The Free Verse Society

Chapter One

CHAPTER

ONE

Jae

After months of muggy heat, a cool breeze passes through to say goodbye.

It curls around me like a snake, smooth and slow.

I clasp the handle of the suitcase by my waist, recounting everything I packed inside like a memory game: clothes and toiletries; a vintage postcard of Georgia, brown around the edges; a photo album; Mom’s faded Bernie Mac tee; and as many books as I could fit inside.

I never paid much attention to the sidewalk, to the way it curves perfectly around the bend.

This corner was always a passing-through place, a nowhere on the way to somewhere.

To catch the bus for school, for the clinic, or to meet up with Austin Green.

Now this is where I’ll pass from one world to the next.

The phone in my pocket vibrates. I pull it out to read the message from Uncle Rowan: Just a few minutes.

Soon, a sleek black Cadillac pauses at the four-way stop before making a turn and pulling up beside me.

The windows are tinted so dark they nearly blend in with the body of the car.

The engine cuts off, the door opens, and Uncle Rowan’s shiny brown head emerges from the driver’s side.

He’s wearing dark sunglasses, and he walks toward me in a gray suit that shimmers like a new quarter in the sun.

He comes close to give me a quick pat on the back and says my name, Janelle, like it’s a greeting.

I see the tiredness stained red in the corners of his eyes, from a full day of visiting clients and old friends on the way to pick me up.

I have people to see along the way, he’d said.

As if they were the ones that made the stagnant hours on the road worthwhile.

I don’t realize my fingers are wrapped tightly around my suitcase until he tries to wrestle it from my fingers.

“Did you cram the whole house in here?” he asks as he opens the trunk and heaves the suitcase inside. He grunts, dusts off his hands as if they’ve gotten dirty, and slams the trunk shut. We both look toward the empty apartment complex, and stupidly, I wave at the time-battered bricks.

Call me if you need me, Mom said this morning before leaving for her nursing shift. But we both know I won’t call. These days our words are so sharp they could cut our own tongues. This is my chance to leave everything behind, including her voice.

Uncle Rowan says, “Let’s get a move on,” and nudges my shoulder.

I open the passenger-side door and pause, one foot hovering over the mat inside. The Georgia dirt clings to my black shoes like a final goodbye. I pull my foot out again and kick the curb, watching the dirt pepper the street.

When I step into the black-and-silver interior of the car, with all its gleaming gadgets, I feel like I’m stepping into the future.

And I finally understand what a new car smells like.

I’ve never ridden anywhere without the smell of cigarette smoke clinging to the seats, the smell of gasoline thick in the air, the smell of unwashed bodies sitting too close.

“We’ll be home in about eight hours,” Uncle Rowan says.

The word home rattles me. I remember that the place we’re driving away from isn’t home anymore, that it stopped being home a long time ago. Today my family name, my father’s name, feels like a mockery. A?enyo. Home is good. A reminder of what’s been broken, what I no longer have.

I wrap my arms around my stomach and listen to Uncle Rowan talk about his legal practice and his new office in the heart of Delray Beach. An easy commute, he says.

I uh-huh and hmm to show interest while I watch the houses with yellowed siding and chain-link fences pass by the window with increasing speed.

Then we’re on the highway, where Uncle Rowan sinks back comfortably in his seat and turns on music that makes me think of Afros, bumping hips, and bell bottoms. I’m relieved not to have to fill the silence with small talk.

Quietly, I pull out my copy of The Best American Poetry and try to forget what I’m leaving behind.

Raise your right hand for me.

My eyes flutter open when I hear the familiar voice.

I expect to find myself sitting in a red plastic chair in a small office, but all I see are the dashed white lines of the encroaching road.

Uncle Rowan yawns beside me. The bumpin’ oldies music is now gentle classical, which had lulled me to sleep.

We’re driving through the city Uncle Rowan calls home. I stare out the window at Delray, and Delray stares back with bright, unblinking streetlights. Palm trees hover over colorful buildings, and dark shadows walk past. There’s a quiet energy that makes me want to take it all in.

Soon, the houses get greedier, taking up more and more space, some peeking coyly through wrought iron gates.

Uncle Rowan’s house stands behind a white stone wall.

We roll slowly around a circular driveway, at the center of which stands an illuminated statue: A woman with hair round like a halo carries a jar on her shoulder.

She looks steady, but the jar is tilted, and I’m sure at any moment it’ll fall to the ground and shatter.

The yard is full of towering trees, lush palms, and flowers brilliant even in the dim light.

It reminds me of the gardens Mom and I would visit every Sunday when I was little.

She would talk about the wisteria she wanted to plant someday when we got a yard, a garden.

The wisteria would line a stone walkway, hanging over like a canopy of purple raindrops.

I wonder if she envies Uncle Rowan for having the garden she never had.

Without a word, he turns off the car and steps outside. I realize I’m staring wide-eyed at the house—which looks like it belongs in Europe somewhere, with all its arches and glinting glass—when he knocks loudly on the passenger window and walks away, towing my suitcase behind him.

The front door opens to reveal a thin, dark woman standing in the light of a chandelier. She’s wearing a blue maid’s uniform and a white smile. Uncle Rowan disappears inside, and when I finally get to the door, the woman sticks out her hand and shakes mine.

“You can call me Ms. Rosette,” she says in an accent that feels familiar. “You are Janelle?”

“Jae,” I correct her. Uncle Rowan doesn’t know I shed my old name like I shed so much else.

“A pleasure to meet you, Jae,” she says. But in her mouth, pleasure sounds like pleh-jah. Her words come out slow and purposeful, like she’s polishing them to a shine before placing them down.

I hesitate as I step inside, staring at my shoes and the spotless floor.

“You can leave them on,” she says, flicking her hands like she disapproves. “That’s what people do here.” I’m staring at her, overcome by how similar she sounds to Dad, until she points me to the bathroom to wash my hands for dinner.

I can’t shake Mom’s voice as I walk across the shimmering cream tiles in my boots: Does it look like we have a maid in here? I am not gonna pay another carpet-cleaning fee. I almost laugh out loud. Well, there is a maid now.

Ms. Rosette ushers me down the hall with her hand against my back. “He is waiting in the dining room,” she says.

I find Uncle Rowan sitting at the head of the table.

I sit beside him, and it’s just us and the silence.

In front of me is a wineglass filled with water, a red napkin folded up like a pope’s hat, and more forks than I need.

There’s an empty silver plate on my mat, but no food at the table to serve myself.

Just then Ms. Rosette walks in carrying two bowls of salad and sets them in front of us, right on top of the large silver plates.

No one can read my thoughts, but I’m embarrassed that I feel so out of place.

Back home, we eat dinners in front of the TV so we can stream The Bernie Mac Show.

You don’t need all the extra silverware for TV dinners.

Seeing the table set like this, I agree with Mom.

Uncle Rowan’s too rich to be an Oakland.

“Eat,” he says. His glasses are halfway down his nose and he peers at me over them.

I look down at my salad, suddenly remembering that I’m hungry, that I only ate a handful of cereal in the morning as I did some final packing, and then only picked at my drive-thru fries at lunch.

I remind myself that rich people don’t eat much, that this salad is probably all I’ll get for dinner and I should try to enjoy it.

I reach for a fork, but my hand hovers, unsure.

“Start with the fork on the outside. Then work your way in,” he says.

We eat in silence until Ms. Rosette picks up our empty salad bowls. I’m surprised when she brings in plates of rice and chunky red sauce.

I poke the slab of meat drenched in bloodred.

“Lamb,” he says.

I haven’t eaten meat in years. Not since the day I opened the deep freezer in the African market and saw a goat.

A whole goat. It was the meat Dad used in his Ghanaian light soup, and there it lay with its eyes wide open and frozen, staring back at me.

Now I look up at Uncle Rowan’s expectant face and cut into the lamb swimming in sauce on my plate.

I’m sorry, I tell the lamb. Go easy, I tell my stomach.

Uncle Rowan clears his throat. “You start school tomorrow,” he says. “Bellwood is in a different league academically. You’ll have to work hard.” He says this like I’m some kind of slacker. Like I’m not a straight-A student. “You’ll need to start thinking about college applications as well.”

I pause and lower my fork. “I’m only a junior.”

“If you want to get a leg up, you need to start now. Research schools, attend college fairs, build relationships with your teachers so you can ask for recommendation letters. Have you thought about extracurriculars?”

“Not yet.”