On the Come Up(72)

Since he pointed it in my face, My aunt may be gone to waste.

Because those six words told Aunt Pooh something else: Handle him for me. Ruin your life for me. Let everyone pin one word—“murderer”—on you. For me.

I hear those six words in my ears all night. They make me text her three: Are you okay?

She doesn’t respond.

I drift off to sleep at some point. When I open my eyes, my mom is sitting on my bed.

“Hey,” she says gently. “You okay?”

From the looks of things, it’s morning. “Yeah. Why you ask?”

“Every time I came to check on you, you were tossing and turning.”

“Oh.” All of my limbs feel heavy as I sit up. “Why were you checking on me?”

“I always check on you and Trey.” She strokes my cheek. “What’s going on, Bookie?”

“Nothing.” She can’t know that I ordered Aunt Pooh to kill somebody. She can’t know the chain is gone, either. It would break her heart.

At this rate, I’m piling up secrets.

“It’s not that petition, is it?” Jay asks.

Oh. Ironic that a gun made me forget that someone hates that I rapped about guns. “You know about it?”

“Mm-hmm. Gina and ’Chelle texted it to me. You know how your godmothers are. They’ll go hood in a minute over you.” She chuckles. “They’re ready to whoop that woman’s behind. But I told them to ignore it, just like I’m telling you.”

It’s easy to ignore now, but I’m wondering if Emily may have been right. Maybe my words are dangerous. “Okay.”

Jay kisses my forehead. “That’s my girl. Come on.” She pats my leg. “Let’s get you some breakfast before you head to school.”

I glance at my phone. It’s been eleven hours. No word from Aunt Pooh.

I follow Jay to the kitchen. Trey’s still asleep. He’s taking off from Sal’s today just for a mini vacation.

Something’s . . . off. There’s an odd stillness, like the house is quieter than it should be.

Jay opens a cabinet. “I think I’ve got time to make you some French toast before the bus comes. The kind my momma used to do. She called it pain perdu.”

I love it when Jay pulls out those recipes her momma used to make in New Orleans. I’ve never been there, but they taste like home. “I’ll get the eggs.”

I open the refrigerator door and stale warmth hits me. All of the food is blanketed in darkness. “Umm . . . the fridge isn’t working.”

“What?” Jay says. She closes the door and opens it, as if that’ll fix the issue. It doesn’t. “What in the world?”

Something over near the oven catches her eye and her face falls. “Shit!”

The numbers are usually lit on the oven’s clock. They aren’t.

Jay flips the kitchen light switch. Nothing happens. She hurries to the hall and flips that switch. Nothing. She goes in my room, the bathroom, the living room. Nothing.

The commotion is enough to wake Trey up. He comes in the hall, rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“They shut the power off,” Jay says.

“What? I thought we had more time.”

“We were supposed to! That man told me—he said—I asked for another week.” Jay buries her face in her hands. “Not now, God. Please, not now. I just bought all that food.”

That’ll probably spoil in less than a week.

Fuck. We could’ve pawned the chain and paid the light bill. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Jay uncovers her face, straightens up, and looks at us. “No. We’re not doing this. We’re not about feeling sorry for ourselves.”

“But Ma—” Even Trey’s voice is rough.

“I said no, Trey. We’re down, but we’re not out. You hear me? This is only a setback.”

Yet it feels like a major blow.

But the final blow may be around the corner.

Eleven hours, twenty minutes. Still no word from Aunt Pooh.





Twenty-Three


Since the stove is electric, we can’t have pain perdu. I eat some cereal instead.

I’m quiet on the bus. It’s just me and Sonny today. Sonny says he stopped by Malik’s house, and Aunt ’Chelle told him that Malik had some sort of freak accident that left him with a black eye. He’s staying home to recover. He obviously didn’t tell her what really happened, just like I asked.

I should be relieved, but somehow I feel worse. Malik never stays home from school. So either his eye is really bad or he’s so shaken up that he needs a day.

Either way, it’s my fault.

But maybe it’s a good thing Malik took today off. That way he doesn’t have to see the four armed cops acting as security just yet.

He and Shana were right. Midtown considers all of us black and brown kids threats now. We go through metal detectors as usual, but it’s hard to focus on anything but the guns on the cops’ waists. Feels like I’m entering a prison instead of my school.

I’m happy to go home at the end of the day, even if that means entering a dark house.

It’s as if my brain’s got a playlist of all the shitty things happening in my life on repeat. That gun pointed in my face. That article on the newspaper’s website. Long and Tate pinning me down. The cops at school. The lights going out. Aunt Pooh.