MiMi eyeballs me with her lips twisted to one side. “And what about the rest of your face?”
Right. The rest of my face. “The guy was pretty big. Muscles on top of muscles, know what I mean? Can you pass the salt?”
She slides the saltshaker over to me. “Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, in the halls, huh?”
I scrunch my nose. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“And what about your job interview? How did that go?”
She’s on top of her game today. As Joshua Kim knows, I’m clearly not. I think about the money stashed in my box spring. How much longer it’ll take me to reach my goal without that job. “Pretty solid. Keeping my options open, though.”
“Okay, Jayson.” She’s pulling out my government name. Not a good sign. “First your sister’s avoiding me all day, now you’re coming home with your face all chopped and screwed. One of you is gonna end up in a ditch somewhere, and I’ll be looking dumb, sitting here at this table. Watching your plates get cold.”
The image of Nicole’s cold body lying facedown in a ditch is enough for me to push my plate away.
“And now you’re not hungry?” MiMi asks.
I’m not sure what I am. I know I should be pissed at Nic for playing some kind of vanishing act. Asking me to look out for her without asking, as if that’s part of some brother handbook I only read the synopsis of. But usually, Nic would shoot me a line—a text, a DM, a smoke signal to tell me she’s living her best life while I wait at home, letting her do it. Her silence is almost too loud at the table.
“Just remembered I have to finish my English project,” I finally say.
MiMi frowns at me. “It’s Friday.”
“You’re the one that’s always on me about procrastinating.” I stand, peck MiMi on the cheek before she can say more. As soon as I close my bedroom door behind me, I try calling Nic again. Straight to voicemail this time. I don’t leave another message. I call again and again, hoping that her real voice will pick up instead of the recording.
It never does.
I dream about Nic again that night. I find her somewhere in the woods, crunching on leaves as she weaves through trees, holding hands with Mom. Real Mom—all bronzed skin and bright eyes. Not Prison Mom—all faded and monochromatic. They look back at me, motion for me to join them. I take a few steps into the woods but Nic and Mom get farther and farther away. I try to call their names but choke on some vines creeping toward me, away from the trees. The more the vines bury me, the smaller Nic and Mom get. Smaller and smaller until they’re just specks. And then nothing at all.
I wake up around three in the morning to gunshots.
Five
THERE WERE FOUR OF THEM. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK cutting through the night, like a drummer having a jam session with the raccoons and cicadas. The screeching tires that followed let the neighborhood know that it wasn’t just a couple of assholes setting off firecrackers. Only bullets could cause that frenzy.
“Just got off the phone with Roberta,” MiMi says to me as our shoulders graze each other in the hallway. “She said they’re having a good deal on strawberries at the farmer’s market.” She stares down at the phone in her hand, strawberries the last thing on her mind. MiMi always gets jittery the day after shots are fired—especially when they’re so close that the smell of gunpowder does the hustle with her morning cup of coffee. And especially when Nic’s still drifting.
“For real?” This could be my out. My way to pound the pavement, scope out some of Nic’s stomping grounds to catch wind on where she might’ve blown. “I could ride my bike there and pick some up. Need to get some air anyway.”
MiMi’s eyes snap up at me. “Boy, the only air you’re getting today is a draft from the window. Now park it.” She points to the couch and I do what I’m told.
MiMi makes another call but heads to her room and closes the door behind her so I can’t hear. I also can’t just be idle. Those bullets had a destination and I need to be sure that Nic wasn’t a pit stop. I open up Snapchat, see if Sterling’s signed on again. No luck. I scroll through her followers. Maybe one of them is online and knows if Sterling’s really kicking it with Nic. I need to find someone that Sterling follows back. Someone not quite in the same circle as Sterling, but at least on the outskirts. They might give me the answers I need.
Before I narrow down my options, there are three sturdy knocks on the front door. Urgent ones. The kinds that if not answered within a few seconds, hinges will be broken. Those knocks could only mean one thing: the bullies with the badges are on the other side.
MiMi comes scurrying out of her room, gives me a warning point to stay put. Stay quiet. Don’t give them a reason, Dad would say. Cops around here are always looking for reasons. Reasons to lay hands on you, reasons to put cuffs on you—but for the most trifling things. Pooch once got his face smashed against the hood of a squad car for complimenting a cop’s shades. Took most of the neighborhood to convince the cop that Pooch was just being Pooch—that he wasn’t pulling a fast one. After about an hour of being cuffed in the backseat of a squad car, Pooch was released. But when it comes to Javon and his crew, the cops are a little less handsy. Almost like Javon has them in his back pocket.
Two of them are at my threshold now, one smacking on gum every other word to punctuate his smugness.
“So, you didn’t see or hear anything last night?” the one without the gum asks, scribbling away in his notepad despite MiMi not giving him anything yet.
“I see and hear something every night. You have to be more specific, honey,” MiMi says, leaning against her door. She can cut someone down with one look, but it’s much better when she uses her words.
“A kid from Warwick High got killed early this morning. Right outside the security booth.”
A sigh seeps out of my pores. I almost immediately regret it. Yeah, if it’s a kid from Warwick High, that means Nic’s in the clear. Still . . . someone’s not coming home for dinner tonight. Their family will have to look at their empty dining room chair forever. The good thing about moving in with MiMi is that the table is different. I don’t have to look at the head of it and not see Dad sipping on his morning coffee. I don’t have to see the tiny dent in the wood where Mom dropped her hot plate. I see Mom and Dad everywhere else. In the permission slips they’re supposed to sign. In the birthday parties where they’re no longer swaying to Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.” In the mirror when my mom’s eyes and thick nose and full bottom lip stare right back at me. At least I could eat a bowl of cereal in peace.
“Why aren’t you speaking to the security guard, then?” MiMi asks.
“He was patrolling the neighborhood by foot when the incident occurred,” the cop with the gum adds.
“Shame.” MiMi’s voice, though, is anything but shameful.
The cop takes two more smacks of his Big Red and then leans around MiMi, eyeballs me sitting on the couch. “And where were you early this morning, young man?”
MiMi shifts her hips to the other side of the doorway to block me. “He hasn’t left the house since dinner last night.”