FOURTEEN
I was just about to ask after you,” Lena says as I walk in. “Dinner’s ready.”
Although I’m still pretty full off lemonade and cake, I can’t turn down a warm home-cooked meal. But Myah also got me a little queasy. How could she lie like that and steal all those kids’ money?
Then again, how much would I spend to talk to Grandma one more time.
Dad comes inside carrying his guitar case, already dressed for the night’s show.
“Hey, baby,” he says to me. “Feel like doing your pops a favor?”
His wiggling eyebrows make me laugh. “Maybe. What’s up?”
“Can you come along with me tonight? Think we need some new pictures of the band for the website.”
“After dinner, of course,” Lena chides.
“Okay! I’m down.”
“Can I come too?” Robby asks.
“Chile, no,” Lena says, kissing his forehead.
Robby sulks.
“Let me just grab my other battery from my room, and we can leave right after dinner,” I say, heading for the door.
“Bet,” Daddy says, sitting at the table. “Smells good, Lena.”
I cross the living room, and just as I’m about to head out to the guesthouse, an email pops up on my phone screen.
A message from the Studio Museum in Harlem.
I catch my camera bag before it falls out of my hand and plop into the nearest chair, not trusting my legs, my hand clammy as I tap the screen and read …
Dear Harmony,
Thank you so much for your application. After reviewing, we are happy to inform you that you are accepted into the Teen Program …
“I got in!” I scream. “YASSSSSS!”
Robby, Lena, and Dad all freeze, watching me hop around and dance into the kitchen like a maniac.
“I got in! I got in! I got in!”
“Got in what?” Robby asks.
“I got into the internship at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It’s a photography program. They’re going to teach me everything!”
“Oh. Well,” Lena says with a nervous laugh. “Congratulations.”
“OMG! We have to get back home right now,” I say to Dad. “I need to, you know, get settled and stuff. Go back-to-school shopping before I start this program. It’s once a week, but with cheer practice and this, I’m going to be busy. Can you believe it? Dad, ain’t this great!”
Lena nods along, then looks at Daddy. They seem stunned by my news and not in a good way. This is the time they should be congratulating me. Instead, something unsaid flows between them. Dad rubs his face, wincing, then gives me a tight smile.
“Oh, um. That’s great, baby. Real … real good news.”
My stomach plunges to the floor.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him. “Are you worried about money? ’Cause it doesn’t cost nothing. In fact, I’m going to get something called a stipend. I can buy my own lunch now! Oh! You think you can skip the last week of this gig? Or maybe I’ll fly back alone and Aunt Peggy can stay with me?”
My brain is working so fast my mouth can barely keep up. But even through my word vomit, I peep Lena giving Dad a stern look before turning to Robby. “Robby, help me with something back here,” Lena says.
“Something like what? I’m hungry.”
“Come on, young man,” she snaps, pulling him out of the kitchen by his ear. She’s trying to give us space. But for what?
Dad stares down at his folded hands. My stomach tenses, and I can’t shake the feeling of wanting to run from whatever is about to come my way.
“Dad? What’s wrong?” Oh God, is he dying too?
He sighs. “Baby, I have to tell you something. You’re not going to like it. But … if you just give it a chance, well, you’ll grow to like it. Maybe.”
“What are you talking about?” I snap. Only because it sounds like he’s talking in circles.
He takes a deep breath. “We’re not going back to Harlem. We’re moving here. To Savannah.”
I blink, thinking I’m hearing things. “Huh? No. I’m saying we have to go back home.”
Dad rubs his head. “Mony. We can’t move back, ’cause the apartment is gone.”
Once again, I swear I’m hearing things, so I try not to overreact. But my heart must have heard him right, because it’s racing and skipping beats.
“Gone? What do you mean gone? What happened?”
Dad swallows before he goes on to explain.
“The apartment was in Ma’s name, paid for with her Social Security.
And once she died, the landlords came after it.
It was one of the last rent-stabilized spots in the building, they weren’t gonna let that go.
It was gonna cost more money to fight them than we had.
I couldn’t afford the new rent so … I had no choice but to give it up. ”
I’m listening, but my mind is back in the apartment, picturing it empty.
Picturing Grandma’s ghost standing there, wondering where everyone went.
Picturing her watching another family live there.
Picturing her heartbroken, missing us, the way we miss her.
Tears start to bubble, my hands shaking so hard I have trouble holding my phone.
I don’t understand, and even if I ask him to explain another dozen times, I still won’t get it.
“Why … why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice cracking.
He shrugs. “I … couldn’t. We had already lost so much. First your mother, then Ma … I was waiting for the right time to break the news.”
The room grows hot, like the whole house is on fire. How could he keep this from me? We talk about everything. He should have told me. Given me time to say goodbye and pack my own room …
I gasp. “Wait, what about all our stuff?”
“Peggy packed up everything and put it in a storage spot,” he says, like he’s trying to reassure me that everything is fine. But it’s not fine. Aunt Peggy was in on this too?
Once again, my mind is not in Savannah, it’s in Harlem, taking a mental inventory of every inch of the apartment. My clothes, my coats, my skates, my TV, my favorite books …
Suddenly my lungs stop working as a dark thought slips in.
“What did you do with all of Grandma’s albums?!” I’m shouting now.
Dad holds up his hands. “Peggy got them at her place!” he insists. “Don’t worry, they’re safe.”
“I wasn’t worrying before because they were safe in our home!” I scream, tears falling down on my shirt.
Dad tries reaching for me, and I back away. “Mony, I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to go down like this.”
“You knew the whole time, didn’t you?” I ask with a sniff. “That’s why you were okay with me coming on this tour with you. You wanted to get me out of the house, so you could get rid of our spot and shack up with your new girlfriend in Savannah!”
Dad shakes his head. “Nah. It ain’t like that at all, I swear. This opportunity to come to Savannah came up while we were on the road. I promise, I was gonna tell you. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“How could you lie to me? Why did you lie to me? We’re supposed to be a team!”
Dad sighs. “But … we got a good thing going here, in Savannah. The bar is going to give me a standing gig. We’ll have enough to buy our own home.
I mean, look at all this fresh air, trees, quiet …
It’s something your mother really wanted for you.
Schools are pretty good too. And you already made a new friend. ”
New home? New school? New friends?
I don’t hear anything else he has to say. I walk past him, out the front door, down the porch steps. The sky is dark pink and blue, the sun fading, the air still hot as ever as I sprint away, tears blinding me.
My home is gone.
That’s all I keep thinking as I drift farther from Lena’s place with no real direction and no goal in mind.
Wandering through the streets, down the cracked sidewalks as the night bugs come out, replacing the silence, seeming almost louder than the passing cars.
I’m low-key surprised Dad ain’t come after me. But maybe he knows I need some space.
I think about calling Truth and Kiki, but what do I say?
How do I break it to them that I won’t be coming back?
That I’m gone and we’re separated for good?
They’ve been so cool about everything, with Grandma passing, me going on the road with Dad, searching for ghosts.
Are they even going to want to be my friend anymore?
What will we have in common? What do kids my age even do here?
In Savannah, the nights seem to bring alive a different energy. Everything seems both quiet and loud, fast but slow, the sky darker, the stars closer. Maybe that’s why ghosts love the night more than the day.
I really shouldn’t be walking around alone, not when there’s a murderer on the loose. That’s something Robby would say.
Maybe I could go back to New York and live with Aunt Peggy. But her one-bedroom apartment is in Brooklyn, and that might as well be in another state from Harlem. Sure, I would be back in New York where things make sense, but I’d be sleeping on a sofa, with no privacy and Aunt Peggy’s smelly cat.
I turn a corner and hear the familiar thumping of a giant speaker. The kind people set up during block parties in the summer.
Will I never be at a block party again?
I drift toward the sound of old-school R&B music, passing more homes and yards, until I notice one house with dozens of cars parked out front, people heading up the driveway and around to the back, voices carrying over the music.
A couple jumps out of a blue pickup truck, the woman carrying a sheet pan of food.
It’s when I get to the driveway that I realize … this is Ms. Trina’s home.
I stand stuck, watching family and friends gather in the backyard again.
A wave of sadness comes over me thinking of the home that’s no longer my home.
Missing something that’s there but too far away for me to touch.
I pull out my phone, staring at the selfie of Grandma and me on the home screen, thinking of the day we took that pic, right outside the D train before school.
Grandma liked walking me to the train every morning, our own little ritual.
There aren’t subways in Savannah. Is Dad gonna have to drive me to school now?
This isn’t my party, these aren’t my people, this isn’t my home. What am I supposed to do?
More people are filling the yard even though it’s already mad late.
Back in Harlem, some block parties wouldn’t end until three in the morning.
I weave between the parked trucks in the driveway, trying to stay out of sight so Ms. Trina won’t spot me.
I grab my phone, ready to send a 911 text to Truth and Kiki, when I notice I’m not totally alone.
On the sidewalk, a teenage boy is leaning against a pickup truck, staring at the house, his eyes far away.
A girl walks up to him, the same age, gives him a can of Coke and a bag of chips.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“Your momma okay?” she asks, leaning beside him.
“Yeah, I guess. She decided not to come tonight. I know everyone means well, but she’s too worried about Jabari to pretend.”
This has gotta be Jabari’s brother, Jay. I turn my back, focusing on my phone, pretending I’m not listening in on their conversation.
“Man,” Jay mumbles. “It’s like, I keep checking his account, checking to see if he logged in anywhere. He don’t go a day without playing his game. Even on punishment, he’d try to tell Mom that he’s practicing for some competition to win her money. That kid, boy.”
“What the police saying?” the girl asks.
“Not much, as usual. I don’t know how long we’re gonna be able to stay down here looking.”
“So … where you think he at? Someone had to have seen him somewhere.”
“Everyone says he was with my uncle that night. They saw him sitting in the van. But when they found the van, keys still in it, there was no sign of Jabari.”
The girl sighs. “Dang. But … you don’t think he … he …”
I sneak a peek at Jay. He rubs his face, still staring at the ground.
“When Jabari was, like, five, he was playing hide-and-seek with my cousins in this big park. And he hid so good that no one could find him for hours. I mean, everybody was looking. Mom started worrying, thinking he got kidnapped. But Jabari, he loved running around like a little annoying ninja, pretending he was invisible. I got so used to him hiding and popping out that I could almost feel him, you know? So, I don’t know where he’s at, but he can’t be dead …
’cause I can still feel my little brother.
And I don’t want to leave yet ’cause if we go, what if I can’t feel him no more?
Then that means … he may really be … gone. ”
Jay shakes and sobs into his hand as the girl rubs his shoulder.
Tears stream down my face, blurring my vision, and I sprint off into the night.
Because I realize the longer we’ve been away from Harlem, the harder it is for me to feel Grandma too, and now that our apartment is gone … will I ever feel her again?