What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(51)

“Cheese,” I answer, making sure Nia don’t see my smiling face.

The booth where we sit is between another girl with a birthday, and a family with a loud, crying baby. Granddaddy uses three napkins to wipe the table clean before we can sit down. The seats are ripped in the middle and I scratch my legs when I slide into my spot. Granddaddy lets me put the little plastic number in the middle of our table, so they know where to bring our pizza.

“Want some tokens?” Granddaddy asks me. He don’t bother asking Nia, cause she complained the whole way here that Pizza Land was for babies.

“Sure.” I don’t wanna play none of these games by myself, though. I look at the girl at the next table, wearing a birthday hat on her head and a giant pin with the words Birthday Girl in pink cursive. She got her momma and daddy with her, plus three little girls that must be her friends, all wearing pink party hats and all wearing dresses that twirl when they spin. All perfect. The four of them jump up and down as the daddy pours gold tokens into tiny paper cups, one for each of them. They take off running toward the games as I stare up at the ceiling, pretending not to care.

Granddaddy hands me a five-dollar bill and points in the direction of the machine that makes tokens. “Gon’ ’head and get you some.”

I smile in a way that I hope says to Granddaddy, Tokens will make this all better. All the other kids are running and yelling. I’m the only one walking to the token machine like I ain’t in no hurry. When it’s my turn, I smooth out the crumpled bill against the edge of the machine, then feed it to the hungry monster. It chews and chews, then spits out a wad of shiny coins.

Back at the table Nia and Brittany are giggling and whispering like Granddaddy ain’t even there. My face suddenly feels like it’s boiling. I bet Nia thinks she’s something, now that she’s kissed a boy. I bet that’s what she’s whispering bout. She don’t even look up when I get to the booth. I slam my handful of tokens down on the table, hard, so they bounce and flip and dance all over. Two of ’em even fall in her lap.

“KB!” Nia’s mad now, but I don’t care. “Watch what you’re doing!” Nia looks to Granddaddy for support, but he don’t say a word. I remind myself to give him an extra-special hug later.

“My bad,” I whisper, even though I did it on purpose. I gather up all my tokens and place them one by one into one of those paper cups with loud clinks, and once Nia’s good and mad, I walk away.

My first stop is the basketball game, cause it’s one I know I can play. You just gotta shoot the balls in the hoop, even when the hoop moves back and forth. Nia taught me that during that last long day at Pizza Land, and it’s one of my best games.

Five boys are already waiting when I get there. No girls. I stand behind two boys who argue bout whether football players or basketball players make more money. It’s funny, though, cause the boy arguing for football is shaped kinda like a basketball, and the boy arguing for basketball more like a football. In front of them is a boy that’s tall like a grown-up, with a face full of pimples. He’s got tiny whiskers above his upper lip and below his chin, and he smells like wet clothes that’s set out in the sun all day. I take a couple steps back, so I ain’t smelling that stink.

Just then, another boy comes and squeezes between me and the arguing boys.

“Hey, I’m in line!” I start to yell, then stop quick, cause I recognize the face that turns around and smiles at me. I ain’t think I would see him again after the pool, but here he is.

“Kenyatta,” Rondell yells, even though we so close I would hear it if he whispered. “What you doin’ here?”

“It’s my birthday,” I say, still surprised to see him.

“Happy birthday! How old you turn?” Rondell asks, smiling even bigger. His hair ain’t in braids no more. Now it’s in a big Afro on top of his head.

“Eleven.” The new age sounds funny when I hear it out loud for the first time. “How old are you?” I ask after a few seconds, to be polite.

“I’m eleven, too.” He stammers it slightly, then looks down at the carpet. The pimple-face boy starts playing a new game of basketball, so me and Rondell move forward. He don’t stop watching me when we move.

“So, what you doin’ here?” I ask, tryna think of the right things to say. I ain’t used to talking to boys, and especially not all alone.

“Me and my cousins get to come here when we do good stuff,” he answers, proud. “And my football team won our first game today, so my momma brought all of us to celebrate.” When he mentions his momma, his eyes wander to find her in the room. I look, too. He lands on a tall, brown-skinned woman with twisted hair piled on top of her head. She sees Rondell and waves, so he waves back. Her smile is nice, but not as nice as Momma’s.

“How long you been playing football?” I ask, pulling one of my arms with the other behind my back. Seems like I ain’t got nowhere to put my hands all of a sudden.

“Since I was seven,” Rondell answers. “My pops played football, so I wanna play just like him. He was even good enough for the NFL.”

“Does he play with you?” I ask, following Rondell’s gaze down to his unlaced shoes.

“Naw, he dead.” He says it quick, so I gotta repeat it in my head two times just to hear it. Once I understand, I stay quiet a few seconds more.