A look at Missy

So, I don't know if anyone is reading this yet but I'm about a little over 1/4 way through chapter 26. I should be finished it but like I mentioned before I had quite a few false starts so I thought you guys might like a look at one of the openings for 26 that I really wanted to work but I'm trying to tighten up my writing and this is really just backstory that's nice to read but didn't really fit. Not to mention it gets a bit ranty which fits with Judith when she gets caught up about something but again, doesn't add anything to the story.

Personally I really like the part of Missy that it shows us, even if it doesn't move the plot along.  So here you go, Missy and Judith bonding with Missy being the one being questioned for a change.





<Monday, November 11 – 17 days until B-day!!!!>

“You know Missy, I know when my birthday is,” I said drily as she continued to add exclamation marks around the countdown she was making in my agenda. Our teacher had disappeared to deal with issues with one of his grade nine classes with the warning that even though it was the last period of the day he would know if we skipped out early and we would feel his wrath if we break his trust.

Combine that with the fact that neither of us really wanted to work on our English homework, we were wasting time, which, in Missy’s world, meant putting reminders for my birthday throughout my agenda.

“You wouldn’t know it the way you keep forgetting to ask people to come to your party on the Friday,” Missy said ignoring my hints as she added smiley faces and hearts around the actual date. I stared at her before reaching over to take the pen from her since I still needed to be able to use that day for reminders and I wouldn’t have any room at the rate she was going.

“Yeah, well, I still have time. Seventeen days to be exact,” I said tapping the big pink numbers on the page. I had no idea who my mother, and Missy for that matter, thought would be coming to my birthday party. I didn’t have a shitload of friends, and the only people who ever used to come my parties once I hit thirteen were the Pretties and they were pretty much MIA.

“You have fourteen days. You need to give at least two weeks-notice when you’re planning a party that involves some type of technical skill,” Missy said as she plucked my agenda back from my hands and flipped through it before she began writing again.

I leaned over and then flushed as she made a note that on November 8th ‘he called me his querida and I felt like I could fly.’ I reached over for my agenda and got stabbed in the hand for my attempt.

“That is what you told me, you need to remember it.” She didn’t bother to look up and I rubbed at my wounded hand, not sure if I was irritated or touched that she had remembered the nonsense I had told her on Saturday when she had come over. We hadn’t even gone to the mall since it had started to snow, instead we watched movies, listen to music and she had listened as I retold her almost every detail about my evening with AJ, leaving out the bit about how Jean had died exactly. 

“Where’s your agenda? I bet you don’t even use it.” Considering I was one of the few people in any of my classes who actually used my agenda I felt safe to make that comment as she continued to flip through my agenda. She unzipped the first pocket of her backpack and tried to pull out the school issued book.

Since she seemed intent on putting down important facts for dates I could barely remember I leaned over and pulled her agenda out. My eyebrows rose as I passed the pages that were dedicated to the months because she had everything written down some boxes coloured in, actually colour coded, with her assignments written down in clear black ink.

It wasn’t until I opened to the first actual daily page however, that I realized I had once again judged a book by its cover and it hit me that I didn’t know Missy all that well.

"Have you ever been in love?
Horrible isn't it?
It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.
You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...

You give them a piece of you.
They didn't ask for it.
They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.
Love takes hostages.
It gets inside you.
It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like 'maybe we should just be friends' turns into a class splinter working it's way into your heart.

It hurts.
Not just in the imagination.
Not just in the mind.
Its a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
I hate love."

- Neil Gaiman

 The words were written out in red, scratched across the page in a heavy scrawl and it was clear where the words had blotted that she had been pissed off when she had written it though it was still legible. I glanced up, feeling like I was going through her diary but she was still focusing intently on whatever she was writing in my agenda.

“You don’t mind me looking at this do you?”

“If I minded I would’ve told you so.” She still didn’t look up when she spoke but I decided to take her at face value.

“You might want to skip the first few pages of August though, I was in a bad head space and I was being a whiny little shit.” I glanced at the Neil Gaiman quote again, because that didn’t seem like someone who was whining, that seemed to come from someone who was hurting but I didn’t push it, instead I just flipped to September where once again she had her assignments written out neatly with reminders to herself along with doodles and the occasional song lyric or quote.

She definitely used her agenda more than I did, and not just for her assignments. I flipped through quickly, feeling as if I was invading her space but intrigued by the way she seemed to put everything down into her agenda without actually writing out her feelings. You could tell when she was happy or mad or sad by the doodles or lyrics or quotes she chose, though I didn’t read them as intensely as I had the first one.

I paused as I hit a week where there were no assignments, just words mainly written in pink and gray with red randomly sprinkled throughout that seemed to be going around a quote that was written in all black, all capital letters that jumped out at me.

I glanced at the dates, frowning as I tried to remember if that had been the week she’d been sick and I had bought her an orange to make her feel better. I was almost positive that it had been.
I FEEL LIKE I HAVE LOST MYSELF, AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE I’M HIDING.

I hurried past that one, feeling more like an intruder but unable to stop myself, fascinated by the person Missy showed in her writing. My eyes jumped to the red words which were actually not randomly placed but part of a poem of sorts, although for the first time since I had started looking through her agenda, words weren’t spelt perfectly.
& now she stood a
reglar colored girl
fulla the same malice
livid indifference as a sistah
worn from supportin a wd be hornplayer
or waitin by the window
                 & they knew
  & left in a hury
she wd gather her tinsel &
jewels from the tub
& laugh gayly or vengeful
she stored her silk roses by her bed
& when she finished writin
the account of her exploit in a diary
embroidered with lilies & moonstones
she placed the rose behind her ear
& cried herself to sleep. - Lady in Red

“The red is from the play For Coloured Girls and the black is from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I think. I’m not positive since I never double checked it. Pink and gray were just things that related to my feelings. I was having a bad week.” I jumped guiltily as Missy spoke, her words pulling me out of what I was reading.

“Sorry.”

“What the hell for? I told you you could look at it.”

“Yeah, but I should’ve stopped when I realized it was your diary.”

She snorted at that, taking the book that I held out to her and flipped it close.

“I don’t have the time or money for a diary, this is just good stress relief. Not to mention, no one in my family would think of going through my agenda so it’s safe.” She shrugged and I nodded, wondering if diaries were really that expensive.

“You should read it.”

“Read what?” I asked, feeling confused since despite what she had just said, she was leaning over her agenda protectively and I would have to invade her personal space something fierce to get another look at it.

“For Coloured Girls. Well, the full title is For Coloured Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow was Enough. It’s really good, that’s not even the whole of the poem, just the part that I felt related to me at the time.” I took in the way her words came out more rushed and slightly high pitched before I took in what she had actually said and once again I started to apologize for invading her privacy until what she said hit me.

I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable as I tried to think of what to say to that then I decided to just go with the truth.

“I don’t read books aimed specifically at black people. Like, with the whole ‘for coloured girls’ thing. I don’t know, I don’t find it empowering, just sad as hell and sometimes they make me think of shit that I left behind a long time ago. I tried to watch a Tyler Perry movie once, and I had to leave halfway through.

The light skin successful sister can never just be happy or a good person. Going back to the hood or the ghetto isn’t going to cure you for shit. Neither is letting your bad minded bullyish family members make you feel about your success going to make you a better person.”

Missy stared at me for a moment and then grinned, her own discomfort disappearing as I flushed, knowing I had overreacted to a simple question.

“Damn girl, tell ‘em why you mad. Swearing and everything, I didn’t know you had it in you. Don’t apologize either.”

I shut my mouth, swallowing the sorry that I had been about to spit out and then tried again.

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a sore spot with me. Being made to feel like there’s something wrong with me because I don’t fit a stereotype gets on my nerves. And people making it seem like I’m a bad person because I didn’t watch Precious. I don’t need to watch Precious, I’m fine watching The Princess and the Frog or whatever the hell that movie was called with Princess Tiana and her racially confused prince.” There, that was a bit calmer. Or so I thought until Missy’s smile got wider.

“Racially confused prince? And you don’t think that movie was a huge stereotype? I mean, all the other Princesses married their Prince and got their happily ever after handed to them. Because Tiana was black she was a waitress and spent half the movie as a frog and had to work for her happily ever after.”

I gasped, not sure if she was being serious.

“You’re not serious are you? It’s racist because she worked for what she wanted? Mulan fought the goddamn Huns.”

“Yeah, but she’s Asian. You know how they like to overachieve.”

“Missy! No. I mean, Disney isn’t perfect and yeah, they had some racist things going on when they started out, even now they might not be perfect but no, I’d take a bigger look at their reinforcing gender roles and gender issues before I looked at them being racist. Okay, first, I wasn’t being racist about the Prince. I honestly don’t know if he was supposed to be French or Spanish. Two, … why are you laughing at me?” I asked, pausing as she doubled over, cutting me off mid rant.

“Sorry girl, but Disney? Really? You won’t read a great book, but you will sit here and argue with me over a movie I hadn’t seen until this Saturday when your sister hijacked the TV.”
“It’s a good movie,” I said defensively, feeling like a bit of an idiot.

“I know girl. I saw it. And for the record I couldn’t give two shits about Tyler Perry, I do enjoy some of his stuff but it’s brain candy to me and truthfully I’m just in it for Madea.”

“Oh. And just so you know, I would read For Coloured Girls for you, but it’s poetry. I don’t really understand poetry. I mean, all I got from that excerpt was that someone was back to seeing her as an angry black chick and in reality she cries herself to sleep. I don’t get why the author couldn’t just say that,” I said, glad we were back on equal footing.

“… Yeah, well maybe it doesn’t work because it’s not the whole poem. I could only remember this bit properly to be honest.  The opening shows her taking a bath after having slept with some man and then she goes in kicks him out of her bed like she’s the queen of her world after she had washed him off of her and it shows how she seemed in control of herself and how they just wanted her for one thing so none of them would fight to spend the night since they had intended to leave her anyway and while they think she’s back to being just an angry black woman who used them and then it goes to the part in my agenda.

I’m not doing it any justice, there’s more to it. The nuances and the actual words used are what makes it great. I’d say you’d have to read it to understand but since we’ve cleared up the possibility of you reading it we’ll just leave it alone.”

She smiled at me and I smiled back, gathering my courage to speak the words that had entered my mind from the moment she had started to explain the passage to me.

“How does that relate to you? You don’t have to answer, obviously, but I just you know, I fell like even though we’re friends and you’ve told me things, that sometimes I don’t really know you. You know?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing her past her boundaries but wanting to know more about her.

 I knew she’d lost a boyfriend and a brother around the same time, and I knew she lived with her brothers instead of her parents but when it came down to it, I never seemed to think how that would affect her. Whenever she was around me she seemed so secure and comfortable with herself, that when I saw these glimpses of her, it was like looking at another person.

She stared at me for a while, her fingers flipping through her agenda absently before she seemed to come to a decision and shrugged.

“It was about my place in my family and with the panthers and just how I felt like people saw me. I have, well it felt like I had so many people wanting to be in my life but only for what they wanted from me. Not for me, and they figure, figured, I just brush it off and keep it moving, laughing because nothing touches me or I find their reactions to me funny. Which I do, most of the times, it was one of my whiny bitch days when I was feeling sorry for myself.” She spoke casually, like it was just a light connection but I had the feeling that she could probably break down the beginning of the poem to the end and connect the lines within to her situation with her family and her friends and the expectations people have of her.

“Having feelings doesn’t make you a whiny bitch. It makes you human. And there are a lot of people who like you for who you are,” I said firmly.

“Yeah? Name one.”

“I like you for you,” I said quickly, smiling at her because I really did. The Missy I was getting to know was nothing like the person I had thought she was.

“You just said you didn’t know me.”

“I know you know all the words to all the songs in Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, and Alladin and apparently you’ve watched every Julia Roberts movie with AJ and his sisters. You like corny latino boy bands and you remember poems and quotes that are beyond me. You have an artistic aspect to you if the layout of your journal is any indication and despite the fact that you seem to be partying every weekend you find time to be with me, something my best friends for god knows how many years didn’t bother with.

Not to sound like I have a crush on you or anything, but I also know your confidence is super attractive which is why Vince is doing his best to get your attention even though you cut him down every time and you might be quick to use violence but you only do so when you think it’ll reduce the chance of someone else acting out. You chose the name Pink Panthers for your gang because you and your best friend at the time like the colours pink and gray and you are, to quote Eve, ‘a ride or die chick.’

I might not know you’re grade point average or your real name or even your birthday but I do know that you’re wicked smart and you’re loyal, fun to be around and despite your violent tendencies I fell safe with you.

Also--”
She snickered, cutting of my

ant of her virtues and I glared as she held up her hand and got control of herself.

“Today is a day for speeches with you isn’t it? I didn’t mean that in a bad way, so fix your nose. I just figured I should make you stop before you make me blush. Real ride or die chicks don’t blush chica, we just cut bitches.”

I didn’t say anything since this time I was aware that she was teasing me, instead I just made a face at her.

“Alright, so my GPA is sitting steady at 85%, my birthday is December 31st, same year as your boytoy’s and my government name is just that. Something only my mother and the government should know. I am not artistically inclined, I actually stole the idea from this journal I saw online when I was looking up pictures and quotes for English. Hers was impressive, She had a real journal, one of those pretty ones that you know cost over thirty dollars and she used these expensive pens and had all these colours. I can’t justify spending five dollars on gel pens and that colourful fuckery when I only use black, blue, and red for school.” She sounded wistful when she spoke about the pens which was a surprise to me because I never would’ve thought Missy would care about what she wrote with much less colourful pens.

 “I think I can be trusted with your real name. That’s what friends are for you know and my name is not that great either.”

Missy shook her head, grinning at me as she did so.

“Nice try but no. Judith is a legitimate name and I like it, even if it is a bit old timish. It’s classy and legit. My name is made up and just another sign that my mother hates me.”

I smiled at that, but the smile dropped away when I realized she was serious.

“Your mother doesn’t hate you.”

“She does. Trust me, you haven’t met her. She thinks all females are conniving sluts. I pointed out once that if I was any of things I got it from my mama, and unlike her, I managed to hit fifteen and had no ninos following behind me. She lost her shit, but whatever, it’s the truth.”

She had gotten tense again and I nodded.

“You’ll tell me all that but you won’t tell me your real name?” I asked, teasingly. She smiled but it wasn’t as genuine as her others.

“Sorry girl, you know I got you but that is one thing you don’t need to know.”

“Does it have any special meaning?” She shook her head and seemed ready to say something else when the bell rang, pulling us out of our conversation.