snaps from wherever she is, “Hang that coat up and put that backpack in your room!”
Goddamn, how does she do that? I do what she said and follow the music to the kitchen.
Jay takes two plates out of a cabinet—one for me, one for her. Trey won’t be home for a while. Jay’s still in her “Church Jay” look that’s required as the church secretary—the ponytail, the knee-length skirt, and the long-sleeved blouse that covers her tattoos and the scars from her habit. It’s Thursday, so she’s got classes tonight as she goes after that social work degree— she wants to make sure other people get the help she didn’t back when she was on drugs. For the past few months, she’s been in school part-time, taking classes several nights a week. She usually only has time to either eat or change, not both. Guess she chose to eat tonight.
“Hey, Li’l Bit,” she says all sweet, like she didn’t just snap on me. Typical. “How was your day?”
It’s 5:13. I sit at the table. “He hasn’t called yet.”
Jay sets one plate in front of me and one beside me. “Who?”
“DJ Hype. I submitted my name for a spot in the Ring, remember?”
“Oh, that.”
That, like it’s no big deal. Jay knows I like to rap, but I don’t think she realizes that I want to rap. She acts like it’s the latest video game I’m into.
“Give him time,” she says. “How was ACT prep? Y’all did practice tests today, right?”
“Yep.” That’s all she cares about these days, that damn test.
“Well?” she says, like she’s waiting for more. “How’d you do?”
“All right, I guess.”
“Was it hard? Easy? Were there any parts you struggled through?”
Here we go with the interrogation. “It’s just a practice test.”
“That will give us a good idea of how you’ll do on the real test,” Jay says. “Bri, this is serious.”
“I know.” She’s told me a million times.
Jay puts pieces of chicken on the plates. Popeyes. It’s the fifteenth. She just got paid, so we’re eating good. Jay swears though that Popeyes isn’t as good here as it is in New Orleans. That’s where she and Aunt Pooh were born. I can still hear New Orleans in Jay’s voice sometimes. Like when she says “baby,” it’s as if molasses seeped into the word and breaks it down into more syllables than it needs.
“If we want you to get into a good school, you gotta take this more seriously,” she says.
If we want? More like if she wants.
It’s not that I don’t wanna go to college. I honestly don’t know. The main thing I want is to make rapping happen. I do that, it’ll be better than any good job a college degree could give me.
I pick up my phone. It’s 5:20. No call.
Jay sucks her teeth. “Uh-huh.”
“What?”
“I see where your head is. Probably couldn’t focus on that test for thinking about that Ring mess.”
Yes. “No.”
“Mm-hmm. What time was Hype supposed to call, Bri?”
“Aunt Pooh said between four thirty and five thirty.”
“Pooh? You can’t take anything she says as law. She’s the same one who claimed that somebody in the Garden captured an alien and hid it in their basement.”
True.
“Even if he does call between four thirty and five thirty, you’ve still got time,” she says.
“I know, I’m just—”
“Impatient. Like your daddy.”
Let Jay tell it, I’m stubborn like my daddy, smart-mouthed like my daddy, and hotheaded like my daddy. As if she’s not all those things and then some. She says Trey and I look like him too. Same smile, without the gold grill. Same dimpled cheeks, same light complexions that make folks call us “red bones” and “light brights,” same dark, wide eyes. I don’t have Jay’s high cheekbones or her lighter eyes, and I only get her complexion when I stay out in the summer sun all day. Sometimes I catch her staring at me, like she’s looking for herself. Or like she sees Dad and can’t look away.
Kinda how she stares at me now. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
She smiles, but it’s weak. “Nothing. Be patient, Bri. If he does call, go to the gym, do your li’l battle—”
Li’l battle?
“—and come straight home. Don’t be hanging out with Pooh’s rough behind.”
Aunt Pooh’s been taking me to the Ring for weeks to get a feel for things. I watched plenty of YouTube videos before that, but there’s something about being there. Jay was cool with me going—Dad battled there, and Mr. Jimmy doesn’t tolerate any nonsense—but she wasn’t crazy