"Hey cuz," Jalissa said while popping Fruit Stripe gum. She must have had the entire huge package in her mouth because all you could smell under the trailer was sugary fruit.
Vanessa ducked beneath the trailer and found a place to sit between her cousin and Carmella Green.
"Hey. You seen him?" Jalissa managed through a wad of gum.
"Nope."
"Seen who?" A girl with neatly braided hair asked. Her name was Sally but everyone called her Sal since they had to sing that song in music class that went; I had a mule, her name was Sal; fifteen miles on the Erie Canal…
"Scotty Tremont," Vanessa replied while trying to avoid the loose dirt by her feet so they wouldn't get her white sneakers dirty.
Jalissa glared at Sal and rolled her eyes.
"Nobody. Mind your business, Sal."
Sally gave her cousin a narrowed eyed look. "Who you showing off for, girl?" She then turned her attention back to Vanessa. "Why you looking for Scotty?"
Vanessa looked from Sal to Jalissa who silently threatened to cream her if she talked. Vanessa tried to think of a way to change the subject.
"We ain't looking for him," she muttered. "I just want to avoid him."
"Ha, he steal something from you?"
"Yup!" Another girl hollered. "He stole money out of the teacher's purse one time and then he got kicked out of school for a week!"
"He's just trying to be like Tino." Malinda said while spitting sunflower seed shells onto the ground.
Vanessa scowled in disapproval. "Why do you say that? Just because they're both white?" She was about to declare that all white people weren't dope boys and criminals like Tino—because if her suspicions were right Tino was more than just bad news, he was a killer. Malinda continued before she could.
"Nah, girl, because Tino and Scotty are brothers."
Vanessa sank into misery at that news. Her heart began to thump painfully in her chest. She wanted to cry. Scotty was bad enough but Tino was real bad news. He was sixteen or seventeen and had dropped out of school long ago. All he did was shoot dope, steal and beat people up. He would do just about anything for money. He would snatch a chain off your neck or stick you up for your shoes. He'd been in and out of juvie and they said the next time he got busted he was going to jail.
They had to be wrong about this. The two boys couldn't be brothers because Tino was a Puerto Rican and Scotty was white. And then Vanessa considered the fact that looks didn't always mean anything. After all she looked like she was mixed and she wasn't.
Vanessa thought the most frightening thing about Tino is that he was as gorgeous as he was bad. He looked like Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter. He even sported an Afro and sideburns that looked as good as any of the black guys that he hung with.
This time it was Vanessa's turn to glare at Jalissa. "Did you know about this?"
Her cousin's mouth popped open. "Well you should have never said his name, dummy!" Jalissa's eyes began to fill with tears.
"You two are cousins, don't fight." Theresa said. She was twelve like Vanessa but already had breasts the size of a grown lady. This only made her think that she should be the unofficial leader of the gang, which everyone pretty much agreed with. "Nobody's going to get you while you're in school. We're gonna have y'all backs." Both cousins suddenly looked relieved. "What did you do to him anyways?"
Vanessa continued to glare at her cousin. "Jalissa called him a honky."
There were several ooohs and aahhs. "Damn J. You got guts," Theresa cussed in admiration.
Suddenly Jalissa didn't look like she wanted to cry but puffed out her chest. She resumed popping her gum, "I was like 'Whatchu doing up here white boy!'"
The girls oohed and aahed again, impressed by the gutsy eleven-year old. From there the conversation moved to how cute Tino was. However Vanessa had seen Tino do two things that would never allow her see him as anything but someone to run from.
The first thing is that she saw him throw a match into someone's car. He was just casually walking down the street and lighting a cigarette. As he walked he tossed the lit match into the open window of the car … and just kept walking. Later she heard that the car had caught on fire and people said that it could have blown up. What she found most unnerving about it is that Tino hadn't been with anyone. He'd done something like that and it wasn't to impress his friends.
The second reason she was terrified of Tino—and by far the worst thing is that she suspected something very bad about him, something that he didn't know she suspected.
There were many things about the ghetto that scared Vanessa; boys that might catch you and do something bad to you, the dope man … and the vacant building where they had found the dead little girl. And Vanessa suspected Tino was responsible for the little girl's death.
Mama was waiting for her when she came out of the trailer after school. A smile crossed Vanessa's face when she saw the white Cadillac with its red interior. Mama was wearing sunglasses and she looked hip like Pam Greer from the movie Coffy. They had seen it at the drive-in even though it showed women with their shirts off. But she didn't care about that. They always showed that kind of movie at the drive-in and at the Regal Theater and she'd always watched them despite the R-rating.
People said that her mother was beautiful and Vanessa agreed but was more impressed with just how cool she was. Her mother had to be the best-dressed person at Cincinnati Bell Telephone where she worked in collections. Some nights she also worked at a club where she tended bar whenever they needed the extra help. That meant a lot of times she was gone at night especially on the weekends, which is when Vanessa missed her most.