I crept back toward the front room to face Renelle, saw for the first time that almost all the oranging family pictures framed in the light blue hallway were held in cracked, raggedy frames. I smelled the burning candles, wanted to be Mrs. Washington—three months pregnant and all—bopping about and serenading Leroy with “Happy Birthday,” Stevie Wonder style. After I finished Leroy couldn’t stop smiling at his wife, but he peeked at me from the corner of his cat-yellow eyes. I stood close enough to see him spit a little on the cake when he blew out his candles. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I rocked back and forth on my heels with my arms folded tight. I was too worried I smelled bad to do anything else. Before Renelle could ask me to stay, Leroy had pulled a twenty from his wallet.

“Bring me my change next time,” he said, grinning and holding on to the bill a couple of seconds after I pulled on it.

I said the only thing I thought I was supposed to: “Okay.”

Renelle giggled like it was her birthday. She held on to her husband’s narrow hips, nuzzling him a bit before pulling back.

“Baby, you so silly.”

Then, without taking her eyes off her husband, “You want to stay and have some of this cake?”

I mumbled no and started toward the door.

“You sure you don’t want no cake, Shivana, some to take to your mother …?”

I was already closing the door when Leroy scolded his wife: “You heard the girl say naw the first time.”

NEITHER GROWN-UP HAD thought to see me to my door. That’s what 1992 had come to: boys were men with that first hair on the chest and girls were treated like grown women long before their bodies said so. Seeing this, I had long forced myself to look straight through, never straight at, all the things I should be afraid of. Like my building.