“Nice shirt,” I say.
He crosses his arms. So not amused. “What do you want, Sweet Pea?”
“I have a special delivery for you.”
“I have to get to practice.”
I hold the paper out for him.
“My mom doesn’t subscribe to the paper.”
“Well, consider it a gift.” I’m not good at hiding the desperation in my voice.
“I’m good,” he says and steps past me with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “I gotta go.”
I watch him walk down the block toward the secondary school and nearly chase him myself, but then I remember: I have a plan B.
I sit down on the walkway leading to his front porch and I open my backpack to do an inventory of my rations. Two bottles of water, a bag of trail mix, one apple, one orange, one baseball hat, sunscreen, and a small My Little Pony karaoke machine from my seventh birthday.
I tug on my baseball hat and liberally apply sunscreen, including the blue zinc oxide that Mom bought me after my nose burned so bad it peeled last summer. Miss Flora Mae would be proud.
I sit and wait. I may not have the best comebacks, and maybe I overthink things to a fault, but one thing I’ve learned from being the daughter of a therapist is the art of waiting. Before I was allowed to stay home by myself, I spent hours in Mom’s waiting room, and at this point, I’m basically a professional at professionally waiting.
About an hour or so into my Olympic gold–worthy session of sitting and waiting, Luis comes out with the lawn mower and doesn’t even do a double take when he sees me camped out in his front yard. He just puts his earbuds in and mows the yard as the sun climbs higher and higher into the sky.
There’s something soothing about the sound of the mower, and I find myself lying back and using the rolled-up paper as a pillow. And before I know it, I’m nodding off to sleep.
I begin to stir at the sound of approaching footsteps, and I sense a shadow pass over me.
My eyes burn from the sunlight and it takes me a moment to realize Oscar is home and he’s just stepped over my lifeless body on his sidewalk.
“Go home, Sweet Pea,” he says and slams the door shutbehind him.
Okay. Time to regroup. I fuel myself with an orange, a handful of trail mix, and a bottle of water. I mean business.
I get the karaoke machine out. Time to pull out the big guns. I tested the batteries last night and the volume worked so well that it surprised Cheese and nearly sent him crawling up the wall.
Miss Flora Mae and I curated the perfect playlist. At first, I told her I’d just take the Aretha CD, but she told me that you can’t just include Aretha. You have to also include the music that inspired her and the music she inspired.
I hit play on the karaoke machine and Aretha Franklin’s “I Say a Little Prayer” begins to play. Miss Flora Mae offered to help me find the version without vocals like a real karaoke machine would play, but I think I could use the real deal for encouragement.
I begin to sing—and let it be known, I’m so bad at singing, my third-grade choir teacher offered to let me be line leader in exchange for not singing too loudly. “The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup... I say a little prayer for you...”
After the first verse, a second-story window flies open, and Oscar’s middle brother, Jorge, shouts, “Awww, come on! I’m on the phone here!”
“Nope!” I shout back.
“What do I have to do to make you stop?”
The first song ends and the first few notes of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” begins to play. “Send Oscar down and the singing stops!”
My intention was for Oscar to be so moved by my willingness to embarrass myself in front of his whole block that he would just be forced to forgive me, but if it takes holding his whole family hostage with my horrific vocals, then I’m fine with that too.
“We are family!” I shout-sing into the microphone so loudly that my speakers screech. “Get up everybody and sing!”
The song is nearly over by the time the front door swings open and Oscar steps through the dark doorway.
“All right, all right,” he says. “You can turn it off now. My brothers are threatening to make eighth grade a living hell if you don’t stop.”
