Leaving Atlanta

In the summer of 1979, rain pours out of the Atlanta skies for three months. On the first day of school at Oglethorpe Elementary School, LaTasha Renee Baxter leaves her fifth-grade classroom, set in a trailer, to go to recess. She carries her jump rope, which she has been practicing. This is her last chance to prove her jump rope skills—“the proving ground for girls as long as she could remember” (4)—before matriculating to Southwest Elementary School. Due to the rainy summer, she practices in her basement. At recess she asks Monica Fisher—the best rope skipper she has ever seen—if she wants to jump rope. Monica refuses, not wanting to sweat out her pressed hair. Instead, the girls play jacks, using 20 jacks and a rubber ball. Tasha wins easily, using tricks that her mother has taught her. Monica, however, lies and says that she let Tasha win. She then mocks Tasha over her parents’ separation. Tasha clarifies, saying that her parents are only living apart. She then retaliates against Monica by saying that her mother told her that Monica’s family lives beyond their means. Tasha then flees to the girls’ restroom and sits in a stall, suppressing her need to cry.

The truth is that her father moved out two weeks earlier. Before her mother had announced the separation, Tasha thought that her parents were expecting their third child. Tasha began thinking about where they were going to put a baby when only the guest room was free. During the announcement, her father was the first to speak. He told Tasha and her sister, DeShaun, that he loved them very much but that he and their mother would be living apart “[f]or a while” (10). 

When Tasha arrives home from school, she tracks mud onto the floors, drinks juice out of several different glasses without washing any of them, then sits down and puts her feet up onto the sofa. When Dolores arrives home, she sees the mess and questions her daughter. Tasha angrily accuses her mother of not telling her that she and her father separated. She had to learn the truth from Monica, who claimed to hear from her own mother. In a fit of rage, Tasha runs to her room and shuts the door. She refuses to come down for dinner and sustains herself with some old snacks that she finds in her closet. She quietly promises herself that she’ll never eat with her mother and sister again. She resents them more after hearing the whirring of the blender, which indicates that her mother is making milkshakes for the two of them. 

For two days, Tasha keeps her promise but “[eats] ravenously at lunchtime and [spirits] away granola bars under her bed” (14) to get her through hungry evenings. On the second night, her father calls and begs her to eat. Tasha agrees, but then refuses again when she remembers that the table has no place for her father. On the third night, her mother begs her to eat, trying to lure her to the table with “cheese-dreams”—a grilled cheese sandwich made with French toast and served with raspberry syrup. Tasha relents, to her mother’s happy relief. 

The next morning, Dolores fixes Tasha’s hair and refuses her daughter’s request to do it herself, saying that she would make herself look “like a pickaninny” (18). Tasha, however, dislikes how her mother does her hair exactly as she does DeShaun’s. The only thing that makes Tasha feel more mature is the key that she wears around her neck, which lets her and her sister in the house when their mother isn’t home. During those times, Tasha is in charge. 

While walking to class, Tasha encounters Jashante Hamilton, whom she knows is too old to be in the fifth grade. He asks if she has “one of them little bitty Kleenxes […] like all the other fancy girls” (20). Tasha lies and says that she left them at home, though she doesn’t have a purse to carry a small package of Kleenex, as Forsythia Collier does. Jashante looks Tasha over, seeing both her numerous babyish plastic barrettes and the mounds on her chest which reveal her imminent need for a training bra. Tasha says that she needs to leave. Jashante asks her for her name, but she enters the classroom without answering. Once inside the building, she notices the strangely warm feeling that has overcome her.

When Tasha arrives home, she notices a TV on top of the refrigerator. It’s her mother’s surprise, which confuses Tasha. This was, after all, a woman who claimed that they didn’t need a television in the kitchen because they were a family that talked to each other at the dinner table. Her mother’s sudden reversal baffles Tasha. Then again, the three of them don’t have much to say to each other ever since Tasha’s father left. If Dolores is giving them a television, it might be because their father is never coming home. More annoyingly, Dolores doesn’t let the girls choose what to watch. She demands that they view the newscast so that they’ll know what’s happening in the world.

Monica Kaufman appears on television, and Dolores criticizes her hairstyle, while Tasha compliments her top. Just then, the photos of nine children appear on the TV screen, “arranged in three rows like a tic-tac-toe game waiting to be played” (23). Tasha’s father, Charles, calls shortly after the report. He speaks to Tasha and tells her to go straight home after school and not to talk to strangers. He then talks to DeShaun who tends to talk like a baby when she gets scared.

That night, the girls sleep with their mother. Tasha, however, is awake on her father’s side of the bed while her mother and younger sister sleep. She wonders what she would do if a child murderer were to break in. She figures that he would have to kill her mother and younger sister first. Then again, if he came through the window, Tasha would first die. Monica Kaufman did mention that the murderer snatched a little girl through her window and then asphyxiated her. That was a word that Dolores had to explain to Tasha. Tasha holds her face into a pillow to feel what asphyxiation might feel like. She holds her face there for as long as she can before gasping for air. 

A few weeks later, Charles moves back home. When he arrives, he offers Tasha a hug, but Tasha views him skeptically before asking if he has come back for good. He says that he has. Tasha checks for proof by going into his underwear drawer. She’s satisfied when she sees his underpants “stacked in the top dresser drawer” (30). He promises that no one will hurt his family as long as he’s around. Tasha also reminds them that their house has burglar bars. Her parents, however, aren’t convinced that those will suffice to keep the children safe. They demand that she and DeShaun go to their neighbor Mrs. Mahmud’s house after school and that they never enter the house alone. Tasha is relieved because she dreaded the possibility of entering an empty house with her little sister. 

The next day, the girls go to Mrs. Mahmud’s as instructed. Tasha notices that all of Mrs. Mahmud’s kitschy knickknacks have disappeared from her living room. Now, too, the carpet has plastic covering. There were children from their neighborhood all over the room. Mrs. Mahmud offers to take Tasha’s new coat—a rose-colored satin garment lined with genuine rabbit fur. Her father had recently surprised her with it. Tasha can’t wait for Monica Fisher to see it, hoping that her rival will “pass out with jealousy” (33). 

That night at dinner, Charles speculates on the child killer, figuring that it’s somebody white. Dolores agrees that the killer could be. After the girls leave the table to go finish their homework, they speak more frankly to each other. Charles asserts that all serial killers and notorious lunatics—Charles Manson, Son of Sam—have been white. 

At school the next day, the fifth-graders sit under pine trees and talk about the killer. Tasha repeats what her father said about the killer probably being white. That night, while they lay in their beds, Tasha wonders aloud to her sister about what might be happening to all of the missing boys. She senses that someone—or something—is hunting them down. Maybe, she says, if DeShaun learns the magic word, the creature won’t come near her. DeShaun gets scared. Tasha invites her sister to sleep with her, scooting over “to make space in her narrow bed” (42). 

On a dry, cool day that October, Tasha watches the boys at school run relay races. She focuses on Jashante who is in front and wonders what it’s like to be both fast and a boy. Monica and Forsythia suggest that they all run together, in mixed teams. Tasha sees Rodney Green nearby, not noticing the races, while other kids look around for partners. Rodney sits alone, lost in his own thoughts, and eating Alexander the Grapes candy. 

Just then, someone taps Tasha on the shoulder—it’s Jashante. He reaches for her hand, which she pulls away, claiming that she already has a partner. Jashante, jealous, disbelieves Tasha, saying that she’s too ugly for anyone to want to partner with her. When he puts his hands on her shoulders, she swings at him. They wrestle, Tasha falls backwards onto the ground, and nearly ruins her new coat. Her classmates laugh and Jashante mocks her, claiming that she should no longer think she’s too good for him. Tasha pulls herself up, gets in Jashante’s face, and tells him that she hopes the killer kidnaps and asphyxiates him, and that his body won’t surface until decomposed. Jashante regards her with hurt then pushes her down. Another classmate, Roderick, accuses her of putting a curse on Jashante. Nearly everyone in Tasha’s class, including Monica and Forsythia, ostracize her over her words. 

In the cafeteria, Tasha has no one to sit with until Octavia Fuller offers her a seat. Tasha worries that Octavia’s unpopularity will rub off on her, making it so that Monica and Forsythia will never sit with her again. Tasha accepts her offer, though. Octavia asks why Tasha isn’t sitting with her friends, and Tasha tells her new lunchmate about what happened at the relay race. Octavia asks why Tasha didn’t want to be Jashante’s partner. Tasha prepares herself to say that she didn’t want to run in her new coat. Then, noticing how Octavia is outgrowing her turtleneck, she thinks better of it and says that she just wasn’t feeling well. She then begins to cry.

Tasha ends up in the nurse’s office. Her mother has arrived to pick her up. Monica enters and puts Tasha’s book satchel on the cot next to her. Tasha is self-conscious about Monica seeing her curled up in her mother’s lap and feels worse when she sees Monica suppressing laughter. Octavia then comes in and hangs Tasha’s sullied coat on the back of a chair. 

On Wednesday, Monica comes to class wearing a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. Tasha notices nine Pepto-Bismol pink envelopes in her hand. They are invitations to a slumber party. After lunch, Monica has one more invitation to hand out, and it goes to Tayari Jones. Tasha watches Tayari tear open the envelope, grinning, then distracts herself by studying for her spelling test to avoid crying. 

That night, at home, Tasha looks sad. Her father asks what’s wrong, and DeShaun tells him about her not receiving an invite to the slumber party. Charles insists that, if Monica doesn’t want Tasha at her party, then she’s not Tasha’s friend. His attempt to make her feel better results in Tasha bursting into tears. The phone rings—it’s Tasha’s friend Ayana McWhorter who invites Tasha to go to Skate Towne with her and her 17-year-old sister, Cookie. To assuage Dolores’s worry over there not being an adult present, Charles agrees to take Tasha to the skating rink. 

When they arrive at Skate Towne, Charles complains to the manager about there being insufficient lighting. The manager, also a middle-aged man with a daughter, says that he can’t afford to rewire the lights in the parking lot, which is why he allows parents free entry. He notes that “[a]ll the lights in the world won’t help if people won’t supervise their children” (59). Inside, Ayana is lacing up her skates and invites Tasha to the restroom so that they can make up their faces with Vaseline, giving the illusions of eye shadow and lipstick. Ayana is in middle school because she skipped a grade. She and Tasha are the same age, but Ayana seems more mature. Still, Tasha is a better skater. 

Some older-looking boys enter and go to play pinball. Tasha falls, which gets their attention; they laugh at her. Jashante is among the boys and goes over to ask Tasha if she’s okay. He asks her if she wants anything from the concession stand. She accepts his offer to buy her candy, which makes Tasha wonder if they’re on a date. He tells her that he earns money by selling car air fresheners. He gives her one. He says that most of his earnings go to his mother, but he saves “some for [his] lady” (66). Jashante then smiles at Tasha, who decides that she wants to keep the candy as a souvenir. 

Tasha’s father arrives to tell her that it’s time to leave. Jashante mumbles a goodbye, then rejoins his friends at the pinball machine. After dropping Ayana off at home, Charles asks his daughter about the boy whom she was talking to and wants to know how old he is. Tasha says that he’s 11, but her father is skeptical. He then warns her to stay away from Jashante because he’s trouble. Tasha climbs into bed that night with the air freshener in her hand and puts it inside of her pillowcase. 

On Monday morning, Tasha goes to school, unravels her braids, and smears Vaseline on her eyelids and lips, as Ayana had taught her. Jashante, however, isn’t around. Instead, she notices a group of girls “huddled around Monica” (68). They tell her that Monica couldn’t have a slumber party because Tayari Jones’s mother discovered that there would be no adult supervision and called all of the other mothers to notify them. At lunchtime, newly-ostracized Tayari eats with Octavia, while Tasha eats alone.

That night, while Tasha’s mother fusses at her over not completing her math homework, the 11:00 news airs a photo of Jashante, announcing that he’s missing. Tasha feels the pressure from the shock in her chest. Monica Kaufman announces that the missing boy is 13 years old. Tasha thinks of the hateful words she had said to him and feels remorseful. 

Tasha’s father joins a search party and goes looking in the woods for Jashante. Delores asks Tasha how she’s feeling, at which point Tasha blames herself for causing Jashante’s death. Her mother impresses upon her that this is impossible, and that “things just happen in spite of our wishes” (74). That evening, when Charles returns, he seems different. He leads the family in prayer and demands that they not watch TV that night. Tasha asks him where he went. He says that he and his team went “way north, all the way where white people stay” (74-75) on a bus. Some of the white people helped and packed lunches for them. Charles then goes on to compare what’s happening to the children to the bombing in Birmingham and the more recent abduction and murder of a light-skinned black boy from Ohio, which reminded him of Emmett Till’s murder. Delores hushes him, but Charles refuses to stop speaking, saying that his children should know about lynching and “about white folks burning niggers alive” (77). By now, he’s shouting and punches the glass table. DeShaun’s eyes well with tears. Charles then sits down and covers his eyes with the heels of his hands. Delores sends the girls out of the room, though they watch from the hall while their mother comforts their father as though he were a helpless child. 

With them alone, Charles explains to his wife how the line 25 miles outside of Atlanta reminded him of Alabama. He recalls how the white people there looked at him “half mean, half scared” (78), though most of them never came out of their houses. Charles searched with a white man named Jim or John. Together they found a decaying body in a hefty bag—it was a dog. Another group, however, found the skeleton of a missing little girl near Niskey Lake, which is near where they live. Hearing this, Tasha pulls her sister away, back into the darkness of their bedroom. 

While they lie down to sleep, DeShaun asks Tasha about the magic word that can protect them. Tasha admits that there is no magic word, but “there is power” (81). Tasha gives her sister what she calls a charm—it’s the air freshener. She tells DeShaun to put it under her pillow for safety.