Sweet Tea: A Novel (9 page)

“What’s up?” he asked through his grin.

I stepped back and turned away from his magnetic eyes. “Nothing.”

“Why’d you run off the other night?”

I placed my hands on my hips. “How stupid do you think I am?”

I sat back down at the table and reached over to Bessa. “Pass me the ketchup, please.”

Matt frowned. “Why would I think you’re stupid?”

I dipped my fry in the ketchup and stirred it around my plate.

“I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” Bessa said.

“Do you want to talk to me?” he asked me.

I growled at him with my eyes.

“Told you,” Bessa said, gloating.

“I want you to come to a party Saturday night. My band is playing.” He bent down to my level, tilted his head, and shot me his famous, crooked smile. I kept my eyes on the fries. He remained there for a few seconds, then straightened his posture. “Call me.”

He strutted away and Jonzie kicked me underneath the table. “How can you have so much will power? He is so fine.”

“Enough already!” I don’t care how fine he is, he cheated on me the first chance he got.”

Jonzie lowered her eyelids and shrunk down in her seat.

All I had to do was think about Mama lying in that hospital bed and even Matt couldn’t hurt me anymore. When Mama invaded my mind, I felt cold and numb. I could tune out just about everything, even in a crowded room with my best friends.

When I snapped out of my thoughts, I looked up, and Jonzie raised her right eyebrow and glared at me. “There’s more to this story than you’re telling us, and I aim to find out.”

The lunch bell rang, saving me.

A
fter school, I placed my books on the kitchen table, grabbed a few chocolate chip cookies, and plopped down on the couch like usual. I stared at the telephone for a few minutes, willing Matt to call, even though he told me to call
him.
If he did call, I’d hang up on him anyway.

After about half an hour into
General Hospital
, I wondered why Luke wasn’t home yet. I checked his room. His schoolbooks lay on the bed. Either he skipped out early or he didn’t go to school at all.

I threw on my coat and headed down the street toward the woods behind the trailer park. Something told me I’d find him there. I shuffled through the leaves and snapped back branches. Sure enough, I smelled cigarettes and could hear young male voices, laughing and joking. Four of them sat in a row on the trunk of a fallen tree, passing chips, soda, and cigarettes back and forth. The scene appeared harmless at first, until a boy stood up and smashed a rock to the ground. Everyone cheered.

Someone shouted. “Harder! Break the sucker open!”

A lanky boy with scraggly cinnamon colored hair smashed a rock against . . .

A parking meter? They stole a parking meter?

Strange as that sounded in my head, that was the only way a parking meter could’ve possibly ended up in the middle of the woods.

When the rock didn’t break it open, the boy stormed away, flipping his middle finger up in frustration. “Go ahead, Luke, you try,” he said.

Scowling, Luke picked up a brick from the ground and bashed the parking meter. Cheers and roars applauded him. The glass of the meter cracked, but the part that held the money remained intact.

An older boy, maybe the leader of the group, said, “Aww, close, Luke, but no cigar.”

I marched up to Luke and grabbed him by the collar. “We have to go.”

All eyes turned toward me.

“You’re not gonna tell, are ya?” the older boy pleaded.

I studied his face for a moment and felt his desperation. I couldn’t tell if he was fearful of me telling, or determined to open the meter and get the money.

“I’m not gonna tell, but y’all are gonna get in a lot of trouble if you get caught.”

“You ain’t gonna tell. So we ain’t gonna get caught,” the older boy said, and the others laughed.

“See ya, Luke.” Each boy waved, and another took his turn at cracking the meter.

As we shuffled through the leaves, I whispered in Luke’s ear, “What the heck were you thinking!”

He stared toward the ground while he played foot hockey with acorns. “I didn’t steal it. They already had it when I got there.”

“Didn’t you ever hear of an accessory to a crime?”

He looked up at me. “A what?”

I shook my head. “Being with those boys and trying to break that meter open makes you just as guilty as the one who stole it.”

Luke seemed deaf to my words. I couldn’t believe it. He cared so much about the money he didn’t even care what could’ve happened to him if he got caught!

But then again, CeCe and I hadn’t been the best examples.

Once we got home, Luke walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a Coke, sat at the table and emptied his pockets. He spread out a pile of candy.

“Where’d you get all that?” I asked.

“It must have fallen into my pockets at Piggly Wiggly.” He chuckled and shrugged.

He almost seemed proud of what he’d done. Luke was slowly changing. Stealing now became the norm for him instead of something he did because CeCe asked him to out of necessity, although that wasn’t right either. It was obvious his behavior needed to be dealt with, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think CeCe could handle another thing on her plate. And I was right. When she walked in a minute later, dark circles and pale skin added years to her eighteen-year-old face, and despite everything, I blurted out, “Luke’s been stealing.” Then I told her what I found him doing in the woods.

She laid her coat on the couch and bore into Luke’s face with angry eyes. “What the heck’s wrong with you, boy? You can’t be doing stuff like this. It’s wrong!” She banged her fist on the table.

He gave her a narrow stare. “You’re the one who taught me to steal. What do you care?”

“Don’t get ugly with me, Luke.” By then confusion and guilt crossed her face. She breathed for a moment, and then lightened her tone. “Luke, I never wanted you to steal Mama’s car. I only did it because I didn’t know what else to do at the time. I don’t claim to know everything or to always have the right answers, but I do know those boys you’re hanging with are trouble. And stealing things like parking meters will send you to jail. Think about your future. Think about Mama—”

“Mama’s stinkin’ crazy,” he shot back. “Grandma and Grandpa don’t give a crap. And Daddy’s dead. I don’t care what happens to me!” He gathered the candy from the table, stuffed it back into his pockets, and left the house. The door slammed shut behind him.

Just like always, I turned to CeCe. “What are we gonna do?”

With the movements of an old woman, she lowered herself into the chair Luke just vacated and folded her hands in front of her. “It’s true. It
is
my fault. I could’ve found another way for us to get money, or get Mama’s car. Instead, I’m turning my little brother into a criminal. I hate myself.” She folded her arms, rested them on the table and buried her face beneath them and started to cry.

CeCe had always been the one to uplift Luke and me. Lately our roles seemed to be shifting. I sat next to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. If you knew a better way, you would have found it. It’s not like we planned any of those things, or had time to figure them out. You just did the best you could.”

She lifted her head. Her eyes were closed, but I could see she’d stopped crying. I knew she was worn down. And I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to carry the burdens she did. We needed someone else to help us before our family completely fell apart.

I racked my brain trying to think of whom else we could go to. I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I glanced at CeCe again, she’d fallen asleep with her head on the kitchen table and I had a glob of mascara and four eyelashes between my thumb and forefinger.

T
he telephone rang and startled CeCe awake. I tried to grab the phone before it woke her, but she jumped up and knocked into me as she grabbed the receiver.

“No, Cassandra isn’t here right now. Can I take a message? Okay, bye.” She turned to me. “Who the heck is Westin Barnes?”

My eyes widened. “I can’t believe it! It’s that man who drove Mama home when she lost her car. The guy who was in her bedroom!”

“He sounded kind of nice.”

I smirked. “Nice? Give me a break.”

“No, I mean it,” she said. “There was . . . something in his voice.”

I shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, Mama’s not here.”

CeCe went to the couch and finished her nap. I thought about Matt again. Before, thoughts of him could take my mind off Mama. Now there was no place my mind could go for rest. I couldn’t forgive Matt and go to that party. I’d look pathetic and desperate. I needed a new distraction. It was time I set my sights on someone else.

The phone rang again - this time it was Jonzie.

“Maybe you can fool Bessa, but you can’t fool me,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw your eyes today. I saw the same sadness I felt after Michael died. You had better tell me what’s going on with you.”

“Meet me at the park by the lake,” I said, and hung up. I couldn’t hold it all inside anymore. I
had
to talk to somebody, and since Jonzie had gone through tough times before, maybe she would understand without judging.

The phone didn’t wake CeCe this time, so I left her a note. On my bike, it was a quick mile and a half to the park. Jonzie was sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette.

“When the heck did you take up that nasty habit?” I asked.

She held the pack out and offered me one.

“No thanks,” I said, although I had to admit the thought of trying one did entice me.

“It’s not a habit yet,” she said, the cigarette hanging from her mouth as she shoved the pack into her pocket. “I’ve only done it a few times. My mama took it up after Michael died. I felt like doing everything bad after that. Maybe she did too. So I thought you might want to join me.” She took a drag and made a couple of smoke rings that followed each other toward the lake and disappeared.

I shook my head. “No thanks. Luke’s doing enough bad things for the both of us.”

“Luke? What’s going on with him?”

I sat down next to her on the picnic table and put my feet up on the bench, my elbows on my knees. I shoved my fists under my cheeks and pushed them into my eyes to hold up my head. “My mama’s gone crazy,” I blurted out.

Jonzie took another drag from her cigarette then flicked it into the lake. “I knew that the day I met her,” she said with a giggle.

Tears filled my eyes. “No. Not just mama-crazy. I mean
really
crazy. She’s in the hospital.”

Jonzie moved closer to me on the bench. “I’m sorry, Honey. I didn’t mean any harm. Where is she?”

“She’s in Central State,” I said, and started bawling.

Jonzie slid her arm around me. “Oh, crap. How’d she end up there?”

“I guess it’s like you said,” I said between sobs and sniffles. “She’s always been kind of different, but not the kind of crazy she is now. She buried our turkey on Thanksgiving. In the front yard . . . to save our souls!”

Jonzie’s eyes bulged. “Whoa, that is definitely one I have not heard before. I guess that is pretty crazy!”

Leave it to Jonzie to say it like it is.

“She never really got over Daddy’s death,” I said. “She doesn’t cry all the time like she used to, and she goes to work and all, but sometimes it’s like a page is missing from her brain. And when the anniversary of his death comes around, she gets worse. She disappeared one night. The police found her, but she ended up in Central State before CeCe and I could get to her. The doctor says she has mental illness. You know what people will say about that. . . . I can’t tell anyone. And you can’t either!”

Jonzie got up off the bench. She paced the ground with her head down. I thought she was about to give me another lecture, like the skiing one.

“When Michael died, my mama went to Central State too. I didn’t tell anyone. My daddy brought her there. She wouldn’t talk, cook, clean, or do anything. She just lay around like she was dead but still breathing. I didn’t even care ’cause I felt the same way.” She stopped pacing and took a deep breath. “But . . . instead, I hurt myself on the outside so the inside wouldn’t feel so bad.”

Jonzie pushed up the right leg of her jeans and exposed the rest of her calf. Scars like ladder rungs ran from the top of the flame on her tattoo to just above her knee. I’d never noticed them before, probably because I was always gaping at her tattoo, thinking about getting one myself, or maybe because Jonzie never exposed her legs completely. She wore straight legs all the time and cuffed the bottoms so you could only see her tattoo. In gym she wore knee socks.

“Michael and I always talked about our plans. You know, we were gonna rent a camper and drive across the country after we finished high school and go to San Francisco. First we were gonna go to Alabama, then Mississippi, then stop in Arkansas and visit some friends and family. We were gonna go to Colorado and try snow skiing, then Vegas and pull the one arm bandits, and finally San Francisco and ride the cable cars. And for our ultimate goal, we planned to roller skate down Lombard Street.”

Each time Jonzie mentioned one of these places, she pointed at another deep-lined scar. When she finished, she let go of her pant leg and it slid back down to her ankle.

“Whenever I felt bad, I’d think about each place that Michael and I were planning to go and I’d slash the side of my leg like I was crossing the date off a calendar. Sometimes I still do. I just ran out of states.”

I pictured her in the act of doing this. Jonzie had always been rough. But to take a razor blade and deliberately slash your own leg really freaked me out.

Jonzie lit another cigarette and continued. “We visited my mama at the hospital for about a month. A doctor we met talked to us about our feelings about Michael. About trying to move on with our lives. Eventually, my mama came home. She started taking back to her old ways, but she’s still not the same. I’m not either.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, Jonzie. How horrible it must have been for you. I felt like that when my daddy died. But we didn’t have anyone to talk to or help us. We had to stop grieving so we could take care of Mama. Now she’s in that stinking hospital, Luke’s acting up, and CeCe is worn out.”

“I know that hospital seems creepy and all, but they helped my mama, and they’ll help yours.” She walked over and hugged me.

“Thanks,” I said. “But don’t tell anyone. I hate talking about it. All we do at home is talk about it, and although I love Bessa to bits, she’ll send me to her granny or pastor.” I picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the lake. “They’ll just tell me to bring it to God. Well, I already have. I talk to God more than I have in a long time.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” She reached inside her pocket. “Sure you don’t want a cigarette?”

I shook my head and mustered up the best grin I could. “No thanks.”

Jonzie shoved the pack back into her pocket and hopped on her bike. “If you change your mind, let me know. I’ve got a whole carton.” She shot me a devilish grin. “I’d better get home before my mama starts freakin’ out.” She waved and pedaled away.

“See ya,” I said, and took off in the other direction. I prayed on the way. I prayed the Lord would help CeCe and me find a way to make Luke behave. I prayed God would fix Mama, and I prayed He’d make Jonzie stop hurting herself.

* * *

Jonzie kept my secret like she promised and I kept hers. Two weeks had passed since Mama was committed to the hospital. Luke and I visited a few times, but each time we were disappointed. She wasn’t angry or out of touch anymore, but she still wasn’t herself. She acquired a twitch in her right eye and a tremor in her left hand. My heart ached for her. The doctor told us the medicine caused the side effects, but was optimistic she would get over them quickly.

“Give it time,” the doctor said. “It should pass.”

CeCe made most of the trips to the hospital alone. They only had afternoon and evening visits. We couldn’t keep leaving school early, and CeCe didn’t like driving there at night. When she did visit, she spoke to the doctor regularly and updated Luke and me. Mama had sick leave benefits, and CeCe brought Mama’s paycheck for her to sign each week so we’d continue to have money for food and bills. Luke and I went about our lives like usual, and forced ourselves to call Mama once a day. I can’t speak for Luke, but it felt awkward talking to her while she was there. What could I talk about? I certainly didn’t want to share what was going on in my life, and I feared what might be going on in hers.

On the way back from one of her visits, CeCe came home wearing Mama’s white rabbit jacket with the hood and an armful of groceries. Her long brown hair shining with eggplant highlights fell to one side. Her eyelashes were thick and longer than ever. She looked alive again - not pale and drained as she had been.  Maybe she had a secret boyfriend, I thought.

“Luke, go get the rest of the bags out of my trunk,” she ordered. “We need to brighten this place up. Fill it with some holiday cheer.”

She placed the bag on the kitchen table and started unpacking. “I’ve got cookie mix and eggnog.” She handed me the eggnog and pointed toward the refrigerator. “Olivia, I’ll need your help too.”

I smirked. “Help with what?”

“Decorations!” she said. “It won’t feel like Christmas without decorations.” She pointed to the back door. “Go in the shed and get out the box.”

It didn’t feel like Christmas at all. I couldn’t imagine how it would, regardless of any decorations, but I complied with CeCe’s request anyway. Rummaging through the mess in the shed, I pulled out the box CeCe was talking about, brought it inside, and helped put out a few items on the end tables and kitchen countertops. We didn’t have a tree, so there really wasn’t much more we could do. Maybe decorating took CeCe’s mind off Mama, but it did nothing for me. I didn’t take pleasure in any of that stuff like CeCe and Mama did. Instead, I preferred to find the holiday spirit while spending it with my friends.

And that reminded me. I hadn’t spoken to Matt in over a week. Neither of us had said it, but in my mind we’d broken up. Although I still had feelings for him, I couldn’t forgive him for cheating on me and acting like he did nothing wrong. Instead, I set my sights on Tuck Peterson.