Losing Romeo (17 page)

Kwan—My Girl

I'm
so nervous that you would've thought it was my first date. I don't know how many times I changed clothes before I settled on some basic black jeans and a classic white Sean John T-shirt. I want to be fly without looking like I'm trying too hard. I'm comfortable rolling through the hood because what so few people know down here is that I grew up in the Bronx. My family hustled a dollar out of fifteen cents to get where we are today, and none of us will ever forget where we came from.

Cruising into the Oak Hill Apartments and leaning to the side behind my white-on-silver Escalade, I toss a few deuces to a couple of brothers hugged up on the corner and quickly find a parking space outside Anjenai's apartment building. After shutting off the engine, I flip down the visor and check my mug shot to make sure everything is everything before sliding out from behind the wheel and strutting my way up to Anjenai's place. I may be cool on the outside, but trust me, on the inside my heart is racing
and I can hardly get my thoughts together. Maybe if I just stick with short sentences, I'll do all right.

Outside Anjenai's door, I cough a few times to clear my throat and stop myself from knocking at least twice because I need a few extra minutes to get myself together.

“Are you Anje's date?” a little voice echoes through the empty hallway.

I look around and finally see two little boys sitting on the staircase with a basketball between them.

“Oh, hello,” I greet them, smiling. “I didn't see you there.”

The two boys gaze at me. Neither looks too impressed. I instantly like them.

“Where are you taking our sister?” the elder of the two asks.

I clear my throat again. “To this place called Club Zero. You probably never heard of it.”

“I've heard of Club Zero,” the elder one says, crossing his arms.

“Yeah. Me, too,” his mini-me co-signs.

“We may be kids, but we know a few things.”

“Ah. Is that right?” I ask, walking over to the staircase and then leaning against the rail. “If that's the case, then maybe you can help me out?”

The younger instantly grows suspicious. “Help you out how?”

“Well, clearly, I like your sister, and I'm sure that she's had plenty of boyfriends—”

“Yeah, right!” the boys spit in unison and then crack themselves up laughing.

“What are you two named?”

The younger opens his mouth only to have his brother slap a hand over it. “That depends on who wants to know.”

“Fair enough.” I bob my head. “My name is Kwan.” I stretch out a hand. “I go to school with your sister.”

The elder one looks at my hand and then peers up at me for a long time before he finally slides his small hand into mine. “Hosea,” he says. “And this here is Edafe. He's the baby.”

Edafe pushes Hosea's hand off his mouth. “I'm not a baby!”

“Are, too.” Hosea rolls his eyes.

“Nuh-uh. I'm six years old. I'm a big boy. Even Granny says so!”

Now these two have cracked me up, but before we can continue this conversation, their apartment door jerks open and Anjenai pokes her head out into the hallway. “Hosea and Edafe, Granny wants—OH! Hey!” Her eyes completely light up when they land on me.

“Hey, yourself,” I respond, feeling my own face split into a double-decker smile.

She eases out into the hall a little bit. “I hope those two aren't giving you a hard time,” she says and then gives them a look that clearly states that they better not be.

“No. No. We were just getting to know one another.” I glance down at them. “Ain't that right, boys?”

Two sets of shoulders shrug before popping up from the staircase and then running toward the apartment.

“Well, so much for that,” I say, feeling jilted. “I thought we were bonding.”

“Please don't take it personally,” she says. “They're weird like that.”

I bob my head again and then allow a comfortable silence to float between us while I stroll over to the door. I catch a whiff of something flowery clinging to her skin. “You smell nice.”

Those adorable dimples wink at me again. “Thanks.” We smile at each other for a while before she finally says, “I, uh, hope you don't mind but I kinda, sorta invited Kierra and Drake to come with us.”

Stunned, I blink at her.

“I know I should've asked you first, but I just found out that she was going through some really tough, personal things and I wanted her to get out so she can relax some. Please. Please say that you don't mind.”

She grabs my hand and gives me such an adorable puppy-dog expression that whatever disappointment I was feeling just melts away. “I don't mind,” I tell her, squeezing her hand back. My reward is another breathtaking smile. So far the date is off to a good start.

Anjenai invites me into the apartment and introduces me to her grandmother. I'm really good with grandmothers since I'm really close to my own. I am a little surprised when two more brothers, twins, come out from the back room and are forced to introduce themselves by their smiling grandmother. I keep the discussion light, tell her just the basics about myself before promising to have Anjenai home
by eleven o'clock on a school night. Next, we walk over to her girl Kierra's pad and pick her up. I realize I have seen Kierra around school and wonder if she's the same girl Chris has been bragging about. Of course I don't ask in front of her date—a dude I really don't care for. Despite my short time at Jackson High, I know exactly who Drake Brown is and what he does around the school.

“Yo, y'all ready to go?” I ask after all the introductions have been made. Everyone glances at each other, bobbing their heads. We head out the door and all pile into my ride. I was expecting an awkward situation once we're all situated, but that doesn't turn out to be the case. Anjenai and Kierra fall into simple chitchat, and then Drake and I join in.

Turns out that it's a good thing that Drake came along because I get completely turned around, trying to get over to the club on my own. When I checked the place out last time, I rode with Chris. Then the parking lot was, like, half-full. Tonight, the place is jam-packed. “I wonder what's going on tonight,” I say as I pull into a parking space.

“Are you kidding me?” Kierra says. “It was all over the school that Shadiq plans to battle you onstage tonight.”

Drake bobs his head. “True dat. I got fifty riding on Shadiq myself.” He cuts a look toward me. “Sorry, my man. I hardly know you, you understand.”

“Sure. Sure. No problem.” I roll my eyes.
Just great.
I thought this place was perfect for me to try to get my feet wet—work on perfecting my flow. It's one thing to spit out some rhythms trying to impress Anjenai—it's quite another
going head to head with some dude I barely know, thinking that I'm threatening his rep or something.

“Is everything all right?” Anjenai whispers over to me.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I lie, shutting off the engine. “I guess it is what it is.”

She gives me a look that tells me that she sees straight through my lie, but she's cool enough to let it go in front of her friends. However, when we climb out of the car and head toward the low-key club kitty-corner in an old strip mall, she leans over to my side and whispers, “You know, you don't
have
to do this. We can go somewhere else if you like.”

I'd like that very much, but we're here now and I definitely don't want anyone saying that I punked out. The only thing left to do is to grin and bear it. I glance down into Anjenai's upturned face and feel those familiar muscles start to tug at my heart. “It's cool,” I say and then swing my arm around her shoulders without thinking about it. It really could be an embarrassing moment, if she chooses to shrug it off. However, to my amazement, she instead tucks herself neatly under my arm and marches in lockstep next to me. I've got a feeling that this is going to be a pretty good date.

No sooner does that thought cross my mind than I look up to open the club door and standing right there in front of us are Romeo and Phoenix. If looks could kill, Anjenai and I would be a couple of chalk outlines right now. The funny part is, this dude is staring a hole in my head while his girl is standing right next to him. Talk about issues.

“Hey, what's up?” I ask just to mess with him. In my arm,
I feel Anjenai tense up a bit, but when I glance down at her, she's smiling up at me—dismissing this fool like yesterday's trash. Romeo just turns straight purple, but I look him dead in his face and dare him to say something. “Excuse us,” I say, brushing past him since he seems all tongue-tied and what have you.

Inside the club, the bumping bass immediately gets my heart pounding in the same hypnotic rhythm. Music has always had that effect on me. It's hard to explain, but all I know is that I need it as much as I need air to breathe. We quickly search around the room, looking for a good table, and finally find one sort of in the middle of everything.

“Is this all right?” I ask Anjenai.

She nods, but then she and Kierra go back to looking around the place like two kids at Disney World for the very first time.

“Y'all want something to drink?”

“Drink?” Anjenai asks, surprised. “They let us drink in here?”

I can't help laughing. “Nah. They don't serve
those
kinds of drinks. Non-alcoholic drinks.”

“Oh.” She looks a little disappointed. “Then I guess I'll get a Sprite.”

“One Sprite coming up.” I leave the table, but have a hard time making it over to the concessions for all the people stopping me and wishing me well. By the time I make it back, I see our party has expanded by one more person.

“Kwan, do you know my friend Nicole?”

I nod my head even though I don't think we've been properly introduced before. I just know that this little
evening for two has now expanded to five. One thing for sure is that no matter where I move I can still feel Romeo's stare burning a hole in the back of my head.

“I hope you don't mind my joining you guys. I just came to hear the battle tonight,” Nicole says.

Everybody knew about this battle but me.
“Sure. Pop a squat.” I sit down next to Anjenai and place her drink down in front of her. “For you, sweetheart.”

Those adorable dimples reappear as she thanks me. Despite the crowded club and table, Anjenai and I huddle together and create our own private world so we can talk. She tells me about her life, losing her parents in a bad car accident three years ago and how she and her four brothers had to move in their grandmother's small apartment. I get the Cliff's-Notes history of her and the BFFs. I think it's cool to actually have friends you've known all your life. I don't really have a best friend that I can say that I'm totally down with. Acquaintances, yes. Friends, yes. But not the kind who have been with me through the kind of craziness that it sounds like her and her girlfriends have been through.

Time is just ticking away while we share stories and occasionally bob our heads in time to the music. When the club's DJ takes the stage and announces that it's time for the open-mike portion of the show, everyone jumps out their seats and crowds around the stage. It's time for me to do my thing. I'm both hyped and nervous at the same time. Anjenai picks up on this and leans over and whispers in my ear, “You're going to be great!”

I cock a smile, loving the fact that she has faith in a brother. Feeling comfortable now, I press a quick kiss against her right cheek, watch her blush and then stroll through the crowd to write my name on the DJ's list. Six brothers and one chick take the stage before me and to be truthful, each one of their games is wack. The first four are booed off like amateur night at the Apollo.

The DJ is getting closer to my name, and it occurs to me about the same time I hear some other people whispering that Shadiq is nowhere to be found. Is he not coming? Did he chicken out or just change his mind? I really don't know since I was the last to know we were supposed to be battling in the first place.

The dude before me gets a measure of applause before the DJ jumps back on the stage and takes the mike from him. “All right. All right. Not bad,” he says. Straight up I think I've heard this cat in a few ATL rap videos, but I have a hard time placing his moniker, DJ Spock. “We have one more name coming to the stage,” the DJ announces, and there's a clear murmur of confusion coursing through the crowd. “I'm told that the brother is new to the ATL area. So straight out of the Bronx, put your hands together and give this cat a big ATL welcome. Everyone, KWAN!”

I hop up onto the stage like Rocky about to go to battle with Apollo Creed. Everyone starts cheering even before I take the mike from the DJ. I have less than a second to find Anjenai's smiling face in the crowd before the beat drops and I lock the rhythm into my head.

I slow the beat to a 2/4 time.

I'm into my zone and I can really tell the crowd is feeling me.

I roll my hand along and the crowd joins in on the chorus. I find Anjenai's face in the crowd again, and she's singing and bobbing her head. Our eyes connect and the energy flowing between us is better than any performance high I've ever known. In that moment, I know that she is my girl and I'm her man.