At the mall, we encountered a group of girls coming out of the department store. I recognized one who attended Red Mound irregularly. She was cute but shaved her eyebrows off and drew them back on with black pencil. The summer before, she’d been sitting between the boys, and in the middle of the foot-washing ceremony, she’d left. I’d assumed she was visiting the outhouse, which you couldn’t pay me to go near after the wasp incident. Boukie left minutes after, and then Baybay. None of them had returned until near the end of services. When the girl walked to her seat, there’d been runs up and down her stockings.
Boukie walked away a few steps, talking to the girl. Her friends looked me up and down, and I crossed my arms.
“Rhonda, it won’t my fault I ain’t call you,” Boukie said. “My mama had forgot to pay the phone bill.”
“Ooh, you lying!”
“Don’t be like that.”
“And anyway, you coulda walked to my cousin Pookie house and called.”
“Why I’ma do that? I ain’t even know he was some kin to you.”
By the time he drove us to the creek, the june bugs were out, and so were the mosquitoes. He lighted the citronella pots and laid the blanket on the grass. I was nervous, because blankets went on a bed and my mother had warned to stay out of beds with boys. She’d told me that when my period came. She’d given me that advice, along with sanitary napkins, though I’d wanted tampons.
On the blanket, Boukie moved in close to me, but I leaned away.
“Is Rhonda your girlfriend?”
“Who?”
“That girl at the mall, Boukie? The one you were talking to?”
“Why you need to know all that?”
“I’m just curious.”
“I see. You curious. Naw, baby, she just my friend. Like you and me is just friends.”
I stood up and brushed the back of my dress. When I gave him my hand to pull him up, I didn’t look in his face. Those eyelashes might have changed my mind.
When his summer schoolteachers threatened Boukie with failing, there was no more riding in the Eldorado, but the other boy still visited. My granny had no problem asking Baybay to complete chores at her house. On his days off, he pushed the mower around the big field and trimmed the hedges at the house front. When Baybay finished, he and I would sit on the plastic-covered couch in the front room, waiting to eat Miss Rose’s delicious, heavy meal, our thighs slurping against the plastic.
One Saturday she told us, get out her house and go walking. We were too young to be sitting up underneath the air conditioner. It would make us sick. Baybay and I walked across the field to the burned plantation house and sat on a blackened wall. We trailed our feet in the dirt. He slid closer, and when he kissed me, it wasn’t anything spectacular. Just a few smacks on the lips.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I don’t want to be disrespectful or nothing.”
The next weekend, Baybay and I took a drive into town. It felt more formal without Boukie there. He was rude and profane, but he did like to talk. Baybay didn’t say much as he maneuvered the Eldorado through the narrow highway into town. At the Six-to-Twelve, he handed money for wine to Mr. Lonny, who returned with a paper sack.
Behind us, there was a flash of blue lights. The short beep of a siren.
Baybay touched my knee. He handed over the sack and told me put that under my seat. Real quick. “And don’t say nothing, okay? No matter what happens, be cool.”
When the sheriff walked to the car, Baybay didn’t seem nervous. His hands were on the wheel at the ten and two positions. He smiled at the white man who leaned into the window.
“Hello, Sheriff Franklin, sir. How are you this afternoon, sir?”
The man smiled back. “Baybay James, right?”
“Yes, sir, but my mother named me David.”
“That’s a real good name.”
“Thank you, Sheriff Franklin. I appreciate that, sir.”
“Baybay, can I see your license and registration?”
“It’s in the glove compartment, sir. Can my girlfriend get it for me?”
I looked at Baybay and raised my eyebrow.
The sheriff leaned further into the window. “Young lady, please open the glove compartment.”
My hands were trembling, but Baybay was patient as he directed me, his hands still on the wheel. His license and registration were in his wallet, and that was under that Jet magazine. Right there. See it? When he handed the items over to the sheriff, the man didn’t even glance at them. Instead, he asked Baybay, if he searched the Eldorado, would he find anything else?