With the Fire on High(20)

A week in Spain would change my life; it’d be huge, it’d be amazing . . . it’d be impossible. My stomach feels twisted in knots. I want to go so bad, but I grab that hope between my fingers and crush it like the strands of saffron, praying it doesn’t leave a smudge.





Santi


I’m one of the slowest students to clean my station, and when I leave the classroom Malachi’s leaning against the wall talking to Pretty Leslie. She giggles at something he says, but as if he feels me watching, his eyes swing my way. I raise an eyebrow and scoot past them.

“Hey, Santi,” Malachi says.

I don’t want to be rude, but I also don’t want to talk to Pretty Leslie, so I shake my head and keep going.

“Santi, I want to ask you something.”

I stop in the middle of the hallway and wait for him to catch up. He takes his sweet time walking over, Pretty Leslie on his heels.

“Wassup?” I say. I give Pretty Leslie a head-nod and she looks between Malachi and me, her perfectly penciled-in eyebrows furrowing.

“I’m good, Emoni. How are you?” She pops her gum, then lowers her voice in a fake whisper. “How’s your daughter?”

I force myself to keep smiling. I’m not ashamed of my baby. I’m not ashamed I had a baby. I’m not ashamed I’m a mother. I lift my chin higher. “Babygirl’s real good. She just started daycare little over a month ago. Thanks for asking.”

I look Malachi straight in the eyes. His dimples are gone.

“That’s wonderful!” Leslie says. “I don’t know how you do it, girl. I couldn’t imagine being a parent in high school. Right, Malachi?”

But Malachi isn’t listening to Leslie. His eyes are on me. If there was one thing I learned once my belly started showing it’s that you can’t control how people look at you, but you can control how far back you pull your shoulders and how high you lift your chin. Boys think of only two things when they find out you had a baby: thing (1) that you’re too much baby-mama drama, or thing (2) that you’re easy. Malachi pushes off the wall, but I keep myself as still as a dancer waiting for her cue before she spins.

“You called my name because you wanted to ask me something?”

“Santi, do you like ice cream?”

I glance at Pretty Leslie. She looks as surprised as I feel. “Uh, ice cream?”

“I have a craving for ice cream. If you’re not busy after school, you want to get ice cream?”

He’s the most serious I’ve ever seen him. I look between him and Pretty Leslie. The fake sweet smile she was wearing has cannonballed clear off her face into a pool of confusion. Is Malachi asking me on a date? In front of Pretty Leslie?

“I mean I know we’re not friends, or whatever.” He smiles. The playful gleam is back in his eyes. “But I was hoping we could talk.”

I let go of the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “I’ll meet you at the main entrance after the bell.”

And even though ’Buela raised me right, she didn’t raise me to be nobody’s punk, so I don’t bother saying sh—ish to Leslie.

And damn if I don’t have a little swag in my step as I walk to English.





Three’s Company


“Hold up, wait. Run that back for me. That bitch Pretty Leslie tried to basically out you to this guy and then he played the shit out of her and asked you on a date? In front of her? I need to meet this dude ASAP.”

I laugh at Angelica and grab my sweater from my locker. The weather is definitely cooling down—finally—and the last thing I need is a cold. “She didn’t try to ‘out’ me. I’m not a closet mom. And your language, Gelly!”

Angelica slams the locker shut. “Don’t try to censor my language, Emoni, just because you slipped in front of Babygirl. But seriously, he didn’t know, right? So it was your story to tell, not hers.”

“I don’t even know if she did it on purpose. Maybe she was trying to be nice.”

Gelly hooks her arm through mine. “Emoni, not even you are that naive. Didn’t I raise you better? She was trying to piss on him.”

“Gelly! What are you saying? Make a right.” We turn.

“You know exactly what I’m saying. He was a fire hydrant and she was marking her territory, but instead the fire hydrant picked up legs and walked up under your tree.”

Gelly and her vivid imagination. “I don’t think that extended metaphor is working for you.”

Angelica screws her forehead up thoughtfully. “No? I think it would make an interesting painting. Where are we going again? Why’d we turn this way?”

But we’re already at the main entrance and there’s Malachi. Standing with a group of other guys, all of them laughing. How does he make friends so fast?

Angelica takes one look at him and her eyebrows lift into her bangs. “Isn’t that the cutie I saw walking you to class? Is that Malachi? Is that why we came this way? Get it, girl!”

I pinch the inside of her arm to hush up any more questions.

Malachi notices us and daps up the other dudes before breaking through the circle to approach me.

“You actually came. There is hope in the world,” he says, smiling. Then he turns to Gelly, just like that, not even waiting for an introduction. “I’m Malachi. I transferred from Newark.”