Deal With It Read Free Page B

needed, because we had just talked about it until two o’clock in the morning. He needed me in an intimate way. “Can I please have my phone?”
    He claimed that everybody who was anybody was having sex, and the fact that we weren’t having it bothered him. “No pressure,” he’d said just before hanging up, “but I really need you, Tameka.”
    Those were the words that had been stuck in my head until I finally dozed off at four o’clock in the morning. The thought of sex had me shaking in my boots. Not because I was afraid to do it—because I had done it before—but because of the consequences of it. I had done it with Jeff, who had promised that we would be together forever. But the truth was, our forever had ended last semester. My virginity was gone, with nothing left to show for it—no fairy-tale wedding like we’d planned. No big house and three kids after we’d both graduated from college. Nothing. I’d sworn that the next time I gave it up to someone, it would be when I was grown and married. I was afraid to tell Vance that, afraid that the words “until we get married” would scare him away. So instead, I danced around the issue. Hoped that he would forget all about it, and we could just go on with our lives and not have to talk about it.
    “You know what we’ve always talked about, Tameka. You don’t let nobody into your pocketbook until you’re good and ready….” Mommy finally handed my phone over. She didn’t know that someone had already been in my pocketbook and had stolen everything in it.
    She had this thing about girls having sex with boys—she thought that teenagers should practice abstinence. Like that would ever happen in the real world. Just because she got pregnant with me when she was sixteen didn’t mean that every teenager in the world would wind up pregnant, too.
    “There are diseases, or worse, pregnancy. Can you afford to bring a child into this world, Tameka? You’re still a child yourself.”
    I’d heard this speech a million times, and a million times I’d had to convince her that I knew what I was doing. That I wouldn’t wind up with HIV/AIDS or some nasty venereal disease. And more than anything, I wouldn’t wind up pregnant. The times that Jeff and I did it, we always used protection. So why was she worrying?
    “Tameka, I want only what’s best for you. I can’t live your life for you, but I can teach you what’s right. I know my life hasn’t been the best example. Hey, I was pregnant at sixteen and then married shortly thereafter. I never finished high school, never got to go to college, missed a lot of parties and fun.” She was getting way too serious now. “I don’t regret having you, sweetie. I love you to death, and I’m glad you’re here. And I don’t even regret marrying your father. We have a great life together, and he’s a wonderful husband. But I regret not having a say in my life. The choices were already made for me.”
    I’d lost count of how many times I’d heard this speech. It had been branded into my memory since the age of twelve. I could repeat it verbatim, but she insisted on telling it to me over and over again.
    “Okay, so I didn’t mean to put a damper on our girls’ day, but I had to get that out,” she sighed. “You feel me, though?”
    “I feel you, and I’m not doing anything stupid.”
    Instead of replying to Vance’s text message, I just shut my phone.
    Dressed in matching flannel pajamas from Victoria’s Secret, Mommy and I spent the rest of the afternoon slumming—talking about hairstyles and stuffing our faces. I know she didn’t mean to put a damper on the day, but the damage was already done.

three
    Vance
    Basketball practice was different today. As we scrimmaged with the junior varsity team, our nerves were on edge because somebody had said there was a scout in the bleachers, checking out our practice. He was the same dude that I’d spotted at our homecoming game, and then again, at our game against