Indigo Summer
Monica McKayhan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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FRESH. CURRENT. AND TRUE TO YOU

Dear Reader,

What you’re holding is very special. Something fresh, new and true to your unique experience as a young African-American! We are proud to introduce a new fiction imprint—Kimani TRU. You’ll find Kimani TRU speaks to the triumphs, problems and concerns of today’s black teens with candor, wit and realism. The stories are told from your perspective and in your own voice, and will spotlight young, emerging literary talent.

Kimani TRU will feature stories that are down-to-earth, yet empowering. Feel like an outsider? Afraid you’ll never fit in, find your true love or have a boyfriend who accepts you for who you really are? Maybe you feel that your life is a disaster and your future is going nowhere? In Kimani TRU novels, discover the emotional issues that young blacks face every day. In one story, a young man struggles to get out of a neighborhood that holds little promise by attending a historically black college. In another, a young woman’s life drastically changes when she goes to live with the father she has never known and his middle-class family in the suburbs.

With Kimani TRU, we are committed to providing a strong and unique voice that will appeal to all young readers! Our goal is to touch your heart, mind and soul, and give you a literary voice that reflects your creativity and your world.

Spread the word…Kimani TRU. True to you!

Linda Gill

General Manager

Kimani Press

Acknowledgments

God is the source of my talent and blessings.

To my sons who took me back to being a teenager for the sake of this story. To my husband, who is the ringleader of my cheering section. And my family and close friends who keep me grounded.

To my editor, Evette Porter: Thank you for putting Indigo Summer on the map and other titles just like it. The minds of our youth depend on the voices in fiction that Kimani TRU books represent.

For my Granny, Rosa A. Heggie:

You are special in so many ways, and the

strongest woman I know. My life is rich because of you.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 1

Indigo

“What kind of name is that for a dog?”

“What, Killer?”

“Yes. That’s stupid!”

“What’s stupid about it?”

“It just is.”

“What kind of name is Indigo?”

“A perfect name, for a perfect girl.” I rolled my eyes at him, placed my hands on my hips and was about to give him a piece of my mind. But I decided not to. “How did you know my name anyway?”

He was silent for a moment, standing there with waves all in his hair, as if he slept in a doo-rag or something. His teeth were perfect, and I knew without asking that he used to wear braces. I wished my parents would spring for some braces for me, so that I could have perfect teeth like that. But instead, they were always complaining about having to pay bills and telling me that my teeth weren’t that bad.

“Money don’t grow on trees, Indi,” Daddy was always telling me. “But you got it better than most kids. We provide a nice home for you, you eat good, and you have your own room. That’s more than I had when I was your age. I had to share a room with your uncle Keith when I was coming up. Never had my own room.” Then he’d go into his spiel about having to walk ten miles to school in a Chicago blizzard. Imagine that. Ten miles in a Chicago blizzard? He’d lose me at that point.

“Daddy, come on,” I would laugh. “Ten miles is a lot of miles.”

“Don’t forget the part about the Chicago blizzard, girl’d have to laugh himself, because he knew that he was only telling half the truth.

Sometimes I loved listening to my daddy’s stories about growing up in Chicago at my nana Summer’s house. It was an old house, two stories tall, with an old porch and shutters that needed to be painted, but the house always smelled so good. Like fried chicken, or my all-time favorite, macaroni and cheese as only Nana could make. But she was older now, and not quite the Nana I remembered when I was little. She couldn’t remember anything anymore, and was always having aches and pains somewhere on her body. I missed the Nana that would come for visits in the summertime, creep into my room at night with chocolate chip cookies and sit in the wooden rocker next to my bedroom window. I could see my grandmother’s caramel face in the moonlight, as she rocked back and forth with her eyes just barely closed.

“Don’t get crumbs in the bed, either, little girl,” she’d say.

“I won’t, Nana.” I’d promise, but still have to brush the crumbs from the sheets.

Nana and I would talk about everything we could possibly think of. I could talk to her about any and everything. Whenever something was bothering me, she always knew. Even if I tried to smile and pretend everything was okay, Nana knew. And she’d always make me laugh even when I didn’t feel like it.

Nana insisted that I teach her all the latest dances. I taught her how to do the Harlem Shake and had to admit, she had rhythm. Before long, she could do the Harlem Shake better than some of the girls I knew from school.

Nana would come to our house in June and stay the whole summer. I wished she could’ve stayed the entire year, but she always went back to Chicago at the end of August.

“I gotta go check on my house, baby,” she would say whenever I would ask her to stay forever. “But I’ll be back for Christmas. And we’ll decorate that old tree together, make hot apple cider and stay up all night on Christmas eve.”

“Can I open at least one gift on Christmas Eve?”

“You always do, and end up picking the biggest package under the tree,” she’d chuckle. “When will you learn that the best things don’t always come in the big packages? Good things come in small packages, too.”

She was right, too, because I remembered last year when I got that sapphire necklace with the matching ankle bracelet. It was my favorite gift under the tree, and it came in the smallest package. And in the big box was a bunch of bras, panties and socks—things I didn’t care about.

I always cried for a week after Nana was gone.

I’d tell her about all the ugly, stupid boys in my class and tell her how much I hated them.

“You just wait until they grow up,” Nana would laugh and say. “You’ll like boys one of these days, trust me.”

“I don’t think so, Nana.” I couldn’t even imagine looking at a boy for more than ten seconds without being ready to puke. And to like them? Now that was taking it a bit too far. “Why are boys so stupid?”

“I don’t know, baby.” I could see Nana’s smile in the moonlight; her calmness is what I admired most about her. “They just are. And they don’t get much better with age, either. In fact, some of them get worse. You’ll see when you get married.”

“I’m never getting married, Nana.” I wanted to make that crystal clear!

“Never?” Nana would ask with a look of surprise.

“Never!” My mind was made up. She’d see.

And I swore I’d never have kids either. Because if all little kids worked my nerves like my little cousin, Keith Jr. did, then I was never becoming anybody’s mama. Good thing I only had to see him on holidays. Since my uncle Keith and his wife were divorced, he only had Keith Jr. every other weekend and on Thanksgiving, during spring break and on the Fourth of July.

It seemed that everybody was getting a divorce, and I hoped that it would never happen to my parents. It happened to my best friend Jade’s parents. Just when she thought they were this big happy family, boom, that’s when it happened. And it seemed to happen overnight. Her folks had a big argument one night and the next thing Jade knew, her daddy was loading his stuff into the back of a U-Haul. I watched the whole thing from my bedroom window. They lived next door since Jade and I were in the third grade. We had been best friends just that long.

I still remember when they moved in, and Mama made me go over and introduce myself to the little girl next door. She had baked them a lemon cake and said for me to take it over there. Jade was on her front porch playing with her Barbies, and when she let me see her Barbie doll—and I told her I had four of them at home—it was on. From that day forward we were inseparable.

In fifth grade we had our own Kool-Aid stand, selling beverages to the neighbors as they passed by our little makeshift stand. In seventh grade we both tried out for cheerleading, and neither one of us made the team because we couldn’t do the splits. In the eighth grade we played volleyball together, but decided it wasn’t our game. We both knew that when we got to high school we’d try out for the dance team. That was our sole purpose for wanting to attend George Washington Carver High, to join their dance team, which was known throughout the city for their outstanding performances. They often performed during parades and stuff, and the whole town recognized their talent. Articles were written about them in the newspaper. To make that team meant you were one of the most talented dancers in all of Atlanta.

It’s all we talked about the summer after eighth grade. We spent hours learning all the latest dances and brushing up on our moves. We were determined to make that dance team if it was the last thing we did in this lifetime! But then her folks split up. I never knew that when I watched her daddy load his things into that U-Haul, it was the beginning of the end.

“What your mama cook for dinner?” I remember asking her that day.

“Nothing. She’s mad at my daddy.”

“What did he do?”

“He came home late again last night,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Real late.”

“Where do you think he was?”

“I don’t know, but she was really mad. They had a bad argument, too,” she said. “I don’t think they love each other anymore.”

“For real?” I asked, lying across my canopy bed and talking to Jade on my cell phone, as she sat on her bed in her room just a spit’s distance away.

If I stood in my bedroom window, I could see Jade’s pink-and-white comforter on her bed, her bookshelf and the Usher poster she had plastered on her wall. I knew when she brushed her teeth and said her prayers at night, and I knew when she awakened in the morning, because the light from her room would creep across my face and wake me up, too. I would often throw Skittles at her window in order to wake her up when she tried to sleep in on Saturday mornings.

“Yes, for real,” she said, almost in tears after her parents’ big fight. “She told him to move out.”

“Do you think she was serious?”

“He’s packing his stuff right now, as we speak,” she said.

My heart skipped a beat when she said that. That night, I closed my eyes real tight, knelt beside my bed and prayed that God would not only keep Jade’s parents together, but mine, too. I didn’t ever want my daddy packing his things and moving away.

I guess he missed the part about Jade’s parents, because the next day her father was gone.

Mama had sent me to the new neighbor’s 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 about the dog smell in the house again. My backpack at my feet, I removed my doo-rag and brushed my waves as I continued to listen to the Drama Queen plead her case to my father.

“Rufus, you know Mama. She ain’t gonna move to Stone Mountain and leave her house. Not the house that her and Daddy shared all those years,” Gloria said. “And all her friends are right there in the neighborhood where she lives.”

“I understand, Gloria.”

That was all Pop said that day. But next thing I knew, a RE/MAX sign was stuck in the middle of our front yard. Our house sold a lot faster than Pop and Gloria had expected and the new owners were anxious to move in and wanted us out. Before I knew it, we were packing our stuff into boxes. The problem was, we had nowhere to go. She and Pop had looked at dozens of houses in the newer subdivisions of College Park, but Gloria couldn’t seem to settle on one that she liked. She had to have the perfect house, with custom-made cabinets, the master bedroom had to be a certain square footage, and it needed to have a certain number of windows. She actually would walk through each house counting windows. Wow!

“Why don’t we just have a house built?” She finally made a suggestion.

“But where do we go while our house is being built?” Pop asked.

“We can move into one of your rental properties temporarily.”

“That would be fine, Gloria, but the problem is, I don’t have any available on that side of town.”

“Don’t you have any tenants who are behind on their rent?” I could just picture that wicked little smile of hers. “One who’s just begging to be evicted?”

“They’re all a little slow paying, Gloria, but I work with them. Always have. They’re good working-class people who just fall behind from time to time. That’s all.”

“What about that woman in the property on Madison Place? The one whose husband left her. You’ve given her more than enough time to get caught up. And now that her husband is gone, she struggles just to make the rent every month. It’s always late, and sometimes short,” she said. “That’s a cute little house too, and I love it so much, Rufus!”

“That family has lived in that property for nearly fifteen years,” Pop said. “I wouldn’t feel right asking Barbara to leave. And she’s got those children…and…”

“I thought you wanted me to be happy.” I would’ve bet my lunch money that Gloria’s lip was all poked out as she began pouting, and I could just see her rubbing her index finger across my father’s face. “You could put her in one of your smaller places. You could put her in that place just two blocks from here.”

Pop’s demeanor softened. I could tell. He was falling under her spell.

“I could talk to Barbara. See if she wants that old place. It’s a lot older than the one she lives in now, but I could fix it up for her,” Pop reasoned. “The rent over here would be a little cheaper than what she’s paying now. That way she wouldn’t be out on a limb every month. She’d have to uproot her kids and send them to another school, but…”

“It’s better than being homeless,” Gloria added.

“If I’m going to do it, I’d better do it before school starts again in the fall.”

“Is that a yes?” Gloria asked my father.

“I’ll call Barbara when I get to the office,” he said.

Gloria always seemed to get her way no matter what.

On moving day, I carefully placed all my CDs—50 Cent, T.I., Kanye West—into a cardboard box. Packed away my DVDs—Friday, Next Friday, Friday After Next, and some of my old Kung Fu movies—into the same box. And I couldn’t forget my all-time favorite DVD, Rush Hour, and every episode of The Dave Chappelle Show, which was packed in the same box. I didn’t want the movers packing my sacred items. I needed to pack them myself, to make sure they made it to the new place safely.

I placed the box on the backseat of my ’92 Jeep Cherokee that I’d saved up for and bought with money that I had earned by working the drive-thru at Wendy’s. As 50 Cent’s “Just A Little Bit” blasted through my speakers, Killer took his place in the passenger’s seat of my Jeep, his head hanging out the window as I pulled out of the subdivision I grew up in…a place where I had chased the ice cream man down the street at full speed every day just to buy a red, white and blue bomb pop; the same neighborhood where I had my first kiss with Ashley Thomas right in between Mrs. Fisher’s house and the vacant house at the end of the block, the place where I was chased by Mr. Palmer’s Doberman every time I took the short cut through his yard, and where I fell out of the tree in Miss Booker’s front yard and broke my arm when I was nine; the same place where I pushed a lawn mower up and down the street and made money cutting lawns every summer since I was twelve, and where the entire neighborhood gathered for cookouts and block parties every Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and on Labor Day.

The neighborhood was all a kid like me had. That and Kim Porter, the girl who broke up with me the same day she found out that I was moving to the south side.

“It’s too hard trying to go out with somebody at another school, Marcus,” she’d said.

Then she said those four words that pierced my heart.

“Let’s just be friends.”

The words still rang in my head, long after they had lingered in the air. Let’s just be friends.

My life as I knew it was over.

Chapter 3

Indigo

My breasts had grown a little bit over the summer, even though I was still in the same A-sized cup, I could tell they were just a little bit bigger than they were at the beginning of the summer. I wore my pink low-cut top that I’d picked up at the mall on Saturday just to show them off a little, my low-cut Mudd jeans and pink, black and white FILAs.

The first day of school was not the same without Jade. We’d made so many plans before she moved away. Times had gotten too hard for her mother and she decided that they should move in with Jade’s grandmother in New Jersey. Jade hated living there, too, because her grandmother was nothing like Nana. She was mean and stuffy, Jade told me, and she made them go to church three nights a week and on Sunday, too. She hoped it wouldn’t be long before her mama found them an apartment or something. She’d have to find a job first, and that was the hard part. Thank God for free nights and weekends, because I was able to call Jade every night after nine o’clock from my cell phone. And we talked all day on Saturdays and Sundays. That helped, although it still wasn’t the same as having her next door.

On the first day of school, I was forced to walk to the bus stop with Angie Cummings, who was literally “a nobody” on the face of the earth. She was a smart kid who made straight As and wore what looked like her Grandma Esther’s clothes to school. I was more of a B student, and sometimes C when I didn’t apply myself as much. I wanted to make good grades, but sometimes I just got caught up in other stuff and didn’t pay as much attention in class. For people like Angie, who didn’t have a life, straight As came much easier for them.

Even though I’d known Angie since kindergarten, and we attended the same church, she wasn’t someone I hung out with. She was kind of weird and wore bifocals. But since she was going to the bus stop, and I was going at the same time, there was no harm in walking together, although she was the type of person that would ruin your reputation for life. And I’d worked too hard for my popularity. Outside of the cheerleaders, Jade and I were the most popular two girls at our middle school because we could dance so well.

It was hard being popular, too, because people were always trying to be friends with me. And boys were always trying to talk to me, telling me how cute I am, and making comments about my body. Now that’s what really got on my nerves, the comments about my body. My body was the one thing that made me uncomfortable, because it was always changing. I knew how smart I was, knew I could dance, and I could beat everybody, even Nana, in a game of Monopoly. But when it came to my body, now that was a whole different story. My breasts were always changing, and I wasn’t built like a light pole anymore. There were bumps growing in some places, lumps in others, and my hips were filling out a little. Even my booty was coming full circle, and was more round than I remembered it being in the fifth grade. Now that was weird, but the weirdest thing of all came three years ago, sixth grade, right after recess was over one day on the playground. I remember it just like it happened yesterday.

Miss Brown had blown her whistle to let us know that it was time to come inside. It was after lunch, and it was on a Friday. I remember because I was so excited that Nana Summer was coming for a visit that weekend, and I knew she’d be at my house by the time I got home from school. My stomach had been cramping for about three days, and when I told my mother about it, she gave me some Midol and asked, “You started your period, Indi?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, if you’re having cramps, it probably means that it’s coming soon.”

“What’s it for, Mama?” I asked her, “I mean, why do women have periods?”

“All women do, Indi. It’s just a part of life.” That was all my mother said, before she took me to the CVS drugstore and bought me sanitary products and told me how to use them. I could tell that she was just as uncomfortable talking about it as I was.

So I left it alone, until that day on the playground when I felt a warm gush in my underpants and I took off running at full speed to the restroom. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life, and on the bus all the way home, my jean jacket tied around my waist, I felt like a freak or something. Thought all of my classmates were staring at me. As if they’d all known.

I was so happy to see Nana standing in our kitchen when I got home. I grabbed her around the waist, and hugged her so tightly from behind.

“Can we talk?” I whispered in her ear, as she stirred something on the stove. It smelled like spaghetti. “In my room?”

“Sure, baby,” she said, turned the fire down underneath the pot and followed me to my bedroom. “What is it?”

“Do I look different today?”

“Different how?” she asked.

“Do I look more grown-up than I did the last time you saw me.”

“A little taller maybe. But I was just here at Christmastime, Indi. What’s this about?”

“It came today,” I whispered. I didn’t want the rest of the world hearing, and certainly not my daddy if he was anywhere in the house. Surely she knew, just as everyone else probably did. Even Jade had seemed standoffish that day.

“What came today?” Nana asked.

“You know,” I said. “I started it.”

“Indi, what on earth are you talking about?” Nana asked, feeling my forehead with her back hand. “Are you feeling okay, you look a little flush.”

“I got my period today, Nana,” I whispered.

“Oh, that’s what this is all about.” She laughed a little, as if this was funny. How could she laugh, when my insides were in turmoil? “Perfectly natural thing for a girl your age, Indi. We’ve all traveled this road before.”

“What’s it all mean, Nana?”

“Well, it means that you’re not a little girl anymore. You’re a young lady now. And you have to conduct yourself as such.”

“It means I can’t play with my Barbies anymore?” I asked, already torn by the decision to continue to play with them or to pack them away in a cardboard box. Twelve was such an awkward age. You don’t know whether to play or act grown-up.

“You can play with your Barbies as long as you want,” she said. “But you should also start thinking about other things, like helping your mama out around this house, cleaning up behind yourself a little more, making better grades in school. You need to be more responsible.”

“Why do we have to have menstrual cycles, Nana? Does it have something to do with boys?”

“Well, it means that now you can become pregnant,” Nana said, taking a seat on the edge of my bed and inviting me to sit down next to her. “Every month your body produces an egg which travels through what’s called your fallopian tubes, and on down to your uterus.” Nana drew a line with her fingertips to show me where my fallopian tubes began and where my uterus began. “In order to prepare for this egg, your uterus creates this thick lining to make a nice cushion for it.”

“What’s the egg for?” I frowned.

“The egg comes to connect with the sperm of a man in order to make a baby.” Nana wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “That’s why it’s even more important now that you don’t fool around with boys.”

“I hate boys anyway.”

“You won’t always hate boys. In fact, you’ll grow to like them very much. And you’ll find yourself in situations where your hormones will get the best of you.”

“What are hormones?”

“That’s a whole other discussion. We’ll talk about that another time,” Nana said. “Now as I was saying, the purpose of the egg coming is to connect with the sperm. But the two should never connect until you’re married to the man of your dreams and you have both talked about starting a family. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“And until that time, every month, your body will still produce that old egg, and in anticipation for it, your uterus—” she drew a line with her fingertips again “—will always make this nice cushion for it. Think of it as a pincushion, like the one I use when I’m hemming your dresses.”

“A pincushion?” I almost fell out laughing.

“Yes, a pincushion.” Nana smiled. “And after a little while, when the uterus sees that it no longer needs the extra blood and tissue, that old pincushion will begin to dissolve itself.”

“And that’s when my period comes?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Every month like clockwork. At least until you get to be my age.”

“Your body doesn’t make pincushions anymore, Nana?”

“It’s a whole lotta things my body don’t do anymore.” She laughed. “You just keep on living, child. You’ll see.”

“I love you, Nana.”

“I love you, too, baby.” She took my breath away when she hugged me. “Now come on in here and help me with dinner. But first I want you to get this room cleaned. And do it without your mama having to ask you to sometimes. Okay?”

“Okay, Nana.”

That day my Barbies had been packed into a cardboard box, never to surface again.

“I heard Jade moved to New Jersey,” Angie said as we made our way to the bus stop.

“Yep.” I tried to keep the conversation at a minimum just in case someone was watching.

“You talked to her?”

“Every day.”

“Does she like it there?”

“No. She hates it,” I said. “Never wanted to move there in the first place.”

“I know,” Angie said. “It’s a shame how they got put out like that.”

“Put out?” I asked. “They didn’t get put out.”

“Well, my mom works with the owner of the property’s wife, and I heard my mom talking to someone on the phone who said that Jade’s mama didn’t pay her rent on time and they got evicted.”

“Well, that person your mom was talking to on the phone didn’t know what she was talking about,” I said. “Jade’s mama wanted to move to New Jersey.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Well, you should get your facts straight before you go spreading rumors.”

“Okay,” Angie said, not wanting to get into confrontation. “You going to the Homecoming Dance?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I don’t know. If somebody asks me, I might.”

“That’s nice. I’ll probably be at home studying.” She snickered, as we approached the others at the bus stop.

Angie just sort of vanished into a nonexistent state, and Bo Peterson started working on my nerves the minute I laid eyes on him.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Indigo Summer,” he said. “Where’s your sidekick?”

“Why are you talking to me, Bo?”

“Gonna be kinda lonely for you without Jade around,” he said. “Got you hanging out with the likes of Angie Cummings. Angie your new best friend?”

“We’re not hanging out,” I said, my eyes glancing over at Angie, and then looking away. I wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings. “Shut up, Bo!”

“You gon’ start dressing like her Grandma Esther, too?” he asked.

All of his boys started laughing, and I just rolled my eyes. This was exactly why I told Nana that boys were stupid.

I glanced back down the block, at the house next door to mine. I don’t know why, but I wondered where Marcus was—if he’d overslept. I wondered if he would be riding the bus, or if he got dropped at school. Suddenly, he appeared on his front porch wearing baggy black jeans and a white tee, a backpack thrown across his shoulder. Excitement rushed through me as I waited for him to step off the porch and head toward the bus stop. Instead, he stepped off of his porch and headed toward the old white Jeep that was parked in front of his house. He hopped into the driver’s seat and started it up. Pulled off. A sophomore with his own car. Imagine that.

Guess my idea of offering him the seat next to me on the bus was not an option.

Chapter 4

Indigo

The hallway was crowded as I pushed my way through hordes of students gathered at lockers, talking, laughing and catching up on old times. Several students just sort of wandered through the hallway, most of which were freshmen—and lost, like me. I took another glance at my schedule and tried my best to find Room 17A, Miss Petersburg’s home room class. But the numbers seemed to be getting larger, as I made it to the end of the hall and stood in front of Room 25C.

“You lost?”

Standing before me was the most beautiful pair of brown eyes that I’d seen in all of my fifteen years.

“Looking for 17A,” I told him.

“Oh, you got Miss Petersburg for home room.” The beautiful creature was dressed in an orange-and-black football jersey—the school’s colors—number 84 plastered across the front. He took my schedule from my hand, gave it a look over. “You’re on the wrong floor, girl. Room 17A is on the first floor.”

“Oh.”

“You a freshman, huh?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m Quincy,” he said, “you want me to walk you to your class or what?”

If I could’ve stopped my heart from beating so fast, I would’ve answered his question. But when I opened my mouth to say something, nothing leapt out.

He just started walking beside me, as the bell shook the walls in the hallway.

“Is that the tardy bell?” I asked, not wanting to be late on my first day.

“Naw, it was just the warning bell,” he explained. “It means you got three minutes to get to class. But they give you extra time to find your classes on the first day of school.”

“Oh.”

“What’s your name?”

“Indigo,” I managed to say. “Indigo Summer.”

“That’s a different name,” he said. At least he didn’t say it was stupid. “Were you named after somebody?”

“No.”

“That’s a weird name.” His smile seemed to give light to the entire school. “But it’s cute, though.”

“Thank you,” I said, hoping that was the proper response, and that I didn’t sound too stupid.

“You going to homecoming?”

Everyone seemed to be asking that question.

“When is it?” I asked. There were so many activities going on the first few weeks of school, I was just overwhelmed by all of it.

“The game is Friday night. I’ll be starting. Linebacker.” He smiled, obviously proud of his position on the football team. “The dance is on Saturday.”

We stopped in front of my classroom. He handed my schedule back to me.

“Here we are. This is 17A,” he said. “You wanna go with me on Saturday night or what?”

“Well, I…I hadn’t…um…” I wasn’t prepared for a question like that. “Okay.”

“Cool,” he said. “I’ll meet you here after class and you can give me your phone number. You do have a phone, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I’ll see you later then.”

I watched as Quincy trotted down the hallway, his jeans sagging just a little in the back, bold black letters on the back of his orange jersey, RAWLINS…84.

He vanished, but the smell of his Michael Jordan cologne lingered.

The sign on the wall outside the gym read: DANCE TEAM TRYOUTS TODAY, 4:00 PM.

So many girls on the bleachers, chattering about which classes were hard, and which ones you could get an easy A in, which boys were cute, and which ones looked like toads, and which teachers got on their ever-lovin’ nerves. At my old middle school, I knew just about everybody, but at this new school, as I looked around the huge gymnasium, I realized I was just another face in the crowd, and I didn’t know anyone. And my confidence about making the dance team was now shaken after seeing some of these girls, with much rounder hips, and much better moves, shake what their mamas gave them. Some of them were really good, making my routine, the one that Jade and I had worked on for months, seem just ordinary.

I took a seat on the bleachers, as a woman blew a whistle to get our attention. The chatter ceased.

“Ladies, let’s get started,” she said. “I’m Miss Martin, and I’m over the dance team here at George Washington Carver. Keisha here will be assisting me today with the music. If you’re trying out, you should have your own CD or tape with your music on it. Make sure that it’s the edited version of whatever song it is. This is the first round. Fifteen of you will be lucky enough to come back tomorrow for round two.”

“How will we know who made it to round two?” A dark, round girl at the other end of the bleachers asked.

“Tomorrow morning, a list of those who made the cut will be posted outside the cafeteria,” she said. “Good luck to you all. Now, let’s get started. First on my list are Tameka Brown and Michelle Smith.”

Tameka and Michelle both stepped down from the bleachers, Tameka handed Keisha a CD, told her which track to play, and stood in the middle of the shiny floor waiting for the music to begin.

My heart pounded as Nelly’s “Shake Ya Tail-feather” echoed through the gym, and their bodies began to gyrate to the sound of it. Wearing matching black T-shirts and black shorts, their moves were calculated as they bounced to a rhythm similar to each other’s. Nothing original, just a mixture of the Harlem Shake, the Tick and another dance that I didn’t recognize. I sat there with my chin resting in my hands, my insides in turmoil for the entire four minutes and nine seconds that their song lasted, awaiting my turn. When it was over, they took their seats on the bleachers.

Miss Martin wrote some notes on the pages attached to her clipboard.

“Indigo Summer.” She said my name in her own southern version of it. I hadn’t expected my turn to come so soon. “You’re up next.”

As I leaped from the bleachers, my pink, black and white FILAs hitting the shiny wooden hardwood floor, I handed Keisha Thomas my CD to put in.

“Track three,” I told her, as music from Usher’s new CD took me to a world of my own. A place where Jade was, with laughter and the hard work that we’d put into our routine, spending hours studying Usher’s video, and trying to emulate his moves. And we had them down to an art. Usher, our artist of choice. Well, Jade’s artist of choice. She thought he was the most beautiful person who ever walked the face of the earth, with his smooth chocolate skin and kissable-looking lips, as she put it. She had every CD he ever made and dreamed of bumping into him at Publix grocery store or Wal-Mart someday.

“You know he lives in Atlanta, right?” She reminded me of that fact every chance she got.

“I doubt that you’ll see him at Publix or Wal-Mart, Jade.”

“He gotta buy groceries, girl.”

“I’m sure he has someone who shops for him,” I said. “And I doubt if he shops at Wal-Mart anyway.”

“Well if I ever see him, I’m rushing him. Just want you to know that.”

“And I’ll act like I don’t know you.”

“I hope I don’t say anything stupid.”

“You will,” I assured her.

Then her eyes would get all glossy, like she was fantasizing about him or something.

“Yep, I probably will.”

We’d spent hours working on our routine, a routine made for two people, but here I was forced to perform it alone.

“You can do it,” Jade had told me on the phone the night before. “You don’t need me there. You know the moves better than me.”

I prayed she was right as the music resonated through my body, and I mimicked Usher’s moves that we’d practiced for months. I was a little stiff at first, but as the music came to life inside of me, I loosened up a little. I pretended I was on Jade’s front porch again, in control, the bass from the music shaking the wooden boards. And the girls who stared at me from the bleachers were faceless and nameless fans, wishing they were me. Wishing they could move like me. I was lost in the rhythm.

As Usher sang, “I’m so caught up…” my legs took on a life of their own. Thought about the video that we’d played over and over again. I took a bow as the last few lyrics resonated through the gym.

“Thank you, Miss Summer.” Miss Martin’s southern twang brought me back to the present time. She jotted down a few notes on her clipboard. I took my CD from Keisha and plopped down on the bleachers, sweat resting on my top lip.

“You were good,” Tameka whispered.

“Thanks. So were you,” I whispered back.

“Hope I was good enough to make the team,” she said.

“Hope I was, too.”

I used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe sweat from my face.

Chapter 5

Marcus

Coach Robinson’s whistle sounded across the field.

“Let’s run that play one more time,” he said, his voice loud for a man his size. Coach Robinson was about five-foot-seven, dark, a short dude with a receding hairline. He was buff though, obviously from pumping iron each day.

I wasn’t much of a football player anymore, had played when I was little, but never really had a desire to play sports. I was too busy studying and volunteering my time to worthy causes, and tutoring people who sucked in math.

But Coach Robinson, who was my American History teacher at this new school in College Park, had immediately taken a liking to me. He called on me more times on the first day of school than anyone else in the class; to answer questions and to help pass out worksheets. When the bell sounded for me to head to my next class, he called my name.

“Mr. Carter.” He looked up from his desk, and motioned for me to come back.

I walked slowly back to his desk. “Yes, sir?”

“How come you’re not on my football team?”

“I don’t really have time for sports, Coach. Got a lot on my plate with my schoolwork,” I explained. “Plus I’m working toward getting a scholarship, and I wanna get it based on my grades, not my ability to run a football down the field. I got a part-time job, too.”

I was able to transfer to a different Wendy’s on the other side of town. I was grateful for that, because I definitely needed my own money.

“You’re Rufus Carter’s boy, aren’t you?” he said.

My pop was a pillar in the community; people from miles around knew him and respected him. For years, he and my grandfather had sponsored sports teams, donating money for equipment and uniforms. The name of his company, Carter’s Affordable Homes, was plastered on the back of T-shirts and on plaques all over town.

“I remember when you played for the community center over there in Stone Mountain. You were pretty doggone good,” he said. “I used to coach at the community center here in College Park. I remember you.”

“I played quarterback.”

“And you were good, too,” he said. “You took that team to victory every single year. Why don’t you play anymore?”

“Lost interest.”

“You sure you don’t wanna give this team a try?” he asked. “Quincy Rawlins is my starting linebacker, but I’d like to try you as a wide receiver or cornerback.”

“I don’t know. It’s been a while since I played.”

“Well if you change your mind, you always got a spot on the team.”

“Thanks, Coach.” I folded the worksheet which was my homework assignment and placed it inside my book. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Curiosity had brought me there, as I sat on the bleachers on the football field and watched them practice. My mind went back to the days when football was my first love; my everything and then some. Nothing was more important to me back then. But it had soon become a long forgotten dream, and I remember the person who had shattered it: Mr. Forbes.

I worked my behind off that year to make the team, had pumped weights all summer just trying to build up my muscle mass, had gone to football camp and everything, but the coach at my middle school didn’t think I had what it took to play quarterback anymore.

“It’s a new day, Carter,” Mr. Forbes, the new blond-haired, pale-faced coach, had gripped his clipboard, said and frowned. “The days of you getting what you want because your daddy owns half of this town is over.”

“But Coach, I played quarterback for the community center for five years straight.”

“Well this is not the community center, and I’ve got a quarterback.” He smiled. “His name is Todd Richmond.”

“Todd ain’t half as good as me.”

“Ain’t?” He repeated my bad English. “Ain’t is not the proper word to use in that sentence. I swear to God I don’t know why I took this teaching job over here. Should’ve stayed in the suburbs where the students are both smart and talented. Over here, you people think that just because you can run a football down the field, that you don’t have to know anything else. You go through school with blinders on, thinking that sports will save you from your ignorance.”

I stood there eyeballing him, my blood boiling as he pretty much called me and my entire race stupid to my face. I knew I had to prove him wrong. Knew that I had to prove that not every black kid who was good in sports was dumb in the classroom.

“My grades are good,” I said in my defense.

“You’re in the low Cs, kid. I’m struggling just to keep you on the team.”

“But I’m bringing them up,” I said. “They dropped when my parents got divorced, because I was stressing over that.”

“It’s always an excuse with you youngsters,” he said.

“It’s true,” I told him. “I’m going to bring them back up. And when I graduate, I’m graduating with honors.”

“You see Todd over there?” He pointed toward the redhead who’d stolen my position on the team. “When he leaves high school, he’ll not only have had four good years of football, but with his grade point average, he’s sure to get a scholarship to Yale or Princeton. And that’s a fact.”

“I could get a scholarship to Yale or Princeton if I wanted to.”

“Not likely,” he said, as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “But there’s no doubt you could get into either Morehouse or Clark-Atlanta University, one of the historically black colleges here in Atlanta. That is, if you bring that grade point average up, and keep it steady during your high school years. But you have to really be a special kid to get into an Ivy League school like Yale or Princeton, Marcus.”

His words stuck with me, tore me up inside, and even stopped me from sleeping a few nights. I knew what I had to do. I had to come up with a Master Plan. I wanted to go to Yale or Princeton, simply to set a standard; to prove a point. Not that Morehouse or Clark-Atlanta weren’t good schools, because they were. In fact, Morehouse was known for its strong math and science programs. And I was a math scholar, could work problems out with my eyes closed. But I wanted to not only get accepted to a school where statistically blacks weren’t accepted, but I wanted to get a scholarship to one, too.

Football was over for me that day, and I was determined to make straight As, graduate with honors, get a scholarship to Yale or Princeton and look for that Mr. Forbes one day and show him that he was wrong about Marcus Carter. I dreamed of that day.

Coach Robinson had the team running a play over and over again, and when he was sure it was burned into their memory, he ran it again. I pulled my worksheet out of my American History book, looked over the questions. They were simple, so I completed it, the sun beaming down on my fresh haircut as I sat in the bleachers. I scribbled my name across the top, then folded the worksheet back up, stuck it into my book and placed my book into my backpack. Threw my backpack across my shoulder and decided to head over to the gym where the girls were trying out for the dance team. Nothing like watching a bunch of girls shaking it up.

I pulled the heavy door open, peeked inside, Usher’s “Confession,” ringing in my ears as I stepped inside. Took a seat on the bleachers next to some other guys who’d stayed after school just to watch the girls move their hips to hip-hop music. They were picking out which ones they would ask out, and saying how cute Indigo Summer was as she bounced to the music that echoed throughout the gymnasium. Just by looking at her, I couldn’t tell that she could move like that. But she could. She was good, and I was glad that I had caught the end of her performance.

After the last group of three girls started dancing to some song by Ludacris, I decided to make my way outside the gym, and stand near the glass doors. I didn’t want to miss Indigo when she came out. I wanted to speak to her; maybe offer her a ride home. Tell her how good her performance was. My backpack thrown across my shoulder, as girls passed by whispering, smiling and waving, I waited patiently.

“Hey,” one of them said. “You Marcus Carter?”

“Yep,” I said.

“You’re in my fourth period.” The light brown girl smiled a cute little smile, and my eyes found her cleavage that she was showing too much of.

“Oh,” is all I could say as I thought back to all the girls in my fourth period. I didn’t remember her face.

“I sit two seats behind you in class,” she said. “I’m Alicia.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“And I’m Shauna,” her friend said. “You going to the homecoming dance?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

I wondered if Indigo was going, and if so, if she already had a date. Maybe I’d ask her.

“Well, if you decide to go, who you taking?” Alicia asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t have a date,” she smiled.

My eyes found the door of the gym as they swung open and the girls trying out for the dance team rushed out. I searched for Indigo in the crowd, and spotted her walking and talking with another girl. She wore pink shorts and a white top that hugged her small breasts. Her wild hair fell softly onto her shoulders, and her skin was flawless.

“Indigo,” I called her, walking away from Alicia and Shauna, leaving their questions and comments to dissolve into the air.

Indigo’s eyes found mine.

“What’s up?” She asked.

“I been waiting on you. Wanted to tell you how good you were in there.”

“Thanks. Hope I make the team,” she said dryly, as if she doubted her own skills.

“You will,” I said.

“What you doing hanging around in the girls’ gym anyway?” she asked.

“Watching the tryouts.”

“You stayed after school just to watch us dance? Don’t you have anything better to do?” she asked, frowning. “Why aren’t you on the football team or something?”

“Because I don’t play football…anymore,” I said. “But I watched the team practice for a while. Then I decided to come over here and see what was up with the dance team tryouts.”

“Well, good for you,” she said and walked away from me, through the glass doors and to the outside courtyard.

I followed.

“You got a ride home?”

“My father’s picking me up,” she said, searching the lineup of cars that sat at the curb; parents waiting for their children to come out.

“…’cause I was gonna say, I could give you a ride, since you live right next door.”

“That’s alright. He’s already here,” she said, and took off toward her father’s truck.

Didn’t say goodbye. Just left me standing there, unaware that I thought she was the finest girl in the entire school.

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