With the Fire on High(62)
I put my hands on the table to push myself up, but Malachi grabs my arm. “No. We were here first. Leslie, we don’t have anything to explain to you. You’re mad but you got no reason to be. Don’t try to put people’s business out there, because we both know you have more than enough business of your own.”
“Fuck you, Malachi.” Pretty Leslie gets up and tries to walk away, but her fast motions and tipsiness don’t seem to mix well because she grabs hold of the table. I stand up, too. She looks like she’s about to fall. Then she lowers her head, and bends her body, and throws up all over her shoes. The bar gets quiet at the sound of retching; the bartender points at us.
“Out! Every one of you Americans, out!” The bartender runs over and he’s cursing in Spanish and his accent is so different from what I’m used to that I can’t make out every word, but Amanda pulls Richard up, and he takes one look at the vomit and the angry bartender and straightens up his big self quick.
I grab Pretty Leslie and put her arm around my waist, put my arm around her shoulder. She’s too drunk or embarrassed to push me away. I give Malachi a little smile. Pretty Leslie is stank, but she’s still my roommate.
Settled
I let us into Mariana’s house quietly and Malachi holds on to Pretty Leslie’s other side.
“Are you going to throw up again?” I whisper. No light shines from under Mariana’s bedroom door. It’s almost one a.m. She usually goes to bed at ten.
“I want my bed.” Pretty Leslie’s head drops to her chest and then pops back up when she hiccups.
We stagger-walk in the direction of our bedroom and only just manage not to knock over a lamp.
“Hold on a second.” I run my hand along the wall and then flip on the switch.
“Ugh. No light,” Pretty Leslie says, and plops onto her bed. She curls into a ball. I carefully tug off her vomit-covered sneakers and drop them to the floor, searching the room for somewhere to put them. All I can find is Pretty Leslie’s large makeup bag on the chair by her bed. She’s going to kill me, but no way I’m sleeping with throw-up shoes hanging out all willy-nilly in the room. I toss the makeup onto the chair and carefully place the shoes into the bag in such a way that I don’t actually touch the vomit. I’m going to have to mop the stairs and doorway near the entrance to make sure none of it got into Mariana’s house, but Pretty Leslie is going to have to wash her own sneakers. I cover her with the blanket at the foot of her bed.
When I’m done, I stand up straight and blink. Malachi is in the doorway, shaking his head.
I shrug. “I couldn’t just leave her like that. I’m a mom.”
“You’re too good, is what you are.” Malachi takes a step forward and I look at him. What does he think we’re going to do? Pretty Leslie is drunk but she’s alive and she’s in the bed right next to mine. And Mariana is on the other side of the apartment.
We both turn and look at the form in the other bed. As if sensing our stares, she turns to the wall and gives a loud burp.
I laugh a little. “I think you’d better leave.”
He nods. And we walk to the door. “You could have talked to any of the girls back at Schomburg. Why were you so stuck on me?”
He tugs a curl. “I could only think of you.”
I cut my eyes at him. “Malachi,” I whisper. “Are you spitting game at me? Is this all so you can get the panties?” I raise an eyebrow but he just shakes his head.
“You ever going to believe me when I say I like you? We only have two more days here,” Malachi says. “Think we can spend them together? I’ll show you it’s more than just that.”
He pushes his thumb against my bottom lip. I hadn’t even realized I was biting it.
I nod and he gives me a quick kiss.
“Good night.”
Boys Will Be
The thing is, a part of me is still so afraid to believe Malachi. It had started like this with Tyrone, too. He’d been all smooth with the compliments and the small gifts. Showing up to school to walk me home. Taking me on dates to the movies. I wasn’t his first and although he knew he was mine, when his parents insisted he get a paternity test, he didn’t defend me.
He also didn’t argue when I was five months’ pregnant and accused him of cheating. Angelica had friends at his high school and they’d seen him walking around holding hands with some other girl. And when I told him this, said how they’d sent pictures to my phone, he just shrugged. “You’re big as a house, what’d you expect me to do?” Just like that. And Tyrone is good with his words. He knows exactly how to make them land soft as a kiss or cut sharp as a pocketknife. So I knew then that he was over us. He wanted to walk away but didn’t know how. And I would have respected him if he’d just said, “I don’t think this is working for me,” instead of saying, “I don’t understand why you’re getting so mad; you don’t even know her.” And I could have spit fire the morning he shrugged when I told him he would have to be my baby’s father but he could no longer be my man.
And every couple of months he comes back and wants to try to work things out. Or acts jealous if he thinks I’m flirting with someone.
That’s what I learned, about him and most guys: who they are when they’re giving you flowers and trying to get in your pants is not who they really are when it’s no longer spring and they’ve found a new jawn to hang out with. And I know the past isn’t a mirror image of the future, but it’s a reflection of what can be; and when your first love breaks your heart, the shards of that can still draw blood for a long, long time.