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"Mom," I interrupt, "it’s okay I’ll text you"

"Really?"

"Well, yeah! And you can texthave a photo function?" I peer at the camera "I’ll send you pictures"

"You will?"

"Of course I will"

By the look on her face, you’d think I’d given her the present

Penn Station is ht away, under the departure board, wearing a pair of lemon-lime paneled nylon shorts and a tank top with UNICORNS ARE REAL e

"Where’s your suitcase?" he asks

I turn around, show off the olive backpack I got from the Army-Navy surplus store in Philadelphia

Dee whistles "How’d you fit your ball gown?"

"It folds down really s, and I told Ma, so she made lunch"

"I like lunch"

Dee throws up his hands "Actually, Mama planned a surprise party for you Don’t tell her I told"

"A party? She doesn’t even know me"

"She thinks she does by how much I talk about you, and she’ll use any excuse to cook My fa my cousin Tanya I told you about her?"

"The one who does hair?"

Dee nods "I asked her if she’d do yours She does white-girl hair too, works in a fancy salon in Manhattan I thought o all Louise Brooks Look just like you did when you ers my hair, up, as usual, in a clip

We take the subway all the way uptown, to the last stop on the train We get out and transfer to a bus I look out the , expecting the rough-and-tumble streets of the South Bronx, but the bus passes a bunch of pretty brick buildings all shaded by mature trees

"This is the South Bronx?" I ask Dee

"I never said I lived in the South Bronx"

I look at him "Are you serious? I’ve heard you say a bunch of times that you’re from the South Bronx"

"I only said that I was from the Bronx This is the Bronx, technically It’s Riverdale"

"But you told Kendra you were froh School" I pause, re that first conversation "Which does not even exist"

"I left the girl to her own jus the bell to get off the bus We exit onto a busy street full of tall aparts It’s not fancy, but it’s nice

"You are a elo Harrison"

"Takes one to know one I am from the Bronx And I ahetto boy, that’s their choice" He smiles "Especially if they want to throw scholarship moneywith cracked gargoyles hanging over the front entrance Dee rings the buzzer--"so they knoe’re coed-in elevators to the fifth floor Outside the front door, he looks at me and tucks some strands of stray hair behind my ear

"Act surprised," he whispers and opens the door

We step into a party, about a dozen people crowded into the sn tacked up over a table laden with food I look at Dee, eyes wide in shock

"Surprise!" he says, twinkling jazz hands

Dee’s ardenia-scented bear hug "He told you, didn’t he? That was the worst look of surprise I ever saw My baby couldn’t keep a secret if was stapled to him Well, come on, then, meet the folk, have some food"