One bed is decorated with gray bedding: duvet cover, fluffy throw pillows and sheets. The other bed has yellow-colored bedding. I assume the gray side of the room is mine since gray is my favorite color. Like the Chicago sky. A city shrouded by a blanket of silvery gray clouds eight months out of the year.
“I love when the sun disappears,” I would tell my mom every October when the weather would start to turn. “Don’t you?”
But Mom would shake her head in horror. “Girl, please. When we win the lottery, we’re moving to Hawaii, where there is no winter.”
“No,” I’d plead. “When we win the lottery, let’s move to Ireland!”
Mom would scoff. “Ireland?”
“We’ll move to the countryside!” I’d say dreamily. “Have an herb garden and eat cakes and custards and take long walks in the rain!”
Mom would laugh. “Okay, Tiff. When we win the lottery, we will officially be the only African Americans living in Ireland. Lord help us.”
I run my fingers across the duvet cover. The bedding has that fresh-out-of-the-box look. Pristine and untouched. Like someone took a hot iron to each sheet and pillowcase. At the far end of the room are stunning glass French doors. I move toward them and stop to catch my breath. Our room is overlooking a tennis court. These people have a tennis court in their backyard?
I open one of the doors and step out onto the small balcony, admiring the nighttime view. The house is nestled at the base of a hill of giant boulders so the entire backyard perimeter is enclosed and completely private. To the left of the tennis court, I see a hint of their pool that seems to be cut from stone so it looks like it’s blending in with the rustic scenery of the hills. Bright fuchsia and purple lights glow from somewhere deep within the water and there’s a water slide! Amazing. This is better than the houses I’ve seen on MTV Cribs. How can they be this rich?
I step back inside and notice a vintage record player set beside a wicker basket filled with records on top of my dresser. I move to it and sort through the music.
Pink Floyd.
Led Zeppelin: Live at the Royal Albert Hall.
Jimi Hendrix.
James Brown.
Stevie Wonder.
The Rolling Stones.
The Beatles.
It’s almost all of my favorites! I flip open the Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon record and my jaw drops. A first-edition vinyl in almost perfect condition! It must’ve been so expensive and tough to find. I carefully set the record back among the others and run my trembling fingers across the antique record player.
“Be careful with that stuff.”
I turn. London? She’s got the same soft hair as Heaven and Nevaeh. Only hers isn’t in tight ringlets like theirs; it hangs in soft waves down her back. She’s also got a beautiful coffee-with-cream complexion, and the eyes—strikingly blue. I fidget with my leather bracelets, super-self-conscious. With full lips and that gorgeous black hair, all she needs is a pair of wings and a runway and she’s Adriana Lima.
She tosses me a cold bottle of water and I catch it clumsily. “Those records are my dad’s and so is the player, so please be careful.”
“Oh. I thought they were for me.”
“To borrow. My dad wouldn’t give them to you. Those are all his favorites.”
I’m stunned speechless for a moment and not because of the way she keeps stressing my dad. As if he’s hers and hers alone. It’s the music. All the music I’ve grown up listening to and loving. It’s proof! Of course he’s my dad. We like the same music? Genetic taste buds! I smile. Like really smile for the first time in a long time. Only London doesn’t smile back. She frowns. Deep and almost threatening.
She’s dressed in leggings and an oversize green sweatshirt that says Curington Girls Basketball in bright gold letters. She tosses her backpack onto the floor and pulls off the sweatshirt in one fell swoop, flinging it onto the bed, not even a trace of modesty as she stands before me in her pink cotton bra, showing off what probably doesn’t come from my dad’s side of the family: giant boobs.
“Sorry I’m late. I was studying for the SATs with a friend. So exhausting.”
“SATs? Isn’t it kind of early?”
“It’s my senior year.”
“You’re a senior? I thought you were fifteen?”
“I am. I skipped a few grades.”
“Oh. I didn’t know people could do that.”
“People skip grades all the time.”
“I guess. But I mean...you must be supersmart to do something like that.”
She shrugs as if yes, she is, but also, it’s not very interesting. “Dad says your transcripts were mostly As.”
“But I’m not all that smart. I study a lot.” I’m trying my hardest not to gape at her way-too-big-for-a-fifteen-year-old breasts. In fact, I’m focusing so intently on her eyes, my own are starting to cross, and now my vision is blurry. I’ve never given my A cups much thought. Every so often Keelah would tease me and declare that one day my children would starve to death if I didn’t find some sort of miracle grow, but it never much bothered me. Until now. In the presence of my new half-dressed, half-naked half sister, I suddenly feel inadequate and quite frankly...underdeveloped. Why are my boobs so freaking small?
“Weird you had to study so much. You went to, like, a basic, public school, right?”
Like a reflex, my face twists into a scowl. Basic? Who is she calling basic? “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”
“Curington’s upper-class curriculum is college level. No offense or anything. Don’t feel bad if your GPA drops.”
I untwist the cap off my bottle and take a tiny sip, swallowing hard as if I’m drinking a clump of sand. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of pretense with London. No polite tilts of the head. No syrupy sweet voice to match. Could she be my new mean girl?
I had a plan for this new phase of my life. It definitely included a mean girl who hated me but I wasn’t supposed to meet her until I started school on Monday. She’d call black people “coloreds” or “those people” as if we were a strange species from another planet and she’d ask me offensive questions like “What’s it like having nappy hair?” and “Can the sun make your skin darker or is that as dark as it gets?” And then she’d ask me if she could touch it.
“Hey.” I smile, attempting to lighten the sour mood. “I saw this boy outside—”
“Let me guess. White face, weird, serial-killer vibe?”
“Yeah. Does he always look like that?”
“Even at school. They tried to suspend him until he took it off, but his mom hired some fancy lawyer. Sued the school and won.” She rolls her eyes. “So, as long as girls can wear makeup, then Marcus McKinney can look like a crazed maniac.”
“Why does he wear it?”
“Lots of theories but no one really knows for sure. I think he wishes he was white or something. The whole family is weird. He has two moms. And they’re always having barbecues with their ’hood-rat relatives and blasting annoying music. Did you talk to him?”
“No. He only waved at me.”
“Seriously? Creepy. He never talks. I think he’s half-mute or something. One of his moms won the lottery. That’s the only reason they can