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After helping Zena to her feet and carrying her bicycle to the sidewalk as she reluctantly revealed that she lived up the street and had just moved to Georgia from New York with her mother and sister, Roy abruptly excused himself and his wife. Attempting to pull Pam toward the house, he winked at Adan and ordered him to fix the chain with the supplies in the garage. Pam ignored Roy’s clear desire that Adan and Zena get better acquainted and asked about Zena’s mother again. She wanted to make sure Zena got home okay.
“The girl just told you she lives up the street. I think they’re renting the Jefferson’s old house. That ain’t far. She’ll be fine, Pam!” Roy protested. “Let these young folks figure it out. Everything will work out fine.” He winked at Adan again and pulled his wife up the walkway and into the house.
“They’re so weird. Weird and embarrassing,” Adan said when they were gone, and with every word he spoke, Zena felt those wondrous flutters all through her body again.
“My parents are divorced,” Zena announced as if she’d been holding it in her stomach all that time and needed to let someone know. “My dad cheated. He’s having a baby.”
Adan hardly reacted. He just shrugged in his learned teenage boy way. Zena would soon recognize this as his cool routine. “My mom would kill my dad if he cheated. She told him that one night. I think he believes her.”
Adan picked up the bicycle and began rolling it toward the garage.
Zena followed close behind, watching him walk, spying his muscular arms and calves. She kept thinking that he had to be the cutest boy she’d ever seen. But, then, she couldn’t remember ever really seeing any other boys. Memories of the ones who’d chased her around her neighborhood in Queens had faded so quickly. Who were they? What were their names again?
“Your chain is mad rusty. Where’d you get this bike? The Salvation Army?” he asked jokingly once they were in the garage and out of the hot sun.
“Yes,” Zena admitted, embarrassed, and then she wished she hadn’t fessed up to it. She didn’t want Adan to know she was poor. Then he wouldn’t like her. Could he like her? Did he? Zena looked into Adan’s eyes for signs of something. Anything.
“Really?” Adan seemed surprised by the news and the obvious fumble of his joke about the Salvation Army. His light brown cheeks turned ruddy, and suddenly Zena saw in his eyes reflections of the same feelings she felt in her stomach. He liked her. Maybe he did. She felt her own cheeks turning red then.
“That’s cool anyway. The bike is a little rusty. It could use some cleaning. But it’s a nice bike. A Huffy,” Adan said, suddenly cutting his gaze away from Zena as if he was becoming more nervous.
“You think it’s nice?”
“Yes. It is. I could help you fix it up if you like. We could spray paint it. Make it dope.” Adan looked back at Zena and smiled.
Zena smiled back. She felt as if she’d been asked out on her first date. “That would be cool,” she said.
“We could set it up here in the garage. Work on it. Like a project.”
Zena had never heard a boy her age use that word before—project.
She nodded and helped Adan flip the bike over. Standing beside him, she didn’t want to breathe. She didn’t want a second more to pass. She wanted everything to stop so she could just be right there, right then with him. She was afraid she’d miss something. Forget something about that moment. But she never would.
He turned on an old, dusty radio that his father listened to sometimes when he worked on his car in the garage. Some Goodie Mob song was playing, and Zena revealed that she’d never heard of the group. Adan’s eyes widened. He didn’t believe her. He then went through the entire history of the Dungeon Family, a local rap consortium that Adan heralded as the best MCs in the world. Zena laughed and pointed out that the best MCs were Biggie, Nas and Jay Z. This debate would continue throughout their relationship. But at that moment, Adan controlled the dial on the radio, so he turned up Goodie Mob’s “Black Ice.” Loud and proud, he rapped along about waking up and touching the sky.
Zena watched, listened and laughed. Soon, just as she’d done with the boys back in NYC, she forgot all about the time. The sun went down and her mother came looking for her.
* * *
It took Adan three long, hot weeks to make Zena’s old rusty bike the envy of the street. With his father’s help, he spray painted the Huffy hot pink and electric blue, reupholstered the seat with purple fabric and Pam even added a bell that Zena’s mother insisted on paying for. As the repairs went on and the summer came to a close, Zena learned more about the Douglasses and everything about Adan. He was so smart. He seemed so much older than her. Sometimes he reminded her of Mr. Roy in the way he was always joking and pretending he was keen on a secret. He was cool, too. Seldom overexcited or sad. He seemed to have feelings right down the middle at all times. He took care of his little brother. Listened to his mother. Followed his father’s direction. This all comforted Zena. Made her open up to Adan about everything that had her out pedaling fast on that old red bike that day. Over those afternoons in the garage she told him all about her parents’ divorce. Her empty feelings. Her fear. He always seemed to know just what to say. Just when to be silent. Just when to reach out to wipe her tears.
One evening, Zena’s mother had to work a double shift at the airport, where she’d lucked up on a job at Delta Air Lines. Zena was stuck in the house taking care of Zola, though she’d promised Adan she’d meet him at the local roller-skating rink. She was too embarrassed to call his house to say why she couldn’t go, so she decided to just let the moment pass and later lie and say she forgot. While this line of thinking sounded crazy to her now, back then, it was a perfectly rational decision made out of shame and humiliation that her family had such limited funds that she was basically her sister’s primary caretaker while her mother plated flight meals at the airport. Zena had been spending so much time at the Douglasses, and she now envied the ease and reliability of Mr. Roy and Mrs. Pam’s stable marriage and home. Adan never had to take care of Alton. There was always someone at home to look after them.
After watching too many music videos on BET, Zena told Zola that it was time to get ready for bed and ordered her little sister to go take a shower. Once Zola finished complaining about the shower and begged to watch more videos, Zena scolded her as if she was the mother, and Zola stomped out of the living room toward the bathroom.
“I don’t hear the water,” Zena hollered after a while, and then the sound of the water in the shower finally started. She reminded herself to bust into the bathroom in a few minutes to make sure Zola was really in the shower and not just looking at the water—her mother always did that.
Zena got up to turn off the television and there was a faint, soft knock at the front door.
On instinct, Zena looked around the room for her father’s baseball bat, but then reminded herself that she was no longer in the projects and that bat was still in New York.
“Who is it?” Zena demanded forcefully, trying to make her voice sound louder, gruffer in case there was a dangerous criminal at the door.
“Adan.”
An alarm sounded in Zena’s heart. She was quickly frantic. Why was Adan at her front door? He’d been past her house. He’d walked her home on some nights when she’d been at his house until it was too dark for her to walk home alone. But he’d never rung the front door. He’d certainly never been inside. Did he want to come inside? Everything around Zena seemed to be in complete disarray. Messy. Too messy. Zola’s stupid Oreo crumbs on the secondhand couch. Their dirty sneakers lined up beside the front door. Her mother’s work clothes on the chair. Zena looked into the dining room. They didn’t even have a set in there yet. No chairs. No table. Just a bright light and an empty room.
“Zena?” Adan called from outside as if he sensed that he’d been forgotten.
“Yes.”
“You going to open the door?”
Zena exhaled and walked to the entrance, where she forced a casual smile before opening the door only a few inches.
Adan was standing on the steps with his hands in his pockets. He looked confused. Maybe sad.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why?” Zena said.
“Because you weren’t at the skating rink. I figured something was wrong.” Adan tried to peek into the house, but Zena shifted her head to block him.
“Oh, that,” Zena said vaguely. “I forgot.”
“Forgot? But you seemed so excited.”
“I was but, you know how it is. I just got busy.”
“Oh.” Adan’s face went from maybe confused and maybe sad to definitely hurt.
Zena’s heart sank. She hated her world for making her say what she’d said. She didn’t want to hurt Adan. She was saying what she was saying because she wanted him to like her. Well, she didn’t want him to not like her because her family was struggling and her mother wasn’t a nurse and had to work overtime and she had to take care of her baby sister.
“Adan—”
“Zena—”
The two teenagers said each other’s names at the same time as they tried to stumble out their feelings.
“You first,” Adan said.
“No, you first,” Zena countered.
“I’ll just say this,” Adan started with his voice cracking from its usual cool. “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out and, like, be friends. I know school is starting soon and you’ll make other friends. Okay? I know that. But I want to be your friend. I like you and I want to be your friend.” He looked into Zena’s eyes. “I really like you.”
“Like, I like you, too,” Zena blurted out clumsily.
The words were innocent enough, but the intentions had deep meaning behind them. What the two of them knew was their relationship had strengthened and left so much heightened emotional residue that they both laughed to lighten the moment.
“Hey, can I come in for a little while?” Adan asked.
“In here?”
“Yes. Into your house.”
“Ohh.” Zena looked over her shoulder as if maybe there was a circus breaking out in the living room behind her. She turned back to Adan. “You sure?” she asked him.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Look, Adan. We don’t have anything. I don’t have a Nintendo like you do. Our television is on the floor,” Zena said.
“That’s fine,” Adan answered in his cool tone. “I’m not here to play Nintendo or watch television. I’m here to see you.”
“Ohh,” Zena repeated. She stepped back and let Adan in. He kept her company and left right before her mother was to be home from work. That became their nightly ritual when her mother worked doubles. They swore Zola to secrecy and bribed her with Twix candy bars.
Zena was sure all of this would change when school started and all of the best friends Adan had, who frequently stopped by the house, got his attention before her. While she hadn’t met any of the girls in the neighborhood, she imagined they’d all be prettier than her and have nicer bikes and already know all of the lyrics to the popular songs Adan played incessantly.
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