The Summer Kitchen (25 page)

“I think that would be lovely,” she said, and I felt the air loosen up in my chest. “I think tomorrow we should all have a tea party in the summer kitchen for lunch.”

“Cool. Awesome.” I heard Opal hollering for me outside, and I knew we needed to head out anyway. Opal and me had sandwiches to take back to the apartments, and besides, Rusty was supposed to come get Kiki at two thirty, and I figured we’d better be home before then. Rusty wouldn’t like it if he didn’t know where me and Opal were, and of course Kiki couldn’t tell him, since all she did was sleep. And we still had to stop by the bookstore on the way home to get Opal a new book.

Opal hollered again, and I could hear her moving around outside the flower wall, trying to figure out what’d happened to us. “Hang on, Opal,” I said. “Here we come.” Mrs. Kaye opened the tunnel, and we climbed out. Opal clapped like we’d done a trick.

Opal and me said good-bye, and got the bag of sandwiches and Opal’s doll and book and Candy Land game, and headed off. Opal didn’t even fuss about leaving behind the little dishes or the puzzles. So long as she could keep her doll, she was okay.

On the way home, at the bookstore, we took a minute to show MJ how Opal had learned her book, and MJ said Opal was the best customer she ever had. Ever. That made Opal really happy, I think, because she wouldn’t leave until she sat there and had MJ read the new book to her.

When we got back to the apartments, Angel, Ronnie, and Boo weren’t on the steps. Opal wanted to read her book, so I put her inside and told her to stay right there. The bedroom door was open a little, which meant Kiki’d been up, but she wasn’t in the bathroom, so I figured she was probably lying around in bed.

I looked at the time and figured we had about thirty minutes before Rusty would show up, so I locked the door with the key and went out back to look for the other kids. They were down in the storm ditch, like usual. They had five little Mexican kids with them. As soon as Angel, Ronnie, and Boo saw me and the bag, they came running up. The Mexican kids hung back like they weren’t sure about me. But once they saw there was food, they came up, too. I gave them some, and they ran off with it, but in a minute they came back with more kids. They made a pretty good dent in the sandwiches. Angel, Ronnie, and Boo took a second one and unwrapped it, but a couple of the Mexican kids took a second one and, like, hid it under their T-shirts and stuff. I guessed they wanted to take it home, but they didn’t leave.

“Some dude come to your apartment,” Angel said after a while. She stopped to lick her fingers, which was gross, because they’d been playing in the slimy water again.

“Huh?” First I wondered if I heard her right, and then I thought about Kiki. If she was having some guy in our house when my brother was busting his butt trying to help her out, I was gonna kill her. “What guy? You mean my brother?” Maybe Rusty’d come home early today, and Kiki wasn’t even in the bedroom right now. Maybe she was already gone to work, which would mean Opal was alone in there, which wasn’t good.

Angel smacked her lips and wrinkled her nose at me like Tamara Powell used to on the playground. “No. Some dude, like, bangin’ on yo’ door. Some big ol’ white dude with long greezy gray hair. You know him? He ask was anyone there, and we keep tellin’ him no, but he don’ believe it. He come back beatin’ down the door four time. He drive ’round the block a couple time, then he come back. Drive ’round, come back.”

“What’d he want?” Long strings of hair blew across my face, so I pulled out the ponytail holder and started to gather it up again. It felt thick and damp in my hands, a little sweaty from the walk home.

Angel wiped her mouth on her shoulder and took another bite of her sandwich. “He lookin’ fo’ you brother girlfriend. If she sleepin’ in there, she deaf, she cain’t hear that.”

I had a brain flash of the way Kiki looked the night Rusty first brought her home. Her old man did that. He beat her up pretty good before he kicked her and Opal out. . . .

If Opal was in the apartment alone right now, and someone came pounding on the door, she wouldn’t know what to do. She’d think it was me. If she could work the lock, she might open the door. Maybe she’d already opened the door. . . .

“See? There he go again.” Angel pointed toward the road.

In the gap between buildings, a dented red and white pickup with monster tires passed over the bridge.

“He ga’ a big tuck,” Ronnie said, then called the man a word my mother would of busted my butt for.

My chest got tight and lunch rushed up my throat like dirty floodwater, and I tasted what was left of the tea party. What if Opal opened the door? Maybe he’d grab her to get to Kiki. Maybe he’d hurt her. Maybe he’d take them both off and kill them and leave them in a ditch somewhere, and it’d be some sad, terrible story on the news tomorrow.

My mind went haywire, and I had a flash of Opal’s little pink shoes dumped in the mud someplace.

Dropping the sandwiches, I took off down the storm drain, my feet splashing through the puddles and the clogs wobbling with every step. I tripped where the cement was cracked, my foot twisted sideways, and I fell hard, my arm skidding into a patch of water and slime. My hand slipped when I tried to get up, and for a minute I was in one of those dreams where you want to run, you need to run, but you can’t.

I have to get to Opal.

Angel hollered at me from behind, “Hey, where you goin’? You want yo’ bag?”

Kicking off the clogs, I scrambled onto my feet and took off again toward the gap between two of the buildings, where a gutter ditch ran through to the parking lot. My foot landed on a piece of glass, but I only felt it a little. All I could think was,
Please, please, please, God. Please. I have to get to Opal. I have to get there first.

Running through the gap, I couldn’t see anything but brick. I tried to listen, tried to think if I could hear the truck, or the man yelling or pounding on the door, but all I could hear was the air coming in and out of my mouth, and blood rushing in my ears, and my heart banging so hard against my ribs it felt like they’d bust. I saw the sunlight ahead at the end of the buildings. I ran toward it, and into it, and the pavement was hot under my feet, the tar sticky and thick.

The wind caught my hair and blew it over my face. I quit running, pushed the hair away, and looked around the parking lot. The truck pulled in off the road, slow, like the driver was looking for something. He stopped near the Dumpster, the brakes squealing out a sound that echoed against the walls and filled the air for a minute before it died to just the engine rumbling.

Across the street, Monk and his friends were hanging around in front of the convenience store. When the man got out and left the truck engine on, the wannabes started pointing and punching each other, like they were trying to get up the guts to come jack the truck.

The man left the door open and went to get something from the back.

I kept walking toward our apartment, acting like it was any other day and I was coming home from someplace.

The ring of metal against metal came from the truck, and from the corner of my eye I saw the man start toward me with what looked like a crowbar. I swallowed hard as I passed Angel’s apartment. For once, I wished the Mexicans were having a party, or Charlie would come out to hassle me about the rent. He probably had his TV turned up so loud, Kiki’s boyfriend could bash me in the head and he’d never hear it. The wannabes would be the only ones who knew what happened, and they wouldn’t care.

“Hey!” the man yelled.

I stopped at the bottom of our steps, put both hands on the rail and one foot on the step, so he couldn’t go past me without pushing me out of the way. Part of me said he wouldn’t do it—not right here in the daylight, and to some girl he didn’t even know. He probably just beat up his girlfriends. But part of me was knotted up like one of those shoelaces you’ll never get untied.

I looked over my shoulder, like I didn’t know what in the world he wanted. Angel and Ronnie were standing in the shadow between the buildings. They must of left Boo somewhere. Angel watched me with her arms crossed over the sandwich bag and her eyes great big. If the guy did something, maybe she’d holler for the police, or run out to the street at least.

“Where’zzz she at?” The man shook the metal bar at me. He stopped a few steps away, and I was glad, because I was trying really hard not to back up. He stunk of beer and cigarettes, even with the wind blowing. I hoped Monk would get up the guts to jack the truck. That’d get Kiki’s boyfriend and his tire iron out of here anyhow.

“Where’s who at?” I gave him a snotty look, so he’d know he was bothering me, and I wasn’t scared of him.

He called Kiki a bunch of sick names, then finally told me she better come out.

I acted like I heard that kind of talk every day, but I wondered if he could see the hammer pounding inside my chest. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My mind flashed a picture of Opal coming out the door.

No, Opal. No. Don’t come out.

“Kiki!” He staggered backward a few steps and the tire iron caught the sun. “You tell her ta geddd-out-here. You tell ’er if she’s with some . . . body . . . I’ll kill ’em both.”

A new worry zipped in my ear and buzzed around my mind. If Rusty came home, he’d get in a fight with the guy for sure. Rusty was tall and he was a lot younger, but this guy was huge, and besides, he had a tire iron. Rusty’d be just stupid enough to take it on.

“There isn’t anybody in there,” I shouted, pointing to the door I hoped Opal wouldn’t open. “Except my mama, and she’s sick in bed with cancer, and you’re bothering her out here with your stupid noisy truck. Go away!” The man kind of looked surprised, so I went with it. “You better leave right now, because the manager already called the police. My brother’s on the police force, so we go right to the top of the list. In about two and a half minutes, you’re gonna get arrested for about five different things. Leave us alone.”

He almost seemed convinced, and then the door rattled, and he looked at it. “She’zzz-zin there!” He took a step closer, staggered around, and hollered. “Kikiiii! Kiki! Come-mon out here, baby. I’m sor-reee. You just pusss-shed the button the other day. You just pusss-shed . . . the button. It’s okay, ba-baby. It’s allll right. Where’s Opal? C’mon out herrr-re, Opal, an’ see Uncle Len. Got sssome can-deee . . . for ya . . .” His voice turned sticky sweet in a way that was fake and sickening. “C’mere, Opal. C’mon out nnnow. You better-rrr come.”

No, Opal. No, no, no.
I glanced at the door, but nothing happened. Maybe it was just the wind that had rattled it. “I said there’s nobody in there but my mama. Go away before the police show up.”

Down at the end of the alley, a door opened on one of the apartments where the Mexicans lived. I checked over my shoulder, and the pretty girl with the baby was peeking out. Between the buildings, the Mexican kids squeezed past Ronnie and made a run for it, and the pretty girl pulled them inside with her, then stood watching. Maybe I’d get lucky and she’d call the police. They probably didn’t have a phone, though, and besides that, if the police did come, they’d ask all kinds of questions. No telling where me and Opal and Rusty would end up then.

The window blind moved on the crippled lady’s apartment, but there wasn’t much chance she’d come out. She never did.

When I turned back around, Monk and his gang had crossed the street and they were sort of standing by the man’s truck. They weren’t messing with it, really. They were hanging around, looking at the truck, and
Uncle Len,
and me. Maybe they were trying to decide if they could grab some stuff and get away with it. There were papers and what looked like a wallet smushed in the corner of the dash.

I never thought I’d be glad to see those three stupid little wannabes, but I was.

Uncle Len came closer to me, and I smelled major beer breath and body stink.

Don’t back up,
I told myself.
Don’t back up.
I pointed at the wannabes and said, “Y’all better not mess with that truck.”

B.C. lifted his hands, grinned under his do-rag, and said, “Hey, it’s just sittin’ here with the do’ open. Maybe he don’ want it no mo’.”

Oh, thank you,
I thought.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having such a big mouth.

Uncle Len staggered back, fell sideways, landed against the steps, and roared, “You little punks touch my truck, I’ll knock your heads in!”

“Hey, you in the hood now,” B.C. said. “Dis my hood.”

Monk stuck his hand in his pocket and moved it around like maybe he had a knife in there. “Look to me like they three a’ us and one a’ you.”

Holding his hands up, B.C. moved his fingers like,
Come on.

Uncle Len pushed off the steps, and for a minute, I thought he was gonna take them up on it. I wasn’t sure who’d win. The wannabes would probably get their butts kicked.

“You better go before anything happens,” I said. “There’s no Kiki or Opal here. Just my mama. Go away!”

Uncle Len blinked hard like he’d got sleepy all of a sudden. He lowered the tire iron and kind of let it hang at his side, then he walked back to the truck. The wannabes moved out of reach, and stood there looking tough, which meant they were smarter than I thought. Uncle Len acted like he didn’t remember they were there. He just got in his truck, backed it over the curb until he hit the corner of the Dumpster, then put it in gear and took off. On the way out, he almost wrecked with somebody. The other car spun a doughnut and hit the curb as Uncle Len drove away.

The wannabes cheered, because they thought that was cool.

I didn’t wait for them to get done watching. I ran for the door, feeling like I was about to throw up. When I got it unlocked, I squeezed through, then shut it behind me, turned the lock, and made a beeline for the bathroom. I didn’t see Opal, or Kiki, or anybody. I just ran for the toilet and got to it barely in time to hurl everything from the tea party. Afterward, my mouth tasted sour, and I hung there waiting for the burning to pass. I wanted someone to come put a cool rag on the back of my neck and smooth my hair and tell me it’d be all right.