I open the refrigerator door and stale warmth hits me. All of the food is blanketed in darkness. “Umm . . . the fridge isn’t working.”
“What?” Jay says. She closes the door and opens it, as if that’ll fix the issue. It doesn’t. “What in the world?”
Something over near the oven catches her eye and her face falls. “Shit!”
The numbers are usually lit on the oven’s clock. They aren’t.
Jay flips the kitchen light switch. Nothing happens. She hurries to the hall and flips that switch. Nothing. She goes in my room, the bathroom, the living room. Nothing.
The commotion is enough to wake Trey up. He comes in the hall, rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“They shut the power off,” Jay says.
“What? I thought we had more time.”
“We were supposed to! That man told me—he said—I asked for another week.” Jay buries her face in her hands. “Not now, God. Please, not now. I just bought all that food.”
That’ll probably spoil in less than a week.
Fuck. We could’ve pawned the chain and paid the light bill. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Jay uncovers her face, straightens up, and looks at us. “No. We’re not doing this. We’re not about feeling sorry for ourselves.”
“But Ma—” Even Trey’s voice is rough.
“I said no, Trey. We’re down, but we’re not out. You hear me? This is only a setback.”
Yet it feels like a major blow.
But the final blow may be around the corner.
Eleven hours, twenty minutes. Still no word from Aunt Pooh.
Twenty-Three
Since the stove is electric, we can’t have pain perdu. I eat some cereal instead.
I’m quiet on the bus. It’s just me and Sonny today. Sonny says he stopped by Malik’s house, and Aunt ’Chelle told him that Malik had some sort of freak accident that left him with a black eye. He’s staying home to recover. He obviously didn’t tell her what really happened, just like I asked.
I should be relieved, but somehow I feel worse. Malik never stays home from school. So either his eye is really bad or he’s so shaken up that he needs a day.
Either way, it’s my fault.
But maybe it’s a good thing Malik took today off. That way he doesn’t have to see the four armed cops acting as security just yet.
He and Shana were right. Midtown considers all of us black and brown kids threats now. We go through metal detectors as usual, but it’s hard to focus on anything but the guns on the cops’ waists. Feels like I’m entering a prison instead of my school.
I’m happy to go home at the end of the day, even if that means entering a dark house.
It’s as if my brain’s got a playlist of all the shitty things happening in my life on repeat. That gun pointed in my face. That article on the newspaper’s website. Long and Tate pinning me down. The cops at school. The lights going out. Aunt Pooh.
Twenty hours and no response.
Only thing that distracts me a little bit are the Uno cards Jay pulls out after dinner. With no TV and no internet, there’s nothing else to do, so she suggested we have a family game tournament. She and Trey are so not acting like family though.
“Bam!” Trey slaps a card onto the kitchen table. The sun’s still out, giving us all the light we need to play. “Wild card, baby! We making this thing as green as y’all gon’ be when I whoop them behinds.”
“That’s a lie,” I say, and put a green card down.
“Boy, sit your li’l narrow behind down somewhere,” Jay says. “You ain’t did nothing, ’cause, bam!” She slaps a card down, too. “I got a wild card, and I say we’re going back to mellow yellow, baby.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll let you have that one,” Trey says. “You gon’ regret it though.”
They’re both gonna regret it. See, I’m letting them do all the trash talk. They don’t know I got two draw fours, a wild card, a yellow skip, and a red reverse. I’m ready for whatever.
This is our third game, and miraculously we’re still on speaking terms. The first game got so heated that Jay walked away from the table and disowned both of us. She’s the definition of a sore loser.
Exhibit A? I put down that yellow skip and Jay flashes me the glare of death.
“You’re really gonna skip your own momma?” she asks.
“Um, you’re not my momma. Right now, you’re simply some chick I gotta beat.”