It was barely the summer—just the end of June—and already two teenaged boys had been killed. Jason was turning sixteen in another month, and his mother worried that he might not make it. A week after the double funeral, she cashed in all of the Series ee bonds she’d been saving since his birth and bought him a plane ticket to spend the summer with his grandfather. Distance, she believed, would keep him safe.

She waited until the day of his flight and told him over breakfast. “It’s not forever,” she said, polishing off her coffee. “Besides, it’s...

A women’s organization decided to adopt the girls in our school for the year, but we weren’t supposed to feel lucky. We were selected not for our scholasticism or high test marks but because our school had the highest percentage of eighth grade girls dropping out to have babies. The organization selected us out of all the other junior highs in Brooklyn as the most need-worthy, designated us as the most at-risk. Ten women from the group would serve as volunteer mentors. Time spent with the women was supposed to raise our self-esteem. It would keep us from making negative...

Blue sent letters, begging letters, meant to soften a small space in our mother’s heart. The letters were frequent, relentless, more punctual than bills. They slipped in with the gas and electric bills, the phone bill and the rent reminder, long number-ten envelopes mixed in with the short fat ones the credit card people sent. For months, Blue’s letters came from a rehab center in upstate New York, all addressed to our mother. Then one came from Brooklyn addressed to my brother, Peter. Blue thought he was being slick, but our mother knew what he was doing.

“I’m supposed to...

The teacher’s clothes hang off her. She is what the girl’s mother calls a “Skinny Minnie.” Even the girl’s sister dresses better. She gets her clothing from Lerner’s, which has not yet become New York & Company. When the sister is away at work, the girl slides the magazines out from her sister’s hiding place and stares at the models, especially the two black ones. The women are lovely in a way the girl didn’t know black women could be. Her mother is not beautiful, neither is her sister, though her sister probably could be if she tried a little harder....

Our mother’s voice—raised in anger—followed by the crash of something sharp, delicate, and expensive shattering against the wall that was ours on one side and our parents’ on the other woke us up. Dressed in a black full-length slip with pink rollers in her hair, our mother stood tough by her side of the bed—tough despite the defeat that sat in her eyes and the tears that rolled down her puffy cheeks—holding up a picture frame, the muscles on her brown arms flexed with the need to throw. The picture was barely recognizable under the layers...

The girls on Lexington had it the worst. Hated maroon skirts the color of dried blood. Navy blazers complete with gaudy emblem. Goldenrod blouses with Peter Pan collars. And knee socks. Actually, knee socks weren’t so bad. Knee socks served their purpose in the winter, keeping sturdy calves warm.

The girls on East End wore gray or navy skirts, plain and not pleated, with a white blouse, sweater optional.

Multiple skirts were another way to go. We had our choice of navy, gray, maroon, and an unpleated light blue seersucker meant only for the spring. The choices allowed us to...

Fifteen and too shy to do anything on her own, Melanie waits for Chandra to come down. Waits at the large, wide window—the thin curtains Bernice has hung do not cover the width of it—for just a glimpse of Chandra, because Bernice will not let her come over. Will never let her come over. And so she and Chandra must meet here outside on the stoop, in full view of the wide window and the neighborhood, where Bernice can, as she is fond of saying, “keep an eye on things.” Bernice is in the kitchen baking, though it...

No one holds the syringe but me. My mother could if she weren’t so squeamish about blood. There was a time when my cousin Tony could have learned to, but he came home to Brooklyn that summer a stranger. He’d been away all year at a boarding school in Connecticut none of us had ever seen. This left only Teddy, and even a blind woman could have seen that he coveted the hypodermic for his own.

Teddy, my grandmother’s youngest son, and his newest girlfriend, Karen, were at the kitchen table playing backgammon.

“What you doing?” Teddy asked.

“Nothing.” I...

Kim knew better than to ask for a favor while her mother’s shows were on. Her mother sat on the love seat, positioned directly in front of the tv, with newspaper spread out across her lap. She was peeling potatoes to make french fries, routinely dropping peelings onto the newspaper without ever looking at her hands or the knife. She kept her eyes glued on the television, watching Hawaii Five-O. She ignored Kim. When Kim crossed in front of the tv, her mother didn’t even blink. All she said was, “You not made of glass.”

“Ma, please?” Kim whined. “She’s...

Kiki didn’t have anything smaller than a twenty on him at lunchtime. He’d pulled out a roll of twenties and fifties and told Stephen to meet him at the park when school let out. Stephen had never seen so much money on someone his own age. And even though he knew he was supposed to head straight home, he agreed to meet at the park.

When he got there, he went straight to their spot, a stone house at the edge of the playground that all the kids called the White House. Stone turtles, dolphins, horses in midgallop were scattered...