Can't Stop the Shine Read online

  “Yes they are,” said Mari. “’Cause I have to go to class.”

  “I’ve got a free period next,” said Derrick. “Shauntae, I can give you a tour of the campus.”

  “They came up here to see me, and I have to go to class, so they’re leaving,” said Mari.

  “Ladies, can I be of some assistance?” asked Mrs. Reeves, walking up behind them. “Mari, if you have guests on campus, they need to sign in in the administrative office.”

  “No, Mrs. Reeves, they were just leaving,” said Mari, glaring at Shauntae.

  “Help me up, baby,” said Shauntae, reaching to Derrick. “We do have other places ta be. Other peoples ta see.”

  With a cutesy “whoops” and a devilish smile, Shauntae fell against Derrick as she popped up. Mari grimaced and avoided looking at Mrs. Reeves.

  “We were just coming up here to check you out. You never invite us up here. Like this school is so damned special or secret or something,” said Shauntae, writing her number in pen on Derrick’s hand.

  “I’ll take you on a tour myself sometime really soon,” said Mari, hoping to pacify Shauntae. “Hey, Glenn, don’t you have physics next? Professor Tungsteen locks the door.”

  Continuing to talk to Colby, Glenn ignored Mari.

  “Stop being such a hater,” said Shauntae. “You know Colby don’t get no play. Let her talk to that little nerd if she wants to.”

  “Y’all gotta go,” Mari pleaded. “For real.”

  “We’re going, dawg,” said Shauntae, getting into the car.

  “Ladies, if you would like to visit Mari again at East Moreland, you should let her know that you’re coming, so she can be prepared,” said Mrs. Reeves. “Guys, let these ladies leave. Don’t be late for class.”

  At Mrs. Reeves’s direction, Derrick, Ed and Glenn immediately said their goodbyes and headed back up the steps. Shauntae was outdone.

  “Who asked you?” she questioned Mrs. Reeves, rolling her eyes. “You need to mind your own business.”

  “This is my business, young lady. I suggest you develop some respect for your elders,” said Mrs. Reeves.

  Shauntae pursed her lips, looking Mrs. Reeves from head to toe and back again. “You right about one thing. You sure are an elder,” said Shauntae, turning to Mari. “We’re leaving your stuck-up-ass school. Happy now?”

  Intense embarrassment and helplessness to improve the situation left Mari speechless. Bending over, the best she could do was throw up the peace sign to Colby, who waved back sheepishly. Mari knew coming up to the school was Shauntae’s idea.

  Shauntae flicked a bird to East Moreland as the car sped off, smoke and loud backfire adding to Lil Jon’s lyrics. Mari hung her head, wishing the ground would swallow her up. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to find a warm smile accompanying Mrs. Reeves’ touch. “Come on, Mari. I’ll walk you to your next class,” she said.

  As they made their way up the steps under the burning gaze of at least fifty students, Mari thought about how she’d met Mrs. Reeves. The stately, well-coiffed, suited-down black counselor was the very first person Mari met who was associated with East Moreland. Mrs. Reeves attended the same church as Mari’s great-aunt. She came over to the Jefferson house a few days after Christmas when Mari was in seventh grade and somehow, Mari remembered, she’d ended up in the living room with Mrs. Reeves, just the two of them together. Mrs. Reeves asked her about everything that day—sports, school, even boys. But she liked Mrs. Reeves’s vibe so she didn’t mind the questions. Mrs. Reeves treated her like an adult.

  But she was afraid of what Mrs. Reeves would say about Shauntae showing up at East Moreland, and she sure didn’t expect her first question.

  “So why haven’t you invited those young ladies to East Moreland before?” asked Mrs. Reeves, ushering Mari toward a gold-rimmed plush red sofa and seating herself upright in the matching chair.

  “I don’t know,” said Mari, wondering how they got to her office. She didn’t even remember the walk.

  “They are your friends, aren’t they?”

  “Uhh…yes.”

  “So…”

  “I don’t know,” Mari said, picking some imaginary lint off the sofa. “I guess I didn’t think they’d like it or something.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. They wouldn’t understand it up here. It’s just easier for me to go to school here and not have to explain a lot of stuff to them about what it’s like here.”

  “Well, what is it ‘like’ here?” asked Mrs. Reeves, making the quotation marks sign with her fingers.

  “You know, there are a lot of rich people who go to school here—rich white people.”

  “You don’t think your friends would understand rich white people?”

  “Not really. They’re just different.”

  “Different how?”

  “They don’t really get to see a lot of the stuff I see up here,” said Mari, “like going on out-of-state trips and to plays and museums and stuff.”

  “Would you go and do those things if you didn’t go to school here, Mari?”

  “Probably, because my mother is a dancer, you know, and she used to take me and my sister to all of this creative stuff when we were younger.”

  “Sweetie, you’re blessed to be exposed to lots of different types of experiences,” said Mrs. Reeves, taking off her glasses and resting them on the table in front of her. “Everybody doesn’t have those opportunities.”

  “I know. I know, but they just don’t know how to act in different places. You can’t act the same everywhere you go,” said Mari, pulling at the fresh hole in her blouse to distract herself from tearing up. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “It’s natural to be embarrassed when you’re trying to make the best of a situation that’s out of your control. I’m sure your friends didn’t really mean to embarrass you,” said Mrs. Reeves, trying to be hopeful. “They were probably just curious about where you went to school.”

  “They never asked me, and I just didn’t think about it. I didn’t even realize I’d never asked them up here until Shauntae said it.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. I will say one thing, though. Be patient with those who don’t have the same advantages or opportunities as you. Sometimes lack of knowledge and understanding manifests itself as petty jealousy.”

  Sniffling, Mari just nodded and accepted the tissue Mrs. Reeves handed her.

  “Sounds to me like you’re the lucky one in your group of friends. You’re a very smart young lady, Miss Mari. I’ve seen your test scores. Lead by example. Those who want better for themselves will recognize that trait in you and follow and make their own paths.”

  “Okay,” said Mari, looking at the clock on the wall. “Oh my God, I am sooo late for class. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll give you a note,” said Mrs. Reeves, writing one out. “Whenever you want to talk, I’m around, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks,” said Mari, taking the note and hurrying out the door. She’d begun feeling better in the confines of Mrs. Reeves’s office, but as soon as she was outside, the rush of embarrassment was so strong she felt naked in the hallway. She nearly sprinted to her next class, hoping no one who’d seen Shauntae and Colby would approach her on the way.

  Kalia got out of her last class early and figured she’d go home to practice instead of waiting for an available piano at school. All the way home she couldn’t get the idea of her father sleeping in the guest bedroom out of her mind. As she approached the kitchen door, she heard her parents loud and clear. They were yelling. She thought about going around the front, but she knew they’d see her, so she just stayed in the kitchen, listening.

  “Elaine, I’m not spending any more money on a car,” said Ronald.

  “Look, Ron, Mari is going to need her own transportation sooner than later.”

  “Well, those girls need to get jobs, then, like I had to when I was their age.”

  “But their lives are diff
erent than ours, and we can afford it,” said Elaine.

  “I can afford it, is what you mean.”

  “No, us, okay? Everything I do with these girls is a j-o-b, too—a labor of love, true, but it’s hard work. You think I want to be hauling them around for the rest of my life? I need a break.”

  “You’re not even driving them really anymore. Kalia’s getting her and Mari everywhere they have to go. And what? My money is supposed to finance your break?” asked Ronald.

  “That’s right, or you can switch places with me. I can be the breadwinner and you can be the caretaker.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about running a seafood restaurant,” said Ronald, walking out of the kitchen and through the living room toward the front door. Elaine was in hot pursuit.

  “Oh, I’d sell those joints,” she declared, slamming her fist down on top of the piano, “then I’d open my own yoga studio. We’d live well off that. Plus, we’d eat better because I’d be a lot more knowledgeable about nutrition, and I’d probably be able to get you to come in and take a few classes to work on that pouch. Maybe you’d even learn to meditate.”

  In her going on and on about her quest to change her husband, Elaine hadn’t noticed that Ronald was frozen. He hadn’t moved an inch since she said that she would sell the Fish Frys. He was just staring at his wife of nearly twenty years like she was someone he didn’t know.

  “You…you…you would sell the Frys,” he stammered. “After all of the work that you know that I’ve put into growing this business? I’ve worked harder on the Frys than I’ve worked on anything in my entire life.”

  “Including this marriage? Or your daughters?”

  “I did this for you and the girls. That’s why I’m out there nearly killing myself, so you and Mari and Kalia can have everything you need. I don’t know why you want to do that yoga thing anyway. I got this. I’m the provider, and I’m providing.”

  “Well, how come Mari can’t have a car then, Mr. Provider?” Elaine reasoned.

  “Don’t try to twist things around. I said everything they need, not want,” said Ronald. “Both Mari and Kalia don’t need a car. They might want one, but they sure don’t need one.”

  “Ron, sometimes it’s just nice to spoil your children from time to time.”

  Kalia couldn’t believe that her mother was saying that she and her sister should be given anything. She always thought that it was her father who was the giving one. She wondered at that moment how her parents paid for the piano and whose idea it was to get it in the first place. Probably her mother’s, she thought.

  “I’m not buying Mari a car ’cause she’s got one—the one Kalia has. They can share,” said Ron.

  “And that’s just it, huh? You’re the man, so you’re gonna put your foot down and I’m supposed to obey?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “All right then, I’ll buy her a car. I ain’t getting any younger, and you’re probably going to work yourself to death and not even get a chance to enjoy any of what you’ve been working so hard for, anyway,” Kalia heard Elaine say, and she knew the conversation was over. She didn’t hear any more voices after that, just her mother walking up the front steps and her daddy starting his car.

  “They are so predictable,” Kalia said out loud as she went up the back steps to her room. Sitting on her bed, Kalia realized she was initially relieved that this argument between her parents was a short one, but she was also concerned about the frequency of the disagreements and how they never seemed to stay on the subject of that particular argument. Every time Ronald and Elaine got into it, the same two problems came up. Ronald wanted to continue to expand his seafood restaurants, which took most of his time and most of the money that he was making off the three restaurants he already had open, so he wasn’t home much, and he appeared overly thrifty to his family.

  Ronald was also dead set against Elaine opening a yoga studio at all, and he expressed this to her as often as he could. Kalia had been hearing them arguing frequently in the past six months about the Fish Frys, the yoga studio, money and spending time at home and with her and her sister, and now her sister was noticing, too.

  Lying down on the bed, she tried to shake the thought of her parents separating and breaking up their family. Kalia ended up falling into a fitful afternoon nap. Her dreams were filled with terrifying images of her mother and father as old people, living separate lives, lonely, wishing they’d stayed together. When she woke, there were tears on her pillow.

  Chapter

  4

  Mari was fuming. She’d had another run-in with Randy. He was just on point, and she must have had on her invisible costume, because as much as she raised her hand, Mr. Wills only seemed to see Randy’s. It was more than she could take, so she began blurting out her answers without waiting to be called on. That behavior only got her a short speech on rudeness from Mr. Wills in front of the class. Smarting from a public lecture, Mari sunk into her seat and didn’t even attempt to participate for the rest of the class.

  Spotting Asha on the way to her locker, she was trying to decide if she was in the mood to be bothered.

  “What’s happening, Mari?” said Asha.

  “There’s this guy in my Early World Lit class, and he’s a real know-it-all,” said Mari, opening her locker. “Do you have any of those types in any of your classes?”

  “Uh, yeah…this is private school, silly. Everybody is a know-it-all. You should know that. You’ve been here just as long as me,” said Asha.

  “Well, I don’t care about everybody else. This dude is really getting on my last nerve. I mean, he’s answering like every question better than me.”

  “Well, maybe that means you need to study harder.”

  “Okay, so you’re not hearing me. He’s outshining me, all right? I’m sick of them having everything and knowing everything. Can a black person have something? Damn.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “These people have money,” said Mari.

  “I know. My family has money, too,” said Asha.

  “Yeah, but not like they have money. Their great-great-great-grandparents were rolling in it. Can you say the same?”

  “Well, no, but why does it matter?”

  “The things that we’re concerned about, they never even think about,” said Mari. “Like, I’m afraid to ask my parents for a new car, but more than one of these lucky rich kids will come out of class on their sixteenth birthday to a brand-new BMW or Mercedes sitting in front of the school with a big red bow on top.

  “And they have no idea what chores are because they never have to do any,” continued Mari. “Their maids, which look like my grandmama, do everything for them. Some of the kids running around here, like Randy, have buildings on this campus named after their relatives. Their parents are like important government officials and CEOs of big companies. They just get all of these privileges like going to Italy and skiing in Switzerland during the holidays. Shoot, we just go to Louisiana where my mother’s people are from.”

  “Okay, so what does all of this have to do with Randy? It sounds like your problem isn’t really with him, but with wealthy people,” said Asha.

  “Whatever,” said Mari, slamming her locker door. “He just thinks he can come in and run the class, and I’m not having it. These rich white people get to have everything and do everything. It’s just not fair.”

  “You’ve just got to learn how to beat them at their own game.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Like the way I’m going to run circles around you at the track,” said Asha, and crossed her eyes.

  Mari was in a much better mood by the end of track practice. She didn’t even let the fact that Asha beat her in the 200 dampen her spirits. But she did get annoyed after waiting outside the gym for thirty minutes for her father to pick her up.

  “Your dad’s not here, again, huh?” asked Asha, sitting beside Mari on the front steps of the gym.

  “Yeah, and
I can’t find my mother or my girls, either. I’ve called them all,” said Mari. “I don’t know how he keeps forgetting to pick me up. This is the third time in like two weeks.”

  “Your girls? You mean those characters who were up here a couple of weeks ago?” asked Asha, lacing up her sneakers.

  “Don’t go there, Asha,” Mari warned. No one had really brought up Shauntae and Colby’s visit since it occurred, and she really didn’t want to hear anything about it.

  “Look, you want my mother to take you home?” asked Asha, trying to make peace. “There she is. I’ll ask her.”

  Asha jogged to her mother’s Lincoln Navigator. After a few nods, she turned around and motioned Mari to the car.

  “Mama, this is Mari,” said Asha, fastening her seat belt.

  “Hello, Mrs. Wright,” said Mari.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mari. And listen, sweetie, Mrs. Wright was my mother. Just call me Roxie, baby. Everybody does,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Mari.

  “No ma’ams, either. I know this is the Deep South and all, but we’re New Yorkers, and I just don’t need to get down like that, so it’s just Roxie,” said Roxie.

  “Okay…Roxie,” said Mari. “Thanks for taking me home. I kinda don’t know where my family is. I guess I’m like an abandoned child.”

  “They want you. They just want a short break,” joked Asha.

  “Ha-ha. Very funny,” said Mari.

  “Mari, Asha tells me that you’re giving her quite a challenge on the track,” said Roxanne.

  “Umm…yes,” said Mari, reaching around the headrest in front of her and nudging Asha in the back of the head.

  “What? I did beat you today. Twice,” said Asha, pulling down the visor and sneering at Mari in the mirror. Mari stuck out her tongue at Asha.

  “It’s not nice to brag,” said Roxie, nonetheless smiling proudly at her daughter. After a day of wrestling with Randy and her father forgetting to pick her up, the last thing Mari wanted to deal with was Asha’s teasing. She began to rethink her decision to let Roxie take her home.