"Stop Your Bawlin'!"

Meeka and I are sitting side by side on the wooden steps outside of our apartment. Her proximity feels awkward, but there is nowhere else to go as we wait for Seth to return with his keys. I sat down first and then there was Meeka squashing in beside me, and now my awkwardness would be ten-fold if I suddenly stood up. I’m wondering if she is regretting her decision to sit, and isn’t getting up for the same reason. She is using her book bag as a pillow for her stomach and I can’t decide if this is because she’s so uncomfortable or if it has something to do with the four pizza slices she recently inhaled.


“Seth has a crush on you, just so you know,” I say and our knees bump for the second time.


“I know,” she says as if we are discussing the setting sun before us. “I like your mom a lot. Where does she work?”


“Our dentist’s office,” I say and pick up a fallen leaf from behind me. “What does your mom do?” I picture an older version of Meeka sitting at the head of a chic corporate table, poised for greatness in an obnoxiously expensive business suit.


“Spend money,” she grunts out.


“Are you okay?”


“I’m fine. I just—I need to use your toilet,” she says and runs into the kitchen before I can make fun of her.


I twirl the leaf between my thumb and index finger. It is auburn and flushed with gold—another reminder of change. The gravelly sound of Mr. McGee making a joke and my mother’s tinkling laughter just inside our kitchen is another announcement of change. Change is a sneaky thing that slowly wraps its way around a person until It suddenly makes itself chokingly present.


Next door, Mrs. Anderson is a steaming kettle, shrieking away at her devil-child to clean up the mess that he’s made. The sound is a balm to my spiraling thoughts. Some things never change, after all.


“Ballet Slippers, don’t let me forget that,” Meeka says as she makes her way through our front door. She juts her neck out past our complex. “What’s taking him so long?” she asks and shoves her butt beside mine, again. Clearly, physical space is not an issue for her. She takes a notebook and pen from her backpack and scribbles ballet slippers on a blank page.


“Shouldn’t you be writing ‘plunger’?” I wait for steam to start spewing from her ears and nose. But there is no steam, only a confused, blank stare. “For a thin person, you sure can eat a lot. You’d think you’d never had pizza before.”


Meeka stands up and storms down the remaining stairs. She starts to pace back and forth on the pebbled ground in front of our apartment—a Wall Street executive late for an early morning stock exchange. She stares at her diamond-studded watch. “That’s it. I’m giving him two more minutes and then I’m calling my driver.”


“Must be nice,” I say and start to make little tears in the foliaged leaf.


“What?”


“The driver, the cell phone, the money…whatever you want, you get.” I am not only referring to her things, but to the gravitational pull all male creatures will always have toward her. “You’re lucky.” It hurts to say these things, to acknowledge the green-eyed monster lurking in my heart.


“Oh, stop your bawlin’! You’re the one who’s got it so good. You’ve got a family, a real family.” She says this last part as if I’m not even outside with her, like she is staring down at her own nakedness. “And there is no way that your mother killed anyone, Cowgirl.”


The sun is kissing the horizon, a few blinks away from bidding adieu. And there is Meeka inviting me to share the past. And so I do. It feels good to spool the tightly wound story of my heart. When I finish, I feel lighter, softer.


Meeka comes back to the steps and sits down, this time, one step below mine. Her light eyes are kind so I am surprised when she says “You’re so harsh! Your mother loved your father! It’s so obvious. Don’t go sweaty over these little bits. You need to grow up, Cowgirl!”


I am thinking about Ms. Blum telling me that Meeka was going through a hard time. Even though her eyes didn’t cooperate, there was a sadness to them I’d pushed aside until now. If Meeka really thinks my life in the dilapidated apartment complex is worth envying then maybe her life isn’t as awesome as it appears on the surface, maybe I didn’t imagine the sadness in Ms. Blum’s crazy eyes.