side of the road. By the time the police officer appeared, my emotional levee broke and tears rushed down my face. I cried. I cried until the salt from my tears gagged me.

The officer tapped my window with his stick. I rolled it down and glared up at him with my tearstained face. He reminded me of the police officer who came to our door the night Daddy died, the one who stared at his shoes while the older one told us the news. And this one was going to take me to jail because I was speeding, and I didn’t even have a license. It couldn’t get any worse than this. Did God hate me?

“Are you okay, young lady?” he asked.

“No! No! No!” I cried. “I just left my mother at Central State Hospital, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

He handed me his handkerchief. I gazed up at him and sniffled. “Thank you, Sir.”

Instead of scolding me and giving me a ticket, he said, “Do yourself a favor. Slow down, and get on home.” He tipped his hat in the same way the officer did when Mama whispered in his ear the day the stranger slipped out our back door.

“Thank you, Lord,” I whispered after he stepped away, feeling guilty I’d had such blasphemous thoughts.

My tears had not fallen in vain. Had the police officer asked to see my license I don’t know what would’ve happened. Except that one more stressful incident would have sent me over to Central State with Mama.

I took the officer’s advice and drove home slowly. When I reached the trailer, I staggered to my side of the bed and collapsed.

The next morning, I hit the snooze button one too many times and overslept. I hadn’t heard CeCe get up, which was surprising since it was impossible not to hear or feel every move each other made having shared a bed for four long years.

After I showered, I cleared the mirror and stared at my swollen eyes. In no mood for the third degree I knew I’d get from Jonzie and Bessa, I plotted an excuse as I pulled on my jeans, which seemed to have grown a size. I tossed them aside. And for the first time, I was able to slide on a pair of CeCe’s size three jeans. Strange how something so inane boosted my mood. Maybe I’d borrow CeCe’s black pants too, I thought. We finished breakfast, and each of us parted ways and went about our routines, knowing in the back of our minds our mama lay trapped in a mental institution.

Jonzie spotted me in homeroom and headed to me like a bee to a daffodil. “Where’ve you been? I called a bunch of times and nobody answered.”

“My mama accidentally turned off the ringer,” I lied.

Jonzie scrunched her eyebrows. “You could’ve called me!”

“Sorry.”
              “And what’s wrong with your eyes?”

“I got pinkeye,” I said, and faced the floor.

Jonzie put her hand on her hip. “In both eyes? Who do you think you’re talking to? What happened with Matt?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, tell me the short version. Did you do it or not?”

The bell rang, and I collected my books and started for the door. I didn’t move fast enough. She followed me into the hallway.

“You did. Didn’t you?” She grinned.

I refused to discuss anything about my personal life in the school hallway, and only said, “No.”

“What do you mean, ‘No’?
No
you didn’t do it? Or
no
, it wasn’t good? I’m not going to class until you tell me the whole story.”

I drew in a breath and let it out. “Well, unless you want to come with me to English, you’re not getting it until later.” I knew English was the last place Jonzie would follow me, so I walked faster.

She placed her hand on her right hip. “Fine, I’ll meet you later.”

“Fine,” I mimicked. As great a friend as Jonzie was, she was equally draining at times.

School had always come easy to me, and most teachers liked me, probably because of my fame as a star student and winning every spelling bee from grammar school through ninth grade. There’d been a time when my goal in life had been to obtain a scholarship. To where, I wasn’t sure. And for what? After learning about Mama’s condition, maybe I’d think about becoming a psychiatrist.

But deep inside I dreamed of becoming a TV talk-show host, or maybe a journalist like Diane Sawyer. I’d dig up information about corruption, famous stars gone bad, and interview dignitaries. People would fawn all over me before my show - applying my makeup, fixing my hair, feeding me information through an earpiece about my latest guest while my audience hung on my every word.

I would never share my dream with CeCe or Mama. CeCe was the star of the family. Neither of them would take me seriously. I hadn’t even participated in any spelling bees since ninth grade. And no one except my guidance counselor had ever asked about my plans for my future. It seemed my place in our family was to remain in the middle . . . the middle of eternal chaos.

Class flew by and the bell rang, and my stomach lurched again. It was time for lunch and an interrogation from Bessa and Jonzie. But I figured it would be easier to talk about Matt than Mama, so I let it all out.

* * *

“Just because he was with that girl doesn’t mean he doesn’t still like you,” Jonzie said. “You got him all worked up and he needed to find an experienced skier.” She giggled and put her hand on my arm. “It’s okay. You’re not the first girl who’s gotten drunk and puked at the feet of a gorgeous hunk of a guy.”

I pulled my arm back. “Stifle it, Jonzie.”

“Oh, I’m just teasing. He’s a jerk, but there’s no doubt he’s got it for you. Lust swims in his eyes when he plants them on your perfect . . . little . . . behind . . .”

“Praise the Lord!” Bessa interrupted. “I prayed that God would intercede and keep you from giving away the precious sanctity of your virginity.” She smiled at me and smirked at Jonzie. “You said it, Jonzie. Lust . . . not love.”

Even if what Jonzie said was true, how could I be with Matt now? In spite of my worries about everything else, anger and jealousy enveloped me. Regardless of Matt’s hunky status, I no longer intended on
skiing
with him. Maybe Bessa was right, and God stopped me before I had a chance to jump into the water.

“Look! There he is.” Jonzie nodded in his direction.

I bent down and pretended to pick up my pencil so he wouldn’t see me.

“He’s looking for you,” Jonzie whispered. “Those dark urban eyes are seeking you out. Get up, girl.”

“Let him keep seeking,” I said, and kept my head down. A few seconds later, I asked, “Is he gone yet?”

Before Jonzie could answer, I shot up from beneath the table and banged my forehead. Hot breath swished down the back of my neck. I turned around, and the scorching breath became warm lips on my bruised forehead while firm hands pulled me to a standing position. Bessa and Jonzie sat in silent shock. Face-to-face with Matt, I stood dumfounded. He boasted a wide grin as if he’d never been in his house with another girl while I stood at his front door like an idiot.