day until they got so creeped out the three of us had a “talk” about all the things I wanted to say but couldn’t. This made sense to them. “Fine” became my secret “Fuck you.” They left after an hour of assurances, feeling good about their parenting skills and my apparent sanity.
Then the blood day happened, I turned thirteen, and my voice changed.
We were back living in Los Angeles, and I was on scholarship at a prep school. Vernell would pick me up most days. Without my having to ask, she never got out of the car. In order to avoid any “my mom’s here” confusion—seeing as how I had two—by 3:20 p.m., I’d already staked out a spot on the outside lunch table nearest the pickup zone, on the lookout for a gray ’92 Nissan. Already at the gate by the time she came to a rolling stop, I’d run to the car, yank open the door, and dive in the front passenger’s seat like a bank robber with a bad feeling about this. “Drive!” I wanted to shout, taking a triumphant glance backward at the dust-covered cops we’d left behind. Instead, I leaned the seat back as far as it could go and told her about my day.
Every story involved the Nubian Sisters, the eighth-grade black girls club in which I had the most peripheral of memberships. Gina had full privileges, while I mainly stood on the sidelines, lying about getting my period and getting tongue. The real oral exam was knowing all the words to Too $hort’s “I’m a Player.” I listened to 92.3 The Beat with blind people ears until I was ready to whisper the lyrics in the hallway when teachers weren’t around. “See, I made up my mind when I was seventeen. I ain’t wit no marriage and weddin’ ring. I be a playa fo’ life.” The clique’s unofficial bard, a girl named Monique, changed up some of the lyrics to fit our current circumstances. Instead of “I used to fuck young ass hoes / I used to be broke and didn’t have no clothes,” we sang, “I used to get the young ass sperm / Used to be broke and had a messed-up perm.” Just turned thirteen, and already jaded.
Our real anthem ushered in the opening credits of Living Single, a new show starring Queen Latifah as a man-loving magazine editor. Really, it was our fight song—“Ooooo, in a ’90s kinda woo-oorld I’m glad I’ve got my girls!” At the time, this didn’t seem depressing.
Living Single was the new reality we little brown-eyed girls had to look forward to. A bunch of grown-ass women living together—in fucking Brooklyn. Monique dubbed herself Regine, the calculating fashion vixen. Gina was Khadijah, the sporty career woman. Marissa was Max, the man-eating lawyer. They said I could be Synclaire, the ditzy virgin. Pretty much everyone was having some version of sex but me—on screen and in life. I still thought I was more like Max—smart, driven, and possibly gay since, you know, she was so smart and driven. Plus, she had short hair—extra gay.
On the way home, Vernell and I would listen to The Beat’s promos for the show, which was new and ’90s. She loved this one line they played on repeat. It was Max talking about what women should do with men—“Snip. Snip.” To drive the point home she scissored the air in front of my eyes with her fingers. A would-be peace sign turned into a scalpel.
Vernell was the one who taught me how to use a tampon in our bathroom before I needed to learn. Said it was important to know, “just in case.” She was the one who told me that I should probably try sex before I got married, because “you never know.” She was the one who convinced me to wear gigantor neon green Cross Colours. Said it looked cool. She was the one from New York. We moved to Los Angeles two years after the riots to be close to her. Almost ten years younger than Frances, she was the one I thought knew everything.
Spending quality time in the Nissan with Vernell also meant time spent listening to her criticize my mother for not raising me right or me for being such a snob.
“So now that you go to a new school, you’re too good to hang out with Shonda?” There was contention in her voice. Shonda, the long-legged girl who lived across the street, liked to five-finger troll