Page 2 of Wings of Ebony
I skip across the street to get closer, careful to keep my hood up.Shade swallows me on her side of the street. She pops in earbuds before locking the door and slipping her string straps on her shoulders. That faded-ass tie-dye. I told her that went out in the seventies, but she loves it. She was never one to follow what everyone else is doing. She’s always been like that though—cool doing her own thing. Like me. That we musta both got from Moms.
Come on, Tash. Look down.Neon braids dangle from her cornrows, dancing across her scalp in zigzags. Her hair is always tight. Her nails probably match. That’s my sis. Nail polish isn’t my thing. Chips too easy. I keep my fresh white 1s clean though. Toothbrush in my pocket at all times. Tash ain’t leaving the house without the dopest ’do and flyest nails. Period. Twelve years old and stuntin’.
I slick down my edges, grinning… remembering. On the stoop, Moms used to rip through our heads, braiding ours and half the neighborhood’s with a piece of cigarette dangling on her lip. Took the whole Saturday, I swear. She’d smack the hell out of my hand with a rattail comb if I moved too much.
“You got too much damn hair to be tender-headed,” she’d say.
I flick away hot tears. Moms is gone and crying never solved shit.
Glasses perched on Tasha’s beautifully wide nose hide her dark eyes. Her shoe nudges the wrapped box I left on her bottom step and my heart skips a beat. She grabs it and looks around. I press into the neighbor’s brick. Shecannotsee me. How would I explain that? Where do I say I’ve been? What do I do if she wants to come back with me? She wouldn’t understand. And what if she tries to touch me? Patrol back in Ghizon says touching humans gives them memories of all your feelings and experiences. She’d know everything about the secret place I live and the magic they gave me. Ican’t. Ghizon exists in secret and they intend to keep it that way. Just being here for a few is enough. Ithasto be enough.
Chin up, I pretend the dull ache in my chest isn’t there. Lines riddle Tash’s forehead.
The paper, look at the wrapping paper.
She rips the side open, then stops. She brings it closer to her face and tiny craters dent her cheeks. She holds the package there, staring, smiling. A priceless smile, worth every bit of trouble I could get into for this. I wasn’t sure what to wrap it with. They don’t exactly have a mini-mart with wrapping paper where I’m living. They’d probably magic some shit together, but I don’t know those spells yet. So I took pages from Moms’s old journal and wrapped the box, like an extra gift in addition to what’s inside.
Tasha peers closer at the paper and gasps.Moms’s words, she’s reading them.Her fingertips find the corners of her eyes. I stay on her six as she walks with quick steps toward her bus stop, opening the package.I can’t see her face.I wanna see that big-ass grin when she actually opens it up.
We round the corner, head down Fischer Street and turn into Moms’s complex. A square block of row-style brown brick apartments with a basketball court in the center. My old spot. The janky-ass hoop still hangs there with a piece of plywood for a backboard. The smell of bay leaves, onions, and garlic curl my toes.Somebody’s grandma is cooking gumbo. I haven’t set foot in my old stomping grounds since I left. Seeing the backside from across the street wasn’t easy. But walking into my neighborhood is… hard.
The block’s lit like it’s a Saturday night. People are everywhere, spilling out of their homes. Moms’s old door is still coated in chippedgreen paint. The number nine dangles there like it always did, perpetrating as a six. My fingers twitch to fix it out of habit. Tufts of weeds peek through cracks on the stoop where I spent summers drinking Kool-Cups, gossiping with my girls, hollering at dudes.
I walk along the shade. Tasha’s digging into the box now. The playground swings shuffle in the wind, creaking. They’re like a clock, reminding me I shouldn’t be here.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Maybe a little closer. Just a little.
I stroll down a broken concrete path alongside the swing set, carefully cloaked in darkness, but closer to her now. She cracks a smile and I’m warm all over.
She rounds a corner up ahead and I follow as a pair of six-foot-two somethings walk by. Baggy jeans, another face I don’t know, says, “What’s up.” I do the same. Their bling dangles and clinks above zip-ups and long sleeves. It’s not cold enough for all that. Like most winters in Houston, it’s muggy as hell.
My watch vibrates. Another message. Ignored.
Just a few more minutes. A chance to see her face light up at what’s inside that box. Something to let her know that today of all days, I am still thinking of her.
Around the corner is Tasha’s school bus stop. Six-nineteen. On time. She rips off the last piece of paper and pulls out a golden trinket from inside the box.
It was a little pendant Moms gave me. The last thing I had from her. She put the heart-shaped pendant in my hand three weeks before she died. Told me she worked a double shift for months to afford it. That didn’t mean I needed to feel bad, she’d said. Just thatmy ass better not lose it because she can’t afford another one. Tash used to ask me to play with it. I wouldn’t even let her breathe on it. Now it’s hers. I’m the oldest, which means I have to be the strongest. She needs it more than me.
My watch pings. I swipe right. A new message and all the ignored older ones scroll up the screen.
Bri: You okay?
Bri: It’s been a long time. I’m getting worried.
Bri: Rue?
An old-school Cadillac with a rattling trunk steals my attention as its shiny chrome wheels slide to a stop. His black-tinted windows crack and kids at the bus stop rush over. Two kids about Tasha’s age hop out. Nosey, like Moms always said I was, I crane my neck trying to see.
Tasha looks in my direction. Like, dead at me. I can’t move. Does she see me?Shit. Shit. Shit.She waves at me, but she’s looking past me. I spin on my heels. Some dude’s hanging out a car across the intersection, waving back at her.
I exhale.
“Aye, yo, T,” he yells. The dude’s white button-up is tucked neatly into a pair of faded jeans. His face—do I know him?
“Sup!” Even her voice sounds older. She puts the heart-shaped pendant in her pocket and jets his way. I squint, hunching beside a dumpster. Who is this dude? And why the hell is whatever he wants so damn important she has to leave her stop to cross the street to cometo him.You want something, you come here. My sister won’t be running after no one.
