Crystal by Walter Dean Myers Page A

cute nerd is what he was.”
    “Bad time, huh?”
    “No.” Crystal sat at the table and put her chin on her hands. “Good time, really. You know, Pat’s really fun to go out with. And Donald is as crazy as they come.”
    “So what did you do?” Daniel Brown closed the paper.
    “We went to this club; it’s called Los Hermanos. Kind of a nice place. We had dinner—Portuguese food, which is nice—and then we danced. At least Donald, Pat, and I danced, because Charlie—that’s the guy I was supposed to be with—couldn’t dance.”
    “He Black?”
    “Yep. I asked him how he could play tennis, that’s his big thing, and move around a dance floor so badly,” Crystal said. “At first he got kind of mad because we were laughing at him, but then he came around. Then Donald gets the idea that we should go to Central Park and take aride in one of those carriages.”
    “You ain’t got to have no rhythm to play tennis.” Daniel put his feet up on the table. “Now, if you playing basketball, you got to have rhythm.”
    “He wants me to come see him play in a match,” Crystal said. “Maybe I’ll go if I can find the time. I don’t think he’s got a lot of money for dates.”
    “He bring you home in a cab?”
    “We took a cab from the subway,” Crystal said.
    “Seems like you had a nice time, though.”
    “I did,” Crystal said. “I can’t tell why, but I did.”
    “I like it when I see you smiling like that,” her father said. “I haven’t seen that smile for a long time.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” Crystal said. “I’m always smiling.”
    “Yeah, but lately your smiles look like you’re thirty-six instead of sixteen.”
    “Why is it that fathers always want us to be little girls?” Crystal asked. “At least Mom realizes I can’t stay a baby forever. Is there any soda left?”
    “Yeah, there’s some—enough for a glass or two,” Daniel said. Crystal saw that his expression had changed.
    “I was only kidding, Daddy, honest.”
    “I know you were, baby,” he said. “But there’s a reason I want you to stay a little girl. You know, having a child ain’t that easy. The way I figure, if I raise you like I’ve done everything else in life, I’ll screw half of it up. So the longer you stay a little girl, the longer I’ll have to see where I’m messing it up, and I’ll have a shot at making things right.”
    “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Crystal took the soda out of the refrigerator and poured a glass. “You want some soda?”
    “Yeah, I’m serious,” her father said. “And, no, I don’t want no soda. Reach back there behind the milk and get me a can of beer.”
    “Daddy, you’re okay,” Crystal said. “I think you’re a good father. That’s what counts, isn’t it?”
    “How I know?” Daniel asked. “I ain’t never had no children before. But you know what I figured out?”
    “What?”
    “I ain’t saying it’s right or nothing.” Her father popped the top of the beer. “I figured what I want is to give you something. You know, like you a gunfighter going out to meet the world. I’d like to give you a special gun, or a trick draw or something. Get you ready.”
    “Crystal Brown, gunfighter!” Crystal took an imaginary draw. “I like it!”
    “When I was a kid and things used to go wrong, I used to go sit in Marcus Garvey Park. I remember one time my daddy had come home, and I asked him for money to buy some new sneakers. He said something about not having any money, and I got hot and said he never had no money.
    “He up and popped me one, and I went out the house mad as anything. I went out and sat in the park all night long. While I was sitting there I thought about being a gunfighter. That was my secret ambition, to be a cowboy.”
    “You? A cowboy?”
    “Yeah, a lot of men have these little things they want to do but can’t talk about. Me, I always wanted to be a cowboy. I could see myself riding on a big white horse, carrying a guitar