Someone to Watch Over Me

by Michelle Stimpson

  “Girl, you ain’t changed at all.” She laughed while piling our plates with chicken and mashed potatoes.

  “What?”

  “Always overanalyzing stuff,” she teased. “You walk into a room and take stock of everything and everybody.”

  Her observation made me wonder if I, too, was stuck in some kind of time trap. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. That’s just you.” She smiled, setting my plate down, joining me at the table. “And this is just me.”

  She blessed the food and I, for one, dove into the meal head first. Lost all sense of calories and fat grams, and drank sweet tea like it wasn’t loaded with sugar.

  We caught up on the formals for a while. Neither of us was married. No kids. Since graduating from high school, Cassandra had earned a cosmetology license, but she hated dealing with peoples’ unrealistic expectations. “I mean, they come in with a spoonful of hair and want to walk out looking like Beyoncé. I’m not a miracle worker.”

  I’d forgotten how much Cassandra used to crack me up.

  “Plus there’s too much gossip in a beauty salon. You know me, I ain’t tryin’ to be in everybody’s business.” She shook her head.

  “Sandra, please. You were the queen of gossip in high school,” I reminded her.

  Her mouth fell open. “Me?”

  “Yes, you!”

  “I am not a gossip . . . anymore,” she surrendered, and stuffed her mouth with potatoes.

  “Exactly when did the gossip guru relinquish her title?” I examined her.

  She laughed slightly, then appeared to give my question thought. “Since God changed me.”

  Took me off guard. “Really?”

  Cassandra squared eyes with mine and she swallowed her food. “Really.”

  I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone under the age of fifty say anything so profound about God. I mean, you get spammy texts about God—“if you love God, forward this” or “send this to five people and you’ll be blessed tomorrow by 11:09 A.M.” Modern-day equivalent to chain letters, if you asked me.

  Cassandra’s confession about God, however, rang with authenticity. Made me wonder if we had much in common anymore. I mean, I liked God and I figured He must like me, too, otherwise why would He have taken the time to create me? He was pretty good, from what I could tell, but He hadn’t tried to change me. Maybe that’s because I was a pretty good person already. Yeah, that’s it.

  The wall clock reminded me I had miles to go before DeAndre returned home from school. “Well, I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Shoot.”

  Might as well put it all out there. “Aunt Dottie wanted me to ask you if you’d like to reopen and manage the store until she recovers.”

  Cassandra almost choked on her drink. “She wants me to run the store? Shazooka!”

  Her reaction mirrored mine at the news. I, in turn, mimicked Aunt Dottie. “Don’t worry, Sandra, I’ll help you with the vendors and the paperwork. And you know how Aunt Dottie is—she’ll recover in no time.”

  Cassandra looked at me above the rim of her glasses. “How are you gonna help me run the store from three hundred miles away?”

  “I’m not going back to Houston any time soon,” I quickly assured her. “I’m here for you.”

  She sighed pensively and gave me a you-better-be-glad-I-like-you roll of the eyes.

  I tried another angle. “Don’t you want to . . . get back to work? We all need money, right?”

  Couldn’t argue that one. She nodded in resignation. “We’ve got to get in there and clean the store out first. Milk’s spoiled, bread’s hard by now. When do you wanna get started?”

  The concept of cleaning the store hadn’t entered my mind, but Cassandra was right. Reopening the store would be a huge undertaking. By the way things looked when I stopped by Dottie’s the other day, no one had touched a thing since she suffered the stroke.

  “We’re gonna need Elgin,” she suggested

  “Who’s Elgin?”

  “Part-timer. He cleans and does all the heavy lifting. He-man for real.” She flexed her arms.

  Sounded like a good plan. “Call him.”

  Within a few minutes, my team of three gathered to open the doors of Dottie’s. Surprisingly, there was no pungent odor greeting us upon entry. The refrigerators were still plugged in, so nothing had a chance to attract flies. Some dust had settled on the cash register, but aside from that, no trumpet blast.

  Upon entrance, the five aisles to the left stocked pantry items—cereal, chips, flour, sugar, bread. To the right, candy and household goods like scissors, paper towels, and toothpaste. Refrigerators cooled dairy products and packaged lunch meat along the back walls. Straight ahead, the counter, my favorite place, secured deli meats and cheeses Aunt Dottie cut to order. And, of course, my college diploma provided the perfect covering for the door leading to the back office.

  “Glad to be back,” Cassandra declared.

  Elgin, a salt-and-pepper-haired man in his midfifties who obviously spent too much time pumping iron, proved a handy addition. He started right away clearing out the lunch meat from the deli area. Cassandra started on the bread aisle, and I holed myself in the back office, contacting vendors to resume deliveries.

  After Elgin declared the store ready for business, we gathered at the front counter to figure out a work schedule. Cassandra would open at nine Monday through Friday and work until five. I’d close out the day from five until seven. “I’ll be here as long as I need to be here,” she said.

  Elgin would come in at noon and stay until closing every day. We’d have to play this coming Saturday by ear because, between me and Cassandra, we’d be worked to death by then. We needed to hire someone, quickly. Both Cassandra and Elgin said they knew people who needed part-time work. I told them I’d run those people by Aunt Dottie.

  Thank God we were closed Sundays.

  I dropped Cassandra off at her house and headed back to the hospital to fill Aunt Dottie in on our progress. Halfway to the hospital, my phone bleeped, marking one of those freak-signal moments. I pulled over to the side of the road, set my blinkers, and made mental note of this hot spot on Opal Street between Dottie’s and the hospital. Voice mail flashed: 1 Message.

  I dialed quickly, before the cosmos rearranged. “Hello, this message is for Tori Henderson. This is Shayna Ash, the principal at Bayford Elementary School. Wanted to let you know that DeAndre has been suspended from school for the next two days for fighting. Please come pick him up as soon as you get this message, since he won’t be allowed to ride the bus home this afternoon. Thank you.”

  My first question: why is she calling me? Secondly, how did she get my number?

  I disconnected the call, bristling with annoyance. Had the principal left her number, I would have gladly told her to call Ms. Joenetta or Ray-Ray. Or maybe even DeAndre’s mother’s family. Where were those people, anyway?

  The e-mail icon grabbed my attention before I could process my questions. One from Preston marked urgent caught my eye. I tapped the phone’s touch-screen accordingly, my heart thumping even more. The “thinking” emblem circled on the monitor. And it circled, and circled, and circled again.

  Cannot retrieve messages at this time. Forced close.

  “What?! Open! Open!” I tried to open the application again, but noticed the empty gray bars. “Crazy!” So, what, a cloud drifts by and my signal disappears?

  My attempted race to the church was thwarted by a school bus ahead of me, stopping at seemingly every possible corner, releasing streams of the slowest-walking kids I’d seen in a while. Obviously, none of DeAndre’s friends. Calm down, Tori. Another stop, another deep breath.

  Glancing down at my console, the time struck me. Three-thirty. By now, DeAndre must have been sitting in the office for fifteen minutes after school dismissed, assuming neither Joenetta nor Ray-Ray had gone to get him. I envisioned his little brown eyes following every passing car as he waited for a ride home. Was
he hurt? Did he have a busted lip? What happened to the other kid?

  Bayford’s elementary, middle, and high schools were so close they all shared a common parking lot. I hopped out of my vehicle and reluctantly trudged toward the office of the smallest building. DeAndre sat just inside the main office, swinging his legs over the edge of a bench.

  After an immediate flash of relief, his face settled into a frown. “Hi, Cousin Tori.”

  “What happened, DeAndre?”

  A tall, stout woman emerged from a side door, flipping long blond hair over her shoulder. “Miss Henderson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello. Thanks for coming.” She clipped her words. Obviously, we shared a mutual distaste for unruly children. She handed me a carbon copy of the document detailing DeAndre’s infraction. He and another boy had gotten into an argument in the morning that escalated into a physical confrontation during recess. Pretty cut-and-dry scenario. She closed with, “We’ll see DeAndre again Tuesday morning.”

  “Certainly,” I agreed, folding the papers and placing them in my purse for future reference. “Thank you. By the way, Ms. Ash, I don’t believe I listed myself as an emergency contact for DeAndre.”

  “Oh.” She softened. “I got your number through Aunt Dottie’s nurse. How is she, by the way?”

  Should have known. “She’s improving, thank you. Let’s go, DeAndre.”

  He sulked all the way back to my car and I wondered why he, suspended-boy, felt perfectly within his rights displaying attitude.

  He buckled himself into the passenger’s seat and looked straight ahead. Tell me that was not a smirk on his face?

  “Why are you smiling?”

  He lowered he head, trying to hide the smile.

  “DeAndre, you are suspended. In what world is this a happy occasion?” I slammed my hand on the steering wheel with each syllable.

  “He was messing with me,” DeAndre huffed, “but I bet he won’t do it no more.”

  “Any more. And what do you mean messing with you? How?”

  DeAndre crossed his arms on his chest. “Calling me names.”

  “Names like what?”

  “DeAndre, DeAndre, got a prison madre.” He mimicked the classic playground jump-roping rhyme and rhythm. I had to give it to these kids. They’d come a long way—bilingual teasing.

  In this case, however, there was some truth to the mockery. DeAndre’s mother actually was incarcerated. If memory served well, usually these taunts could be answered with “Nu uh!” or “Stop lying!” DeAndre couldn’t deny facts.

  I wasn’t crazy about DeAndre, by any means, but there’s something about rooting for the underdog. “So what are you going to do the next time someone teases you about your mom?”

  He swung a fist in the air. “Pop ’em in the nose, just like I hit Chase today.”

  “You fought Chase?”

  He nodded.

  “But Chase is your friend.”

  “He made me mad making fun of my momma.” DeAndre’s brows furled up again.

  I recognized his shut-down tactic and decided not to talk to him again until he calmed down. We rode in silence to the church parking lot so I could finally get a look at the urgent e-mail message.

  Panic rushed through my veins. Preston’s e-mail “requested” my presence at an impromptu team conference. “It would be best if you could make the meeting Friday.” Translation: be here tomorrow afternoon.

  Knots filled my stomach. Preston Haverty didn’t marshal meetings without good reason.

  Suddenly, Aunt Dottie’s store’s appeal and DeAndre’s suspension got shoved into the backseat. Maybe even the trunk. I immediately called the office to let Preston know I’d be in attendance.

  Chapter 12

  Never in a million years would I have imagined I’d be trekking back to Houston with DeAndre by my side. But after a muffled blowup with Joenetta just outside Aunt Dottie’s hospital room, I got stuck with him again. This time, I caved in at Aunt Dottie’s written request: “Please take him with you. ”

  Those smiley faces would be the death of me.

  We put off the store’s reopening until Monday, which also happened to be the projected date for Aunt Dottie’s release from the hospital. I had a number of objectives to accomplish before her return, but Houston came first.

  DeAndre and I packed our bags for the trip back to civility. For someone who’d just been suspended, he was in awfully high spirits. I heard him up rumbling most of the night before—getting water, going to the restroom, tossing and turning in his bed. All of this while I sat in bed reviewing client campaigns, getting all my ducks in a row before Preston’s mysterious last-minute meeting.

  DeAndre actually beat me getting up the next morning, like it was Christmas day or something.

  “Cousin Tori, is it time?”

  “Might as well be,” I gave in. We ate a few slices of toast and then rolled onto the highway a little before seven o’clock Friday morning.

  He sat up in his seat, looking out the window as we passed cornfields and cow pastures. Nothing foreign until we hit a larger city graced with a shopping center. “Ooh! Look at all those stores!”

  Okay. “DeAndre, have you ever been shopping at a mall?”

  He looked at me, shook his head.

  “Have you been to . . . an amusement park, like Six Flags?”

  Another head shake. “No, but I seen one on TV.”

  “You saw one.” Let me just break this on down. “Have you ever been outside of Bayford, Texas?”

  He sat back and thought for a moment, then proudly conveyed, “I went on a field trip one time. We went to the post office, the police station, and the fire station.”

  “In Bayford, though, right?”

  “Yep.” He hoisted himself back up on the edge of the seat and continued to absorb the massive billboards and household icons lining the side roads.

  Never been out of Bayford. His obvious excitement plucked a heartstring in my chest. Bayford was a wonderful place full of great people, but the one thing it couldn’t boast was exposure to opportunities. I mean, it’s one thing to decide to live in a small town, another thing altogether if you never even knew there were other options.

  We stopped about an hour into the trip and got another round of breakfast. Though DeAndre was somewhat familiar with the concept of convenience restaurants, he was enamored by the number of options on the food strip. McDonald’s, IHOP, Burger King, Jack in the Box, and Wendy’s alone lined one side of the street. “Ummm,” he vacillated, “what’s Chick-fil-A?”

  “It’s a chicken place. They have breakfast burritos.”

  He quizzed me, “They got pancakes?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He turned his attention back to the strip. “Okay, McDonald’s. I want pancakes and sausage.”

  Child-rearing lesson number one: do not let children eat pancakes in a moving car! Maybe if DeAndre had been an infant, I would have known to stay away from sticky foods. Who knew eight-year-olds could still be so messy? DeAndre accidentally drizzled syrup on his shirt, my seats, and the inside door panel. We had to make a second stop for hand sanitizer and wipes to clean his tracks.

  DeAndre must have seen the horror written on my face as he put the final dabs on his hands. “I’m sorry, Cousin Tori, for messing up your car.”

  I wanted to hold a grudge, but I figured the whole thing was as much my fault as his. “It’s all right. We’ll know better next time.”

  “No more syrup for me,” he chanted.

  His willingness to sacrifice this sweet treat seemed a bit drastic. “You can have syrup, just not in this car.”

  That settled, I popped in an old-school R & B CD and merged with northbound traffic. DeAndre grew restless. He fidgeted with the buttons on his door’s panel, which I quickly disabled from the driver’s side. He tapped out a tune on the window with his fingertips. He counted the number of people in cars we passed and checked the statehood of each license plate.
/>   I’m really not sure which of us was more frazzled by his impatience.

  “Are we there yet?”

  “No.”

  “Are we getting close?”

  “No.”

  Thirty minutes later. “How about now?”

  “Nope.”

  He exhaled noisily, slumping deeper into the seat. “I’ve gotta use the restroom.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. I had a large orange juice, remember?”

  At this rate, we’d never make it back to Houston. Another stop, another ten minutes lost. Thank God, he finally fell asleep the last half of the trip. His soft snoring brought about a question that, honestly, hadn’t entered my mind a second sooner: what was I going to do with this kid while I was in my meeting at work?

  Oh my gosh! How could I have been so silly? This was equivalent to teenage thinking—or, rather, not thinking—making dire decisions without considering the ramifications. I didn’t have anyone in Houston whom I could ask to watch DeAndre. I mean, some of Kevin’s friends might sit with a dog or a kitten, but a child? No way. I know I wouldn’t if the shoe were on the other foot.

  The stupidest idea ever entered my mind: leave him in the car. Just the very fact that my brain formed this absurd thought was proof I didn’t have any business taking care of anyone’s kid. This whole scenario was way out of my league.

  Kevin wouldn’t be back for several days—not that he would have even agreed to keep DeAndre anyway. Maybe there was a recreation center or some kind of children’s . . . gated facility I could take him to.

  I used my phone’s voice-operating system to call a day care I vaguely remembered passing daily on my way in to NetMarketing.

  “Hello,” I gasped desperately as I explained my situation to the first person who answered the phone. My speech ended with, “Whatever your fee, I’m willing to pay.”

  The woman on the other end listened patiently, then bombarded me with questions. Did I have his birth certificate? Shot records? Proof that he was actually enrolled in school? Had his parents given me legal guardianship?