When I am home alone in my room I write to Johnny in my diary so I can have someone to talk to. I usually write in dialogue style like Mrs. Pritchard my 11th grade American literature teacher taught us how. She likes to show us how the greats did it, had us reading all types of styles from Amiri Baraka other wise known as Leroi Jones, Shakespeare, and even got the scripts for t.v. shows and movies copied for us to prove how she wanted us to be free to create and not see some curriculum style of teaching that maybe was forcing it's way upon us. She said she wanted to give us a variety, a dose of what's right and wrong, correct and or misguided. So my diary reads like a play, and this is what I call it, A Day in August. Because that is how people know me and Johnny.
'Hi Johnny August.'
'Hello beautiful Day'
'Are you going to the game tonight, Johnny?'
'Thinking maybe I should go since you asking.'
'It sure would be nice to see you'
'Well you seeing me now girl aint you' Johnny says playing hard to get with me and laughing poking fun.
'Don't sass me boy? You going or not?' I played back at him throwing my hand at him in the air like I was going to hit him but only came in contact with the breeze.
'Yes darling Day, I will be there. Are you sure you can go, I bet you have not asked your momma and uncle yet, you just talking."
'Why yes I have asked them, and I expect you to give your momma ten kisses on her cheek from her favorite man child so you can go too, with your spoiled self.'
'Spoiled? Girl ain't no man can be spoiled we reserve that for sisters, it's your right. It's up to us men folk to get you back on track when those tantrums get tainted and yaw start to feel like you own the world and all of us men with that bad spoiled behavior. Spoiled? Me? Naw not me, my momma just loves the only man in her life with all her heart. And besides if you think I am spoiled then you haven't met my sister NeNe man…she is some kinda rotten…'
'Of course she is Johnny you all have her dressed in her Sunday best seven days a week, to school, to play, to water that spoiled green lawn of yaws, to plant flowers with her momma in pretty pink frilly dresses with an apron on, well I have never seen a child so….
'Spoiled! You are right, she is and that is daddy's little girl and I think my momma is trying to keep her that way until he comes back, if he comes back."
'Oh I didn't mean…'
'No it's okay, we all know it, just a bit different to have it come from someone on the outsides mouth, we all see it my sister's, momma and me, and even her sister our Aunty who has taken up permanent weekend residence with us. But NeNe does have her ways she's the smartest girl in her 5th grade class and most of those in the 6th and 7th grade. Yeah she is something to appreciate, might end up being the one to save momma from dreaming that daddy will come back to rescue her from being a lonely betrayed beauty. NeNe gives it straight and true, no matter what. I see how my momma snaps at her, even puts her in her place when she get's to talking about daddy and his chances of not returning because she has read some article at the school library on divorce. Boy my momma get some kind of hurt with Nene's confessions. But I see how she really thinks about it with the worry I see in her eyes when she is around the house fixing dinner, mending things that our daddy used to. Yep, NeNe is the truth, spoiled rotten and all.'
'I'm sorry Johnny, but you are sure telling the truth about lil Nene, she confuses me sometimes when I talk to her. I get to thinking she is my age, she understands far too much.'
'When do you talk to my lil sister?' Johnny said with honest surprise in his tone.
'Every time she want's to be nosey, and see's me walking to the library. She catches up with me, has me wait on her to run back to your house and get her books she's needing to turn in and we talk the whole walk to the library. She knows what she wants and knows very well how to get it by just shooting straight from the hip.'
'What does she ask you about?'
'Well of course us Johnny, and sometimes Roxy and Walter Hobbs, and how she thinks our friend Whitney is sneaky cause shouldn't no girl her age be that into her friends and no boys, she would say Whitney is trying to see what angle she can use then "pow!" she is going to move in on one of us an ruin our lives.'
'My lil sister thinks that?'
'Yes, and the funny thing Johnny is sometimes I have got that same feeling from Whitney, but never said it out loud until now. I didn't confirm my feelings to Nene she's too little and plus she likes gossip. I'm sorry Johnny but we all know that girl is going to grow up and have her own t.v. show one day. She has way too much she wants to tell and figure out, so much she wants to learn and do, so I think that her being one of those ladies that gets to go any and everywhere and talk, talk, talk about it to everybody who is listening is what lil Ms. NeNe should be doing. You do know I am right don't cha Johnny'
I said poking him in his side and the contact made us freeze and then blush a little.
'Yes, uhm uhm yes, we do know that. Uhm Day, can I walk you all the way home today? I don't want those little Barker Boys that are always following us to mess with you or chase you home, so is that okay?'
First time I'd seen Johnny blush like that, so I said,
'Why yes, of course it is. Hmph yep that would be fine Johnny.'
I couldn't help but giggle and snuggle a little tighter with my school books and purse, the one with the rocks in it. I felt like his girl more then ever now.
And well that is how my journal entries looked. I suppose I was telling the beginning of our very own life together, me and Johnny. A Day in August, now that story deserved to be told.
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