Mila was good at adagio and the graceful stuff. She was five-foot-eight and had skinny stick legs like most of the White ballet dancers had. Mo was five-foot-five with muscular thighs and wasn’t mad at ’em. She could turn and jump her butt off thanks to her thickety thighs.
Mo was the best at allegro, the fast movements.
The music stopped. Chest heaving, she listened as Ms. Noelle commented on the things needing work.
She hoped the Ballet America teachers would be as patient as Ms. Noelle. Sometimes, in class, if they forgot a term, she’d call it out by the descriptions she’d made up to help them understand when they’d first started. No matter how patient her summer teachers were, they probably weren’t going to tell her to put her arms like she was making a basketball hoop. So, Mo had made a cheat sheet of terms. She’d been studying them every night for weeks.
Her chest swelled with pride thinking about the work she’d been putting in. She was about to beast this Summer Experience.
Rasheeda
Sheeda wasn’t used to how the Kay—K Court—where Mo lived felt like a land time ignored. The Cove had eleven courts, named by alphabet. All the other courts overflowed with loud activity, sometimes late into the night. The Kay was always eerily quiet, even when plenty of people were out, like no one wanted you to know they were back there.
Sheeda lived in E Court, but everyone called it fifth court.
The Kay (eleventh court?) was far away from the rest of the nabe’s activity and backed up by a thick band of woods. Rumor was the woods led to a deep trench cut by a stream. Sheeda had no idea if it existed since her aunt barely let her come visit Mo, much less go tramping through the woods.
According to the Book of Auntie D, you don’t go looking for trouble. To her the Kay was trouble. She preferred that Sheeda stay near the basketball courts and the rec center—both right across from their row house. And, for the most part, her and the squad did. Her house was just closer to everything. But her best friend was about to leave, so instead of her usual “Why can’t Monique come here?,” Auntie D had sighed like the words were heavy when she said, “Text me when you get there . . . and tell Monique I said good luck.”
Mo’s house was a whole fifteen-minute walk. But Sheeda obeyed and texted her arrival.
Anything to prevent a sermon.
She rapped on the door hard. The tattered screen rattled in the frame like it was about to fall out. One hole was big enough for her to stick her hand through and open the locked door. She resisted, then dared to put her face closer to peer inside.
A chorus of “Ohhhh” went up from a few feet away inside.
Four guys were in the darkened living room, their faces trained to the television. Lennie was closest to the door, standing, his back to her. A pair of denim shorts barely held on to his thin waist, showing blue and red boxer shorts. His baby locs spiked all over his head, too short to lie down and behave. He was shirtless. He always was in his pics on social media, too. The thought of his bare chest made Sheeda’s cheeks burn.
She tapped the doorframe lightly with her fist and the raggedy screen clattered at the same time that the room quieted down for a second.
Lennie spun around, scowling at the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s Rasheeda.” Her voice trembled at his growl. She spoke louder. “Hey, Lennie. It’s Sheeda.”
Recognition flickered on his face.
“Ay.” He yelled back into the living room, “Ain’t none of y’all ready for me, though.” He turned the lock on the door and it swung open. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Mo upstairs?” Sheeda stepped inside, eyes searching the stairwell.
Lennie’s smile was sly. “Would you be here if she wasn’t?”
Sheeda’s heart raced. “I mean, probably . . . n-n-not.”
She waited for him to say something, anything to confirm the messages they exchanged had been real. Standing in front of him made her stomach float.
His finger grazed her bare arm. “I’m playing with you. Yeah, she upstairs.” He hollered in the general direction of the upper level, “Mo, your friend here,” then was back at the edge of the video game action.
The word friend smacked Sheeda in the face.
His flirty messages replayed in her head. If she was honest with herself, it wasn’t anything he’d said specifically that hooked her. It was that he’d hit her up at all. Guys never kicked it with her like that. She had a mass of brown, ropey twists that always felt out of control and a face that was losing its battle with pimples—she was never the one guys paid attention to. Between Tai’s confidence and phat booty, Mila’s smooth chocolate face and skinniness, and Mo’s always-laid hair and dancer’s body, Sheeda didn’t stand a chance being noticed. When they were out, dudes regularly hollered at Mo asking her to slide her number into their phones.
When Lennie hit her up, of course she’d thought . . .
Never mind what she’d thought.
Before disappearing up the stairs, Sheeda glanced back, hoping Lennie was watching her walk away. She’d read that dark colors on the bottom could make her hips look smaller. She’d put a lot of time into picking out her outfit—a white tank top with the words Girls Rule across it and a pair of red denim shorts that looked good against her brown skin. They normally stopped right above her knee. She’d rolled them up until they gripped her thighs—the fastest way around Auntie D’s no-booty-short rule. Still, it hadn’t made any difference. Lennie hadn’t looked back.
Her entire body felt the disappointment like a weight in her belly.
She lurked at the top of the stairs and considered going back home. Mo’s door was closed. She hadn’t heard Lennie and didn’t know Sheeda was there.
She didn’t want to watch Mo pack, anyway. It would make her leaving too real.
It was hard to believe that it had only been a year ago that her, Mo, Mila, and Tai had all been part of La May, dancing several nights a week. Sheeda had never been as good as Mo and Mila at ballet, but their teacher, Mademoiselle Noelle, always complimented her for being graceful. Graceful just hadn’t been good enough for anything except La May and church. That hurt. Watching Mo pack would only be a reminder that she didn’t have whatever it took to do real dance.
She hesitated on the landing, trapped between the silence of the upstairs and the rowdy bass of the boys’ laughter behind her. Thank God Ms. Linda was at work. Sheeda didn’t have to worry about her popping out of her room, wondering why she was standing there in the dim hallway. Which was another reason Auntie D didn’t like her hanging at Mo’s. Ms. Linda was usually either asleep during the day or at work during the evening, leaving Mo and Lennie on their own a lot.
Lennie’s voice made her jump. “You good?”
Sheeda looked back down the stairs. “Oh. Yeah.”
Yes. He’d peeped up the stairs. He’d looked for her.
“Just go head in.” He called out louder, “Monique, your friend here, girl.”
He slid back off as Mo’s door swung open. Her face was twisted in a frown. “What you sa—” she screamed back. The frown U-turned into a grin when she saw Sheeda. “Hey. I didn’t know you was here. Why you ain’t just knock?”