Every Time a Rainbow Dies by Rita Williams-Garcia

when they came to the house after soccer matches. That was a long time ago. Sports never appealed to Thulani, particularly if his mother wouldn’t be there to cheer him on.
    â€œNo? No soccer? What do you play?”
    â€œNothing.”
    Then Julie took him by surprise. She pushed up his jersey sleeve and felt the biceps on his right arm.
    â€œSo hard. Firm.”
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    He had been seeing Julie for a few weeks. He and Julie walked home together, trailed by her girlfriends. Each time he hoped they would run into Ysa and catch jealousy on her face. She was never anywhere in sight.
    He was messing up at work, always late or always asking for days off to spend with Julie. The last time he asked for a day off, Mr. Moon threatened to let him go.
    He learned to be prompt where Julie was concerned, and he always treated her friends to soda and french fries. He learned that movies made for a safe date, as he never had to make too much conversation, and he usually let her pick the movie.
    He ate dinner at Julie’s a few times, sometimes with her family, though they were seldom home. Her parentsworked off-hours, and her brother was in college. Julie gave him his first kiss, and after a month, and a Christmas gift (an ankle bracelet that she pointed to in a store window), she took his virginity in her bedroom while Janine, Mona, and Yvette stood guard downstairs. He removed his pants, but she removed only her panties, keeping on her skirt. She put the condom on him and guided him inside her. When it was over, Julie came downstairs and hopped on the sofa with her friends as they began rapidly talking in Creole. Thulani followed, fully clothed. In English Julie said, “Three, four minutes,” to Janine’s question, and the girls laughed.
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    â€œShe is pretty,” Shakira said, holding Eula belly-down across her thigh. She rubbed small circles on the baby’s back to burp her. “But she’s not the one.”
    Thulani cut his lashes at her. How do you know?
    Delighted that she might possibly know something, Shakira explained, “The way you bring her here. Introduce her to me. Have her sitting watching videos out here in the open.”
    â€œYeh, so?”
    â€œIf Thulani has a piece of music, he plays it on his Walkman for self and self alone. If Thulani has some special ting, a photograph or clipping, he hides it in his heart away from the gazes.”
    This was all true, for the one thing he would not share with Shakira or anyone else was the cloth of a hundred eyes that still hung on his wall. Even when she saw it, he refused to explain what it meant or how he got it. Only one person would instantly know what the cloth was, and she would never see it again.
    â€œJulie is something special to me,” he insisted, though they both knew he lied. He kept her out of his room because he could not bring himself to take down the skirt.
    â€œDon’t get me wrong,” Shakira said. “The girl is nice. Just not the one you’ve been sick for.”
    He had to laugh, his only way to dismiss her. As far as he was concerned, Shakira knew nothing.
    â€œRemember?” she said. “‘Sistah Luv, suppose I’m stuck on one girl, but another girl won’t leave me ’lone?’ Remember I told you? Leave the silly girl to her silliness, be a man, and step to the real one. Then I went to the hospital and push out Eula.”
    He laughed hard, throwing his head back. He hadn’t laughed, really laughed, in so long.
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    In the nearly two months that they saw each other, Thulani never mentioned his roof or his birds to Julie. When he had to open the dovecote, he’d say, “Look. I have to do something.” He brought her to Yong Moon’sonly twice after school. If he took her to his house, she’d sit in the living room where all could see her. When she hinted about seeing his room, he had his excuses ready: Shakira would not allow it, or it was a