Sweet 16 to Life (8 page)

“Let's go back to Michelle and her really bad taste in guys. How is Eddie connected to Cisco?”

“They aren't yet, but Cisco is trying to get in on Big Mama's Numbers game, too. He figures if he can make friends with Eddie, he can get Eddie to talk his dad into joining up with Big Mama. Then Cisco would be in on the ground floor.”

My neighborhood criminals are an entrepreneurial bunch! But if Eddie and his dad haven't joined the dark side, maybe I can find a way to help them stay straight. I mean, right after I figure out what's up with MJ and her mystery man, and why my mother is so afraid to tell me about the man known as my father.

After Tasha and I dish on Michelle and her questionable boyfriend choices over the last of the pizza, she heads home. I wait half an hour before I walk over to Michelle's place, when I know Tasha will be glued to the TV and
Entertainment Tonight.
She even loves gossip about people she doesn't know. Tasha could have been helpful in getting Michelle to open up, but she knows me too well not to know I'm snooping. I still think it's best to keep my investigation on the quiet until I figure out what MJ is lying about, because I know she's lying about something.

By now it's dark out, but even before I walk down my steps I can see people standing on Michelle's porch, thanks to a full moon and her porch light being turned on. Instead of going over there, I stay out of sight and watch from behind a minivan parked on my side of the street. I've spotted Michelle and I'm wondering if one of the two guys is Cisco. If they move a little closer to the porch light, I'll be able to get a good look at his face. I'll probably need to have a conversation with him at some point, scary as that sounds. Then one guy shifts, turning his back to the street, and wouldn't you know—he's wearing that same damn hoodie, all lit up like the moon is his personal spotlight.

I
t's a good thing I don't have a driver's license yet, or a car, because after three nights in a row of almost zero sleep, I would be a menace on the road. As it is, I'm a danger to myself. I haven't even left the house and I've already required bandages (cut my finger slicing a bagel), an ice water bath for the other hand (poured hot coffee on it while trying to get some into a cup), and tripped over my own feet twice. All because I was awake most of the night worried about MJ and who she may or may not be seeing. If she's going out with someone who'd hang out with an associate of Donnell DTS, then she's in trouble. Before I helped bust him, Donnell was using MJ to get connected to her old gang. Now she's into something with Lux. MJ's saved my butt a few times, and it's more than a theory that I need to save her from herself. And the penal system.

Lana did another disappearing act on me this morning, still in evasion mode. There's another twenty on the table, but no note this time. I guess she figures by now I know the game she's playing. Under the twenty is a manila folder. With the few uninjured fingers I have left, I open it to find the report from MJ's house fire. What I find in it doesn't help me at all. In fact, the report puts the final touch on what has already been a very bad day and it isn't even seven o'clock in the morning. The report confirms what MJ has been telling me all along—the fire was started by hot embers igniting a flammable substance on the back porch.

 

At the end of seventh period, I find Marco waiting outside my classroom. I see him before he spots me in the crowd of kids trying to squeeze out the door at the same time. It's the last class of the last day before Thanksgiving break, so it's crazy in the hallway right now. He's leaning against a row of lockers, his tie already loosened at the neck, the top button of his oxford shirt undone. He makes dress code violation look very good. I wonder how he managed to get out of his last class before bell.

As he watches the crowd in the doorway, just the idea of him looking for me makes my heart race—even if it's just because he wants to copy my French notes or something academic. Even if he turned the tables on me and called me out as the one who's self-absorbed. When he catches my eye, he smiles and my poor heart can barely take it. Bad hormones, bad.
Can't have him, we're just friends. Can't have him, we're just friends.
I figure if I repeat this enough times, I'll eventually believe it.

“Hey, I'm glad I caught you,” he says when I finally make my way across the hall through the throng of kids. “Look, Chanti, after the way our last two conversations have gone, I'd understand if you're avoiding me. But I don't want you to.” He reaches out to touch my face but pulls his hand back at the last minute, then laughs awkwardly. “I mean, we're not together, but we can still be friends, right? We were friends first.”

“Technically we were friends at least twice as long as we were more than that. The other part was so short we could pretend it never happened.”

“No, it happened,” he says, and damn if he doesn't look at me that way that makes me crazy for him. “It would probably still be happening if . . . well, I guess that's old news, right?”

“Right.”

“The main thing I wanted to tell you is we can still hang out. I can give you a ride home tonight if you need one, but you'd have to kill some time before and after.”

As much as I could just stand there and listen to Marco talk about, oh, anything, he is making no sense at all. “Before and after
what
?” I ask.

“The game tonight. You're coming, right?”

“I completely forgot there was a game.” What is it with guys and football? Okay, so Marco actually plays, but that's one perk of us being just friends—I no longer have to go to his games. Which reminds me—I need to text Reginald. “Won't Angelique be there to cheer you on?”

“Yeah, she's coming,” Marco says, looking a little disappointed if I'm reading him right. I readjust about everybody right except Marco. He makes it hard for me to be objective. “I just thought maybe you'd be there, too. It would be nice to see another friendly face in the stands when I make the game-winning touchdown.”

“Oh, I see you have big plans. Does the other team know?”

“They will in about four hours. So I can't talk you into staying?”

He probably could if I didn't have to watch him leave with another girl. But wait—he's offering me a ride home.

“If I stayed, Angelique probably wouldn't appreciate you leaving with me.”

“I'm giving her a ride home, too.”

“What?”

“She'll get a ride to the game, then we can all leave together. We all have to go to Denver Heights anyway.”

Seriously, are guys really this clueless? As much as I hate to admit, the two times I've been around Angelique, she seemed genuinely nice. But even the nicest girl won't want to include a thirty-minute ride with her boyfriend and his ex on her date-night agenda.

“And you think this is a good idea because . . . ?”

“I think Angelique would be more comfortable with the idea of you and I being friends if she could meet you, I mean really meet you.”

Comfortable
. Now it hits me why Marco always goes back to Angelique and why the most we can hope for is ‘just friends.' She's
comfortable
, not remotely dangerous, and his parents probably love her. Angelique is the anti-Chanti.

“I imagine Angelique isn't loving our platonic friendship thing,” I say, already knowing the answer. I don't blame her. No girl is that nice, and I'll suspect any who claim to be.

“Yeah, but I don't want this to be a problem.”

“Neither do I, which is why I'd better stick to my original plans for the night. Too many people in your world have beef with me, Marco. First your parents, now your girlfriend. And I totally get why Angelique has beef—I was the same way when we were together and you were still friends with her.”

“So you have plans for tonight?” Marco asks, apparently only hearing the first part of what I just said.

Suddenly I feel brave, or at least fool myself into thinking I do, and say the thing I've wanted to ever since he reminded me about his cousin.

“Marco, you were right the other day. About David, I mean. I wouldn't have stopped sleuthing, but not because it's more important to me than you. It's
just as
important, and not because I get my thrills from it. It's because I can help people. Just like you're helping your cousin. And now I totally get why being with me can cause your family problems. Maybe even just being friends is dangerous.”

“No, just friends is good,” Marco says, taking my hand and holding it for just a second before letting go. “Someone has to look out for you. You keep doing this detective thing, at some point, you're going to get into trouble. I don't have to like it, but at least I'll know what you're up to.”

“Thanks,” I say, and kiss him lightly on the cheek. It isn't much, but now that I know this is it, that there's no more possibility of us being together, regardless of how much I daydream about him during chemistry class or on the bus rides home—or all the time—I need a good-bye kiss.

“I won't see you until after the break, I guess.”

“I guess,” I say, realizing maybe we're both going to have a hard time adjusting to our new and confirmed status.

“A week is a lot of time for you to get into some kind of trouble . . . you know, that whole situation with your friend MJ.”

“I'll be fine. Maybe I'll have it solved by the time we come back from break.”

“You probably will. But if you need help or get into something, hit me up, okay? I'll be around.”

He turns to leave, heading for the gym.

“Good luck tonight,” I say, but he's too far away to hear me.

 

It wasn't a lie when I told Marco I had plans, but they still don't involve Reginald, though I briefly considered his offer for this weekend. Even if it's football, it could fill the time I usually reserve for thinking about Marco, and might even lead to a date for my birthday. But I ended up texting Reginald that while I appreciated the offer, it's still too soon after my breakup with Marco. Besides, if I can't spend my birthday with the boy I really want, spending it with a boy I barely know won't make it any better.

During lunch break, I had texted Michelle that we needed to talk. She agreed, but only after I offered a bribe, which I'm holding now as I ring her doorbell. When Michelle opens her door, she takes the box of cupcakes from my hands without so much as a hello, like a sugar fiend in need of a fix.

“Oh my God, I love these things. I didn't know you went to school near this place. My mom took me shopping at that mall over there and we had these cupcakes on a splurge. It's kind of crazy to buy a single cupcake for the price you could make two dozen at home, but these things are incredible.”

I let her get all of that out before I tell her why I'm here.

“So the reason I wanted to talk to you—”

“I need milk. Wait—you don't want one, do you? Because you only brought four.”

“No, they're all for you,” I say, following her to the kitchen.

She's a little ungrateful considering I spent most of my pizza money on those cupcakes. She doesn't need to know I originally bought a half dozen for her, but ate two on the bus home, sneaking bites behind my Western Civ notebook since it's against the rules to eat on the bus. Now that I'm watching her pour a glass of milk, I'm wishing I'd showed some restraint and waited to have mine with milk, too.

“These are so effing good,” Michelle says. Sometimes Michelle can curse like a sailor—well, if she actually used curse words, which she doesn't, out of respect for her preacher father. “So what do you want? Must be something good to bring me these.”

“You know I'm friends with MJ Cooper. Well, I—”

“Really?” Michelle says, interrupting me between bites of the red velvet cupcake. “I thought y'all didn't hang out anymore. Any time I see her and you in the same place, seems like she makes a point of avoiding you. Except at that fire. Y'all were having a good ol' conversation then.”

“Yeah, well, we had some issues, but those are all worked out and now I'm worried about her because—”

“You ought to be worried from what I hear,” Michelle says. I guess I was wrong about those cupcakes keeping her focused.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that she likes to keep to herself and you can't stay out of people's business.”

“Look, Michelle, what did you expect me to do about that whole Donnell situation?”

“Oh, I'm over Donnell, waaay over,” she says, looking at me like she has a secret she's dying to tell. I oblige.

“I was on my way over to your house last night about six o'clock when I saw you and a couple of guys on your porch. Is one those dudes the reason you're way over Donnell?”

“You know Cisco, right? Of course you do—you got frickin' round-the-clock surveillance on everyone on Aurora Avenue you think is a criminal.”

“Well, my surveillance game must be weak because I never heard of Cisco until Tasha mentioned him.”

“Why would Tasha be mentioning Cisco?” Michelle demands, her voice going up a few octaves like it always does when she gets excited, which is why Tasha and I sometimes call her Squeak.

“I asked her about the latest gossip and she told me you were talking to somebody named Cisco, like I'm supposed to know who that is.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, appeased.

“So what's his story?

“Why should I tell you? These cupcakes are good,” Michelle says, licking frosting off her fingers, “but they aren't that good.”

“Seems like you might be really interested in this guy. It would be too bad if your father found out about your new crush before you even have a first date.”

“Chanti, you wouldn't.”

“You're right—I wouldn't, if you could just give me a little harmless information.”

Michelle looks like she's considering shoving that cupcake in my face.

“I'm afraid to say. You might turn him into the police.”

“If you want to run with criminals, that's your business.”

“Donnell was my business, and now he's in jail.”

“Donnell was trying to set me and my boyfriend up for a crime we didn't commit—and oh, yeah—
kill
me.”

“That's true, I suppose, although it's your word against his.”

“Girl, please. I'm not interested in Cisco. I was wondering about the other guy I saw on your porch last night. Is he Cisco's new second?”

“Really? He didn't seem like your type, although I've never seen you with a boy so I have no idea what your type is.”

“Anyway . . .”

“He was just some random dude who asked Cisco for some directions and left like a minute later.”

I suppose that's possible. The minute I recognized that hoodie, I went back inside the house because I didn't want him to think I was checking him out. Right now I'm working on the assumption Lux saw me the day of the fire, and that he was the random dude on Michelle's porch last night even though I never saw his face. That jacket just keeps appearing too many times for it not to have been worn by Lux every time I've seen it. But Michelle's explanation of why Lux was there is pretty lame. He couldn't ask his alleged girlfriend—the one who lives right across the street—for directions? Michelle could be lying, but I doubt it since I can't imagine what she'd have to gain from it.