Friends: A Love Story Read Online Free Page B

treated. My mother got tight with Mr. Anders. He was like a father figure to everyone. Between Mama and Mr. Anders they had their eye on me. “You make sure she’s doing what she’s supposed to,” my mother told Mr. Anders and he stayed on the case. He would tell Mama, “Miss Betty, Angela can be this. Angela can be that. Angela can go to college.”
    In the meantime, my mother was laying down the law: “A isexcellent, B is above average and C is average. I don’t have no average children. Don’t bring home no Cs,” she’d say in her usual melodramatic way. Mess up academically, and you’ll be off of cheerleading, off of this, off of that.
    â€œI ain’t average,” I started thinking. I hadn’t considered this before. “I’m above average—excellent!” My mother implanted such high academic expectations in me that I began to believe her. It was a real turning point. She had prepared me to be independent. “You’re going to college,” she would say. She thought fly, fly, fly, little bird. Drop the eaglet out of the nest and she’ll flap her wings before—splat!—she hits the ground. And then she’ll pick herself up and try to fly again. I think that was her intention from the beginning.
    So I did well in school—I was the first black person in my high school to be admitted to the National Honor Society. But I didn’t work too hard—I did my academics enough to impress the teachers and Mr. Anders. I was popular and hung out with everybody. When I got off the bus in the morning at school I’d go to Bible study with the good, straight Bible kids. Then I’d hang out in the dining room with the nerdy kids. When I started reading poetry and performing monologues and doing little plays, I’d hang out with that crowd. I also hung out with the cool kids—I was a cheerleader until I pulled a hamstring and couldn’t do the splits anymore. I hung out with all different groups of people. I wanted to be good, but I also wanted to hang.
    But all this monitoring by Mom, Mr. Anders and even Mr. Kreiver made me feel like, “Ugh, I can’t do anything! ” Unlike D’nette, who back then was a goody-goody, a drag—she’s the life of the party now—I was the kind of kid who wanted to get my foot up to the edge, hang it over and then come back before it got too dangerous. My mother smoked, so I would steal her cigarettes and hide them in the tears in the sofa cushions. When D’nette wasn’t home, I’d smoke my mother’s Winstons. My head would be swimming. Mom didn’t have any liquoraround so I didn’t drink. I wouldn’t try reefer even though I was around it a lot because of something my mother told me.
    â€œDo you know what grass is?” my mother would ask.
    â€œNoooo,” I’d answer, knowing full well I did.
    â€œGrass is not the stuff outside. It’s called marijuana and kids smoke it,” she’d say. “Once my cousin Connie gave me some and I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground.”
    I thought that was amazing—that she didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground. What did it do to you? I wondered. But then she’d go on this long talking jag with you—it could be for hours—about smoking marijuana. She’d be in the kitchen cooking and you just had to sit there at the table and listen. I didn’t want to try grass after that.
    At parties I’d be around people smoking reefer, which most of the kids were doing at the time. D’nette, who my mother made me take everywhere, would sit there with both hands over her nose and mouth—at the party!—trying not to breathe.
    â€œThey’re smoking reefers in here!”
    â€œYes, they are, but we’re not,” I’d whisper. “Why do you have to act like that? Can’t you be cool? You’re gonna embarrass