Ms. Norma starts it off. “You all hear that racket last night with Catherine’s grandchildren running around here like they ain’t got no home training?” She is sitting in the rocking chair, swaying back and forth, pulling her needle in and out of the yarn.
Ms. Mabel nods her head. “Girl, yes. I don’t know why them kids are allowed to run around the halls.”
The women laugh.
“No home training at all,” Ms. Mabel says. “Look at the wall right there. Catherine’s grandson marked it all up with a crayon. They just going to leave it there?”
“Maybe they think it’s art,” Ms. Louise says, laughing.
Grandma says, “Hmm. Would be nice to actually have some art on these walls. Everything here is so bland.” She points to the wall on the other side of the room. It is a dingy white with only one medium-sized framed photo of a field of flowers centered in the middle. “That’s a sad, sad wall,” she says.
Just then, JT clears his throat. “Um, Nala, I think maybe someone is here for you.” He points toward the door.
I turn around. “Tye?”
“Ah, the boy who makes her smile,” Grandma says.
“Tye, what . . . why . . . what are you doing here?”
“I thought we could hang out this evening. You said you got off work in an hour.”
“Work?” Grandma asks.
I quickly walk Tye out into the hallway before Grandma asks any more questions. I didn’t realize how much time went by. “Um, I’m glad you stopped by,” I say.
“I hope I’m not going to get you in trouble with your boss. I guess I should have just waited outside.”
“No, no—it’s fine. Um, give me a minute to get my stuff. Wait out here.”
When I go back into the recreation room, Grandma and her friends have moved on to talking about how hot it is this summer, hotter than they ever remember New York being in July, and JT is saying, “Maybe this climate change thing is real.”
I wait for a moment before interrupting. “Excuse me, Grandma, I, um, I have to go. I forgot that I have a, I have a thing to go to.” A thing? Clearly I need to get better at lying.
Grandma stands. “A thing, huh? Well, it was nice to get some time with you.” We hug and she walks me to the door.
“You don’t have to see me out. I’m okay.”
“Oh, no, I want to meet this thing of yours,” Grandma says, smiling brighter than Harlem’s sun. All the women laugh.
JT adds, “And let me know if I need to have any words with this thing. You know, man-to-man,” he says as he winks at me.
I walk into the hallway with Grandma. Tye is leaning against the wall scrolling on his phone. He puts it away once he sees us. “Oh, hello. Hi,” he says.
“This is my grandmother, Ms. June,” I tell him.
Tye reaches out his right hand. They shake. “Nice to meet you, Ms. June. I’m Tye.”
“All right, well, we’re going to go.” I try to keep this short so Tye doesn’t start asking about my job that doesn’t exist. We say our goodbyes, and I think I’ve made it out without any awkwardness but just as we get to the door, Tye turns around and says, “Maybe I’ll come back and volunteer here too. Must be nice having Nala working here.” Grandma looks confused. I don’t give her time to try to make sense of what Tye just said. I quickly wave goodbye and walk away as fast as I can.
“You like Ethiopian food?” Tye asks. We’re walking along 135th, just past the YMCA at Adam Clayton Powell.
“I’ve never had it,” I admit.
“Oh, we’ve got to go. It’s, like, one of my favorite kinds of food.” Tye keeps walking toward Frederick Douglass. Before we get to the end of the block, he stops and says, “This is one of my favorite spots. My uncle takes me here a lot.” He opens the door to Abyssinia Ethiopian Restaurant, and I walk in. The lights are low, and there aren’t that many people inside. A brown woman greets us and takes us to a table at the window.
I look over the menu and ask, “What are you getting?” Thinking I’ll follow his lead. He says, “The veggie platter. You want to share?”
“Oh, sure,” I say.
Is this a date?
Tye closes his menu. “So the thing about Ethiopian food is that you eat it with your hands. No forks. You okay with that?”
Absolutely not, I think. “Sure,” I say. I excuse myself to the bathroom so I can wash my hands. I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I look away before I really have to see myself. What am I doing?
By the time I am back at the table, the server has come and taken our order. I can tell because the menus are gone and we both have full glasses of water. I take a sip. “So, all I know about you is that you’re active in Inspire Harlem and you enjoy volunteering and doing work in the community. What else is there to know about Tye Brown?”
“I think that about sums me up. That’s who I am.”
“That can’t be true. You don’t have any hobbies? No family? What do you care about?” I ask. “Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”
“I don’t know what to say—I, let’s see, I care about leaving this world in better shape than it is for us. My uncle always tells me that’s my sole responsibility. He’s always saying some quote about service being the rent we pay for our room here on earth.”
“Are you two close?” I ask.
“Yeah. My uncle is kind of like my dad.” Tye clears his throat, and for the first time, he looks away from me.
“I understand. My aunt is like my mom. I live with her.”
“Imani’s mom?”
“Yeah.”
I can tell Tye wants to ask me a question, that he wants to know more about me and my mom and why I don’t live with her, but I think he knows that if he asks about me, I’ll ask about his situation, so he just takes a sip of water, looks out the window. And I’m glad because I don’t want to talk about my mom today.
Our food comes on the biggest platter I’ve ever seen. When the server sets it on the table, I immediately smell ginger and garlic and spices I don’t know the names of. Tye seems happy to change the subject. “Okay, here we go,” he says, pointing to each section of the oversized plate. “These are vegetable sambusas,” he says. “And this is cabbage . . . potatoes . . . collards . . . split peas . . . and chickpeas.” Then he points to a spongy-looking bread and tells me, “This is injera. The best part of the meal.” Tye shows me how to stuff the food into small pieces of the injera, and we start eating—me making a mess, him being neat and put together.
I don’t ask any more questions about family, but I do go back to my question about what he likes to do. “So, when you’re not hosting a talent show or planning community block parties, what is Tye Brown doing?”
He laughs. “I don’t know. Reading, I guess. I like to read.”
Reading? “So, what you’re telling me is you don’t have any fun, like, ever?”
“I have fun all the time. I like volunteering, and reading is, I don’t know—it’s relaxing, and I learn a lot about other people—”