Tutored by Allison Whittenberg

listen to the can. Make up your own damn mind. What do I got up in here, one baby or two?”
    “Preemies need all the nutrition they can get.”
    She waved him away.
    “Leesa, Wendy said—”
    That made Leesa sneer. “Hold up, now I got to take instructions from that skinny thing on nutrition? How many kids she got? What the hell does she know?”
    “You’re in front of the set again.”
    “You ain’t the least bit into boring shit like that.” She grabbed the remote and flicked off the set.
    “I am too watching it. Quit being so evil,” he said,grabbing hold of Malikia as he stood up, snatched back the remote, and flicked the set back on.
    “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, this is my place and my TV and—”
    At that part, Hakiam had heard enough. It was going to drive him mental if he hung around and listened to her anymore. He handed his cousin both the remote control and her daughter.
    “Where are you going?” she asked him as she took reluctant hold of Malikia.
    “I need air. Bye,” he said, and headed out the door to no place in particular.
    On his way outside, he passed an open door. The air reeked with drugs. A small, squirrelly-looking guy dressed in a red hoodie and carpenter pants stepped into the hallway and tried to deal Hakiam.
    Hakiam kept walking.
    Outdoors in the cold night air, he scanned the open sky. He wondered what she was up to right now. Wendy. He was sure whatever she was doing, she didn’t have to put up with this kind of crap. He was certain that the only conflict she encountered came from watching actors emote on the screen.

22
    W endy walked cautiously past her father’s door. She decided to peek in, and then curiosity got the best of her.
    “What’s the name of that film, Dad?”
    “Quiet” was the answer he first gave her. Then he said, “It’s called
Gentleman’s Agreement
. It won Best Picture in 1947.”
    Wendy paused by the doorway, mulling over whether she really wanted to enter the room. She hadn’t done that for a while, actually watched a movie with her father.
    She eased her way in and sat down by the far wall. Wrapped up in the movie, her dad was at first startled by Wendy. Next, he glanced at her with narrowed eyes; then he went back to watching the TV.
    “I bet you’ve seen this a thousand times,” Wendy said.
    “Shhh!” he told her.
    The premise of the movie was intriguing. A newspaper reporter pretended to be a Jew for eight weeks in order to expose anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, it was during the time period that he was engaged to be married, which gave the movie a compelling subplot. His fiancée was embarrassed to have people think that she was going to marry a Jew. There was also a sophisticated fashion editor who worked at the paper. She wasn’t in on the ruse, but she accepted the hero regardless of his supposed religion. Wendy was sure the story would end with the main character leaving his namby-pamby wife-to-be and taking up with the more open-minded, forward-thinking woman. But as the film went on, scene after scene showed the fiancée feeling really, really, really bad about anti-Semitism, but not enough to, you know, stop it. It came to a head when she was at a dinner party and someone told a “kike” joke.
    This led to the climax of the film, when the wishy-washy woman had her hand held by a long-suffering Jewish acquaintance. At that point, she was told quite tenderly by this way-too-patient man that she didn’t have to go along with bigotry. She could speak up and speak out; she could go against it.
    “Can I?” the fiancée said in a warbling voice and with a well-placed tear escaping her eye. “Can I?” she repeated, this time breaking the fourth wall by looking directly into the camera.
    “Lame!” Wendy shouted at the TV.
    “Will you be quiet?” her father scolded her.
    Having lost all hope for the ending, Wendy left the room and went down to the kitchen to get a glass of juice.
    Within a few minutes, her