Right as Rain Page 7

  Frankie’s smile disappears.

  “But one of her teammates moved, one pulled a muscle in practice last week, and one can’t get out of a family reunion.” Coach Okeke pauses, and I can tell he wants to roll his eyes about that last one, but instead he says, “So right now, it’s just Frankie, and she can’t run it by herself. If we want to send a relay to the city championships meet, we have to fill those spots.”

  “Coach, we have—”

  He cuts her off and points a long finger right down at her. “You want to win?”

  Frankie looks right back at him. “You know I do,” she answers.

  “Then from what I’ve heard you are going to want these two on your team.” He nudges his head in our direction.

  Frankie looks down at her Flyknit Racers. She still has the note from my desk in her right hand, and she’s crushing it into a smaller ball in her fist.

  “Practice starts at three.” He says it like we’ve already agreed and had our parents sign papers and paid for a uniform and everything. Like he won’t take no for an answer.

  Every muscle in my running legs wants to join the track team and run every day and win the relay and write to Coach Scottie so she could be proud, but I know that even if I help at the church both Sundays until the community service hours are due I will still only have six hours, so I have to get busy after school too, which doesn’t include training for the city championships, and I just want to yell that it’s all so unfair.

  I crack my knuckles hard, but before I can tell Coach Okeke that I wish I could, Amelia is shaking her head no and saying thanks anyway, but the words get stuck in her mouth, so she reaches for the classroom door and disappears inside.

  “I can’t either,” I tell him. “I just moved here and I have all this community service to catch up on. I’ll never be able to finish it.”

  Now both Frankie and Coach Okeke are looking at me like they wish I’d change my answer to yes because I really can run. I wish I could say yes too, because Frankie’s the kind of girl you want on your team. And that’s a fact.

  “Sorry.” I open the door and walk back to my desk.

  Frankie stays in the hallway with Coach Okeke for another few minutes, and just as she gets back to her desk, Mrs. Baldwin is calling for us to open our notebooks and draw a big heart right in the middle of the page.

  I’m not the best at drawing, and I want to get the heart perfectly symmetrical, but I can’t, so I keep erasing and starting again. We’re supposed to be filling our heart with things and people that are important to us, but I can’t even get the dumb heart to look right.

  “Can we write important places too?” a boy behind me asks.

  “What a bright idea,” Mrs. Baldwin responds. Then she adds something to her own heart, which is drawn up on the SMART board.

  A boy in the front row punches the boy next to him in the shoulder and snickers, “I bet I know someone you’re writing in your heart.” The whole row erupts and even Amelia giggles. The boy punches his friend back in the shoulder and says, “I bet I know someone who isn’t putting you in her heart.”

  This makes Frankie crack up too and everyone says, “Ohhhhh,” and even Mrs. Baldwin seems like she’s in on the joke because I can tell she’s trying not to laugh and then she says, “OK, OK, very funny. But I don’t want you all writing about love and heartbreak. I’m not sure I can handle that much sappy poetry.”

  This makes the class laugh harder and go, “Ohhhhh!” again like Mrs. Baldwin is the coolest for being in on all the crush drama. And now I really feel like a one-and-only.

  Mrs. Baldwin gets the class to calm down and start jotting in their notebooks again, and Frankie reaches over and kind of taps my arm, which makes a blip in the bottom of my heart just when I was about to get it perfect.

  “We could make a deal,” she says.

  I write Mom and Dad right in the middle of my heart so I have something there in case Mrs. Baldwin starts circling around and checking our progress. Then I look up at Frankie.

  “I’ll tell you a place you can get your community service hours fast, if you join the track team.” She taps her pencil on her desk. “I want to win,” she says.

  Then she’s telling me about a place called Ms. Dacie’s and how kids go there after school to get help with homework, or attend events, play games, or just to talk.

  “How is that community service?” I ask.

  “Dacie always says, ‘You are serving this community just by being here.’ Plus, she rounds up. I already have thirty hours,” Frankie says, “and I haven’t missed a track practice yet.”

  The whole time she’s telling me, she’s staring at my desk. At the eraser shavings I made into little ski mountains evenly spaced along the pencil groove, and at the corner of my folder that I creased into a perfect equilateral triangle, and at the Guthrie that I wrote at the very bottom of my heart because that’s where I keep him. But I wrote it in small letters because it also hurts.

  “Practice is at three,” she says. “Then I’ll show you Ms. Dacie’s.”

  I look at Amelia, and she’s still shaking her head no.

  It’s enough getting through school, she writes on her notebook page and passes it to me, and the way she’s looking at me I know that she doesn’t mean schoolwork is too hard for her: she means being around people and trying to talk all day is enough. She doesn’t need a whole other group of people to feel embarrassed around after school.

  The bell’s ringing and Mrs. Baldwin’s telling us to add to our hearts tonight because we’re going to use them to write poetry tomorrow.

  Someone calls out, “Oooh, las rosas son rojas,” and I actually understand all the words, so I laugh with the rest of the class and Mrs. Baldwin, and for three seconds it feels good.

  Then I remember what Mrs. Baldwin said. That we’re going to be writing poetry. I want to tell her that I don’t write poetry, but I could write her an OK essay with organized paragraphs and a thesis statement if she wants, but before I can say anything she squats down by my desk.

  “How’s Ivan?” she asks.

  “Sad,” I tell her.

  “And how are you?”

  I don’t even know how to respond because no one’s asked me that for a long time and I don’t actually know. I’m sad like Ivan, and scared, and every once in a while I feel pretty good, which makes me feel guilty and terrible.

  “OK,” I answer.

  “I’m looking forward to reading your poetry,” she says. I almost tell her I won’t be writing any poetry because it’s too loosey-goosey and I’ll never get it right, but I crack my knuckles instead and she stands up from my desk.

  Before I pack my bag and throw it over my shoulder, I peek at Frankie’s desk. Her heart isn’t symmetrical either, and she wrote Ms. Dacie right there in the middle. Then I see Reggie down at the bottom and it’s in small writing too. She closes her notebook fast and stuffs it in her bag.

  “Do we have a deal?” she asks.

  And I’m thinking how much I miss my team back home, and how good it feels to run, and then I think about my dad’s shirt buttons, and that maybe if I join track he’ll come out and change into shorts and a clean T-shirt and stand next to Mom and cheer for me like he used to. And if we win the city championships, we’ll have something to celebrate all together.

  And then maybe this fresh start will begin working, and they could be that one out of four.

  “Deal,” I say.

  Chapter 15

  Secret Team Handshake

  Fourteen of us girls are standing in the park behind the school, and even though I’m the only one without an MS 423 running tank top, this already feels more like my domain. Everyone is bouncing and stretching and looks like they’re ready to spring into motion and cut through the air. I know that feeling. Frankie is hopping up and down too, warming her hamstrings, and reaching down to touch her Racers.

  I’m calculating how many hours of community service I need to get each week if I keep up at t
he church kitchen on Sundays, and wishing that Amelia were here too. Then I’m replaying my dad’s voice in my head when I called home to get permission to stay for track practice today. I had to call three times right in a row before he answered, and he had morning groggy pre-shower voice even though it was 2:49 in the afternoon. I wonder if he’s been outside today.

  Coach Okeke introduces me to the group and everyone smiles and says hi and some shout out their names. “I’m Cristina!” and “I’m Ariel.” I hear Daniela and Ashley and Roxanna, and then all the other voices blend together. I smile and wave.

  They’re all hopping and stretching and wanting to know where we’re running today.

  “Follow me!” Coach Okeke says, and takes off through the park.

  “¡Vámanos!” yells one of the girls, and we all take off after Coach.

  We circle around a swimming pool with six lanes and a diving board that isn’t open yet for the season, and down a steep set of stairs. We’re running along a path behind the school and then across basketball courts where a group of boys are changing their sneakers on the sidelines and getting ready to play, then down a sidewalk with big buildings stretching up and up, and weaving around people walking their dogs.

  Frankie is out front, right on Coach Okeke’s heels, and I’m just behind her, but we’re running in a big pack of fourteen girls and I can hear all the footsteps on the pavement around us and I like the way that sounds. Like rain.

  Coach Scottie’s voice is in my head. Eyes up. Hut hut hut! I lift my eyes and look forward—down the sidewalk and toward the car-jammed bridge that leads over the river.

  “That’s Yankee Stadium!” Coach Okeke shouts back to me, and points across the river. Tall white pillars reach up and up and tower over kids playing in the parks below.

  And just like that, even though Guthrie’s guitar pick rubs against my left thigh each stride, I’m not thinking about how many hours I need for anything, or that I’m not wearing the right running clothes because I didn’t know I’d be joining the track team today. I’m not thinking about any closed doors, or the pained faces of people who need, or anything about that night. It’s just one step, then the next, and the air that I’m cutting through, and the burn in my legs. It’s just my inhale and exhale and my arms pumping and my feet turning over and over. It’s just forward and forward and never back.

  Then I hear footsteps pull up next to mine and a girl with dark skin and dark curly hair pulled into two tight buns on the top of her head says, “I’m Ana.”

  “Rain,” I say, with my next inhale.

  She’s built like Amelia, short and slight, and takes quick strides that turn over fast.

  And before we’ve run five more blocks I learn that she’s in sixth grade too, but in a different homeroom, and that she just started racing this year.

  “You’re fast,” I breathe.

  Out of the corner of my eye I can tell she’s smiling. “You too.”

  Coach Okeke ends practice back in the park and holds his cap under the stream of a water fountain before we cool down and stretch. I tell my brain that I can forget about looking that up.

  After, when Frankie and I are heading toward the school to grab our bags and go see Ms. Dacie, he calls out, “Teach her the secret team handshake!”

  We look back and I see Ana waving bye. I wave back. And that feels good.

  “Don’t forget!” Coach Okeke yells. “She needs to know it!”

  Frankie nods, and we keep on walking.

  Ms. Dacie’s is between school and home, which is perfect because I can’t waste any minutes getting to community service if I’m going to finish my hours, figure out how to write poetry, and win the state championships.

  On the way there, Frankie doesn’t teach me any handshake, and we don’t really talk about anything, but when we pass the vacant storefront I notice the body is gone, but the green sleeping bag and a dented plastic water bottle without its cap are still there, pushed into the corner of the sidewalk. And now I’m wondering if that person actually lives there and will just return back when they’re tired to take a swig of water and sleep.

  Ms. Dacie’s is on a street of three-story buildings that look more like houses, with swooping front steps that lead to heavy wooden doors. There’s even a strip of space between Ms. Dacie’s and the place next to hers. It’s full of overgrown and tangled green, but a garden used to be there. And that’s a fact because I can see the raised wooden beds beneath the snarls of weeds.

  There’s a faded sign—Ms. Dacie’s—that hangs on the unkempt garden’s gate.

  We hop up the steps and Frankie rings the doorbell. Above the bell is a peephole and a sticker—an equilateral triangle with one stripe for each color of the rainbow, ROY G BIV, in order. Beneath the triangle it says Safe Space. There’s another sticker that has a cross like the one on top of the bell tower at the church, next to a six-pointed star made from two triangles, next to a waning crescent moon with a five-pointed star cradled in its nook, and a couple of other symbols I don’t recognize. Beneath all the symbols it says Welcome.

  A boy answers the door. He looks a little older than we are, and he doesn’t make eye contact, but not in the same way Frankie didn’t make eye contact when she first showed up at our apartment door. He seems quiet and shy.

  “Hey, Frankie,” he says, looking down at the welcome mat, and I wonder if he recognizes her by her Flyknit Racers.

  “Hey, Casey. This is Rain.”

  I put my hand out to shake his, and Frankie pulls my arm back gently. “Casey doesn’t like shaking hands,” she says, and I kind of push the toe of my Adidas Ultraboosts forward into his vision instead.

  “Welcome,” he says and opens the door wide. “Frankie’s here!” he hollers. “She brought a friend!” When he says friend, I look at Frankie and Frankie looks at me.

  “She just needs community service,” she tells him, but she doesn’t say I’m not her friend.

  We follow Casey down a skinny hallway, past a bulletin board stuck with old-fashioned Polaroid photographs of smiling kids, and dozens of fliers for events like Saturday tutoring sessions and an evening music class. The hallway leads into a big open room with couches and tables and chairs and two old desktop computers and shelves stacked high with books and games and school supplies. Three kids are playing cards at one table, slapping their hands down hard and laughing, and two others are doing homework on the couch.

  Someone else is stretched out and propped up on her elbows on the floor with a sketch pad and is drawing some kind of superhero comic strip. And I actually do a double take, because when she looks up, I realize it’s Ana from the track team. She must be even faster than I thought because she beat us here and we left school before she did.

  “Hi!” she says when she sees us.

  “You really are fast,” I tell her.

  She smiles. “I ran.”

  Her comic strip is black and white, except for the superhero’s cape, which she’s shading in with a bright red colored pencil. The cape is the same design as the flag I saw hanging in the apartment window when we first drove into Washington Heights, the flag I saw on Frankie’s shirt.

  Her drawing is good. Really good. It looks like it could be in the graphic novels bin of Mrs. Baldwin’s classroom library.

  I hear pans clang from the kitchen, and Frankie nudges me in that direction. There are two kids at the counter rolling cookie dough into balls and placing them on a foil-covered baking sheet. Flour dusts the kitchen floor and puffs big white polka dots on the kids’ aprons. Open bags of sugar and measuring spoons and a cutting board of chopped walnuts clutter the counter, and it smells amazing.

  “Dacie,” Frankie says. A tall, curvy, pillowy woman with gray curly hair pulled back in a big purple clip turns around from the oven.

  She smiles at Frankie and gives her a big hug, which surprises me because Frankie doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would want someone hugging her, but her skinny body disappears easily into Ms. Dacie
’s embrace.

  Then she holds out a big wooden mixing spoon. “Dough?” she offers. “Chocolate chip today.”

  Frankie takes a glob in her fingers. “My favorite.”

  Then Ms. Dacie spots me and she peers over the frames of her round, purple glasses. “And who do we have here?”

  “This is Rain.”

  “Rain,” she says, and the way she says it sounds like rain, like the kind of rain that comes when the sun is still shining, unexpected and calm and falling off easy, leaving everyone looking up in wonder.

  “Welcome, Rain,” she says. Then she’s pulling me into a hug too, even though I just met her four seconds ago. Then I’m pressing a pinch of cookie dough to the roof of my mouth, and Dacie is telling me how a kitchen is no kitchen at all unless it smells like cookies baking.

  She introduces me to everyone there. Alia and Edwin are in the kitchen and Matthew, Jer, and Trevor are playing cards. Yasmin and Cris are doing homework, and Ana is still sketching her comic. Even though I don’t recognize anyone else but Ana from my school, and my skin doesn’t match any skin here either, I’m not sticking out, because Edwin’s hair is blue and spiky, and Cris has short shaved hair like Frankie, but with a tiny Mohawk and zigzags shaved above her ears. Jer has black makeup on his eyes and Alia wears a silver-and-red scarf over her head, even in the hot kitchen with the oven running. Casey is organizing the books on the shelves from largest to smallest and I secretly want to hug him because that’s how I would organize it too. But something tells me that Casey doesn’t like hugs much, not even from Ms. Dacie.

  Everyone looks up and smiles and says hi and asks about where I’m from and what my name means. And it doesn’t even feel bad to tell them I’m from 288 miles away in Vermont and my dad is this hippie gardener guy so he named me Rain, and my brother Guthrie, which means wind, and he used to sing this silly song to us that went, Oh, the wind and rain . . .

  Saying Guthrie’s name doesn’t even feel so bad, maybe because there’s more furniture and people and things in this little place than in ours on 152nd Street, so it settles into the soft spaces instead of dropping hard on the brand-new wood floors of apartment number thirty-one.