Pride (Page 20)

Janae eases toward Ainsley. But his whole vibe has changed. I can tell that Janae is waiting for Ainsley to respond to something she just said. But he looks around as if this conversation is the last place he wants to be right now. So I walk over to my sister, worried that something is about to go down. And at the same moment, Ainsley says, “Please excuse me, Janae.” He walks away, heading toward the kitchen, escaping.

“Ainsley? Where you going?” Janae asks.

“Hey, Nae-Nae, wait,” I start to say, but I’m ignored as my sister brushes past me and goes running after him.

“Darius, what did you just say to your brother?” I say.

Darius just shrugs and says, “Clearly something that needed to be said.”

“What—”

“You’re a smart girl, Zuri. You’ll figure it out.” And with that, Darius walks away.

My stomach drops as I watch Janae say something to Ainsley with a confused smile. He says something without a smile. Her smile diminishes, but there’s still hope in her eyes as she speaks. Ainsley shakes his head, shrugs, and places his hands on Janae’s shoulders. He looks like he’s both comforting her and holding her away from him at the same time. Janae’s smile completely disappears. Ainsley mouths, “I’m sorry,” before he slips into the crowd. And that’s my cue to go over to her.

“Janae,” I whisper while gently taking my sister’s arm. Her eyes are welling up with tears. “What just happened? What did he say?”

“Zuri, let go. Please.” Her voice is rough. She pulls away from me and pushes through the fancy people.

I swear on Madrina’s orishas, if Ainsley has hurt her in any way . . . I turn to the Darcy boys and part of me wants to go over there and tell them off to their faces. But that’s exactly what they would expect. I curse under my breath and follow my sister, my heart pounding in my ears.

Pretty Rich Boy

Hey rich boy, how much for that dollar?

I need to buy a dream

I’ve gathered the clouds and stars

to form a cheerleading team

Shouting “Shoot your shot!” from the sidelines

thinking that if I win

They all have a turn at this wheel

to take it for a spin

My mama wants to play too,

but she’s late to this game

A dollar is a dollar, she says,

things are still the same

But if you sell me this dollar,

I’ll owe you three

Work myself to the bone,

none left for family and me

Now, you got my three dollars

with your dreams already paid for

Walking into fancy rooms,

never kicking down a door

But you own that door,

that room, that house, and its land

So I’d have to give you four more dollars

just to pay for where I stand

If you could, you’d charge me for the air I breathe,

the dreams I dream

Even the love I love, make my own beating heart

turn on me like some scheme

Twelve

I BRING SOME of the fancy food from that cocktail party up to the roof in a small container. Janae is already sitting cross-legged on the blue tarp, but she’s facing the other direction, as if trying to avoid the house across the street. I don’t blame her. So we face Hernando’s bodega instead, where we can see some of the guys on the corner doing what they usually do.

It feels good to see them there. I’ve never known Hernando’s to not have men sitting outside, young or old. Some people think they’re up to no good, that they’re wasting their time. But I think they’re really there to look out for the block, for the whole hood, like gatekeepers. They know who’s coming in and out; they know the faces of all the people who pass them.

Even with their big, fancy house on the corner, those Darcy boys couldn’t care less about what’s happening on this block, much less this neighborhood. They bring outsiders to show off their house and talk about how much better they are than the people who are already here.

“I can’t stand them,” I say out loud.

Janae sighs long and deep. “You were right,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Me too,” she says.

A long thread of silence keeps us connected. I know what she’s thinking. She’s replaying all the moments with Ainsley in her mind—what he said to her just now, but also the other times, how he made her feel, how he touched and kissed her. So I have to ask.

“Did you guys—”

“No.” She cuts me off. “Z, he was a complete gentleman. I thought he was genuinely interested in me. We talked about everything. And we laughed a lot. He wasn’t like any of the other guys out here.”

“Huh. Clearly.”

“He was really, really nice to me.”

“Well, nice doesn’t cut it, Nae. I’ll take keepin’ it real over nice any day.”

“He was even nice when he broke it off.”

“Broke it off? How exactly did he break it off?” I unwrap my napkin of tiny meatballs at the ends of toothpicks and hand one to Janae.

“He said, ‘I’m just not ready for something serious right now,’ and he didn’t want to stop me from dating anyone else.”

“He said that?” I ask.

“Yep. As if I’d even want to date anyone else.”

I throw the tiny meatball stick back into the container and grab Janae’s before she pops it into her mouth. I stand and walk close to the edge of the roof with the container in hand.

“Zuri, what are you doing?” Janae asks.

I ignore her and take one tiny meatball at a time and try to fling them across to the Darcys’ roof. They don’t quite land there, but I step back and try to throw the little things with all my might, one by one. “Take back your stupid, useless, tiny meatballs!” I yell.

When I turn to her, I catch Janae wiping her eyes. “Are you crying?”

“No,” she says, and blinks back tears.

I sigh and go over to sit next to her and pull her in. I lay her head on my lap so I can braid the side of her hair. This always relaxes her. “You didn’t know him that well, Nae.”

“It’s not that,” she sobs. Now, she lets it all out as my hands rub her scalp. Janae has always been the sensitive one. If I start to tear up just because Papi’s hard on me, Janae will straight up bawl at any hint of disappointing our father. “He was really different, Z. I mean, I met guys at school, and they were all right. But none of them were really interested. You know how many more girls there are than guys at my school? Lots. I didn’t just wanna hook up with anybody. I wanted a real relationship. Nobody’s trying to have a relationship their freshman year of college. And it felt like that was the direction we were going. And . . .” Her voice trails off.

“Janae, are you serious? Come on! What about your grades, focusing on getting a job right after you graduate? And us? Mama and Papi?” I ask, finishing a braid.

“Just because I like somebody doesn’t mean I forget everything else in my life. People have relationships, Z.”

“Yeah, but it’s such a distraction. And if it doesn’t work out, then it was a waste of time.”

She gets up from my lap and looks at me. “So, you being with Warren is a waste of time?”

“No. We’re just chillin’ like I do with Charlise. Like we are now?”

“You know damn well that it’s not the same.”