From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun (3 page)

“Nothing,” I said. This is what I always said.

“We bumped into Angie,” Ralphael said. He smirked. “She wants you to call her sometime.”

My stomach jumped. Angie made me feel dizzy in weird places. When I saw her on the street, she always smiled all slow and shy. It was the kind of smile that makes your mouth dry up on the spot. I checked my pocket quickly. The ragged piece of paper that she had written her phone number on was still there. I hadn't gotten up the nerve to call her. I had wanted to talk to Mama about it, but no time ever seemed to be the right time anymore. If she wasn't in class, she was at the gym or at work or out having dinner. Then there were the nights she called to say she wasn't coming home at all. Not like I was scared to be in the house by myself or anything. . . .

“You ever going to call her?” Ralph asked.

I shrugged. “The summer's not over yet.”

“Yeah, right!” Sean laughed. “You just don't have the dollars in your pocket it would take to treat her right.” He punched me on the arm. Sean was small for his age and a bit mean. His mother and father fought loud and publicly and this must have had something to do with him going off at times for no reason at all. I felt a little bad for him but that wasn't the reason we were friends. We had grown up together, had played freeze tag in second grade, baseball in third, and I don't know how many millions of video games together. Hanging with Ralph and Sean was like breathing to me. I couldn't imagine anything else.

“Let's head out,” Ralphael said. “Since your refrigerator is so tired-looking, we might as well go grab a slice or something.”

I slid the book of stamps into my desk drawer. “I can't hang long,” I said. “Mama's bringing some man home for me to meet.”

“Tell your mama to bring
me
home,” Sean said. “That woman is so fine!”

“Yeah, so what would she want with your ugly butt?” Ralph said. “Melon-head's mom needs a nice older man, like me.” Ralph checked himself out in the mirror on my dresser and smiled. He's fifteen, a year older than me and Sean, and the tallest, and, as far as girls think, the best-looking. He's dark like I am, with what Mama says is a nice-shaped head. It's an okay head, I mean, as far as heads go. He has dreads, too. But when you think about it, his head looks a bit like a lightbulb. I guess Mama can't see this.

“Your mama hasn't brought somebody home in a long time,” Sean said, leaning back on my bed.

“Yeah, Mel,” Ralph said. “What's up with that?”

I flicked the side of his head as I walked past him. “What do you mean, what's up with that? Who am I—the dating game? She's been busy with school or work, or working out. Whatever.”

 

 

Mama had been spending a lot of time at a health club she had joined in the city. The one time I went with her, I couldn't help noticing how dark she and I seemed among all these white people. I don't have a lot of reason to spend time with white people—they don't live around here or go to my school. I mean, I have white teachers but they're teachers, so they don't really count. Mama must have introduced me to ten women friends of hers and it made me feel a bit strange, like Mama had some secret community I hadn't even known about. I mean, not like I would want to spend time with a bunch of women (I'm not that kind of faggy, either) but it was interesting that she hung with all of these white ladies. There was one sister there and she was a little on the fine side so I spent most of my time trying not to look like I was watching her work out. After she left, I went into the part of the gym that had a pool table and television, got a soda and watched TV until Mama was done exercising. If you ask me, it's a pretty fancy health club. I don't see why Mama needs to spend money on exercising when there's Prospect Park not even five blocks away from us. But she says a lot of lawyers go there and maybe she can network and hook up a good job for after she's done with law school. Whatever.

“Your mama must be going to his house instead of bringing him home,” Ralph said. He and Sean started laughing and slapped each other five but I didn't see what was so funny. It was true.

“She's busy working and stuff.” I was getting a bit annoyed. So what if Mama had a little something going on the side. It wasn't anything important. She was a grown-up. If she wanted a boyfriend for a little while, it wasn't my business. He'd be gone soon enough. Then it'd be like it was before. Mama and me talking quietly in the kitchen, being close. Being there for each other.

“Remember that one guy,” Sean said. “The big one that worked for the airport or something. Man, that was one
ugly
brother.”

“I know who you're talking about,” Ralphael said.“That guy with the big butt. He was bowlegged, too. Mel, your mother must have gone temporarily blind that day.”

“And what about that bright-skinned guy with the cross-eyes?” Sean winced, like he was smelling something that had gone bad.

“He wasn't cross-eyed,” I said, defending Mama. “He was an accountant.”

“Man, I'm sure that guy's parents had to be walked every day.”

“If they didn't chew through their leashes,” Sean added.

Ralphael slapped him five, then looked at me. I wasn't smiling so they stopped laughing. “We're just busting on you, Mel.”

“Hey,” I said, shrugging, trying to act like I didn't care.

“So who's the new guy?” Sean asked.

“I don't know. She just said I have to be here. This one must be important or something 'cause she said you guys can't come.”

“I didn't want to come anyway,” Sean said.

Ralphael leaned against the mantelpiece across from my bed. “You never really had to be home for the other ones. We just all sort of ended up here. Maybe she's going to marry this guy or something.”

“Wrong,” I said. “She said she's not marrying anyone.”

“Yeah, right,” Ralphael said. “Fine woman like EC's gonna get snatched up in no time. You just don't want it to happen, that's all. You better start getting ready, though. Shoot—I'ma go home and pick out a suit.”

“Me, too,” Sean said. He looked at Ralph and they burst out laughing.

Both of them make me sick.

ALONE

Chapter Three

Mama was in the shower
singing at the top of her lungs. It was a halfway decent song but she was pretty much ripping it apart. It was almost eight-thirty and her “date” was supposed to have been here a half hour ago. Neither one of them seemed to be in a big hurry, though, since Mama still had the water running and the bozo hadn't even phoned to say he'd be late.

I tapped on the bathroom door.“Never trust a man who comes to a date late and doesn't even call,” I yelled over the running water. “Means he doesn't care about you.”

Mama turned the water off. “Never trust a son who's full of assumptions,” she called back.

“What?”

“I never said anything about a man coming over.”

I stood there for a moment feeling stupid, my hands shoved dumbly into the pockets of my pants. I knew I wasn't going crazy and I could have sworn she had said this was a date.

“You mean you made me shower and put on clean clothes and
be here
for some lady friend? And Ralph and Sean couldn't even come?” I stood there waiting for an answer. The silence in between seemed to fill the apartment.

After a few moments passed, Mama opened the bathroom door and emerged wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, her hair and face still damp. “Yep,” she said, pinching my cheek as she passed. “Remember Kristin? She was one of the women I introduced you to at the gym that day. I said she had graduated from my law school the year before.”

I followed behind her, relieved but aggravated. “Shoot, Ma, I thought this was the big one.” I vaguely remembered a Kristin—I mean I remembered the name but didn't have a clue what she looked like. But if she was that fine sister I had sat there watching, then I was more than glad I had hooked myself up a bit.

The doorbell rang and I jumped up. “I'll get it.”

Mama cut me off at the pass. “I'll get it,” she said, smiling. “Didn't
we
get eager all of a sudden?” she said over her shoulder.

I sat on the couch and tried to look like it was no big deal. And it really wasn't. Until Mama came back in with Kristin.

“You remember Melanin Sun,” Mama said. Kristin smiled and stuck out her hand.

I glanced at Mama and saw she was waiting for me to make the right move, so I stuck out my hand stiffly and mumbled, “Nice to meet you.”

Not only was she not the fine sister. This woman wasn't fine
or
a sister. She was white. White white. Like shampoo commercial-girl white but with glasses. And those straight white-people teeth you know must have cost her parents a million dollars in dental bills. She had that shimmery white-people hair that has a whole lot of shades of brown and blond running through it and a dimple in one cheek. When I glanced at her face, her eyes were bright and grayish—that scary bright gray that you have to look away from fast or else risk getting stuck trying to figure out how far and deep they go. Okay—maybe she was a little bit pretty. The worst part, though, was that this Kristin lady was dressed almost exactly like me. We were both wearing blue shirts and jeans. Mama looked kind of pleased by the whole thing but I wasn't. I stood there silently, thinking about the gray polo shirt I had almost put on.

Kristin was looking at me like she was trying to see right through me, like she knew me from somewhere. I tried to think of something clever to say to get those eyes away from me, but all I could come up with was a stupid “You look nice” that sent both her and Mama into a fit of laughter.

I excused myself and went to set the table. There had never been a white person in our house. There weren't white people in our world. That was it. In a nutshell and hung out to dry. No use for them in this neighborhood. This was
our
place—people of color together in harmony, away from all of
their
hatred and racism. I didn't dislike white people, I just didn't think of them. For years and years, they had fought hard to stay separate from us, and when we finally said, “Keep your stupid land, we'll find a place of our own,” they had to come over to it and check it out. I didn't care that Mama and Kristin hung out at the gym and had gone to the same law school. Kristin wasn't a part of us and it bothered me that Mama had invited her into our world.
How
didn't matter. I wanted to know
why.

Kristin moved around the kitchen helping Mama as though our house was her second home. I didn't have a clue why she seemed so comfortable here, or how she knew where everything was. And I wondered if Mama had really done
that
much talking about this place. I mean, it's a nice apartment and all, but did she go and describe every nook and cranny of it to this woman?

There was something about the two of them together that made my stomach hollow out, but again, I couldn't figure out what it was.

I stood at the edge of the kitchen watching them silently. Every time Kristin said something even the tini est bit funny (and she wasn't that funny), Mama threw her head back and laughed. I wanted to tell Mama to stop Uncle Tomming the woman 'cause she really wasn't that funny.
I
wanted to make Mama laugh like that.

“Put this on the table, Mel,” Mama said, handing me the lace tablecloth we used at holidays. I looked at her and she raised an eyebrow at me. “Then
set
it.”

“Whatever,” I said.

When we finally sat down, I was half starved to death and tore into my corn bread without waiting for either of them. We were having fried chicken, corn bread, potato salad, and collards for dinner. Mama had rushed home from work and cooked up a storm. Soul food. It figured.

“. . . and then I get off the train and am standing there and this guy comes up to me to ask directions, only he's looking straight down my shirt as he's talking to me,” Kristin was saying. She had launched into a long monologue about her train ride over here. I half listened. When she mentioned the part about the man looking down her shirt, my eyes went straight for her chest. She didn't seem to have much worth searching for. When she finished telling the story, she turned to me, and without even taking a breather asked, “So what kind of music are you into?”