Daddy's Baby Read online

  “Well, at least I don’t look like school supply Barbie,” said Kyzie. “And speaking of fashion statements, what’s with you all of a sudden being so concerned about matching and styling?”

  “I like to look nice,” protested Brielle with a flounce and toss of her head. “And we’re juniors this year. I’m dressing for sixteen and success.”

  She usually kept her hair in braids for swimming but she’d taken them out for first day of school yearbook pictures. Hair freshly curled, she wore her new yellow and white Capri ensemble. Her toenails, painted yellow also, gleamed up at her from yellow and black flip-flops.

  Kyzie looked skeptical. She mumbled under her breath so her sister wouldn’t hear her. “Success with a certain knucklehead who shall remain anonymous, I’ll bet.” She poked her sister in the back with a long finger.

  “Go away,” repeated Brielle, making a shooing motion with one hand. “You’re bugging me.”

  Kyzie started to walk away and then turned back for one last dig.

  “Maybe I’ll go and get something to eat,” taunted Kyzie. “By the time mommy and I come back, you should maybe have decided between wide rule and college rule paper.”

  Brielle plucked the first thing she laid her hand on out of the basket and heaved a pack of erasers at Kyzie’s head. Kyzie nimbly sidestepped the package and watched as Brielle fumbled the supplies she had in her other hand.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “Now you’ve got to go back and agonize over erasers again.”

  “Eeuwwww! I can’t stand you,” said Brielle, steaming with frustration. She picked up the pens.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” said Kyzie. She picked up the pack of erasers and flicked them back in Brielle’s general direction before she sprinted out of the aisle, laughing. Brielle, in hot pursuit, almost collided with another girl who’d turned down the aisle.

  “Watch it,” the girl hissed, barely avoiding the collision.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Brielle. She steadied the shorter girl with one hand to her shoulder. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “That’s obvious,” snarled the girl, tone so nasty that Brielle peered into her face, puzzled. The girl glared back at her.

  “What is your problem?” asked Brielle.

  The other girl snatched away and stomped off without responding. Brielle shrugged and walked out of the aisle and turned the corner where Kyzie was waiting for her.

  “That’s his old girlfriend,” stage whispered Kyzie.

  “Whose old girlfriend?” asked Brielle, in a normal tone. She was aggravated and didn’t care if the other girl heard her.

  “Damon’s,” said Kyzie.

  Brielle whipped around to get a better look but she was already gone.

  “Her name is Sasha Anderson. Jada told me all about her and showed me her picture in the yearbook. Jada said she’s nasty and has all these boys hanging all over her,” said Kyzie.

  Brielle snorted.

  “She’s really pretty,” needled Kyzie.

  “Nice, too,” said Brielle, sarcastically.

  Brielle turned back around to look again but the girl had left the aisle.

  “So,” said Brielle. “That’s the one they call the stalker, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Kyzie, with a snicker.

  “Her personality needs work.”

  “Jada said she is crazy,” said Kyzie, taunting. “He probably didn’t like her for her personality, anyway.”

  “Whatever,” said Brielle. “She’s not all that. Besides, Damon’s hardly talked to me.”

  “I bet talking to Damon is scheduled between history and math class,” said Kyzie, laughing. Brielle laughed, too, in agreement. Kyzie sobered first.

  “You’d better watch your back.”

  Brielle snorted, again.

  “She’d better watch hers,” said Brielle, still smarting from the older girl’s rudeness. “That nastiness might be catching.”

  Sasha

  Sasha Anderson was desperate, but determined. Her narrow shoulders hunched up next to her ears. She had come to this store on purpose because it was right outside of Lansing and she wanted to avoid people that she knew.

  From the next aisle, Sasha could hear them talking about her but kept walking. Just hearing Damon’s name made her want to cringe. It was too late to go back and tell those stupid girls that she was not nasty and she was certainly no stalker.

  A woman in the green paisley crop pants and yellow tank top shuffled past her in laid over green flip-flops. Sasha breathed a sigh of temporary relief at seeing a strange face, continued down the aisle, pretending to look to the left and right as though searching. A hugely pregnant young woman in a Baby on Board t- shirt strolled down the same aisle, holding hands with a terrified looking young dude. The woman smiled at Sasha as though she was saying, ‘look, I got him, he’s mine now’. Sasha put her head down and kept walking. Another young woman, this one, with a baby tucked close in a snuggly cloth also walked past Sasha. She eased as far away from the woman as she could when they passed, not wanting to be contaminated with the woman’s fertility. Panic and nausea roiled in her stomach. She counted in her head, like she’d been doing for the past two months.

  Finally, Sasha stood in front of the many different products, her head snapping back and forth so fast that it made her dizzy, trying to figure out which one would give the answer she was looking for. Finally, Sasha grabbed a box and scurried to the self-checkout at the front of the store. She looked neither left nor right. She put the box into her purse and crumbled the receipt in her right hand.

  When Sasha got home she ran onto the porch and fumbled inside of her purse for her house key. The sunny sky mocked her desolate mood.

  Seems like my mood has been sad my whole stinking life.

  A cardinal, bright crimson feathers fluttering, tucked a small piece of wood into a nest and chirped at her from the nearby tree. She peered at the bird’s empty nest. Sasha could feel white-hot rage buzzing in her ears. Everybody, no, - everything had a baby! She hurled the box at the bird and flapped her empty hands. She wanted to catch that little red sucker and twist his little head off. What right did the bird have to be chirping? Why was the stupid sun shining?

  “Go away,” Sasha screamed, and then looked around quickly to make sure no one saw her acting crazy. She clenched her teeth. The cardinal flew out of the tree, shrieking in raucous indignation, wings flapping like tiny battering rams and then landed on a nearby branch chirping with indignation. They stared at each other, bird and girl, united in mutual hatred, until Sasha realized how ridiculous she looked and turned away. She scrambled under the bushes and got the box. She let herself into the empty house and headed for the bathroom. Sasha walked on shaky legs and prayed.

  Please God, maybe its cancer, or, or fibroids like Mrs. Holly at church who had to have a hysterectomy. No, cancer is better, I won’t get into trouble. If I’m almost dying, then mama won’t kill me.

  Once Sasha got into the bathroom, she locked the door, even though no one was home. She pulled her pants down.

  Maybe my period started in the last two minutes and I didn’t feel it.

  She checked her panties for blood for the thousandth time. Finding none, Sasha sighed in defeat and ripped open the box. She read the instructions four or five times. She took out the test stick and looked at it like it was about to explode in her hand.

  We read about bombs in history class, and how even small bombs could cause major damage if detonated in confined spaces. Here, in this confined bathroom space, I’m five minutes away from finding out. Just a little white stick, it sits in my trembling palm, two inches of terror; a bomb in the Beirut of my life.

  Sasha wondered why the manufacturers put it into such a big box. Maybe it was to hold the instructions. Why did anybody need instructions to pee on a stick? Her stomach lurched. She reached down and checked the crotch of her panties with her fingertips and found smooth, bone dry, clean pink satin. She touched herself. Looked at her fingers.
Nothing. Long minutes passed before she finally got up the nerve to move. Sasha picked up the commode top and toilet seat and squatted over the little stick.

  Please God, please, I’ll never do it again. I’ll join a convent. I’ll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life. I won’t curse. I’ll be a good girl. I promise. I promise. Please, please, please.

  Five minutes later, hands trembling, Sasha dropped the stick into the toilet bowl and spent five more minutes banging through the cabinets, looking for a rubber glove. Finally, she reached barehanded into the pee laden toilet bowl and grabbed the stick. Light headed and grief stricken, she held the little white stick in her hand and squinted at the window with the word PREGNANT in black letters on a neon pink background. She shook her head to clear it and squinted again.

  “No,” Sasha said the word loudly, still shocked down to her toes. She shook the stick as she had watched her mother do with an old-fashioned thermometer, as though she could shake the fever down, and looked at it again.

  Still pregnant. Wailing like a child, Sasha clutched the stick in her hand. She slumped back against the wall and slid down to sit on the bathroom floor.

  ‘Oh no, no, nooo…’

  While she wept her own personal Armageddon, she didn’t call on God anymore, because he wasn’t listening.

  September

  Brielle

  The first day of school dawned sunny and warm. Brielle was excited. She bounced out of bed and rushed into the shower, careful to cover her freshly pressed hair before jumping under the water. The hairdresser had put some sort of lemon and strawberry scented oil in her hair and it smelled fabulous. This was going to be a great year. She could feel it. First, she’d just turned sixteen on August fifteenth. Her grandmother and aunt had thrown a backyard sweet sixteen bash for Brielle and Kyzie. All of her friends had come and it had turned out just great.

  Second, she could finally officially date. That is, as soon as a boy actually asked her out. Until this past summer, not only had Brielle been too young according to her parents, most of the boys in her school met her eye to bust line. But something magical had happened over the summer. Almost all of the boys had grown, and most of them were nearing six feet in height, if not topping her by a fraction of an inch. Brielle was ecstatic. Third, she was on the varsity swim team and they were going to be awesome this year. Brielle had been swimming all summer and her times were dropping wonderfully. She was expecting to take state championship in the fifty and one hundred freestyle this year and she had been learning the butterfly stroke this summer, so that she could get stronger and compete in more than one stroke. Wimberley High’s freestyle relay was going to dominate if Brielle had anything to say about it.

  Last, Damon Hamilton was going to be at her school and she’d be able to look at him and dream. He was like a rock star in her mind. She’d be satisfied with a smile and his autograph.

  She got out of the shower and put on her favorite strawberries and cream lotion and then slid on her brand new underwear and matching bra. Today’s set was teal blue, Brielle’s second favorite color behind purple. She pulled on a teal t-shirt and coordinated Capri pants. She slid her long slender feet into teal and purple print slip on sneakers and then reached up to take the rollers out of her hair. She combed the curls to her satisfaction and smiled in the mirror at her reflection. Since she was a swimmer, her hair would be in some braided style for the rest of the year, but she wanted her school pictures to show off her bouncing curls and her beautiful fly style. With her hair down, she looked like a deep chocolate, taller, slightly more built version of her willowy mother. Her friend Sammie called Brielle ‘the Black Swan’, and today Brielle felt like one. She grabbed her multi-colored coach purse and strolled down the hall towards the stairs, pausing to knock on her twin sister’s door.

  “Kyzie,” she called. “Time to get up.” She kept walking but could hear her sister groan in response. Downstairs in the kitchen, her mother was fixing breakfast, frying eggs and making toast.

  “Good morning, Brielle,” she said, when Brielle breezed into the kitchen.

  “Morning, mommy,” said Brielle. Brielle went directly to the refrigerator, pulled out the carton of orange juice, and set it on the counter. She got two glasses out of the cabinet and set them on the counter, too. She poured a glass for herself and Kyzie and set them on the table. Then she grabbed a bagel and two cheese sticks to put into her purse for snacks later. She didn’t have time to come home before swim practice and she would be starving and unable to concentrate on her laps if she didn’t put something on her stomach. She hunted in the cabinet and found the peanut butter. She spread a little on the bagel halves, slapped them back together and put them in a zip lock bag. She also grabbed a banana from the fruit bin.

  “Is your sister up?” Mommy asked Brielle.

  “I think so,” said Brielle. “At least, I knocked on her door and she groaned in response.” Brielle shot her mother a quick grin as her mother rolled her eyes. It was a running joke in the house, that unless there was a fire, Kyzie struggled to get up in the morning.

  “Are you ready for the eleventh grade?” asked mommy.

  “It’s going to be a fabulous year,” said Brielle. “I can feel it.”

  “Well,” said Mommy, smiling. “That’s optimistic. Any particular reason why?”

  “Cause Damon Hamilton transferred to our school,” said Kyzie, strolling into the kitchen. “Morning, mommy.”

  “Shut up,” said Brielle. Kyzie stuck her tongue out in retaliation. Kyzie was slender and willowy and looked exactly like the ballerina that she was. Her natural hair was pulled up and pinned on top of her head in a bun and she was wearing jeans, a yellow top and white sneakers. Fashion was not Kyzie’s thing. As long as the clothes were clean and wrinkle free Kyzie did not care what she was wearing. Until recently, clothes hadn’t really been Brielle’s thing either, since she spent so much time in the water, or doing cross training, but she was feeling much more feminine, and less of a giant now that most of the boys had grown some.

  “I see,” said Mommy, hiding a smile. “Do tell.”

  “She likes all that Malcolm X brooding intensity,” said Kyzie. “One time I saw Damon standing, looking out the window and he looked just like that ‘by any means necessary’ picture daddy has hanging up in his office.”

  “Is Damon that intense?” asked mommy, glancing over her shoulder. Her mother turned around and caught her first good look at Brielle.

  “Ooowee!” she said. “Such a fashion statement!”

  “You have no idea,” said Kyzie, ignoring her mother’s exclamation. Brielle cut her eyes at Kyzie to get her to shut up, but Kyzie ignored the signal and continued. “You should see some of the stuff that he reads, mommy. He was reading the Koran the last time we were over at Jada’s house. He was reading it like it was some kind of novel, eating chips and flipping pages. And his music, is major old school.”

  “Really?” asked Mommy, holding the frying pan sideways so that she could slide the eggs onto two plates. “That is interesting.”

  “Yeah,” said Kyzie, “and when I asked him why he was reading it, the Quran, I mean, he said that he’d read the Left Behind series and he wanted to compare and contrast the Christian views of Armageddon from the Islamic views.”

  “He’s really smart like that,” said Brielle. She had tried reading the first book of the Left Behind series but it had nearly scared her to death and she had had nightmares for weeks afterwards. As far as Brielle was concerned, the last days should sneak up on her without warning.

  “Whatever,” said Kyzie, grabbing a plate off the counter. She opened the silverware drawer and got two forks. She handed one to Brielle. “The boy is a massive weirdo, even if he is fine.”

  “Shut up,” said Brielle. “You’re just mad because you don’t get him.”

  Damon was fathoms deep. Sometimes, Brielle didn’t get him either. He regularly read books like the Bible, The Spook Who Sat by The Door, and Kafk
a, ‘The Metamorphosis’ for fun. Brielle knew that because she had seen him with the three books and asked him what class he had to read the books for.

  He replied, “I’m just reading this for fun.” Then he’d given her a slow, warm smile that made her feel hot all over.

  Brielle had tried to read ‘The Metamorphosis’ and could not figure out what was going on. As far as she could tell, a man was turning into a giant cockroach, which was the grossest thing she could think of, but if Damon thought the book was worthy of a read, Brielle determined that Damon must be brilliant. She would never let on that the book made her brain hurt.

  “You’re right about me not getting him,” said Kyzie. “He’s in that alternative dimension. I’m not with that.”

  “We know,” said Brielle. “If he’s not wearing tights and doing plies he’s not speaking your language.” She struck a ballet pose and sank into a plie.

  “Well, at least I’m not trying to dress like some desperate fly girl to get a boy’s attention,” said Kyzie with a snort.

  “Your sister looks very nice,” protested mommy.

  “No, you look like you’re on the way to kindergarten,” countered Brielle. “You’re wearing Keds for God’s sake.”

  Mommy laughed and said, “That’s enough, you two.”

  “Forget you, Flipper,” said Kyzie, to get in the last word. Brielle answered the insult to her larger feet with only an eye roll in her sister’s direction. Although she and Kyzie were fierce foes at home, they were also fierce friends against anyone who tried to hurt the other. Kyzie sat down and started shoveling her eggs into her mouth. Brielle sat down at the table across from Kyzie and started eating her eggs more sedately.

  “Well, Damon is a cutie, but that can’t be the only reason you’re all pumped up,” said Mommy, to Brielle. “Or is it?”

  Brielle shook her head.

  “I think we’re going to have a chance at States in swim,” said Brielle. “My times are dropping fast.”