Flyy Girl (2 page)

“Well, yeah, I guess so,” Beth answered, sneaking a glance at Keith.

“Okay then, I'll be right over to get her after school. And then we'll go shopping together and get us some ice cream.”

“Y-a-a-a-y!” Tracy squealed.

Keith took a seat on their long black couch and watched television in silence.

“Tracy looks so pretty today,” Beth said, watching Tracy as she bounced in her bright red dress.

“Well, Ra-Ra is a little charmer, too,” Patti told her.

Keith frowned. “Yeah, but she never listens. Mercedes listens, but I guess Ra-Ra thinks she's too cute.”

“Raheema and Mercedes are two different people, Keith. You shouldn't even judge her like that,” Patti contested.

Raheema became apprehensive hearing her father speak about her. She hoped “Aunt Patti” could win the fight. Beth always kept quiet. She never intervened when Patti and Keith would go at it about her own children. And since Beth wasn't up for the challenge, Patti stayed right in their business.

“Well, she better start doin' what she's told,” Keith warned.

“She'll be all right. Come here, Ra-Ra,” Patti said. She gently rubbed her fingers through Raheema's soft hair and rubbed her neck to calm her nerves. She knew she had won their argument. Raheema would be able to sleep in peace.

Patti left with Tracy and began to send the rest of the children in her
basement home. She then readied Tracy for bed. It was nearly nine o'clock.

“Did Keith say anything to Ra-Ra when I went inside the kitchen?” Patti asked her daughter while tucking her in.

“Unh hunh. He said that she was 'sposed to go home at six-thirty.”

Patti shook her head in disgust. “I knew it. That man ain't no good. He's just as evil as he wants to be.”

Tracy chuckled and closed her eyes. Her mother then swept into her own bedroom. Dave was still watching television. He was leaned up against a pillow with his hands behind his head.

“You know what, Patti, I'm sick and tired of your sisters coming over here and terrorizing my damn house. I've worked
hard
for mine. Now if they got a problem with that, you best leave them out of our lives. Or at least out of
my
damn life.”

“Look, Dave, now that's my family. Without me, they'll fall apart,” Patti self-righteously assumed. “So even if they argue with me, they really do need me.”

“Yeah, well, I'm gon' tell you what, soon you ain't gon'
need
me, because I'm a little worn out from this dumb stuff.”

Patti started to undress. “Dave, it ain't all that bad.”

“Yes the hell it is,” Dave snapped. “Matter fact, they're not coming over here anymore. Period.”

Patti stopped undressing and stared at him. “Why, Dave?”

“Because I said so. That's reason enough.”

“Now you know that ain't even fair,” Patti retorted. She caressed Dave's chest under the sheets. Dave pulled her hand away and rolled over. “Baby, come on,” Patti pleaded.

“No, now, get off of me.”

Patti sighed and turned the other way.

“Turn the TV off,” Dave demanded.

“You're the one that turned it on.”

“I don't care. You just got in bed. You're not all that comfortable yet.”

Patti stayed in the bed, refusing to move.

Dave turned to face her. “What do you think, I'm playing? I told you to turn the shit off,” he snapped, nearly pushing her out of bed.

Patti caught her balance to avoid falling onto the floor. She then went and turned the TV off.
I don't know who he think he is,
she thought to herself as she strolled back to her side of the bed.

“Are you satisfied now?”

Dave was playing his ugly tough-guy role. He had learned it years ago to keep Patti in check. And Patti enjoyed pissing him off. It was her childish entertainment.

Dave jumped up in an instant and grabbed her arm.

“What are you doing?” Patti whined.

“I'm tired of you playing that young-girl shit. You sleep on the damn couch tonight.”

“Why?” Patti said, holding Dave gently by his waist. She gently squeezed him, hoping to turn him on.

“Get off me, Patti. You're a damn kid, girl, I swear,” he told her as he knocked her hands away.

Patti shoved her breasts up against his chest. “Please, I'm sorry, baby,” she pleaded. She tried to plant a kiss on her husband's lips. Dave turned away to avoid it.

“No, get off of me,” he persisted, still trying to push her away.

Patti sighed and began walking toward her daughter's room.

Dave asked, “Where are you going?”

Patti teased him with a sly grin. “I'm going to sleep with my baby. She's the only one that
cares
about me,” she told him.

“Look, I'm gonna give you about two seconds to go downstairs and sleep on that damn couch, like I told you,” Dave warned her.

Patti really knew how to get to her husband. She smirked and said, “Okay already.”

Dave mugged her in the back of her head. “You think this shit is a damn joke, don't you?” he asked her, pinning her to the hallway wall.

“Now wait a minute, Dave, you're hurting me.”

“I'm hurting you? Shit, you're hurting me with these stupid-ass games you play all the time,” Dave told her.

“How the hell am
I
hurting you? It looks like you're the one that has
me
pinned up against this damn wall,” Patti retorted.

“Look, you're fucking with my peace of mind, Patti. Now we're damn near thirty years old. We're getting too old for this role-playing shit.”

Patti looked at him seriously for a moment. “Dave, you're the one that started it. You could have turned that TV off yourself.”

“Yeah, well I'm gonna end it, too.” He released the hold on his wife and walked back into his bedroom, locking the door in her face.

Patti shook her head and grinned. She reminisced on the many other occasions where she had argued with her husband and ended up making sweaty love. Those were their best nights. She thought that maybe they would be having another one if she played along with him, but she was wrong.

Dave was seriously fed up. He longed for a more mature woman who would cooperate with him instead of aggravating him and forcing him to play Mr. Sweet and Mr. Sour. In fact, Dave had become so good at it that he couldn't tell the difference between his real self and his roles. He was beginning to feel like he was up for a living Academy Award.

Patti fell asleep on her living-room couch and spent the night there. She had anticipated her husband coming down to carry her back to their bedroom and make passionate love to her. But it never happened.

“Come on, Tracy, it's time to get up,” Patti called.

“Okay, mom,” Tracy answered, wiping out her eyes. She stepped out of her twin-sized bed and followed her mother to the hallway bathroom.

“Did I wake you up from a dream, baby?” Patti asked her.

“Yup. I was Cinderella, and the prince was just like dad.”

“Just like dad? Well, didn't you have a beautiful dream.”

Tracy smiled and said, “Yup, mom.”

“Well, let's get you cleaned and dressed so you can eat your breakfast.”

“Mommy?” Tracy asked, getting undressed for her bath.

“Yes, Tracy.”

“Why does dad never eat breakfast with us?”

“Because he has to go to work early.”

Patti helped her daughter into the tub.

“Why does he have to go to work early?”

“Because that's his job, honey?”

“Did you and dad fight last night, mommy?”

“No,” Patti lied to her. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I heard you and dad in the hall last night.”

“Well, we were out in the hallway, but we weren't really fighting.”

Tracy looked in her mother's hand mirror while getting toweled off. “Why my eyes different from yours, mommy?” she asked.

“Because you got them from your father.”

“Unt unh. Daddy's eyes aren't pointy like mine. And they shiny, too,” Tracy argued, still looking inside of the hand mirror.

“Yes they are, Tracy. You just can't notice them on your father as much as you can on you, because you're lighter than your dad,” Patti explained.

Tracy put her arm next to her mother's arm to compare complexions. “I'm tanner than you, mommy,” she said.

“Yup, you came right in between me and your father.”

“How that happen?” Tracy asked, as her mother put on her new birthday clothes.

“Ut oh, my daughter looks sharp
to-day,”
Patti said.

Tracy smiled and spun around in her baby-blue dress. But she hadn't forgotten her question. “Hunh, mommy, how'd that happen?” she persisted.

“What?” Patti asked.

“How did I get like this?” Tracy asked again. She raised her arms up high to show Patti her color.

“You ask some complicated questions for a little girl, now don't you?”

They went down into the kitchen to eat.

“Tell me, mommy,” Tracy pressed, as she took a seat in a kitchen chair.

“From genetics, sweetheart.”

Tracy frowned. “Genetics? What's that? What's genetics, mom?”

Patti just couldn't believe how tenacious her daughter was.
She's
going to be a very assertive girl,
she told herself. “I'll tell you what, you ask dad when he gets home.”

“Awww, see, you don't tell me nothin'.”

Patti looked at her daughter with piercing slit eyes. “You watch who you're talking to, girl! You hear me?”

Tracy nodded and began to eat her breakfast with a long face.

Tracy loved going to school. She had perfect attendance and was smart and popular. She drew attention like a magnet. She wanted as many friends as possible. School was where Tracy could show off. And the teachers praised her participation in class.

“Yup, and then my cousins messed it up. They
always
mess it up,” Tracy was telling her group of girlfriends, Celena, Pam and Judy.

“I don't like my cousins either, 'cause they always wanna race and stuff,” Judy said, standing short and chunky.

Celena, the tallest of the group, rose from their small bench at the far end of the schoolyard. “Aw, you just say that 'cause they always beat you,” she said to Judy.

“Shet up, girl. That's why you gon' fail in school,” Judy retorted, facing off with her.

“I got better grades than
you,
” Celena said.

“No
you
don't.”

“Yes
I
do, 'cause on our first spelling quiz, I did
better
than you.”

“Well, we just started, and that was the only one we had
anyway.
Now!
I busted
your
bubble,” Judy responded, bumping flat chests with Celena.

“You can't beat me in nothin',
little
girl,” Celena contested, staring down at her shorter friend.

“Who is you callin'
‘little girl,‘ Stinky?
”

Tracy loved to hear the girls argue. It reminded her of her aunts and her mother.

Pam, the quieter friend, sat and watched the action herself.

“I'll kick you in your butt,
Big Mouth,
” Celena said as they bumped each other again.

“Do it then,
Stinky,
” Judy dared.

Both girls were pushing and shoving. Tracy got up to stop what could've turned into a real fight. “Stop y'all, we all friends,” she said, moving in-between them.

“Well, that's why Celena ain't got no hair. At least I ain't
bald
-
headed
like
you,
” Judy said, starting up again.

“I ain't
bald-headed, girl.
I got more hair than
you,
” Celena snapped.

“GET OUT THE WAY, THE BALL IS COMING!” a boy shouted, running past.

The girls didn't move out of the way quickly enough. Judy got knocked down on her plump behind.

“Ay, boy? Why you do that?” Pam yelled at him. She was quiet, but a fighter.

“I'm sorry,” the boy responded.

One of his friend's overheard him apologizing. “Ay, Tommy, don't say sorry to her, man,” he said, staring and bumping into Pam. She swung immediately. The boy blocked it and punched her back in her neck.

“See, boy, I'm gon' tell on you,” she whined.

“Go 'head then, girl. See if I care.”

“See, Aaron, you always hittin' girls. My dad told me that boys who hit girls are sissies,” Judy screamed at him.

“So what, girl? Who asked you?” Aaron retorted. “Come on, y'all, let's finish playing ball,” he told his rowdy friends.

“Go ahead, you scared
sissy,
” Judy taunted him.

Tracy loved it. School was exciting.

Tracy's father picked her up from school, and she would tell him everything that had gone on while he listened to her constant chatter. Tracy went to work with her questions as soon as they entered the house.

“Daddy, how did I get like this?” Tracy asked, raising her arms.

Dave stretched out on the couch, failing to notice his daughter's raised arms. He stared up at the ceiling with his head plumped on a cushion.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, pretty,” he answered her wearily.

Tracy raised her arms in front of him.

“How did I get tanner than mommy and lighter than you?”

“Because, God did it,” Dave told her. He then closed his eyes.

“God did it?” Tracy mumbled to herself. Confused by her father's simple answer, she decided to crawl up on his chest and rest there on the couch with him.