Fire in the Streets (11 page)

Mama tries hard to do right by us, but in the end she wants not to be alone. Raheem and I aren't enough for her, it seems. Four is better, she told me once, but that isn't always true. My real dad is never coming back, we're pretty sure, and that's the only thing that could ever put it right. I don't get my hopes up anymore.

I like to stroll at this time of day, when everyone else wants to be in. Emmalee says I'm the sort of person who can't be confined, which I like because it makes me sound larger than life. I'm only fourteen, but I've seen things, known them. I had a first kiss and a second one, felt a boy's tongue against mine. Sam's lips, all big and soft and curious. I know how nice it is to have someone's hand to hold, instead of walking all alone. Can't really blame Mama for wanting that.

No matter how much I want to, I can't stay out all night. The sky gets dark and there always comes a moment when it's time to go home. I think about going to stay at Emmalee's instead, but you never really know what you're gonna find there, either.

I slip through the door. He's sitting on the couch, big as life. Mama lying with her head on his thigh. He's skinny, looking like a stiff breeze off the lake would bend him in the middle. Salt-and-pepper hair, scrag of a beard. Wearing an undershirt over tan pants. Bare feet on the rug.

“My daughter,” she says to him as I enter. “Maxie, this is Wil.”

“Oh,” I say.

He returns my cool gaze with one of his own. “Nice to meet you, Maxie.”

He gets a point for actually saying my name, but that's about all I can give him. I ignore the fact that he's spoken to me, and retreat to my room for the night.

W
ITH WIL COMING AROUND MOST
evenings, I make a point of staying out all afternoon until I'm sure Mama's going to be home. I don't want him coming by, catching me alone. Expecting to be let in to wait. Being out is what I do anyway, but when it feels necessary like this, it's sometimes harder to find things to do to fill the time.

Emmalee's gone off to do her homework and Patrice is nowhere to be found. There's plenty going on at the playground, but I'm not in the mood for any of it, so I skirt the park. Decide to take a walk instead. I'm thinking of going to the clinic to see what Sam is up to. It's the very thing Emmalee and Patrice talk me out of doing on a day-to-day basis, but when they're not around I forget all the reasons why I'm supposed to leave Sam alone.

I'm headed that way when the mood in the street suddenly
changes. Just ahead of me, a shop door clatters open with little bells. Cherry steps out into the street, wearing one of her painted-on dresses. She pauses to light a cigarette. The guys hanging on the stoops start looking over their shoulders and nudging each other that way that they do.

Cherry's body talks and the men around her listen. The sway of her hips is something magical. She glides along the sidewalk and their heads turn like clockwork. Half a block behind, I try to copy her moves—the way her arm dangles over her handbag and the free wrist dances, flicking the ash of her cigarette. For a few seconds I become another kind of girl—no, woman—the kind who can't and won't be left behind by maturity or love or anything unnamed.

“Maxie?” Rocco says. “You okay, girl?”

He steps out of the convenience store, landing a couple of paces ahead of me. I roll around toward him, hand on my tilted hip. “Hi, Rocco.”

“You look dizzy. Is it the heat? You need a drink?”

“You buying?” I go for a low, husky, sexy voice.

“Grab a Coke on me,” Rocco says, frowning. He extends two fingers toward me, a quarter trapped between. “You sound like you might be coming down with something.”

I straighten up, real casual, hoping there's no color giving away the warmth that flushes my cheeks. But I guess he'd only mistake it for a fever. I take the quarter and run inside.

The cool Coke hits the spot. When I step back onto the sidewalk, Rocco's gone. So is Cherry, but I try the thing with my hips again anyway. What I need are shoes with a heel, I think. They add a little something extra.

I sashay my way down to the Panther office, wondering if I'll find Cherry there. Sure enough, when I pop in the door, she's got her hips propped on the desk nearest the window, chatting up Slim, who's sitting at the desk and looking up at her like a fool grinning straight into the sunshine.

“Hi, Maxie,” Cherry says.

“Hey, sister,” Slim says, but his gaze is slipping toward Cherry's southern real estate.

“Hi.” I glide by them, straight to my usual station, where a large stack of envelopes and sheets of stamps sit waiting. I wet a sponge in the kitchen and set to work sealing and stamping.

Leroy, Jolene, Hamlin, and Lester are midconversation, gathered around the couch area. “All I'm saying is it's a growing problem in Oakland,” Hamlin says. “There's always someone willing to take a payoff to pass on information. Especially when it seems like small things that won't hurt anybody.”

“What's your point?” Leroy says.

“The point is, it's a slippery slope. Information is power. Tidbits matter.”

“We get that,” Jolene says. “So what are they doing about it?”

“That's the thing,” Hamlin says. “They're not sure what to do. It's not only the leaks. There's also significant misinformation coming back into the ranks from the informants. Trying to confuse things.”

“I want to keep talking about this,” Leroy says with a sigh. “But I have calls to make.”

“Maxie can do it,” Jolene says.

My ears perk up. I set aside the sopping sponge.

Leroy looks over his shoulder. “Okay. Maxie.” He hands me a scrap of paper with phone numbers written on it. “Call these people and confirm that their food donations for The Breakfast are arriving sometime tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

I like to use the phone. The big black receiver is weighty in my hand. I imagine it holding all the words ever spoken through it, and all the ones to come. My finger slides into the holes, one by one, dialing the plate around. There are two sevens, two nines, and a zero involved, which means the dial spins all the way around most of the time. Click, click, click, click. Whee.

I
'M WALKING HOME, STILL HIGH ON THE EFFECTS
of talking on the phone. If I ever get a real office job, I can have a phone of my own, right on my very desk. I can pick it up and dial it anytime I want, for important business or just to see who answers. I like the idea of that. It has me skipping down the street.

I should know by now—good feelings only last so long.

Emmalee dashes toward me, that look of flight in her eyes that I know so well. I put out my hand to receive her.

Emmalee's cool fingers grip mine. “I don't want to go home tonight,” she says.

“It's okay.”

I've been at her place when her dad comes home in a messed-up mood. The best thing to do is always to remove ourselves from the picture.

We link arms and walk quickly, away from our familiar doorways, around the corner. I lean into her in a way that
says “I know,” at least I hope it does. It's different for me, but I know how it feels to need to run.

“Do you want to look for Patrice?” I offer. Patrice with her quiet mother. Her father, who has a steady job and doesn't raise his voice unless we earn it. Patrice with a bed wide enough for the three of us, and a room all to herself. We smile at her parents and call it a sleepover, but most times it's really something else.

Emmalee shakes her head. “Please. I can't.”

I get it. Sometimes it's too hard to smile, in the face of everything we lack. Patrice loves us, struggles with us, but there are some things she really can't see.

“Okay, then.” We circle the block, arm in arm. As if one slow turn might change what it is we'll return to.

E
MMALEE'S GOING TO SLEEP OVER,” I
announce to Ma and Wil. They're coiled on the living room sofa, staring at some static snow on the television. I can't even tell what show's on underneath.

“It's a school night,” Mama says. “Did you do your homework?”

“We're going to finish it now,” I tell her. Emmalee doesn't have her books over here, but we can make do with mine. It's all the same.

Turns out Emmalee's already done her homework. She's smart like that. Gets good grades, way better than mine. She makes me read to her the assignment out of the history book before she lets me skip to the math.

“Haven't you read it already?” I say.

“Yeah, but have you?” Emmalee's going to be a teacher when she grows up. She already knows how to do that look
they do that tells you to hush, you're supposed to be working. It comes as easy to her as a smile. Going to college, then being a teacher. That's her big dream. She doesn't come out and say it ever, but it's one of those things we just know.

Raheem slides in and sees Emmalee. “Again?”

“Shut up,” I tell him. “She's staying.”

“I didn't mean it like that.” A fierce expression passes over Raheem's face. “One of these days,” he says, then draws the curtain.

Emmalee lays her head on my shoulder. “He's nice,” she whispers. “Wanting to do something.”

“Yeah.” But we both know he won't. Can't. It's not like us, where the guys come and go. Emmalee's dad is her dad, and that's that.

I click off my lamp. Raheem puts his on, so there's a soft glow in the room. It's how I like to fall asleep most nights. Knowing he's over there. In the not-quite-dark.

Best of all is Emmalee's quiet presence. The whispers of her breath. We snuggle down under the covers and don't even touch, but she's right there with me.

I wake slightly trembling. Remnants of a nightmare. Things chasing me. White- and brown-skinned men with erased faces. Bucky Willis, all bloody. Steve Childs, shot full of
holes and sinking into a rectangle plot of earth. There was a fair amount of screaming, in my head. I breathe hard to draw myself out of the dream space.