No sooner had I gotten rid of one bodyguard, another started following me around. Lafayette had begun to do exactly what Scott had done when he first found out that I was raped. But unlike Scott, Lafayette hawked every move I made. He was trying to see who in the school I acted funny around. I had to be extra careful not to avoid anyone because I knew that the very first guy that I backed away from, Lafayette would have pounced on, no questions asked.
Finally, I had to make Lafayette stop following me around, too. He was starting to put me more on edge than Lucky, always looking to jack somebody up. I told him that I didn't need the stress because of the baby, and he left me alone. I still can't believe he bought that.
Scott and I had been spending more and more time together and it eventually became clear to everyone that something was going on between us. The black folks and cheerleaders kept asking me what was up, but I denied everything. Then all the guys started asking Scott a bunch of questions, but he just never answered them. After a couple of months of this, it was also getting harder for me to hide my pregnancy and another rumor started going around that I was pregnant with Scott's baby.
Talk about scandalous! White girls were getting pregnant by black guys all the time, but no black girl had ever gotten pregnant by a white guy before. It was all over school, and everywhere I went the kids were always whispering and looking at me. Of course, I kept denying that I was even pregnant in the first place, but no one believed me. Scott, God bless him, never confirmed or denied the allegations. I guess he figured somebody had to be the one who got me pregnant, and it couldn't be Lucky.
Also becoming more and more obvious was the fact that I needed to get off the cheerleading squad. It was dangerous for me to be jumping around so much and getting thrown up in the air like that. A few of the girls commented on the fact that I had gained a little weight, but it was pretty evenly distributed, so it just looked like I was getting thicker, but not pregnant.
One day, my mother sat me down and asked point blank, "Rica, do you want to tell me something?" I shook my head no. "Look here, missy, I know you and that little white boy been hanging around each other a lot, now what's going on?"
"Nothing ma."
"I don't believe you." Her eyes narrowed. "Are you still a virgin?"
"What?" I looked away quickly, cheeks burning.
"You've been fuckin' that boy haven't you!" she exclaimed. "Don't try to fool me, Rica. I call tell. You've been putting on weight in your butt and everyth...." She stopped suddenly and grabbed her chest like she was having a heart attack. "Oh no! Oh please no, Rica! Are you pregnant?" She spit the word out like it was poison. When I didn't answer, she jumped up and ran over to me. "You are! You have that devil's seed floating around inside of you. Oh Lord!" she threw her head back, still grabbing at her chest. "Do you know what you've done? Do you?"
The anger on her face frightened me into saying something...anything. "No mama! It's not him! It's not his!"
"So you are pregnant!" she cried and reached back her hand. The slap that landed across my face sent me reeling into the kitchen table. Blood started pouring from my busted lip.
"Get out!"
"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"I said get out! You know whose baby that is and I will not have it in my house. Unless you're going to have an abortion, which I strongly suggest, I don't want your trifling, dirty little ass in my house either."
I stared at her with wide, fourteen-year-old eyes and shook my head, panicked. What she didn't know was that it was already too late for me to have an abortion.
"No. You don't understand!" I cried, and reflexively covered my stomach when she swung again.
"Don't understand what? That my daughter's a whore? How dare you sleep with that boy after I told you not to even be around him? You have no idea how you just ruined your life. He could have anybody! Why would he want you, Rica? You know you'll never be more than just another toy to him." She looked at me in utter disgust. "I can't believe you did this to yourself. You need to get rid of that baby soon, but I want you out of my house right now."
"Please ma! Where am I gonna go? I don't have anywhere to go."
"Why don't you call your little pimp?" Now she was just talking crazy. I had no idea where she was getting this stuff from and knew that at this point there was no use in trying to reason with her. "Since he wants to turn you into one of his hoes, then he can just take care of you like one, too."
I couldn't do anything but shake my head. The woman wasn't making any sense. I had always known that she was a little high strung, but this was ridiculous! For the first time in my life, I realized that my mother, my own flesh and blood, hated white people more than she loved me. Giving me one more look of disgust, she stormed up the stairs. There was nothing left for me to do after that but wipe the blood from my mouth and walk the two blocks to Tia's house.
"What happened?!" My aunt exclaimed when she opened the door and saw me standing there with puffy eyes and a bleeding lip.
She put her arm around my shoulders and sat me down on the couch. I took one look at Aunt Rachael and burst into new tears. Tia heard me crying and came out of her room to see what was going on.
When I finished telling her what had just happened, Aunt Rachael sat back and looked at me. Then she sighed deeply, started to speak, and then sighed again. Tia and I both watched her, waiting to see what she was going to say.
Finally, she leaned forwards again and said, "So you're pregnant?" I nodded. "Have you been to the doctor?" I nodded again. "Didn't your mom ever talk to you about safe sex?" I just looked at her. "I mean, you girls shouldn't be having sex at such an early age anyway, but to be honest with you, I lost my virginity around Tia's age. I know that sometimes things do happen. Guess your mom wouldn't have thought to get you any condoms or anything when you started having serious boyfriends. She was always the type to ignore a problem until it went away. Hmm..." she said thoughtfully. "I guess we need to have a little talk then."
I looked at her, then at Tia. None of the adults in my life seemed to understand what was really going on.
"But Aunt Rachael," I interrupted, "I'm already pregnant."
She just looked at me and blinked, then looked down at my stomach. After a minute, she sighed again and sat back in her chair.
"I don't know what to say. We have to go talk to your mother. She was just angry, sweetie. She didn't really mean that you had to stay out of the house."
"Yes she did! You know how she feels about white people."
"White people!" Aunt Rachael sat up and looked at me incredulously. "Who's baby is that?" she asked and looked from me to Tia. "Not that little boy that's always coming around here?" She peered over at Tia. "No wonder she was so pissed. Rica, honey, I didn't even know that you two were dating."
"We're not," I said slowly, trying to think of a way to give her "the story" without having to actually tell her what happened.
"Then what in the world? Oh Rica," she whispered, her shoulders slumped in disappointment. "You can't just be randomly sleeping with boys. And he's not even your boyfriend. Sweetie..."
"Ma!" Tia jumped to my defense, unable to take my pain any longer. "She was raped. Don't make her feel any worse than she already does."
"That little son of a bitch raped you?!" Aunt Rachael exploded. "That little son of a bitch! And he's still coming around my house like everything's ok? I will kill him."
Apples and trees.
"No!" we both interjected quickly because, like Tia, she meant it.
Then Tia began to explain. We had both told the lie so many times that it just flowed from our mouths interchangeably.
"We don't know who did it. Scott and I found her in front of the house...of the party that we went to..." she stumbled over our well rehearsed story and shot me a sideways glance. Lying to adults had never been Tia's strong point.
I, on the other hand, could do it in my sleep.
"So, did you know this kid?" Aunt Rachael asked.
I thought long and hard about what story would go over the best with her. I decided she'd buy it if I told her I kind of knew the kid and went upstairs with him, but didn't expect to have sex with him.
"Honey, you have to be careful about things like that. Boys at this age have hormones that are out of control. What he did was definitely wrong, and we need to report it, but it's hard for young men to stop once they've already gotten started. Do you understand?" I nodded and looked away. She made me look back at her. "It's not your fault at all, baby. You didn't know. What was the boy's name?"
"I don't remember."
"Oh Rica! You didn't even know his name? Why did you go upstairs with him?" She waved the question away. "Never mind, never mind. Just don't ever do that again. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, ma'am." I nodded.
"Well, what did he look like?"
"I...don't remember...."
She looked from Tia to me and frowned.
"Somehow I'm not believing this story, Rica. Are you sure you were raped or are you just trying to cover for someone?"
I looked away. This was the hardest lie I'd ever had to tell.
Tia quickly went back to where the story began to unravel and covered our tracks with the truth.
"She was! Stop reminding her! We took her to the hospital... the counselor keeps calling the house...she had to get stitches, ma! Listen!"
I stole a glance at Aunt Rachael and hoped that Tia wouldn't get her notoriously smart mouth in trouble trying to defend me. I guess the same thing occurred to Tia because she quickly rushed on, strategically volunteering way too much information.
"There was blood everywhere when we found her, ma. You should've seen it..."
Aunt Rachael held up a hand and turned her head, looking faint.
"Stop. I can't...I don't want to hear anymore." Then she pulled me to her. "Come here, baby," and she gave me a hug. "Why didn't you tell me or your mother what happened?"
"Because...I couldn't. I...I don't want to talk about this anymore, ok?"
"Alright," she said, thankfully totally understanding, and brushed my hair back behind my ears. "You can stay here tonight and first thing tomorrow we'll go talk to your mother, ok?"
"O.k." I sniffed, then jumped up and ran to the bathroom. I spent the next hour in there revisiting my last meal of pork chops and mashed potatoes.
The following morning Aunt Rachael took me home. When we pulled up in front of the house, a sinking feeling overcame me and I was afraid to get out of the car. Aunt Rachael came around and opened the passenger door.
"Come on, honey. It's ok. You know she loves you, right?"
I nodded and looked down at the ground. When we reached the front door, I stepped behind my aunt and let her ring the doorbell.
My mom came to the door looking frazzled and hung over. I knew that she drank sometimes when she went out, but had never actually seen her drunk before.
As she swayed and caught her balance on the doorframe, I wondered if she was still drunk this early in the morning or if she had just started drinking.
"What do you want?" she asked Rachael, totally ignoring me.
"Connie, what are you doing? Rica thinks she can't come home. What did you say to her?"
"I told her that this is no longer her home." My mom retorted point blank.
"But she's just a kid. Why would you say something like that?"
"You think you know so much!" my mother exploded out of nowhere. "You think just because you spend a few hours a day with Rica that you know her so well. You make me sick Rachael, always thinking that you're a better parent than everyone else." She looked past my aunt to me with fiery eyes. "Well, you need to pay more attention to what happens in your own house because my daughter went over to your house and got pregnant by some white boy that Tia introduced her to! So don't tell me about good parenting! Tia's probably already had two abortions by now and you wouldn't even know because you're never at home!" She swayed again.
"Ok, first of all lower your voice." Rachael said sternly, sounding a lot like Tia. "Second of all, get your ass in the house because I'm about to go off on you and I don't want the neighbors to hear me do it."
My mom glared at her for a long time, and then actually stepped out of the way. It must have been the alcohol. I was shocked and hoped that the two women weren't about to fight.
Aunt Rachael and I followed my mother into the living room and my aunt sat down on the couch. My mother followed suit, but I remained standing by the door.
"Where the hell do you get off calling me a bad parent, Rachael? You know you can't do much better!"
"Shut up!" My aunt hissed. "Just shut up! Stop talking for a minute and think about what you're saying. You're not making any damn sense. I'm not even going to defend myself or my family right now, because I know I've done what I was supposed to do. What I am going to say to you is this; your daughter did not get pregnant at my house by anybody. She was raped!"
My mom rolled her eyes and looked away.
"How dare you not believe your own daughter when she tells you something like that? We both know Rica's a good kid, but she doesn't know anything about sex! The girl's been walking around for this long thinking that she brought this on herself. I talked to the rape counselor who, by the way, neither of us knew about because Rica was too afraid of you finding out. She said that Rica had to get stitches and might have some permanent damage, Connie. How could you even think..."
Just then my mom jumped up. I had never seen her so angry before. "I don't want to hear this shit! I just want you and her," she pointed to me, "out of my house. And I don't want either of you to come back. If she did get raped, Rachael, she deserved it!"
"What?!" Aunt Rachael and I both exclaimed at the same time.
"I told her about following that nasty boy around like some kind of lost puppy. He saw an opportunity and he took it. That's what she gets!"
"Listen," Aunt Rachael said, standing up slowly. "Whatever mistakes you made in the past should not affect the way you see your daughter."
My mother looked quickly over at me. I had no idea what they were talking about.
Rachael continued. "She's a good kid, Connie, and can't walk around hating anybody just because you want her to. If you didn't want her around white people, then you shouldn't have moved here. That boy that yes, is at my house a lot because he's a good kid too, did not do this to her. It was someone else. Scott's the one who's been taking Rica to the hospital all this time because your own daughter was too afraid to come to you for help. Now, you have to get off your high horse and stop trying to make yourself blind to the facts here. If you're still hurting because of what happened to you, then that's your problem. But Rica is just a kid and right now, especially, she needs to have the support of her mother."
The two women glared at each other for a long time, and then my mother sat tiredly down on the sofa. My aunt came over and sat down next to her.
"I just...I'm just so tired Rachael. So tired. I was just a kid when I had her and I don't want any more kids. You know I'll end up having to raise this one, too. I don't want it! I'm so sick of giving up my life for other people that I never even wanted in the first place..." She looked over at me for a long time, and then whispered quietly, "I don't want to do this anymore."
"Do what?" I asked from across the room. My heart started to flutter and I thought that I was going to faint. Carefully I sat down on the two stone steps that separated the sunken in den from the foyer.
"I don't want to take care of you anymore, Rica," my mother said, looking me square in the eye. "You were always so bad, such a difficult child. Always trying to fight someone, anyone...all the time, Rica. You made me so old so fast, and now I just want to feel young again. I'm telling you, you need to get rid of that baby if you don't want the same thing to happen to you. After this, I just can't take anymore. I've been trying to make myself stick with it until you were old enough to be out on your own, but now this...it's never ending!"
She burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. My aunt and I sat in shocked silence.
"Connie, you know you don't mean that. Come on, you need to go to bed. You're tired. We can talk about this another time." My aunt stood up and tried to pull my mother up with her.
"Get off me!" she cried, snatching her hand away. "I know exactly what I'm saying right now and I know for a fact that nobody raped my child. I know you, Rica! You're a liar, a good one, and I'm sick of it! Do you think that I don't see that white boy dropping you off at the house late at night when you're all the time telling me that you're out with Tia?" When I didn't answer, her voice became shrill. "Do you? I know you've been with him, Rica! I saw how you kissed him before you got out of the car! The only reason I didn't say anything then was because I was waiting for him to hurt you all by himself. Then you would finally learn your lesson and stop messing with them!"
"But ma...I told you. He didn't do this..." I pleaded, not knowing what else I could say to make her believe me. Especially since she was right, I was a good liar. A great one, actually...but this time I was telling the truth.
"He didn't do what, Rica? Get you to open your legs in the backseat of his car? How easy was it for him to get your panties off, Rica?"
I looked away and tears started streaming down my face. My permanent nightmare in the backseat of Lucky's car came rushing back in a flash.
"He treated you like a whore, and you're still trying to defend him. What am I supposed to think?" I didn't even have any words left in my fourteen-year-old body to say to my mother and she knew it. She could always see right through me, no matter how well I thought I was hiding something. "I can't believe that after all I've done to raise you right," she continued, "that you turned into his disgusting little trash bag anyway."
"Connie, stop it. Stop calling her that. She didn't do anything wrong." Rachael tried once again to get my mother to follow her out of the room.
This time my mom did get up, but she ran straight at me. "If you want to ruin your life, fine, but you will not ruin mine...any more than you already have!" She screamed the last part and grabbed my arm, yanking me up off the steps. "Do you hear me? I don't want you anymore Rica." Then she pushed me away and sobbed, "I never wanted you in the first place."
Shoving past me she stumbled drunkenly up the stairs.
Rachael and I looked at each other from across the room for a minute, and then she came over and put her arm around me.
"You know your mother loves you, don't you?" I nodded obediently, but wasn't so sure about that. I could not get my mother's words out of my mind. "Don't worry about her. She'll come around." I nodded again. "Do you want to stay with us for a little while until she does?" I nodded again.
Openly crying and with no choices left, I followed my aunt up the stairs to pack my things. When we were finished, I walked across the hall to my mother's room and knocked quietly on the door.
"Ma?" There was no answer. "We're leaving now." I looked at Aunt Rachael when there was still no answer.
She brushed past me and knocked loudly. Then she threw the door open and marched inside. Before the door closed behind her I could see my mother laying across the bed, sobbing.
"I'm taking your child," I heard my aunt's muffled voice come loudly through the door. "And when you come to your senses and stop acting like such a spoiled fucking brat, then you can come to my house and bring her back home."
I heard a soft, inaudible response from my mother and my aunt came back through the door. She took a deep breath and smiled at me, but I could tell it was strained.
When we got back to their house, Rachael helped me unpack in the guestroom that Tia had already gotten ready for me.
"I knew she wouldn't listen to you, Ma," I heard Tia whisper
from where I was kneeling in the bathroom...throwing up again.
"Sometimes Aunt Connie can be a real bitch."
"Tia! Watch your mouth!" snapped Aunt Rachael. "I didn't raise you to talk about anyone like that!"
"I'm sorry, Ma, but you know it's true. Why would she treat Rica like this? You've know Scott for a long time and you know he would never do anything like that to her."
"I know."
"And even if they did sleep together...which they didn't, Ma," Tia added quickly, "that's no reason..."
"Ssh..." Aunt Rachael shushed Tia when she heard me walk down the hall and into the room.
"Well, cuz, here's your new room!" Tia exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm. "This is going to be so fun! I always wanted a sister!"
I smiled weakly at her, but couldn't say anything. It wasn't until then that I realized this might very well be my new family. I rubbed the bottom of my stomach as a sharp pain shot through it.
"Are you ok honey?" Aunt Rachael asked and patted the bed beside her. "Come sit down next to me. I know it's tough, but your mother...well, she has a lot of problems that you just never knew about."
"What were you guys talking about when you said 'what she did before'? And what was she talking about she was just a kid when she had me?"
I always knew that my mom looked very young compared to all of the other kids' mothers, but it never occurred to me that she may have actually been lying all this time to me and everyone else about her real age.
Aunt Rachael looked surprised. "You mean you don't know?"
I shook my head and looked down. "We never really talked to each other a whole lot about stuff like that..."
When my voice trailed off, Aunt Rachael quickly interrupted.
"Well, she was only a teenager when she got pregnant with you."
"Oh! I didn't know..." I always had a feeling, but never knew for sure. "Aunt Rachael," my eyes grew wide with a new thought. "Do you know my father?" My mother never liked to talk about him when I was growing up, and after a while I just stopped asking. I knew to stop asking her a lot of things about her life at an early age.
Aunt Rachael looked at me, then Tia, and took a deep breath. "Listen girls. I'm going to tell you something, but you have to promise that you'll never bring this up...especially not to Connie ever again." Tia came to sit down on the other side of her mother and we both nodded in agreement. "When I was eight, my father cheated on my mother with another woman. We didn't find out about it until after she got pregnant and came to our house one day demanding that he come home with her." Tia and I gasped. Rachael looked at me. "That woman's baby was your mother."
"Oh..." I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Little did I know that this was only the tip of the iceberg.
"Yeah...anyway, my mother threw him out and never let him come around to see me anymore after that, so I never got to know your mom until much later. I think what really set my mother off, though, was not even that my dad had cheated on her. But that he had done it with somebody...white..."
"What!" Tia and I gasped. The only grandparent that either of us had ever known was Aunt Rachael's mother. We had both assumed that she was my mom's mother, too, especially since my mom and I had lived with her for so long. I guess this explained, though, why my mother was so much lighter than my aunt and grandmother. I never thought about it before. Her age also explained why my grandmother had practically raised me for the first several years of my life.
Aunt Rachael nodded. "Now remember girls, you promised not to tell." We both nodded again silently. "When Connie was born, I was so mad at her because I just knew she got to have everything that I didn't ...including my father. I hated her for a long time because of that. But one day when she was fifteen, she showed up at my mother's doorstep. I had gotten married and moved out a couple of years before then, but was over there that day for something...oh, I can't remember now..." She waved the thought away.
"So, Connie told us who she was and that my father had been treating her badly ever since her mother's godchildren moved into the house. Connie's mom's best friend, the boy and girl's mother, died of a heroin overdose and the kids had nowhere else to go. Your mom claimed that her parents starting being so mean to her because now they had some white kids of their own and...well, you know how your mom gets." I nodded. "Shoot, she may have been right. But then she told us that she was pregnant and that her father kicked her out of the house. She said she didn't have anywhere to go, but that she knew all about us." Aunt Rachel shrugged. "My mom just kind of took her in, no questions asked. Of course, I was pissed because I already had to share my father with her, but now my mother, too..."
She shrugged again, as if shaking it off. I suddenly got the feeling that she had been doing that about my mom and me the whole time.
"After a while I guess I just...moved on...."
"So..." I was totally engrossed in a story that I had never heard before. "Did she have the baby?"
"Yes," Aunt Rachael kind of hesitated and gave me the side-eye. "When she went into labor it dawned on us that we had no idea who the father was. We kept asking and asking, but she never would say. After the baby was born, though, Connie and I started spending a lot of time together because I had just had a baby, too..." she looked over at Tia.
"So...the baby was me? I was the baby?"
"Yes..."
"She was only fifteen?"
"Yes, sixteen when she actually had you."
"So...who's my father?" A hot mess that I had to ask.
For a minute I thought she was going to back out of the deal
and not tell me.
After examining her nails for an unnecessarily long time, she put both of my hands in hers. "It was that boy...the one who came to live with them."
"No!" Tia shouted and jumped up. "Not the white boy! Dang girl, no wonder you're so bright like the sun!" Tia laughed. "You got more white folks in you than black ones!"
"Tia!" Aunt Rachael snapped, "Stop it!"
"And all this time," Tia continued, unable to control herself, "you've been so mean to Scott just because he's white! Just wait until I tell..."
"Tia sit down." Aunt Rachael put her finger in Tia's face. "This is not a joke. I'm talking about something that tore my family apart. And hers too!"
Tia was suddenly brought back to earth and sat down.
"Did he...did he..." I couldn't get the word out.
"No, he didn't. They had actually started fooling around before he came to live with them, and then after he did, it was even easier for them to sneak around. So one day, he took your mom to a make-out party and he talked her into going upstairs with him. But what she didn't know was that he had told a few of his friends that she would let them run a train on her..." She looked at me. "Do you know what that is?"
I looked away embarrassed. "Yeah."
"So she and the boy were...in the act when these other boys came into the room and he...somehow talked her into letting them..."
"He talked her into it? Aunt Rachael...my mom? I don't think so..."
"Well, that's the story she gave me. He went through this whole spill about loving her and how her willingness to do anything for him would only make him love her more. You know, the usual. So she agreed to do it...for him. After a while, the other three guys that she had sex with that night started telling everyone what happened. They ran her name through the mud, and when she went to that boy who supposedly loved her so much and told him that she was pregnant, he ran her name through the mud, too. He told everyone that she was pregnant and that she let boys run trains on her all the time. He said that she didn't even know who your father was, and the names that she called you today...were the same names that he called her back then."
Aunt Rachael shook her head and I realized that it had to have been with a deep compassion for this girl - who had gone through so much - that she was finally able to make herself stop hating my mom.
She continued. "When her parents found out, they treated her like a dog. They took the boy's word over hers and wouldn't even consider the fact that it could be his baby. A few days after that, the boy's sister beat Connie up for telling on him. Connie's mom, well I guess that would be your real grandmother, told her it served her right and her dad...um, my dad...didn't even do anything about it. Finally, she just ran away from home and do you know that man didn't even bother to find out where she was until after you two and Mama had moved down here from Tallahassee two years later?"
We all sat in a heavy silence. Finally, I asked, "Does her...your dad still live around here?"
"Oh, no. He and that ho died in a car accident years ago."
"Oh."
"Don't be sad. That's what they get."
"Ma!" Tia exclaimed, hurt. "That's how daddy died!"
Aunt Rachael's face softened. "I know, honey, but your daddy didn't deserve that. He was a good man. The only thing that these people deserved more was to suffer longer."
She shook it off and continued on without the bitterness in her voice. I never realized how often you could see her physically shaking things off until then.
"A couple of years after that happened, Mama moved back to Tallahassee and just let Connie keep the house that you're in now. It's kind of funny," she chuckled, "because my dad never did divorce my mom, so when he died, all the money went to her. Those other kids never saw a dime."
Tia and I looked at her in silence, still in shock.
I remembered Grandma leaving when I was little, but I never knew why or how we ended up staying in the house without her. After a while, I had just created my own story about her coming down there to stay with us and take care of me until my mom could find a job that didn't make her work all the time. Now hearing the truth, I wasn't sure which made more sense...the real story or the one that I had fabricated in order to avoid asking my mother too many questions.
Tia finally broke the silence. "So...which one's..."
"...my father?" I finished.
Aunt Rachael shook her head. "I don't know. Connie always said it was that one boy, but to be honest, it could have been any of the four."
"Hmm..."
I knew from Tia's tone that she was about to jump on the color thing again. She was always teasing me, saying "you're even brighter than me...and my dad's Dominican."
She used to say that I looked like a Glowworm and if you put a flashlight under my chin, my whole face would light up. She tried to test it out a couple of times when I wasn't looking until I knocked her in the head once with the flashlight.
When we were little, Tia even went so far as to tell all the kids at school that my nickname name was "Sunshine," because I was so "yellow," and it stuck...for years.
I hated that most of all.
After a while, though, I stopped acting like it bothered me and she stopped doing it.
"So Ma," Tia began slowly, "Rica is kind of light, but she doesn't look that white. Were any of those boys black?"
"I don't know. I never asked Connie any more questions after that." They both turned to look at me.
"What?" I laughed nervously. "You guys are staring at me like I'm some kind of freak. People are mixed all the time," I said pointedly and looked straight at Tia.
"Hey, no need to get ugly! At least I was mixed on purpose!"
I gasped and jumped up. Tia stood up, too. She always went on the serious defensive when people teased her about being biracial, but I didn't deserve that.
"Girls! Stop it!" Aunt Rachael jumped up and stood in between us. "Now, you two were finally starting to grow out of this. Don't start all that bickering again. Especially not now."
"I was just kidding, Ma! She's the one who went to make fun of me! Look at her. She doesn't even know who her..."
Aunt Rachael grabbed Tia by the arm before she could finish and pushed her out the door. "I did not tell you that for you to throw it back in her face!" I heard her shout down the hall. When Tia tried to argue, her mother shut her down loudly, and I heard footsteps stomp down the hall and Tia's bedroom door slam shut.
Aunt Rachael came back into my room a few seconds later, obviously worked up.
"You two girls have got to get along," she said to me. "That's all there is to it. I know you're hurt because your mom won't believe you," she came and sat back down next to me, "but that's only because of what happened to her when she was young. She probably thinks that the same thing happened to you. She'll come to her senses eventually," she reassured and patted my hand. "Don't worry. She loves you. Tia and I love you too, and you can stay here for as long as you want." She kissed the top of my head and walked out the door.
"Thanks Aunt Rachael." I mumbled and laid down to settle my nerves and stomach. No sooner had my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. I didn't wake up for the rest of the day and I guess Tia and Aunt Rachael just decided to let me sleep.
That night, though, a bright light shining across my face woke me up. Cracking my eyes open, I saw Tia standing at the door, flashlight in hand.
"What the hell..." I began.
"Sssh...mom's asleep," Tia whispered, walking over to me and sitting down on the bed. "Remember this?" She pointed the flashlight up to her face, and then with a slick grin stuck it under her chin. "Ma would tell us to go to sleep and we'd break out the flashlights and tiptoe around the house." She chuckled.
"Tia, what do you want?" I was still angry.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I know you were only playing with me and there was no reason for me to go off like that. I'm really sorry. Ok?"
"Ok," I answered, not accepting her apology.
Tia sat on the bed for a few more minutes, and then asked, "So your mom was really pissed, huh?"
"Yep."
"Think she'll get over it?"
"No."
"Why not?" Tia asked, surprised by my certainty.
"Because she thinks it's Scott's baby."
"No, she can't really think that..."
"Yeah, she does. She saw me get out of his car one night and kiss him."
"She what?" Tia shouted.
"Ssh! Keep your voice down!" I hissed, looking at the open door.
"Why didn't she say anything then?" Tia whispered back.
"She said she was waiting for him to hurt me on his own."
"That's messed up, Rica. Your mom's..."
"I know."
"So what if she doesn't get over it?"
"She won't."
"Yeah, I don't think so either," she whispered thoughtfully. "Well, I'm glad you're here." We looked at each other in the beam of the flashlight. "My mom said you can stay as long as you want." She thought for a minute, and then said, "I think you should probably stay here from now on anyway. Your mom would only be mean to you and the baby."
I looked at her thoughtfully, then admitted, "Tia...I don't think I want this baby."
"I know."
"You do?"
"Yeah, of course. Why would you want it? Look how you got it! I wish I could kill that son of a bitch." Tia's voice was rising.
"Ssh!" I hissed.
"I should have told Lafayette who..."
"Girls!" Tia quickly turned off the flashlight and jumped under the covers with me at the sound of her mother's voice. We both started giggling. "Quiet down in there. I'm trying to sleep. And Tia, go to bed!"
Tia uncovered her mouth long enough to say, "Ok," then we collapsed into another fit of giggles.
"Tia," I whispered quietly. "Don't tell Lafayette."
She sighed loudly. "I won't!"
"You promised."
"I know!"
"Ssh!"
"Tia!" her mom called from down the hall. "Leave Rica alone and go to bed!"
"Ok!" Tia called sweetly, and then to me she said quieter, "I am sixteen years old and the woman is still telling me to go to bed!" She got up and shined the flashlight back towards the door. I snickered. Turning to me, she giggled and whispered quickly, "Besides, Scott already threatened to kill him anyway."
"No he didn't!" I gasped.
"Yes, he did. He told me not to tell you because he doesn't want you to think he's the violent type." She nudged me. "He was waiting in the backseat of Lucky's car one night after practice. Lucky didn't even know he was there until he stopped...I forgot where. Then Scott popped up and started choking him with a wet towel or something crazy like that. Then he told Lucky that if he ever tried to pull some shit like that again, he would already be dead."
"No he didn't..." I repeated, but somehow I knew it was true. Well, maybe not the towel part. Those swamp folks were all wild as hell. Scott's daddy and cousins...and apparently grandmother - let Scott and Lafayette tell it - included.
Tia laughed. "Yeah, Scott scared the hell out of him. And then he made Lucky drive him all the way back to school so he could get his car!" Tia chuckled again and then paused thoughtfully. "I think the only reason Scott didn't hurt him for real is because you don't want anyone to find out about what Lucky did to you."
"But Tia," I whispered, suddenly afraid. "Lucky's not gonna take that. What if he catches Scott out somewhere and..."
"Oh girl, please!" She interrupted. "Lucky likes to beat girls up because he ain't nothin' but a little bitch. His punk ass ain't gonna do shit."
"How do you know?"
"I just know. First of all, he wouldn't come after Scott by himself. Mostly because he would have to answer to Lafayette. Second of all, he's always getting other folks to beat up people for him. Didn't you ever notice how he's never actually been in a fight? And third of all, who's he gonna tell that a white boy got him all scared, and then picture him asking another man to take care of that for him! Come on Rica. Even if he did tell one of his little flunkies, he would have to say why Scott came after him in the first place. That's just not gonna happen, so don't even worry about it."
"Scott's almost as bad as Lafayette," I whispered.
"Not even close," Tia whispered back. "Scott at least knows that he doesn't want to go to jail. Lafayette's already been there, and for a good reason wouldn't mind going back. Which is reason twenty-six why Scott won't have no problems outta that fool. Anybody that messes with Scott, messes with Lafayette. Everybody knows that, and Lucky is not tryna go there." She suddenly glanced over her shoulder at the door and put a finger to her lips. "Ssh."
"Now I know I don't need to be hangin' out with him."
"Aw come on! When Lafayette got arrested he was only protecting..."
"No, I mean Scott."
"What? Rica you are so ass backwards! How in the hell did you get that you need to stay away from Scott out of all the things I just said to you?" She shook her head and repeated, "Ass backwards! What you need to do is quit trippin' and get with him because he was willing to put his own life on the line for you."
"I guess. Too bad he's white, though..."
"Well, it's not like you don't already have some white in you." She began laughing hysterically.
I picked up a pillow before she could stop and whacked her. Hard.
"Hey, hey! No need for violence! I'm just teasing you Rica, but you know me, and you know that as long as you use that as an excuse not to be with Scott, I'm going to keep on brining it up."
"Get out."
"What? Why? When did you get so sensitive?"
"I guess when I was fourteen years old and got pregnant. Or maybe when my mom kicked me out of the house just because she thought I was messing with a white boy, since she got pregnant with me by a whole gang of them, apparently. Or maybe it was when Lucky threw me in the backseat of his car and..."
"Damn! Ok, I'm sorry! I didn't know it really bothered you that much. I promise I won't bring it up again, ok?" I didn't answer. "Hey," she shined the flashlight into my eyes. "I said I'm sorry." Then she jumped back on the bed and started tickling me. "Forgive me!" She demanded.
"Alright, alright! I forgive you!" I cried laughing.
"Mean it!"
"Get off me!"
"Mean it!" she demanded again, tickling harder. Suddenly I stopped laughing and curled into a ball, clutching my stomach. Tia jumped back. "Oh, Rica. Is it the baby? Are you ok? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
Before she could finish, I jumped up and had her pinned to the bed. Then I picked up a pillow and clocked her in the face with it. She quickly got out from under me and whacked me in the head with another pillow. The two of us were laughing and swinging so hard that neither of us noticed her mother walk in until she flicked on the lights.
"What is going on?"
The two of us froze and dropped the pillows. Tia pushed my head down one last time and jumped off the bed. Bounding quickly towards the door, she turned back and looked at me. I could see the gleam in her eye before she even opened her mouth.
"Aw Ma," she said, giving me a devilish grin. "She just mad 'cause she is in luuuuuv wit' a white boy."
Aunt Rachael's eyes quickly shot toward me, and then she stifled a smile. "Tia, go to bed."
"I'm on my way." Tia said, then from further down the hall she called, "Rica and Scottie sitting in a tree..."
Aunt Rachel was grinning by then, but didn't say anything about it. Instead, she said "Goodnight, Rica. I'm happy that you're here."
I covered my face, humiliated. "Goodnight Aunt Rachael," I said through my fingers.
She turned my light back off and then called from down the hall,
"Goodnight girls. I love you!"
"Love you, too," Tia and I called in unison.
Then I cried myself to sleep.