Before then, I never even thought about running. It didn’t even cross my mind, even though I used to smoke all the boys in gym class at school, including Lu, who would get all in his feelings and be almost about to cry. Lu would be so salty, frontin’ like he wasn’t impressed, which didn’t matter because running ain’t mean nothing to me anyway. Not like . . . for real. But after hearing Uncle Tony talk about my dad like that, something clicked. And one night, a few months later, after Ma’s legs were gone, after a crazy moment with Maddy—and I do mean crazy—that I’ll also get to later on, I asked Momly and Uncle Tony to sign me up on a team. And they jumped to it because to them, it was also a good way for me to, I guess, deal with all the changes I was going through. Balance out all the unregul . . . um, wild stuff.
So proving myself on this new track team—the Defenders—was still just . . . running. Even if it was “elite.” I mean, no matter how you look at it, it’s still, listen to your coaches at practice, and wait to hear the gun at the meets. Then . . . run. Nothing to it. But proving myself at Chester Academy (also “elite”) was trickier—way trickier—because there were no practices, no coaches, and no starter pistols telling me when to leave everybody in the dust. Matter fact, ain’t even no dust at Chester, and running ain’t nothing these girls are concerned with at all. Unless it was running their mouths.
Chester Academy is one of those schools that go from kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade, but the different levels are broken into three wings of the building. The south wing, which was where the high school was. The east wing, which was sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And the north wing, which was elementary, Maddy’s domain. Yep, she’s at Chester too, and she loves it, but that’s because this the only school she’s ever been at. She’s never been in a school where you didn’t have to wear pleated paper bags. She never went to a school with boys, and yes, boys make school really, really annoying sometimes, but they also can make it pretty fun. Or at least funny. Maddy never went to a school with mostly black kids either. She’s only known life as a “raisin in milk,” as my Ma puts it, where lunch is sautéed prawn, which ain’t nothing but a fancy way to say cooked shrimp, and this stuff called couscous, which is basically just grits without the glob. Me, I’m a proud product of the Barnaby Terrace school system, where we ate nasty rectangle pizza (I don’t miss that part) and drank chocolate milk for lunch. Where we played pranks on people and traded candy while talking trash after school. Where we had . . . fun.
Chester . . . well, I ain’t had one second of fun at Chester yet. Matter fact, when I walk down that busy hall in the morning, I keep my eyes down. Focus on the floor because I ain’t got time to get stunted on by a whole bunch of rich girls whose daddies own stuff. Not like cars and clothes, though they got those, too. But stuff like . . . boats. Ain’t even no water nowhere near here, but these fools got BOATS! And they don’t just own their houses, they own buildings! And businesses! Not like a corner store or a weekend dinner-plate situation or nothing like that. I’m talking biz-niss-sizz. My dad . . . he wanted to start his own business, another one of those birthday stories. A cupcake shop. And maybe if he didn’t . . . never wake up . . . he would’ve done it. But I bet he wouldn’t have bought no boat. But that’s who these girls’ daddies were. What they did. And if your daddy got himself a boat, and a building, what does he get you? Probably some kinda crazy pet, like a horse. (Can you even teach a horse how to guard your house?)
The other thing about these girls is that it seems like they ain’t never been told they can’t do nothing. Never. I mean, they be wearing full faces of makeup and everything. Do you know what my mother would do if she saw me with my whole face made up for school like I was about to go on some kinda fashion photo shoot or something? She’d probably try to run over me with that wheelchair. But here, at Chester, as long as your face is selfie-ready 100 percent of the time, you got a chance. A chance at what? Well, I don’t really know. All I know is, I ain’t got one.
What I got is track. I got Ghost, Sunny, and I can’t believe I’m gonna say this . . . Lu. That’s what I got. Who I got. So I don’t really care about the selfie-readies.
Well, that’s not totally true. I care a little bit.
“So . . . what y’all do this weekend?” I asked Taylor Stein, Teylor Dorsey, and Becca Broward. It was Monday, in history class, which meant it was also the second day of the worst group project of all time in the history of life. The four of us had been lumped together last Friday to start on this assignment about an important woman from the past, and in two weeks we would have to do a presentation on her. On Friday all we did was nail down who we were going to focus on. My first choice was my hero, Florence “Flo Jo” Joyner, but none of the girls in my group knew who she was. Seriously? How do you not know one of the flyest runners to ever take a lap? There was a woman named Madeline Manning, who was probably the best American eight-hundred-meter runner, and that’s my race, but still, Flo Jo was it. Plus, those nails . . . She looked like she raced during the day and was in a singing group at night.
So, anyway, then I tossed out my second choice, which was Harriet Tubman, who to me, was also a pretty good suggestion. Running from slavery and then coming back all those times to free everybody else—like a relay through the Underground Railroad—and Uncle Tony said she might be the new face of the twenty-dollar bill. That’s major. But the girls weren’t feeling that, either. And these are the moments I miss not going to school with Cotton, because she would’ve been like, “Yo, you know how crazy it would be to see my face on money? Like a hundred-dollar bill? I’d be framed in every corner store in the hood—your girl, lookin’ like money, on money!” But that’s not how the conversation went in my history group. Instead it was all, Harriet Tubman’s just too serious. So when I asked who they were thinking about, Becca, who was one of these girls who swore she was gonna be a star when she grew up, said we should do the project on this lady named Sally Ride.
“First woman in space,” she said, strangely pointing up at the ceiling. Okay. I can’t front. Not a bad suggestion. But then Taylor said, for the second time, all these choices were too serious, as if the topic wasn’t a serious topic. I mean, it’s hard to be seen as important if you ain’t never been through nothing serious. But Teylor, who goes by TeeTee (one of the few nicknames) decided to add her two cents (by the way, I’d want my face on the penny, because pennies be everywhere and they’d get my skin tone right) and muddy up our brainstorming session with the . . . uh . . . brilliant suggestion of Taylor Swift. Becca didn’t say nothing. And I wanted to shoot it down, because we already had a Taylor and a Teylor in the group and I just couldn’t take another one. But thankfully, Taylor hit TeeTee with a swift no.
So since serious was all I kept hearing on Friday, I decided to keep Monday light by trying out some of that “Momly-Ma special.” Some good ol’ small talk. And no, I don’t know why I care, why these girls in my class matter to me, except for the fact that I’m just trying to make the best of the situation. I figured weekends had to be a common bond. I mean, it don’t matter who you are, Saturday is Saturday.
“This weekend, well . . . ,” TeeTee started. She used the long, skinny part of a pen cap to scrape grime from under her nails. “Saturday, I hit the mall.”