The Pact (7 page)

Indigo

I
checked out my booty in the dressing room mirror at Charlotte Russe, making sure the jeans fit just right. They were perfect, and I turned around and checked the front, stuck my hands down into the pockets. I slipped the top with spaghetti straps over my head to see if it looked right with the jeans. The outfit looked good on me, and I stepped outside the small dressing room to let Sabrina take a look.

“Brina, what you think about these jeans?”

She popped her head outside of her dressing room door, gave my jeans a scan. “Those are cute, Indi,” she said. “Turn around, let me see the back.”

I did a quick spin, sticking my behind out as I placed my hand on my hip.

“What about the top?” I asked her.

“Cute, but come here.”

I walked over to the door of Sabrina’s dressing room. She pulled on the bottom of my blouse in order to expose more cleavage. She straightened the spaghetti straps. “There, that’s better. You gotta show the world what you got, girl. Even though you don’t have that much.” She laughed. “Wait until you have kids…then you’ll have something to fill this little top out.”

Sabrina checked out the back of her jeans in the mirror. “You like these, Indi?”

“They’re cute.”

“Yeah, I think I want them.” She smiled and then slammed her door shut.

I stood in line behind Sabrina as she purchased a pair of silver hoop earrings and a pair of sunglasses with the large frames and pink lenses. After the salesperson rang up her purchase and handed Sabrina her change, I placed my jeans and blouse on the counter. I pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of my purse and handed it to the girl behind the counter, who had an Afrocentric hairstyle. She smiled when she handed me fifty-seven cents: my change, and the only money that I had to my name. Daddy had promised to send me fifty dollars in the mail, but I had yet to receive it. So until he got around to it, I was officially broke. The jeans fit my body perfectly, so they were worth the sacrifice.

Sabrina and I tried on dresses that we found on the Macy’s clearance rack, and shoes that were on sale at the Wild Pair. We stopped at Starbucks and ordered white chocolate mochas with a splash of vanilla in each. We sat in the comfortable chairs at Starbucks, listened to the eccentric music playing in the store and watched as people stepped up to the counter and ordered cappuccinos or other flavored coffees. We laughed at the big woman who ordered three pieces of chocolate cake and sat there and ate every crumb. We stepped into Victoria’s Secret and smelled the new fragrances and lotions, and then ended our day at the mall with a quick breeze through the record store, in search of Chris Brown’s new CD. Once we found it, Sabrina was eager to get to the car to play it. As she backed Dugan’s Chevy out of the tight parking space, I ripped the plastic off the CD and popped it in.

“He is so fine,” Sabrina said, then pulled a Newport out of her purse and lit it.

“Yes, he is,” I said.

“Check this out, Indi.” Sabrina reached into the backseat for her huge Coach bag. The jeans that she’d tried on at Charlotte Russe were crumpled up inside her purse.

“The jeans you tried on! You stole them?”

“I had to have them. They were just so cute, I couldn’t pass them up.”

I looked out the window. Shoplifting was not something that I did, and I was nervous. I kept thinking that the cops would be looking for us soon.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never shoplifted before, Indi.”

“Never,” I said.

“Oh, I forgot, Uncle Harold buys you everything your little heart desires.” She laughed. “You’re a spoiled little rich girl.”

The statement she made couldn’t be further from the truth. My father wasn’t rich, and he didn’t buy me everything I wanted. I rarely got anything without working for it or begging for it. She had it all wrong. I didn’t want her to think I was a “spoiled little rich girl,” so I played along.

“That’s cool that you got those jeans, girl. They were so cute on you!”

“You think so?” she asked.

“You should wear them tonight when we go out,” I said.

“You know what? I probably will,” Sabrina said, and then slowed at a stop sign.

We both rolled our windows all the way down and let the wind blow through our hair as we pulled out of the mall parking lot and into traffic. Chris Brown serenaded us as we breezed through the streets of Chi-town on a hot summer afternoon.

“You hungry?” Sabrina asked.

“A little bit,” I told her.

“Cool. My girlfriend Trish is firing up the grill and she invited us over.”

The tires of Dugan’s car brushed against the curb as we pulled up in front of a ranch-style house with at least twenty people on the front porch. A Snoop Doggy Dogg track was being played—loud. Bottled beers were being turned up by some of the roughest-looking characters I’d ever seen in my life, and I was hesitant about stepping out of the car.

“Trish here?” Sabrina asked as she headed up the walkway.

“She in the house.” A tall, slender man pointed toward the door and offered us something to drink. “Y’all want a beer?”

“No thanks,” we said in unison, and stepped into the house.

People in the living room sat around on sofas and talked loud enough to be heard over the music. Four people sat at the kitchen table playing dominoes. In the backyard, several others danced to the sounds of Snoop, while two guys flipped burgers on a barbecue grill.

“Sabrina, girl, what’s up?” A short, dark girl with gold extensions in her hair walked toward us. Her long fingers were wrapped around a red plastic cup, and each long nail had a different design.

“Trish, what’s good?” Sabrina asked her.

“It’s all good.” Trish smiled, and that was when I noticed the gold tooth in the front of her mouth. It was not attractive at all.

“That’s what’s up.” My cousin gave Trish a tight squeeze. “This is my cousin Indigo. Indigo, meet Trish.”

“Hi,” I said.

“What’s up, girl?” Trish smiled my way. “Y’all hungry?”

“Starving,” Sabrina answered for both of us.

“Come on. The food’s inside.”

We followed Trish back into the kitchen, where she pulled a roasting pan filled with barbecued ribs and chicken out of the oven. She handed us a couple of paper plates and forks, and it wasn’t long before both plates were overflowing with food. Trish poured us each a cup of Kool-Aid, and we stood around in the kitchen eating barbecue and watching as people slammed dominoes onto the table.

Before long, we were all in the middle of the floor doing the Cupid Shuffle. It was fun hanging out with Sabrina and her friends. My friends in Atlanta were nothing like this.

Marcus

The
sound of knocking shook me out of my sleep, and I glanced over at the clock on my nightstand. Nine-thirty. I wiped sleep from my eyes and sat up on the side of the bed. I grabbed a T-shirt, pulled it over my head and headed for the door. Peeked through the peephole. Swung the door open.

“What’s up with you knocking on my door at the crack of dawn every morning?” I asked Michelle.

“Marcus, it’s way past dawn. It’s almost ten o’clock,” Michelle said. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“Guess,” she insisted.

“Just tell me.”

“I got tickets to see Lil Wayne on Friday night…at the Toyota Center!”

“Seriously?”

“Front-row seats and backstage passes, too,” she said, and held the tickets in the air. “You wanna go?”

“No doubt.” I snatched them from her, just to see if they were real.

They were real, all right. I handed them back.

“Cool, we can go, then,” Michelle said, and stepped inside. She went straight for the kitchen. “Your mom didn’t make us pancakes this morning?”

“She never made
us
pancakes in the first place. Those were my pancakes that you grubbed on the other day.”

“That’s okay, I’ll just have a bowl of cereal.” She giggled, and then pulled a bowl from the shelf. She looked in the pantry and found a box of Fruity Pebbles.

“Why don’t you just make yourself at home?” I said sarcastically, and shook my head as Michelle did just that.

I made my way down the hallway and into the bathroom, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I went into my bedroom and grabbed my watch, slipped it onto my wrist. Glanced out the window at the pool. Rena was in her lifeguard uniform, sitting on her throne—her lifeguard chair. She put her whistle in her mouth, blew it and yelled at some kid. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I watched her as she climbed down from the chair and went for a swim. I wanted to be next to her again and decided that I should go for a swim—just as soon as I got rid of Michelle.

She was already crunching on Fruity Pebbles and flipping through the channels on the television when I walked back into the room.

“This video is so hot!” Michelle said. “Check it out.”

“Yeah, it is pretty hot.”

It was a Plies video, featuring Akon—a video where sexy girls shook their hips in slow motion. It was one of the top videos on
106 & Park
that week, and one that was in my top ten.

I watched as Michelle bounced around in the middle of the floor. I was surprised that she had rhythm, and I began to wonder how she would look if she got rid of those pop-bottle glasses and actually invested in a pair of contacts. And what if she didn’t wear braces and had straight, white teeth, and micro braids like the other girls I knew, instead of the silly ponytail that she wore on the back of her head? She seemed to be somewhat pretty on the inside. I just wondered what she would be like if she was pretty on the outside, too.

It was a hot summer day, and I couldn’t wait to cool off in the pool. There was no hope of getting rid of Michelle as we both stepped out into the Texas heat. I had already spotted Rena from a distance, and watched as she paced the edge of the pool—back and forth—her whistle in her mouth, just waiting to be blown at someone violating the rules. I watched her, thinking of our kiss at the beach, and wondered if she’d thought of me when she got home. And wondering where her attitude had come from so suddenly that night. Had I done something wrong?

The tapping of a basketball shook me from my trance.

“What’s up, Michelle? You’re still as ugly as ever,” said a short guy who favored Martin Lawrence, with his short cut, big teeth and big ears. He grinned at Michelle as he insulted her. He was wearing gray shorts that hung past his knees, and the number 23 on his Miami Heat jersey was beginning to peel. He dribbled the ball between his legs and pretended to shoot it into an imaginary basket.

“You are so stupid, Andre. You should grow up.” Michelle rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.

“You playing ball somewhere, man?” I asked. I didn’t remember seeing a basketball court anywhere.

“Court right up the street, dog,” Andre said. “You play?”

“Yeah, I play.”

“Everybody plays up there. We can probably get the next game if we leave now.”

I thought about it for a moment. I was just about to go for a swim and flirt with the sexy lifeguard at the pool. I wasn’t even dressed for a game of basketball—I wore swimming trunks, and flip-flops on my feet.

“I was about to go for a swim,” I said, and glanced back over at the pool. I wanted to go for a swim, but part of me wanted to shoot some hoops, too.

“Suit yourself, dog.” Andre continued to bounce the ball, headed toward the subdivision entrance.

“Wait, man,” I told him, “let me get my sneakers.”

He nodded and agreed to wait for me. I took the stairs two at a time, changed shoes and ran back outside with a wifebeater on, and Jordans on my feet. I caught up with Andre. Michelle was close behind, as usual. She was quickly becoming my shadow.

“What position you play?” I asked Andre.

“Point guard,” he boasted, “and let me tell you, I’m bad on the court…weaving in and out, in between the tall dudes. They can’t touch me, dog.”

“You that good, huh?” I asked.

“I can’t even tell you in words. I gotta show you.”

“Please,” Michelle said, swinging her neck from side to side. “Boy, you can’t play no ball.”

“Shut up, girl, with those magnifying glasses on your face.”

“You shut up, with your learning-disabled self,” Michelle came back. “When you gon’ stop riding the short bus and ride a regular bus like the rest of us?”

“Be quiet, girl,” Andre said. “Hey, Marcus, like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted…my game is tight. Believe that.”

Andre was talking a bunch of trash, and I wondered if he really did have game. The three of us jaywalked across a busy street, a tow truck coming very close to running us over. We cut through the parking lot of a Shell gas station, and then ended up on the backside of a Diamond Shamrock store. Across the street from the store was a playground where a tall dude was dunking a basketball into a rusty goal without a net. There were about ten dudes in the game and another twenty on the sideline awaiting their turns. I doubted that Andre or I would get a chance to play before dark, but I instantly felt a rush of excitement just to be able to watch the game being played.

A short, dark guy with a bald head took the ball out, passed it to his tall teammate with a nappy Afro, who dribbled it downcourt. Just as he went up for a layup, an opponent from the other team—a light-skinned dude with buckteeth—grabbed his shirt and prevented him from shooting.

“Foul!” Nappy Afro yelled.

“Hey, I didn’t touch you, man,” Bucktooth protested.

“Man, you grabbed my shirt.” Nappy Afro was in Bucktooth’s face in an instant.

Bucktooth pushed him, and before I knew it they were on the ground, rumbling. That is, until someone pulled them off each other.

“I quit,” Nappy Afro said, and grabbed his shirt from the ground. He tossed it across his shoulder and headed off the court.

“We need a fill-in.” A somewhat heavy dude with braids that needed to be redone scanned the crowd.

“I got next game.” A guy standing next to the fence walked up. “I’ll wait, though.”

Heavy Dude looked into the bleachers. I must’ve stood out in the crowd, because he immediately zeroed in on me.

“Hey, man…you play?” he asked me.

“Yeah, I play.”

“Come on, then,” he said.

I stood and stepped down from the bleachers. Andre looked as if he’d been betrayed. I pulled my wifebeater over my head and tossed it to Michelle for safekeeping. Heavy Dude threw me the ball and told me to take it out. I stepped on the other side of the white line and passed the ball to a brown boy wearing sweatpants and raggedy sneakers. He caught it and headed down the court. When he got into trouble, he passed the ball to Heavy Dude, who handed it off to me as I split through the middle. I sank it into the basket with one swift move and headed downcourt. My teammates slapped me high fives before I took the ball out again.

Before long, we were only down by four points and I had six baskets under my belt. The court became more and more crowded, and by the time Brown Boy dunked the ball, we had managed to win the game. The losers were replaced by a different set of dudes and a new game began. A couple of hours later I glanced over at the bleachers at Andre and Michelle. They were still there, Andre hoping to get some play action, but he had been looked over all day. I felt his pain.

“Hey, man, I’m tired,” I told Heavy Dude. “Why don’t you let the little dude over there play?”

“Who, Andre?” Heavy Dude asked. “Man, he can’t play no ball. Stick around a little longer, bro. We got this game wrapped up tight.”

After the fifth game, I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to get home, grab a turkey sandwich or some leftover tacos. I wanted a Cherry Coke so bad I could taste it.

“I’m done, man,” I told Heavy Dude.

“Cool.” He signaled to the others that it was time to quit. As we headed toward the bleachers, he asked, “What’s your name, anyway, man?”

“Marcus.” I held my fist out to give him some dap.

“I’ma call you Flash, because when you run downcourt, you’re like a flash of lightning, man.” We gave each other dap. “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

“Been playing in leagues all my life. I play on the team at school, too.”

“That’s cool, bro. I’m Eldridge. But everybody just calls me El,” he said. “You coming back tomorrow, Flash?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here.”

“Cool, I’ll see you tomorrow then, man.”

“No doubt.”

Michelle and Andre stepped down from the bleachers.

“Can I have my shirt, please?”

“Marcus, you were so good.” Michelle tossed the shirt my way. “You looked like a professional ballplayer—like Wade or Kobe.”

“You do have game, dog,” Andre said, and I was sure it took everything he had just to pay me a compliment, especially after he had bragged about his game.

We didn’t discuss the fact that he didn’t get any playing time. I didn’t want to embarrass him any more than he already was. We just headed back the way we came—across the street to the Diamond Shamrock, and then back through the Shell parking lot. We jaywalked across the busy street again and strolled into the parking lot of our subdivision. Rena was still seated on her throne as I passed by the pool. She looked my way, but I looked away this time. Headed up the stairs to our condo unit, unlocked the door and went straight for the shower.

When I stepped out of the shower, I knew Mom was home because there was old-school music playing and all sorts of spices were floating through the air. I could even hear voices and laughter over the music and wondered if she had company. I dried off and stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. I left the door cracked as I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. That was when I heard a male voice and wondered who was in our home.

I stepped into the kitchen, where Mom was frying pork chops smothered in a mixture of New Orleans spices. She had a pair of tongs in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, shaking her hips to Marvin Gaye’s “Distant Lover.” The smell of a cigar suddenly assaulted my nose. I peeked into the living room to find a tall, thin black man in the middle of the floor, singing the words of the song and puffing on a cigar.

“You must be Marcus.” He grinned and held his hand out.

“How you doing?” I asked, giving him a firm handshake. “Yes, I’m Marcus.”

“This is my baby,” Mom said as she appeared in the living room. “Marcus, this is Leon.”

“Nice to meet you,” I told Leon.

“Marcus, I understand you’re considering a move here.” Leon wore a pin-striped suit with perfectly shined shoes. The cuff links on the sleeves of his shirt were gold and sparkling as he took a drink from his shot glass.

“I’m thinking about it. But I haven’t really made a decision yet.”

“I know your mom would love to have you here. The three of us could really have a good life together.”

The three of us? When did he become a part of this twosome?

“I’ve asked your mother to marry me.” Leon smiled at Mom, who was holding her hand in the air and flashing the huge rock that he had placed on her finger. “And of course she said yes.”

“When did all this happen?” I wanted to know.

“Over lunch this afternoon,” Mom explained.

“What do you think about that, son?” Leon asked, and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to be your stepfather.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Mom was engaged to some dude she hadn’t even introduced me to before now. I felt betrayed. I knew she had a boyfriend, but I had no clue that they were halfway to the altar. I didn’t even have an opportunity to size him up, make sure his intentions were good. I didn’t know if he was a criminal in his previous life or if he had done jail time. I hadn’t had a chance to get to know him at all, and here they were planning a wedding. I didn’t know if he had kids, or if he even liked kids. He was dressed in a tailored suit with a silk shirt and expensive shoes, but I had no idea what Leon did for a living. My first time laying eyes on the guy and I’m knocked upside the head with the prospect that he might be my stepfather soon.