Tutored by Allison Whittenberg

their time was up. While they were getting themselves together, he said, “I almost forgot. I saw your movie.”
    “My movie?” she asked. “I have a movie?”
    “The jawn about the angry dudes.”
    She ran his words through her mind and tried hard to translate. “Oh,” she said finally, “you saw
Twelve Angry Men
?”
    “Yeah, I ain’t got to the end yet, but you reminded me of the guy who smoked,” he told her.
    “It was the nineteen-fifties, Hakiam. All the men smoked.”
    “No, the guy with the glasses,” he said.
    “A couple of guys had glasses.”
    “No, the guy who didn’t sweat.”
    “Oh, oh, you mean E.G. Marshall,” she said.
    “Yeah, he was cool.”
    Her eyes gleamed. “I’m cool?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, under pressure, you don’t get emotional.”
    Wendy frowned; Hakiam really didn’t know her at all. If only he were privy to her and her dad’s extra-inning volcanic arguments.
    Wendy gave him a small smile. “Well, where does emotion get you?”

25
    L eesa thumbed through the mail till she got to the letter from the state. “Well, it’s about goddamn time,” she said.
    Hakiam snatched it from her hand and opened it. He scanned its contents quickly. “You get a check to pay for child care?” he asked.
    She grabbed it back. “Yeah.”
    “Well, how come I don’t see any of it?”
    “Look, for the millionth time, you are living here for free.”
    “So are you, practically.”
    “If you don’t like the setup here, why don’t you hit up your people—”
    “You
are
my people,” he said.
    “Your Cincinnati people.”
    From the bedroom, Malikia started bawling.
    Hakiam spoke over her.
    “I want that check.”
    Leesa clucked her tongue and turned her head.
    “Okay, I’ll take half of it.”
    “Dream on, Hakiam.”
    “I deserve half of it,” he insisted.
    That made her laugh out loud.
    “You’re gonna be sorry about this,” he warned her.
    “Yeah, yeah,” she said.
    He felt like taking her throat into a vise grip. He wanted so badly to strangle her till her last breath. Instead, he chose to sting her with words. “You are one greedy bitch.”
    “Well, maybe that uppity girl you see will treat you better.”
    “Leave her out of it. She’s way better than you. At least she’s not cheap and petty like you are.”
    Leesa laughed again. “She cares even less about you than I do. And let me tell you something, Hakiam, that’s saying something.”
    Hakiam held up his hand to halt her words.
    Leesa kept right on talking. “I tell you why she’s going out with you. She’s curious. She just wants to see how the other half lives. You’re a science experiment to her.”
    Broiling, he let his cousin keep talking just to see where she would go. “Is that right?” he asked.
    “Yeah, that’s right. She’s not interested in Malikia, and she sure as hell ain’t interested in you.”
    “You know everything, Leesa.”
    She nodded and stuffed the check back into its envelope. “How could she be, Hakiam? You ain’t her kind.You ain’t going nowhere. You ain’t about nothing. She can’t take you around Mommy and Daddy. Beyond satisfying her curiosity, you’re worthless to her.”
    That was taking it too far. Hakiam wondered if Leesa realized the irony in what she was saying. She had said all this staring at him like he was a germ or something under a microscope, and she had room to criticize Wendy? Where did she get off?
    For the second time in a very short while, Hakiam stormed out of Leesa’s apartment.
    “Where are you going?” Leesa called after him.
    “Away from you.”

26
    T he seasonal display was kicking in at the mall, a giant leap from Halloween straight to Santa.
    Hakiam and Wendy sat at a wrought-iron table in the mall’s atrium; Wendy was singing the alphabet for Malikia’s benefit. Malikia was in the drooling stage, still moving in herky-jerky motions. Hakiam bopped his head, following along with the singsongy beat.
    “You follow along pretty