What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(26)

I sit on the sinking porch, watching Bobby and Charlotte cross the street blowing bubbles and playing freeze tag. I don’t dare try to play with them today cause Granddaddy been back and forth outside to work on his garden. So I just watch. Then, once they get called inside, I stoop down and pick dandelion stems growing where the cement cracks. Six stems, then I’m bored. Nia’s been in the house all day cause she says it’s too hot and miserable to be outside. For once I don’t disagree with her. My tank top is soaked through; I can see my belly button where I should see fabric. I been inside for four glasses of water already and it ain’t quite noon. I watch my sandals sear tan lines in my ankles. I stand the heat for good reason, cause I love it out here. My favorite part of Lansing is the quiet. So much to see and smell and hear, and so much quiet to do it with. Ain’t none of that in Detroit. In that city, feels like the only peace you can find is when you leave.

I chew my thumb and remember a day back home even louder than most. A day when police officers showed up to our house with loud knocks and yelling and guns hanging from their hips. They asked for Daddy and found him on them stairs. Momma screamed at them, but they took Daddy anyway. I wanted to ask why the police came, why he went to jail. But any time I asked those kinds of questions bout Daddy, I either got yelled at to stay outta grown folks’ business or laughed away like nothin’ was wrong and I was just being silly. So, instead of wasting my time asking, I quietly thought he was gone for good, cept bout a week or two later, by the time of the big book fair at school, he was back. I remember cause I asked him for some change to buy a book that I circled in red pen. He looked at the paper, at my crooked red circle, and cried.

“KB!” Nia’s voice yells from inside.

“What?” I know I ain’t allowed to answer that way. When somebody calls my name, I gotta say yes or at least huh, but never what, not even to Nia, or Momma will yell. She says it’s disrespectful. But Momma ain’t here and Nia ain’t the boss of me. “What?” I say again, louder this time. Nia is on the porch now and smiling like I ain’t seen in weeks.

“Granddaddy says we can go to the swimming pool today!” Nia thinks she’s telling me the best news in the world, but I only pretend to be excited. I ain’t ever liked swimming pools, mostly cause I can’t swim. Nobody ever taught me and when I tried to teach myself, I nearly drowned when Momma and Nia weren’t paying attention.

“Really,” I answer with an exaggerated smile. But then I think bout my list and my empty paper bag. I bet it might be easier to find bottles at the pool than around Granddaddy’s too-clean neighborhood. This might not be so bad after all.

“Let’s go find our bathing suits!” Nia runs into the house with steps that are more like hops, so I do, too. But my excitement is for a different reason than hers.

“Okay!” I follow Nia to our room and grab my paper bag—still folded on the end table where I left it—on the way.

I search through the old backpack that holds all my clothes, looking for something to wear. I know it won’t be a bathing suit, cause I ain’t got one. At home, we usually just swim in long T-shirts and undies, or shorts if we go to the neighborhood pool, even if we get funny looks for dressing that way. I find a pair of Nia’s old gymnastics shorts and a too-small tank top I can tie on one side. From far away, it might even look like a bathing suit.

I get dressed and wait for Nia to change in the bathroom. She used to get dressed in front of me, but lately she’s always screaming for privacy and covering her body with her hands if I look her way. I’m surprised when she comes out in a real bathing suit. Red and blue with tiny white stripes, too saggy up top and pinched underneath, but it’s a bathing suit. I don’t know where she got it from, but for once she ain’t complaining bout how she looks, so I don’t ask.

“Ready?” I ask, interrupting her hair ritual. She looks at me through the mirror and smiles. Not quite an ice cream cone smile, but close.



* * *





The neighborhood swimming pool is packed. Maybe cause it’s so hot, or maybe cause it ain’t nowhere else to go around here on a Saturday. Kids fight for space on the pool steps. Mommas lay on lounge chairs or talk together in small circles. Big kids play pool games in the deep end, while little kids hang on the blue-and-white safety rope in the middle of the pool. Everybody is screaming and playing, yelling and fighting. I love the quiet at Granddaddy’s house, but this feels more like home.

Granddaddy stayed in the car when we got here, so it’s just me and Nia. We walk around the pool area twice looking for seats but can’t find none. Even with sandals on, the cement burns our feet as we search. Finally, we pick a small piece of wet ground by the gate. We take off our shoes, holding the gate for balance. I got my paper bag hid inside my towel, cause I ain’t want Nia asking me no questions. As she lays down her towel, I sneak the bag out, quickly sit down on my towel, and hide the bag underneath.

I look around the pool area. Just like Granddaddy’s neighborhood, don’t seem to be no bottles around here, cept the ones people are still drinking from. I watch, hoping somebody might finish soon. There’s a family with a white momma but a Black daddy, and a baby girl who’s a strange mix of the two. The daddy—who drinks from a short bottle of Coca-Cola—is missing a tooth right in the front and has tattoos all over his neck and arms. The momma—who ain’t drinking right now but has a bottle of juice peeking out from her bag—has rolls of skin falling from the sides of her swimsuit, and pale skin that don’t match with the bright red hair falling down her back. She holds the baby, who got rolls of skin like her momma and no teeth like her daddy, but in a way that’s cute cause she’s a baby. I watch and watch, but after a while I get bored cause it don’t seem like they gon’ finish with them bottles anytime soon.