LITMIR.BIZ

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in a pair of fitted Juicy jeans, a V-neck tee, colorful bangles, and matching earrings.

      When I walked in the living room, I saw that either my mother had found two dollars to borrow or she’d stolen something to supplement it, because she wasn’t around anymore. Cassie Parker was one hot blazed-up mess.

      She raised us from behind the bathroom door most of our lives because that was where she hid to get high, as if we really didn’t know what was going on. And when she got with her new zootedup boyfriend, Gary, they took crack love to the streets. Most of the time she was either in somebody’s hallway, a street corner, or an abandoned building.

      I’d never had the type of home where my friends came over and kicked it in my room. As a matter of fact, the only ones who knew the real life I lived were Naja and Jahaad (my boyfriend). Everybody else knew nothing. And I wanted to keep it that way. The last thing I needed was a buncha chicks or the state in my business. I had adjusted to being the “real” mother around this place, and it was cool.

      I loved my sisters and brothers, and whatever it took to keep my family together was what I was going to do.

      And about my father: the shit was so typical. He just wasn’t around.

      Needless to say, I was nothing special. So…it was what it was, and other than having been played (twice) like too sweet Kool-Aid for Haneef tickets, I didn’t complain. What was the use? I’d never known shit to change because I complained. Which was why I kept it movin’ around my house.

      I walked over to the pull-out couch, where my brother Ny’eem was asleep, and said, “Get yo’ ass up!”

      He sucked his teeth and ruffled the sheets, but did I look fazed? Puleeze!

      “And don’t think,” I carried on, “that I don’t know what time you came in here last night. Play with me if you want to, and you’ll be down at the men’s shelter or juvie somewhere.”

      “Shut up!” he snapped and stretched. “You always tryna be somebody’s mother.”

      “I’m the best mother you got.”

      “What?” He stood from the couch and looked down in my face. He was only fifteen, but he towered over me by at least three inches. “Girl, I’m grown.”

      Grown? Was this suckah tryna buck? Okay, I saw where this is going. I stood up on a rusted metal chair that had somehow ended up as part of our décor and struck a karate pose, lifting my leg high enough so that if I had wanted to, I could have taken it to his chest.

      And he cracked up laughing. He laughed so hard that tears fell from his eyes. “You think I’m funny? Do I look like I’m laughing to you?”

      “No, you look like you lost your mind.” And he left me standing there.

      “You just get ready for school!” I yelled behind him. “And let me even hear a whisper that you’ve been skipping class again and see what I really do to you.”

      Just as I stepped down from the chair, my five-year-old brother, Mica, rushed out of the bathroom with a sheet wrapped around his neck, like he and Superman were boys. “What the hell? Boy, where are your school clothes?”

      “I’m not wearing that shit!”

      “Hol’ up…hol’ up…don’t you cuss again!” I balled up my fist. Mica was the one I really had to bring it to, ’cause he thought he was tough, but if I looked at him hard and long enough, he’d burst into tears. “Go put on those clothes. As much money as I paid that booster! I work at the mall part-time—”

      “Mommy gets a welfare check.”

      “And Mommy gettin’ high, too,” Ny’eem snapped as he gathered his clothes for the day.

      “Shut up!” I said to Ny’eem. “Now,” I turned my attention back to Mica, “why don’t you want to wear what I laid out for you?”

      “Because I want my pants to droop down like Ny’eem’s. You got a belt laid out for me, some hard-bottom shoes, and a turtleneck. I may as well be going to church.”

      “I didn’t lay out a turtleneck for you. It’s a Phat Farm shirt. Know what, I don’t have to argue with you.” I stared him down and just like I predicted, he was in tears.

      “Everybody treats me like a baby around here!” And he stormed back into the bathroom.

      Whatever. I didn’t have time to listen to that, so I returned to my room, where the twins had to be watched closely when they put on their gear. Otherwise, they’d be happy to walk out of the house draped in my bebe, Baby Phat, or any other designer dig I had either worked or gotten a hook up for.

      And yes, they looked a hot mess, considering I was five foot five and a size ten, and they were just eight years old. So, I stood guard while they slipped on their jeans, cute li’l Bobby Jack shirts, and some pink and white kicks.

      Their hair was shoulder-length and easy to maintain because for ten dollars, every other week the girl across the hall put it in cornrows and beads. An hour after me acting like Jerome the flashlight cop, everybody was ready to roll.

      We took one bus but got off at different stops for our respective schools. The twins, Mica, and Nyeem got off at the first stop and mine was last.

      As soon as the city bus doors opened and I stepped foot in front of the school, I knew right away that everyone had heard me get played on the radio. Especially since they all looked at me and either smiled too wide or laughed in my face.

      But it was all good, ’cause I was too ready to read these ghetto birds like they stole somethin’. Besides, just because I had a jacked-up home life, didn’t mean I wasn’t fly—because I was. Honey colored skin, flat-ironed straight hair that draped past my shoulders, Asian eyes, full lips, thick hips, and a cover girl smile.

      Just when my boost mobile vibrated through my purse, I saw Naja run toward me. I twisted my MAC-covered lips and ignored her. Yes, I was still pissed.

      I flipped my phone open. “Who dis?”

      “Elite?” It was a male voice.

      “Yeah.”

      “Wassup, girl?”

      “Terrance? Boy, didn’t I tell you to lose yourself?!” Terrance was a boy who pushed up on me once at the bus stop. I called myself tryin’ to creep, but every time I turned around he was on my line. Can you say stalker?

      “This isn’t Terrance. This is DJ Twan from Hot 102.”

      “Yeah, right.”

      “Didn’t you call us this morning for the singing contest?”

      “Oh, now you got jokes, Terrance? Look, I’m down to my last twenty minutes on my phone, so I don’t have time to waste with you on my line. Now bounce!”

      “Elite, this is Haneef. Your friend, Naja, called the station when we announced that despite your mother playing us both out, you won the contest. Front row seats to the concert and a chance to be onstage with me!”

      I tapped my foot and looked around at the sea of students going into the school. Then I looked at Naja, who was standing here grinnin’, mushed her dead in the head, and poked my finger in the center of the bubble she was prepared to pop.

      “Do I sound impressed? I know you don’t think I’m going to believe that this is Haneef, and you all cared about me so much that you gon’ track me down, for what? Puleeze, this is Terrance. And since you playing so many games, I’ma be sure to tell all your boys on the basketball team that you ain’t never had no booty, punk ass!”

      “This is the last time,” a deep male voice said, “before we hang up—”

      “Do you—if this is really Haneef, then sing something.”

      Suddenly the phone turned into a personal serenade: “If I don’t have you baby, I’ma go crazy…need you in my life.”

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