after Craven Smith Latisha. Not the short one. The tall one. The one who has the same surname as Steve. I’d watch her go by my homeroom class—walking the halls of Springfield Gardens High School—none of my homies gave her a second (or first) look. Latisha, the tall one, a late bloomer with a cute ass overbite. I’d get weak at the knees when she smiled. I would’ve loved for her to choose me for a semester full of uneven hickeys. But a wet-behind-the-ears freshman had no chance at a twelfth grade goddess, dressed in no-name clothes, sporting a short bob with bangs and a nameplate necklace. Latisha, the tall one, slimmer than a lowercase l. Old Timers would talk about skinny women and say, “If she’s slim, she’ll make ya head spin.” I lost track of my high school crush when Stride Rite went out of business. I’d walk by, watching her sell baby shoes, on my way to shoplift hip-hop cassette tapes out of Sam Goody Music Store. Latisha, the tall one, bailed me out of Mall Security jail with just her employee ID and a beautiful but guarded smile that you’d rarely see. (Because she shied away from her own reflection.) We sat in her Mitsubishi Mirage listening to Babyface and Tevin Campbell. It wasn’t my preferred listening choice—but my newly released TOO $HORT cassette got confiscated. The security guard threw it into a box marked “shrinkage” and made me sign a document marked DNR. I almost died, seeing Do Not Return stamped at the top of the page; it had me on the verge of needing resuscitation. That ban barred me from my boo! That day lives on in my mind, although Green Acres Mall passed away. She still haunts my fantasies and catalyzes memories… Mr. Woolery, a great chemistry teacher, assigns permanent lab partners to the two Latishas in our class. He points at a metal stool, next to the Magnetic Polarity chart, and tells me: “You’ll be with Latisha. The tall one.”