with a pound cake. It did something to my heart walking over there, knowing that Jade was gone. Knowing that these new people were living in her house, with different furniture and art of their own on her walls. No longer would I smell her mama’s pork chops, smothered in gravy and onions, floating through the air.
“I know your name is Indigo Summer, because I used to sit behind you in Miss Everett’s second grade class.”
“The boy who used to sit behind me in Miss Everett’s class was a bucktoothed ugly boy named Marcus Carter.”
“You thought I was bucktoothed and ugly?”
“You’re Marcus Carter from the second grade?”
“In the flesh.”
I was embarrassed and wanted to crawl under a rock, but I stood there and assessed him from the top of his head, all the way down to his white Air Force Ones. I had to admit, he looked much better than he had in the second grade.
“I still think your dog’s name is stupid,” I said. “He doesn’t even look like a killer.”
Marcus held onto the leash which was wrapped tight around Killer’s neck.
“You’re much prettier than you were in the second grade. I’ll give you that,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I rolled my eyes and placed both hands on small hips.
“Well, first of all, you were shaped like a light pole. No shape. Nappy hair. Missing your two front teeth. I see they grew back at least.”
“What about you, with your buckteeth and Mister Peabody glasses?” I asked. “It’s amazing what braces and a pair of contacts can do, huh?”
“I guess it is. And when do you plan on getting a relaxer on your hair?”
“I don’t need a relaxer,” I said, and ran my fingers through my wild, thick hair that hung past my shoulders. “I wear my hair naturally for a reason. You don’t know anything about hair. Wearing my hair in a natural style represents my heritage, for your information.”
“Well, excuse me.”
“You’re excused,” I said and sashayed toward my house, hoping Marcus wasn’t watching as I stumbled over the bottom step leading to my porch.
When I turned and saw that he was not only watching, but cracking up, I wanted to choke my daddy for not fixing that step last Saturday.
Chapter 2
Marcus
Marcus Frederick Henry Carter is my name. Marcus, named after Marcus Garvey, a man of color who organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association: an organization designed to bring unity among all blacks and to establish the greatness of the African heritage. Frederick, named after Frederick Douglass who fought to end slavery in America before the Civil War. And Henry. Well, Henry was my great-grandfather’s name on my father’s side of the family. All I got from my father was his last name, Carter and the wavy hair that every man in our family possessed. My intellect came from my mother. At least that’s what she told me.
After my parents divorced two years ago, I ended up living with my pop because Mother relocated back to New Orleans, where her and Pop both grew up. It was her idea that I live with him. She thought I would receive a better education in the state of Georgia, than I would in Louisiana. And she thought a boy needed his father much more than he needed a mother. I still think she’s wrong on that one, because I miss her more and more each day. And I think a boy needs both parents in order to be successful. I still remember when my parents got divorced; it was as if my life stood still. My grades did a nosedive, and I thought I would flunk the eighth grade. It was the therapist my pop took me to who explained that what I was experiencing was depression.
As time went on, things got better. That’s when I implemented this master plan of mine: maintaining a four-point-oh grade point average, serving as class president, tutoring kids after school, volunteering in my community…all of this would work to my benefit when I filled out my application for Yale or Princeton, whichever I decided to go to.
Transferring to a different school district was about to mess up my master plan, but trying to explain that to my pop was like pulling teeth. He didn’t understand that the high school I was attending in Stone Mountain was a much better school than the new one I’d be attending in College Park. I had done my research, checked out each school and how they panned out on statewide tests. My school could run rings around the ones across town. And the better high school always looked better when trying to apply for college. Not only that, but the better high school would help me to accomplish my master plan. The new school in College Park probably already had somebody groomed for class president, and I wasn’t even sure they had a tutoring program. This was all messed up!
I blamed Gloria, my wicked stepmother. She had my pop wrapped around her skinny little finger and jumping through hoops to try and please her. Had him spending some of my college savings on their stupid fairytale wedding; the one where she had too many bridesmaids with ugly dresses. And the tux she made me wear had me sweating like a pig in heat as I had suffered through a photo shoot that seemed to last for hours. And when it was all over, I couldn’t see where all my college money had gone.
That’s why I definitely had to get a scholarship. Who’s to say there would be any money left after Step-Mommy-Dearest was done trying to spend it all.
It was her idea that we move to College Park in the first place.
“Rufus, I need to be close to my mother,” she told Pop, as I sat on the steps next to the kitchen eavesdropping on their conversation one morning before school. “She’s getting up there in age, and I need to be able to take her to her doctor’s appointments and to the grocery store. It takes forever just to get over there to her from where we live now. And God forbid she has an emergency.”
She’s a drama queen, I thought, as I laced up my Air Force Ones.
“Why don’t we just move Evelyn over to this side of town?” Pop tried to reason with her. “I’ve got a nice little piece of property just two blocks from here. It wouldn’t take much work to fix it up for your mother.”
That’s what my pop did for living. Fixed up old houses and rented them out. Or sold them, whichever made him the most money. Since before I was born, he and my grandfather owned the same real estate investment company; the family business is what they called it. After Granddad passed away, my father inherited the family business, and talked of passing it on to me. Every chance he got, he was pressuring me about working with him, wanting to teach me the odds and ends of the business. He couldn’t wait for my graduation day, so I could start full-time the day after.
The problem was, I wasn’t interested in selling or managing real estate. And the family business was definitely not my idea of a future. I had my master plan and I was going to college. I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life than manage a bunch of run-down properties. That’s where Pop and I bumped heads. We each had a different plan for my future.
Killer, my German Shepherd, plopped his huge body down next to me on the step, licking on my shoe, and trying to chew on my shoestrings until I smacked him.
“Stop, dude!” I said and made a mental note to give his stinking behind a bath when I got home from school that day. I didn’t want Gloria fussing
