Turning Point, page 20
“Can you be more specific? What friend?”
“Rasheeda,” he said, exasperated, like he’d already told her the whole story and was tired of retelling it.
“Y’all still chopping it up over DMs?” She shook her head in disappointment. “You ain’t have nothing better to do this summer than lead my friend on? Bruh, you gotta get out more.”
A tiny volcano of water erupted as he slammed his hands into the water. “Ain’t nobody lead her on. Is that what she told you?”
Mo’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know there was nothing to tell. Before I left, she said you friended her. I figured you was doing some kind of stupid challenge with Quan ’nem.” She faced him, hugging herself tight. She didn’t want to know, but knew she had to. “What happened?”
“All right, look. It wasn’t even me.” His hands wiped at a plate. It squeaked under his rubbing. He looked toward the kitchen entryway then raised his voice but not much. “She came by and—”
“Came by where?”
“You don’t need get loud,” he said, getting loud himself.
“I mean, obviously mommy already know,” Mo said. She lowered her voice anyway. “Why did she come by? Are y’all talking or something?”
“Something like that.” He glanced at her, then his eyes skittered away back down to the dishes. His hands moved faster, washing.
Mo put her face in her hands. “Why would you do that, though? You don’t want me messing around with none of your hardhead friends. Why you gonna come blow up my spot with my friends?” The thought ran her hot. “Honestly, Lennie, that’s drama for nothing. All these girls in the Cove, why you gotta step to one of my girls?”
“Do you want know what happened or not?” Some of the old edge was back in his voice.
“I could just ask Sheeda,” she said, just as snappy.
It was an empty threat. Whatever he’d done, she’d smooth over with Sheeda. Sheeda wasn’t the type of person who stayed mad at you. But Mo had to hear his side first. Lennie’s mouth turned up. He pressed his lips together, calling her bluff.
Mo sucked her teeth. “Just tell me.”
Her first thought when he finished, was, so it had been about a girl. Her best friend. That part blew her a little. She was relieved, though. She’d thought it was going to be much worse. She was definitely annoyed. At Lennie. At Sheeda. For sure, at Quan.
He was always on his stupid. Their mothers were first cousins, and even though they only lived ten minutes apart and had been much closer as little kids, Mo didn’t mess with any of Quan’s sisters the way him and Lennie hung out. They were ratchet and stayed in trouble. Their mother used to always force them on Mo—Monique, you want your cousins do a sleepover, Boo? She swore if they hung out with Mo enough, they’d get interested in something besides dudes. It wasn’t until Mo admitted to her mom that she didn’t like spending time with them, that her mother started making excuses for her—“Mo has dance tonight.”
Sometimes it was true. A lot of times it wasn’t.
Of course, Quan had gotten Lennie in this. If he wasn’t dumb, he wasn’t nothing.
She had been ready to help Lennie dry the dishes. She was actually feeling bad for him because he was acting so nervous. Again when he’d said, “Now Sheeda won’t talk to me,” and she saw that he seemed legit sad. Instead, she punched him in the arm and said, “That’s what you get for creeping,” and left him.
She went upstairs, laid back on the little piece of bed that wasn’t covered in duffel bags and plastic bins. She dialed up Sheeda, scowling when her friend’s face popped up on screen.
“When was you gonna tell me, wench?”
“Hmm. Welcome back, I guess?” Sheeda said.
Mo hadn’t planned to keep up the fake mad act long. Sheeda’s serious face ended it dead. She tried again. “Why didn’t you tell me you and Lennie was—” She pretended to gag. “Talking.”
“I didn’t want you to get mad,” Sheeda said, not even cracking a smile at the joke.
Mo waved it off. “I mean, it’s hella weird to think of y’all like that. But Lennie gonna do what he want anyway. I thought at least my girl woulda put me up on it, though.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Sheeda said.
She’d said the words, but still looked like she didn’t want to have the conversation. Mo pushed once more. “But why you ain’t tell me what happened with Quan?”
Sheeda shrugged.
“He always been extra like that. It’s why I don’t mess with Kiera and Kelsey, his sisters.” Mo kicked a duffel off the bed, to stretch her legs. “They just extra all the time. He ready be a senior in high school messing with girls our age. Just dumb.” She snorted. “Hmmph. He woulda never pulled that mess if I had been home.” Noticing that Sheeda hadn’t said anything, Mo peered at the screen.
Sheeda was looking off to the side and down. Mo teased, “I know you not side chatting me.”
“I was talking to Kita on another chat. Was telling her I’d call later.” Sheeda stared full on into the phone. Her face was blank. She looked tired.
“You good, sis?” Mo asked, trying one more time.
“I’m all right,” Sheeda said.
First with Lennie, now she had to play Riddle Me This with Sheeda, too? She swallowed her anger and infused so much cheer into her voice even she knew it sounded fake.
“Lennie told me that your auntie came down here and gave a sermon.” Mo wasn’t mad to miss that. Rasheeda’s Auntie D wasn’t bad, but she was OD with the Bible stuff. “Lennie punished. Did you get in trouble?”
Sheeda’s twists whipped gently against her face as her head shook side to side.
“Oh whuttt?” Mo laughed. “How you sneak down here and not get in trouble? Which Scripture say, thou shalt not creep creep to a dude’s house?”
Sheeda frowned. “I guess my aunt figured that almost getting raped was my punishment.”
The words pulled Mo straight up at attention. “Almost raped? Okay, wait. Did Lennie forget to tell me something?”
“I don’t know what he told you,” Sheeda said.
“More than you did.” Mo scowled.
“I don’t feel like arguing about it,” Sheeda said.
Her almost Katie-like sigh pushed a button deep in Mo. Quan was wrong. And Lennie should have shut him down from word go, when it was happening. But it was all squashed, now. Lennie’s gaming system was off limits for the rest of summer, and their mother was looking for a job for him at the hospital. One he could do on weekends even when school started. Not having Lennie to kick it with was Quan’s punishment, she guessed. Who knew?
If anybody should have been mad, it should have been her. They had her out there in the dark, first of all. And second, she’d just gotten home. Already she had to jump in and fix somebody else’s mess. “Nobody arguing. But for real, what did you think was gonna happen? You was the only girl with all these dudes in the house.”
Sheeda’s eyebrows scrunched together.
“You think I wanted Quan to back me in a corner and grab my butt?”
Sometimes yelling at Sheeda was like kicking a puppy. If anybody else had talked to her this way, Mo would have been in their stuff, instantly. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“I didn’t say all that. But for real, it ain’t the smartest idea to roll up by yourself. Lennie always got hardheads over here. You know that.”
As she dug into her best friend, her two sides battled back and forth.
One was calm and hoped Sheeda was okay. Calm Her was saying, Breathe. Let Sheeda get it off her chest. The other wanted to hang up, let Sheeda handle this on her own. Let Lennie. They had got themselves into this mess. Had no business going behind her back. Now look. And hello, she had problems of her own. Sheeda hadn’t even asked if she’d gotten into BA.
The two sides dueled, elbowing the other out of the way to control her mouth.
“I only went down there to tell Lennie I couldn’t stay,” Sheeda said.
Ragey Mo took the mic and wouldn’t let it go.
“Hello, they invented this thing called TEXTING.” Mo hollered the last word. Sheeda recoiled from it, egging Mo’s fury. “Lennie said he tried hitting you up to apologize. Why you ain’t answer him back?”
“Because my aunt keeps my phone on lockdown, Mo.”
“You ain’t have to say it like I’m stupid,” Mo spat.
“And you didn’t have to say I wanted Quan to be up on me. Lennie didn’t even jump in and stop him.”
“He said you left before he could.”
“I left before he—” Sheeda’s eyebrows finished the sentence, going from “okay whatever” heights to “that don’t even make sense” lows. “If that’s how he see it, what difference does it make what I say?” The next time she spoke, it was almost a whisper. “I thought Lennie liked me, that’s why I went in person.”
“I mean, who wouldn’t like you if he thought he could get with you like that,” Mo said, instantly regretting it. She raced past it. “I’m just gonna keep it one hundred—”
“Of course you are,” Sheeda said, her voice meek, but her eyebrows firmly furrowed.
“What you getting salty with me for?” Mo asked.
“Nobody is salty.”
High-pitched and offended, Mo yelled, “Like I don’t know what salty sound like?”
Sheeda stared, mute, before going on calmly. “I have to go. If my aunt sees any kind of calls longer than a few minutes, she takes the phone for the whole day.” Her eyes shifted as she said, “If you don’t want to go on the retreat, that’s cool.”
“You don’t want me to go?” Mo asked, hurt. Even more at Sheeda’s nonchalant answer.
“Just saying you don’t have to go.”
Mo didn’t care about the retreat. Long days in the sun doing arts and crafts and swatting flies by the lake while the boys chased the girls around threatening to hook them with a fishing pole that no one actually knew how to use and long nights of “revival,” which as far she could tell was only permission for the pastor to give sermons longer than he gave in any church service she’d attended. She didn’t necessarily want to go. But would it kill Sheeda to say she wanted her to go?
Just like that, BA’s rejection washed over her, fresh. They didn’t want her, either, even though she still heard the piano music and smelled the corn chip funk of wet pointe shoes—like they had become a part of her in those three weeks.
She missed a place that didn’t want her. Now Sheeda was acting like she didn’t care that Mo was back. Nobody wanted her.
She waited a few more seconds, hoping Sheeda would say “Of course I want you to go,” and wanting to hear that she meant it. The longer Sheeda stayed quiet, the angrier Mo got. She wanted to blast her—tell Sheeda her little retreat was boring and yup, she’d pass.
Before she could, she thought about Ms. Sharon saying, “Do your work.”
To Mo, that meant fighting for what she wanted. But that hadn’t worked for her this summer. Besides, she was tired. There had to be another way.
Sheeda’s face was expressionless—as prepared for Mo’s flippant no as Mo was ready to say it. So, she did the opposite.
“I still want go,” she said. The flicker of surprise in Sheeda’s face spurred her on. “Unless you plan to leave me hanging for your Jesus friends while we there. If so, you can miss me with that.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Sheeda said. For the first time since the call started, her cheeks were plump from a smile.
Mo grinned back.
“All right. Well, let me let you go. I don’t want you getting in trouble with Auntie,” she said, then remembered she did have one more fight left in her. “You need me roll up on Quan for you? ’Cause you know I will.”
Sheeda’s tiny smile and “No, I’m good,” was no guarantee Mo wasn’t going to at least light him up on socials. She didn’t have to fight for everything. She couldn’t. Not anymore. But standing up for a friend, she’d do every time. No apology.
Rasheeda
She wanted her mother. Legit wanted to hear her voice and have her mother tell her that it would be okay. Wanting her mother was the only way Sheeda knew, for sure, that she was mad at her Auntie D. For a long time, she had been afraid to be mad at her aunt. Afraid that it was a sin. Wasn’t everything else?
But then, one day, when the boulder on her chest made it hard to breathe, she sat in her closet and called her mother. She needed somebody who would understand that her not wanting to wear a dress that swept the floor didn’t mean she was out there “running after” some little boy.
Trying to convince her aunt of that was pointless.
All she’d wanted was to hear that it was okay, normal even, to want to wear a dress shorter than one that passed her ankles.
Her mother ended up wrong from the start, answering the call, “Hey, baby girl. Tell your aunt don’t be tryin’ send you down here now. She call herself waiting till April to make plans for you. Well, I already got things to do this summer.”
“That’s not why I’m calling, Ma,” Sheeda had said, trying to keep her voice down. Auntie D didn’t forbid her from calling her mother. Still, it always felt wrong. Plus, the closet was the best place to hide and keep her mother’s loud voice from seeping out and into the hallway. Her mother usually ranted most of the call, something Sheeda always seemed to forget until her mother started in.
“What? She still trying to say that I’m getting money for you that I’m not sending her? Tell Dee that I said—”
Sheeda stopped listening. The entire phone call was a one-sided fight. Her mother saying all the things she never got to say to Auntie D because her aunt refused to sit on the phone arguing. Every other line was, “Well, you tell Dee,” or “Deandra think she know.” Sheeda didn’t even have to say “um-hm” or “okay.” Her mother was going off that much. Sheeda couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a conversation where her mother had asked how her grades were or what she liked or disliked.
The phone call always reminded her that some things were worse than Auntie D’s rules. Like talking to a mother who seemed mad that you weren’t with her, but then never once asked about you.
I’m fine, Ma, how you doing?
It was something Sheeda always dreamed of saying, but never once got to utter. Not in six years.
But when she was mad at Auntie D, knowing that never stopped her from wanting to talk to her mother.
The dress thing had worked out. Auntie D had relented and started letting her wear knee-length dresses the next year. Sheeda wasn’t so sure things would work out that easily this time. She hadn’t been punished for going down to Lennie’s. But she and her aunt hadn’t said more than twenty words since. And half those words were, “Give me your phone before heading to bed.”
She sat in her closet, rubbing her phone screen like it would summon a genie. Maybe this time if she called, her mother would listen.
A message lit up.
Lennie:
Mo said u don’t have ur phone all the time. But if u got it right now, hit me back. Please
Tai had been right. It was messy. And in another month, she’d have to see him every day on the bus. What if him and his friends joked about it?
Yo, chick thought she was my girlfriend.
That’s wild!
Her face was hot with humiliation at the thought. She squeezed her knees to her chest, laid her head down, and cried, never hearing her aunt come in.
Auntie D peered down at her, concern but also aggravation on her face. “Rasheeda, what’s wrong? Why are you in the closet?”
Sheeda wiped at her eyes. No answer would make sense. So, she gave none.
“We need to talk.” Auntie D sat on the bed.
Sheeda unfolded herself and joined her. She sat on the bed’s edge, her hands clasped in her lap, expecting a lecture but getting, “Are you all packed for the retreat?”
Sheeda’s eyebrows rose. She ventured carefully, “Yes.”
“You looking forward to it?”
Sheeda shrugged. It was her actual answer. Kita and Yola weren’t talking. Mo was going, but Sheeda wondered if she really wanted to. Worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted Mo to go anymore. What was there to look forward to?
Foot tucked under her butt, her aunt faced Sheeda. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Usually, no one would ever know she was the youngest of her siblings. Sister Tate mode was hair nicely done, dresses, heels, and pantyhose making her look way older. With the ponytail, she could have been Sheeda’s older sister. She exhaled, and her warm breath puffed in Sheeda’s face.
“You know what my biggest fear is?” Seeing Sheeda had no idea, she cracked a smile that bordered on a wince. “It’s that I’ll mess this up. That I’ll mess you up.” She wiped at a single tear. “When your mother asked me to keep you until she could get herself together, I really thought we’d only be together a few months and that I’d get to be the fun aunt, then send you back. When that didn’t happen, suddenly I was Aunt Mommy and had to feed you, keep you clothed, and most importantly, make sure you turned out to be a good human being.” She dabbed furiously at the tears rolling down her face. “I have rules for a reason. To protect you. And when I think about what could have happened if those boys—” Her jaw clenched, seeming to scare the tears dry. “It could have been bad, Rasheeda. Do you understand?”
Sheeda did. She’d had a few bad dreams since then, every one of them with Quan’s face close to hers, breath reeking and underarms musty, blocking her way out of the door. It scared her. But it also made her angry. At herself? Quan? Lennie? She was never sure.
“The only reason I’m letting Monique go on the retreat is because I don’t want to hold her responsible for something her brother did,” Auntie D said.
“He didn’t do anything,” Sheeda said, meaning it both ways. Lennie hadn’t really done anything wrong. He also hadn’t done anything right. She didn’t know how to explain it to her aunt. Probably wouldn’t get the chance if she could. She stared straight ahead, waiting for it.
Auntie D’s voice shook with the fire of Scripture. “Exactly. Ephesians chapter five, verse eleven says, ‘Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.’ Lennie should have stood up for you. Don’t defend him. What he did—”
