With the Fire on High(28)
Forgiveness
’Buela is watching TV on the couch when I get home. I drop my book bag on the coatrack, kiss her forehead, and walk into my room, where Babygirl is already asleep in her crib. Recently she’s been pulling herself halfway over the railing and I know she’ll be climbing in and out soon. I scan the space. I don’t know how we’re going to fit another bed in here, but we are going to have to figure it out sometime down the line. Maybe I can angle mine and have a cool diagonal room setup. I rub her dark hair from her forehead before placing a kiss on each eyebrow.
It’s technically Tyrone’s weekend, but he and his family are traveling to a funeral and I didn’t feel comfortable with them taking Babygirl, so we switched this weekend’s visit to next week. I’m so glad she’ll be home with me.
When I go back into the living room ’Buela pats the seat of the couch beside her.
“How was your day, nena?”
“Long. The bus was running late, or I would have been home in time to put her to bed. Thank you for doing that. Was she good?”
“She was fine.”
I nod and close my eyes.
“Your father called.” She puts a hand up before I can say anything. “He’s fine. It had nothing to do with the storm. He was asking for you to call him. I know, he can just call you on your cell phone. I told him that, but he says you’re the child, et cetera.”
I laugh and open my eyes. “That man is hilarious. Who does he think he is?”
’Buela raises an eyebrow. “Your father. And you know his brain’s scattered dealing with the coming storm.”
I nod. ’Buela and I do not see eye to eye when it comes to my father, but I know in this moment she’s right. “Emoni, yo sé, you have a lot of hard feelings about him. You can’t hold that anger inside.”
“I’ll give him a call later and make sure he doesn’t need anything.”
But when I grab my phone it’s to call Angelica.
“Hey, Gelly, I’m going shopping in the morning for the groceries. This is your last chance to change the menu.” I’ve had her dinner all planned out for weeks and tomorrow I get to put those plans together. Gelly left the money I need to buy the supplies in our locker, and what I have planned for her is better than even she could imagine.
“I don’t want to change anything. Just make sure it’s fancy. Something you’re learning about in class.”
I haven’t told her yet. I haven’t told her or ’Buela that I’ve stopped going to class.
“I got you.”
“Great. I’ve already started planning Babygirl’s Halloween costume, so it’ll be even.”
“Angelica, we’ll always be even in my book. No owing here.”
And I don’t have to see her smile to know it’s there.
Sisterhood
When the baby bump began to show, the kids at school and around the way began to talk shit. (I know I’m supposed to be working on my cursing, but there’s really no other way to put it.) We’d had pregnant girls in school before, but it was like I was something brand-new. Maybe because I was young and petite, yet by the end of freshman year I looked like a basketball was trying to set itself free from inside my belly. Maybe because people thought I was conceited since I mostly kept to myself. Maybe because even though Tyrone didn’t go to our school, most of the girls at Schomburg Charter knew him or had heard about him and no one could really figure out why he’d chosen to get with me.
The snide comments and behind-my-back chatter was happening before Angelica came out, when all the guys on the football team were trying to bag her and the girls all wanted her to sit with them at lunch. I waited for her to start talking mess, too, because it’s just the way things seemed to go even if we’d been friends forever. But if we’d been close before, we became even closer then. Angelica? She shut that mess all the way down. Anytime she heard a whisper of someone talking about me she was in their face. If a guy made a comment about me being a ho she cursed him out and never spoke to him again.
When she told me she was a lesbian, I asked her if she’d had a crush on me. If that was why she’d been so hell-bent on defending me.
“Ew, no,” she’d said, her face twisted as if she’d smelled week-old milk. “That’d be like incest or something. Do you have a crush on everyone you’re friends with or defend?”
I learned a lot about what it meant to be a fierce friend, to protect someone and learn more about what it was like to walk in their shoes. When she did come out junior year, I held her down like she did me. Walked beside her when people talked behind their hands. Made sure to get to our locker every day before she did and pull off any ugly Post-its kids had taped there.
And when people had the balls to ask us if we were girlfriends, I held her hand tight, the way she’d held mine when I was pregnant and scared, and we walked down the halls together. And folks learned quick, if they had a problem with Angelica, they could mix me. If they had a problem with me, they were facing two of us.
And ain’t that what it means to be a sister? Holding things tight when the other one is falling apart?
Invitations
“Hello, Santi?” I raise an eyebrow and stare at my cell phone. I don’t usually answer unknown numbers, but I was so busy organizing the groceries for Angelica’s dinner I answered without thinking.