Читать книгу Who You Wit'? - Paula Chase - Страница 10

“You got me doing things I never do.”

—Day 26, “Got Me Going”

Mina hated to admit it, but hours later, as Mrs. Lopez’s Benz SUV pulled off, Kelly in the driver’s seat, her grandmother riding shotgun, Lizzie in the back, she felt lighter. The four of them had spent the rest of the afternoon picking out potential hairstyles that Mina could rock for prom night. Next weekend, Jacinta would help Mina try a few out until they decided which one was “the look.”

Somehow, Mina had managed to sidestep committing to the pact, something she figured Lizzie would pick up on sooner rather than later. She’d gone along, forcing herself to act normal all day, but she felt queasy the entire time. If it hadn’t been for Jacinta running to the bathroom every few minutes, Mina may have been in there herself.

But as Kelly drove off, some of the weight slipped off her shoulders.

Even though the whole pact idea had come out of left field, Lizzie had been so into it, Mina couldn’t even get annoyed that she’d never uttered a word about it until now.

The pact itself was bad enough, but Kelly going along so easily had complicated things. If Mina had been up to it, she would have debated the issue a little—point out that Lizzie was being hasty, working too hard to control her feelings for Todd. She was sure Kelly, who was always methodical, would have seen her point. They didn’t have to take a pact, merely take one step at a time.

Then Kelly had gone and thrown her hat in the ring. It made Mina feel…

Deceitful.

Sneaky.

And worse, slutty.

Goose bumps prickled her arm, and she wrapped them around herself, gazing after the Benz, watching it stop for a full ten…fifteen…twenty seconds at the stop sign. The long stop had to be the work of Kelly’s grandmother, frontseat driving.

Slutty. She couldn’t believe she felt slutty. Brian was her boyfriend, not some random dude she’d hooked up with after a wink and head nod from across the room. Still, hearing Lizzie all excited about how great it would be to be in the pact together, how they all needed to do it, made her feel as if she’d torn her clothes off and served herself on a platter to Brian.

Her stomach shuddered like Jell-O, and a tiny flake of guilt itched at the back of her throat. She cleared it unconsciously.

“Alright, so you walking me home or what?” Jacinta said with her usual touch of gruff affection.

“Yup.” Mina forced herself to smile. A cool breeze blew her new, short ’do, and a stray hair tickled her cheek. She pushed at the hair absently, tucking it behind her ear.

The look was a radical change for her. The back was layered and short, stopping at her hairline. The sides were also layered, but the hair was progressively longer as it came around to her face, covering her ears and angling to her cheek. If she combed all of the long layers, it was enough to pull into a half ponytail for cheerleading. Brian called it her Pomeranian look. A description Mina could have done without, even if it was accurate.

Her mom, who had been chatting with Kelly’s grandmother, came and stood beside her. “Decided what you’re doing with your hair for prom yet?”

“I’m gonna hook her up with a few choices next weekend Miss M,” Jacinta said. She twiddled with Mina’s hair, pulling and pushing it around gently. “She gonna be looking fly.”

Mina and her mother chuckled.

“Okay, let me go get my bag,” Jacinta said. She walked briskly, disappearing into the house.

“Does that mean another girl’s weekend here?” Mina’s mom asked. Her eyes rolled in exasperation, but there was a pleased lilt in her voice.

Mina nodded.

Her dad would often declare an entire week girl free, because the girls spent so much time at the Mooneys’. But Mina knew both he and her mom (mostly) enjoyed the chatter that broke up the usual quiet of their three-top family.

“I better warn your father,” her mom said. She started inside, stopped, and turned back to Mina. “You okay?”

For a second, Mina felt the same close, uncomfortable suffocation she’d felt when all the girls had been hanging out in her room earlier. She froze as her mother’s brown eyes gazed her up and down curiously.

For one excruciatingly long second, Mina knew without a doubt that her mother could smell on her that she’d had sex. Her throat tightened as the air locked in her larynx. “Yeah,” she squeaked. She swallowed hard, forcing moisture down her gullet, reminding herself that if her mother smelled anything, it was the sickeningly sweet aroma of eau de Britany, J-Lo or Paris Hilton. Earlier, the girls had smeared one another with the scented pages of a magazine as a form of torture until they couldn’t take any more of the celeb fragrances. She tried again, this time hitting normal. “Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”

Mariah Mooney’s head cocked as it shook slowly. “Nothing. You all must be cooking up something. Mae Bell and I actually had a conversation on the opposite side of the car at the same time as you girls.” She laughed. “That’s gotta be a first.”

“Just tired.” Mina managed a phony yawn that turned into a real one midway through. “We were up late last night chatting with Michael.” Her eyes rolled. “He refuses to even let me see a picture of my prom dress.”

Mariah snorted. “You trusted him to hook you up. Let the boy do his work.”

“Dag, Ma, pick favorites much? I knew you’d take his side,” Mina grumbled.

“Don’t I always,” Mariah joked.

It wasn’t far from the truth.

After weeks of overly loud discussions with her mother about what type of dress she’d wear to Brian’s prom, Michael had stepped in and settled the whole thing by agreeing to help design and make a dress for Mina.

Mina’s vision was Beyoncé on the red carpet at the Oscars—long, slinky, and cut low enough to accentuate the obvious junk in her trunk, while her mom’s was pastels, frills (tulle?! Not!), and every body part covered, except Mina’s arms—more first communion than first prom.

Michael, God bless him, had several things going for him.

He was a master with a sketch pencil and a demon with a sewing machine and needle.

He knew Mina like he knew the back of his hand—hanging out with someone since age four does that.

And most importantly, he could do very little wrong in the eyes of Mariah Mooney. As long as the dress he designed did not have any peekaboo elements or a high wardrobe malfunction capacity, likely Mariah would approve.

In February, when he’d come back with a sketch of a dress that was revealing without being “grown” and flirty without being sexy, both the young and older Mooney fell in love with it immediately. It was no joke that Michael was her mom’s pet.

“Picking him over your own daughter. So wrong,” Mina said dryly.

“Love ya, Boo-Boo,” Mariah laughed. She opened the door to the house, bumping shoulders with Jacinta as she exited.

“Bye, Mrs. Mooney. Thanks for having me over,” Jacinta said.

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” Mariah said. She closed the door behind her.

“Ready?” Jacinta asked.

Mina nodded. Her mind raced as she thought about her behavior today. Had she been acting different? Did she look different? Was she different?

Jacinta hoisted a blue bag with yellow polka dots onto her shoulder. She and Mina walked in sync, their footsteps thudding lightly against the blacktop, silently at first, until Jacinta began to lecture Mina playfully.

“Why are you starting all this nonsense about me and JZ last night? All I need is for some rumor to get back to Raheem that JZ trying to holler, and then I’ve got that drama to deal with.” Jacinta chuckled, barely aware that she was now walking a step ahead of Mina and that Mina hadn’t answered her. Her voice carried, growing more animated as she chattered on. “The messed up part is it’s me Raheem gets all pissy with, not JZ. I mean, he still plays pickup with JZ sometimes. And he don’t say boo to JZ about me. But oh naw, let me be late calling him or answering his call, and I gotta hear…” Her voice deepened, mocking Raheem’s, “Oh, so where you been…with ol’boy?” She sucked her teeth. “I’m like, Raheem, yeah I was with JZ and a billion other people. I can’t help that I like chilling with Jay, though. That’s my boy. Shoot, can I help that he fine as hell, too? Still, you’re not help—”

“Me and Brian did it. We had sex,” Mina blurted, stopping Jacinta in her tracks.

Her bag slipped from her shoulder and hung heavily in the crook of her arm.

Her eyebrows furrowed, then she snorted. “You know what…I knew it.”

Mina’s eyebrows knitted. “You did? How?”

“Was it yesterday?” Jacinta peered at her. “Y’all took too long to roll by the Ria.” She hefted her bag back onto her shoulder. “First, I thought something was wrong. Me and Lizzie kept blowing up your cell, and you never answered. When you finally did, you were just like ‘yeah, we’re on our way.’”

Mina laughed low in her throat, confused. “And that meant we had sex?”

“No,” Jacinta chuckled. “But any other time, you’d give us a game time analysis of everything that was holding you up. Brian had to do this or that. You lost your shoe, or your mother added a new rule, whatever. You would have told us every detail about why you were late.”

She and Mina laughed at the truth in the observation.

The good vibrations of the laughter rolled around in Mina’s head like a pinball, touching her frayed nerves. Telling Jacinta felt really good. Good like what happened between she and Brian wasn’t so alien, after all. Good like maybe she wasn’t a slut. Good like, thank God someone else knows, and the world is still spinning on its axis, good.

Jacinta’s laugh went up a notch. “Good grief, and Lizzie talking about virginity pacts and whatnot.” She shook her head in amusement. “No wonder you were so quiet.” Her voice turned tender. “So…y’all did it, huh?”

The gentle question irritated and soothed Mina. It sounded like the voice someone would use on a person on the brink of a breakdown. But she sort of felt like a person on the edge of a breakdown. And she laughed suddenly, as if to prove it.

By the time she spoke up, they were on Jacinta’s front step. Jacinta placed her bag on the landing, then took a seat on the step. Mina sat beside her, the concrete chilling her butt through the cotton flood pants. She hunkered down and endured the chill rising up her backside.

“It feels like I have an X on my forehead or something,” Mina said. The suffocating feeling pushed its way back up, burdening her once again. She hugged her knees, lying her head on her lap to pass some of the body heat from her upper body to her lower. “Do you think anybody else thought that’s why me and Brian were late? I’m not really ready to broadcast it.”

Jacinta’s face crumbled in concentration as she pondered, then she shook her head. “I mean, Lizzie was worried ’cause you weren’t answering your phone.” She chuckled. “JZ was just worried that we were gonna wait on y’all to order the food. Michael joked that you were probably changing outfits.”

Mina snorted. “Yeah, he did say something like that when we walked in.”

“Honestly, we all believed y’all when you said the pool pump acted stupid. And later, when you told us the two of you had got into an argument, that explained why your eyes were all red.”

“Both were true, actually,” Mina said, brightening.

Normally, this was the exact sort of thing she’d share with Lizzie ASAP, but now, with Liz pushing the whole twelve-month abstinence pact, it felt as if she’d just been uninvited into some sort of special club in which Lizzie was not only a member but also president. Or at least, she’d be uninvited once Lizzie found out. And she’ll have to find out, right? Mina thought, mind whirling between ways to keep it from Lizzie and how to break the news to her.

Her head pounded.

“Do you regret doing it?” Jacinta said.

“Brian asked me the same thing.” She frowned. “I don’t regret it. Well…I mean, I’m not happy I did it, but I’m not sad, either.” She blew out a long breath and sucked her teeth. “That’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Jacinta said.

Mina winced. “You’re just saying that ’cause I’m all to pieces right now.”

“You ’re always all to pieces, Princess,” Jacinta teased. “Over cheer competitions, track meets, what to wear.” She shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

“Real talk, I want to throw up,” Mina said, then laughed. “Not exactly a glowing endorsement for not regretting it. But…” The IMs from Golden Girl blazed in her head. She hugged her knees tighter as the cold moved from her butt to her thighs. She lowered her voice, talking less to Jacinta than to herself. “We were so…close for those few minutes. I don’t regret that. But…”

Her voice hitched as the feeling—wanting Brian to hold her in his bear hug forever—overwhelmed her again. Nausea hit in a swift-rolling wave. She swallowed until the urge to cry or throw up passed. Still gripping her legs, she laid her hot face into her cool lap, turning her head toward Jacinta as she talked. “It didn’t feel like I thought it would.”

Jacinta only nodded.

Mina lifted her head, sniffling. “It’s definitely overrated.” She straightened upright at the weird smile on Jacinta’s face. “What?”

Jacinta shrugged. “Nothing.”

“No, it’s something. You’ve got that smirk you get when you’re trying and about to fail at not saying what’s on your mind.” Mina snickered. Jacinta didn’t hold back on her thoughts very often. But when she tried, the look was always the same.

“I just think if we talk about this again in a few days, weeks, or whatever, you’re gonna be saying something different,” Jacinta said.

Mina frowned, but before she could say anything, Jacinta continued, “First times suck. I’ll just say that. But second or fourth times?” She shrugged, a knowing smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

Mina started to object. But a sliver of doubt plucked her heart.

Declaring there would be no second time was about as sincere as someone shouting, “it wasn’t me,” when they were caught red-handed. Already, thoughts of lying beside Brian warmed her in the chilly breeze. Who was she fooling to say it would never happen again?

She squinted up at Jacinta. “So I’m guessing it’s too late to make that pact with Lizzie and Kelly?”

Jacinta chuckled, knocking shoulders with her. “I’m thinking, yeah.”