Excerpt: K My Name Is Kendra

Meisha gets quiet again for several moments, and then she finally gets around to asking about Uncle C.J., which I figured she would sooner or later.

“Has he been around lately?” she asks as she digs around in her purse. I get the feeling that she doesn’t really need anything in there. That she just really wants to hear about him, but she’s playing it off like it’s a casual question.

I don’t have too many memories from way back in the day, but I do remember clearly how tight Meisha and Uncle C.J. had been the summer before he was drafted out of college to play pro football. He lived in our basement back then, and he used to take her everywhere with him and buy her whatever she wanted. They laughed a lot together and always seemed to be sharing some private joke none of us ever got. She would pronounce his name seej and he started calling her babygirl. I remember wishing he would call me that.

“He doesn’t come into town much,” I say, trying to think of a way to change the subject because I don’t want to talk about my uncle right now. And I definitely don’t want to think about what happened the last time I saw him a few months ago.

He had come into town to do some pre-game interviews with the Redskins one Saturday and had stopped by the house unexpectedly early that morning to invite my father to go with him. Daddy was so excited that he didn’t even answer his brother, but he was upstairs and in the shower within seconds. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him move so fast in my life.

Mama was out grocery shopping that morning, Jada had spent the night at a slumber party, and Philip had gone to watch Aris coach the local high school track team, so it was just me and Uncle C.J. in the livingroom once Daddy went upstairs. He sat down on the couch beside me and started asking me how school was and what my favorite subjects were. He wanted to know if I had any hobbies and what I liked to do for fun. After I answered all his questions, he told me how much of a young lady I had become since he last saw me, which had to have been about three years ago, I think, because Mama always seemed to have something to do outside the house whenever he called to say he was in town and wanted to visit with us, and she always took me with her. Then he asked me if I had a boyfriend and I told him I didn’t―that Mama was not having that. He laughed and said that with a body like mine, Mama was right to keep boys from around me. Something about the way his eyes dropped to my chest and then down to my hips made me really uncomfortable. I was glad I could use the excuse that I had to get dressed to meet Nita. I got out of there quick and fast.

“But he does come around sometimes?” Meisha presses.

“Every now and then,” I say. I figure she must really miss him, so I promise to call her the next time he stops by.

She nods and then stares off into the distance like she’s lost in a memory, probably thinking about all the fun she used to have with Uncle C.J. I promise myself right then and there that I’ll never tell her about that day three months ago. Especially the part about him popping into my room a few moments after I had left him sitting downstairs on the couch. He had claimed that he’d come up to see what was taking my father so long, and that he’d made a wrong turn at the top of the stairs. But the way he looked me up and down as I stood in the middle of my room in my bra and panties told me he was no different than the boys Mama was trying to keep from coming around me. Then he had called me babygirl and asked me if I wanted to hang out with him some time. Stupid me said okay, because I just wanted him to leave.

He had stepped into the room instead, though, closing the door behind him softly as he mumbled something about giving me a hug, since it would probably be a while before we would actually see each other again. I remember trembling as he held me because it just didn’t feel right. He didn’t do any of the nasty things I’d heard boys at my school whisper about. But he did hold me too close for too long, and his hands moved over my bare skin in too many different directions for an uncle hugging his not-even-sixteen-year-old niece, especially when she’s not dressed in anything more than a bra and panties.

We both heard the shower in Daddy’s bathroom shut off down the hall, and that’s when Uncle C.J. pulled away. He gave me a soft kiss on the cheek, put his finger to his lips as if to tell me we had some secret to keep, and then he was gone.

I’m not sure why, but I cried for half an hour behind that. I never told anyone about it. And I wasn’t going to do it today, especially not to someone who loves him the way Meisha obviously still does. I can’t break her heart like that. If she wants to see her favorite uncle again, I will just have to put my personal feelings aside to make sure they get together to catch up on old times.

More than anything, I want to see Meisha laugh the way she used to with him.

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