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  I gave her a look. “Better hope I don’t get to heaven before you, then. If so, he’s mine. . . .”

  We laughed and then colored in silence for a few moments more before Raq eventually asked the platinum question. “So, who you reppin’ in the underground?”

  “Are you serious?” I replied, thinking of all the posters I had of him on the back of my bedroom door. Piper MC was gonna be huge, larger than Millionaire Mal even someday—someday real soon, I had been hoping. “Piper,” I said.

  He was coming to Toledo in a few weeks for the Halloween Jam. I didn’t mention this, though, because at the time it didn’t matter. I wasn’t old enough to get in anyhow, and I figured Raq wasn’t either. That’s before I knew that things like age restrictions at concerts didn’t mean a thing to Raq.

  She grabbed my shoulder and gulped her surprise. Eyeing me with a raised eyebrow, she said, “If it weren’t for how skinny you are, I’d think you were my lost sister, for real.” She gave my shoulder an extra touch. “When’s the last time you had a piece of cornbread, chica? A biscuit or something?”

  I laughed, lifting the flap on my backpack, offering her a peek at my snacks—red grapes, plums, sour cream and onion Pringles, Hostess cupcakes, bite-size Snickers, and a Twix. “I just don’t gain much weight is all,” I told her. “Born too early.”

  “Word? You’re a preemie?”

  “Yep,” I said, thinking about how—after the car accident—I’d been snatched from the womb and spent two months in an incubator while my mother waited for God’s hand in a coma. I made it, but she did not. My father had left for heaven instantly when the car they were both in was hit by a tractor-trailer out on Woodville Road.

  Raq reached inside my bag and snagged a Snickers, not bothering to ask, which for some reason didn’t annoy me even though I usually hate it when people take my food without asking. Maybe because I’m an only child. I never did learn to share. Raq seemed cool, though. Real cool.

  She said, “You know what they say about preemies, right?”

  I tensed a bit, full knowing what she was probably thinking—developmentally disabled or neurologically challenged. I looked across the room, made sure that Sister Whitney was deep into her conversation with Becky Peterson, and replied, “I’m on the principal’s list. Always have been. It’s my weight that’s the thing, not my brain.”

  Raq dismissed this with a chuckle. “They say preemies are just babies so ready for life they can’t wait to get out.” Her big chocolate eyes raced with wonder as she read my face. “That you? Ready for life?”

  Already, she had read my mind. “So ready,” I said.

  “See,” she said. “So it’s true.”

  I nodded. “For sure. . . .”

  Sister Whitney was making her way back over to our side of the room now and—without saying a word—Raq and I both knew to get focused in a hurry. Sister passed by us without saying a word.

  I’d been coloring in silence for a while when Raq picked up a pencil and began coloring the pancreas. “Gracias,” she whispered.

  I looked up at her, not sure what she was thanking me for.

  She shrugged. “You know. For the pencils. . . .”

  “Oh,” I replied. “Anytime.”

  2

  So on Halloween night I was sitting with Gramma, sulking like a little spoiled brat. She, however, was content. Any night when I wasn’t off somewhere with Raq was—to her—a good night.

  At first Gramma had forbidden me to hang with Raq. We had a huge fight about it and later that night I could hear her self-help parenting books on CD playing in the other room. She’d been collecting them since I was born, and I was used to going to bed to the sound of Dr. Sylvia or some other talk-show guru going on and on about how to be a good parent. Or at least how not to be a bad one.

  By the next morning, Gramma had proposed a compromise. If I went out with Raq on weekends, I had to be home by midnight. If I went out with her on school nights, I had to be home by nine o’clock. I was to have my phone on me at all times. No drinking. No curse words. And no devil worshipping. Period.

  We had a deal.

  Now, earlier that night, all I had been thinking was that everyone was gonna be at that Halloween Jam, everyone was gonna get to meet Piper, everyone but me. With Raq at work, who else could I go with? No one. Jewel and them would never go to an underground hip-hop event. Besides, because of Raq, I could no longer even count them as friends.

  We had been the Fan (short for “Fantastic”) Five.

  Me, Yan, Georgina, Deanna, and—of course—Jewel. Thanks to Jewel, ours was one of the hardest cliques to infiltrate. We never even allowed other girls to sit at our table at lunch, even though there were always two empty seats. At football games we always had our own bench. Gramma and Mrs. Jones were lifelong sorority sisters ever since their days at Ohio State, and they had traveled a lot together, which is why Jewel let me stay in her little circle in the first place. I had been, I guess, only welcomed by default freshman year. Jewel was nice to me for the most part, but I’m sure if it weren’t for our grandmothers being friends, she would have never even said hello to me.

  “What’s up with that girl?” Jewel had said as we lingered in the hallway between third and fourth periods, the day I’d met Raq in anatomy.

  “Ew,” Deanna had agreed. “She looks like a delinquent.”

  They’d all snickered about Raq’s Louis Vuitton purse. “Bet it’s a knockoff.”

  They rolled their eyes at her expensive-looking shoes. “Bet she probably stole them.”

  Bet you’re all just jealous, I wanted to say, but did not.

  Our parents—grandmother in my case—were all too strapped paying private-school tuition to have us dripped in designer wear, and I doubted if any of us could even walk in those heels, let alone save up enough allowance to buy a pair. Except Jewel, of course.

  Noticing Raq’s tattoo, Jewel said, “Who actually puts ink in their skin, permanently?”

  “Biker Girl,” they called her, agreeing that surely she was probably only going to last at our school a week before getting expelled.

  “Watch your purses, ladies,” Yan joked.

  “Make that Klepto Biker Girl,” Georgina added with a laugh.

  But it was Jewel who laughed the loudest.

  At first, I laughed, too. They were my friends, and maybe they were right. Raq did look pretty rebellious. But then, remembering all the fun we’d had in class earlier, I felt bad.

  And then it was Jewel, when she saw Raq sit down across from me in the cafeteria that day, who glared the steamiest from the doorway, instantly launching Project Blackball Ann Michelle Lewis.

  What was I supposed to say Raq? “No, you can’t sit here?” There were always empty chairs at our table, so it wasn’t like I could pretend there wasn’t room for her. And though I’d pretended to agree when they’d ripped Raq’s appearance apart in the hallway earlier, really I thought it was unfair. So what if Raq wasn’t all conservative-looking like us? She had a way of making me feel like just being me was exciting.

  So after she’d spotted me, Raq had taken a seat at the lunch table and pulled a bag of Cheetos from her backpack. From the way Jewel, Yan, Deanna, and Georgina were standing in the doorway, staring in disbelief, it was immediately apparent that I had, by all definitions of the Fantastic Five’s unspoken code of ethics, attempted social suicide. Unanimously deciding not to sit with me—or with Raq of course—Jewel had led the others to the other side of the room.

  When Raq noticed, she’d said, “What’s up with the Prissycat Dolls?”

  I shrugged, swallowing a piece of my ham-and-cheese sandwich. “They think they’re better, that’s all. . . .”

  On purpose, I made eye contact with Jewel. “What?” I begged with my eyes.

  She dismissed me by looking away. Then she pushed away the salad she was eating to further emphasize her disgust.

  I sighed and admitted to Raq, “Actually, they’re my friends. I don�
��t know. . . . They’re just trippin’.”

  After glancing back over at them, Raq looked back at me. “Friends? Are you serious?”

  “Well, our grandmothers were friends,” I explained. “And now we are. Toledo’s small like that.”

  Raq laughed an unimpressed laugh. “So let me get this. . . . You’re locked in with a bunch of lames the rest of your life just because your granny raced horse and buggies back in the day with theirs?”

  “Sometimes they’re cool,” I pointed out. I thought about all the fun we’d had over the summers. We’d usually spend every single day at Jewel’s house and then either head to Maumee Bay State Park or Cedar Point. We all loved the beach and were hoping to save up for Cancun next year for senior spring break.

  Jewel’s philosophy was: We are the company we keep. She didn’t like Raq at all and—because I was keeping her company—she was now refusing to talk to me.

  Raq looked over at them again, noticed the way Yan was looking her up and down, and turned back to me. She said, “I couldn’t possibly care less what those snobs think of me.” Her attitude was thick. “But if those are your friends, whoa. Some amigas, chica. Jeez. Felicidades.”

  I took a sip of my apple juice and offered Raq half of an oatmeal raisin cookie Gramma had made the day before. I figured my friends would be over their little tantrum in a day or so, so there was no way was I going to go over there and sweat them. Instead, I made small talk with Raq as she munched on the cookie, nodding her approval. Just another thing we had in common, I realized. We both loved to eat. Jewel and the other girls were always turning their noses up at junk food like it stunk, but I didn’t think there was anything wrong with chips and cookies. Neither did Raq.

  Part of me sort of wishes I’d just gone over there, tried to find a way to incorporate Raq into our group rather than having to choose between her and them. I mean, yeah, they could be uptight, but they’d been my friends for two years. She’s really cool, I could have said. Can you just give her a chance? A week. And if not I won’t be friends with her either. But I didn’t.

  The next day, none of my old friends would talk to me or even look at me. While we were changing clothes for gym, I asked Yan, who had always been the softest, what it was going to take to end this stupid thing and get back to how cool things used to be. But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She just stared down at her sneakers like tying them was the most important thing in the world.

  “Jewel said we shouldn’t really, you know, talk to you. Well, until you stop hanging with her,” Yan said.

  “That’s crazy,” I said, fixing my ponytail in my locker mirror. “Now I’m not allowed to have other friends? You guys all do. What about Georgina and the volleyball team? And you! You hang out with the art club all the time.”

  “It’s different,” Yan said in a dismissive tone.

  “How?” I asked, immediately regretting that it came out sounding as if I were begging her.

  She didn’t answer. And then Mrs. Taylor came into the locker room and blew the whistle so we had to go start class.

  At that point, I wasn’t willing to back down, and neither were my old friends.

  They became the Fan Four, and it was me and Raq against everyone.

  Only now it was Halloween night, and Raq had to work.

  There I sat in my sweatpants, tank top, and Betty Boop house shoes. Gramma was sitting across from me in her red satin pajamas, one bony leg crossed over the other. Even if I hadn’t been a preemie, thin was in my blood. Gramma was just as slender as me. Her perfume, Tabu, was syrupy in the air as she pressed a berry lipstick stain onto her mug, sipped, and then straightened her asymmetrically bobbed wig. To her, this was a fabulous evening.

  According to Gramma, Halloween was the devil’s holiday, so we played the music loud enough to drown out the pat-pat-pats of little trick-or-treaters at the door. All my life, Halloween had always been a bag of candy from Gramma. “Here,” she would fuss. “All these kids walking around to strangers’ doors, beggin’ folks for goodies when I can buy you the stuff myself? I don’t think so.”

  After I’d moaned and groaned for too long about not having anything to do that night, Gramma had set up a card table in the living room and forced me to join her for an evening. We sat across from each other, crunching on Corn Nuts, playing Yahtzee, and listening to Natalie Cole and Whitney Houston songs on shuffle, but I was determined not to smile and so far had not. Gramma noticed this and sang along real loud to the music. She was used to her granddaughter’s ways, sulking and wishing for a more amazing life, but nothing was gonna stop her fun.

  The taste of hot cinnamon lingered on my tongue, singed from cocoa sipped too soon. Gramma always boiled the cinnamon right in with the milk—the taste was incredible—but I sat with a stone face, refusing to say a word, not even “yum.”

  And Gramma had been going on and on with her small, annoyingly insignificant stuff. Something about what happened at choir rehearsal. And then something else about an article in Oprah’s magazine. And then all about what was on sale at Kroger. Who cared? I was missing everything. Didn’t she get that? Everyone in the real world was living life to the fullest while I sat at home with my grandmother on a Saturday night.

  Gramma had a way of twisting her mouth when she smiled, like she really didn’t want to smile but, ah well, if you insisted, and she did that when “Unforgettable,” her favorite Natalie Cole cover song, came on. Her round little cheekbones were dipped in rose-colored blush, forcefully shiny. And her tiny eyes glistened against her coal black mascara. Even without company, she always kept her face painted. I should have been polite when she dropped her pencil. Instead, I rolled my eyes and tapped my nubby fingernails on the table, waiting impatiently for her to bend over and get it herself. I hated feeling so mean, but I couldn’t stop.

  Gramma eyed me. “Enough is enough,” she said.

  My eyes locked into a stare-down. “You don’t under—”

  “No!” she said. “Don’t you dare tell me what I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t go trick-or-treating. I can’t go out anywhere like everyone else tonight.”

  “What about Jewel?”

  “No.” I sighed. “She’s too busy being perfect.”

  Gramma raised an eyebrow.

  “Go ahead and say it,” I said. “What?”

  She sighed. “Mighty strange, you ask me. Two years of high school and now is the first time you have that look on your face if I so much as mention Jewel or—”

  “Well it’s not my fault. I can’t help it if she hates me.”

  “Hates you, huh?” Gramma appeared unconvinced. “Funny they didn’t start hating you until Little Miss Gangster showed up—”

  “Raq is not a gangster. Is that what Jewel’s grandmother—”

  “Child, I’m sixty-four years old. You think I need somebody to tell me what I can see with my own eyes? I don’t blame Jewel or your other little friends. I’d run from you, too.”

  I gasped. I couldn’t believe she’d said that. “So you think it’s fine for them to judge me, to judge other people? Like they’re so perfect. Like anyone is so perfect!”

  Gramma sighed. “Lord Jesus, help me!”

  “Gramma. Really. With Jewel, if she doesn’t approve of you, you’re not good enough. And if you’re not all goody-goody, you’re not worth it. But with Raq, it doesn’t matter if you’re not perfect. It’s like, she accepts people for who they are. You feel like it’s okay to be who you are and like whatever you like when you’re with her. I feel like I’m alive for a change.”

  “Well, my-my-my . . . All this time it looked to me like you were breathing—”

  “Gramma! You know what I mean. And she’s fun, too. And if she didn’t have to work, I’m sure we would be riding past the concert tonight.”

  “Well, you’ve got your whole life to start doing grown-up things,” she said. “You think this is the last concert Jay-Z is gonna have? Don’t you know how—”

 
; “His name is Piper, Gramma. Not Jay-Z.”

  “Whatever. Do you know how many concerts I went to back in the day? How many times we used to run around chasing behind Smokey Robinson, how many times I sat front row for the Four Tops? Child, please. I know why you want to go. But do you think that little rapper boy is somewhere crying ’cause you’re not coming tonight? Plenty other fast little hot mamas on the road every night, trust me. Introduce themselves and five minutes later they don’t remember meeting ’em.” She laughed and began scribbling our names on a fresh score sheet.

  I took a deep breath and said through my teeth. “You don’t understand, Gramma.”

  She underlined her name and started writing mine. It looked so simple, so pitiful. Having a fancy name gives a girl the nerve to wanna go big places in life, to chase big dreams in the world, even if she has to journey alone. My life was denied that extra push the minute Gramma requested “Ann” on my birth certificate. Ann Michelle, at that. I grimaced.

  My cell phone rang just as Gramma finished writing, and I snatched it from the table. Please let it be Raq. Please . . . Her picture ID, a close-up of her in chic sunglasses and a big smile, flashed across the scene.

  “Ay, chica!” Raq’s voice was loud and so was the music in the background. “Just quit my job,” she announced. And I could tell she was smiling. Raq had tried and failed to get tonight off, and we’d given up hopes of being able to hang out on Halloween. All of her coworkers either had masquerade parties to attend or kids to take trick-or-treating.

  “Really? What happened?” I asked. Raq had only been working at the Five Star for a few weeks. Her foster parents were letting her drive their spare car on the condition that she earned her own gas money. Her foster mother had even hooked her up with a cashier job. Now Raq said she’d had a revelation. She’d be seventeen soon, in five months to be exact, and having a skinny little supervisor—her foster mother’s brother, Hal—with peanut butter breath barking orders at her on Halloween was not how she pictured her new life.

  She said, “Some big ol’ musty lady dropped her milk in aisle twelve. So Hal said I had to mop busted plastic and cow discharge or else. Chica! Can you believe it?”