The Black Kids(46)

“A little of everything. Never enough, though,” Lana says.

“She must be pretty cool,” I say.

Lana doesn’t respond.

The small kitchen is visible from the living-room area. An old stove abuts the cabinetry like an afterthought. The kitchen table is a deep brown, its legs carved in ornate shapes, its top marked up from a child’s carelessness with a pen. Matching bright-green cushions fight to unite cacophonous chairs.

“Who lives in the front house?”

“Two of my mom’s friends from when she was with my dad. She got them in the divorce. They’re fun. Artists. Brad and Pham. Brad owns a gallery in Mid-City. Pham is a tiny Cambodian refugee and used to be an artist. I’m not sure what he does these days. He’s a great cook, though.”

“When did your parents get divorced?”

“Technically, they were never married. Least not officially. We used to live in this huge house a few blocks over. But when they broke up, he kicked her out, and I went with her. He pays for my tuition and whatever, though.”

He must’ve been the one who paid for the library.

Lana takes the scrunchie out of her hair and lets it fall down around her shoulders.

“Want something to drink?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Red okay?”

I’m used to cheap beer and wine coolers and those little bottles of airplane alcohol Courtney sneaks from her dad’s suitcases. I have no preference. Lana pours red wine into two blue crystal glasses that refract the light in geometry around the room. There’s not enough for two full glasses of red, so she adds some white wine to the top. I don’t know much, but I’m pretty certain that’s not how wine is supposed to work.

“Cheers!” she says.

Lana’s room is very small, and mostly sparse. Her bed is a low wooden thing, and instead of on a nightstand, her lamp rests on a pile of hardcover art books.

“Who are you going to prom with?” I ask.

“I can’t go.”

“Your mom won’t let you?”

“Nah. It was a condition of the school’s letting me back in. I can’t do anything like prom and Grad Night and all that stuff.”

“That sucks.”

“That shit’s lame, anyway,” she says, but I’m not convinced she means it.

She pushes play on the stereo, a big silver monstrosity on the floor under her window. Atop the stereo is a burst of primary color in a series of toy figurines from McDonald’s Happy Meals. A young woman screams out of the speakers, followed by a rush of angry guitars. Wine still in hand, Lana begins to flail with wanton disregard for the actual beat.

It sounds like some shit that Jo would like. I finish my wine in one great gulp, and then I too begin to move jerkily across Lana’s floor. She jumps up onto her bed and reaches her hand out to me, and then we’re both up on her bed flapping around. We dance in exorcism until the song ends and Lana jumps off the bed.

“Trampoline?”

“Fuck yeah!”

If with my friends there’s stillness and talking, with Lana there’s movement, across the room, up and down, and now we rush back outside. Lana doesn’t sit still for very long. I like it for now, although I can see how it might get annoying.

We jump and jump, and then we collapse into the black and lift our faces to the sun as it descends. It’s the happiest I’ve been in a long while, here on this trampoline with a girl I barely know.

“What would you be if you could be anything?” she says.

“A fish.”

“If you could only wear one color for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

“Yellow.”

“What’s your favorite cheesy song?”

“?‘Home,’ from The Wiz. That was my favorite movie as a little kid.”

“Where would you live if the world was your oyster?”

“It isn’t?”

When it’s nearly dark, she turns her body to face me.

“My mother’s the one who did it,” she says.

“What?”

“The bruise.” She pulls up her sleeve. “There are others, too.”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or say.

“I’m almost out of here; I can make it through a few more months.” She rolls the sleeve back down. “I think… sometimes maybe she doesn’t know how strong she is.”

“But why?”

“It’s complicated,” she says. “Aren’t all families? It’s like, I hate her a little bit, but she’s my mother and I love her. Anyway, don’t tell anybody.”

“What about moving in with your dad?”

“Fuck that guy,” she says.

This girl has offered me so many bruised pieces of herself, and so finally I offer her something in return.

“I did something really bad the other day,” I tell her. I can’t quite bring myself to say what out loud. Actually, there are two things. But one is worse than the other.

“Did you kill somebody?”

“God, no.”

“Maim somebody? Help dump a body? Sell yourself for money?”

“Jesus, Lana.”

“All I’m saying is, I can’t imagine anything you did could be that horrible. Just… make it right,” she says. “That’s all there is to it.”