Leaving Atlanta Page 6

  Ayana was easy to spot, sitting on a bench tying her skates. She had pulled her white button-down shirt out of her jeans and tied it up around her middle, exposing her neat navel. (If Daddy weren’t here, Tasha might have tried the same thing.) When her skates were tight, Ayana reached a hand up and unraveled her braids, creating loose, even waves around her ears. Tasha’s two braids were tacked to the top of her head like the Swiss Miss on the cocoa can. She wiggled a bobby pin that dug into her scalp. Lucky Ayana shook her head, making her pretty hair bounce.

  Tasha had laced her own skates and was ready to step out onto the rink when Ayana said, “Let’s go to the rest room and fix our faces.”

  Tasha said, “Makeup? I don’t know.” She pushed open the fuchsia door that said FOXES in loopy letters. She wondered how Ayana would get her hair back into neat plaits before her own mother saw her. Somehow, Ayana always got away with everything.

  Ayana pulled out a small jar. “No. Just Vaseline.”

  Tasha was intrigued.

  Ayana smoothed the thick white grease onto Tasha’s eyelids. “See?” she said. “Now that will bring out your eyes.”

  Bring them out? What did that mean? Tasha looked in the mirror. The area below her eyebrows was shiny and it kind of looked like she had on eye shadow. Sort of. She dipped her finger in the Vaseline and smeared her lips. Cookie used something called Kissing Potion that made her lips glisten with the color and smell of strawberries. Vaseline was almost as good.

  Tasha waited while Ayana finished primping. Although they were the same age, Ayana had been skipped a grade in school. At the middle school, Ayana was learning all kinds of tricks from the seventh- and eighth-graders while Tasha was still fooling around with elementary babies.

  Ayana might have been more glamorous and experienced, but she couldn’t skate half as well as Tasha, who loved roller-skating. The deejay turned the music up loud and Tasha could feel the beat in her chest just like when a marching band passed by in a parade. She moved her legs easily with the rhythm and used her arms to go faster. As she pushed into the glowing darkness, the reflections from the disco ball were indoor winter fireflies. Tasha lowered her eyes while she flowed, enjoying her breeze.

  After a half hour or so, the girls were really hot—sweat rolled down their scalps, plastering their baby hair to their faces—but they sipped their icy Cokes slowly to keep from getting headaches. Some boys came in the door, play-fighting and laughing loud. The group of fathers sharing pitchers of beer looked up from their plastic cups suspiciously.

  The boys were old, Tasha thought. Old as Cookie, at least. And where was Cookie, anyway? Tasha had noticed her when they first got here, holding hands with her boyfriend, but now she had disappeared.

  “Where’s Cookie?” Tasha asked Ayana.

  Ayana shrugged.

  “Do you think she’s okay?” Tasha felt a little panicky, recalling the dark parking lot.

  “Oh, she’s alright,” Ayana said, raising her eyebrows twice. She had been using more and more nonverbal communication since she started middle school. Tasha didn’t know what that eyebrow motion was meant to convey but she raised hers back.

  The six or so rowdy boys didn’t skate. Instead, they played pinball. Two of them tilted the machine backward if the silver metal ball threatened to roll into the little hole at the base, ending the game. This way, all of them were able to play with only a single quarter. The halo man kept a careful eye on them as he filled orders at the snack bar.

  Tasha snuck peeks at them as she skated around the oval rink. She had to slow down in order to see more than boy-shaped blurs. There was a little guy with them. Clearly, his mother hadn’t asked what adult when he had asked to go. He stood on his tiptoes in order to see the pinball game over the massive teenage shoulders. They moved as if he weren’t even there; he had to jerk his head this way and that to avoid being carelessly elbowed in the nose. He should have brought a friend with him that was his own age. How old was he anyway? The flashing disco lights obscured details but Tasha figured that he was eleven, or maybe a little younger. On the next lap around, she was glad to see that he was given a turn at the machine.

  Then, she fell. The lace of her left skate got caught up in the wheels and she fell flat on her behind. All of the big boys turned at once from the pinball machine, hooting and laughing. The little one turned to see what all the commotion was about. Evidently he lost the ball, because his friends started cursing him. Well, not exactly cursing; there was a large sign posted near the door declaring NO PROFANITY. They beat him about the head and shoulders with their baseball caps as Ayana helped Tasha to her feet and over to a bench.

  It wasn’t really that bad of a fall. Tasha was pretty sure that she wasn’t bleeding but she checked for skinned knees anyway. People were less likely to tease a person if she seemed actually injured.

  Ayana looked at the knee. “It’s okay. But let’s sit down for a while. This way we can see those cute guys over there.”

  Tasha was horrified. “They’re teenagers!”

  “All of them aren’t. One looks thirteen or fourteen.”

  “Which one?”

  She nodded toward the little one.

  “Him? He’s not more than twelve. I think maybe eleven.”

  “You must need glasses,” Ayana said.

  Tasha turned her head for a better look but Ayana pinched her arm. “Don’t look. Here he comes.”

  Now what to do? Well, maybe nothing. He was probably coming to talk to Ayana. Or he could be just on his way to the bathroom or the concession stand.

  When he said, “Hey,” Tasha jumped because Ayana dug her pink frosted nails into the soft skin of her upper arm, and also because the voice was familiar.

  “You alright, Fancy Girl?” Jashante glanced over his shoulder to the pinball teenagers.

  “I’m okay,” Tasha said, easing her arm from between Ayana’s thumb and forefinger. She wished she and Ayana could communicate telepathically like twins. This is the one I was telling you about would echo in Ayana’s head as clear as if she had spoken. But maybe Ayana already knew. And if she did, she didn’t seem to be holding it against him.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his ragged tennis shoes. He glanced up at Ayana. “That’s your sister?”

  “No. This is Ayana, my play-cousin.”

  He didn’t say anything. Ayana elbowed her.

  “You wanna sit down?” Tasha scooted down on the bench. Would Ayana approve?

  “No. That’s alright,” he said, looking back.

  “What school do you go to?” He was talking to Ayana.

  “Saint Anthony.”

  “Where that is?”

  “Over by West End.”

  “That’s the one where the girls wear blue skirts?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was wondering about that one time,” he said.

  He was paying a little too much attention to Ayana. Tasha regretted not tying her own shirt or loosening her hair.

  “What grade?” he asked.

  “Sixth,” Ayana said. Tasha was sure she heard a note of pride.

  “My friend, he in the eighth. He say you look good.”

  Tasha noticed a boy standing about ten feet away watching the proceedings closely. Jashante probably wasn’t lying about his friend’s grade, but Tasha thought somebody needed to ask how old he was. Tasha could detect the soft fuzzy beginning of a mustache.

  “You wanna talk to him?” Jashante asked.

  Ayana shrugged her shoulders in a way that Tasha thought was very sophisticated. It didn’t say I don’t know. It was more like I don’t care. Impressive.

  Jashante said to Tasha, “You want something from the concession stand?”

  Tasha would have liked to duplicate Ayana’s magnificently nonchalant shrug, but this was no time to experiment. She looked to her friend. Ayana did that indecipherable eye-brow thing again. As Tasha started to the snack bar with Jashante, the world’s oldest eighth-grader slid o
nto the bench beside Ayana.

  The short distance to the concession stand made for an awkward stroll since Tasha had her skates on. But Jashante didn’t laugh at her as she walked on her toes, balancing on the skates’ brakes.

  “Want some candy?”

  Tasha looked at the different candies in the glass display case. Was he saying that he was going to pay for her? He didn’t seem to be making a move for his wallet and she didn’t have any money at all. And if he did decide to pay, would that mean that this was a date? What if she chose something too expensive? He solved the problem by making a suggestion.

  “M and Ms?”

  Tasha nodded her head.

  “Plain or peanut?”

  “Plain?”

  He asked the halo man for one of each and counted out six bright dimes from a huge handful of change he pulled from the front pocket of his jeans.

  “How come you have so much change?” Tasha asked.

  “Selling stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Oh,” he said seriously. “Stuff. Like this.” He went into his back pocket and retrieved a car air freshener shaped like a Christmas tree. “Sold these for fifty cents each.” He held it out to Tasha. “You can have this one.”

  She was pleased. “What do you do with all the money you make?”

  “Most of it, I give to my mama, but I keep some for my lady.” He smiled at Tasha, showing that cute chipped tooth.

  Tasha grinned back as he handed her the dark brown package of M&Ms. She didn’t want to eat them. This was her first gift from a boy and should be put in a scrapbook or a memory box. A boy had given Ayana an ink pen shaped like a candy cane and she had preserved it in a pretty case on her dresser. But what about edible mementos? Tasha was unsure of the rules here. Besides, Mama was strict about no food in the bedrooms. That’s how people get bugs. Was he asking her to be his lady? But what would that involve? Sitting together at lunch? And anyway, she had the air freshener, which might technically be the first thing. But he didn’t buy that. He just had it in his pocket.

  “Thank you for the M and Ms,” Tasha said.

  Jashante had opened his candy and held a large misshapen yellow M&M between his thumb and forefinger. He was waiting on her to open hers. Tasha shook one flat chocolate pill onto her palm. She looked up at her date. He moved his hand toward his mouth and she did the same, carefully synchronizing their motions. They chomped into the sweet chocolate at precisely the same exact magical instant.

  Tasha would have liked to have repeated their communion as many times as there were M&Ms in their little packages for as many packages as Jashante had dimes to buy. But he ate the rest of his candy without ceremony. The deejay announced Couples’ Skate, as the opening notes of her favorite song, “I Call Your Name,” filled the arena.

  “You like this song?” he asked.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Um-hum.” Jashante smiled at her, then turned away. He looked at his foot for a minute and then he stared intently at her face. His gaze did not travel all over like that time outside of the classroom. Tasha recalled that encounter the way a person remembers her babyhood—as something indistinct but a memory not to be doubted.

  Then Daddy was there. “Okay, Tasha, it’s time to go.” He held her pink coat for her to slip her arms in. Mama had sent it to the cleaners but the red clay mark was still visible, even in this light. Tasha hoped the coat wouldn’t remind Jashante of their run-in.

  “But, Daddy, I still have my skates on,” Tasha complained.

  “Well, go turn them in,” he said, turning to break up Ayana’s cozy conversation with her new friend.

  Jashante mumbled, “Bye,” and moved toward the gang at the pinball machine.

  “See you Monday,” Tasha called. If he heard her, she couldn’t tell.

  Daddy drove Ayana home in spite of her insistence that Cookie would be back any minute to pick her up. After Mrs. McWhorter shut the door behind Ayana, Daddy turned his attention to Tasha.

  “Who was that boy you were talking to?”

  “He’s in my class at school.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Eleven,” Tasha said.

  “Eleven times what?” Daddy asked over the clink of the turn signal.

  “I don’t know how old he is,” Tasha admitted. She didn’t know how old he was, but she was pretty sure how old he wasn’t. Was that enough to make it a lie?

  “Look Ladybug,” Daddy said, looking at her. They were at a red light. “Stay away from that boy. He ain’t nothing but trouble. I know you think I’m an old man, but I used to be a boy myself, so I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Okay,” Tasha said, hoping that her cooperation would end the discussion.

  Daddy said under his breath, “That boy’ll be lucky to see the other side of eighteen.”

  Tasha had heard him but pretended not to. She climbed into her yellow and blue bed with the air freshener in her hand.

  “What’s that?” DeShaun asked.

  “I thought you were sleep.” Tasha wished she had her own room.

  “I was. But what’s that you got?”

  “None of your business.”

  Tasha put the little tree inside her pillowcase and, inhaling pine, dreamed of Christmas.

  She got to school Monday morning with only seconds to spare. There was no time to run to the bathroom, unravel her braids, and smear Vaseline in all the right places. She paused a moment before entering the trailer. Would everyone take one look at her and know that she was somebody’s lady? Would they be able to tell whose?

  The jangle of the tardy bell ushered her into the room. She scanned the faces quickly. Jashante wasn’t there. That was disappointing but then, the day wasn’t over. He was known to come to school as late as ten o’clock.

  Eight girls were huddled around Monica, speaking in hushed tones like people do at a funeral. Tasha heard their voices but she couldn’t make out the words.

  “What happened?” she asked Angelite, who had a way of knowing everything about everybody.

  “Monica’s slumber party got canceled,” she reported with a giggle. “Her mama went out and got a cake and hot dogs and stuff but nobody came.”

  Tasha laughed a little bit too. “What happened?”

  Angelite lowered her voice. “Tayari’s mother called all of the other mothers and told them that the party wasn’t supervised.”

  “For real?” Tasha couldn’t believe it.

  “See,” Angelite explained, “Monica’s mama works at night, so they would have been there alone.”

  “Oh,” Tasha said. She was glad that she hadn’t been invited; her mother probably would have done the very same thing and Tasha would have ended up like Tayari, looking at her math book, trying not to cry.

  The group around Monica had swollen into twelve. Even people who had not been invited were offering condolences. Sherrie Evans, who had not even made Tasha’s list of alternates, said, “I don’t know why you invited her in the first place.”

  “I was trying to be nice,” Monica whined.

  “You just can’t be nice to some people,” Forsythia reminded her.

  Tasha suddenly realized that she hated fifth grade. The feeling of revulsion came over her in exactly the same way that she had abruptly realized that a song playing on the radio was absolutely horrible. She had been riding along, thinking private thoughts when this truly unbearable song had forced its way into her consciousness. She had no idea how long it had been on, but she could not stand another note. She had stretched her arm to reach the controls of the radio and pressed a button, switching to another station.

  “Hey!” Daddy had said. “I was listening to that!”

  But there was no button to press to take her out of fifth grade. She would have to remain in this class, with these same people, until June, when they would all graduate and go on to middle school. Tasha wished that she was smart like Ayana so she could skip fifth grade altogether. But what about Jash
ante? He had done fifth grade once already. How could he stand it twice? No wonder he never came to school.

  At lunchtime, Tayari ate with Octavia. Tasha sat alone.

  “This is ridiculous,” Mama said. “You knew about this assignment for how long?”

  Tasha bit her lip. It was almost eleven o’clock and she hadn’t even looked at her math homework. She was still working on her book report. “Stop fussing at me,” she growled.

  Daddy walked into the kitchen, almost stepping on DeShaun, who was snoozing in the corner, tucked into her sleeping bag. He turned on the TV. “What’s going on?”

  “Tasha waited until the last minute to do her homework,” Mama reported. “DeShaun didn’t want to sleep by herself, so she camped out in here.”

  “All while I was in the basement?” Daddy smiled and grabbed a handful of animal crackers from the box on the counter.

  “A lot happens while you are down there,” Tasha snapped.

  “What’s wrong with you, Ladybug?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Growing pains,” Mama told him.

  Ever since Mama had presented her with a small pink bra, that had been her explanation for Tasha’s every mood.

  She was about to complain when Mama looked up at the black-and-white TV and said, “Sweet Jesus.”

  “That’s our school,” said DeShaun, from her nest on the floor.

  A woman with a blue-and-white scarf sobbed into a microphone. I kept telling him to come right on home after school. I told him the man was going to get him if he didn’t come right on home.

  It was Jashante. The fuzzy snapshot had been taken before he chipped his front tooth. He looked like a little boy. The scarf woman was crying. He didn’t come home after school.

  “He didn’t even come to school today,” Tasha said.

  A phone number on the bottom of the screen. Call if you know anything. Call if you see anything. Someone out there knows something. Don’t be afraid. Come forward.

  Tasha’s chest squeezed smaller. She leaned forward and put her head on her knees. “It’s alright, baby,” Mama said. “Breathe slow. You’re alright.”

  They showed the picture one more time. Missing, not murdered. There may still be time for this boy. Call us. Twenty-four hours. Scarf woman crying again. Wiping her face with the back of her hand. He always give me a lot of trouble but I didn’t want nothing like this to happen to him.