“I’m looking forward to it, Jonathan,” I said softly. “You make me feel alive again. I’ve needed that.”
“My pleasure,” he replied. “Truly my pleasure. Good night, Keisha.”
“Good night, Jonathan.” I fell asleep dreaming of paintings come alive with color and sound.
14
The next evening after school, I sat in Rhonda’s kitchen with Tyrone, Jalani, and Rhonda doing homework. We were in the same English class and the teacher wanted everybody to do a poetry project. Group projects are time wasters, as far I can tell, but teachers seem to like them because it takes so long to give the reports in class. We like them because they’re a real low-stress kind of assignment.
Tyrone thought poetry was stupid. Rhonda believed just the opposite. “I like poetry, Tyrone,” she told him as they searched for poems to put in our project book. “It makes the world look pretty.”
“You’re supposed to like it,” he countered. “You’re a girl.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Most of the poets, if you notice, are men!” I said.
“Why would a grown man want to write poetry?” Tyrone asked.
“Because maybe he was in love and he had no other way to tell the woman!” Rhonda answered in exasperation.
“He could have called her on the phone,” Tyrone said, spinning the book on his fingers like he spun his basket-ball. “It’s better with a basketball,” he mumbled to himself as the book went crashing to the floor. We cracked up.
“Most of these poems were written before they had telephones, stupid,” Jalani said as she typed stuff on her laptop.
“So how were you supposed to call up your girl?” he asked, teasing her.
“You stopped by her home, with flowers, after you had received permission from her father,” I explained, picking up the poetry book.
“Bummer. Too much trouble. You got anything to drink in your fridge?” he asked Rhonda. He got up and looked in the refrigerator for a soda.
“Wouldn’t you have done that for me?” Rhonda asked, teasing him. She grabbed the soda and shook it vigorously.
“You’re gonna make purple pop stains on your mama’s ceiling!” he warned as he grabbed the soda from her. “And yeah, I woulda done all that for you—and more! You’re worth it, baby. I would have crawled on my hands and knees and licked the floor in order to get permission to see you.”
“Now that’s romantic!” Jalani said. She and I smiled as Rhonda leaned over to kiss Tyrone on the cheek.
“How’d I get stuck in a group with a bunch of poetry-loving girls?” he moaned.
“You just one lucky dude,” I told him.
“You’re lucky you got me!” Rhonda teased.
He grabbed Rhonda and tried to kiss her, but she pulled away laughing and threatened to open the shaken can of soda in his face. “Let’s get back to work,” she reminded him.
He flopped back into a kitchen chair and sighed. “Seriously,” he complained, “math makes sense. Lines are straight. They form nice neat angles. They make squares or triangles. I like that. I can understand that. Poetry is full of squiggles and blips. Don’t make sense to me.”
“Most relationships don’t go in a straight line,” I tried to explain to him. “Poetry is about feelings, and relationships, and that’s really complicated.”
“But poetry is so hard! Why can’t they just say what they mean instead of all that symbolism and crap?”
“Actually, poetry is easier. It uses fewer words,” Jalani added.
“Huh? You’re not makin’ any sense.”
We were all trying to make him understand. Rhonda couldn’t do math like Tyrone could, so she understood his frustration. It was how she felt in math every day. So she tried to make him see. “Look at this newspaper article about these girls in Yugoslavia who got raped. It’s long and full of words,” Rhonda explained slowly.
“So? I understand that. That was a terrible thing that happened to them.”
“Stay with me here,” Rhonda continued, as she flipped through the poetry book. “Now read this poem here. ‘The mothers silently mourn with their weeping daughters.’ Eight words. Pure feeling. Do you get it?” she asked him hopefully.
“Yeah, makes me feel uncomfortable,” Tyrone said, shifting in his chair. “I hate thinkin’ about stuff like that.” He paced around the kitchen.
“So it works, right?” Jalani asked.
Tyrone refused to give in. “But what if I’d rather have information instead of feeling? I never seen no sports page done in poetry.”
“And you probably never will,” I said, trying to help. “But look at this picture of Michael Jordan making this shot. He’s three feet off the ground and the ball never touches the net. That’s beautiful. That’s poetry.”
“There’s no words,” Tyrone reminded me triumphantly.
“Not necessary. The feeling is there. That’s what poetry is.”
“So let’s just cut out pictures and get this project over with!” Tyrone suggested, tossing the book on the floor once more.
“No,” Rhonda insisted. “We gotta find words that are as clear as that picture—words that take away everything but the feeling and the beauty.”
“Then we ought to just put in a picture of you!” he said as he grabbed her and pulled her into the living room.
“Now that kiss was poetry!” we heard her say after a long silence. Me and Jalani sat quietly in the kitchen and giggled. They didn’t seem to care that we were sitting in the next room. “You are so fine, Rhonda. Now this is poetry I can deal with!” we heard him say.
Just then Rhonda heard her mother coming down the stairs, so she pulled away from Tyrone, and they rushed back into the kitchen. Tyrone bent his head in deep concentration in his book, while Rhonda looked at Jalani’s laptop and pretended to check a file. Her mother, who was no fool, took one look at us and declared, “Tyrone, you’d get a lot more out of that book if it weren’t upside-down.”
He looked up and sheepishly turned the book around. “I was going to show it to Rhonda, and I guess I sorta fell asleep.”
Rhonda started to laugh, but the look on her mother’s face cut the laughter short. “I know that you two care about each other,” her mother said bluntly. “And I know how good it feels when you’re young and you want each other like fire.” Rhonda had to bow her head and blush. Her mother had never been one to play around with words.
“But I want the two of you to consider the consequences. Sex is serious. And sex can be stupid. Be careful. That goes for you and Jalani, too, Keisha. You kids better think with your heads, not your other body parts.” With a final look at Rhonda that let her know she’d hear a lot more later on, her mother left the room. But she left the kitchen door open. We sat there in openmouthed amazement for a minute or two.
“Your mama don’t play!” Jalani said.
“You got that right,” I added.
“She’s right, you know,” Rhonda said quietly.
“I know,” Tyrone agreed, sighing. “It’s rough sometimes, though.” He shifted in the kitchen chair, scraping it hard on the floor.
“We’ve all been there, Tyrone,” I said, not sure how much he wanted to discuss.
“Not many dudes are as cool as you, Tyrone,” Rhonda said.
He smiled at her as if she were made of sweet caramel. “I ain’t embarrassed to tell your friends how I feel about you. You all tell each other everything on the phone anyway!” We laughed. He was right.
He said to Rhonda, “I liked you before I loved you, and I respected you before I needed you. I want to be proud of my lady when she walks down the aisle in that white dress. I want it to mean something real!”
“That was poetry what you just said,” Rhonda told him, blushing.
“It was?”
“That was pure emotion, Tyrone,” I said. “That’s poetry!”
“Hey, this poetry stuff is pretty deep. It’s not so bad!”
“You are one in a million, Tyrone.
I love you.” Rhonda was dancing around the kitchen like a firefly.
He whispered across the kitchen table, “You’re worth waiting for.” The phone rang then, shattering the mood. It was Gerald. Rhonda put him on the speaker phone.
“What’s up with the poetry posse?” Gerald asked cheerfully.
“Just chillin’,” Rhonda told him. “Studying with Tyrone here in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, right. I know how much studying you two be doing.”
“Hey, me and Keisha are here, too,” Jalani said. “We’re keeping them in line.” Gerald laughed.
“Besides, my mother comes in to get something out of the refrigerator every fifteen minutes,” Rhonda added.
“Is everybody going to the Valentine Dance?” Gerald asked.
“For sure, we’ll be there,” Rhonda replied, glancing at Tyrone who was now reading the sports section of the newspaper.
“What are you going to wear?” Jalani asked Rhonda.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe I can get something new. Something that will turn Tyrone upside down.”
“Don’t be doing that to me!” Tyrone said, looking up from the paper. “That’s unfair ammunition against a weak and helpless dude like myself!”
“Helpless, my foot! I’m gonna look like a stone fox!” Rhonda pranced around the kitchen like she was modeling.
“I thought you liked me!” Tyrone pretended to cover his eyes.
“I do!” Rhonda replied. “That’s why I want to look like dynamite next week.”
Gerald laughed on the phone line, listening to them tease each other. He hung up, promising to call Jalani as soon as she got home.
Jalani and I left shortly after that, with promises to fix Rhonda’s hair for the dance. She drove me home because my mom was using my car.
“So, you and Gerald are gettin’ tight?” I began.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, smiling. “Getting to know Gerald is like digging for treasure. There’s so many levels of him to discover. He’s like a chocolate cake with a million layers—delicious!”
I was silently hoping that I could find out that much about Jonathan, and hoping I’d get to enjoy every single layer. “Tell me what you figured out about him,” I asked her.
“Well, just last week I found out he could draw—roses so real they looked like photographs. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?’ I asked him. ‘You never asked,’ he replied simply.”
“Sweet,” I said.
“Another time I discovered that he knew the name of every single tree we passed, whether we were at a park or walking down the street. I asked him how he learned all that and he told me that he used to go every week to Spring Grove Cemetery to visit his aunt, who died on his ninth birthday. The trees there are labeled. He’d just walk around to clear his thoughts, and look at the trees. ‘It just kinda seeped into my brain,’ he told me.”
“Gerald’s cool,” I said. “You’re lucky.”
“He’s so much fun to be with. He makes me laugh. And Angel has sorta become like a little sister to me. What about you, Keisha? You gettin’ it together?”
“I’m tryin’. I decided to go to the dance after all.”
“Really? You got a date?” Jalani seemed to be pleased. “You been keepin’ to yourself too much. I’ve only known you a little while, but I know you gotta get out sometimes and let it hang loose.”
I laughed. “You sound like you don’t think I can get a date!”
“No, I just wondered who you had decided to go with.”
“Nobody.” I replied with a hint of mystery in my voice. “That way I can dance with whoever I please!”
“Like Jonathan Hathaway?”
“So what if I do?” I replied defensively.
Jalani ignored my tone of voice. “He scares me, Keisha. There’s something not quite right about that dude.”
“He seems pretty close to perfect to me,” I countered. I thought again about his passionate kiss at the park.
“That’s what bothers me,” Jalani tried to explain. “He’s a little too slick on the edges. His smile always seems pasted on.”
“That’s ’cause you don’t really know him,” I declared, defending him. “He’s so smart. And he’s funny. He makes me laugh. I haven’t laughed like that since way before Andy died.”
“I know,” Jalani said gently. “I’m glad he makes you happy. But don’t jump into the deep end, Keisha.”
I didn’t want to hear what Jalani was saying, what my inner voice, which I had managed to silence, had said to me as well. “In just a few months,” I told Jalani, “I’ll be a college student. My parents won’t be able to say anything, and I won’t have to sneak to see Jonathan or anybody else.”
“Sounds like you got it all figured out,” Jalani replied, sensing my anger.
“Not really,” I told her. “I just want to be happy like you and Gerald.”
Jalani was quiet for a moment. Then she told me, “There’s an old Ibo saying: ‘Beware of the gift wrapped with silence. The snake hides under a silver moon.’”
Her words made me shiver, but I refused to let Jalani know. “I’ll be careful, Jalani. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. What could possibly happen?”
“Has he ever told you he cared about you?” Jalani asked instead of answering my question.
“Well, no, not exactly,” I stammered. “But I can tell by the way he looks at me and touches me and talks to me. He told me he thought that I was very mature and very special. He calls me his butterfly!” I smiled with pleasure as I remembered.
“I could say the same thing about a bug stuck with a pin in an insect display,” Jalani countered. “Just keep your eyes open, OK?”
“I’ll be fine. I can’t wait for graduation! Thanks for the ride home.” After she dropped me off at my house, I made myself a snack and waited for Jonathan to call.
When the phone rang, I picked it up on the first ring. “Hello?” I said, trying to make my voice sound sexy and mature.
“May I speak to Keisha?” It wasn’t Jonathan’s voice.
“Speaking,” I replied, disappointed. I returned my voice to normal.
“This is Leon. What’s up?”
“Just finishing my homework. What’s up with you?” I relaxed and glanced at my math book while I sat on my bedroom floor.
“Well, since there are no more dragons to slay or unicorns to capture, I just have to do ordinary stuff like finish reading Macbeth. That dude had some serious issues!”
“You got that right!” I laughed.
“Hey Keisha, I guess you already have a date for the Valentine Dance, right?”
“Not really. I was just going to go by myself.”
I could hear Leon taking a deep breath. “You want to go with me? I promise I won’t stick anything in my nose or ears all evening!”
I thought of my secret date with Jonathan after the dance, and how going with Leon would make it easy for my parents to let me stay out late. So I said, “That sounds like fun, Leon. They’re having a dance contest. I heard you were dynamite on the dance floor!”
I think he was shocked that I agreed so quickly. He had probably expected me to make excuses. He stammered, “That’s what some say. I bet we could win it.”
“Hey, I can dance, but I’m no Judith Jamison!” I told him. “Now Angel, Gerald’s little sister—that girl can move! You gotta check her out.”
“That sounds cool, but it’s you that I wanna dance with!” he managed to say.
“I’m looking forward to it, Leon,” I told him, then I said good night and hung up the phone. For sure I was looking forward to that night. I felt a little guilty that I was using Leon, but the thought of Jonathan seeing me all dressed up, and maybe even dancing with me—that made all those negative thoughts float away.
15
The Valentine Dance was second only to prom in importance. We jokingly called it prom practice. Dates were lined up for the prom in May depending on what happened and who it
happened with at the Valentine Dance in February. This one wasn’t formal, however. Dressy casual, we girls called it. Leather, slacks, or silk. Something new to show off, whether a new outfit or a new date. Brand-name hookups looking obvious, yet understated. Hair done perfectly, shoes just right—a night to remember.
The Valentine Dance was also one that all grades could attend, not like the prom, which was reserved for juniors and seniors. Joyelle and Angel told me they had stood in line after school the very first day the tickets had gone on sale, anxious to be sure they had them in time. Neither girl had a date, but they probably had their eyes on a couple of the unattached sophomore and junior boys who would be there as well, so they planned their outfits down to the exact color of the nail polish they would wear.
My parents were overjoyed that I wanted to go to the dance with Leon, a high school boy who didn’t make them feel threatened. He stopped by my house the night before the dance to drop off a Valentine’s Day card for me. It was funny, with a fire-breathing dragon on a front, pleading with the lady dragon, who held a giant fire extinguisher, to be his lady love. I laughed, introduced Leon to my parents, who liked him as soon as he walked in the front door. Mom chatted about her job, Dad showed him his new fishing reel, and I thought only of Jonathan the entire time.
When he left, Mom asked, “Where has that one been all this time? He’s not bad.”
“Oh, Mom, he’s just a friend. That’s just Leon. It’s not like a real date. Leon is just fun to hang with. You know how it is.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve decided to rejoin high school for these last few months. I like this Leon kid, even if he just a friend. What time is the dance over?”
The dance was over at midnight, but I told my mother, “It’s over at one.” That way, I knew Mom wouldn’t be expecting me until at least three or three-thirty. That gave me more time to be with Jonathan. “Then we’ll probably go to Waffle House to eat. Or we might go to a movie. I don’t know. Just me and Leon and Rhonda and Tyrone, and probably Gerald and Jalani, too. Is that OK?” I knew it would be.