Love Is a Revolution Read online

  I read it twice, let the meaning sink in.

  “All right, I’m all finished here,” Grandma says.

  Even though I just made myself comfortable, I get up from the sofa and put my shoes back on. We leave Grandma’s apartment and make our way to the lounge, also known as the recreation room. The room is a long rectangular space with sofas and armchairs dividing the room so that on one side, people can sit and watch the big-screen television that is always turned up so loud it’s a wonder people outside can’t hear the reruns of Matlock. The other side of the room has bookshelves with books, board games, and magazines. There are square tables with mismatched chairs and a card table against the wall where pieces of Grandma’s puzzle are neatly laid out.

  A man with a short salt-and-pepper beard is sitting at Grandma’s table. Next to him is an oversized mason jar full of iced cold tea sitting on the table, staining the wood with its condensation. “Well, what you say? Is this Miss Nala?” He smiles and wobbles up to shake my hand. “Oh, don’t look worried—I’m no psychic; your grandma just talks about you all the time. She’s shown me pictures,” he says. “You can call me JT.”

  “Hi, JT. Yes, I’m Nala.”

  JT sits down and brushes his wrinkled fingers over the puzzle pieces. “You come to help us put this thing together? Me and your grandma been plugging away at it all week.”

  Grandma sits down. “It’s Annie Lee’s The Beginning of Jazz.” She holds up the box. “Just beautiful, isn’t it? Over a thousand pieces, though, so it’s taking a while.”

  I join them at the table and start working.

  Grandma clears her throat and says, “JT, what you got there in that jar? Diet iced tea, I hope.”

  “No, ma’am. Now I done told you, a man my age ought to be able to eat and drink whatever he wants whenever he wants—”

  “Your doctor said—”

  “I don’t care nothing about what them doctors are saying. I ain’t never smoked, ain’t never had not one ounce of alcohol in this body. If sweet tea take me out, then so be it.” JT takes a long sip of his tea.

  Grandma shakes her head. “All right, okay.”

  I laugh because this sounds like an exchange Grandma would have with my mom or with Aunt Ebony. Not necessarily about how much sugar they are consuming, but she’d be fussing about something. She is the queen at fussing at people—making sure they are eating enough of the right thing, that they are wearing the appropriate clothes based on the weather, that they are getting enough sleep.

  This is how Grandma loves.

  JT takes another drink from his glass and starts spreading out puzzle pieces. He snaps them in place, and we work silently until my phone buzzes and sends trembles across the table.

  It’s Tye.

  I send it to voice mail.

  I can feel Grandma looking at me.

  The phone buzzes again, alerting me that Tye has left a voice message.

  I turn the phone over and keep working on the puzzle.

  “Well, someone sure did put a smile on your face,” Grandma says. “Who is he?”

  “What makes you think it was a guy calling?”

  “Only young puppy love brings about that kind of grin. You can’t even contain yourself.” Grandma smiles, and then she looks at JT and says, “I know that smile. I know that feeling.”

  JT smiles at her, and I realize that maybe JT is not just a neighbor who hangs out in the lounge with Grandma. Maybe he is more.

  “So, who is he?” Grandma asks again.

  “His name is Tye. I just met him, he’s not . . . ​we’re not—”

  “He makes you smile. That’s a good start,” Grandma says. She goes on fitting puzzle pieces together.

  My phone buzzes again. This time it’s a text message from Tye wanting to know what time I get off work. Just seeing the words “off work” fills me with guilt. I type back in an hour and turn my phone over.

  Soon, Grandma’s friends join us. Ms. Norma—who is always knitting something, Ms. Louise—who dresses up every day like she’s going someplace fancy, and Ms. Mabel—who uses a scooter and is known to not-so-accidently run into people she’s annoyed with. They don’t help with the puzzle; they just sit and watch and gossip.

  Ms. Norma starts it off. “You all hear that racket last night with Catherine’s grandchildren running around here like they ain’t got no home training?” She is sitting in the rocking chair, swaying back and forth, pulling her needle in and out of the yarn.

  Ms. Mabel nods her head. “Girl, yes. I don’t know why them kids are allowed to run around the halls.”

  The women laugh.

  “No home training at all,” Ms. Mabel says. “Look at the wall right there. Catherine’s grandson marked it all up with a crayon. They just going to leave it there?”

  “Maybe they think it’s art,” Ms. Louise says, laughing.

  Grandma says, “Hmm. Would be nice to actually have some art on these walls. Everything here is so bland.” She points to the wall on the other side of the room. It is a dingy white with only one medium-sized framed photo of a field of flowers centered in the middle. “That’s a sad, sad wall,” she says.

  Just then, JT clears his throat. “Um, Nala, I think maybe someone is here for you.” He points toward the door.

  I turn around. “Tye?”

  “Ah, the boy who makes her smile,” Grandma says.

  “Tye, what . . . why . . . what are you doing here?”

  “I thought we could hang out this evening. You said you got off work in an hour.”

  “Work?” Grandma asks.

  I quickly walk Tye out into the hallway before Grandma asks any more questions. I didn’t realize how much time went by. “Um, I’m glad you stopped by,” I say.

  “I hope I’m not going to get you in trouble with your boss. I guess I should have just waited outside.”

  “No, no—it’s fine. Um, give me a minute to get my stuff. Wait out here.”

  When I go back into the recreation room, Grandma and her friends have moved on to talking about how hot it is this summer, hotter than they ever remember New York being in July, and JT is saying, “Maybe this climate change thing is real.”

  I wait for a moment before interrupting. “Excuse me, Grandma, I, um, I have to go. I forgot that I have a, I have a thing to go to.” A thing? Clearly I need to get better at lying.

  Grandma stands. “A thing, huh? Well, it was nice to get some time with you.” We hug and she walks me to the door.

  “You don’t have to see me out. I’m okay.”

  “Oh, no, I want to meet this thing of yours,” Grandma says, smiling brighter than Harlem’s sun. All the women laugh.

  JT adds, “And let me know if I need to have any words with this thing. You know, man-to-man,” he says as he winks at me.

  I walk into the hallway with Grandma. Tye is leaning against the wall scrolling on his phone. He puts it away once he sees us. “Oh, hello. Hi,” he says.

  “This is my grandmother, Ms. June,” I tell him.

  Tye reaches out his right hand. They shake. “Nice to meet you, Ms. June. I’m Tye.”

  “All right, well, we’re going to go.” I try to keep this short so Tye doesn’t start asking about my job that doesn’t exist. We say our goodbyes, and I think I’ve made it out without any awkwardness but just as we get to the door, Tye turns around and says, “Maybe I’ll come back and volunteer here too. Must be nice having Nala working here.” Grandma looks confused. I don’t give her time to try to make sense of what Tye just said. I quickly wave goodbye and walk away as fast as I can.

  “You like Ethiopian food?” Tye asks. We’re walking along 135th, just past the YMCA at Adam Clayton Powell.

  “I’ve never had it,” I admit.

  “Oh, we’ve got to go. It’s, like, one of my favorite kinds of food.” Tye keeps walking toward Frederick Douglass. Before we get to the end of the block, he stops and says, “This is one of my favorite spots. My uncle takes me here a lot.” He opens the
door to Abyssinia Ethiopian Restaurant, and I walk in. The lights are low, and there aren’t that many people inside. A brown woman greets us and takes us to a table at the window.

  I look over the menu and ask, “What are you getting?” Thinking I’ll follow his lead. He says, “The veggie platter. You want to share?”

  “Oh, sure,” I say.

  Is this a date?

  Tye closes his menu. “So the thing about Ethiopian food is that you eat it with your hands. No forks. You okay with that?”

  Absolutely not, I think. “Sure,” I say. I excuse myself to the bathroom so I can wash my hands. I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I look away before I really have to see myself. What am I doing?

  By the time I am back at the table, the server has come and taken our order. I can tell because the menus are gone and we both have full glasses of water. I take a sip. “So, all I know about you is that you’re active in Inspire Harlem and you enjoy volunteering and doing work in the community. What else is there to know about Tye Brown?”

  “I think that about sums me up. That’s who I am.”

  “That can’t be true. You don’t have any hobbies? No family? What do you care about?” I ask. “Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know what to say—I, let’s see, I care about leaving this world in better shape than it is for us. My uncle always tells me that’s my sole responsibility. He’s always saying some quote about service being the rent we pay for our room here on earth.”

  “Are you two close?” I ask.

  “Yeah. My uncle is kind of like my dad.” Tye clears his throat, and for the first time, he looks away from me.

  “I understand. My aunt is like my mom. I live with her.”

  “Imani’s mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  I can tell Tye wants to ask me a question, that he wants to know more about me and my mom and why I don’t live with her, but I think he knows that if he asks about me, I’ll ask about his situation, so he just takes a sip of water, looks out the window. And I’m glad because I don’t want to talk about my mom today.

  Our food comes on the biggest platter I’ve ever seen. When the server sets it on the table, I immediately smell ginger and garlic and spices I don’t know the names of. Tye seems happy to change the subject. “Okay, here we go,” he says, pointing to each section of the oversized plate. “These are vegetable sambusas,” he says. “And this is cabbage . . . potatoes . . . collards . . . split peas . . . and chickpeas.” Then he points to a spongy-looking bread and tells me, “This is injera. The best part of the meal.” Tye shows me how to stuff the food into small pieces of the injera, and we start eating—me making a mess, him being neat and put together.

  I don’t ask any more questions about family, but I do go back to my question about what he likes to do. “So, when you’re not hosting a talent show or planning community block parties, what is Tye Brown doing?”

  He laughs. “I don’t know. Reading, I guess. I like to read.”

  Reading? “So, what you’re telling me is you don’t have any fun, like, ever?”

  “I have fun all the time. I like volunteering, and reading is, I don’t know—it’s relaxing, and I learn a lot about other people—”

  “Tye, you’ve got to start doing things that aren’t about speaking up for anyone, aren’t about learning about someone else’s culture—just fun. It’s summer. You can’t waste it being so serious all the time.” I take a big bite of food. So far, the greens and chickpeas are my favorite. Maybe being vegetarian isn’t so bad. I swallow, then say, “I’m going to teach you how to have fun.”

  “And what do you want me to teach you?” Tye asks.

  He looks me in the eyes, and I think he might be putting a spell on me. I can’t talk or move. I want to lean forward, kiss him, and tell him something provocative about all the things he can teach me, but instead, I take a long drink of water.

  “What, you don’t think I can teach you anything?”

  I try to think of something clever to say. I flirt back. “Well, what do you want to teach me?”

  “Do you have any questions about Inspire Harlem?”

  Oh, wait. He’s being literal. He really wants to teach me something.

  “I thought maybe you might want to continue the conversation we were having the other night when we were all talking about music and the messages we get from media. Seems like you had a lot more to say.”

  This is not a date.

  “I, um, no—I don’t have anything else to say about that.”

  “Oh, because, you know, if you ever, um . . . ​if you ever want to talk about stuff or ask me questions or just, I don’t know, tell me what’s on your—”

  “Are you trying to recruit me for Inspire Harlem? Is that why you’re spending time with me?”

  “What? No. No—why would you . . . ​no.” Tye is sweating a little, so he wipes his brow with his napkin. “I guess I’m not good at this. What I’m trying to say is, I want to get to know you. I just—I don’t know, you seem like you have a lot you want to say but you don’t say it. The other night, I really wanted to hear your thoughts. You can, um, if you want, you can talk to me.” Then, Tye starts laughing. “I guess I could have just said that instead of trying to be cool with the whole what can I teach you thing.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  We are laughing, and my nerves settle a bit. And I realize Tye is just as nervous as I am.

  Maybe this is a date.

  “I want to get to know you too,” I tell him.

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He picks up his glass and offers a toast. “Here’s to a new friendship.”

  Friendship?

  Then this is not a date.

  I slowly lift my glass, clink it against his. To friendship . . . for now. But by the end of summer, I’ll figure out a way to get him to want more, to want me.

  We start eating again, and Tye says, “The other day Ms. Lori had us working on our college applications. There’s a series of workshops Inspire Harlem is offering—financial aid, writing the personal essay . . . ​have you started yet?”

  “Um, yeah. I’m trying to get early decision too.”

  “Let me know if you ever want to work on your essay together. Maybe we can write together and swap to give each other feedback.”

  “Sure,” I say. I’m not as far along as I should be, so it might take a while. And by not as far along, I mean I haven’t started. I have no idea what college I want to go to. I don’t even know what I want to do, who I want to be. I get good grades and all, but I think I should do a community college first, then a university. I don’t know if Aunt Ebony is going to go for that. One of the agreements I committed to when I moved in was to keep my grades up and excel in school. Going to college was implied.

  Both Aunt Ebony and Aunt Liz have master’s degrees. My mom doesn’t even have her bachelor’s. No one in the family has ever outright said it to me, but the unspoken hope is that I don’t turn out like my mom. That alone is one reason that makes me want to go. I might not enroll to a big fancy school right away, but I’m going to one day. Even my mom wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Our conversation goes on and on. The server has taken our plate, given us hand wipes, and refilled our glasses so many times, I’ve lost count. Tye is full of questions, asking me what movie I last saw, what my favorite thing to do on a Saturday is. We talk about our childhoods—favorite cartoons we watched, games we used to play, and then Tye says, “Okay, so Nala Robertson loved Rugrats and Dora the Explorer, used to be the double dutch queen of her block, loves the singer Blue, is a vegetarian, and works as a program coordinator at Sugar Hill Senior Living.”

  “Yep. That pretty much sums me up.” Well, kind of.

  “Any pet peeves?” Tye asks. “I’ve got to know what not to do.”

  I laugh. “Um, I don’t know. Smacking,” I say. “I hate when people chew with their mouths open, you know? It just really annoys me
.”

  “Um, is this your way of telling me I was chewing with my mouth open?”

  “Not at all. You have perfect manners.” Perfect everything. “What about you?” I ask. “What are your pet peeves?”

  “People who randomly sing out loud.”

  I laugh. “Really? What do you have against music?” I tease.

  “I just—come on! No one wants to hear an off-tune version of a stranger’s favorite song.”

  “But what if they can sing?”

  “Nope. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to hear music through someone’s headphones. If a person’s music is so loud that I can hear it, that’s a problem. It’s so annoying.”

  “Got it,” I say. “I will never burst out in song when I am with you. And I will keep all music I am listening to, to myself. Anything else I should know about you?”

  “Liars,” Tye says. “I can’t stand it when people lie to me.”

  And this is when I remember who I really am.

  “So,” Tye says. “About this fun you are going to teach me to have . . . where to next?”

  5

  I tell Tye to meet me at Riverbank in two hours. That’s enough time for me to get ready—to change out of my regular, I-didn’t-know-I-was-going-to-see-a-fine-boy-today clothes into something more suitable for a date. Riverbank overlooks the Hudson River and has an Olympic-sized pool, a wading pool, tennis courts, basketball courts, and an eight-lane track with a field that is sometimes for football, sometimes for soccer. But to be honest, I don’t really care about all of that. I come for the skating rink. Now that it’s summer, the rink has ended its ice skating hours and is strictly for roller skating. Tonight is Teen Skate Night, where the lights are dark and everything glows bright and fluorescent and the DJ plays all the best songs, one song leaning into the next like falling dominoes.