But whether Stevie told his mother about Marcus or not, yesterday Pia still would’ve taken that way home. She still would’ve kicked down the hall, dashing through the crowd on her skateboard, ignoring all the teeth smacking and slick talk and Ms. Wockley yelling, “No skating allowed!” Feeling that freedom she was used to. The kind of freedom that comes from feet not touching the ground. Coasting through the school door, weaving and winding across the pavement, riding the asphalt wave, avoiding the bus waiters and the pickup parents. The orange sashes of safety patrols and the sound of a whistle blown by the crossing guard. A whistle Pia never listened to because skating meant freedom. Rules were for the classroom, where teachers would say things like Participation is part of your grade.
But Pia wasn’t a participator. Not in school. She spent most days daydreaming about frontside 180s, while scribbling her sister’s name on the desk—the S, a geometric trick that looked more like a pointy eight, the way Santi always wrote it—and thinking about how much it sucked to roll an ankle, and yet rolling an ankle was way better than Ms. Broome calling Pia’s name to ask her to explain what some old guy she never heard of meant in a story she’d never read but was supposed to read just because Ms. Broome said she was supposed to read it. Pia was always ready to go. To cut into the wind and float down Portal Avenue toward Bastion Street. Pit stop at the skate park. Skate down Santi’s sidewalk. Roll toward home.
* * *
Stevie was never ready to go. Because to go meant to get got by Marcus and the boys.
There was one time they grabbed Stevie by the tie and yanked it so hard that his neck was sore for a week. They called it “Snatch the tail off the donkey.” The triangle knot had been pulled so tight that undoing it was like trying to unravel a rock. So he cut it off, buried it in the bottom of his backpack, a dead fabric snake. Told his mother he lost it. And she lost her mind.
“I don’t send you to a private school for you to lose ties. I send you there for you to be able to make them one day!” she yelled. But she knew her son. Knew he was the kind of kid who could lose the brown off his skin if he closed his eyes for too long.
Another time when Stevie wasn’t paying attention, Marcus and the boys ran up on him and threw a cup of water all over the front of his pants. Then they cupped their hands around their mouths and announced to as much of the world as possible that Stevie had pissed himself. And even though Stevie said he hadn’t, pleaded it like his life depended on it, they talked over him, howling and shrieking, Yo, you pissed your pants! Everybody, this fool pissed himself! Stevie was so embarrassed that he almost matched their joke with the real thing.
And then there was the time Marcus decided he needed to practice his wrestling moves. The ones he watched on TV. And who better to practice on than Stevie? Kid never saw it coming. A body slam. An elbow drop. A pile driver. A pin on the sidewalk, one, two, three, while the other boys threw their hands up and cheered like audience members and taped the whole thing on their phones. Viral.
So Stevie was never ready to go. Until yesterday when Marcus and the boys finally offered him… freedom.
* * *
Pia saw them. Yesterday. She was used to seeing them and they were used to seeing her, but they never said nothing. Normally they stepped to the side and let Pia skate by. It was usually only three boys standing along the fence at the skate park, but this time, four. Dressed in green. And if Pia hadn’t known Marcus, she would’ve thought private school guys were automatically good. She would’ve thought their ties made them mature. She would’ve thought they lived perfect lives, in perfect neighborhoods, in perfect houses with clean windows and green grass. Grass even greener than their jackets. Houses that smelled like coffee in the morning and popcorn at night.
But she knew Marcus.
Marcus’s mother owned the salon Pia went to whenever her mom made her get her hair done, which was mainly for holidays when they would have to go to her grandmother’s for dinner. And her mother had learned a long time ago that the only way to get Pia to go to the salon without kicking was to let her take Skitter the skateboard with her. Let her kick that around the parking lot until it was her turn in the chair so that Pia wouldn’t have to sit for hours flipping through old magazines filled with fancy advertisements of stick-figure models with bodies pretzeled up, printed on paper that smelled like the perfume Santi wore. When she was smaller, Pia would sniff the pages, and once—when the salon was really backed up—she sniffed and sniffed until the strange mixture of glue, ink, and flowers made her nauseous. She puked all over the salon floor. That was when her mother had finally given in and allowed her to bring the board with her.
At first, whenever Pia’d skate back and forth across the parking lot outside the salon, Marcus, who was always pouting while sweeping up the hair inside the salon, would come out with her. One time, he asked if he could ride Skitter. Pia kicked the board over to him. Marcus put one foot on the deck and steadied himself. And as soon as he lifted the other foot, the board flew out from under him. He caught air before slamming to the ground, only to find that his pants had split up the middle and his superhero briefs were on blast.
But Pia didn’t laugh. Instead, she tried to help him up. But he couldn’t take her hand, cover his butt, and wipe his eyes at the same time. He never came outside with her again except for one day, years later. And on that day, he didn’t speak to her or ask to ride her skateboard. He just sat on the curb and watched but pretended he wasn’t watching as Pia kicked harder than usual, sailing over the asphalt, grinding her board against the curb, scraping it like she hated it, almost violently. Attempting tricks she knew she couldn’t do, rocketing to the ground over and over again. Then getting back up, getting back on, ignoring Marcus’s fake chuckles.
She could never forget that day. It was the day she was getting her hair done for her sister’s funeral. A jacked-up French roll with what felt like two hundred bobby pins that started itching as soon as she left the chair.
Pia felt that same itch when she saw Marcus and the boys yesterday. When she saw the knots at their throats and felt a knot in hers. Because she knew Marcus. She knew where his mother’s black eyes were coming from. Where her swollen jaws and forehead lumps were coming from. Because that same day Pia sat under the dryer two years back, after her wash and before the French roll was put in, she heard her mom ask Marcus’s mom when she was going to leave Marcus’s father. With the dryer whirring in Pia’s ears, it sounded like the two women were whispering in a tornado. But Pia could still hear them through the storm.
“I ain’t trying to get in your business, Lydia. I swear. And if you tell me to mind my own, I will. I mean, with Santi’s death and this one here, I got more than enough to mind. But I can’t sit here and pretend like I don’t see what I see. And I’m definitely not ’bout to act like I don’t care about you, Lydia. You and Marcus. So, I gotta ask you, before this man kills you, when you gon’ leave?”
* * *
When Stevie realized, yesterday, that the girl skating down the street was going to be a target, and that target would be the ticket to him being left alone by Marcus and the boys—accepted as one of them—he got nervous. Nauseous.