So, no. One beer isn’t one beer to Uncle Carlos, who’s always been anti-alcohol.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s one of those nights.”
“You saw the interview, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah. I was hoping you didn’t.”
“I did. Did my mom see—”
“Oh yeah, she saw it. So did Pam. And your grandma. I’ve never been in a room with so many pissed-off women in my life.” He looks at me. “How are you dealing with it?”
I shrug. Yeah, I’m pissed, but honestly? “I expected his dad to make him the victim.”
“I did too.” He rests his cheek in his palm, his elbow propped on his knee. It’s not too dark on the steps. I see the bruising on his hand fine.
“So . . . ,” I say, patting my knees. “On leave, huh?”
He looks at me like he’s trying to figure out what I’m getting at. “Yeah?”
Silence.
“Did you fight him, Uncle Carlos?”
He straightens up. “No, I had a discussion with him.”
“You mean your fist talked to his eye. Did he say something about me?”
“He pointed his gun at you. That was more than enough.”
His voice has a foreign edge to it. It’s totally inappropriate, but I laugh. I have to hold my side I laugh so hard.
“What’s so funny?” he cries.
“Uncle Carlos, you punched somebody!”
“Hey, I’m from Garden Heights. I know how to fight. I can get down.”
I’m hollering right now.
“It’s not funny!” he says. “I shouldn’t have lost my cool like that. It was unprofessional. Now I’ve set a bad example for you.”
“Yeah, you have, Muhammad Ali.”
I’m still laughing. Now he’s laughing.
“Hush,” he says.
Our laughter dies down, and it’s real quiet out here. Nothing to do but look at the sky and all the stars. There’s so many of them tonight. It’s possible that I don’t notice them at home because of all the other stuff. Sometimes it’s hard to believe Garden Heights and Riverton Hills share the same sky.
“You remember what I used to tell you?” Uncle Carlos says.
I scoot closer to him. “That I’m not named after the stars, but the stars are named after me. You were really trying to give me a big head, huh?”
He chuckles. “No. I wanted you to know how special you are.”
“Special or not, you shouldn’t have risked your job for me. You love your job.”
“But I love you more. You’re one reason I even became a cop, baby girl. Because I love you and all those folks in the neighborhood.”
“I know. That’s why I don’t want you to risk it. We need the ones like you.”
“The ones like me.” He gives a hollow laugh. “You know, I got pissed listening to that man talk about you and Khalil like that, but it made me consider the comments I made about Khalil that night in your parents’ kitchen.”
“What comments?”
“I know you were eavesdropping, Starr. Don’t act brand-new.”
I smirk. Uncle Carlos said “brand-new.” “You mean when you called Khalil a drug dealer?”
He nods. “Even if he was, I knew that boy. Watched him grow up with you. He was more than any bad decision he made,” he says. “I hate that I let myself fall into that mind-set of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you shouldn’t be a cop.”
I tear up. It’s good to hear my parents and Ms. Ofrah say that or see all the protestors shout about it. From my uncle the cop though? It’s a relief, even if it makes everything hurt a little more.
“I told Brian that,” he says, looking at his knuckles. “After I clocked him. Told the chief too. Actually, I think I screamed it loud enough for everybody in the precinct to hear. It doesn’t take away from what I did though. I dropped the ball on Khalil.”
“No, you didn’t—”
“Yes, I did,” he says. “I knew him, knew his family’s situation. After he stopped coming around with you, he was out of sight and out of mind to me, and there’s no excuse for that.”
There’s no excuse for me either. “I think all of us feel like that,” I mutter. “That’s one reason Daddy’s determined to help DeVante.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”
I look at all the stars again. Daddy says he named me Starr because I was his light in the darkness. I need some light in my own darkness right about now.
“I wouldn’t have killed Khalil, by the way,” Uncle Carlos says. “I don’t know a lot of stuff, but I do know that.”
My eyes sting, and my throat tightens. I’ve turned into such a damn crybaby. I snuggle closer to Uncle Carlos and hope it says everything I can’t.
FIFTEEN
It takes an untouched stack of pancakes for Momma to say, “All right, Munch. What’s up?”
We have a table to ourselves in IHOP. It’s early morning, and the restaurant’s almost empty except for us and these big-bellied, bearded truckers stuffing their faces in a booth. Thanks to them, country music plays on the jukebox.
I poke my fork at my pancakes. “Not real hungry.”
Somewhat a lie, somewhat the truth. I’m having a serious emotional hangover. There’s that interview. Uncle Carlos. Hailey. Khalil. DeVante. My parents.
Momma, Sekani, and I spent the night at Uncle Carlos’s house, and I know it was more because Momma’s mad at Daddy than it was about the riots. In fact, the news said last night was the first semipeaceful night in the Garden. Just protests, no riots. Cops were still throwing tear gas though.
Anyway, if I bring up my parents’ fight, Momma’s gonna tell me, “Stay outta grown folks’ business.” You’d think since it’s partially my fault they fought, it is my business, but nope.
“I don’t know who’s supposed to believe that you’re not hungry,” Momma says. “You’ve always been greedy.”
I roll my eyes and yawn. She got me up too early and said we were going to IHOP, just the two of us like we used to do before Sekani came along and ruined everything. He has an extra uniform at Uncle Carlos’s and can go to school with Daniel. I only had some sweats and a Drake T-shirt—not DA office appropriate. I gotta go home and change.
“Thanks for bringing me here,” I say. With my awful mood, I owe her that.
“Anytime, baby. We haven’t hung out in a while. Somebody decided I wasn’t cool anymore. I thought I was still cool, so whatever.” She sips from her steaming mug of coffee. “Are you scared to talk to the DA?”
“Not really.” Although I do notice the clock is only three and a half hours away from our nine-thirty meeting.
“Is it that BS of an interview? That bastard.”
Here we go again. “Momma—”
“Got his damn daddy going on TV, telling lies,” she says. “And who’s supposed to believe a grown man was that scared of two children?”
People on the internet are saying the same thing. Black Twitter’s been going in on Officer Cruise’s dad, claiming his name should be Tom Cruise with that performance he put on. Tumblr too. I’m sure there are people who believe him—Hailey did—but Ms. Ofrah was right: it backfired. Folks who never met me or Khalil are calling BS.
So while the interview bothers me, it doesn’t bother me that much.
“It’s not really the interview,” I say. “It’s other stuff too.”
“Like?”
“Khalil,” I say. “DeVante told me some stuff about him, and I feel guilty.”
“Stuff like what?” she says.
“Why he sold drugs. He was trying to help Ms. Brenda pay a debt to King.”
Momma’s eyes widen. “What?”
“Yeah. And he wasn’t a King Lord. Khalil turned King down, and King’s been lying to save face.”
Momma shakes her head. “Why am I not surprised? King would do some mess like that.”
I stare at
my pancakes. “I should’ve known better. Should’ve known Khalil better.”
“You had no way of knowing, baby,” she says.
“That’s the thing. If I would’ve been there for him, I—”
“Couldn’t have stopped him. Khalil was almost as stubborn as you. I know you cared about him a lot, even as more than a friend, but you can’t blame yourself for this.”
I look up at her. “What you mean ‘cared about him as more than a friend’?”
“Don’t play dumb, Starr. Y’all liked each other for a long time.”
“You think he liked me too?”
“Lord!” Momma rolls her eyes. “Between the two of us, I’m the old one—”
“You just called yourself old.”
“Older one,” she corrects, and shoots me a quick stank-eye, “and I saw it. How in the world did you miss it?”
“I dunno. He always talked about other girls, not me. It’s weird though. I thought I was over my crush, but sometimes I don’t know.”
Momma traces the rim of her mug. “Munch,” she says, and it’s followed by a sigh. “Baby, look. You’re grieving, okay? That can amplify your emotions and make you feel things you haven’t felt in a long time. Even if you do have feelings for Khalil, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Even though I’m with Chris?”
“Yes. You’re sixteen. You’re allowed to have feelings for more than one person.”
“So you’re saying I can be a ho?”
“Girl!” She points at me. “Don’t make me kick you under this table. I’m saying don’t beat yourself up about it. Grieve Khalil all you want. Miss him, allow yourself to miss what could’ve been, let your feelings get out of whack. But like I told you, don’t stop living. All right?”
“All right.”
“Good. So that’s two things,” she says. “What else is up?”
What isn’t up? My head is tight like my brain is overloaded. I’m guessing emotional hangovers feel a lot like actual hangovers.
“Hailey,” I say.
She slurps her coffee. Loudly. “What that li’l girl do now?”
Here she goes with this. “Momma, you’ve never liked her.”
“No, I’ve never liked how you’ve followed her like you can’t think for yourself. Difference.”
“I haven’t—”
“Don’t lie! Remember that drum set you begged me to buy. Why did you want it, Starr?”
“Hailey wanted to start a band, but I liked the idea too.”
“Hold up, though. Didn’t you tell me you wanted to play guitar in this ‘band,’ but Hailey said you should play drums?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Them li’l Jonas boys,” she says. “Which one did you really like?”
“Joe.”
“But who said you should be with the curly-headed one instead?”
“Hailey, but Nick was still fine as all get-out, and this is middle school stuff—”
“Uh-uh! Last year you begged me to let you color your hair purple. Why, Starr?”
“I wanted—”
“No. Why, Starr?” she says. “The real why.”
Damn. There’s a pattern here. “Because Hailey wanted me, her, and Maya to have matching hair.”
“E-xact-damn-ly. Baby, I love you, but you have a history of putting your wants aside and doing whatever that li’l girl wants. Excuse me if I don’t like her.”
With all my receipts put out there like that, I say, “I can see why.”
“Good. Realizing is the first step. So what she do now?”
“We had an argument yesterday,” I say. “Really though, things have been weird for a while. She stopped texting me and unfollowed my Tumblr.”
Momma reaches her fork onto my plate and breaks off a piece of pancake. “What is Tumblr anyway? Is it like Facebook?”
“No, and you’re forbidden to get one. No parents allowed. You guys already took over Facebook.”
“You haven’t responded to my friend request yet.”
“I know.”
“I need Candy Crush lives.”
“That’s why I’ll never respond.”
She gives me “the look.” I don’t care. There are some things I absolutely refuse to do.
“So she unfollowed your Tumblr thingy,” Momma says, proving why she can never have one. “Is that all?”
“No. She said and did some stupid stuff too.” I rub my eyes. Like I said, it’s too early. “I’m starting to wonder why we’re friends.”
“Well, Munch”—she gets another freaking piece of my pancakes—“you have to decide if the relationship is worth salvaging. Make a list of the good stuff, then make a list of the bad stuff. If one outweighs the other, then you know what you gotta do. Trust me, that method hasn’t failed me yet.”
“Is that what you did with Daddy after Iesha got pregnant?” I ask. “’Cause I’ll be honest, I would’ve kicked him to the curb. No offense.”
“It’s all right. A lot of people called me a fool for going back to your daddy. Shoot, they may still call me a fool behind my back. Your nana would have a stroke if she knew this, but she’s the real reason I stayed with your daddy.”
“I thought Nana hated Daddy?” I think Nana still hates Daddy.
Sadness creeps into Momma’s eyes, but she gives me a small smile. “When I was growing up, your grandmother would do and say hurtful things when she was drunk, and apologize the next morning. At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.”
She takes a deep breath. “Seven’s not a mistake, I love him to death, but Maverick made a mistake in his actions. However, all of his good and the love we share outweighs that one mistake.”
“Even with crazy Iesha in our lives?” I ask.
Momma chuckles. “Even with crazy, messy, annoying Iesha. It’s a little different, yeah, but if the good outweighs the bad, keep Hailey in your life, baby.”
That might be the problem. A lot of the good stuff is from the past. The Jonas Brothers, High School Musical, our shared grief. Our friendship is based on memories. What do we have now?
“What if the good doesn’t outweigh the bad?” I ask.
“Then let her go,” Momma says. “And if you keep her in your life and she keeps doing the bad, let her go. Because I promise you, had your daddy pulled some mess like that again, I’d be married to Idris Elba and saying, ‘Maverick who?’”
I bust out laughing.
“Now eat,” she says, and hands me her fork. “Before I have no choice but to eat these pancakes for you.”
I’m so used to seeing smoke in Garden Heights, it’s weird when we go back and there isn’t any. It’s dreary because of a late-night storm, but we can ride with the windows down. Even though the riots stopped, we pass as many tanks as we pass lowriders.
But at home smoke greets us at the front door.
“Maverick!” Momma hollers, and we hurry toward the kitchen.
Daddy pours water on a skillet at the sink, and the skillet responds with a loud sizzle and a white cloud. Whatever he burned, he burned it bad.
“Hallelujah!” Seven throws his hands up at the table. “Somebody who can actually cook.”
“Shut up,” Daddy says.
Momma takes the skillet and examines the unidentifiable remains. “What was this? Eggs?”
“Glad to see you know how to come home,” he says. He walks right by me without a glance or a good morning. He’s still pissed about Chris?
Momma gets a fork and stabs at the charred food stuck to the skillet. “You want some breakfast, Seven baby?”
He watches her and goes, “Um, nah. By the way, the skillet didn’t do anything, Ma.”
“You’re right,” she says, but she keeps stabbing. “Seriously, I can fix you something. Eggs. Bacon.” She looks toward the hall and shouts, “The pork kind! Pig! Swine! All’a that!”
So much for the good outweighing the
bad. Seven and I look at each other. We hate when they fight because we always get stuck in the middle of their wars. Our appetites are the greatest casualty. If Momma’s mad and not cooking, we have to eat Daddy’s struggle meals, like spaghetti with ketchup and hot dogs in it.
“I’ll grab something at school.” Seven kisses her cheek. “Thanks though.” He gives me a fist bump on his way out, the Seven way of wishing me good luck.
Daddy returns wearing a backwards cap. He grabs his keys and a banana.
“We have to be at the DA’s office at nine thirty,” Momma says. “Are you coming?”
“Oh, Carlos can’t do it? Since he the one y’all let in on secrets and stuff.”
“You know what, Maverick—”
“I’ll be there,” he says, and leaves.
Momma stabs the skillet some more.
The DA personally escorts us to a conference room. Her name is Karen Monroe, and she’s a middle-aged white lady who claims she understands what I’m going through.
Ms. Ofrah is already in the conference room along with some people who work at the DA’s office. Ms. Monroe gives a long speech about how much she wants justice for Khalil and apologizes that it’s taken this long for us to meet.
“Twelve days, to be exact,” Daddy points out. “Too long, if you ask me.”
Ms. Monroe looks a bit uncomfortable at that.
She explains the grand jury proceedings. Then she asks about that night. I pretty much tell her what I told the cops, except she doesn’t ask any stupid questions about Khalil. But when I get to the part when I describe the number of shots, how they hit Khalil in his back, the look on his face—
My stomach bubbles, bile pools in my mouth, and I gag. Momma jumps up and grabs a garbage bin. She puts it in front of me quick enough to catch the vomit that spews from my mouth.
And I cry and puke. Cry and puke. It’s all I can do.
The DA gets me a soda and says, “That’ll be all today, sweetie. Thank you.”
Daddy helps me to Momma’s car, and people in the halls gawk. I bet they know I’m the witness from my teary, snotty face, and are probably giving me a new name—Poor Thing. As in, “Oh, that poor thing.” That makes it worse.