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He thought for a moment.What the fuck is Brunswick stew?“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“Something to drink?”
“Just water.”
She bounced into the kitchen while Bakari settled onto the couch. This wasn’t so bad. He thought about texting Danielle, but somehow it didn’t feel right. And he couldn’t risk getting caught.
“Here you go!” she said as she held out a bottle of Dasani.
He preferred Deer Park, but he was thirsty, and she was trying to be a good hostess. “Thanks,” he said.
She plopped down on the couch next to him and set two Budweisers on the table in front of them. “And these are just in case you wanna unwind.”
“Oh. I actually don’t drink during football season. Sorry.”
She pouted and tilted her head. “Don’t be like that. Nobody has to know.”
“I know but I can’t. I’m sorry. I gotta stay at the top of my game. Scouting is starting, and there’s too much riding on my performance.”
She stared at him, her expression unreadable, and he braced himself for what was coming next. But she simply smiled. “Okay, fair enough. So what’s up with your parents?”
“Just…stuff with my grades.”
“I thought your grades were good.”
“Not math.”
“But it’s just a progress report. Do they know that? They sound really strict.”
“Yeah. It’s deeper than that.”
Amanda crossed her legs in front of her in some kind of yoga pose. She reminded Bakari of a pretzel. “Frankly, I don’t get all the fuss. You don’t need good grades to play football. Any college program worth its salt will be throwing money at you, so fuck ‘em.” She elbowed him in the side. “Right?”
Bakari nodded. “Right.”
He took a sip of water and looked around the apartment. He’d only been here once before, but he hadn’t actually seen it; they had come in the front door and made a beeline to the bedroom.
The place was tiny, but it was nicely decorated. The entertainment unit had a fairly small TV in the center, but it was flanked by bookcases, which were filled to the brim. He hadn’t noticed them the first time. “Hey, can I look at your books?” he asked.
“Of course!”
She had all the classics, which were stored in their own section on the left side. The remaining half were more contemporary works. Poetry, some writing books, and a few style guides, and then the literature. Rows and rows of it, and many of them by people of color.
“Did you always wanna be an English teacher?” he said.
She took a sip from her beer. “I wanted to be a writer. I guess you could say I more soended upas an English teacher. The road between the two is very short, believe me, and it happens to be named Paycheck Lane.”
Bakari laughed. “I hear you. But why can’t you do both?”
“I could. I guess I’ve just lost the passion for it. Maybe you students killed it,” she said with a giggle. “Just kidding.”
“No, seriously. My pops is always pushing me to focus, focus, focus on one thing, like if you don’t give your all to that one thing, you’ll never do it well. But my mom, she told me I can do everything I wanna do. She says ‘you’re only limited by the hours in the day and your own laziness.’”
“That’s true, I guess.”
“What do you do when you come home after the school day is over?”
“Watch TV.”
