At-Risk (17 page)

Asha lifted her head up. “Rashida can watch her when she gets home.”

“What you think I'm waiting for?” Kim snapped.

Asha rolled her eyes and reached for another comic book. She had a stack of them at her left elbow. She spent all of the money their mother gave her buying comic books. She could sit still for hours reading about the Riverdale High gang. Kim couldn't understand why someone would want to be cooped up all day reading about fake people when you could be outside with real ones.

Rashida was a bookworm, too. Only she didn't read comic books. She read thick textbooks with words so small they gave Kim a headache just to see them. Rashida worked part-time and took classes at the city college. She talked numbers—balance sheets and income statements and journal entries—she wanted to be an accountant. She was the only person Kim knew taking courses during the summer. The girls Kim's age went to summer school because they had to and most of the older girls that were Rashida's age had jobs. Rashida said it would help her get her degree faster. Kim thought it was a
waste of both a good summer and good looks. Kim had never seen Rashida with a boyfriend and she blamed it all on her sister's attitude and not her looks. She was pretty without having to do much, but she wouldn't take advantage of it. When the two of them went out to the supermarket or to the pizza shop, the boys watched Rashida and spoke to her, but she never answered. When cars honked at her, she pretended not to hear. Unlike Kim, she never slowed her walk to a saunter or smiled out of the corner of her mouth. Kim secretly believed that Rashida was a twenty-year-old virgin.

Kim pulled a folding chair up to the window so that she could keep an eye on what was going on outside. It was still early enough in the day that only children and old folks were outside. Harsh sunlight glinted off the awnings of the corner store across the street. Young girls with strollers walked to the park. Boys in baggy jeans despite the heat guarded the corners and pay phones. The sun rocked off of the brown bricks of her housing project. She looked down below. A boy was riding a bike, his father chasing behind him, holding the training wheels in one hand. Four girls formed a square, clapping their hands against each other and singing:

We're going to Kentucky
We're going to the fair
To see the señorita
With flowers in her hair
Oh shake it shake it shake it
Shake it if you can
Shake it like a milkshake
And do the best you can
Oh rumble to the bottom
Rumble to the top
Then turn around and turn around
Until you make a stop!

Kids her own age weren't there. They were out working their summer jobs. Or they were taking care of their children. Or they were at the park. A girl from upstairs was sitting outside on one of the benches, braiding her boyfriend's hair. At nighttime, the courtyard would be filled with kids Kim's own age. Her mother would complain about the noise and say she couldn't sleep. Rashida would say she couldn't study. But Kim would love it. At night, they brought the music out. It was always like a block party with everyone outside chilling, joking, laughing, flirting, enjoying the coolness of a breeze in the few hours they had to cool down and kick back and be real before having to start all over again tomorrow.

The baby began to cry insistently. Kim went to the crib and tapped the mobile, hoping to create a distraction. Then she heard the front door unlock.

Kim didn't even let Rashida get halfway down the hallway before she grabbed her. “Your niece misses you,” she said.

“Where is she?”

Kim nodded in the direction of her bedroom.

Rashida shook her head. She dropped her heavy book bag in the hallway and followed Kim into the room. She reached down into the crib and tickled the baby's stomach. “Hey, good looking.”

“Hey,” Kim answered.

“Not you. The baby.”

“You know you're my favorite sister, right?” Kim said.

“What about me?” Asha said.

“Be quiet!” Kim hissed.

Rashida said, “I don't have any money.”

“No, not money. I just need you to watch her for a little while. I gotta go see Malik.” Just then, a fresh bout of crying began.

Rashida said, “I've got an accounting test tomorrow morning.”

“It's not going to take long,” Kim said. “I'm just going over there to get some money.”

“How long?”

“Forever!” Asha piped in.

“Be quiet!” both Kim and Rashida said.

“Like two hours.”

“Just some money?” Rashida held her gaze. “Why is she crying? Is she wet?”

“No she ain't wet. You think I don't know if she wet?” Kim said.

“Let me hold her.” Rashida reached for the baby. She smiled at the baby and rubbed noses with her. “Hey Danielle. Hey pretty brown eyes,” she sang as the baby gurgled, then grew quiet.

“How'd you do that?” Kim asked, awed.

“I didn't
do
anything.”

“Maybe I can start singing like that to keep her quiet.”

“You could just hold her,” Rashida said. “Maybe you should give it a try.”

It was just the type of thing she expected Rashida to say. Rashida would pop up with things out of the blue. She had a knack for saying things that had nothing to do with the conversation at hand. And their mother called Rashida the smart one.

“I ain't trying to raise no spoiled brat,” Kim said. “I can't be holding her all the time.”

“I'm not saying for you to pick her up every minute of the day, but sometimes you should just hold her so she knows she's loved and cared for.”

“Can't nobody care for her more than I do,” Kim said.

“I'm not talking about maintenance,” Rashida said. Her voice took on that sad slow quality that it always did when she started explaining things. It made Kim feel like she was missing something important. It made her feel like a moron.

“How long has she been lying down?” Rashida asked.

“All day,” Asha supplied.

“That's not true!” Kim argued.

“You never hold her,” Rashida said. “I've hardly ever seen you do it.”

“I do,” Kim defended.

“Like when?”

“You want to know when?”

“When.”

Kim couldn't think of a single time right off the top of her head, but she knew she could come up with plenty of examples if she had time to think. Besides, she spent plenty of time with the baby. She made sure to keep her hair brushed and oiled so that it would continue to grow. She kept her child clean. Now that it was summer and hot and sticky, she constantly made sure the child was covered in baby powder to keep her cool and dry. She didn't overfeed her. She was vigilant on diaper changing. She didn't see what else she could do.

“All of the time,” Kim answered.

“Well then, she shouldn't be crying. She should be used to you holding her,” Rashida said. She handed the baby back to Kim. “Here you go.”

Kim snatched her baby back. She took the quieted child in her arms and smirked at her sister. “See? I hold her plenty.” A moment later, the baby started to cry again. “Something must be wrong with her. She must be wet.”

“You said she wasn't wet,” Rashida said, shaking her head soberly.

“Well, maybe a tooth then. Anyway, she knows she's loved.” She jiggled the crying baby. “You know you're loved, don't you?” she asked. Then she held the baby tighter and her voice became desperate. “Don't you?” she asked, shaking her.

She didn't like the way Rashida was watching her, or the way Asha was pretending not to. “I don't know why you think you can be all in my business, trying to tell me how to raise my child. Just 'cause I ask you a favor don't mean you all that. I didn't
ask you for all that. I just asked you to look after her for like two hours, that's all. Dag. Think you better than somebody all the time. Forget it. I'll watch my own child. I don't need you or all of your advice.”

Kim watched as her words made Rashida's face fall.

“I'm sorry,” Rashida said, her eyes so round and full of wounded hurt that they reminded Kim of a deer. “I didn't mean to make you feel that way. I wasn't trying to usurp. I just don't want you to raise her like we were.”

Kim knew what she meant. Their mother had barely raised them. Rashida woke them in the mornings and made them breakfast, getting out three bowls and pouring instant oatmeal and hot water into each one. All they needed to do was stir. Rashida sat them at the kitchen table and turned off the cartoons and made them do their schoolwork while she slid pans of french fries or fish sticks in the oven to bake or boiled a pot of rice. The one thing their mother did do was attempt to keep the house clean. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do anything about the shabbiness. Crocheted doilies covered the coffee tables and the arms and backs of couches to hide their age. The sofa and matching love seat were old and worn; the turntable on their stereo set unit had been broken for over two years. They had three
TVS
, but only one worked. A nineteen-inch set sat on top of a floor model
TV
whose tube had blown and never been replaced. Kim didn't want her baby to grow up living like that.

“Yeah, well, you did usurp,” Kim said, wondering what
usurp
meant. “And you don't have to worry about that. It'd be a cold day in hell before I ever raise my baby like that.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Kim said. “Besides, you act like I'm a bad mother or something. I do everything I'm supposed to for her.”

“Sometimes you have to do more than that,” Rashida said.

“Oh?” Kim tightened her hold on the baby. “And how many children do you have?” she asked. Rashida swore somebody had
died and made her an expert on every subject known to man, but for once, Kim could put her in her place. Kim waited for an answer. When Rashida didn't respond, she said, “I thought so.”

Their mother came down the hallway and rapped on the door. “That baby still crying? What's going on in there?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Kim said. She turned to Rashida. “So are you going to watch her or what?”

“All right. Just let me recopy my notes. Then I'll take her and you can go.”

“You can study and watch her at the same time.”

“No, I think I'll take her out to the park so she can get some fresh air. She likes that. You're not the only one who needs to get out every now and then,” she said pointedly.

“Fine. Have fun. Don't blame me if you fail that test.”

“I won't fail,” Rashida said. She went back to her own room and closed the door to study.

“I won't fail,” Kim mumbled in a snippy voice that she thought was a fair imitation of Rashida's. “I won't. No, not me. I never fail. I'm perfect. And I'm a better mother than you, Kim.”

“Who are you talking to?” Asha asked when Kim came back in the room.

“Nobody.”

“Are you about to leave?”

“Yeah.”

“But you said you would braid my hair. I've been waiting for you all day.”

“I'll do it later.”

“What am I supposed to do until then? Walk around looking like this? You never come right back,” Asha complained. Kim looked her over and felt sorry for her. Her hair was a mess. Asha must have washed it earlier in the day because it now stood out around her head in a tight tangled bush.

“Get the grease.”

“It's finished.”

“Then get the Vaseline.”

When Asha came back with the Vaseline, Kim sat down on the edge of her bed and motioned for her little sister to position herself on the floor. Asha sat down between Kim's knees and leaned her head back so that Kim could line the part in her hair up with her nose to make it straight.

“It's not going to be nothing fancy now. I don't have time for all of that.”

“I know,” Asha said. “I just want you to do it and make it look nice.”

“I don't have time to be making it look nice.”

Kim began to part and grease sections of her sister's hair. Asha closed her eyes and said, “You always make it look nice.”

Kim smiled and started to cornrow her sister's hair quickly upward into a high crown. It wasn't everyday that somebody gave her a compliment. Kim had never thought of Asha as attractive, but as she looked at her sister's smiling face, she saw the potential in Asha's good bone structure, thick brows, and curly lashes. If only she wouldn't stare at people all the time, guys might look at her twice. Maybe it was good that they didn't look at her. It meant that Asha had more time to herself. More time to read those silly comic books. The innocent and trusting ease on her face made Kim think her beautiful. She only hoped Asha stayed that way.

Kim paused at the front door before she left. Her mother was watching another show now. She had already peeled the potatoes. Now she was quartering them. Asha had already gone outside and Rashida was getting the baby ready for their trip to the park, and so it should have been easy to talk to her mother without the extra ears around. But it wasn't.

“You find somebody to watch her?” her mother asked without looking at her.

“Yeah.” She started to leave. Then she turned back. “Ma?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you ever hold me?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, looking up at Kim, her expression blank.

“I mean, when I was a baby, you know? Did you—did you used to pick me up a lot?”

“Well, you never cried a lot like your sisters. Never put up too much of a fuss—”

“I mean when I wasn't crying. When you didn't have a reason.” Kim wanted to take her questions back and fly out the door. Even to her own ears, it sounded as if her life depended on the answer.

Her mother laid the knife down on the newspaper and smiled as if amused. “Yes, Kim I did hold you,” she said. “I always had a reason. You were my baby. That was reason enough.” When she said it and smiled as if in remembrance, with her head leaning to the side as if she was hearing a distant sound, Kim could see the pretty woman her mother had been before her kids and life had caught up to her.