Little Divas (6 page)

The Court is always a pretty good illustration of how diverse Forrest Hills is. At school, at church, and no matter where you live, our city is so mixed that no one ever really feels like a minority. It seemed like all the kids in the city were there that day, like a kaleidoscope of races. Like always, everybody, no matter who you were, just wanted to have fun.

“Look,” Rikki said under her breath.

It was pretty boy Darwin Mack, and he had just finished with his game. Now he was waving his arms in the air. “Yo! Rikki!” he called.

I winced when I saw the smile on Rikki’s face. Great. Just great.

Rikki undid her braids, pulled all of her hair back into a big, bushy ponytail, and started walking real slow. “Let’s go on over there,” she said.

As usual, I saw no choice but to follow.

six

Darwin was sitting
on top of a picnic table with two other guys watching a new game. I tried not to look at their faces just in case one of them was Travis. I did not want to accidentally make eye contact.

When we reached the table, Darwin said to Rikki, “Man! Took you long enough, walkin’ all slow,” he teased.

Rikki hit his leg and quipped right back, “What? I’m supposed to run, just ’cause you’re here?”

Darwin swiveled his legs over and Rikki sat down in front of him. “Uh,
yeah.”
Darwin laughed. “You know you wanted to.”

“Boy, please.”

Darwin’s face was shiny with sweat from his basketball game, and he was sipping from a can of Faygo Red Pop. After taking a gulp, he looked at me and smiled.

“What up, Cassidy?” he said. “I see you got your hair down. That’s tight.”

I smiled back. Darwin was probably the coolest guy at school, and I doubt he’s ever had an enemy.

“Thanks,” I replied.

Rikki teased him. “Yeah, we saw you out there hoopin’ like a straight-up klutz. I know your knees hurt.”

Darwin laughed. “At least I can dribble.”

Rikki nudged his legs with her back. “I
do
know how to dribble, fool.”

Darwin took another sip of his Faygo. “So, what’s up? Ya’ll comin’ to my party?”

“What party?” Rikki asked.

“My house,” he said. “A pool party. We passed out the fliers earlier. A week from next Saturday. S’up?”

Rikki cleared her throat. “I love the way you saved us a flier. That was
so
nice of you. You
really
want us to come, don’t you?”

“My bad,” Darwin replied with his winning grin. He turned to one of the other guys sitting at the table. “Yo, T. Money, we got any more of those fliers?”

As I sat down on the end of the bench, I felt someone jump off the table, and he stood in front of me. I forced myself to look down at the grass, already knowing who it was.

He held out a lime-green, crumpled-up flier, and waited. Finally I looked up, and I smacked my lips the way Rikki does.

Taller and a lot better looking weren’t the only things about Travis that had changed over the summer. He was smiling, and I could see that he’d also gotten braces on his teeth.

“Here. It’s the last one.” One thing hadn’t changed yet—Travis’s voice was still as raspy as ever. Rikki reached over and snatched the flier out of his hand and started reading, but he kept looking right at me.

“Comin’?” Travis wanted to know.

I shrugged.

“Yes,” Rikki answered. “We are.”

Darwin said, “From, like, noon till whenever. But no swimsuit, no party. None of that wearing regular clothes, dipping your toes in, and being stuck-up all day stuff. Everybody has to get in the pool. Bet?”

I felt the heat from Travis’s stare, felt the pierce of his sneer without even having to see it. I cut my eyes at him, dared him to say a word in front of Rikki, then again hoping in a way that he
would.
It’d be nice to watch him get punched.

But, surprisingly, Travis wasn’t smirking.

He said to me, “Your hair really does look tight, Cassidy.”

I dug the tip of my toes into the mound of dirt underneath the bench. Maybe if I ignored him long enough, he’d just go away.

Rikki hopped up and told me she’d be right back, and I watched as she and Darwin locked hands and started off on a stroll together. I wanted to scream at her. How could she leave me like that?

Travis sat down right next to me, and I honestly wanted to bawl. I bit down on my tongue and decided to just concentrate on basketball. But when I looked over at the Court, I could see that a game had just ended. It would probably be a few minutes before another one started up.

Travis broke the silence. “Man, that’s whack. I can’t believe it’s only three more weeks until we have to go back to school.”

I didn’t say a word. I wished that he would just be quiet.

He said, “You comin’ to King?”

“Of
course,”
I snapped. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Dang!” He looked confused. “My bad. I was just asking.”

Sam, the other boy who was sitting on the table, hopped down and walked over to get in on the new game.

Now it was just Travis and just me.

Alone.

Why?

Why?

Why?

He tapped my arm. “Yo, Cassidy…”

I yanked my arm away even though he was no longer touching it.

“Whoa,” he said, visibly shocked by my reaction.

I sighed.

“For real, though,” he said. “Why you gotta be so mean all the time? On everything.” He kinda laughed.

“I am nice,” I snapped, “to people who are nice to me.” It was as if my heart was pounding in my neck and even in my ears. I scooted away from him. Why wouldn’t he just leave me alone? Why was Travis Jones always playing around?

He reached down into his sock and pulled out a few folded bills. The one on top was a ten.

“Went to California this summer,” he said, “worked in my grandfather’s garage. Made a whole lotta money, too.”

Was this supposed to impress me? I folded my arms across my chest. Now I couldn’t possibly care less if I ever saw or talked to Rikki ever again in life. How could she leave me alone with Travis like this?

“Why so quiet?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

We sat in silence for a few moments.

Eventually he spoke again. “You want some ice cream?”

Was this really Travis? The same boy who used to throw paper airplanes across the room when Mr. Middleton wasn’t looking? Who used to take straws and blow paper balls at people during lunch? I looked at him, tried to make sense of it all, but couldn’t. What had happened to him?

“Come on,” he said, a tiny glimpse of his braces showing through his half smile. “It’s ’bout ninety degrees out here.” He stood up and waited for me to do the same. He even had on crisp new tennis shoes.

I sat there waiting for the joke to come, wondering if he was going to take off running and laughing if I actually did stand up. Maybe he was going to try and trip me when I started walking.

“Man, come on,” he insisted with a laugh that sounded a bit nervous. “For real. Before the truck leaves.”

And so, grudgingly, and definitely full of suspicion, I walked with him over to the yellow ice cream truck that was parked behind the basketball court. Neither of us said a word while we waited in line, but when it was our turn, Travis spoke to the old man who owned the truck.

“Let me get two of them ice cream bars,” he said. But then he turned to me. “Cool?”

I shrugged. “I don’t really like ice cream bars.”

“They got Push-Ups,” he suggested.

“A cherry freeze,” I decided.

“Make that one ice cream bar,” he told the man, “and a cherry freeze, then.” The freckles across his nose were still there. His eyes were the same. But since when did Travis Jones act this pleasant?

He paid for our snacks and handed me mine, and we walked back to the table. Travis took a big huge bite and started talking with his mouth full.
That
was definitely a Travis thing to do.

“So you comin’ to the pool party or what?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“It’s gonna be tight,” he said. “We already started making some mixes. We got all the new cuts and everything.”

I slurped up some of my cherry freeze.

“So, um,” he said after a while of just listening to the sounds of us eating, “when you gone let me get that kiss?”

I jerked my head to look at him.
“What?”

He laughed a little. “You don’t remember when you left me hangin’?”

I started pumping my legs back and forth underneath the bench. “You don’t remember when you killed my fish?”

He chuckled. “I know you’re not still mad about your little homey.”

Through clenched teeth I said, “My little
homey?”
I looked away and felt myself beginning to seethe as I thought about what he’d just said.

I
definitely
still hated Travis Jones.

“Look.” He nudged me. “On everything. You’re the one who dropped him.”

“Yeah, but whose fault was it that I did?”

“Not mine.”

I jumped off of the bench and started walking away.

“Man,” he called, “where you going?”

I spotted a green plastic garbage can and dumped the rest of that stupid cherry freeze right into it.

Travis cracked up laughing and called out, “That ain’t even cool, Cassidy. Man, where you going?”

I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.

It was beginning to feel like forever. I’d been sitting on the hood of Mary’s car for a really long time before Rikki
finally
found me.

“Have you seen Mary?” I demanded as soon as she was standing in front of me.

“Down there.” Rikki gestured with her thumb back toward the Court. “Watching Archie hoop.”

“Well, I’m ready to go,” I said.

Rikki laughed a little. “So why are you sitting up here mad?” she asked.

“I’m not.”

She shook her head. “I asked T. Money where you went and he’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know. Man, she trippin’.’”

There are so many times when I wonder whether or not I would like Rikki at all if she weren’t my cousin.
This
was one of those moments. I decided then that I would not.

After she’d gone around to the passenger side of the car and unlocked the door, I crawled into the backseat and sat there with my arms folded across my chest, with my mouth in a pout, and determined not to answer.

“Ooh,” she started in. “Darwin is—”

“Don’t talk to me.” I stopped her before she started in on her bragging.

“Dang,”
she said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You left me,” I reminded her. “Alone. With Travis, of all people.”

“Because, look. Darwin whispered in my ear that T. Money was—”

“And why do you keep calling him that? His name is Travis Jones.”

“Naw, Darwin said everyone calls him T. Money now.”

“That’s stupid.”

“So, look,” she continued. “He was like, ’T. Money is trying to holler at Cassidy, so why don’t me and you step away for a minute, give ’em some space.’”

“And you actually did it? How could you, Rikki?”

“You’re really mad, aren’t you?”

“I cannot believe you did that to me.”

“My bad.”

“Whatever.”

“But Travis
is
cuter now, ain’t he?”

“Who cares, Rikki?
Who
cares?”

“He said he bought you some ice cream,” she pointed out.

“So.”

“Well, maybe—”

“Where’d you go with Darwin?”

“Over by the pond.”

“I cannot believe you left me.”

“We gotta go to that party, cool?” Rikki twisted around to face me. “If Travis messes with you, I’ll knock him upside his head. We
have
to go to that pool party, Cassidy.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“Everybody is gonna be there. Forget Travis. Oh, and guess what?”

“What?”

“Darwin said that Lane Benson is going to Clara Ellis this year too.”

I felt a pang in my chest. And then I remembered that it didn’t matter if Lane Benson was going to another school. In fact, it was a good thing that she was going to Clara Ellis, because
I
was going to King.

Maybe things would be more different this year than I’d ever imagined. With Lane Benson gone, maybe Yolanda, Whitney, and even that shady Shantal would start talking to me again, let me eat with them at lunch like we all used to before Lane turned everybody against me. Maybe I wouldn’t even need Rikki.

I saw Mary making her way back up the hill, and I could not possibly have been any happier.

Rikki saw Mary coming too, and said, “Here she comes.”

But I was determined to sit in silence.

With a hint of desperation in her voice, Rikki said, “Come
on,
all right? We have to go to that party, Cassidy. We’ll say we’re going to the library, ’k?”

I exhaled. “Like I said, you don’t need me to go.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Okay. Fine, then.”

Silence. And more silence.

“Cassidy, come on,” she eventually started in again. “If I see Lane Benson, with her giraffe-looking self, I’ll pop her.”

“I am ignoring you,”
I sang.

Rikki turned back around in a huff. “You know what? I
will
go by myself. I’m not gonna beg you.”