This last statement was almost a joke because, in truth, Jazzy would read books written by just about anybody.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and changed clothes with no fanfare.
When I finished getting ready, I passed through the living room. Big was sitting in her wheelchair, as usual, giving her swollen, achy legs a rest. Her eyes were glued to the small television set atop an antique entertainment center.
“Morning, Big,” I said. I bent down and kissed her wrinkled cheek, hating how diabetes had sucked the strength out of the strongest woman I knew.
“Don’t forget my candy bar. King size,” she whispered.
“You know the doctor don’t want you eating all that sugar,” I reminded her. “I don’t need you falling into a diabetic coma.”
She rolled her eyes. “I need my candy. Besides, he ain’t no real doctor. He one of them nurse practitioners. That’s what the government give the poor. They save the real doctors for the folks with money.”
“Ummm…I’m pretty sure practitioners know what they’re talking about, too,” I ventured. I slipped my feet into the flip-flops Jazmin had left on the floor next to the front door.
“Bet not let your sister see you putting on her shoes.” Big winked at me.
I gave a little smile followed by a thumbs up and left the house, the screen door swinging behind me.
Big had a sense of humor left, if little else. She hadn’t always beenthispoor. I mean, she’d always lived in that small, shotgun house, as far as I knew. But back when I was in elementary and junior high, Big used to sell dinners from the house, and people came from all over Lovetown, TX, to buy a plate. From businessmen in suits to prostitutes in the clothes they’d worn the night before everybody knew about Beatrice Thompson’s good cooking.
Took a while, but the city health department found out about it and gave her a bunch of fines. Tax bills, too. Big said it was because they were trying to bring in a bunch of franchises and make Lovetown one of those reformed places with coffee shops, bookstores, and over-priced high-rise apartments on every corner. She said probably one of them well-to-do businessmen got wind of how much money she was making and blabbed to downtown about it because his sorry old momma’s nasty, no-seasoning diner on the other side of the tracks was losing business.
I had been in seventh grade that year. Revitalizing the town might have been the original plan, but here it was fifteen years later and my walk down Clark Street showed the plan had failed. The two vacant lots where they’d torn down the old Piggly Wiggly—I’d worked there for five years after high school—and the Dollar Store hadn’t been replaced by any coffeehouse. A ten-year-old sign reading,Vote McCampbell for Mayor – Change is On the Way!still stood high above the street light. McCampbell hadn’t won the election, and the changes in the city never came to pass. The only change that registered for me was Big’s lack of income. We were no longer rich-poor. Just regular-poor after that. Not much had changed in Lovetown or in my life since then.
It was still early enough in the day that the temperature was below 80 degrees. I passed Miss Mabel’s house and continued to the corner to wait for a bus. In a small town like Lovetown, I could be waiting for an hour before our one Sunday bus driver decided to pull out of the chicken place and run his shift. But, I was determined to wait. Jazmin and Big would both fuss that it took me too long to go to the store and come back, but what else was new? Those two couldn’t be pleased. There was no use in me trying.
I was attempting to survive to 30, which made my next move all the more ironic because statistics showed city buses safer than personal vehicles.
When Jhavon’s old friend, Sean, pulled up to the curb in his Mustang, I smiled real wide because… well…because his presence reminded me of my brother.
“Hey, Niya. Where you goin’?” Sean’s gapped-tooth smile always took me by surprise, as though I was seeing it for the first time every time. In fact, his entire face seemed different. Smoother. Older.
I answered his question. “To the store.”
He gave me a confused expression. “Miss Mabel’s?”
“No. Therealstore.” I looked around to make sure no one had heard me. To our neighborhood, Miss Mabelwasa real store, just like Big’s operation had been a real take-out restaurant.
“You want a ride?”
I stepped closer to his car, getting a better view of him now that his head was blocking the sun. I hadn’t seen Sean in ages. He’d joined the military after Jhavon died and had returned only a few times since then. He and Jhavon had been so close, Sean was like a second brother to me, so I normally wouldn’t have hesitated to get in a car with him.
Today was different, though. Sean was different. I had always thought he was cute but now he was a sculpted hunk of a male who had outgrown his awkwardness and now exuded swag. Swag that made my breath catch, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
His dimples popped into place, messing with my heart’s rhythm. “You wanna have a heat stroke?” he asked.
“Uhhh…no,” I replied, aware my mouth was spreading into a much wider grin than I’d like.
“Then you’d better get in. Buses run slow on the weekend.”
I shook off whatever resistance I had and took Sean up on his offer, hopping into the passenger’s seat of his Mustang.
Once inside, I smelled his cologne, sultry and masculine. Like one of the businessmen who used to come to Big’s house every Friday and leave her a healthy tip. Another glance at Sean sent my pulse racing. He wasabsolutelycuter than I remembered. His vague facial structure had become chiseled, more refined. His hair was a precise crew cut, his brown eyes more confident. Not to mention his blue button-down shirt with black slacks. He could have been on the front of a magazine cover, except for the tooth-gap thing, which never looked bad on him.
“You’re all dressed up,” was all I could manage to say. “You got a job interview today?”
I could have kicked myself for asking such a silly question, seeing as it was Sunday.What’s wrong with me? It’s only Sean.
