Over The Edge

An excerpt

by Tonya Cherie Hegamin

“Hey Eleanora, you think Mama’s crazy?”

“Naw.”

“Well, why’s she in there doing all that yoga junk?”

“I don’t know, Henrietta. Go ask her yourself.”

“Never mind.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and I was about to get tired of her sorry behind. Since the summer started I’d been trying to find something my sister and I could agree on. I didn’t really think Mama was crazy, but maybe Eleanora was. Mama said it was just Eleanora’s hormones acting up, but I thought hormones just made your body change, gave you pimples and stuff. This was different. She was quiet and wanted to be by herself a lot, but then she would act like her old self and want to play with me, and I never knew how long that would last. She was meaner sometimes, too, and bossier. Eleanora looked at the boys more and let them talk to her, when before we’d run away together and make fun of them. I didn’t understand her anymore; she wasn’t even hanging out with her old friends. Last summer we played together all the time, running under the open fire hydrants and jumping rope. This summer all she wanted to do was boring stuff—sit on the chair out on the balcony, looking over the street, looking at the boys, messing with her hair and painting her nails. If that’s what hormones were about, I’ll be just fine without them.

I’d been standing there behind the screen door for so long everyday, I wondered if those little grille marks on my forehead were going to stay there all summer. I was hoping she would turn around and talk to me, maybe even act like normal again for a minute, but Eleanora just slicked her lips with a glob of BananaBerry lip-gloss like she’d been doing over and over again for the past three weeks since school let out. The smell of it was giving me a headache. She got up from the lawn chair, leaned over the rusty metal railing Mama called “the balcony” and looked down at the street four stories below. I stood in the doorway from behind the screen and watched her, wishing I would be as beautiful as her when I turned thirteen in a year and a half. I just looked regular, like anybody else you’d see and not notice on the street. Eleanora was the kind of pretty that made people be nice to her even if she wasn’t so nice to them. She had deep brown skin, but it always seemed like it was glowing, trying to be like the bronze bracelets that jangled around her wrists. Mama was always telling me I had to put lotion on my dry, ashy elbows and knees— she wouldn’t let me go out of the house without it, even in the summertime when it would get all sticky. But Eleanora never had to; she’d just put some baby oil on when she got out of the shower and it seemed like that’s all she needed. This summer, it smelled like a bunch of invisible babies were crawling around our apartment, burping up bananas and strawberries everywhere they went.

People we didn’t even know would always be stopping us to tell Eleanora how she should be in a magazine; she had that high-cheekbone model face. She begged and begged Mama to let her be a model, but Mama said it would have to either be over her dead body or until Eleanora was eighteen and out of her house, whichever came first. For a while, Eleanora would spend all of her allowance on all the teen and fashion magazines she could and look through them in the kitchen when Mama was cooking or something. She’d turn the pages and sigh, making comments about how young all the models were these days. Mama just ignored her at first, but after a while made her chop garlic if she even brought a magazine into the kitchen. Eleanora kept it up for a few days, but ended up canceling her subscription to Seventeen Magazine when her hands started to stink like garlic all the time.

It seemed like she and Mama were always arguing now. I didn’t really blame Mama, though; Eleanora would say and do stupid junk like cut her shorts even shorter just because some boy told her she had nice legs. Mama got real mad when she saw her out on the balcony like that and yelled that Eleanora was still a little girl with no business showing off her stuff, and if she didn’t put on something else she was going to make her wear wool pants all summer long. Eleanora didn’t like that at all, so she went back to wearing regular shorts. Since then, they hadn’t been talking as much as they used to. I have to admit that sometimes I used to get jealous at how close they were, but now I was just hoping that they would act like that again.

“Eleanora, what do you think the temperature’ll be today— 85 or 90 or something?”

She just shrugged and turned her head to look back down the street. Some boys were walking on the other side in the shade and I could see them watching Eleanora as they passed by. They strutted their struts, sticking out their chests and talking their junk even louder. The show was for her, I could tell, but Eleanora just cocked her head to the side and watched them pass. There was no one else out on the street—all I could hear was the honking of far away cars and the sound of the boys’ feet, shuffling along the concrete.

“What’re y’all looking at?” I yelled, opening the screen door a little and taking a step outside, just enough so they could see me. It was George, Esteban and Jimmy—all from Eleanora’s class at school.

“Shut up Henny,” Eleanora hissed, snapping her head back towards me, her narrowed eyes telling me she was going to make me regret it if I didn’t. I wasn’t scared of her, but it was getting too hot to be bothered with her anymore. She turned back towards the street and the boys who were passing by extra slow now. I left her out there with those boys, stepping back into our apartment carefully, mumbling for her to shut up back, but I don’t think she was listening.

I turned around, my eyes adjusting to the darkness inside, and I stepped over Mama lying on the floor in front of the TV, watching some lady twist herself up into knots. I walked into the kitchen and got an apple. We weren’t allowed to have any sweets except fruit, if you can call that a sweet. Mama was always like that. She would make us oatmeal cookies or buy things from the health food store she worked at. All the other kids I knew ate lots of candy and chips whenever they wanted. Every once and a while, if Mama was in an extra good mood we were allowed to go to the corner store to get one thing, but that was it. Mama said it was because we were silly enough already without sugar to hype us up any more. It didn’t seem fair at all—especially when nobody had been acting silly around here in a long while. I went back into the TV room where Mama was and stood over her, watching as she tried to put herself into knots like the lady on the show.

“Mama, you look like you’re going to break something.”

“No, I’m okay, Henny. It’s good for my nerves,” she grunted between heaving breaths, her legs halfway behind her head.

Mama’s legs didn’t look like the type to ever be able to do that, but she was giving it a good try. Mama was tall, but not too tall; when you hugged her you weren’t hugging just legs, but her soft middle. I sat down and watched her and the lady on TV while I ate my apple. She struggled to get into the different positions, her upper lip already growing a little mustache of sweat. After a few minutes, her leotard stockings ripped. I twisted up my mouth so I wouldn’t bust out laughing. When the phone rang, I was glad to jump up to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Sheila, baby— it’s me,” the deep voice said on the other line. I knew right away who it was, and that he wasn’t looking to talk to me.

“Umm, Michael? This is Henrietta.”

“Oh! I thought… uh, sorry, Henny. You sounded so grown up! Just like your mom.”

“Nope. It’s just me,” I said, trying to sound like I didn’t care if I sounded older or not, even though I couldn’t help smiling. I still wasn’t sure how to feel about this dude who Mama was always talking to on the phone since she started taking classes at the community college last fall. Mama never had a boyfriend until now. It was kind of weird, especially when he started to come over and have dinner or to take us out, then seeing the two of them holding hands and junk. Used to be just Mama, Eleanora and me against the world. Sometimes I wasn’t sure how to feel about this change. Sometimes I didn’t like it. But most of the time Michael was okay. He was tall and thin, but strong-looking, too. His eyes were always looking like he was about to tell you a joke but wasn’t sure if you’d think it was funny. Michael worked for the YMCA, so sometimes we’d see him there when we went swimming. Mama was a teacher’s aide and also went to school at night. She started working at the health food store this summer and went to classes twice a week during the day. Mama said that one day she wanted to run a place where young girls who were in trouble could go and be safe, and that was what she was going to school to get a degree for.
Eleanora hated Michael. She remembered our father more than I did, and she was always saying that she didn’t want another one. When Michael would come over, she wouldn’t sit with us and sometimes she’d barely say one word to him.

Mama came into the kitchen and took the phone away from me like she already knew who it was. She smiled into the phone and almost whispered, “Michael? Hey baby. Can you hold on?” She held the phone next to her heart.“Henrietta, why don’t you and your sister go out and play?”

“Naw, Mama. It’s too hot out,” I whined, remembering the boys who’d been passing by. There weren’t too many kids my age in our building. My best friend, Tesha, who lived in the same apartment complex, was visiting her grandma in Georgia this summer. I knew some other girls who were in my class in school who lived close by, but they were kind of a clique. They were really into clothes and junk I wasn’t interested in. The white girls and Puerto Rican girls in the group were always trying to act black, and the black girls were always trying to act like they were the authority on being black— like being hard and knowing all the clothes designers and rap stars was the coolest thing there was. I was just trying to be me. Tesha and I kind of just hung out together; we especially liked to take books out from the library, swap and talk about them. Not too many of the other girls liked to do that, or if they did they didn’t let anybody know it. It wasn’t like the other girls weren’t fun to be with sometimes, but after a while I’d get bored.

“Then go and find something else to do,” Mama said. “We’ll go to the pool and meet Michael in a little while.” She turned away from me and put the phone back to her ear.

I went and stood at the screen door to the balcony again, careful not to step too hard. Eleanora told me once when I was little that if you stamped your foot on the tiny balcony it would fall. She also told me that if I was bad or didn’t listen to her she’d throw me over the railing. Sometimes I still have nightmares about that, so I’m especially careful out there, especially when Eleanora’s around.

“Hey, Eleanora! Let’s go out and play or something.” Turning around to face me, she leaned back on her elbows against the railing of the balcony.

“I don’t play anymore, Henrietta. That’s for babies.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about with that “I don’t play anymore” junk. We had just been playing outside the other day. Or maybe that was because that kid George she liked was out there playing, too.

Eleanora bent backwards over the edge of the balcony; she knew I hated it when she did that—it looked like she didn’t have a head. She had one of those beautiful long necks like the prints of African women that Mama had hanging up on the walls. Everything about Eleanora was long and graceful.

“Eleanora, don’t fall over that thing. You better stop before Mama sees you.”

“Awww, Mama ain’t gonna see nothin’,” Eleanora said, with her head still hanging over the balcony.

I went back to where Mama was, watching the woman doing yoga again. Sitting down next to her, I asked if we could watch something else, but she told me not to bother her. I went into the little room that my sister and I shared and sat in front of the fan to read for a while. When I got too hot, I went to ask Mama when we were going to go to the pool, but I heard her yelling at Eleanora to stop hanging over the balcony to talk to boys on the street. I went back into our room and picked up my book again so Mama wouldn’t have anything to yell at me about. Eleanora stomped in, her hands balled into fists and her eyebrows all scrunched up. It seemed like she was looking like that more and more these days.

“Did you hear her?” Eleanora asked, sitting on the floor across from me. “She was yelling right when I was talking to George! She must be crazy! Didn’t she see how cute he looked?”

When Eleanora looked like she’d calmed down, I took out our fake microphone and put on the Billie Holiday CD that Mama had given to us. Mama used to always sing the blues to us until she met Michael. Then she gave us her blues CDs and we’d sing along like she used to do. I put on Eleanora’s favorite song, “Stormy Weather” and started to sing. Eleanora went and got out her pink feather boa, wrapped it around her neck like a regular diva and took the microphone away from me. She was the best singer, and I loved to watch her, so I didn’t mind. It was a song about how this woman is so miserable that her man left, even the weather had turned bad. Eleanora could sing it so sweet and sad I would almost want to cry. She sang the blues with her eyes closed until Mama told us to get ready to go.

˜

We got to the pool early so it wasn’t too crowded. Mama found us a shady spot, and made sure we put on lots of sunblock because she said she didn’t want us to shrivel up and get skin cancer, and then she went inside to look for Michael. Eleanora went over to talk to the lifeguard, Samaz. There wasn’t anybody else around who I knew, and most of the kids who were there were just splashing around in the shallow end, so I sat by myself for a while, reading and trying not to feel or look too lonely. I hated going into the pool by myself—all you could do is swim laps, and unless you were racing, that got boring really quick. Mama had been making us take swimming lessons since we were old enough to be allowed to go into the pool by ourselves. I loved it, and for a few years I was in a team, but this year there weren’t very many kids to compete at my age level, and it got boring racing against the same kids all the time, so I stopped.

Looking up from my book, I could see my friend Jocelyn’s curly red head bouncing towards the pool. She and I used to race against each other. We both really loved swimming. Jocelyn and I would hang out after the swim meets and have all kinds of funny contests together—who could talk the most underwater, who could swim fastest using only one arm; anything just so we could stay in the water until our moms dragged us out. We decided that when we turned sixteen we’d be lifeguards together. I didn’t see her as much this summer because she was babysitting her little sister, Caitlin, a lot more. Sometimes Jocelyn would bring Caitlin, but it got annoying for both of us to have to sit in the baby pool with her all day. Plus, it was a pain for Jocelyn to bring Caitlin on the bus across town with her. Our town wasn’t very big, but a half hour ride with Caitlin the Car Sick Queen always seemed like an eternity.

“Hey Jocelyn!” I waved from across the pool. As she walked over, I could already see that the freckled skin on her face and shoulders were a fiery red from sunburn. Poor girl, it didn’t seem to matter how much sun block she put on, she always got burnt. I was a little worried about her getting skin cancer, but still, I couldn’t help teasing her.

“What’s up, Red?”

“That’s not funny!” She frowned and stuck her tongue out at me. “You have no idea how painful this is!”

“Yeah, and I’m glad I don’t!” I giggled until she bopped me lightly on the head with her neon green bottle of Aloe Vera.

“How’d you get the day off from taking care of Caitlin?” I asked.

“I got burnt up yesterday when I took her to the playground, so my mom felt bad for me and took her to my Grandma’s. She dropped me off here on her way to work. Since you teased me you have to put the Aloe on my back.” Jocelyn squirted some onto my hand.

“I’m sorry, but this junk is so nasty! It’s all sticky and cold!” I wrinkled up my nose as I spread it on her peeling red back. Once I said it, though, I felt bad; Jocelyn couldn’t help it that she burned so much and had to put that junk on.

“Sometimes I wish I could be your color so I wouldn’t have to go through all of this.” Jocelyn turned around when I was finished putting the Aloe on. She peeled some of the dead skin away from her thigh.

“Don’t say that, girl. I shouldn’t have made fun. I get sun burnt too, sometimes. Besides, Mama always says that you can’t change who you are, so you’d better figure out how to love what you’ve got.”

“Yeah, sounds pretty easy when you say it.”

“You know, Mama is always saying junk that’s easier to say than do!” We both laughed. “C’mon, let’s do some cannon balls and splash Eleanora!”

We jumped into the pool at the deep end, where Eleanora was showing off for the lifeguards. She screamed and cursed and threatened to tell Mama that I wasn’t obeying the pool rules, even though Samaz thought it was funny, too. Jocelyn and I swam away, giggling, and practiced being synchronized ballet swimmers, making up crazy underwater dances until it was time for her to go.

˜

“Hey Henny, you want me to braid your hair again? I’ll make it look nice,” Eleanora called to me from her usual spot after we had gotten home from the pool. The sun was setting behind her, shadowing her face against the orange sky. You could see the sunset perfectly from the balcony. Across from our building was an empty lot, then the highway. Mama said it was the only way that she could stand living in our old rundown building, filled with mostly older people. I’d been sitting with Mama and Michael, watching a boring love movie and trying not to feel weird about them cuddling next to me, so I was happy to run and get the comb, and this time not just because Eleanora was acting kind of normal for a minute. I stood behind the screen and waited for Eleanora to come inside.

“Henny, you have to come out here for me to do it. The balcony won’t fall, see?” Eleanora stamped her feet and jumped up and down to show me, so I reluctantly stepped out. She and Mama called me Henny because they said that I always was a big chicken, always afraid of something. I gently opened the screen door and carefully sat down in front of the chair.

“Smells like somebody’s got something on the barbeque tonight.” Eleanora spoke so quietly that I straightened up my back to hear her better. I sniffed the air, and sure enough, the scent of charcoal was wafting around the neighborhood.

“Do you remember how Daddy would barbeque and wear that hat?” she asked as she parted my hair in a zig-zag. I nodded with some cloudy memories of him cooking in a big chef’s hat.

Laughing a little under her breath, she said, “Remember that time he caught the tablecloth on fire? How he was jumping around, yelling for water, but Mama ended up throwing more on him than the fire?”

We giggled for a while, but then I realized that I wasn’t laughing at my own memory, I was laughing at hers. I couldn’t remember any of that at all.

“I remember holding you, and you were clapping and saying, ‘Dance, daddy, dance!’ and you kept trying to go dance with him. It was so funny! You remember that?”

I bent my head down and caught some tears in my hand. I shook my head no.

“I guess you were just too little to remember everything,” she whispered. She lifted my chin gently so I was looking back at her face. I wiped away some of her tears after she wiped away some of mine.

“But don’t worry, Henny. I’ll keep the memories for both of us.” Kissing my forehead, she went back to braiding my hair in silence. We watched the sun go down and a few stars start popping up here and there in the blue-black sky. When Mama called us in for bed, Eleanora took one last look over the balcony to see if anybody was still out there. She sighed and went into the apartment. Slowly, I stood up and held out my arm. I closed my eyes and grabbed the rickety railing of the balcony. Pulling myself close to the edge, I opened my eyes and looked straight down before I ran back inside.