I pull Manny into the kitchen, not wanting him to wake anyone. “Stop it, Manny! You don’t have a bed anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I did at my other house.”
“I wish you’d go back to your other house,” I mumble under my breath.
Aunt Charlie, Dreya, and Manny moved here a year ago when they got evicted from their duplex. My aunt doesn’t keep a job for longer than three weeks, and they never have enough money for rent, so they live with us off and on. It really sucks lemons.
As much as it irritates my mother that Aunt Charlie won’t get and stay on her feet, she won’t ever let her and her kids be homeless or on the street. That is not how Tollivers roll. We always stick together, no matter what. Even if we get on one another’s last nerve.
“Sunday, I’m thirsty. Hurry up,” Manny says.
I know he’s not trying to have an attitude. Let him keep it up and he’ll be swallowing spit.
Just for that, I take my time getting Manny’s sippy cup out of the dish rack on the counter and filling it with water from the faucet. I try to hand it to him, but he shakes his head.
“I thought you wanted some water.”
He shakes his head again. “Put some ice in it.”
“We ain’t got no ice.”
“Yes, we do. My mama filled up the trays. I saw her.”
I open the freezer, crack two ice cubes out of the plastic tray, and drop them into Manny’s cup.
While he’s drinking, I search in the refrigerator for my orange, pineapple, and banana juice. The fruity goodness that will slide down my throat in a burst of yummy flavor will be the cure for my dry, parched mouth.
I know I sound like a commercial. It was completely intentional. Plus my juice is the bidness, ya dig?
For some reason, I can’t seem to find it in our refrigerator. This can only mean one thing. My beloved juice has been stolen and consumed by someone else in this house.
“Manny, who drank my juice?”
He shrugs. “How you expect me to know? I’m only four.”
“Because you always asking your mama for my stuff!”
“What color was your juice?”
“What color was it? It was yellow!” I feel the anger rising from the pit of my stomach to my dry and crackly throat.
“Oh, that must be the juice I had tonight with my fried bologna sandwich.”
AARRRGGGHHHH!!! If my throat didn’t feel as dry as the Sahara Desert, I would scream that out loud, but right about now, I can only offer a raspy hiss.
I leave Manny standing there in the kitchen, with his ice water, as I storm back through the living room and down the hall. I can’t stand all these people up in me and my mama’s spot. I don’t have anything to myself, not my own room, my own clothes. Not even a carton of juice. I wish they would all disappear!
Then I hear whimpering coming from the kitchen.
I roll my eyes and go back to get Manny. “How you gon’ have all that mouth and be scared of the dark?”
“I’m not scared of the dark. I’m scared of roaches.”
“We don’t have roaches, Manny.”
“We did at the other house.”
I sigh and scoop him up into my arms. “Just come on.”
I tuck Manny into the bed with Dreya and get back in my bed. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep.
Which is impossible.
Because. I’m. Still. Thirsty!
2
“I wish my whole life was a fantasy / keep waiting for someone to wake me.”
—Sunday Tolliver
I open my eyes and wake up to the same thing I wake up to every morning. Chaos.
“Manny, you better not sleep in my bed again, with your Peabody behind.”
I snicker into my pillow. Dreya and Aunt Charlie call Manny “Mr. Peabody” whenever he wets the bed. If you ask me, it’s mean, but I don’t get into their immediate-family drama.
“Sunday, where are your gold hoop earrings? I need them for my outfit.”
Why is it that none of Dreya’s outfits are complete without borrowing something of mine? My gold hoops don’t even go with what she has on—layered tank tops with a short leather jacket, skinny jeans, and black leather ankle boots. She looks like a biker chick, and biker chicks should be rocking chains—not my earrings.
“I don’t know where they are.”
That was a total lie. I know exactly where my real 18-karat gold earrings are. The ones I got from my ex-boyfriend, Romell, on my sixteenth birthday. The ones I hardly ever take off. They are in a box under my pillow.
Wanna know where they’re not going? In Dreya’s multi-pierced ears.
Dreya sucks her teeth and runs her hand through her short hair. “You’re such a liar.”
Once upon a time Dreya used to have long, thick hair like me, but she decided that it would look better if one side was shaved. The unshaved part has blond tips and is styled in an unruly roller set. She thinks it looks hawt…I guess as long as she likes it, that’s the most important thing.
“Sunday, get up and get ready for school!”
My mother is standing in the doorway, wearing her postal uniform, somehow managing to make the plain blue and gray pants and shirt look fly. Her hands are on her hips as if she’s going to do something other than yell to get me out of bed.
“Is Aunt Charlie still in the shower? Because if she is, I can sleep for ten more minutes.”
“Yeah, my mommy is still in the shower, and what?” Manny says while standing at the foot of my bed wearing only his pajama top.
How’s he gonna have an attitude problem and still be peeing in the bed?
I throw a pillow at him. He’s always trying to have his mama or his sister’s back when they’re the ones always spanking his little behind.
My mother sucks her teeth and grabs the bottom of my blanket, trying to pull it away.
“She’ll be out in a minute, Sunday. Get on up and get your stuff together because Carlos needs to get in there, too.”
It makes no sense that the two people in this house who have absolutely nothing to do all day would need to be in my way when it’s time to get dressed. Aunt Charlie isn’t even thinking about a job, and none of Carlos’s business associates are up this early. I use the term business associates loosely because, on the real, don’t you have to be making money from something for it to be called business?
Other than his failure to generate income, Carlos is cool people. Out of all the boyfriends my mom has kicked it with, he’s the best one. He makes my mother laugh, and he doesn’t try to act like my daddy. Every now and then we’ll play a video game or two on Xbox and chill.
My mother sees my eyes roll and says, “Sunday, I know what you’re thinking. Carlos has a stock-options-trading class this morning. My baby is about to get into the stocks and bonds market.”
I roll my eyes again and throw myself out of the bed. Carlos always has something going that’s about to take off. Two months ago, it was a check-cashing store, six months ago it was a Laundromat that had a bunch of half-broken washing machines and dryers. Needless to say, it didn’t pan out. And until one of his ideas