Love Me (28 page)

‘What? Just 'cause I'm white?'

‘No. 'Cause you're a moron, that's why!'

‘What? Are you jealous or somefing?'

‘Fuck off.'

‘You know what your problem is?' she says. ‘You're a bloody fake! Sitting around here with him,' she points at Spanish with her chin, ‘when—'

‘OK, OK, OK,' says Zed, ‘it's getting way too hype in here, man. Just chill the fuck
out
!'

‘There are stereotypes about everybody!' Max says with a red spot flowering on each cheek and eyes glistening. ‘Everybody gets judged. People think I'm dumb 'cause I'm blonde and skinny and women hate me. They all hate me straight away before I've said anything. They assume I'm a gold digger or stuck up or whatever and they don't even listen . . .'

‘Man this is killing my high,' says Zed. ‘Max, can you relax, please?'

‘I can't believe,' I tell her, ‘you'd try and equate the problems of an entire race to you and your petty problems! Give me a break! None of that shit will ever be a barrier to you—'

‘Oy! Don't you dare sit there and judge my problems, mate! You've got no bloody idea! All the bloody fucking bookers, they're like, you don't look different enough! You're not edgy enough, exotic enough! You're too fucking fat! ME!
Fat
?'

‘SHUT UP, Max!' I say. ‘Nobody wants to hear it, OK? Shut your fucking mouth. You are arrogant as hell if you think that everyone's supposed to want you or like you! That's exactly what I was talking about because—'

And then we both gasp and jump up in the air because Zed's thrown half a jug of ice-water on us.

‘You prick!' yells Max, wiping her face. I begin laughing and can't stop, every emotion rushing out of me in giggles and snorts. Water runs down my face. My hair is ruined. Zed starts to laugh as well. ‘I'm sorry y'all,' he says.

‘Eden,' says Spanish. ‘We getting outta here, man.'

‘You still coming to J'Ouvert with us though, right?' Zed says to me. ‘You been talking about it all summer.'

‘Yeah, definitely,' I say, despite Spanish's audible disapproval.

‘Man, fuck juvay or whatever it's called! Let's go, woman.'

‘
WHAT THE HELL
is wrong with you?' I ask Spanish, struggling to catch up with his quick pace. I've never seen him walk fast before.

‘Nothing. I've just been sitting in a hot, un-air-conditioned house in midsummer with a couple of assholes for two or three hours. No big damn deal.'

‘I thought you didn't get hot?'

‘Have,' he stops, ‘you seen me fasting lately?'

I say nothing. He turns back round and starts walking toward the van.

‘Where are we going?'

‘Shit! I don't know! Just have a coffee or watch a film or whatever it is that people do to kill time between fucking.'

‘You're crazy,' I tell him, resigned. I can't go back now anyway. I don't want to. I couldn't breathe. He takes my hand in his, then lets go. Drapes his arm around my shoulder, my neck.

‘Crazy about
you
,' he says.

And out here, Brooklyn is getting ready for a party, singing naked in front of the mirror, brushing her hair, glittering. You can feel it. All the radios are singing out with soca, calypso, zouk, cadasse, reggae, bashment. You can feel the carnival coming, feel it in your hips.
J'Ouvert. Dimanche gras.
Fat Sunday, the night before the Labor Day parade. There are more people out on the streets than usual, standing or sitting around in clumps, doing all those things city-dwellers do. Buying and selling, telling jokes, telling lies, suffering,
surviving. Tomorrow, summer will be over. Tonight they won't sleep.

Spanish and I jump in the van and go to Fort Greene, a bistro on DeKalb Avenue. We frown and sigh at each other, and hold hands. We order posh burgers with ‘pommefrites' instead of fries.

He stares at me while we wait for the food. ‘You are so gorgeous,' he says.

I smile. Who can be mad at that? ‘Thank you.'

‘All of creation is gorgeous tonight,' he sighs. ‘Especially now I'm away from Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum back in Flatbush.'

I shake my head and laugh and try not to think about Zed and all that newly disclosed drama about his record deal. I don't understand him.

‘You know, I think I'm starting to understand why you take mushrooms,' I say to Spanish. ‘Trying to break the world open, right?'

‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess.'

‘It's like the world is so small these days. And you kind of think, there must be more to it all. You can sense it, but can't see it 'cause we live in a world where we supposedly can explain everything but the truth is, we can't explain
anything
. Not really. You have to try and break the world open a little bit otherwise life is just a parade of commercial breaks and one dumb aimless relationship after another and a job you're doing just for the money.'

‘The big “why”, huh?' he grins. ‘Well, maybe it's hard to be a human, period, but right now it's harder to be a black human because we've bought into so many of the boxes people have made for us.'

‘TVs and coffins,' I say as a waiter comes outside to the table with one beefburger for Spanish and a salmon burger for me.

He laughs and takes a bite. ‘Exactly! Mmm . . . this is good. Damn, girl! I can't believe you not only got me eating additives, you got me eating
meat
.' He gives me a glance that's half fond and half accusatory. I realise that it's always likely to be that way with him. He's grateful and angry, as if I broke his legs and then bought him a wheelchair.

‘I haven't got you doing anything!' I say, wiping ketchup off my fingers. ‘You're a grown-up.'

He looks right into me, seeming to pick up on my irritation. ‘You're right,' he says. ‘You're right.' Then suddenly, ‘Eden . . . I'm really sorry about the other day with my mom. It must have been really awkward for you.'

‘No, really, don't worry.'

‘I just don't get it.' He shakes his head. ‘These people who are supposed to be my
family
. . . They got nothing to do with me! You know what I mean? We have nothing to do with each other. It's not like I'm the only mixed kid in the universe, you know?' A thin laugh. ‘Damn, it's not unusual. Maybe it's 'cause these people are just plain fucked up.'

‘But your mom obviously loves you to pieces, Spanish. She came to see you! She keeps a scrapbook. Not to mention the fact that she bought you the apartment. That doesn't look so fucked up from where I'm standing.'

‘It's actually the whole house. The guy downstairs is my tenant.'

I raise my eyebrows.

‘It ain't shit though. She's married to this big-shot lawyer guy now and money isn't an issue. Buying that old house in Bed-Stuy was like spending five dollars to him. Now they don't have to feel guilty
and
they made a solid investment.' He's quiet for a moment. ‘Do you know how long it's been since I spoke to my real father?'

I wait.

‘Seven years, ma.'

‘Damn.'

‘And even then, I had to track him down. He's never remembered my birthday in his life. He never made it to my high school or college graduation. I only ever really got her to tell me the story one time, about how they met in high school and he kept asking her out until she said yes, then got her pregnant in their senior year. It's really funny how she says that, he got her pregnant. Like she wasn't even there at the time,' he laughs. ‘Oldest story ever told. Her family rejected her because she was carrying a little black kid, and apparently my father's family wouldn't really accept her either. So it was tough for them. My dad started dealing drugs, got caught when I was two years old. He went to prison for three years.'

‘God.'

‘When he came out, he wanted nothing to do with us.'

I clear my throat. ‘Why?'

‘'Cause he'd started studying in jail, joined the Nation of Islam. He told my mother he realised she was a mistake, a product of his ignorance. Yeah, he'd send money now and again when I was growing up, but he stayed away.

‘He's remarried now with a black woman and four children – my brothers and sisters – that I've never met. Fuckin' ironic ain't it? I bet I'm the most pro-black child the bastard ever had. I can't remember my parents ever being together. It's like they just made me and then came back to their senses.'

‘Spanish,' I say. ‘Came back to their senses? Why would you say that? Sometimes shit just doesn't work. It doesn't mean you're a mistake. How can you believe what you believe and say that? Even if they didn't plan you, somebody did. Maybe you even planned yourself.'

When I finally reach over, the tips of my fingers barely
graze his curls and he sighs deeply and once again I feel like he needs earth, an anchor . . . and I want to tell him that I have a problem even holding onto myself most of the time. We eat our food in a companionable silence for a while, watching people walk by.

And then his posture changes completely and I follow his gaze to a group of young men standing by the door to the cafe. ‘Pretty, isn't she?' he says to them with cartoonish suddenness. The vibe is instantly sour. His eyebrows are low, his jaw hard.

‘Spanish!' All the breath leaves my body.

‘Excuse me?' says a man with floppy blond hair. His friends all give each other confused looks and beer-slack grins. ‘Are you talking to me?'

‘You see something you like, white boy? I asked you a fucking question.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about, man.'

‘Do,' Spanish enunciates carefully, ‘you
see
. Something. You like? What? You thought I didn't see you staring at my girlfriend?'

‘Spanish,' I hiss. ‘Please . . .'

‘Dude, you need to relax,' says another guy in a polo shirt and a cap.

Spanish stands up, shaking my hand off his arm. ‘I am relaxed. When I'm not relaxed you gon' fucking know about it. I'm just letting you know I saw your ass.'

‘Come on,' says someone else from the group. ‘Forget this shit, man. Let's get out of here. There aren't any free tables, anyway.'

‘Yeah, that's right,' says Spanish, staring them all down like he can take them by himself. ‘Get the fuck out of here.'

I look down at my hands as they file past our table, too embarrassed to look up. I don't until they're several yards
away. Faintly I hear them arguing. A hot-head in the group thinks Spanish should have got jumped on.

‘Spanish! What the hell was that? I can't believe what just happened . . .'

‘They were fucking disrespectful, man! I hate what's happening to Fort Greene nowadays! A bunch of white-bread yuppies just move on into the area and think they run shit! Start looking at black people all crazy . . .'

‘I didn't see them look at me! And even if they did, so what? I'm with you, right? We're eating dinner and you lose it because somebody
looked
at me? Why would you act like that? Maybe you really shouldn't eat additives anymore.'

‘Maybe you shouldn't wear that dress.'

‘You liked this dress earlier.'

‘Yeah, well that was different.'

I put down my knife and fork. ‘I'm heading back to my aunt's house to get ready for J'Ouvert.'

Spanish shakes his head, sets his jaw ready to say something.

‘I'm heading back,' I tell him. ‘You can either drive me back, or you can stay here with the yuppies. Your choice.'

I REMEMBER A
conversation I had with Dominic one humid night he came over to my aunt's house, looking for my mum. We'd grown quite close in the weeks since I'd been in New York. Dominic bought Zed and I lunch a few times, helped us cover for a night out at a club and, to top it off, got Zed some work experience at a recording studio. He was our favourite adult, and the only one who really knew how much I loved Zed. I'd never met anyone like him before.

On that particular night, Zed was out with some of his guy friends in Harlem and I was bored. I wandered away from the TV and outside to where he was sitting in the back yard, wrapping up what seemed like a fairly heated phone conversation with my mum. He hung up and stared at the phone like he wanted to smash it, then put it in his pocket.

The sun was beginning to fade orange and I looked over, struck by his profile. My mother being with a man like that made her different somehow. Even less motherly. He was like the Love Interest in movies, a leading man and not just The Dad character like my father was.

‘Love is strange,' he said.

I didn't want to interrupt straight away because it didn't feel like he was even speaking to me. But eventually he swung his face around and smiled at me like he heard all my hormone-ridden thoughts about Zed and understood. He had an understanding face. I smiled back and didn't say
anything. I didn't know anything about love apart from the fact I was in it.

‘It can drive you crazy if you don't manage it the right way, you know, Eden?' he said. ‘It's like you wanna just,' he squinted into the sky, ‘freeze this moment that makes you so happy, but you can't. You can't own it because the feeling is a person. And you can't own a person, can you?'

It sounded like a real question. ‘No?' I said.

‘No,' he confirmed. ‘But how do you keep from either walking away or locking them in a room with you for ever? How do you live with so much uncertainty? It's like your heart grows legs, climbs out of your body and goes walking about on its own. In traffic!'

He made a little walking gesture on his knee with two fingers and I laughed, because he was saying all of this with a very light tone. And being a particularly self-obsessed teenager, I was just thinking about me and Zed, and about how, yeah . . .