chapter 1
INCONVENIENCE
“Don’t judge me. I sware. He looked clean.”
“What? I assume, by clean, you mean disease free?” Hugette whispered. “How you tell that by looking?”
She showed genuine concern and wanted an answer to that question, because I had sort of, kind of, by accident, contracted a not so wonderful and very inconvenient STD.
“I can’t believe you,” she continued on and on for at least five minutes with opinions filled with conjecture based on her not being anywhere in the vicinity of where the sex took place.
“He was hot. You wouldn’t understand,” I offered, matching her whisper level.
“You smell like a barrel of fish…”
I winced, she had hurt my feelings, and saw my facial expression, yet continued.
“Buried beneath a pile of dead rats…”
Still more.
“Wrapped in used gym socks.”
“But I feel so pretty,” I said trying to lighten the mood and completely ignore her. I pulled up the long rainbow mesh skirt I wore from the floor and twirled around in the compacted stall revealing a pair of army boots. Her eyes fixated on the boots.
“Stop that before you trip on something…reject from a runway. Why would you pair that skirt with a white tank top and lace-up boots?” She criticized. “It’s too muggy out for that!”
By this point, I was offended.
“That was simply uncalled for,” I said. “I smell and I’m ugly.”
“I didn’t call you ugly. I just questioned your fashion sense. And…,” she emphasized. “How do you think I knew something was off with you? Who smells like you and is healthy?”
She answered her own question.
“No one!”
The level of Hugette’s voice rose for a moment and her last words echoed off of the painted eggshell yellow cement walls in the empty convenience store restroom where we stood… in a locked stall. Not really sure why we were even in here. These stall moments derived from an incident in middle school but…
“Privacy,” is what she said.
It was summertime and we were finally free, me for the summer and Hugette for life. She recently graduated from high school- Joyce High. Thing is, maybe she wasn’t so free. She felt a constant burden to fulfill her parents’ expectation. The one that said she would become a highly acclaimed psychiatrist. And girlfriend practiced on me, constantly—using me as her guinea pig.
“Wake up, chick!”
Her open hand stung my forehead.
“Ow, why the hell did you do that?” I asked. “Bad enough you got me in a god damn bathroom stall…whispering like two blinkin’ idiots. I thought we were going to your house?”
Then she busts out laughing. “Blinkin’? First what the fuck is that? And my house? No.”
I was sheepish about my answer and shrugged. “I been watching BBC shows on PBS. Blinkin’ is something they say. Like ‘damn!’”
She gave a sarcastic, ‘Oh that’s interesting’ then moved on.
“Once again, no. We're not going to my house?” She said, clarifying her previous refusal. “You smell bad.”
“I mean…I…” I said, stuttering for lack of words to defend myself.
“This is where you belong. … right here… in a restroom…or better yet, in the toilet!”
Then the explanation came.
“How do you think my very…” and she did her best to spotlight the ‘very’ in her statement. “…strict and very Caribbean parents would react to you right now? …at this moment? …if I brought you home?”
Dejected, I answered. “They’d likely hurl a bunch of curse words at me in Patois?”
Blunt in her response, she replied, “Right! And take back my graduation present because ‘bad company wi’ lead you astray.′ ” She mimicked her parents’ use of Jamaican Creole.
“What?! I asked. “All I caught was ‘bad company.’ ”
“Exactly.” That’s what they’d say to me about you. You’ve scarred them enough.” She paused and stressed. “And I need my car, chickee.”
Hugette’s parent’s bought her a car for her graduation that was in the process of being repaired.
She continued to harp on my ailment. I hadn’t noticed any smells and no one complained, until recently. Maybe other people were just being polite and disregarding the odor. Anyway, they say that you go nose blind if a scent originates with you. Maybe she was right. I sniffed in an inconspicuous way, like when people do the quick head tilt toward their armpit to check for b.o.; and yep, she was right. But of course, I had to play it off.
“I don’t smell that bad,” I mumbled.
“What?! You are what bad sex would smell like- if it had a scent. Better yet, I think I saw the latrine try to unscrew its bolts and pick itself up to get away from your stench.”
I hated her cockiness. I wanted to run away and bury my face in the dirt but I just kept quiet. I grew silent. Hugette’s face grew solemn.
“Let’s get outta here,” she said to me.
Hugette turned the small, rounded piece of metal that secured the door in the stall, but when I attempted to move forward, the mesh skirt I wore had entangled itself around one of the toilets bolts. I yanked my left thigh, raising my leg and on the return down my foot—having a mind of its own—plunked and entered the open wet mouth of the toilet. By mistake, I pushed down on the handle and gave my foot a Swirlie. Hugette zig-zagged a bit to avoid the splash of the toilet water. Once clear, she let out the loudest laugh.
“Self-fulfilling prophecy? Your foot fell in the toilet.” She pointed as she hollered.
“No that’s not what that means. I’d have to have said it. But you did. It’s more
like your prediction come to pass, Ms. Cleo.” Correcting her was fun for me and one of the ways I got my tiny bit of vengeance on my friend the know-it-all.
“Ms. Cleo?” she asked.
“Yeah. I read about her. She was like this psychic scam artist from the 70s or something. I don’t remember,” I said, aloof, pulling my foot from the toilet and shaking to eliminate most of the water. Hugette pushed the stall door open and spotted a paper towel holder. She pulled some paper towels while positioned in front of the opened stall door.
“I didn’t predict that. “I simply made a connection,” she said. “Bad smell connects to a toilet.” I stooped with the towels to dry my shoes and noticed part of my skirt had ripped. We made our way out of the store’s bathroom and into the store. Hugette bought some Blueberry Surf slushies for us both, and she paid for something else that I didn’t get to see. When I brushed past the few store patrons, they were polite enough to confirm for me how smelly I was by making haste in the other direction. Some plainly held their noses. Others used more subtlety and put their whole arm over their faces or pulled their collars up over their noses. I left the store and waited outside for Hugette, watching the automatic sliding door open and close for new visitors and hoping there was enough of a breeze blowing on the outside to mask my stink. The door gave way and Hugette appeared beside me with two slushies in a cup holder and a medium-sized soccer ball under her arm. She gave me holding two slushies in a holder and a medium-sized, glittery red and matte black soccer ball under her arm.
She smiled.
Sometimes I resented her for being so bossy; but what I did love about my friend was that when it came to me—and don’t get me wrong she loved to point out all my flaws in her effort, I thought, was to continue her psychological experiment bent on turning me into the perfect human being—Hugette’s caring attitude was often on display.
She scanned the area outside for a place to set the slushies down. She spotted a rounded brown metal table. When she set the slushies down, the ball fell from her arm. Picking it up launched the ball at me, trying to catch me off guard. To her delight, I bounced the ball off my chest and caught it with the side of my foot, letting the ball rest.
“Thank you,” I said cracking a sly smile.
“You’re welcome. “Go ’head. Show me some more of your moves,” she said gyrating to the word ‘moves.’
I let the soccer ball fall and did two of my favorite moves…the Maradona and the Hocus Pocus. And just because Hugette liked it so much, I juggled the ball with my head.
Her attention wavered between me and the slushies as I did handless tricks with the soccer ball in my dress, moving like a hip-hop ballerina. Every time, I played, she would make sounds like she’d never seen me do any of this before. Always sounding amused and amazed. For my finale, I, again, let the ball settle on the side of my bent right foot and with smooth rotation, flicked it upwards into my hands and held it.
When I was finished, she collected the slushies from the nearby table and shouted. “That was beyond words! Don’t you miss that?” She asked me, handing me the cup.
“Yeah, a little,” I said taking one of the cold, icy beverages.
“Me too,” she agreed. “You’re so good.” She continued cooed over my performance like a new mother which lasted until…5,4,3,2…
“So now what?” She’d return to the topic I wanted to avoid. “…can’t believe you. You finally grow some boobs and you let some greasy guy touch them? Eww.”
“Whaddoyoucare?” I spoke rudely.
Yep. It took me ’till recently to grow a pair…
of breasts.
For some reason, even as a teenager, I was often mistaken for an 11-12-year-old girl. …could have been because I was just a thin-lipped, late bloomer: flat-chested, skinny and built like a bean pole, up until a few months ago. Hugette hypothesized. She was certain the sudden speed in the development of my boobs came because I started eating more junk food… like a normal teenager. Long sigh.
The life of a juvenile diabetic is not an easy one. My aunt and uncle had me on a strict, no soy, no sugar, low fat, no additives diet. They were even extra careful with putting food in plastic containers. “BPA,” they said. BPA free, one of my aunt’s phases that lasted way too long. It wasn’t until I turned sixteen a little while ago, that they let up and let me live.
“That’s crazy how junk food has so many hormones added to it.” She said. “That’s what’s causing your change.”
Still trying to figure out what we should do about my current ‘ailment’, Hugette was hell-bent on fixing this problem for me or with me (whichever came first). Much like the times, she muscled her way in to solve my other problems, some of which she deemed ‘adult-life’ threatening. Examples are given here, in order of occurrence, beginning first with the problem followed by Hugette’s solution:
The Bird’s Nest Hair Debacle: Sporting a mixed hair Afro and not learning how to care for it, because your white aunt and uncle either didn’t know how or care to teach you how to.
Hugette’s Solution: Hair moisturizer for curly hair and a very stylish ponytail done in a bathroom stall at our school. (I suppose this is where our habit of discussing private things in bathroom stalls originated.) It was the best she could do in between classes. This happened when I was about 11.
Bullying (Although, this didn’t happen to me, noteworthy still.)
Hugette’s Solution: We kicked this kid, Elijah’s, ass after watching him torment Anais, the class runt, for too many years. Ok, scratch the ‘we.’ It was mostly her whipping this kid’s tail and me thinking “Damn, Jamaicans can fight;” but I did help her, for about a second, after some random onlooker pushed me in the middle of the fray.
The straw that broke the camel’s back happened when Elijah blew a spitball equal in mass and size to a tiny bird egg and it hit Hugette by mistake. Yes, of course, we got suspended. Fighting is against school rules. Same age. This was a rough year for me.
Wanting To Bury My Head In The Sand
Hugette’s Solution: She would tell me, “Everywhere we go there’s a show,” to help me realize that we’re stars, no matter what’s happening around us or what people say. Corny? Yeah. But it really did help. I was 12.
I Wanted To See God, So I Decided To Build A Tower Up To Heaven.
Hugette’s Solution: At a certain time of year, some events, tunes, smells reminded me of my parents; even though I never knew them. Hugette figured I was grieving and invited me on the beach trip she was taking with her parents, to cheer me up. During the trip, my sadness got the best of me and I stepped out in the middle of the ocean and let myself sink. Luckily, Hugette saw me. She wasn’t having any of that. She saved me. Though the attempted rescue almost cost her own life. Hugette couldn’t swim. The thrashing alerted her parents and the lifeguard. It’s a wonder her parents still let me visit. I was 13.
The way I figured it, Hugette having a two-year head start on me, must have made her feel like by default, I was still the kid and she had some special adult privilege to butt into my life. She liked to solve my problems like adults like to solve their children’s problems. Although I still say that with her interest in psychology made me some sort of social experiment for her. She hoped to be a Psychiatrist, one day. Though, I never confirmed these to be the main reasons; it seemed she felt compelled. Guess that was a compulsive disorder of sorts or the control freak in her. And since I felt like I didn’t know what to do-ever… I let her do her thing--all the problem solving she wanted. So we sipped, meditated, deliberated and pondered my quandary. Yeah, I know big words. I’m actually pretty smart.
Because my house was about ten minutes away, I decided to walk home. Hugette insisted on walking with me part of the way home, for safety and all. I figured to protect me from all the flies and feral cats that might trail me on account of my smell.
During our entire friendship, I had never, ever invited Hugette to my house. The closest she had ever gotten was walking with me about a block away. When she asked why, I told her one time, a few years ago, my aunt and uncle were reclusive introverts who didn’t like entertaining guests. And when you’re aged 12 or 13, you just accept some things as facts-especially when quirky adults are involved, which my aunt and uncle were. So that’s how she approached things when I gave her that explanation. She accepted it. This isn’t to say that it never came up again in conversation. But it usually died as quickly as it started.
We continued to walk in that general direction toward my house while drinking our summertime favorite. Sipping on the icy blue gush gave me brain freeze and made my tongue blue, which I enjoyed displaying to Hugette.
“You are such a child.” The proverbial rote statement sprang from her mouth without effort.
“For what? …for this?” I mocked, sticking my blue tongue out at her again.
“And for so much more,” she declared.
I shrugged. “Yep. It’ll keep my younger longer for it.
“Your ‘younger’?” I repeated.
“Yes. Age ain’t nothing but a number-according to Aaliyah. Don’t you know the more you play, the younger you stay?”
“Hey, that rhymes.” I joked.
“Yeah, you definitely could stay looking extra young as you age—with your genes? Maybe you got it from your mom or dad,” she suggested.
“I guess,” I said trying to reminisce about parents I never knew.
She gulped her slushie and made the same gesture she scolded me for.
I responded. “See, now look who’s childish?
“Not me. I’ve got junk in my trunk and full luscious boobs, twiggy,” she teased me while shimmying her breasts.
