I waited for Zeke after school, the sun unbearably warm for late August. The crowd of sweaty teenage girls and boys jostled around me, our skin sticking together in an uncomfortable way that hurt. A particularly large girl smacked straight into me, knocking me over. Without so much as an apology she kept walking.

Grumbling I picked myself up, catching sight of Aiden.

“Hey!” I waved as he pushed through the crowd, diverting his original path home, to me. Our town was small, but 250 kids racing each other to buses and cool couches were a formidable force to deal with all at once.

He stopped short of me, his face paling in the heat. Following the direction of his gaze I saw Jessika in a group of her other rebel female friends. All of them were Native American, dressed in almost typically hard core clothes, except for the extent of which they wore the articles. Not just shirts or a jacket and hat, but the whole outfit. Ragged jeans and shorts, Anarchy or plain black shirts, a couple of the girls were wearing army hats and boots. Jessika was sporting her highly Native American tattoo she had drawn on her arm during sixth period.

“Aiden.” I smiled, “Where’s Zeke?”

“Hmm? Oh! Zeke. Yeah, the stupid principal held him after for ‘disorderly conduct’.” Aiden crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s a load of bull crap though. He didn’t do anything for once.”

I looked at Aiden, really looked at him. For being an immature little brat who ate too much and weighed too little, he was growing into his looks and becoming very handsome. I admired him for this little bit of ethics he was showing to the other guys in his class. He was very open with his feelings for Jessika, unintentionally of course.

“Aiden!!”

“Speak of the Devil.” I murmured, watching as she ran over, waving furiously. She had a round, cute face, her features Indian, but her eyes were bright, like her mothers, her hair was shoulder length, wavy and pulled into a loose ponytail. Her camo-jeans jacket was loose over her tight black tank top, her tattoo was smearing slightly from under the rolled up sleeves. Her boots were giant, but matched her and her jean shorts perfectly.

“Jessika?” Aiden’s face turned a little red, “what’s up?”

She rolled her eyes, which stood out all the more with the black makeup she caked on her eyelids. “Dude, I’m coming to your house tonight, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” He seemed confused, “So why did you come over? What did you want?”

I giggled. “You come up to his man-boobies.”

She looked straight, eye to nipple with Aiden (though he had a shirt on). Both of them turned as red as I could imagine. Then she laughed too, Aiden chuckled nervously.

“What steroids do your parents feed you man?” she slapped his arm, and then she turned to me, “Is it alright if I go home with you guys after school?”

“Yeah. Our moms are probably making the food and readying the patties now.” I hesitated as Aiden and Jessika immersed themselves in talk, “Hey guys, should we wait for Zeke?”

Jessika sighed, “Naw, they’ll keep him for as long as possible. Jerks.” She spat on the cement walkway in contempt. “Anyway, tell me, what’s a guy like Zeke got for a girl like you? You’re so… not what I thought he’d pick to fix himself up for.”

“Me either.” I answered honestly.

Jessika shook her head, “You don’t get what I mean. I mean that I thought he’d only fix himself up after he got some chick knocked up. This is… well, pleasantly surprising.”

I smiled, “What am I supposed to say to that?”

She grinned, looking right at me, and for once I saw something in a human that wasn’t at all human. Her eyes held something animalistic that I couldn’t explain. “Nothing… at all.”

I walked the rest of the way home silently, terrified, the image of her eyes, of what was in her eyes, still floating in my mind. Somewhere in my head I registered yelling, but couldn’t understand it. I only snapped out of my world when I noticed Jessika and Aiden had stopped walking and were looking pointedly at me.

“What?” I snapped, spinning around to see Zeke, running to catch up with us. “Oh.” And my mood brightened.

“Hey Tasha!” He smiled, and I melted. During school we had absolutely no classes together, and he spent most of his lunch in the office with his gang, so I didn’t know that he was wearing a white wife beater and a pair of cowboy pants. His upper body was sculpted and almost perfect, his muscles lightly outlined by white linen. The pants didn’t leave too much for imagination either.

To be honest, I melted at the sight of his bronze skin and shoulder length dark hair accentuated by the white and pale blue. “Hey Zeke.”

“Damn bro!” Jessika teased, “She’s got the hots for you!”

He smiled, spreading his arms wide, “Jessika! Time for a hug.” His eyes hardened, “A really hard hug.”

Her mocking face left as horror filled her eyes. “Not in front of… umm… Them.” I smiled as her eyes kept going to Aiden.

“Yes, Jessika, in front of… ‘Them’. A really hard hug!” he pounced, catching her in his arms and delivering a noogie that messed her hair up so bad that even Aiden laughed at her. Zeke let go, kissing the top of her head.

“You silly girl.” He smiled, “of course she has the hots for me, if she had the hots for someone else I’d be pissed.”

Jessika smiled, fixing her hair as we filed through the gate to the house. Ezra had skipped school to be with Ruth, who had just found out she was pregnant. They were going to be coming by after Ruth had a talk with the father.

“Momma!” Jessika squealed, bursting through our door, sweeping her mom into a hug, which looked difficult considering they were about the same height. I giggled as Momma fought her daughter off.

“Unless you want beef in your face, dearie, you’d better leggo of me.” She warned. Jessika backed off. “Zeke.” Momma greeted, he walked over to her, untangling his hand from mine, kissing her cheek.

Our Mother watched in a kind of awed, disgusted envy. I sat at the bar stool across from her, “How was your day, Mom? Did you get the asphalt deal?”

Her eyes widened, “I didn’t know you were listening! And yes, we got the deal.”

Jessika perked up, her brother’s girlfriend’s mom obviously could have some potential information that could help her rebellion group. “What was that?”

“Well, where I work, I was selected to give a public speech for why the roads being paved would be better for ours town’s income and population.” She turned to Momma, “did you know that our incomes, all of ours, would increase twenty-five percent if we had paved roads? And I won.”

Momma almost dropped the plate she was taking out to Father and Daddy, “One fourth increase? We could finally get a new car, Zeke! Oh my gosh! When‘s it happening? Oh, we could do so much with that money! We could fix our roof, add insulation…”

“Buy decent food.” Zeke added, earning a withering glare from Momma.

“So when are the rest of your kids going to be here?” Mother asked politely, covering up her guilty nervousness.

“Well, Ruth went and got knocked-up, so she’s going to see the Father about it.” Momma sighed, “Ezz went with her for emotional support. Those two are so close it surprises me. With their age difference, and the way they see things differently, never would have imagined. Gabriel, of course, just think’s Ezra is the coolest ever, he follows her everywhere.”

“Oh.” Mother was flustered, “S-so who’s the father?”

“Oh!” Momma laughed, “No, no! We know who the father is, it’s the Father.” When Mother still was confused she elaborated, “The preacher at your church. He’s the daddy. Don’t know if Ruth will make him marry her or not, she’s never wanted to be tied to a man, but now she has kids, Zeke, be a dear and take these to Daddy and Mr. Mercucio.”

He hopped right up and did as asked, obviously uncomfortable with all this talk about fathering, marriage and pregnancy.

Jessika laughed, “Everyone’s so tense. It happens all the time to people less than ours. Just grin and bear it’s all we can do.”

“Mom,” Aiden wrapped his arm around her shoulders, “Can we please play gamecube? Please, please, please?”

She sighed, “Sure.” Jessika and Aiden raced into the living room, “There are soda’s in the fridge Aiden, be a good host and serve our guests!”

I giggled, “You know Aiden is madly in love with Jessika right?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew I messed up.

Mother had frozen, her hand was shaking and her knuckles were white around the hilt of the chopping knife. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Momma continued obliviously, “And Jessika is very attracted to him as well. She always talks about how sweet and handsome he is. She loves how he is with kids.”

I coughed and cleared my throat, trying to catch Momma’s glance, but she was oblivious. I was halfway relieved. What would she think when she found out my family was racist? And my father against his own kind even!

“When would she see him with kids?” Mother was chopping in a totally different manner; Momma finally noticed something was wrong.

“They go to a school that has K-12 grades.” She watched Mother closely, “You know, if it bugs you that we’re Native American we can leave.” She stated plainly. Mother froze.

“Alright, it does bugs me, honestly, I think I’m better than you, but, for the sake of my daughter, for the sake of my husband and my son I am willing to try and put aside my biases long enough to put up with her,” her eyes flashed to me, “It’s just a little taxing when I find out my son, my beautiful boy… It’s just going to take me time.”

“How,” Momma began, “Did you even marry your husband if he’s one-half Black Foot? His people are darker than ours!”

Mother blushed, setting the knife aside, “Actually, it was a business transaction. His Mother was a hard working woman with a lot of money and power, as was my father. They married us to each other to get the money. I grew to love him, but for a long time I was just too awed to think I could be of any importance to him. He was handsome; he still had some of his flings for the first year after we married, he was rich, he was powerful. I was intimidated, and then… well, we fell in love with one another.”

I sighed, “Well, Mother, how do you think they feel when they walk into our house? After years, generations, of being ‘inferior’ to whites they are brave enough to come into our home and all you can do is be a bigot? You’re Irish but it doesn’t mean they hate you. They didn’t choose their skin color, God did. Suck it up and be Christian, if nothing else.”

Momma smiled as Zeke walked back in, “You’re a good girl, Tasha.”

He plopped down next to me, wrapping me in a hug, “Yes she is.”

“Zeke!” I struggled to get away, catching the evil grin on his face, “You smell like butt!”

“Just because your dad wrestled with me, that’s all.” Mother looked at him in shock, much to my triumph; he shrugged, releasing me, “I ate a hot dog off the grill. He totally tackled me, it was so awesome! I didn’t know your dad was so cool! So are you, Mrs, Mercucio. Your cooking is superb.” Zeke smiled his suave smile, his sinful smile.

Much to my surprise, Mother blushed at his intense gaze. “They’re playing gamecube in the living room, Zeke, take some soda in there and play with them.”

He looked at his mom, who smiled and nodded, and he was out of there like no one’s business.

“Wow.” Mother breathed, “He’s quite the looker.”

I smiled, catching Momma’s gaze, “She’s converting.” I explained to her confused glance.

We watched movies, played gamecube and Twister, Ruth, Gabriel, and Ezz came in sporting a rather large piece of diamond on a gold ring. There was much squealing and joy, just as the smell of food became unbearable we ate, Zeke and Aiden once again had a show down, Aiden, once again won, earning a kiss from Jessika. He blushed over his ears.

After dinner and family games, Zeke pulled me aside, “So, am I officially your boyfriend yet?”

I smiled, playing with his hair absent mindedly. “My birthday’s in two days, ask me then.”

He growled, throwing me over his shoulder. My shrieks of laughter were a perfect ending to a long, tiresome day.

We watched one more movie that everyone fell asleep during, including Ruth and Gabriel. As they left Zeke quickly pecked me on the lips, and to my surprise, Mother just smiled.

That night, not only was I sleeping in cotton candy, I was cotton candy.