Wing Jones(9)
I didn’t know how to explain that for some reason my parents gave Marcus an American first name and a Ghanaian middle name, and I got a Chinese first name and a Ghanaian middle one. Then there was the time my mom came to pick me up from school and Heather told her that she couldn’t be my mom because she didn’t look like me. Or when she used to pull on the corner of her eyes and ask how I could see. And every time she said or did anything, she’d look around to see what kind of impact it was having, how many people were laughing. The more people laughed, the louder she got, and the louder she got, the smaller I tried to make myself.
As I’m passing Heather’s desk on Monday morning, I hear her whisper something I can’t quite make out, but the word gross jumps out at me loud and clear. I hurry past her, but she sticks one leg out and I see it but I don’t stop in time and the next thing I know I’m sprawled out on the vomit-colored carpet, trying to ignore the stifled laughter around me. And it isn’t just Heather’s little crew, it’s the whole class.
“Jesus, watch where you’re going!” Heather says loudly as the door opens and our history teacher, Mr. Poller, walks in.
I can’t decide if the teachers at my school are as dense as concrete or if they purposely ignore what they see. In the case of Heather Parker, I think most of them are probably just as scared as the rest of us. Last year, her mother got our English teacher fired. No one crosses Heather Parker.
Which is why I’m so surprised when Mr. Poller opens his mouth, his liver-spotted cheeks shaking slowly, spittle flying out, and says in his monotone rumble, “What is going on here, ladies?”
“Wing.” Heather says my name like a swearword as I haul myself up, feeling like my limbs are everywhere. “She wasn’t watching where she was going and tripped on my leg. I can feel the bruise forming already. I can’t have a bruise. I’ve got pageant practice tomorrow.”
“Please be more careful, Miss Jones,” Mr. Poller says as I slide into my seat, trying to ignore Heather’s victorious smile.
You know what’s even worse than class with Heather Parker? Lunch. I shuffle around in the cafeteria every day, looking for an open spot next to someone with a book or some kids who won’t mind if I sit next to them, and I eat my lunch, and then I find a quiet spot and get started on my homework or put on my headphones and listen to music till the bell rings. Marcus got me a Walkman last year for Christmas. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because he knows I don’t have any friends.
My mom asked me once why I don’t sit with Marcus at lunch, when I told her I didn’t have anyone to sit with. “He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
As I line up to get my lunch, I try to imagine what would happen if I were to prance over to the table where Marcus is sitting with Monica on his lap and Aaron to his right and Dionne is throwing her weave over her shoulder trying to catch Aaron’s eye, and Trey and the rest of the football team are throwing food at each other and Dionne’s crew is laughing at something she’s said and Monica is trying to ignore them – they’ve never really accepted her, even though she’s been dating Marcus since the eighth grade. Dionne did try a little bit, when she was dating Aaron, I think they went on a few double dates but they were never going to be best friends, and then Dionne heard that Monica knew that Aaron was going to break up with her and didn’t tell her, and that pretty much shattered any chance of them ever being any kind of friends. I’m impressed that they still manage to have lunch together every day. But if Monica is willing to defy her daddy to be with Marcus – and her daddy isn’t the nicest man in the world, not by a long shot – then Dionne must be nothing more than a little gnat she has to swat at occasionally. Sometimes Tash sits with them, and when she does Monica doesn’t sit on Marcus’s lap, she’ll sit with Tash. Because Tash is the closest thing Mon has to a best friend. Other than me and Marcus. She told me that once.
She was a little drunk, I could smell the tequila on her breath, and she leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek and told me that I was her best friend and she was my best friend. And that one day I’d be the maid of honor at her and Marcus’s wedding and that she loved me so much (right about then she belched so loudly I thought she was going to vomit all over both of us but she didn’t, she just blew the air all over my face) that she wanted me to walk down the aisle right before her.
“With Aaron, because he’ll be the best man, of course,” she added, and I felt my heart expand inside me, expand so much I was certain it was going to burst right out of my chest and keep growing and expanding until it burst through the walls of our little house and it wouldn’t stop, it would grow, grow, grow, so full, until it took over all of Atlanta and maybe Georgia and it wouldn’t stop there, it would float up into the air, my big beating heart, and it would go higher and higher until it was up among the stars, creating a new constellation. That is how happy I was. Just imagining Marcus and Monica’s wedding, and me being a part of it, the maid of honor, and Aaron being the best man. My mom says they can’t get married till they both graduate from college because we aren’t backwoods hicks, but I wish they could get married right now.
And at their wedding, unlike in the cafeteria, I would sit with them.
Because, going back to my imagining, if I were to walk up to the table now, Marcus would bolt up, eyes wide, and think that I needed him. Really needed him. And Monica would rush toward me and cry out, “Wing, Wing! Baby girl, what’s wrong?” and the rest of the table would go as still as statues and watch, and their judgment would be like dark smoke coming at us, enveloping us, because even if Marcus is my big brother, I’m still a sophomore loser. But Monica and Marcus wouldn’t notice the smoke, because they have their anti-judgment gas masks on that they always wear, that they’ve been wearing since they first kissed in the gym in eighth grade. I’ve figured that’s the only way they’ve gotten this far, wearing their masks to keep the poisonous fumes from going into their mouths and their noses and up to their brains. So they wouldn’t be able to smell it coming off their friends at their table, but I would. I don’t have a handy anti-judgment gas mask.