Before, After, and Somebody In Between (2 page)

“God, Momma! What do you think we’re gonna do?”

“I know what
you
ain’t gonna do. I just don’t know what them
boys
ain’t gonna do.”

I blow out a sigh. Best way to handle Momma is to butter her up, then turn around and do what I want. “You want me to make dinner tonight?”

“Naw, don’t bother. Wayne’s gonna pick something up, so…”

I lean closer. “Momma, you okay? You look kinda—” Out of it?

“I’m fine,” she answers, mashing her thumb on the volume control.

I take the hint and slink off to my room.
Not
fine, when it comes to Momma, can mean either “drunk” or “depressed.” Personally, I prefer drunk. At least I know she’s alive.

A roach skitters across the floor and boinks into my toe. I leap back with a scream, snatch up my handy can of Raid, and blast the little critter with a lethal dose of foam. I grab my school schedule and rush out to avoid the fumes, and Momma pays no attention as I duck through the back hall and up the narrow staircase.

A tiny silver-haired lady with a soft, wrinkled brown face answers my knock. Eyes enormous behind inch-thick glasses of her own, she leans on a four-footed cane and shakes her free fist. “Child, you either a Jehovah Witness, or you selling Girl Scout cookies—and if it ain’t the cookies, you better haul your heathen self outta here before you rile me up again!”

“Grandma, that’s Martha,” Jerome explains over her shoulder.

“
I
know who she is,” the old lady snaps with a not-quite-guilty smile, hauling me into the kitchen. “This great-grandbaby of mine got no sense of humor,” she adds sideways to me as Jerome rolls his eyes. “Be nice to have a little girl round here for a change. You got a granny of your own?”

I shake my head.

“Mm, mm. Well, you can call me Grandma Daisy. My momma, she named all of us after flowers. Daisy, Rosie, Violet…”

“Mar-tha.” Jerome shuffles impatiently.

Grinning, I say good-bye to my new “grandma” and follow Jerome to his room. Swear to God, it looks like a war zone with peeling wallpaper, falling plaster, and moldy food scattered around. Well, now I know why we have roaches, but what’s with that falling-down ceiling? If I belonged to this family, I wouldn’t pay Wayne a dime till he got his ass up here and fixed it.

Bubby, huddled in his crib in droopy training pants, stretches out his arms with a blood-curdling shriek of joy. Omigod, snotty face and all, he is just too cute! I swing him out of the crib while Jerome watches uncertainly. “Aunt Gloria wants me to keep him in his crib. He keeps messing his pants and won’t use the toilet.”

“Duh! What is he, like, one?”

“Just put him back, okay?”

“In a minute.” I tickle Bubby’s fat brown thighs and blow raspberries into his belly, and he laughs so hard he chokes on his own spit.

With a big old sigh, Jerome digs out his schedule. We sit side by side on the bed with Bubby in my lap, and compare notes. “Damn, only two classes together,” he says in disgust. “Science first period and English second.”

“I hate science.”

“Not me. I like it.”

Well, he would, Mr. Nuclear Physicist.

Bubby glances up with a stricken expression, and at that exact moment something very warm and very wet gushes into my lap. It takes me a second, but then I fly up with a yelp, a river of pee dripping down my legs. “Damn, I told you, this kid needs a freakin’
diaper—
”

“
What the hell you doin’?”
the infamous Aunt Gloria screams from the doorway, her long, cadaverous face twisted with rage.

My vocal chords shrivel up into raisins.

“Auntie,” Jerome begins as Aunt Gloria stalks over and yanks Bubby out of my arms.

“Didn’t I tell you to use the toilet?” Bubby pedals his short legs, trying to escape, but she flips him over, smacks his butt, and dumps him headfirst into the crib.

“Hey!” I shout as Bubby, sobbing, stuffs a sock monkey into his mouth. He gazes at me in shock and misery, like I’m the one who betrayed him.

“You stay in that bed till you quit pissing in your pants,” Aunt Gloria warns him, then whirls on me so fast I almost fall over. “Look, I don’t know how your momma be raisin’ you, but my boys do
not
entertain girls in their bedroom.”

“But we were just—”

“Out! And I catch you up here again, I’m gonna whup
all
y’all’s butts!”

I look hard at Jerome, expecting him to argue. But all he does is jerk his head toward the door, then glance away like he’s ashamed. Why doesn’t he stick up for his baby brother?

I duck out of the room and clatter back down the steps to find Momma parked in the kitchen, wolfing down a Big Mac. She points to a wilted bag. “There’s a cheeseburger for you, sugar pie. Wayne remembered you like ‘em. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

“Yeah. Sweet.”

Momma knows I don’t like Wayne. She likes it even less when I let her know it, but doesn’t comment this time.

“So where is he?” I ask.

“Out in the garage looking for a wrench. Sink’s leaking.”

Well, about time he fixed that. This kitchen reeks of mold, and I’m sick of standing in a puddle every time I wash a dish. I
nibble on the burger, but the food is cold, and I don’t have much of an appetite now anyway.

“Momma, you oughta see the way they treat that poor baby upstairs. That aunt of his hit him for no reason, and she, like, never lets him out of his crib, and—”

“Martha,” Momma interrupts, munching a french fry, “didn’t I tell you not to go up there in the first place? You don’t need to be locking yourself up in some boy’s bedroom, anyway.”

“Hello, we were looking at our schedules.”

“I don’t care. It ain’t fittin’.” I splurt out a giggle, and Momma slaps a hand on the table. “Now what’s so funny?”

“You sound like Mammy in
Gone With the Wind.
”

She almost—
almost!
—cracks a smile at this. But then Wayne clomps in, swinging a wrench, tracking mud all over the floor. “You do what your momma says, little girl,” he commands, giving Momma a big juicy kiss before he drops to his knees and crawls under the sink. His pants sag dangerously low, and I never saw such a furry back on any living creature that wasn’t safely behind a ten-foot electric fence. “No reason for you to be up there with them people.”

Them people,
huh? Well, he could’ve said worse. He usually does. “What? Am I not supposed to have any friends around here?”

“You heard your momma.” His voice, muffled under the sink, still comes across loud and clear. “Keep your butt downstairs.”

Oh, by the way, Wayne’s not too fond of me, either.

“You can be friends with ‘em, sugar pie. Just not up there.” Momma’s all lit up and dreamy now that Wayne’s in the same room. “And don’t worry about that baby so much. Ain’t nothing wrong with a smack on the butt every now and then.”

“But, Momma—”

She points to my greasy wrapper. “You gonna eat that, or what?”

I shove my half-eaten burger across the table. “No. I’m going to bed.”

“Already? It’s only seven.”

“I’m tired, okay? And I got school tomorrow.”

I can tell she doesn’t remember that, but she tries to cover it up with, “Well, good. I hope you make some new friends. You weren’t all that sociable last year, were you, sugar pie?”

How can you be sociable when your mom makes you move every time the rent’s overdue or when her latest boyfriend dumps her?

“You got something to wear tomorrow? Didja check the box?” Momma means the Goodwill box, a treasure chest of mostly unwearable, smelly rags.

I flutter my eyelids. “Yes, Momma, I checked it. And yes, it’s still crap.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she says breezily, licking salt from her fingers. “Things’ll get better.”

Yeah, I’ve heard that one before, too.

3

Two crummy minutes into homeroom the next morning and all I can think is: No way will I survive the next three years in this hellhole.

Legs splayed in the aisles, spitballs sticking to my hair, a boom box in the back of the room blasting hip-hop. The teacher’s name is Miss Fuchs—“That’s
Feeyooks,
please. Feeyooks, Feeyooks.” She says it like nine times so we don’t mistake it for something else, then rattles off the cardinal rules of Jefferson High: No drugs, no cigarettes, no cell phones or pagers. No weapons of any kind including nail clippers, hair pins, and probably even toothpicks. Oh, and by the way, no inappropriate sexual conduct.

What, is she blind? There’s a major grope-fest going on in the back of the room, and I can smell cigarette smoke from the john across the hall. So far no sign of any weapons or drugs, but the guy next to me—Jamal?—reeks of booze as he snores, facedown, into a puddle of drool on his desktop.

Except for two scuzzy dudes off to one side, mine is the only white face in the room. I’m not surprised, but wow, how weird is
this? I sneak another look around as Miss Fuchs rattles off names: Aiyisha, Monique, Kenyatta, TyShawn, and omigod,
Chardonnay?
Isn’t that some kind of wine? That poor girl’s mom must be crazier than mine.

My sympathy fades as Chardonnay twists around to spread her lips in a demented grin. Her long yellow teeth probably haven’t seen a toothbrush in months. I take a chance and smile back, and what do I get? A pudgy middle finger jabbed under my nose.

My next thought is: Shit. I may not even survive homeroom.

“Martha Kolsky… um, Kro-waw-ski, um…” Miss Fuchs stammers cluelessly.

I raise my hand to correct her with “Ko-
wal
-ski” just as a broken pencil zings off my lip. Some guys in the back chant “Yo, Maar-rtha!” while the idiot behind me hammers my chair with his foot. Miss Fuchs pounds on her desk, screaming for order, and a blackboard eraser whomps her in the chest. Too nosy for my own good, I glance around to see who threw it, and notice a boy picking his teeth with a wicked-looking penknife. He winks when he sees me, and I whirl back around, nibbling the raggedy pink stump that used to be my thumbnail.

Oh-h-h, God, this is a dream. Or a movie. Or temporary insanity.

As soon as the bell rings, I snatch up my stuff and join the mad rush while Miss Fuchs teeters near the door, whimpering with relief. Without any warning, a hurricane force hits me from behind and I’m half knocked off my feet by a single swing of Chardonnay’s massive arm.

“Outta my way, bitch,” she snarls, plowing me into the wall.

Face-to-face, I’m shocked by her mammoth size—torpedo boobs, WWE shoulders, and a butt big enough to plug up Lake
Erie. I scream bloody murder as she grinds her heel into my sneaker, but she only smirks and lumbers out the door.

And my third brilliant thought of the day is: I am so-o-o freaking screwed!

4

Hugging my books, sneaking looks over my shoulder, I hobble through the halls in search of the biology room.

Some old dude with a shabby suit and overgrown nose hairs flags me down as I wander aimlessly along the science hall. “Biology lab?” I nod, and he points to the door behind him. “I’m Mr. Finelli. Hurry up and find a seat.”

Jerome waves from a black-topped table in the back, and I gratefully slide in. “Took you long enough,” is his unsympathetic greeting.

“Not my fault. Some bitch in homeroom just stomped on my foot.”

“Yeah, and I bet that bitch’s name begins with a C.”

I stare. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, she beats up anybody who pisses her off.”

“I didn’t piss her off. She attacked me for no reason.”

Jerome shakes his head. “Oh, she had a reason, that’s for sure.”

“Why? Because I’m white?”

“No, ‘cause you were
there.”

I rub my throbbing foot under the table while old Mr. Finelli starts yammering about some project I am so not interested in. All I can think about is Chardonnay, and that boy with the knife, and how much I miss all my little hick schools where the worst that could happen might be a wad of bubble gum in my hair.

After biology, Jerome, who was here for ninth grade, too, acts as my guide dog and leads me easily to English without getting us lost in the crowded maze. We find two seats together near the front, and one girl from my homeroom, tall and skinny with a thousand long braids, throws herself down on my other side. I pretend not to see her. Nobody’s flipping me off again.

“Martha, right?” She stretches long brown legs across the aisle, forcing everyone else to climb over them. She is thin, thin, thin with amazing cheekbones and slanted dark eyes that slice into your brain. Her bony wrists are covered with jangling bracelets, and she’s wearing a skimpy leather skirt, and tight black boots with bone-crunching pointed toes and stiletto heels. And all those earrings! My God, how did she ever survive the piercings?

I nod curtly. Yep, Martha, the Amish farm wife. Martha, the Wal-Mart greeter. What I need is something classier, like Genevieve or Sophia or Lydia. A name that belongs to the rich and famous, to the order-givers, not the order-takers.

“Ps-st!
We gotta read
Romeo and Juliet
in here.” Like an old TV gangster, Braid-Girl mutters out of the side of her mouth. “You wanna buy last year’s test? I know somebody who got it.”

“What for? It’s not like I don’t know the story.”

“Well, ex-cu-use me, Miz Wonder Bread.” She crumples up a piece of notebook paper and pops it in my face.

“Way to go.” Jerome sniggers on my other side.

I glance at the girl’s rigid profile, sorry I said anything at all. I hate this day! I’ll never make a single friend.

After English, Jerome and I have no more classes together. I say good-bye sadly, squint at my crumpled schedule, and then fumble my way through the halls of insanity, hitting the locker room of the gym at the same time as Braid-Girl. She pointedly ignores me. I ignore her back. Then, to my horror, I spot Chardonnay, looking meaner and bigger than she did two hours ago.

“Hey, honky bitch. ‘Sup?” Not answering her back, unfortunately, only pisses her off more. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to
you!”