“No. It matters what you think of me, though.”
Still starstruck, I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“Your show was . . . breathtaking.”
His smile cracks into a laugh. “Breathtaking?”
In an instant, I want the earth to swallow me whole.
“OMG. OMG. I’m so . . . that was so . . . OMG. I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Yes. Yes, you did. And I like it.”
For a moment, it feels like we’re the only ones in the room. Maybe on the planet.
“So, anymore shows for you?” he asks.
“No, just singing to the Littles.”
“The Littles?”
“Oh yeah, that’s what I call my sibs. I have three sisters and one brother. I’m the oldest.”
“Daaaamn, that’s a lot of y’all! Your folks were busy.”
“Ew! I don’t want to think of my parents that way!”
“My bad,” he laughs. “Man, I always wanted a big family. This only-kid thing ain’t all that.”
“It’s . . . uh, crowded. Plus, it’s different. By my age, you were already touring all over the world.” I wince at the age difference slipup but carry on. “I mean, it must have been amazing, doing the thing you love most. No one saying you can’t, or you have to babysit this kid or clean that.”
He chuckles. “Well, I got a feeling I’ll be seeing you behind the mic real soon. You got this . . . hunger about you. I can sense it.”
“It’s . . . all I’ve ever wanted to do,” I say, my chest seeming lighter.
Korey leans back with an admiring glow. “Damn. I feel that.”
Across the room, my parents are gushing in front of their favorite artist. Tony is somehow blocking my view of them. Or maybe he’s blocking their view of me.
“Here,” Korey says, stepping closer. “Give me your phone.”
He glances around, lowering my phone to his hip, and programs in a number, before sending himself a text.
“There. Now I got you,” he says, slipping it in my jacket pocket with a light pat to my hip. “Just . . . don’t tell anyone, aight? It’ll be our thang, Bright Eyes.”
My breath hitches in my throat. We have a thang.
Mom is at my side again, her face flushed. She loops arms with me.
“Wow, he’s just as amazing in person!”
“Yeah, he’s really been a mentor to me, all these years. Which is what I want to be for your daughter. Like I said before, she definitely has something special.”
Chapter 10
Beach Bums
We were once beach bums before moving to this thickened forest. We were a family that played in the sand, swam in rough waters, shoulders kissed by the sun.
Mommy and Daddy grew up on a beach in Far Rockaway, Queens, and called themselves the first fish of our family. Daddy says we evolved from fish, which is why we are so drawn to water. It’s a part of our genetic memory. That made sense to him, while the idea of God did not.
During the summer, we’d pack up coolers and stay at the beach from sunup to sundown.
We lived in a three-bedroom apartment with my grandma, my mom’s mom, facing the ocean. In mornings before school, I’d step on the balcony, filling my nose with the sea breeze. Grandma would join me, gazing out at the choppy water in longing.
“It sure is busy out there today. How about a song?”
Grandma called me her very own Little Mermaid, since I never wanted to get out of the water. I wanted to live in the sea and sing at the shore, even in the winter when the waves were a frozen ice sculpture. She said my voice was from another world that filled our home with the soulful melodies of Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and Whitney Houston.
But our home was a tiny aquarium, and we, a school of fish, bumped into each other at every turn, muddling the water with tension, Mom and Grandma biting hunks out of each other like starving piranhas.
Fish die quick in a tank, Daddy said. We needed room, to flourish, to grow, to go to college, to dive deep and go where they never could.
We, meaning my four siblings and me.
We couldn’t afford to live on our own, but drowning in Grandma’s swelling quirks made Mom and Daddy map out a plan. Daddy took extra shifts for the cable company, and Mom went to nursing school. Three years, they saved for this house that smells like wet moss, its dampness leaving our skin chilled, the billowy high trees blocking all traces of the sun. No soft waves or sweeping winds, just a chorus of bugs and angrily chirping birds. We’re now a school of fish surrounded by white fishermen.
Daddy is always tired—that’s if I see him, which is rare. He joined an electrical union, takes double shifts repairing cable wires, all to pay the mortgage and private-school tuition. He doesn’t bring up going to the beach anymore or how we were fish. Mom became our personal driver. When they’re both at work, I’m the only parent for miles. Yes, we have more room to swim but without a car, we float in a suburban aquarium, rather than an ocean.
In the mornings, before I make breakfast for the Littles, I hold a seashell to my ear and listen to the sounds of home.
Chapter 11
Shop Talk
In the narrow bathroom, I straddle the toilet seat, a smock buttoned around my neck, watching hair rain down around me, a buzzing near my left ear. I flinch.
“Hold still, now,” Daddy says, gripping my head. “Almost done.”
Daddy bought a new clipper kit when I decided to shave my head. Before, he only used a razor on his beard but decided his daughter deserved the finer things. Plus, it saves us eighteen dollars and weekly trips to the barbershop.
“Hey, watch the neck,” I say with a wince.
“I’ve got this. Chill. Damn, kid. Your mom’s hair don’t grow like this. Must be from my side of the family.”
“You say that about everything.” I snicker. “Singing, swimming, height, weight, feet . . . all from your side of the family.”
He laughs. “Well, that’s the truth, Ruth!”
“Really? Dad jokes? You’ve been in the ’burbs too long. We gotta get you back to Queens.”
“You know all this extra hair . . . is gonna cost you.”
“How much?”
“Fifty dollars. Same as last week.”
I smirk. “You can add it to my tab.”
“Daddy!” a voice shrieks.
We turn to the open bathroom door, into the immediate kitchen, at Destiny in her booster seat, her mouth full of mashed potatoes.
Daddy turns off the clippers. “Yes, baby girl.”
“Mo’ fish stick?”
“Finish what’s on your plate first. Eyes bigger than your stomach.”
Pearl hops up from the table, running by, her mini locs flopping.
“Aye,” he calls. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She shrugs. “I’m done.”
“You ain’t done if your plate still on the table. Ain’t no maid service around these parts.”
“It’s your turn to do the dishes anyway,” Phoenix adds from, well, somewhere close.
“Is not!”
“How about you both do them,” Daddy says.