An Inconvenient Friend

by Rhonda McKnight

  “So what do you think?” Rae’s voice sliced through her thoughts. “This man is a college professor. Working late? What’s he doing—grading papers?”

  Angelina picked up her coffee cup again. It was cold, but she took a sip anyway. It couldn’t make the nausea she was feeling any worse.

  “I just don’t know why she doesn’t do something about it.” Rae paused. “I mean, I didn’t mean to shock you earlier, but what would you do?”

  Rae’s eyes were wide with anticipation. She looked like she was enjoying the conversation. Angelina didn’ t know quite how to take what seemed like a lack of empathy for her anonymous friend, but she indulged her anyway. “I don’t know. It’ s hard to know what to do. It’s not cut and dry. It depends.”

  “On what?” Rae looked exasperated.

  “On lots of things. The couple, the woman, the marriage itself. ”Rae crossed her arms and waggled her foot at the ankle. Angelina continued. “Kids, family commitments, money... .”

  “Angelina, that’s sounding pretty weak.” Rae dropped her arms.

  Angelina shook her head. “There are things that keep people together. Lots of couples survive infidelity.”

  “But even God said a woman doesn’t have to stay with a cheating husband. I heard one of the TV ministers talking about that.”

  “The Bible says if you can forgive, you can stay and work it out.”

  “I think it’s dumb to put up with a cheating man. If he’s done it once, he’ll do it again. I think she should leave. She’s setting herself up for more heartache.”

  Angelina wanted to tell her to shut up. To stop being the voice of reason in her head. But instead she told her the same things she told herself. “People ... men, make mistakes. None of us are perfect.”

  “A mistake.” Rae crossed her arms in front of her again and let out a snort. “You make a mistake and mess up your checkbook or step in dog poop on the curb. We don’t accidentally get into bed with someone. That’ s intentional.”

  Angelina knew she was frowning. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Rae sat there waiting for her to say something deep she supposed. But she didn’t have anything deep to say because her husband was probably cheating, and she hadn’ t done anything. Hadn’t said a word. “Look, why are we talking about your friend? We’re supposed to be talking about you.”

  “I know, but my friend’s thing is major for me right now. She’s a new Christian, and she needs some help with this.”

  Angelina couldn’t believe how tenacious Rae was. She was like a pit bull. “Does she have a church? She should talk to her pastor.”

  “No, she won’t do that. She’s embarrassed. Don’t you think it’ s embarrassing to tell someone, anyone, that your husband is hittin it somewhere else?”

  I don’t need this today. “I think the embarrassment is a small part of it.”

  Rae’s cell phone rang a Beyoncè song in her purse, and she grabbed her bag and reached for it. Her eyes rolled upward, and she threw up a manicured index finger. “One sec, okay?” She flipped the shell open, and Angelina was glad for the reprieve.

  “This is not a good time ... I know, but ... Ma, I’m in the ... okay ... okay, yes!” She snapped the phone shut. “I have to go.” She plastered a grin on her face and forced a smile into her voice, but clearly was not happy about the phone call. “Family matter. Kind of pressing.” Rae stood and smoothed her linen suit.

  “Yes, I heard you mention your mom.” Angelina stood also.

  “Something like that.” Rae tossed her empty cup in a nearby trash basket.

  Angelina thought she looked more disappointed than she should have, or maybe the call had been that upsetting. Angelina wasn’t sure. “Well, I really said all I can say without knowing your friend better. If she’s a Christian, she should pray and consider talking to her pastor about her problem.” Angelina could tell Rae was no longer interested in what she had to say. “Call again if you need to talk.”

  Rae nodded and retrieved her handbag from the chair. “I will. Thanks for meeting me.”

  Rae walked away from the table and out of the restaurant, but not before Angelina saw the sheen of unshed tears in the woman’s eyes.

  Chapter 7

  I pulled away from the curb. My mother’s timing couldn’t have been worse. I had Mrs. Preston rattled, but I couldn’t tell if it were because I implied her precious husband was cheating, or if I’d pushed on a sore spot because she knew he was cheating. I needed more time to figure that out, and I would have if I hadn’t been interrupted.

  I pressed the call log in my phone and pushed to redial. Seconds later I heard my mother’s grumpy voice growl hello on the other end. “What were you saying about your lights? I asked.

  “They gonna turn ’em off. I need you to get over here.”

  I bit back disgust. “Mama, I was in a meeting. Didn’t you know they were going to turn off your lights before today?”Rhetorical question, one that I had asked many times, but what else could I say? I had to complain. I had a right to.

  “Ya’ cousin said he was gonna have the money, but they shorted his check.”

  Cousin June had the shortest check in the history of payroll. Only a fool would keep working for someone who ’shorted’ them as much as his employer did. So the long of it was June was lying.

  I could almost feel the steam coming out my nose. This was always the way it happened. Last minute—no, last second calls for money to save a necessary utility. I couldn’t let my mother sit in the dark, so there was no point in the discussion. “Where can I go to pay it without having to come all the way over there?”

  “It wouldn’t be all the way if you didn’t live darn near in Tennessee,”my mother grumbled. “I need some cash too for a personal bill, so bring me an extra fifty.”

  I bit back the protest that wanted to escape my lips. “An extra fifty over what?” I asked, through gritted teeth.

  “The bill is two hundred and ninety dollars.”

  “Two-ninety! How many months is that?” I wanted to leap through the phone and shake her.

  “Samaria, don’t start asking me about the bill. I paid some on it every month, but it wasn’t enough. I done told you June was going to pay it, but he ain’t coming through, so get your little fast tail over here.”Dial tone.

  I exited I-20 onto Boulevard and was instantly transported to a place that existed in the recesses of my memory where I hid all the visions I didn’t want to revisit in my conscious mind. White Gardens was the last of the crumbling public housing projects in Atlanta, and it was scheduled for demolition in the next few months. It was, however, already a hot mess. It got more tore up every time I came here. If the rotten, rusted bars at the entrance didn’t warn a person that they were driving or walking into the gates of purgatory, then the broken glass, trash, and homeless crackheads sleeping on the old benches would do it. Who decides to be homeless in the projects? I mean, if you gonna sleep in the streets, at least do it where you got a better view.

  I pulled in front of my mother’s dilapidated building, turned off the engine, and checked out my surroundings. A small group of teenage boys were standing near the light pole across the street, hovering around a CD player, their nods and movements in rhythm with the beat.

  I opened my door. Boom ... boom ... boom ... The vibration met my ears, the volume jostled my heart. The boldest of the crew turned to look me directly in the eyes. He was wearing a T-shirt that hung darn near to his knees. I could make out the words “Pac Lives” and recognized the nearly life-size picture of the slain rapper embossed across the front. Pac was darn near synonymous with Jesus Christ in this place. Definitely God to kids like these who didn’t have anything else to believe in.

  The man-child looked me up and down as he pressed his fist into his free hand. I raised my arm and pushed the key fob to set the Beamer’s alarm, after which I put a tight fist at my waist, dropped my hip, and raised an eyebrow. He knew what I was saying. “Don’t mess with my
ride.” And since young blood’s fear-detector didn’t pick up any waves of terror coming from me, he turned his back and continued to belt out rhymes with his boys.

  I took the twenty or so steps necessary to reach my mother’s door. Before I could knock, the squeaking hunk of wood was pulled open by my mother. Bottom lip jiggling, she stared like I’d arrived in a pumpkin carriage pulled by mice. “Whatcha done did to get that car?”

  I looked back at the Beamer. I’d actually had it for months, but chose to drive my old Honda to the hood. Mama didn’t need to know my business, and I didn’t need my ride stolen. But I’d sold the Honda last month to catch up on student loan payments before they went into default. The last thing I needed was the federal government coming after my paycheck. I did not mess with Uncle Sam. “My consulting thing is starting to come together.”I stepped through the door.

  “Consultant?” She snorted. “Girl, please. I may seem ignorant, but I know what it cost to live in Roswell and drive that car. You got a hustle, and it ain’t no consultin”.

  “Sometimes you have to look the part before you’re actually there or people won’t give you business.”I scanned the sparsely furnished, dirty apartment. White Gardens was a dump, but nothing said dump like my mothe’s unit. The walls were a dusty mustard that was yellow before they stopped being washed. The carpet I’d replaced a couple of years ago looked like it saw more foot traffic than a bus station. And the stench; I could smell the roaches teeming under the floorboards. I shuddered.

  My mother looked unconvinced about the consulting thing. She walked across the room and dropped her oversized body into the extra-large leather recliner I bought her last year for her birthday. “Samaria Ann. I raised you.”

  Like I could forget that. Her tone got on my last nerve.

  “I know you, and you ain’t nothing but a conniving little trick. You just like me when I was your age and all the women before you in this family.” She grunted and smiled with pride. “I’m just curious ’bout what you pulling off.”

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I never told her my business, and she knew it. “I’ve been working a lot of hours, and I’ve got a lot of debt, which makes it hard for me to come over here handing over money at the last minute.”

  A string of cuss words that could have wrapped around Atlanta like I-285 came flying out of her mouth like she’d been saving them up for me. “Don’t you bring yo’ stuck up ... been told you ’bout sassin’me ya’ little... . if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be standing there with all that expensive. . .”

  I tuned out her rant. It would stop five seconds after I handed her the money. I slipped my hands into my purse, pulled out the wad I’d gotten from an ATM, and handed it to her. “Okay, okay, you ain’t got to be cussing at me like that.”

  “I wouldn’t have to be cussin’ if you wasn’t so—”

  As predicted, she stopped mid sentence when she saw I’d given her an extra hundred. She looked me up and down and cut her eyes. I could literally see the words going back down her throat. “’Preciate you, baby. It’s just that I ain’t ever complained when I had to do a lap dance to put food on the table.”

  I sighed remembering it was food stamps that put the meals on the table. But I also remembered all the black eyes and busted lips my mother had over the years asking broke down men for money to pay the light bill. She did sacrifice her body, her soul sometimes. So I wasn’t gonna dis her. Ever.

  “It’s your turn to return the favor. If you need to take your hot little behind somewhere and get some money, then you do it. I’m too old to pull my own hustle. I expect my daughter to take care of me the same way I took care of her.”

  I nodded. “You took the words right out of my thoughts, Mama. That’s why I’m here.”

  My mother reached into a bowl of pecans and stuck one in her mouth. She cracked the shell with one of her few remaining back teeth and proceeded to make a nasty mess of breaking down the hull to get the nut out. I asked myself the same question I always did when I saw her. What happened to her? As a child I couldn’t stand her most of the time, but she was beautiful. Red-boned with long silky hair and light brown eyes. Men loved them some Winnie Jacobs, including my daddy, who, in contrast to my mother, was as black as coal, accounting for my just a shade below dark milk chocolate complexion.

  “What you looking at me so hard for?” My mother’s eyes narrowed.

  I shook my head nonchalantly.

  “You want some nuts?” She raised the bowl and extended it toward me.

  “Uh-uh.” I swallowed to fight off the nausea that was starting to overwhelm me. Between the ugly nut scene and the smell, this visit had to come to an end. “It’s not going to be much longer before they put you out of here. Are you working on finding a new place to live?”

  I didn’t want her to wait until they were coming to bulldoze White Gardens and call me to keep her off the streets. Last minute housing arrangements were always expensive.

  “My social worker gonna put me in the same place Ebony live,” she said, referring to my first cousin. “It’ll be ready soon.”

  I had read that many of the residents of the old Atlanta projects found housing in the suburbs. But some had moved to newer low income housing that wouldn’t be called “projects,” at least not until the residents tore them up. The suburbs were not for my mother. She liked the familiar. She liked living with the kinds of people she knew, so I wasn’t surprised she was waiting for one of the units in Ebony’s complex to open up.

  “As long as you’re not going to be out of a place,” I said. My concern was more for myself.

  “I’m handling my business. They ain’t coming to knock this down for five months. Look,” she hesitated, “June Bug needs some more of that stuff you got him before.”

  I hadn’t realized my hand was locked at my hip until I dropped it. “Mama.”

  “You know he don’t have the money, and he’s sick. He needs the medicine.”

  I thought about what I’d had to do the last time to get the “medicine” for my older cousin. Drug addiction—prescription drugs of all things. He needed rehab.

  “He gotta have ’em soon. He’s almost out.”

  “Let me give you some money and have somebody go find something for him,” I said, reaching into my purse for my wallet. The receipt for this morning’s purchases came out with the cash. I lowered my eyes and looked down at my new Salvatore Ferragamo shoes, thought about the check I’d written for them and the balance in my bank account. My budget was already busted. I barely had enough in the bank to cover the four hundred dollar footwear and the unexpected ATM withdrawal that preceded this trip. I threw my head back. I returned my eyes to my mother’s, and I could see she already knew what was coming next.

  “Nice shoes.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes that lay on the end table.

  I put my wallet back in my purse. “I got them on sale.”

  “Sale or no sale, I know ’dem shoes was ’bout a hundred dollars.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll get something for June.”

  “Good.” My mother smiled. “Ain’t no point in spending money on drugs. Them hospitals got plenty.”

  “Yeah, well, they keep them pretty well locked up.”

  “But you got a key.” My mother clucked her teeth and lit the cigarette.

  I decided there was no point in telling her they also counted the “drugs a plenty.” That would get me cussed out some more. I’d do it this one last time, and then I’d make sure I had enough money to give them to help buy June’s drugs.

  My mother took a long drag of the cigarette and blew a plume in the opposite direction. She coughed and wheezed. All I could think about was the damage she was doing to her asthmatic lungs.

  “I’m going to go.” I walked to the door and looked back at my mother. “I’ll have something for June by the end of the week.

  She nodded. “’Preciate you, Sam-Sam-Marie.”

  My hand clamped down on
the door knob. I turned and pushed it open. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t believe my mother had done that—called me by the nickname that only my father had used.

  I exited the dank apartment, thanked God for the clean air and the escape. My mother was being mean. Horribly mean. She hadn’t sang that nickname in years. New shoes and a new car in the same day. Too much new for her to deal with. She’d always been jealous.

  I looked up and saw that the guys who’d been hawking my car earlier had been joined by a fifth person, but this was someone I knew, and he was coming toward me.

  “What up, Sammie?” Wang Johnson took a step off the curb and made his way to my car. Wang Wang, as we called him because in the third grade he unzipped his pants and waved himself around at his teacher, had grown up. He was wearing a camouflage Roca Wear hoodie with matching jeans, white Air Force 1’s, and some bad ice in his ears. Wang was a small time rapper whose homemade CDs were floating underground all over the south and selling pretty well from what I’d heard. Wang was also my exboyfriend, Mekhi’s, younger brother and a kid who was about as near and dear to my heart as anyone could get.

  I hadn’t seen Mekhi in a long time, almost a year, but I had to admit it felt like I was looking at him right now. To look like Mekhi was a good thing because he was as fine as the good Lord made ’em. Tall, brown like a chocolate bar with teeth so white, I swear he had to put a little bleach on them every night.

  Wang Wang smiled and the dimples the Johnson boys were blessed with filled his face.

  “You being good?” I asked, looking around to make sure Wang Wang wasn’t setting me up to get robbed out here. One never knew ’bout busters in the projects.

  “Ain’t got to be good if you careful.” He shoved his hands deep in his pocket. “Ya’ moms tight?”

  I nodded.

  “I know you tightened her up.” He poked his lips out and cocked his head in the direction of my mother’s door. “Look, while you slumming, you should go holler at ya boy.”