“Oh, we had a potluck here. Hakim invited all of the friends and family he has in New York over. To meet me.”

There was a funnel of silence I didn’t dare fill with my latest scheme.

“What about you and Annette?” Jewel said.

“Oh, Ma ate at Glenda’s,” I said.

“Just your ma? You didn’t go?”

I sucked in as much as I could before I started.

“Well, me and Ma don’t live together no more.”

“What? I thought all that shit had been settled—”

“It’s not that. It’s something else … I lied about being pregnant.”

I heard Jewel gasp, then breathe a shuddered sigh where I could tell she was shaking her head. Probably leaning on something now. Probably with her eyes closed.

“Shivana,” she moaned, her disappointment so apparent in the couple of extra seconds it took her to get out my name. “Baby …”

“Please, don’t be mad, Aunt Jewel.”

A cornrowed, plump-faced girl waddled close to me, but turned back around with her hands on her hips when she saw tears streaming down my face. As she rounded the corner, I was startled by her humungous belly with its huge brown navel poking through her T-shirt.

“How did this happen?” Jewel asked after several minutes where neither of us said a word.

“I don’t know,” I lied. “I just wasn’t careful.”

“With that boy Hakim caught you with?”

I figured no response to that would mean I hadn’t lied.

“I never meant for this to happen.”

“So Annette put you out?” Jewel asked.

“No,” I said, finally calming down. “I left on my own. I knew it would be bad after I told her, so I moved into this shelter for girls.”

“What kind of shelter? Where the hell are you … hey, I’ll be off the phone in a minute!”

“It’s not like the Salvation Army or nothing,” I explained. “It’s nice. These church ladies run it and I’m sharing my room. I still have to go to school. And they makin’ me go to church. And I have to stay in contact with somebody so I figured that person could be you.”

“So you telling me your mother has no idea where you are or what’s going on?”

I couldn’t answer her. Who was I kidding? I was going to be too terrified to make that last, most important phone call.

“I figured you could tell her,” I suggested. “Just tell her I lied to y’all. I can’t talk to her right now.”

“Oh, so you grown enough to get pregnant and run off, but can’t face your mama? You grown when you want to be?”

“I guess so.” Wasn’t no used to lying about it.

“How are you going to drop your responsibility on me now? And I know you stole Hakim’s money.”