Kendra by Coe Booth Read Free Book Online Page A

fine,” I say.
    “Fine isn’t good enough.” Her face is so serious, too. “Anybody can get fine grades. Don’t you want to stand out?”
    I shrug. “Yeah, I guess so.”
    Renée kinda shakes her head, and inside I feel like I’m missing something. Like me and her aren’t really talking to each other. Not like we were last night. And I don’t know what changed.
    By the time I get dressed, Renée is in the living room on her cell phone, laughing with somebody about something that happened last night. Nana is in the kitchen having breakfast. I go in there and pour myself a glass of apple juice, the little Renée left in the container, and remind Nana that I’m gonna be late again today because of dress rehearsal.
    “Dress rehearsal?” she asks, and I can’t believe it, but she actually looks all confused like she don’t know what I’m talking about. Never mind the fact that I told her about this at least ten times already. Sometimes I don’t know about her. I kinda think she’s too young to have Alzheimer’s, so probably she’s just forgetting things on purpose.
    But it’s kinda annoying, especially so early in the morning. “You know,” I say real slow, trying to be patient with her. “We’re running through the whole show with costumes and set changes and all that. Then we’re having a pizza party. Remember?”
    She sighs, aggravated. “How much is this going to cost me?”
    “Nothing. Kenny gave me the money last week. It was only five dollars, anyway.”
    I know Nana would like to complain about Kenny more than she already does. But she can’t. Everybody knows Kenny don’t have a dime to his name, and still, every couple of weeks, there he is at our door with his little envelope for Nana. It’s never a whole lot of money, only about thirty or forty dollars at the most, but even she knows it’s the best he can do.
    “Okay,” Nana says. “Just don’t be out there to all hours of the night.” She drinks a little of her green tea and makes the face she does after every single sip. It’s crazy. The only reason she even started drinking the stuff is because Oprah said it’s supposed to be good for you. After she heard that, she started making herself drink it twice a day, every day. Morning and night. Funny thing is, she always has a big slice of Entenmann’s pecan danish with it, so it’s probably not gonna improve her health all that much, in my opinion.
    “I’m gonna come home as soon as it’s over,” I tell her in that goody-goody way that always makes Adonna laugh. “ Straight home.”
    Renée comes back into the kitchen to throw something in the garbage, still singing along with Luther.
    “I better get going,” Nana says, finishing her tea and making the face again. She gets up from the table and puts her dishes in the sink. “Clyde is picking me up and I don’t need to have that man out there waiting for me.”
    Me and Renée glance at each other and then look away fast so we don’t bust out laughing. And it’s a lot of work, too. Nana rushes outta the kitchen and opens the hall closet. Then, liketwo seconds later, she has her jacket on and she’s flying outta there. “Bye, girls,” she says, then don’t even wait for us to say bye back.
    That’s when me and Renée lose it. We’re laughing for a good two minutes. Hard, too. “I can’t believe that’s my mother,” she says. “The woman’s acting like a teenager, all giddy and shit.”
    “I know,” I say. “It’s weird.”
    “You think she’s in love with this guy?”
    I shrug. “I don’t know. You ever seen her in love before?”
    Renée shakes her head. “Never.” Then her cell phone rings again and she runs into the living room to get it.
    I throw away the apple juice container. Then, while I wait for Adonna, I wash all the dishes so I won’t have to hear Nana’s mouth when I get home from play practice, talking about how could I leave the sink full of dishes when I know how hard we have it, trying