After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson Page A

y’all became my friends. That’s the D puzzle. I talked about roaming and y’all listened. I sat down and ate with your mamas and it felt like I was finally belonging somewhere. Us three’s the puzzle. It’s just a three-piece puzzle.”
    Neeka shook her head. “You never really told us who you were, girl. We was all the time trying to figure it out.”
    “But all you had to do was ask.”
    Neeka put her hands on her hips. “We did ask.”
    “And now the answers are coming,” D said. She looked over at her mama. Her voice dropped down a bit. “And anyway,” she said, “the D puzzle ain’t never going to be all together. I ask her who my daddy is and she says, A man who likes to roam. I ask her what it was like when I was a baby and she says, Alcohol erased that memory, but I don’t drink no more . So the puzzle’s always gonna have all these missing pieces, all these holes up in it.”
    Some church ladies moved by us, said hello and headed on up into Neeka’s place.
    “Y’all know I ain’t coming to say good-bye,” D said. She was carrying a shoulder bag and she set it down on the curb and reached inside it. “I got something for you.” She pulled out a brand-new package of clothesline rope and handed it to Neeka. “The way I figure it, somebody else might come down this block one day and be wanting to be friends with y’all. If she don’t have a rope, at least you will.”
    I felt my eyes starting to get stingy. I wiped them real fast and looked away from D. From Desiree .
    “Y’all let me play with you once. And when I get upstate, I’m sure there’s gonna be some sisters looking for somebody to take the other end of the rope and it’s gonna be me all over again. And then I’m gonna get on a bus, head down here and show you how they rocking it up there. But I ain’t saying good-bye. I ain’t never saying good-bye to you.”
    “We’re Three the Hard Way,” Neeka said softly. She was looking down at the rope in her hand, like it was taking her way back to the beginning.
    “We always gonna be Three the Hard Way,” I said.
    Neeka had the earphones draped over her shoulder. She took them off and handed D— Desiree— the Walkman.
    “It’s Tupac,” she said. “Keep the whole thing. I know how you love his gangsta behind.”
    Desiree didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she put the Walkman in her bag and threw her arms around Neeka. They stood there, holding each other for a long time. When they pulled away, they were both crying. Then D hugged me.
    You’re a part of me, she whispered, her mouth close to my ear. You’re in my heart.Forever and always, all right?
    I nodded. If I said one word, I knew I’d start crying and not be able to stop.
    “Desiree . . . ” D’s mama called.
    “I’m coming!” D yelled, not turning away from us. “She better cool it or else I’ll be telling her to step. Be my turn to leave her .”
    Neeka smiled. “You know you’re going with that woman. You want a mama too much to let her get away again.”
    D nodded. She put her hands in her pockets and looked over at her mama. After a moment, she brushed her hair away from her eyes with her hand, squinted into the sun and smiled.
    Maybe I’d live to be a hundred. And if I did, I wouldn’t forget that smile. Her green eyes—that were her white mama’s green eyes and maybe her mama’s mama’s green eyes—got bright and sad. When the tears started coming, she didn’t wipe them away.
    “These two years,” she said to me and Neeka. “They was all part of the Big Purpose, you know. We ain’t never gonna even try to forget each other. And when we grown and back together again, or when we’re all old sitting in rocking chairs somewhere, we gonna remember everything. Every single inch and day and hour and minute and piece of us together now.”
    “You think we’re gonna remember all of it, D?” I asked.
    D didn’t say anything. Just hugged me and Neeka again and headed back over to her