Something like right, p.12
Something Like Right, page 12
“Yeah. Wow. I can’t imagine,” I said. “What’s the first stuff you remember about coming to the States?”
“Hmm.” Feven rested her chin in her hands. “I remember how far everything felt. Where we lived in Eritrea, we could walk or bike most places we needed to go. I used to get really restless on car rides in Virginia. I remember how clean everything was. Always having electricity. Always having running water.”
Feven’s faraway eyes made me smile. I could tell it wasn’t easy for her to talk about all this. But I also felt like maybe … just a little bit … she enjoyed it.
“Do you think it was worth it?” I asked.
“Huh? Was what worth it?”
“Your dad moving your family?”
Feven gave a slight grimace. “I know it was,” she said. “Everything my dad dreamed for us … for me … is coming true. I know the sacrifices they made were worth it. That’s what makes it hard. Because whenever I feel like I want to break out and do my own thing … with school, or religion, or whatever … I think about how much they gave up so I could be here. How hard they had to fight. What kind of thanks is it for a daughter to brush all that off and do something else, just because she feels like it?”
“Well…,” I hesitated. “I think you just do what makes you happy. Whatever that is.”
Feven sighed. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Even as I said it, I didn’t feel sure it was the right advice. Feven’s fears and doubts were real. Tameka and Keith weren’t Yohannes and Rahwa. Nobody had ever had a vision for my life. But Feven’s parents gave their all to help her succeed. Of course she didn’t want to disappoint them. Aunt Seggie returned to the table just in time to bail me out.
“Xavier, I have finished my test. I feel very good about this.”
“Thanks, Auntie,” I said, taking her test. “I’ll grade it tonight and let Feven know your score. But either way, I’m proud of you. You’ve been doing great. You’re gonna crush the real thing.”
Aunt Seggie smiled.
“Well, I guess we’re done for the day,” I said. “Unless you wanna talk some more.” I looked at Feven.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I never realized how exhausting talking about yourself can be. We can do more another time. But thanks for listening.”
“I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me,” I said. Feven forced a smile, but her eyes looked distant. I wished I could get inside her head.
I stuffed my papers and the empty food containers into my backpack and forcefully zipped it up. Feven and Aunt Seggie laughed at me just like they had done when I’d first arrived. I had to laugh too.
“You really need a better way of organizing your papers, Zay,” said Feven. “Something sleek. You have so many.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Well, until then, here’s one more paper to add to the pile.” Feven handed me the scrap she had been drawing on. I took it in my palm and saw the never-ending petals expanding from the center.
“Thank you,” I said, putting the paper in my shirt pocket. I wrapped Feven in a hug that she only halfway returned. Her body felt small, limp in my arms.
She turned to leave the library and I placed my hand over my shirt pocket, over my heart. Feven and Aunt Seggie exited through the rear without looking back. I left out the front and made it a few steps down the pathway back to Aunt Mel’s before my phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the screen. Unsaved number.
“Hello?” A familiar voice came through the speaker.
“Hell yeah, bruh, what’s up with that?”
“Uh, nothing?” I said, confused.
“Well, shit, you coming through with that or not?”
“Kenny?”
“Who else? I—oh, shit. I done called the wrong number. My bad, man. I was tryna call this other nigga I know named Zay.”
“Oh … it’s all good, man,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah … uh, what you doin’ though?” he responded.
“Me? Just leaving the library. Was studying with Feven and her aunt.”
“Oh yeah, the tutoring shit. Aww. Nerds in love,” he said. “So, that’s your li’l boo now, huh?”
Kenny probably could hear me smiling on the other end of the phone. I tried hard to temper the sap in my voice. “I mean, nah, man. You know I think she great. But she’s … well, we’re not … you know…”
“You care about her, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“Well, that’s your boo, then,” Kenny laughed. “You spending your Saturdays in the library up under a girl, doing favors for her extended family, stutterin’, talkin’ ’bout ‘I-I-uh, well, you know.’” Kenny laughed.
I laughed with him as I shook my head. “How’s Alyssa?”
“She good, she outta town right now. Blowing up my damn phone every twenty minutes … I miss her though. By the way, since you a big-time tutor now, you think you could take on another client? Alyssa li’l sister struggling in math.”
“Alyssa can’t help her?”
Kenny sucked at his teeth. “Of course Alyssa can help her. She does my homework. The point is, I’m tryna help take something off her plate. It’s called Acts of Service, my nigga, you don’t know your love languages?”
“Huh?” I responded.
“My God, they lied when they told us boys from the city was quick thinkers and fast talkers,” Kenny complained.
“Man, whatever! But I mean … I’m not really a tutor for real. Just helping out this one time. And even if I was—math was always my worst subject. I’m not sure I’d be able to help Alyssa’s sister, for real.”
“Boy, she’s in, like, fifth grade. I know for a fact you can do fifth grade math, but hey, ain’t no skin off my teeth. You wanna miss out on money and let your talents go to waste in the process, that’s your prerogative. I’ll pay somebody else to do it. But yeah, bruh, nice catching up with you and all that good shit. I’m finna call the other Zay—we got some unfinished business.”
“Okay. Wait—Kenny?” I paused.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“It’s really good to talk to you, man. Like, it’s good to hear from you.”
Kenny’s cackle came through loud and clear. A hearty laugh that sprang from the back of his throat through the phone.
“You just lucky I know two Zays, nigga. Bye!”
Click.
* * *
When Keith got locked up, I started to splinter. The life, the future I had always dreamed of, looked fuzzy, out of focus. I lost my balance. Anger blossomed inside of me, and when I spoke of it, I breathed fire. I looked in the mirror and didn’t see Tameka. I saw a failure. I looked at my child and saw an incomplete story. I could not love myself. I could not love anything anymore. My sky went dark, and the sun threatened to never rise again.
Those two years weren’t easy. We didn’t visit him much. I couldn’t sit in that prison without crying. I wanted to write Keith letters, but I don’t know … I didn’t miss him as much as I was angry with him. For abandoning us. When he got out, I tried to make things right, but his trust in me had died during our estrangement. He wasn’t interested in loving me anymore.
He was hurt too badly. But he never stopped wanting to be a father to Xavier.
What I did next took that opportunity away from him. And even though I knew it was wrong, I hoped that the effects wouldn’t last. Like Hansel and Gretel, making a trail to lead them home as they trudged deeper into the dangerous forest, I prayed there would be a way back when the morning came. And on the darkest of nights, I prayed that the sun had not forgotten us.
* * *
LESSON 3.7
Live in the Moment
“So, either your dad loves the idea of me now, or you’ve become a pro at getting your parents to let you out of the house,” I said to Feven through the phone.
“Hanging out with you has made me pretty good at the whole lying thing.” She winked on video. “Broadlawn kids are a bad influence.”
“Yeah, well, they say church girls are the biggest rebels.” Feven thrust a punch into the camera.
“Ow!” I shrieked, and laughed after.
“Watch your mouth.” Feven shook her finger in my face.
Earlier, I had been sure that Feven wouldn’t make it this time. I stood in the wide-open parking lot on the edge of town at dusk, listening to her sniffle on the phone. Guilt panged as she talked about how stressful it was, trying to sneak around with me. Holidays meant family in town—even more watchful eyes to slip away from.
I told her it was okay—we could do the date another time. But when the city bus pulled up—a few minutes late—and I saw her hair through one of the windows, I beamed. She stepped off the bus and let out a big exhale, offered a tired smile.
I took her hand in mine.
We walked across the lot until the far-off foliage became a forest’s edge. Trees, trees, and more trees. With only a month and some change left until Christmas, makeshift tree lots had popped up all over Broadlawn. Folks in lumberjack sweaters and knit hats lugged around their merchandise, tying trees down to car roofs and sliding them into the back of minivans. Other vendors came to leech off families in the holiday spirit, selling hot chocolate, ornaments, and other versions of commodified cheer. This outing was Feven’s idea. I had no interest in buying a Christmas tree. I didn’t have money to buy one either. But she thought it would be fun.
“Why did you want to come here again?” I said, just to annoy Feven.
“Oh, now don’t you even start, Mr. Pumpkin Patch. That was our worst date by far.”
“It wasn’t so bad.” I shrugged.
“Zay, you dropped a pumpkin on your foot and almost broke your toe.”
“The pumpkin you picked!” I protested. Feven chuckled.
“Mm-hmm, whatever.” Feven rolled her eyes. “Well, I already told you, I’m not really into holidays, but Christmas always feels special. Think about it—when else can you have a whole tree inside your house?”
“Okay, but we aren’t actually buying a tree … right?” I countered.
“Stop being cheap. The only reason you had to buy that pumpkin is because you broke it,” she countered. “Look, Xavier, I didn’t come here to argue with you about this. We’re here now. We’re going shopping and that’s final.”
“I knew it was final when you called me Xavier.” I scowled at her playfully.
She stuck her tongue out at me and led me into the forest of festivity.
“Excuse me, hello!” she called out.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“We need help,” she murmured.
“No, we don’t, we’re not buying anything.”
“They don’t know that. How can we decide what we don’t want to buy if we don’t get all the details? Hush!” Feven snapped.
“Can I help ya, ma’am?” A mountaineer-looking person walked up to us. Their heavy black boots, frayed at the toe, dragged across the pavement as they approached us with a hunched posture. They sported a thick flannel shirt hanging loose over their massively broad shoulders and an olive-green knit hat pulled down low on their forehead.
“Yes, yes. Why, might you be able to help my fiancé and me select a quality Christmas tree for our apartment?” Feven asked in her disgustingly fake aristocratic voice. She was good at a lot of things—almost everything. Acting was not on the list.
She only had one character: an overly proper young girl badly pretending to be older than she was. No matter the situation, the scenario, the stakes, that was her go-to.
“Fiancé, huh?” The mountain dweller surveyed us with their eyebrow raised.
“Why, yes, don’t we look old enough to be engaged?” Feven continued on.
“Heh. That ain’t too much my business, ma’am. Say yer lookin’ for a tree?”
Feven nodded and flashed her pearl-white smile.
“Simple enough,” they responded. “Well, this right here is a Fraser fir, and right next to it you have a white spruce. These are gunna be yer bestsellers. Last you five weeks or better, and they come directly out of Virginia.”
“Mm-hmm, I see, very interesting,” Feven said, laying it on thick. “You know, I used to live in Alexandria, Virginia.”
“Ah, a city girl. Well, these here trees come out the country. But they ain’t the only ones. We got some noble firs this way, they been looking good this season. The eastern white pines are doin’ alright too.”
“Did you hear that, honey?” Feven asked, turning to me. “They have eastern white pines.”
“Yes, dear,” I grumbled, holding back my laughter.
The employee finished describing all the trees available at the lot, and Feven asked them for a moment to make our decision. I bought her a hot cocoa from one of the stands outside the gated tree area, and when it was ready, we reentered the makeshift forest and weaved in and out of the trees. She took a sip of her cocoa, blew on it to cool it, and handed me the cup. I took it from her and sipped before handing it back.
“Ask me something,” Feven said. She wore baby blue earmuffs with matching gloves and had pulled her hair back into two puffy buns. She looked better than anything in my imagination.
“Uhhh…,” I pondered. “What’s one thing you’d change about the world if you could?” I asked.
“Nuh-uh. Ask something else. That’s what everybody always asks,” she said. “World peace,” she mocked. “End world hunger!” She shuffled around one of the larger trees and hid from me. I stepped around to look at her and she darted to the other side.
We started to rush through the trees, making eye contact and darting off again, trying to catch each other and trying never to be caught. Finally, we rushed in the same direction around the same tree and came face-to-face. I caught her in one arm and pulled her close. We laughed hysterically.
“If you could save one moment in your life to relive over and over again—which moment would you pick?” I asked.
“This one,” Feven answered without hesitation.
“Are you serious?” I asked, squinting my eyes. Hers remained steady.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel free.”
I smiled at her tenderly, took her face in mine, and kissed her deeply. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back, her lips warm and soft enough to shield my entire body from the chill outside. Our lips parted and I caressed her cheek.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” I said.
“We’re closing up shop pretty soon, here,” a voice called from behind us. It was the mountaineer, standing with their arms crossed, watching us kiss in public like nobody could see us. “Y’all gunna be getting a tree or not?” they asked.
“Actually, that won’t be necessary, friend,” Feven called in her fake adult voice. “I called my family in Virginia, and they’re going to, uh, they’re … going to bring us a tree when they come to celebrate Christmas.”
“Whatever ya say. Have a good night.” Feven and I tried to hold our laughter in while the mountaineer lumbered away.
“You’re really bad at that,” I said.
“I know, I know,” Feven groaned.
“But it’s cute though,” I added. “You ready to get out of here?” I would ride the bus back with her and then walk from her neighborhood back to mine.
“I guess it’s time, huh?” Feven said, lowering her eyes.
“We made the most of it.”
“Yeah, we did.”
We walked out of the parking lot back to the bus stop. We sat there in peaceful silence for a few minutes before the outline of the bus came into view down the street.
“Hey, Zay?” Feven asked. I faced her.
“If you could save one moment to relive over and over again, which one would you pick?” she asked. I laughed to myself and craned my neck around her to look at the oncoming traffic. Our bus pulled up and screeched to a halt, the squeaky doors opening to welcome us. In all the seats I saw families, couples—happy people dressed warmly and in the holiday spirit. I smiled and looked back at Feven.
“This one,” I said, and pulled her lips to mine again.
UNIT FOUR
What Goes Up …
LESSON 4.1
When It Rains, It Pours
“Xavier! Come in here!”
I plodded into the kitchen scratching inappropriate places with one hand and texting Feven with the other. I’d sent her a couple of messages earlier, but she hadn’t responded yet. I hoped she was alright. Probably just busy. Aunt Mel wrote vocabulary words on index cards with her textbooks spread all across the table.
“You know they have an app to do flash cards now, right?” I said.
“I don’t need that fancy new shit,” she said. “But what I do need is a favor from you. I want you to head to the community center and pick something up for me.”
“Pick what up?”
“A book. For Feven. Didn’t she say her favorite author was CJ Cordova?”
I thought back to the books Feven always carried around with her at lunch and at the library. “Yeah, I think that’s it.”
“You think? Chile. Anyway, CJ Cordova is here! At the community center. Doing a talk. Here’s twenty dollars. I want you to go get one of those books, get it signed, and give it to Feven. That’s my late Christmas gift to her.”
I grabbed the bill from her, folded it, and slipped it in my pocket. “How did you know CJ Cordova was coming to Broadlawn?” I asked.
“The real question is how did you not know,” she said. “Isn’t Feven your girlfriend? Seems like you’d have already made plans to be at the community center with her. You’re slacking, Zay.”
My cheeks got hot. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Okay, sure. Whatever you kids call it these days. Women like thoughtful men, Xavier. Be thoughtful. Think about how you can do things to make her smile.”
I huffed, texting Feven again to ask if she knew about the event and whether she would be there. “Alright. Thanks, Aunt Mel. But hey, do you have money for me to get a book?”
