Forward Me Back to You Read online

  Kat can’t believe this. “What about school? I’m not letting him—what happened—wreck my life! I need a full ride to USC or Davis! What about my job? And I’ve got to win my next few BJJ matches—”

  “Jiu-jitsu and the zoo aren’t worth the pain of staying in that toxic environment. Ms. Jones is an excellent teacher; she’ll homeschool you until the middle of June. I’ve already cleared it with Sanger. Your teachers agreed to send you assignments and keep track of your papers and tests online.”

  “WHAT? You didn’t ask ME first? I’m SIXTEEN!”

  “I know. That’s how old I was when you were born. But you have a real mom; all I had were a bunch of foster parents. For once in my life, I’m going to be a controlling mother, whether you like it or not.”

  Mom’s voice sounds fiercer than Saundra’s. She and Kat glare at each other for a long moment.

  Controlling mother, huh?

  Cue bratty teenager, then.

  Kat stomps off to her bedroom and slams the door.

  ROBIN

  INT. ROBIN’S BEDROOM—NIGHT

  Robin stretches out on his bed and decides to watch Batman Returns, the 1992 flick with Michael Keaton as Batman. It’s been a while since he’s seen it. He forgot that it starts with the Cobblepots throwing Oswald—the baby who grows up to be the Penguin—into a sewer. Poor Oswald. No wonder he becomes a villain. Who wouldn’t? Robin turns off the movie and switches to the soundtrack from Guardians of the Galaxy, which usually helps him unwind.

  “I feel stuck, Ms. Vee,” he told his friend at church just last Sunday. “I’m tired of people asking what I’m doing after graduation. ‘Figure out your passions, Robin,’ they tell me. ‘Find your talents.’ What if I don’t have any? I’m a C student.”

  “Some people are better at studying faces than books,” she said. “And you have a talent for loyalty. Those are gifts many never acquire.”

  Remembering her words cheers him up a little, but he figures she’s biased. She, Gracie, PG, Mom, Dad, Martin, Ash—they love him too much to see him clearly.

  Downstairs, his parents are arguing again. “I’m Not in Love” by 10cc is too soft a song to block them out. He hits PAUSE, takes off his headphones, and listens.

  “He’s sure to get into at least one or two schools he applied to, Ed! Okay, so they’re not the best colleges, but he has to get a degree, right?”

  Same old, same old, Robin realizes. Mom should just pick a college. At this point, he’d go anywhere just to get her to stop worrying.

  “A gap year might be better, Marjorie. If you ask me, he needs to see a counselor. It seems like he’s been low for months.”

  The thought of talking to a counselor makes Robin even more tired.

  “I don’t think he wants counseling, Ed,” Mom says.

  “Who knows what the kid wants?” Dad answers. “Every now and then he tells us what he doesn’t want, but that’s not a good way to live. It feels like we’re always making decisions for him.”

  “He likes working at Mike’s,” Mom says.

  “You lined up that job for him, remember? He enjoys cars now, but he didn’t want the job at first. He doesn’t want anything, Marjorie.”

  There’s a silence in the kitchen.

  Dad’s right, Robin thinks. Now that he’s eighteen, “not wanting” is a habit. His father used to ask questions to help him figure out what he wanted: What are you feeling? When Robin couldn’t answer, Dad would offer multiple-choice options: Happy? Sad? Angry? Even picking from a list was a challenge. Think about it, Dad would encourage the younger version of Robin. Take time. Listen to your heart. And once you identify an emotion or a desire, act on it. Be thoughtful and careful, of course. But act on it, son.

  Easy to say, hard to do. When Robin tries to “listen to his heart,” all he hears is the static of numbness. That constant whirl of white noise accompanies him everywhere—home, school, church, small group, work. He’s used to the dampening.

  He puts on his headphones again. A song by the Jackson 5 is next on the soundtrack. Robin knows the words by heart, but he doesn’t sing along.

  Oh baby, give me one more chance,

  To show you that I love you.

  Won’t You. Please. Let. Me.

  Back in your heart?

  KAT

  INT./EXT. AIRPLANE—DAY—TRAVELING

  Before Kat goes through security, Saundra kisses her cheek. “I know it’s your first time, Filhote, but you’re going to fly like a pro. Head straight to the gate and wait for them to announce your boarding group.”

  Mom’s teary-eyed but manages a shaky smile. She won’t risk a hug—Kat’s still too furious. “You’ll be coming back in June, sweetheart. It’s just three months.” Sounds like she’s talking more to herself than to her daughter.

  Kat keeps her scowl in place. She knows her mother’s eyes are following her, but she strides through security without looking back.

  “Text when you land, Kat!” Mom’s voice calls out.

  Kat waits by the gate, like Saundra told her to, keeping her distance from canines. Blue, brown, hazel, behind glasses, peering over a laptop, it doesn’t matter—they all look the same when they’re hunting.

  When it’s time to board, Kat chooses the window seat, lifts up the armrest, and spreads out her long limbs. The plane’s not full so nobody else sits in her row. One good thing on this otherwise lousy day. The day Katina King’s tapping out and letting the world know that her opponent won.

  “Our estimated flight time to Boston will be five hours and fifty-seven minutes,” the pilot announces over the intercom. “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.”

  Kat figures out how to buckle her seat belt just as they take off. The plane climbs high, leaving behind the sparkling blue bay and green hills. By the time she gets back, the grass will be brown again. Somewhere down there, nestled in the Oakland hills, school’s in session. The place where he’s alpha-wolfing through the halls, as if what happened didn’t cost him at all—beyond injuries to that finger and shoulder, which healed quickly. He’s back to being a basketball star, winning games for Sanger.

  Kat pictures him cornering Brittany and Amber: See? Your crazy friend WAS guilty. That’s why she left. Hope you believe me now.

  The airplane climbs above the clouds and she can’t see anything but sky above and white billows below. Kat closes the window shade, puts on her headphones, and turns on the screen embedded in the seat back in front of her. The Celtics game comes on. They’re winning; people scattered around the plane are cheering. She switches the channel to women’s tennis.

  Why does everything have to remind her of him? Smack in the middle of concentrating on a biology test, taking train tickets at the zoo, or grappling with an opponent on the mat, she’ll flash back to memories of that stairwell.

  Tongue jamming into her mouth.

  Fingers tearing buttons.

  The zipper of his jeans slicing down.

  Kat’s stomach lurches like it always does when she remembers.

  “Want something to drink, honey?” The flight attendant is leaning across the empty seats with a smile.

  “Ginger ale, please. No ice.”

  Sipping the fizzy drink, Kat manages not to throw up this time. As they leave California behind, she finds the free movie channel. Oh, thank God. Wonder Woman. If she can’t get me through this flight without puking, nobody can.

  It does the trick. And so does Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron, which comes on next.

  * * *

  The plane lands at Logan. Kat doesn’t text her mother. Instead, she leaves her phone on airplane mode, gathers her things, and follows the signs to baggage claim.

  As suitcases start hurtling out of the chute, a stately, silver-haired, sun-weathered woman pushes her walker over. Her skin is as black as an ibis beak. She’s wearing an ankle-length, flowery dress and embroidered slippers that match her embroidered head scarf.

  “You must be Katina.” Her voice reminds Kat
of Wakanda. “I am Viola Jones. Welcome to Boston.”

  ROBIN

  INT. METROWEST HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA—DAY

  Robin is waiting in the line for sandwiches and wraps. All around him are people he’s known for years, people who never seem to see him unless he greets them first.

  The line inches forward. Finally, it’s his turn to choose his food. Picking up a tuna wrap as usual, he slouches over to the cashier. This line, too, is long and slow. This cafeteria is what hell might be like, Robin thinks, surveying the familiar scene.

  Metrowest High students of different races don’t break bread together. Apart from Martin’s table of musicians and actors, the large, sunny room is filled with tables of only white kids and tables of only Asian kids. Black students eat lunch outside on the stairs, and Hispanic kids gather in the gym. Robin’s history teacher once asked her class to discuss whether this self-selected, divided eating arrangement was a legacy from Boston’s racist past. They’d had a fiery debate, with Robin silently agreeing each time one of his classmates used a swear word to put down the cafeteria.

  Someone brushes by him. It’s Sona Patel, a transfer from another school. Bangles clink on her wrists as she cuts right in front of Robin. He steps back, but not too far. Her waist-length black hair is silky and smells like coconuts.

  “That kid behind you was next,” the cashier tells Sona.

  “Sorry,” Sona says, turning and spotting Robin. “I didn’t see you.”

  Of course she didn’t. He shifts back again to give her more room. “It’s okay,” he says.

  Lots of interested eyes have been checking out Sona’s curvy figure and nose-ringed, friendly face ever since she arrived last year. But to Robin, a girl like this is as far out of his league as Gamora is from Quill at the start of Guardians of the Galaxy. Okay, so in the sequel they get together, but that’s fantasy, not real life.

  Sona pays for her lunch, and Robin watches her hair shimmer as she carries her tray to the desi table by the windows. That one’s reserved for the dozen or so Indian kids at Metrowest, but Robin’s never felt desi enough to join them. Case in point: When he first heard the word, he had to search online to learn that it meant “people of Indian descent who live outside of India.”

  Technically, this is true for Robin, but nobody else at that table has two white parents. Desis grow up learning Tamil or Hindi or some other Indian language, taking Indian dance classes, worshipping in a temple or a mosque, visiting India to see relatives. Robin speaks only English, dances in church when Ms. Vee grabs his hand and swings him out to the aisle, and hasn’t been back to India in fifteen years, even though his parents ask regularly if he wants to go. They’ve suggested Bangla lessons, attending Bengali Association events, or joining one of the Indian adoptee organizations in the Boston area, but Robin always says no.

  Trying to be a Thornton is tough enough.

  Trying to be a Bengali Thornton feels like an impossible mission.

  “Got your card, kid?” the cashier growls.

  He hands her the payment card that Mom loads for him at the start of every semester. Scooping up his tuna wrap, he trudges across the room to sit with Brian. Robin’s eaten lunch for the last three and a half years at this table of white jocks. Another mind-numbing habit from childhood—sticking close to Brian’s side.

  He slides into an empty chair.

  “Hey,” Brian says.

  “Hey.”

  A couple of other guys at the table greet him, but sitting here makes him feel more invisible than ever. Like Shorty in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he thinks. A small, Asian foil, only in the scene to prove that the main character’s a decent guy.

  He remembers overhearing a new football player asking—okay, in a lowered voice, but still—why the Indian kid was sitting at their table.

  “We’ve been friends for fifteen years, jerk,” Brian answered loudly. “We go to the same church. So shut the hell up.”

  As he peels the plastic from the tuna wrap, Robin wonders who’s going to take his role when Brian’s at college. Meanwhile, what’s an abandoned sidekick supposed to do on his own? There’s not enough material for a full-length feature, that’s for sure.

  KAT

  INT./EXT. LOGAN AIRPORT, BOSTON—NIGHT—TRAVELING

  Sacred Ibis, Kat thinks as she extends her hand to Saundra’s great-aunt. The Ibis’s ancient body is slim, elegant, and strong. She’s tall, too. Almost as tall as Kat. She grips her walker with one hand and shakes Kat’s hand firmly with the other. “Is that your only coat, Miss King?”

  Kat looks down at her leather jacket. Big, black, and loose, like her T-shirt and jeans, to camouflage her figure. Along with her don’t-mess-with-this scowl, black clothes are her armor to keep canines at bay.

  “Early March might signal spring in California, but not here,” says the Ibis. “Don’t worry. I have an extra down jacket and gloves and a hat.”

  There’s a traffic jam exiting the airport, and although Saundra’s great-aunt argues with the cab driver over the best route, they both end up laughing. She tells him to call her “Ms. Vee” ten minutes into the ride. When they finally emerge from a long tunnel, Kat gazes at the city lights on the horizon. The Boston skyline seems compact compared to her sprawling City by the Bay.

  They stay on the highway for a bit, with the Ibis and the driver—Abdul, from Nigeria—swapping stories about their villages “back home.” Even though she’s lived in Boston for years, Saundra’s great-aunt is originally from Sierra Leone. The cab pulls off an exit to wind through a dark, quiet suburb. By now, the driver’s turned off the meter.

  “This is it,” the Ibis says, gesturing at an older building with two front doors. “It’s a two-family. A medical resident lives next door. I water her plants; she keeps an eye on me. Fine arrangement for both of us.”

  Kat climbs out of the car. Moonlight is shining on the snow-covered patch of lawn. The old avian is trying to make the driver accept a twenty, but he’s refusing to take it. Kat shivers on the icy sidewalk. Early March in Boston is definitely not springtime.

  The driver wins the tussle over the cash and hauls Kat’s suitcases up the stairs to one of the doors.

  “You stop by for lunch anytime, young man,” the Ibis tells him. “I make the best jollof rice this side of Freetown. And if you’re in a hurry I can send you off with takeout.”

  Kat’s stomach clenches. What is she doing? This dude’s a total stranger, and she’s inviting him over? Maybe she’s changed since Saundra’s last visit. Gotten dementia or something.

  The driver grins and runs down the stairs to his cab. Meanwhile, the Ibis is fumbling through keys to unlock the door. After a few minutes, it swings open. “Be it ever so humble. Come in, Miss King. Have a look around. It’s not big, but it’s home.”

  Kat waits until the deadbolt turns and the door chain is secured. Then she drags her suitcases into the small entry, takes off her jacket, and hangs it in the front closet. The half a building is small and old-fashioned. The kitchen adjoins the living room, and the appliances look like they’re from the 1980s. Red flowers in clay pots bloom on every windowsill.

  “Admiring my begonias? They’re worth the cost of the heat they need to thrive. Speaking of that—we start school as soon as you settle in a bit. Will this machine help us stay in touch with your teachers in California?”

  Kat takes the slim, silvery laptop from her and looks it over. It’s not new but it’s a much faster model than the one she’s brought from home. She hopes it costs less than two hundred bucks because that’s all the spending money she has. Even that was a parting gift from Saundra; Mom’s more broke than usual after that last-minute plane ticket.

  MY last two zoo paychecks were in our account, Kat remembers, getting angry all over again. “It’s a good one,” she says out loud. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Not a penny. The last time I taught, my students didn’t use computers. When my friend Marjorie heard that I’m planning to teach a
gain, she insisted on giving us this one. Now come along; you can unpack and settle in while I heat up our dinner.”

  Kat pulls her suitcases into a small guest room off the kitchen—bed, chest of drawers, wooden floors with fluffy white rug by the bed, nightstand with a vase of fragrant white roses. White sheets, white towels, white blanket, white soap. Everything in the tidy little room is white. Everything except Kat, her clothes, and her new teacher, whose eyes take in all the black stuff Kat starts arranging in the empty drawers.

  “I’ll give you a shout when dinner’s on the table,” she says, and leaves Kat to it.

  Kat finishes unpacking before she turns on her phone. Immediately, texts swoop in from Mom.

  Did you make it, darling?

  Kat?

  Did you land?

  Text when you get this.

  How’s Ms. Jones?

  Come on, Kat. Are you going to stay mad the whole time you’re gone?

  And from Saundra: Text your mom, Filhote. Cut her some slack.

  Kat sighs and answers both of them at once: Made it. Tired. Good night. She puts her phone back on airplane mode before they can answer.

  Nothing from Brittany or Amber, but they’re not daily-contact friends. They text only when there’s a biology assignment due or an ACT prep session to attend. Kat’s never visited their homes and they certainly haven’t come to her apartment. She’s not sure they know she’s in Boston, or whether she’ll even tell them. By now, Sanger students have probably heard something from a teacher or a staff member like “Katina King will be taking a break until the end of the semester.” She can imagine Dr. Mitchell telling everyone to “give her space and honor her privacy.”

  Vomit. Puke. The entire school is lifting that Wolf’s fist high in the air. And the winner is—

  “Katina! Dinner!”

  The table is set with two bowls of piping-hot stew. Tender, sautéed greens and black-eyed beans. Steaming rice. Chocolate cake, too, from scratch, with WELCOME, KATINA in icing swirls across the top.