Reality Check (19 page)

Nodding in appreciation, his smile grew. “That's good, Charly. And it couldn't have come at a better time.” He took her book bag from her, then slung it over his shoulder. “Dang. This is heavy. What'chu got in it?”

“Math,” Charly said. “I got to ace this assignment, so I brought home my book and every book the library would let me check out to make sure I get it right. Because I go to New York so much, I kind of fell behind on the formulas,” she added. She couldn't have him think her anything less than a genius.

Mason nodded. “Good thinking. Knock it out from all angles. Math is the universal language. Did you know that?” he asked, but didn't give her time to answer. “Let's walk,” he said, clearly not letting up. “It must be nice to have your pops send for you a couple times a month. So what'd you do all weekend? Party?”

She kicked pebbles out of her way, wishing they were her lies. She hadn't seen her father since she was five, and it was something that was hard for her to admit, especially since Stormy's dad was still on the scene for birthdays and holidays. The truth was she had no idea where her father was, so she imagined him still living in New York, where she'd last seen him.

“So did you party?” Mason repeated.

Me, party? Yeah, right! My mom partied while I worked a double to save for a new phone. Then I sat holed up in the house on some fake punishment.
“Yeah, actually I did. Nothing big though. It was a get-together for my aunt. You know, the one I told you about who's a big shot at the network. Well, she just got promoted, and now she's an even bigger big shot. She's got New York on lock.”

Mason nodded, then slowed his pace as Charly's house came into view. “That's cool, Charly. Real cool. It's nice to finally have a friend I can chop it up with. Ya know, another city person who can relate. Somebody who gets where I'm from. Not too many people around here can keep up with my Brooklyn pace,” he said, referring to the almost-dead town they lived in. Their tiny city was okay for older people, but teens had it bad. They lived in a nine-mile-square radius with only about twenty-five thousand other people. There was only one public high school and one emergency room, which equated to too small and everybody knowing everyone else and their business. Nothing was sacred in Belvidere, Illinois.

Charly took her book bag from Mason. “Trust me, I know. They can't keep up with my Chi-Town pace either. I'm getting out of here ASAP.”

He walked her to her door. “Speaking of ASAP. You still gonna be able to come through with helping me with my English paper this week? I have to hand it in right after break, so I'd really like to get it finished as soon as possible. Don't wanna be off from school for a week and have to work.” He shrugged. “But I know you're pressed with school and getting an A on the math assignment. Plus, with flying back and forth to New York to check your pops, and trying to work at the pet salon, I know you're busy. But I really need you, Charly,” he paused, throwing her a sexy grin that made her insides melt. “I don't even know what a thesis statement is, let alone where one goes in an essay.”

Charly smiled, then purposefully bit her tongue to prevent herself from lying again. She'd forgotten when Mason's paper was due. An essay she would be no better at writing than he would. She sucked in English, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to be close to him. “I gotta work tonight and pretty much all week,” she said. She was finally kinda sorta truthful. She did have to work. Now that she was sixteen, and had snatched up a job at a local greasy spoon—and, hopefully, the pet salon she'd told him she had applied at—it was up to her to make sure that the electric and cable bills were paid, plus she had to pay for her own clothing. “We've been
very
busy at work, for some reason.”

“Okay.” Mason grimaced, then looked past her, apparently deep in thought. He rubbed his chin. “I don't know what I'm going to do now. I gotta pass this class. . . .”

Charly pressed her lips together. She couldn't let him down. It was because of her that he'd waited so long to tackle the paper. She'd told him not to worry, that she had him, that she was something like an A or B English student. Now, it'd seem as if her word was no good, and she couldn't have that.

“Kill the worry, Mason. I'll work it out.”

“C
harly!”

Before the front door closed behind her, Brigette's voice ambushed her from somewhere inside the house. Probably upstairs in the bedroom, Charly assumed. Ninety-nine-point-seven percent of the time that's where her mother took up residence. Brigette's wide hips were either spread out on the bed or else swishing down the staircase toward the kitchen, where she kept up with her never-ending caloric intake. “Charly!
Char-lee!
Is that you? Don't you hear me talking to you, girl? Stormy was in here thirty minutes ago. Where've you been? Hunh? If you had time to waste, you better have used some of it to pay cable.
Did
you pay the cable bill? All the stations aren't coming in—it's nothing but static on the flat screen. And I gotta record my vampire flick and soaps, you know that.”

Charly exhaled, closed the door, and dropped her heavy book bag on the floor. She hiked her shoulders, flexing her muscles until they tightened, then released them. She was trying to force her blades to relax, which wasn't such a good idea. It was really an oxymoron, as Stormy had pointed out many times, because you couldn't force and relax at the same time.

“Smile. Smile. Smile,” she told herself, trying to make herself feel happier so that Brigette wouldn't accuse her of having a disrespectful tone. She couldn't speak to Brigette if she allowed her true emotions to surface. “Ma'am?” she called out, lightening her voice so it wouldn't reflect the you're-already-getting-on-my-nerves attitude she had.

Five raps sounded at the front door, followed by a short pause, then three more knocks.
Lola
. Charly's best friend was making her usual appearance, announcing herself with the sound of eight, the amount of letters in her full name. Lola Dowl, no middle name or initial.

“Ma'am? Don't ma'am me when I'm calling you, Charly. Get your grown butt up here and help me slip into this girdle!” Brigette yelled.

Charly eased the front door open with a hand on her hip and a sinister smile.

Lola raised her brows, pursed her lips, then walked in. Her shock of naturally bleached-looking blond curly hair was all over her head as usual, and her cinnamon skin, which Charly had never seen blemished, glowed more than normal, making her light blue eyes glow. “Hmm. You don't even have to tell me. Your look says it all. Let me guess. Brigette's in one of her I'm-laid-off-and-pissed-at-the-world moods again?” Lola asked, setting her designer leather messenger bag on top of Charly's antique thrift-store book bag. Lola was superstitious and would never set a purse, or anything resembling one, on the floor. She believed if she did so, she'd go broke.

“Charly! I. Said. Is. That. You?” Brigette yelled again.

Stormy's pretty face popped around the corner, where she faithfully studied in the dining area. She smiled at Lola and shook her head at Charly. “Awful. Just awful. I'll be so glad when she goes back to work. You better hurry, Charly. Hurry up so you can work on your math,” she reminded, pushing up her glasses on the bridge of her nose, then disappearing.

Charly waved Lola on. “Come on. You can wait in my room until I see what she wants. Probably some soda,” Charly said, calling pop soda like the New Yorkers she'd heard on television.

“Yes, you better hurry, Charly. I heard Mr. Miller's been on one lately. They said his wife left him for another man, and ever since then he's been flunking everybody.” Lola pushed back her blond porcupine-looking hairdo, reached a hand into her pocket, then pulled it out, balled up in a fist. She extended it toward Charly. “Here.”

Charly reached out her hand to take whatever it was Lola was giving. “What's this?”

Lola released a wad of bills onto Charly's palm. “Uncle Steely's staying with us for a while.”

Charly nodded, clearly confused by Lola's statement. “Your uncle's staying with you. Oh . . . kay? I'm not following.”

“Hurry up, Charly! And bring that greedy Lola with you,” Brigette hollered. “I know she's here. She always is, like she don't got a home. Heck, I should claim Lola on my taxes as much as she's here and eating up all the food I work so hard to buy!”

Charly gave Lola an apologetic look as they walked through the living room, passing the old-school thirty-two-inch television, and made their way to the steps. “Sorry. Now what were you saying about your uncle?”

Lola waved away Charly's apology. “Sorry for what? Don't be. I'm not.
You
buy all the food I eat!” Lola covered her mouth and laughed. “I don't take Brigette serious.” Lola's smile faded. “Uncle Steely. Don't you remember him? He's the one that steals any and everything not bolted down, including people's identity.” She shrugged. “So I can't keep your money for you anymore 'cause when he steals it—and he will steal it, trust me—I can't afford to replace three hundred dollars.”

Charly nodded at Lola's reasoning, and wished she were old enough to go open a savings account on her own, without Brigette's signature. “Two hundred and eighty-six bucks,” she said, counting the last of the dead presidents, then shoving the wad into her pants pocket. “I won't have the rest of the cash for the phone—or the hundred-dollar cable bill Brigette keeps ragging me about—until Friday because I had to pay the electric company. But, thanks for keeping it as long as you did, Lola. If Brigette knew . . .”

“Oh, I know. It'd be spent at the mall or deposited in her account,” Lola finished Charly's statement. “That's only two days away. I sure hope it hurries up and comes, for your sake. You can't keep walking around talking on that old clunk of a phone. Not with everyone thinking you're the ish!” Lola laughed.

“Charly . . . I'ma count to ten, and if you're not up here . . .” Brigette threatened.

Charly just shook her head and quickened her pace. She didn't feel like dealing with Brigette today or any day, truth be told. Her mom was a trip, and because she'd had Charly when she was sixteen, Brigette seemed to forget that she was the parent. Instead of a daughter, Charly was more like Brigette's maid and personal handmaiden, or like a roommate who footed bills but had no say,
and
a live-in nanny for Stormy, which Charly didn't mind. As far as Charly was concerned, she and Stormy were better off without the lady who'd given birth to them. It was peaceful and loving when she wasn't around, and when she was home it was hell.

Brigette was a modern-day demon-licious witch, complete with cascading fake hair and too ample cleavage, courtesy of the G-cup over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder she wore and, Charly finally realized that, like her, her mother was also a liar. So maybe, just maybe, Charly had inherited the dishonest gene because there were many things wrong with Brigette's barrage of questions and statements. One, Stormy had walked in the door only a couple of minutes ahead of Charly. Two, if there was “only static” showing on the television, how were “some” of the stations coming in? Three, no one could “slip” into that contraption her mom had called a girdle. It wasn't really a girdle, it was some magic bodysuit sort of thingy that two or more people had to literally tuck Brigette's fat inside, then she'd have to sleep in it for a day or two to
look
ten pounds lighter and a couple of sizes smaller. Four, Brigette hadn't actually called Charly to her; she'd only said her name and asked if
that
was Charly. And five, Lola was right; Brigette didn't buy most of the food they ate. In fact, Brigette was laid off, so how could she be working so hard to buy food?

Charly raised one foot high, then rushed it toward the floor with all her might, stopping short of stomping it on the carpeted stair. She then lifted the other, repeating the pretend stomp over and over with alternate feet, making her way up to her mother's bedroom and wishing that she could bang hard enough to make the stairwell shake. But as much as she wanted to pound her soles on the floor, she couldn't. Brigette, besides being a semi-lazy half-caring mother, was also a bit mentally unstable. She'd earned a reputation in her teenage days that still followed her. Brigette wasn't to be messed with. She'd been known to drag a woman or two down the street, face against the pavement, had cut more than one of her boyfriends, and had even made a policeman cry. Charly inhaled. No, she wouldn't test her mother. She may not have been her biggest cheerleader, but she was no fool.

“Ma'am?” Charly repeated again, cracking open the door to her mother's bedroom and sticking only her face inside the room. Lola pushed her all the way inside, causing her to almost trip and collide with her mom's backside. “You called me?” Charly's question came out in a sputter as she caught her balance, barely missing running into her mother's huge rear end.

Brigette was bent over, her panty-covered butt and dented thighs facing Charly and Lola. Her head was upside down between her legs, and her face was barely visible beyond her nose because her boobs were in the way. With perfectly drawn-on brows, she scratched the scalp of her lace-front wig with inch-long acrylic nails, making the expensive hair move side to side as if she'd grown it.

“Why you so nervous all the time, Charly?” she asked, her face peeking between the inverted V her thick legs were opened in. Unsuccessfully stretching her hands toward her feet, she seemed stuck, and had apparently been trying to lace up high heels that tied in a crisscross around her calves. The size of her gut prevented her from bending all the way to accomplish the task. There was just too much stomach to allow her full access to the laces. She let out a
whew
, unfolding herself to a stand. She stuck out a foot. “Tie this up for me. I don't know what's going on. For some reason, I'm a little winded today.”

“Yeah, right. Too much weight,” Lola muttered, lowering her tone with each word, and making Charly giggle.

Brigette snaked her neck. “What the . . . ? What did you just say, you lil' fast heffa?” she barked at Lola.

Lola smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing, Ms. Brigette. I only said it's not
right
. If you put on the shoes now, it'll be harder to put on the girdle. And . . . I wouldn't want anything to happen to those shoes. They're really nice.”

“Yeah. Those are nice, Brigette,” Charly enthusiastically agreed, not meaning a word of it. The shoes were atrocious, and looked like a pair of high-heeled Egyptian sandals that someone had once worn in Anytime B.C.

Brigette straightened until she looked taller, then squared her shoulders. She lowered her lids to a squint, and looked at Charly as if she was trying to figure out if she was being truthful or not. Her nose wiggled; then she scrunched it, raising her top lip toward her nostrils like something was stinking. Sucking her teeth, she put her hands on her hips, then stuck out her foot farther, twisting it side to side. She smiled. “Yeah. But they're more than nice. I paid almost two hundred for these.” She snapped her fingers, then pointed to the magic bodysuit on the bed. “Get that bottom piece, Charly, and let's get this over with. I got a hot date, and I need to be breathing by the time he gets here. It's a new one with a panty and upper. It just came in the mail, so you know what that means. It's new so it'll take a couple hours just to inhale right.”

Charly did as she was told, then squatted, stretching out one leg opening of the contraption as much as she could while her mother stepped in. Lola followed suit, grabbing the other side of the girdle. She nodded at Charly, indicating she was ready. With all of their strength, they stretched, tugged, pulled, and hiked the too-small girdle out and over and up Brigette's thick thighs and hips, then proceeded to work on part two. Wrapping the what'chama-jig over her stomach and breasts, they tucked in the excess fat where they could and patted what they couldn't until it was flat as possible to help disguise the weight.

“And the fat is gone, baby. Gone! Yeah. Whew,” Brigette sighed like she'd done some actual work to fit into the contraption that only disguised and reassigned her fat to different sections of her body, and not made it disappear like she believed. Holding her head high, she whirled to her full-length mirror, switching her walk to that of a runway model. She tossed her hair, did a full spin, then turned back sideways. She gave herself another once-over. “See this?” she asked, patting her now-flatter tummy. “Gone!” She moved her hands over her huge breasts, then trailed them down her middle, moving them to her back, and rounded them over her butt. “A work of art. Curves like these will make a blind man dizzy. I'm so chiseled even a man who can't see
can
see this Coca-Cola bottle shape!”

Charly crinkled her brows and looked at an equally confused-looking Lola. “All right. Can I go now, Brigette?”

Brigette froze. “Uhm. Let me see. . . .” She looked at Charly, deep thought registering across her forehead in wrinkles. She put her finger to her temple, contemplating. “Hell no! This house needs to be cleaned. My sheets need to be changed, and the toilet . . . when was the last time you gave my toilet a good hand wash?”

Lola shook her head.
Run, Charly! Run!
she mouthed, not uttering a sound.

Charly's phone did a jig in her pocket, then began chirping. With each sound it got louder and louder. “My job alarm,” she explained to everyone, turning toward the door so she could run and change into her work uniform. “Brigette, I gotta get to work.” Her words were apologetic. “Okay?”

Brigette laughed. “Okay? Okay? Heck, someone around here has to punch a clock, and since I'm laid off, who better than you? You can clean up when you get home tonight. And you better learn how to hustle faster than you have been. How you gonna work at the plant with me making cars, if you don't? You know you ain't smart enough for college, so you might as well come with me. That is, if they call us back to work.”