Kendra (6 page)

“Um, Kenny,” I say, when we’re close enough to him, “don’t forget, you have customers waiting.”

But he’s not listening to me.
At all
. His attention is 100 percent on Renée, and his arms are still around her.

Adonna grabs my wrist. “Let’s go, Kendra.”

“Okay,” I say, and let her lead me away. I wanna say bye to Renée, but I don’t wanna interrupt them. I know how much Kenny wanted to see her.

When we get to the corner, I look back and see Renée already walking across the street to her car, looking all sophisticated with her blazer and her suitcase. And then there’s Kenny, still standing there in the street.

Watching her.

The second we get off the bus, it’s obvious the fight is still going on. We can’t see what’s happening or anything, but about a block away from the school, a whole crowd of kids is standing around cheering and acting wild. I can’t help feeling like I been dropped in the middle of a riot or something. The crowd is so big, it spills out into the street, blocking the cars that are trying to get by. And between the screaming kids and the car horns, the whole scene is just crazy.

“I can’t see shit,” Adonna says, taking ahold of my wrist for the second time. Again I let her pull me where she wants me to go, weaving through little openings in between kids ’til we’re close enough to the action to see it all.

And what I see isn’t even a little bit right. Two big-boned girls got Brunilda up against the metal gate of the car repair shop on the corner. One girl has Brunilda’s long hair wrapped around her fist and she’s yanking her head back. Hard. The other girl is punching her everywhere: the head, the chest,
the stomach. And Brunilda is just screaming and crying. More than anything else, what gets me is the look on her face. She’s more than just scared. She’s in shock.

Not one person does anything to help her, either. Most of the kids are laughing, acting like they’re watching a TV show, not a real girl getting beat up for no reason. The whole scene is making me sick.

I break away from Adonna’s grip, but she don’t even notice, she’s so wrapped up in what’s going on. All I know is I’m getting away from here. I mean, there’s no way I can do anything to stop the fight myself with all these kids out here, not if I don’t wanna end up like Brunilda. But that don’t mean I have to stand around and watch it, either.

A few minutes after I make my way back through the crowd, the police finally get there. But I don’t hang around to see what’s gonna happen. I just walk away with my head down. I mean, maybe I was just stupid, but I thought a school like this would be different than a lot of other schools around here, like since these kids are artists and stuff, they wouldn’t be fighting on the street. But I was wrong.

When I get inside the school, through the metal detectors, the halls are practically empty even though it’s ten minutes before homeroom. As I’m passing by the theater, Darnell comes out. And he has dried blue paint all over his hands just like I had yesterday.

“Hey, Kendra,” he says, smiling at me. “You look nice today.”

I almost forgot what I was wearing. “Oh, thanks,” I say. Then, because I don’t know what else to say, I ask him why he’s
still working on the set when we were supposed to be done yesterday.

“I had to add another coat of paint to some of the edges, and I wanted everything to be dry and ready before dress.” He looks up and down the hallway. “Where’s everybody? Fire drill or something?”

“Fight,” I tell him. “Two girls against one.”

“That don’t sound like a fight to me. More like a crime.” He looks as upset about it as me.

I nod. “Yeah, I know. But tell that to half the school. They’re out there like there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Me and Darnell walk down the hall together. When we get close to the boys’ bathroom, he tells me he has to get the rest of the paint off of him before homeroom. So we wave bye to each other and I head upstairs.

I get to my locker, open it, and I swear there are now more of Adonna’s things in there than mine. She got two pairs of shoes and all kinda magazines over the bottom. It’s like she left me just enough room for my own books. Nice of her.

I kneel down and dig around for my stupid history book for first period, probably buried under Adonna’s junk. I’m pulling all of her stuff onto the floor when I hear, “You sure one locker is enough for you?”

I look up and it’s Nashawn staring down at me with his arms folded like he’s a teacher or something.

He clears his throat. “Young lady,” he says, “don’t you know you’re creating a safety hazard in the hallway?” He tries to make his voice all deep and grown-sounding. “Not only that, but you’re messing with a very handsome man’s ability to get to his own locker.”

“
Handsome? Man?
” I ask, looking around. “Where?”

“You trying to be funny?” He smiles down at me. “Good thing my ego is so strong.”

“And big,” I mumble loud enough for him to hear.

He laughs and goes, “Everything about me is big.”

I don’t look up, but before I can even think about what I’m doing, I say, “That’s not what I heard.”

Nashawn don’t stop laughing. “Okay, good one. I like that.” He steps over the books to get to his locker. “But tell all your friends, that’s big, too.”

I laugh, but it comes out real nervous-sounding and—I don’t know why—I get that weird feeling in my stomach again and just start throwing Adonna’s stuff back into my locker. I put the books I need in my bag and all of a sudden I just wanna get away from him fast. Before I can, he asks, “Where’s Adonna? Second time this week I’m seeing you without your Siamese twin.”

I slam my locker closed. “She’s um—” I don’t wanna tell him Adonna’s out there, probably standing around with her friends still laughing about that girl getting jumped. I mean, he’s one of the only kids inside the school, not out there acting stupid, and I don’t wanna say something that’s gonna make Adonna look bad to him. “Um, I don’t know,” I tell him. “Probably in her homeroom already.”

“Or doing her hair somewhere,” he says. “That girl loves to look good.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I just go, “Well, bye.”

“See ya.” He’s not even paying any attention to me all of a sudden, probably because he’s too busy thinking about Adonna now.

So I head down the hall to my class, still feeling kinda strange. And embarrassed. I can’t believe I just said all those things to him. The only good thing is, now at least when Adonna asks me, I can tell her that Nashawn said he likes her hair and that she always looks good. She’s gonna love hearing that.

At lunch, I’m sitting with Adonna, Tanya, and these two juniors, Malcolm and Craig. And since there are guys around, Adonna isn’t losing her mind over Nashawn, at least not out loud.

When me and her were in line to buy our food, I told her what he said about her, and she was all like, “He said that
about my hair
? What about the rest of me?”

“He said you look good, not just your hair,” I tell her. Sometimes Adonna gets like that. She don’t hear what people are telling her.

“I know I look good,” she said. “But why is he telling
you
that and not
me
?”

This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. Probably shouldn’t have even said anything to her.

And now Tanya is sitting here talking about how she don’t know if she’s gonna be able to cry on cue this afternoon during dress rehearsal, but she knows for a fact that she’s gonna be able to do it for the real showcase when the audience is there. In all the rehearsals so far, she just been fake crying, and it’s really
funny, but I know I’m not the only one that’s nervous that she’s not gonna be able to do it when it counts.

Adonna’s isn’t even listening to her. She’s watching Nashawn and trying to be cool about it. He’s all the way on the other side of the cafeteria, so she’s doing this thing where she puts her head down like she’s looking at her food, but her eyes aren’t on her sandwich at all. Then every couple of minutes she says something like “Uh-huh,” so it looks like she’s paying attention.

I unwrap my Devil Dogs, take one out, and lick the cream that’s squeezed out from the sides. Outta the corner of my eye I can see Malcolm and Craig staring at me with their mouths open and everything.

“Adonna, yo, your cousin is wild,” Craig says.

“A freak,” Malcolm adds, and before I even know what’s going on, the two of them are high-fiving each other.

“What?” I ask.

Malcolm shakes his head. “Girl, the way you was licking that thing, shit, that was like a porno movie.”

Now it’s my mouth that’s open. “What are you talking about?” But a second later I get it. “I
ll
. Y’all are nasty!”

“Word,” Craig says, and they’re back to high-fiving like two idiots.

I drop the Devil Dog on my tray. Last time I’ll eat one of those in front of boys like them. The worst thing is, for a while I have to sit there and hear them laugh some more. At me. Even Tanya’s laughing with them.

Then, all late, Adonna finally says something. “She’s my niece, not my cousin.” I wait for her to say more, anything, but that’s it. She’s back to watching Nashawn.

“Thanks for your help,” I tell her even though she’s not hardly listening. “Appreciate it.”

For the first time in a while, I look over to the table where Mara and the rest of them from middle school are sitting. And I wish I was over there with them. At least I wouldn’t have to put up with these guys. It’s too bad the set is finished, because now I can’t even use that as an excuse to get away from here.

Then I feel someone tap me on my shoulder and I look up. It’s Darnell standing there with his lunch tray in his hands.

“Kendra, you’re gonna be there for dress rehearsal, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, a little bit confused because I thought I already told him this when I saw him this morning. “I’m gonna be there.” I try to think of something more to say so he’s not just standing there, especially with the whole table looking at him, but I can’t think of anything.

“Oh, okay,” he says. “I’ll see you later, then, alright?”

“Yeah, okay.”

He stands there for a few more seconds, then walks over to a table in the corner where Gregg and some of the other guys from the stage crew are sitting, eating tacos.
Tacos!
I can’t believe it. Those guys are probably gonna have the whole backstage area
lit up
at dress rehearsal this afternon.

Now Adonna comes to life. She leans over to me and says, “Kendra, I have to know—what’s the matter with you?”

“What now?” No matter what I do, Adonna’s quick to tell me why it’s wrong.

“He wanted to sit with us, stupid.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Adonna sighs. “Look, let me break it down for you, okay?
He’s a guy. You’re a girl.” She’s talking to me like I’m slow or something. “He. Likes. You.”

Tanya busts out laughing. “Kendra, he’s been checking you out ever since play practice began. The whole cast can see it. You ever notice that every time you need someone to lift something or help you out with something, he’s always the first person there?”

“Yeah, but—”

“He’s into you,” Adonna says.

Malcolm nods. “For real, girl. That boy got it bad.”

“
Stupid
bad,” Craig says.

I shake my head, but really, I can’t be all that sure they’re wrong. Maybe he does kinda like me. He is always friendly to me and all that. But why can’t it just be that he’s a nice guy?

Adonna’s still looking over at Darnell. “You know, he’s not bad-looking,” she says. “He could be an okay first boyfriend for you. Short-term, I mean. You don’t wanna be stuck with
him
all summer.”

“Stop looking at him,” I whisper. “He’s gonna think we’re talking about him.”

“We are.”

“Still.”

But Adonna don’t stop looking and I can’t do anything to make her, so I just kinda give up. I’m not sure how I feel about Darnell possibly liking me. Only thing I’m hoping is that he didn’t see me with that Devil Dog just now and get any ideas. Because that’s the last thing I need.

Of course, all through dress rehearsal I’m feeling weird around Darnell, even though I’m still not even sure if he likes me or not. For the past month, I been hanging out backstage with him, even spending time in the storage room and the tiny little janitor’s closet together, and I just never thought anything about it. I mean, I never got any vibes or anything. Not once.

But Adonna’s probably not wrong about this. I mean, if there’s one thing she’s good at, and there’s really only one thing she
is
good at, it’s guys.

So all during the rehearsal, I try to act real natural around Darnell, like nothing changed. We have so much to do, there’s hardly time to think about anything else. In between the short plays, the whole set has to be rotated and the furniture and decorations have to be changed. And everything has to be done fast, and real quiet.

Well, it’s
supposed
to be real quiet. But a couple of times, Mr. Melendez has to come backstage to tell us that we’re not working quiet enough, that we can be heard from the audience. Not only that, but the crew screws up a few times, like we put the furniture in the wrong place in one play and we forget to change the backdrop for another, which actually turns out really funny because it looks like the characters are having a beach party right in the middle of a classroom.

The actors don’t let it stop them, though. I have to give them that. The only time they break character is when this guy Kevin trips over a chair on the set and slides about two feet across the stage. First they check to see if he’s okay, and then when they find out he is, they bust out laughing, which is what all of us on the crew are already doing backstage. We can’t help it.

The pizza gets delivered right in the middle of the last play, so I set up a table backstage and start laying it out, along with paper plates and napkins for everybody. I’m just about finished when I hear the side door open and see Nashawn poking his head in from the hall.

“Oh, good. It’s you,” he says when he sees me. He’s still in his baseball uniform from practice. “I hear y’all got pizza up in here.”

I put my hands on my hips and try to act tough. “You know, we had to
pay
for this.”

“C’mon,” he says. He looks around like he’s making sure nobody else is back there. “You can’t spare a couple slices for a hardworking first baseman?”

I just look at him and don’t say anything.

He flashes a bit of a smirk. “I made two RBIs.”

“Whatever that means.”

“C’mon. Hook me up. I’m starving.”

For some reason, I can’t say no to him, and not only because he’s begging. It’s hard to explain, really, but before I know it, I’m sneaking two slices of pizza onto a plate for him. Just like that. And when I get close enough to him to hand him the food, I can smell him. He smells like he been playing real hard, all sweaty and musky, and not in a bad way, either.

“Here,” I say, and right then from the stage I hear Tanya screaming, “I hate you! I hate you!” It’s like she’s really into her character now. I just hope she’s crying for real this time.

Nashawn’s eyes get wider for a second. “What the—?”

“One of the plays,” I tell him.

“Sounds a little crazy to me,” he says.

“It is.” I hand him a napkin. “Oh, yeah, make sure you
don’t tell anybody where you got the pizza from, because nobody else is getting any.”

“I hear you,” he says, smiling all big. “You know, you’re one of the nicest girls at this school.”

“Yeah, right.”

“For real. I’m serious. Any girl who feeds me like this, man, what can I say?”

“Just say good-bye. Before I get caught.”

“I owe you,” he says, but he’s already looking away, pushing up against the door to get out. And then he’s gone. Just like that.

I pull the door closed as quiet as I can and go back to the table to finish getting everything ready before the rehearsal is over. And I don’t know why, but now I’m the one that’s smiling all big.