“You okay?” Rondell asks again.
But I can’t answer, cause my tongue feels glued to the bottom of my mouth. Everything feels like it’s moving too fast. I wanna tell Rondell that no, I ain’t okay, but I’m tired of feeling outta control. So I open my mouth and say instead, “Wanna see something?” Rondell seems confused and says something, but I can’t hear nothin’ now, cept Nia making them little sounds over and over in my head. I gotta make ’em stop. “Come on.” I walk away from the Skee-Ball machine, still dinging cause we ain’t finish our game.
“Where we going?” Rondell comes up behind me quick, and I don’t respond cause I don’t know. But I keep walking like I do know. If Nia can disappear with boys, so can I. I turn the corner and stop in front of the back door, at the end of a long hallway. Rondell stands in front of me, back to the door.
“What’s this?” Rondell asks, looking around. Ain’t nothin’ to see back here, though, cept old cardboard boxes that used to hold tickets and tokens and pizzas.
“I just wanted someplace quiet.” The noises in my head get louder and louder and the world’s spinning around me. I try not to wonder where Nia went with Pimple Boy, but the question repeats in my head like a scratched CD. I feel like my eyes are filled with red, like the cartoon animals on TV when they get so mad their heads boil over with hot lava. I imagine angry whistle noises shooting from my ears, like I’m the old teakettle Momma kept hidden behind the pots and pans at the old house, then refused to leave behind when we moved to the motel.
“Okay,” Rondell whispers. He shuffles his feet, so he’s moving but ain’t got nowhere to go. In my head, Nia kisses Jesse with her wet mouth, letting him lift the skirt of her dress til her panties show. Tiny purple patterns the only thing left to cover that “thing” Momma always tells us we gotta protect. Don’t look like Nia wanna protect hers, though, cause in my mind, the boy’s starting to blur the patterns with his greedy fingers.
The patterns fill my eyes til I’m blind, and when I say to Rondell, “You ever seen a girl’s panties?” the noises are so loud I can’t hear my own voice. My throat’s dry like I been screaming for hours. Up til now, I been tryna hold it all in. But standing here on my birthday with a stranger who wanna give me more attention than my own sister, I feel like the world is on fire and I’m somewhere lost in it. I try to find Rondell, standing in front of me.
“Uh, not really,” he says, but he’s changed, Rondell, I’ve changed him somehow. He looks like he’s thirsty, licking his lips over and over. The brick wall behind him seems like it gets closer and closer. I’m facing the door; Rondell’s facing me. All I know is I gotta do something to stop the noise.
And I don’t know why this would stop it, but it’s what I do: while Rondell watches, I unbutton my pants. I ain’t ever undressed in front of anybody before, cept Momma and Nia. I don’t know why I’m gon’ do it now, I just do. Rondell stares as my zipper goes down, down. Just enough so he can see a triangle of pink-patterned flowers. I wish I wore some better panties today, but now it’s too late. Rondell licks his wet lips.
We stay there like that, without moving. I’m waiting til the noise stops, but Rondell’s staring like he’s tryna memorize all the patterns. My fists don’t clench no more and I ain’t frowning no more. Rondell looks at me hungry, like Jesse when he was touching Nia. I count five long seconds in my head, then start to pull the zipper up again.
“Wait,” says Rondell quick, “don’t do that yet.” He reaches his hands toward mine, and I clench my fists again.
“Why?” I ask, hands guarding my zipper.
“Cause I still wanna see,” Rondell whines. I ignore him and zip my pants as fast as I can. I think maybe I made a mistake, copying Nia when she did something so bad. I button my pants just as I hear a voice behind me.
“Kenyatta?” I freeze at the sound of Granddaddy’s rumble. Then lower my hands to my sides, slow, so he can’t see what I was doin’。 Rondell stands in front of me frozen, with big eyes looking straight past me.
“Hey, Granddaddy.” I turn and smile like ain’t nothin’ wrong.
“What you doin’ back here, girl?” Granddaddy hobbles at me, faster than I’ve ever seen. “Come on back here nah!” I start walking before he can reach me and Rondell, scared what might happen if I don’t. I ain’t ever seen Granddaddy so angry. I don’t know if he’s the type to smack my face or swipe my bottom, or just talk to me real long and hard.
“Yes, sir.” I lower my head and walk away from Rondell without saying bye. Granddaddy don’t say nothin’， either. We just leave him standing there invisible. My heart is racing and I’m more scared than I been in a while, but the Nia noise is gone from my head. What I hear now is Rondell’s longing whine.
We get back to the empty booth and sit down. I look around and find Nia and Brittany together, sittin’ on top of a game meant for playing. Laughing with Pimple Boy and his friends. And I stop watching, cause now I just don’t care. I chip wood from the table with my fingernails to avoid looking up at Granddaddy.
“Kenyatta,” he says in a way that forces me to look up at him. “Who was that boy?”
“Just my friend from the pool. Rondell.” I keep it simple, cause I don’t know what he gon’ say next.
“What was you doing back there with him, all by yourself?” Granddaddy seems nervous to ask his own question. He keeps clearing his throat and rubbing his hands.
“We just went to look for the bathrooms,” I lie, tryna think quick. “Then we saw the red alarm on the door, so we was guessing if it would make noise if somebody touched it.” Granddaddy’s eyebrows dig deeper into his face, so I quickly add, “We ain’t touch it, though. We was just talking pretend.”
Granddaddy sits there without a word, but he nods. I can’t tell if he believes me or not. He’s just sittin’ there staring at me, like he can read my mind, so I try not to think bout unzipping my pants, or Rondell’s eyes once I did.
“Did your daddy talk to you bout boys, before he died?” Granddaddy’s question is not what I expected. I shake my head no. “You wanna talk bout boys with me?” I shake my head faster, no. I ain’t even sure how I feel bout what just happened with Rondell. But what I am sure of is that I ain’t ready to talk to Granddaddy bout none of it.
Granddaddy chuckles. “The one thing you need to know bout boys, Kenyatta, is that they always thinkin’ at least one step ahead of you.”
I scrunch my face, then say, “What you mean?”
“You said you and that boy was looking for bathrooms and playing with door alarms, right?” I nod, slow. “Well, maybe that’s what you was doin’， but that boy, he was at least one step ahead of that. Believe you me.” Granddaddy sits back and folds his arms, like he’s all done proving his point.
“But it was my idea,” I whisper, leaving out the part where it was me who was two steps ahead of Rondell; me who made the plan to show him my undies when all he wanted to do was play Skee-Ball.