Indigo Summer Read online

  “Indigo Summer?” she asked with an attitude, as if I had said a curse word. “Indigo Summer is going to the dance with her boyfriend, Quincy Rawlins.”

  I almost dropped the phone. She had a boyfriend? And it was Quincy Rawlins?

  I wanted to say, “I just saw him yesterday under the bleachers after football practice hugging all up on Angela Miller.” But I didn’t. I just said, “I know she has a boyfriend. I was just playing.”

  I got up and walked over to the window. Indigo was still yapping on her phone. She caught me watching, and snatched her blinds shut.

  “So you wanna go with me or what?” Charmaine was asking.

  “Yeah,” I said, halfway listening to her. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Cool. I’ll tell my mama to take me to the mall to get a dress,” she said. “I gotta go, Marcus. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

  “Alright,” I said, and glanced over at Indigo’s window again.

  Quincy Rawlins? What did she see in him?

  Pop tuned my radio station to Atlanta’s oldies station, 104.1. I hated when he rode in the car with me, because he always controlled the radio. It was either the oldies station or smooth jazz. Either way, it drove me crazy. But I never complained, I just dealt with it, and hoped that the ride would end soon.

  “Turn left here, Marcus,” he told me. “It’s the yellow house up here on the right.”

  I pulled into the driveway of one of Pop’s rental units. A little boy rode his bike on the sidewalk in front of the house.

  “My mama’s in the house,” he said to us, as we both stepped out of my Jeep.

  Pop grabbed his tools from the backseat and I headed for the front porch.

  “How you doing, Rufus?” A young slender woman stepped outside onto the porch. A light blue dress hugged her figure. “I’m so glad you could come.”

  “No problem, Beverly,” Pop said. “This is my son, Marcus.”

  “Hello, Marcus. I’ve heard so much about you.” She smiled and reached her hand out to me. I took it in a handshake. “That’s my little boy, Justin.” She pointed toward the boy on the bike. “Justin, come here.”

  “I can’t right now, Mama, I’m about to pop a wheelie.”

  “Boy, you betta come here,” she said, with her hands on her hips.

  After her tone of voice changed, Justin immediately dropped his bike and ran toward the front porch.

  “Say hello to Mr. Rufus.”

  “Hello, Mr. Rufus,” Justin said.

  “And this is Marcus.” She pointed to me. “Say hi.”

  “Hi,” Justin said.

  “Hey, Justin, what’s up?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, and then took off running, and jumped back onto his bike.

  “That boy is so full of energy. I wish he would devote that much energy to his schoolwork. Especially math. He’s flunking math.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Pop said, as we followed Beverly into her house. “Maybe Marcus could help him out a little bit. He’s a whiz in math.”

  I wanted to shut Pop up. He was always volunteering me for stuff.

  “That would be so nice, Marcus,” Beverly said. “Could you take a look at his math homework and make sure he did it right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said reluctantly, not really feeling this whole trip. Couldn’t understand why Pop didn’t just hire someone to unclog toilets and fix pipes and such, instead of running all over town doing it himself, and then dragging me along for the ride.

  Pop headed for Beverly’s bathroom to unclog her toilet. Beverly disappeared into a back bedroom and came back with Justin’s math book in her hand. She handed it to me.

  “Here it is, Marcus. You can just have a seat right here on the sofa while you look it over,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink? I have Coke and grape soda.”

  “I’ll take Coke,” I told her, and then found a seat on the dull, brown sofa that seemed to sink down in the middle.

  I opened Justin’s workbook and began reviewing his math problems. Over half of them were wrong, and when I told Beverly so, she called Justin into the house.

  “Now you sit right down there next to Marcus, and he’ll tell you what you did wrong.”

  Justin plopped down on the sofa next to me, and I went over his math problems with him.

  “Look, man, this is the deal. When you subtract big numbers like this, you have to make sure you reduce.”

  “Reduce?”

  “Yeah, let me show you.” I worked through the problems with him one by one and tried to make him understand.

  Told him what he did wrong, and how to do them correctly. He listened, erased the wrong answers and changed them to the correct ones.

  “You understand now?” I asked, after we worked through each problem.

  “Yep. Now that you walked me through it, I understand,” he said, “but when my teacher tells me, or my mom tells me, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, just remember what I said, and you’ll be okay.”

  “Okay, Marcus,” he said. “Can you come help me with my homework tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know about tomorrow, little man, but…”

  “Can you come by a couple of times a week, Marcus, and help him?” Beverly asked before I could finish my sentence. “I really would appreciate it. And I will pay you.”

  “Of course he can,” Pop said, coming out of the bathroom with his tools. “He’ll be happy to help out.”

  “Can you, Marcus?” Justin was bouncing up and down. “Please?”

  “Okay, yeah, I can come by, maybe next week sometime and help you out.”

  “Thank you,” Beverly said, smiling. “And thank you for fixing my toilet, Rufus.”

  “No problem,” Pop said. “Let’s go, Marcus.”

  I stood and followed Pop out the door.

  “It was nice to meet you, Miss Beverly,” I said. “I’ll see you next week, Justin.”

  “Bye, Marcus,” he said, and held on to to his mother’s hand as Pop and I climbed into my Jeep.

  The day hadn’t been a total loss. At least I helped some kid learn math, and that made me feel good. That made me feel real good. As Pop tuned my radio to the oldies station, some tune by the Temptations rang through the speakers. Pop sang along as we drove home with the windows down catching a cool breeze.

  After I loaded the dishwasher with dishes, and swept the kitchen floor, I rushed upstairs to my room. Hopped in the shower, tuned my radio to The Quiet Storm on V-103 and hit the sack.

  Chapter 8

  Indigo

  I actually fell asleep on the bus, and didn’t wake up until the huge tires had brushed against the curb. I’d spent half the night talking to Quincy on the phone, and the other half sweating the dance team tryouts. When the bus driver opened the door, kids started knocking each other over to get off. As I stepped off, I spotted Quincy across the courtyard, and just as I was about to tell him to “wait up,” Patrice Robinson grabbed him by the arm and rested her head on his shoulder. What did she think she was doing? What’s worse is he didn’t seem to mind. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they walked into the building. I lagged behind, my backpack thrown across my shoulder, and my lip poked out.

  “You wait until I see him,” I mumbled, as I made my way to my locker.

  “Hey, Indi!” Tameka shouted, “Wait up.”

  I waited for her to catch up.

  “We have to go see if we made the team,” she said, and pulled me along.

  She led me toward the cafeteria. A crowd of people gathered around the list that was posted on the wall. We pushed our way up to the front of the crowd, past the chatter and chaos. Tameka stood in front of the list, her finger scrolling along. I covered my eyes, too afraid to look.

  “Tameka Brown.” She spotted her name and sang. “Hey…”

  “I can’t look,” I said, my eyes still shut.

  “I don’t see your name, Indi,” she said. “Hmmm…I don’t know…if you
made it…let me look again.”

  I took my hand from my face, walked up toward the list. I had to know. Took my finger and slowly scrolled through the list of names, my heart pounding so loud I could hear it. INDIGO SUMMER. There it was again, my name in bold letters on the page. When I heard a scream, I thought it had come from my mouth, but realized it was Tameka.

  “We made it!” she said, and we both started jumping up and down.

  She started doing a dance in the hallway, and I followed along. Before long, the crowd started dancing, too, humming an imaginary tune until one of the teachers broke it up and told us all to go to class. Reluctantly, we did so.

  “I’ll see you at dance practice after school, Indi,” Tameka said, heading toward her locker, which was in the opposite direction of mine. “Congratulations, girl, we did it!”

  “Yes, we did,” I said, smiling from ear to ear.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Jade. I had accomplished it for both of us.

  Quincy was standing at my locker when I got there.

  “Congratulations, boo,” he said, and kissed my cheek. When there was no spark in my eyes, he leaned back and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said. Didn’t want to ruin my good news, by bringing up stupid stuff. Besides, there was probably nothing to Patrice’s hanging all over him. Girls were always sweating the football players. And he was on the starting lineup, for crying out loud. Why wouldn’t girls be hanging all over him? As long as they knew who his girlfriend was, what difference did it make? And once people saw us together at the Homecoming Dance, they would all know. “Just walk me to my class.”

  “Heard you made the dance team, girl.” He smiled, and my heart melted. “I don’t know if I can walk next to you, since you a star and everything.”

  “Please.” I punched him in the shoulder. “You’re the star. Got girls hanging all over you and stuff.”

  “What girls?”

  “I saw you with Patrice Robinson this morning.”

  “Patrice?” He frowned. “She’s just my play cousin. Her mama knows my mama.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s why you were acting all funny a few minutes ago?” “Something like that,” I said, pulling my math book out of my locker, and then slamming my locker shut.

  “Don’t start tripping, girl,” he said, and then grabbed me in a semi-headlock. “Lots of girls like me, but I’m with you. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” I said.

  “Then don’t start trippin’. I can have any girl I want in this school, but I chose you.”

  “I know,” I said.

  But that green-eyed monster, called “jealousy,” would probably rear its ugly head again. Going out with a boy like Quincy, I was sure of it.

  Instead of practicing a routine, we did squats and exercises with our legs. I was confused; I thought this was a dance team. But we weren’t dancing, we were exercising. If I wanted to exercise, I would’ve tried out for the basketball or volleyball team. Kristal must’ve been thinking the same thing, because she raised her hand and asked Miss Martin the question that was lingering on the tip of my tongue.

  “What’s up with the exercises? I thought this was a dance team,” she said.

  “This is a dance team,” Miss Martin informed her.

  “Well why are we working out like we’re playing sports or something?” Kristal went on to ask.

  “You don’t think dancing is a sport?”

  “Well…I don’t know…” Kristal stumbled. “I guess it is.”

  “It absolutely is,” Miss Martin said, and I was glad I hadn’t asked the question, because Miss Martin suddenly got an attitude. “If you have a problem with strengthening your legs before dancing, you’re free to leave.”

  “I’m cool with it,” Kristal said.

  “Anybody else got a problem with the way I conduct dance practice?” Miss Martin looked around at all the faces in the gym. Girls who were grateful just to be on the team. We weren’t about to mess that up.

  “No,” we all said in unison.

  “Good,” she said. “Now give me ten more squats.”

  After several sets of squats, we practiced our routine for the upcoming event, which happened to be halftime at the Homecoming game. It would be our first performance as a team, and we didn’t have much time to practice. Miss Martin blew her whistle and we lined up in the center of the floor of the gym. When she asked us to team up with a partner, Tameka and I chose each other. Tameka was beginning to fill the void that Jade had left when she moved away. She was funny and had me laughing all through practice. And even though she lived in another part of town, and rode a different bus, we found ourselves trying to figure out how to get together that weekend.

  “Ask your mama if you can spend this weekend at my house,” she said after practice, “and then we can go to the mall on Saturday and find our dresses for the dance.”

  “I’ll see. But my parents don’t usually let me spend the night with people they don’t know.”

  “Well beg them, and plead with them,” she suggested. “Clean up your room first, and maybe they’ll go for it.”

  “Now that might work,” I said. “I’ll ask and let you know.”

  “Cool.”

  “Who’s taking you to the dance?” I asked.

  “Jeff Donaldson,” she said, wiping sweat from her forehead as we both headed outside to look for our parents. “He’s on the football team with Quincy. They’re friends. You’ve seen him. He’s fine, tall, dark and muscular.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen them together,” I told her.

  “We’ve been going together for about a year now,” she said, smiling. “He gave me this.”

  She held her hand out and showed me the silver promise ring on her finger.

  “Ooh, that’s pretty,” I said. “What he give you that for?”

  “It means that I’m his forever,” she said. “We’re getting married after college. He’s going to Morehouse, and I’m going to Spelman so we can be right here in Atlanta together.”

  “You already know what college you’re going to?”

  “Yep,” she said. “We have it all planned out.”

  “Girl, I haven’t even thought about the college I’m going to. Senior year seems so far away, especially when you’re just a freshman.”

  “You should still be thinking about what you wanna do, Indi. It’ll be here before you know it. And you need to start competing for scholarships and stuff as early as next year.”

  “Please, I just wanna enjoy being a freshman right now, have a real boyfriend, and be on the dance team. College is definitely a goal, but I can’t think about that right now. I’m struggling just to find where my classes are in this big ol’ school.”

  “Cool. Don’t think about it, then,” she said, spotting her mother’s black BMW and heading toward it. “You just think about practicing them moves we learned at practice today. And don’t forget to ask your parents if you can spend the weekend.”

  “I will,” I said. “I’ll call you tonight and let you know.”

  “Okay, but don’t call until after 106th and Park goes off, and America’s Next Top Model. I have to see which one of them fake females is going home tonight.”

  “My money is on Furonda,” I yelled. “She’s the next one to go.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, and then climbed into her mother’s car.

  As my daddy’s pickup pulled up next to the curb, I had to smile. I had a new friend. She wasn’t Jade, but she was just as cool.

  Chapter 9

  Indigo

  My mama pulled her Chevy Cavalier into the subdivision filled with beautiful brick houses and perfectly manicured lawns. I thought about asking her if we could park our car around the corner and walk the rest of the way to Tameka’s house, but I knew she wouldn’t go for it. Her car was making all sorts of noises that made me want to crawl into the backseat, and cover my head up. All that time at the repair shop, and it still so
unded like it needed to be repaired. And no doubt it could use a new paint job. It was nothing like the BMW that Tameka’s mom drove. On top of all that, I wished my mama could’ve chosen a better outfit than the old denim dress she had on; the one that she’d had since I was in kindergarten. I was embarrassed as Tameka’s mother opened the front door.

  She was tall and slender, and wore low-cut sexy jeans, and a top that showed a whole lot of cleavage. She looked too young to have a teenage daughter.

  “Come on in,” she said. “I’m Melanie. But everybody just calls me Mel.”

  Mama and I stepped inside. Their house was beautifully decorated, with warm colorful walls and expensive-looking African art. Although our house was nice and clean, it wasn’t this new and definitely not this beautiful.

  “If you don’t mind, please take your shoes off,” Mel said.

  Mama and I dropped our shoes at the door before sinking our feet into their snow-white carpet.

  “I’m Carolyn.” Mama held her hand out to shake Mel’s.

  “Glad to meet you, Carolyn,” Mel said, and then turned to me. “I’ve heard so much about you, Indi. Tameka can’t stop talking about you. Said you can dance your little fanny off. Is that true?”

  “I’m alright.” I blushed.

  “I heard you did your routine to 50 Cent’s ‘Disco Inferno,’” she said. “Tameka said it was off the chain! You’ll have to show me that routine.”

  I was in awe that Mel knew enough about 50 Cent to say his name right first of all, and her slang was impeccable.

  Tameka appeared, carrying two bottles of Fruitopia. She handed me one.

  “Hello, Mrs. Summer. I’m Tameka.” She reached for my mother’s hand.

  Mama took her hand, and I could tell she was impressed with her manners. “Nice to meet you, Tameka. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” she said. “Mommy, can I show Indi my room?”

  “Yes, if it’s alright with Carolyn.” We all looked at my mother.

  “Can I stay, Mama?” I asked.

  It had already been established that her decision about me spending the night would be made after, and only after she’d met Tameka and her mother.