“We need to have you up to the house in the Hamptons, Bris.” Aunt Betsy caresses the diamond at her neck. “Maybe next weekend?”
“I’m really busy right now.” I smile politely instead of telling her that I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever marry her son. She’ll soon see. “One of the artists I manage is about to drop his first album.”
“Oh, well isn’t that nice?” She sips her Mimosa.
Between Mother’s Bloody Mary, Aunt Betsy’s mimosas, and the pictures stacking up of Grip and his “queen”, I could use a drink. I’m caving and ordering a vodka tonic. Life’s too short and too tough not to.
“Bristol, over here!” Someone yells from the hostess stand at the restaurant entrance.
Here we go. A camera flash makes me blink a few times. When I look back , the photographer is gone. Great. I could write the caption myself: “Bristol Gray, manager to the stars, brunches with future mother-in-law.”
I pretend not to see the smug looks of satisfaction the two conspirators exchange. On second thought, forget the drink. Vodka got me into this mess. More vodka won’t get me out.
Grip
EVEN THOUGH I was only here my freshman year before transferring to the School of the Arts, my old high school in Compton feels like home. As early as elementary school, Jade and I watched Greg and Chaz play football on Friday nights. Chaz was already dealing by then, already banging, but he was such a gifted athlete. Football was the last thing tethering him to school. Otherwise, he probably would have dropped out long before. Only blocks away from where Chaz died, the ink scripting his name into my arm seems to burn.
“Man, these kids are so crunk to see you today.” Amir, my “security guard” says from his spot on the wall of the gymnasium beside me.
Since Amir worked airport security for years, he was a natural choice when Bristol insisted I have some kind of protection. I don’t need security, but it means Amir and I get to hang all the time, and it puts him on my payroll instead of someone else’s.
“Yeah. I’m pretty stoked to be here.”
I slide my hands into the pockets of my jeans, studying the kids assembled. Shondra, the teacher who coordinated this assembly, told them we could do autographs after and to give me some space. I’m using this time to mentally rehearse the things I want to tell them. Things I wish someone had told Chaz. Or at least things I wish he’d listened to.
Shondra crosses the gym floor, twisting her hips like she has since the eighth grade. Only now she wears a skirt and silk blouse around those thick thighs and round hips instead of the booty shorts and oversize earrings she sported growing up. Her natural hair fans out in a curly afro around her pretty face. I watch Amir watching Shondra. He always crushed hard on her.
“When you gonna make your move?” I bump his shoulder with mine. “It’s been years. Man up.”
“I know you ain’t talking.” Amir reluctantly drags his gaze from Shondra’s twisting hips to meet my eyes. “After you punked out and ran off to New York to get away from Bristol.”
The teasing grin freezes on my face. The disadvantage of Amir working for me is the same as the advantage. He’s around all the time. He sees a lot.
“I wasn’t running away from anything.” I shoot him a frown. “You telling me you wouldn’t jump at the chance to spend two days and nights with Qwest? Any man would.”
“Yeah, but ‘any man’ hasn’t been stuck on Bristol forever.” His face crinkles with a laugh at my expense. “You have.”
“Was stuck. Past tense. I’m over it. She ain’t the only girl in the world.”
But she was the only girl I could think about. Even waking up with Qwest in New York, Bristol occupied my mind as soon as my eyes opened. I still feel her hand over my heart. I think it’s branded there in acid.
“Please,” Amir scoffs. “I was there when you met Bristol. The way you looked at her that day at the airport, I ain’t ever seen you look at anybody else like that.”
He pauses for emphasis, brows up in the air
“Not even Qwest,” he adds. “She’s a great girl, but she isn’t your girl.”
“Neither is Bristol.” My teeth clench around the words. “Haven’t you heard? She’s Charles Parker’s girl.”
“I ain’t buying it.”
I didn’t before, but I do know. She’s slept with guys in the past. I’m not an idiot. I know that, and I certainly have no room to talk. This is different. A relationship with this guy who’s been chasing her for years, who her parents have always wanted her to marry. This is real, and the fact that she’s with him makes me mad as hell.
“Hey, guys.” Shondra finally reaches us and splits a smile between Amir and me.
I nudge him with my elbow the same way I did in eighth grade when he couldn’t work up the nerve to ask her to the winter dance.
“What’s up, Shon?” I bend to hug her and watch as Amir does the same.
“Thank you so much for coming, Grip.” Her dark eyes shine her excitement. “It’s so needed.”
“Things are getting better, though, right?” I ask.
I’ve heard violence is down. Gang recruitment, too. I know there’s still a long way to go, but progress has been made.
“Yeah, but not enough and not fast enough.” Shondra’s sad smile dims the shine in her eyes. “I lost a student last week, and another the week before. Both shot. Still too many funerals. And they have so much potential.”
She punches my shoulder.
“Too many Crips, not enough Grips,” she half-jokes.
Amir and I laugh, too, even though we feel the weight of what she’s saying. I feel the responsibility of being here and doing things like this.
“You, Kendrick Lamar, guys who made it out of here, but still give back, still come back,” Shondra continues. “We need you. We need more, so today means everything.”
“Whatever I can do,” I assure her.
“Well, there’s this one student I really hope you get to talk to,” she says. “He reminds me so much of you at that age. He’s in my English lit class and is such a good writer. There’s this writing contest I want him to enter that could lead to big things, but his friends called it ‘gay.’”
I wince. We may struggle with a lot of things in the hood, but we have homophobia down. That, we’re great at.
“So, of course,” Shondra says, rolling her eyes, “now he won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. And both his brothers are Piru.”
Amir and I exchange a look, knowing what that means. When your family is Piru, a Blood alliance gang, it probably won’t be long before you are, too.
“They call him Bop,” Shondra says.
“What’s his real name?” I ask
“His name is Dudley,” she replies with mischievous eyes.
“Dudley?” Amir laughs. “That ain’t even gangsta. Your mama call you Floyd. Imma call you Floyd.”
The three of us laugh at his Coming to America reference, and it feels good to be home. As hard as I’ve worked to get out, to survive it, being back here today feels right. Even though I can’t ever think about Coming to America without thinking about Chaz’s last day on earth, it feels right to be here.
Shondra’s eyes shift just beyond me and light up with a smile.
“Ms. James!” She reaches behind me to hug the petite woman with neat dreadlocks pulled away from her unlined face. “So good to see you. Now, it’s a party.”
“The whole neighborhood is buzzing about some superstar coming,” Ms. James says. “I had to come see for myself.”
“Ma.” I reach down and pull my mother close, her small frame and fierce spirit burrowing into my side. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“And I didn’t know you were coming.” Her eyes, golden brown like mine, hold a light rebuke. “I wanted to hear what you have to say about life and stuff, Mr. Superstar.”
“I’m pretty sure most of it will be things you told me in the first place.”
“We’ll see.” She studies my head, a frown on her face. “You cut out your locs. What else don’t I know? I had to hear through the grapevine you were in New York with your new girlfriend.”