I could feel her looking at me, so I turned around. Her mouth curled up in a half smile around a cigarette. It smelled so nasty. Smoke swirled around her, filling up the space between the kitchen and the living room.

“Your mama know you up here?”

I remembered that Mama knew the Buchanans’ phone number. My heart started beating fast because all she needed to do was call Mama, and I would be in so much trouble. I didn’t get to lie, though, because she continued.

“She know you up in Gail Buchanan’s apartment?”

She asked the question, and then started laughing. The laugh ended with a cough that vibrated the phlegm in her throat. She put a hand on the cabinet and bent a little, coughing. When she got herself together, she said, wiping her eyes, “So you hang out with Stace?”

I nodded. I had been hanging out with Stace almost as soon as she transferred to Farren earlier that year. Gail made a sound, looked me up and down, and walked away.

Moon finally left the bathroom, and Gail went in, commenting on how bad it smelled in there. Sweat hadn’t moved, but Stacia’s older sisters Pumpkin and Peach were now up and trying to get into the bathroom too. They looked funny: Peach’s ponytail leaned to the side, her gelled baby hairs all smashed and crooked, eye makeup smudged. Pumpkin’s hair was wrapped around like a beehive, clipped with a million bobby pins.

There were ten people in that apartment, with one bathroom. I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t believe that so many people could live in one place. Doors were opening and closing, people were yelling across halls. Still no sign of life from Sweat. Gail left the bathroom and went back into the kitchen. Peach and Pumpkin were fighting to get into the bathroom next. Peach pushed Pumpkin into the wall, making a loud thud, but no one stopped to check on her. Gail didn’t try to break up the fight. Instead, while moving some pots and pans around, and balancing that same cigarette on her bottom lip, she said, “You look just like your damned daddy.”

My mouth eased open in shock. She let out a bark of laughter, and it shook her cigarette again.

“You knew my daddy?”

“Everybody knew your daddy,” she said, and started laughing again, then coughing. “Shit, Stan was almost your daddy.”

“Stan?”

“Stan Brown. He got a little girl your age. Special? Unique? What’s that girl’s name?”

“Precious,” Stacia said, coming into the living room and leaning on the edge of the bar. “Yeah, her daddy.” I looked at Gail with my mouth still open. My stomach felt like it was going to shrivel up like a raisin. She laughed, then said, “You didn’t know that, huh? Janice and Stan. Ask your mama.”