Flyy Girl (12 page)

Life seemed dull with Steve. He never gave Tracy any tingles, except for when he scored touchdowns. She was beginning to see that she didn't really like him as a person. She only wanted the star of the football team.

A pack of wild, yelling boys stomped into the theater after the previews had started. Tracy noticed a few of them from school. The boys jumped from seat to seat, joking around with each other. Tracy and her girlfriends began to pay them more attention than they did the big screen. They continued to wrestle each other right up until a few angry parents cussed them out.

“AY, AMIR, get me some popcorn while you up there!” one of the boys yelled.

Tracy couldn't believe her ears. She watched the shadowy figure walk up the aisle. He was the right size and height, wearing a baseball cap.
Oh my God, he's here!
Tracy thought, excitedly.

“I'm going to get a hot dog,” she told Steve.

“Yeah, I bet,” Jantel commented with a laugh.

Crowds of people packed the refreshment lines all hurrying to be served before the films started. Tracy eyed Amir's broad back, with three people separating them. She slowly walked nearby and showed herself off like a young model, hoping that Amir would notice her tight yellow sweater and Sergio blue-jeans.

“Dag, this line is all long,” she said to no one in particular. She was begging for Amir to respond to her.

Amir smiled at her. “You gon' have to go to the end of the line, like everybody else,” he said. Then he began to laugh.

“Shet up, boy,” Tracy snapped at him, holding his name at the tip of her tongue.

Amir let her get up in front of him as the line moved. When it stopped, he leaned against her butt. Tracy felt him and wondered if he did it on purpose.

The line moved again. Tracy was reluctant to move with it, not wanting to move away from him. Amir then pushed her ahead.

“What's your name?” he finally asked her.

“Tracy,” she said without turning to face him.

“Where you live?”

“Right around the corner from you,” she lied. Tracy thought that he would be shocked by this.

“How you know where I live?” he asked her instead.

“Because I've seen you around,” she responded, still moving forward.

“Well, how come you never said nothin' to me?”

“I don't know.”

“So you gon' be out tonight?” he asked her.

“If it ain't too cold,” Tracy answered. “I'm on your cheerleading team,” she finally revealed to him. It was eating her up inside that he didn't know who she was.

“Wow, tell me something I didn't know,” he said to her with a grin.

Tracy laughed softly, relieved. Amir had noticed her. “How you know?” she quizzed him.

“You hang out with Jantel and that girl Raheema.”

Tracy sucked her teeth at hearing her next-door neighbor's name. “How you know
her?”
she asked with a grimace.

“Who?” Amir said, making Tracy have to say it.

She sighed and said, “Raheema.”

“Oh. My friend was trying to talk to her. I saw y'all hangin' out in the mall before.”

“Oh . . . Do you think she's pretty?” Tracy just had to ask.

“Yeah, she's all right,” Amir told her.

They both seemed to forget about the movie. They stood inside the lobby and talked even after they had been served.

Amir asked, “Why, are you jealous of her?”

“NO! I ain't jealous of
her!”
Tracy responded radically.

“Yes, you are,” Amir rebutted. “But I like you more than her.” He ran his hands over Tracy's neck and shoulder and then through her hair. It gave her a chill. Tracy wanted more, but then Amir left her abruptly. Chuck Norris was in action.

Tracy followed him back inside the theater and returned to her seat with a bag of candy.

“That sure was a long trip to get a
hot dog,
Tracy,” Jantel joked. Her friends broke into laughter.

“Yeah, what took you so long?” Steve asked Tracy.

“The line was long,” she said with an attitude.

“Oh,” Steve said. He quickly dismissed it. Tracy was angry at how gullible he was for believing her. It was a waste of time to go to the movies with
him. He is so boring!
she thought to herself.

Tracy was glad to get back home from the movies with Steve. When she had arrived home, she found Raheema sitting out on her front steps.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, hoping that Raheema was leaving soon. Raheema had definitely become a rival to Tracy.

“I have to spend the night over your house because my parents are going out all night,” she answered, blandly. Raheema was not pleased with the idea of having to be baby-sat any more than Tracy wanted her over there.

Tracy saw it as an opportunity to settle their differences. She wanted to get to the bottom of things with her neighbor. Raheema was rejecting some top-quality boys for no good reason.

Tracy asked, “Do you know some boys named Amir and Todd?”

“Yeah, that boy named Todd wanted to talk to me,” Raheema told
her, not at all excited about it. “He used to try and wait for me whenever I came home from school. I don't know why. I kept telling him that I didn't want any boyfriends.”

“What does he look like?”

Raheema gave Tracy a good looking over. “He's a little lighter than you and shorter than you,” she said.

Tracy was taller than Raheema by
at least
three inches.

“You didn't like him?” she asked.

“He's all right.”

“So didn't you want to talk to him?”

“I did talk to him. I told him that I didn't want a boyfriend.”

Tracy sucked her teeth. “Girl, what is wrong with you? How come you get all of the boys?”

Raheema smiled. Tracy was really pissed off about the attraction that boys seemed to have toward her.

“I don't know,” Raheema responded to her. “I don't even pay them no mind.”

They walked inside the house.

“You don't like boys at all, do you?” Tracy asked.

“I like your little brother. Jason doesn't want anything from me like the other ones do.”

Tracy sat down on the couch. “What are you talkin' about?”

“Boys only want one thing,” Raheema said, still standing.

“And what's that?”

“You know
what I'm talking about,” she answered, feeling embarrassed that she was asked to say it.

“Well, you probably never gon' have a boyfriend then.”

“Tracy, like I said, I don't
want
any boyfriends. I don't want to be
used.”

“Why you thinking that? I'm not
used.
I don't give them
nothin',”
Tracy bragged. They quieted down a bit once they heard Patti walking around upstairs and approaching the steps.

“Well, how are you two doing?” Patti asked them.

“Okay,” they mumbled in unison.

Patti looked at them suspiciously and mumbled, “Mmm hmm, you
two are down here gossiping. Well, when you want some
real
answers about the dating thing, you just let me know. I can tell you two a lot of things about what
not
to do. But other than that, you're on your own, because these damn men are definitely trifling,” she told them before heading inside of the kitchen to get herself some ice cream. “Damn selfish fool gon' tell me that things are fine the way they are,” she continued to mumble to herself from the kitchen.

Raheema and Tracy began to smile at each other. But Tracy was a little embarrassed. She knew who her mother was talking about, and she was sure that Raheema was smart enough to figure things out.

They continued to sit, silently, until Tracy's mother had passed them again. Patti then reached the top of the steps and told them, “You can go on back to your boy-talk now.”

Tracy and Raheema smiled at each other again.

“Are you ever gonna get married?” Tracy asked Raheema.

Raheema looked at her incredulously. “What? How you go from boyfriends to getting married?”

“Just answer the question,” Tracy snapped.

Raheema took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know.”

Tracy looked over Raheema's light skin and long, dark brown hair. She had given up on trying to figure her out.

“What did you do today?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I did my homework and watched TV.”

Tracy frowned. “That's all you did today?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Ain't you bored with your life or something? God!”

Raheema hunched her shoulders. “No, not really. I mean, sometimes I get bored, but everybody gets bored once in a while.”

“Yeah, but at least we do more than you,” Tracy told her, standing up.

Tracy went up the steps pondering how dull Raheema's life seemed. They ended up playing board games while discussing their futures until three-thirty in the morning. They both slept hard that night with the future on their minds.

Raheema wanted to become a successful doctor or a lawyer, and live in a big white house. She still didn't know if she would marry or not, but if she did, she would not hesitate to divorce any man who would use or abuse her. She would wait her entire life for a loving, respectable husband if she had to do so.

Tracy wanted a house filled with kids and a fun-loving husband who would fulfill all of her dreams. Her husband had to be exciting, generous and full of surprises. Tracy didn't care what her occupation would be. As long as she had a handsome husband who met all of her criteria with money to boot, she would be happy. “As long as we're not poor,” she had told Raheema.

They awoke late Sunday morning and watched the Eagles play the Giants. Raheema didn't show any interest in football. She ate sandwiches and talked about her teachers.

Ever since her sister, Mercedes, had left the house, Raheema had received nothing but A's in all of her classes. Mercedes' leaving seemed to be an inspiration point for Raheema to do the best that she could in school. Keith praised her and put her older sister down in the same sentence. “Raheema's studying the way a smart girl is supposed to study, not like that crazy sister of hers. I can't even remember her name,” he would comment with a laugh. But he really did miss his first daughter. He couldn't get Mercedes off of his mind. Whenever his friends came over, he would tell them the same story of how Mercedes was his “darling girl” who had turned rotten on him, and how Raheema had turned out to be the good girl. “The Jekyll & Hyde Sisters,” he called them.

Tracy, on the other hand, had gotten A's and B's and had never missed a day in school, except for when she was suspended for fighting. Neither Patti nor Dave worried about Tracy's schoolwork. They continued to treat her like a little woman. Patti let Tracy do almost anything she wanted.
Tracy's not a bad girl,
she thought.
She knows what to do
and what not to do. I trust her.
And her father trusted her as well. Tracy had had a good behavior record.

•    •    •

Steve heard about Tracy talking to Amir in the lobby at the movies during practice that week. Amir hung out with a rough crowd. Steve was intimidated by him, so he didn't want any hearsay going around. He decided to keep the fact that he knew to himself, but he surely didn't trust Tracy anymore.

It was an unusually hot day for October. Everyone seemed to be at the playground where they practiced. Tracy watched out of the corner of her eye to notice if Amir's friend Todd was there. Tracy was curious to see what he looked like.

After practice, Tracy talked Jantel into following Amir home with her. She was scared to say anything to him with his buddies still around. Amir spotted them and refused to speak.

Tracy sneered at him. “Oh, you don't know me now?”

“Nope,” he told her, laughing with his friends.

Tracy smiled at his sarcasm. “Come here for a minute, Amir.”

“Hold up, y'all, let me see what she wants.”

“Yo, we'll get back with you then,” his friends told him.

Amir walked over to Tracy. Close up, and with his hat off, Tracy noticed that his block-shaped hair had dents in it from wearing his helmet. And unlike Steve, Amir didn't shy away from her hazel eyes.

Tracy asked him carefully, “Why don't you walk me home?”

Amir shook his dented head. “Naw, 'cause I'm 'bout to do something.”

“Come on, Amir. Please,” she begged him.

Amir began to laugh at her, unmoved by her pleading. His friends then yelled from down the street, “YO AMIR, WE 'BOUT TO HAVE WATER BALLOON FIGHTS!”

“OH, BET!” he hollered back, immediately taking off to go and join them.

Dag, I had him,
Tracy thought.

“Let's go around there,” she said to Jantel.

“All right.”

They ran two blocks up and watched as the boys chased each other like buffoons, screaming and hurling water balloons. Amir then threw one at Tracy. She got hit before she had a chance to duck. Water splashed all over her clothes and hair. One of his friends followed his
lead and bombed away at Jantel. The girls quickly became target practice. After getting splashed a few more times, Jantel started to cry, but Tracy was still having fun.

An angry parent roared from his patio, “AMIR, LEAVE THEM DAMN GIRLS ALONE!”

Tracy and Jantel headed on their way back home.

Tracy asked, “What 'chew start cryin' for?”

Jantel whined, “They hit me in my eye.”

“YO TRACY, HOLD UP!” Amir shouted down the block to them. Tracy turned and waited for him at the corner. Jantel marched home while rubbing her left eye. Once he had caught up, Amir walked home with Tracy.

“Why she start crying?”