by Miasha
Before he could say anything, it started to snow. Out of nowhere snowflakes were falling from the dark sky. Jamal looked at me and said, “It’s not bullshit.” He picked a snowflake off my nose. “See, that’s God.”
I put my head back on Jamal’s chest and tried to feel what he said. But it was hard. Just like it was when I lost my brother.
“I just want to say thank you all for coming out here and taking part in this with us,” I heard Cat’s brother say.
People started walking away, going back to their lives. Cat’s brother took the picture of Cat and Stacey down and put it in the back of a minivan. My mom started to walk toward Jamal and me. Her face was twisted up. “That’s a damn shame,” she said to us.
And that was it. Cat and Stacey were gone. They were just memories. That shit hurt.
I been back home for a couple months and things were better. My mom was going to N.A. meetings every week and she took Naja and me to a few. Hearing the other people’s stories, I understood more about addiction and the crazy, sometimes cruel, things it made people do. I realized that no matter how bad I had it, there was someone somewhere who had it worse. With that, I was able to forgive my mom for the things she had done in the past and move on. I just hoped she stayed clean. I, myself, was taking advantage of having a functional household again. I did some research to find out how I could get back in school and all I had to do was take a test. The test would determine what grade they would put me in. I was scheduled to take it in a week after I enrolled in my neighborhood school. Of course I wasn’t able to go back to my old school, but school was school no matter where it was. I just wanted to finish ninth grade.
I woke up one morning and I didn’t feel sick. I went to the bathroom to pee. Naja and Kindle were both in school. I went downstairs, and The Price 1s Right was on TV, but nobody was in the living room watching it so I turned it off. My mom was in the kitchen cleaning.
“Why you turn my TV off?” my mom asked as soon as I entered the kitchen.
“’Cause wasn’t nobody in there watching it. That’s wastin’ electricity,” I told her.
“You worrying about the electric bill like you pay it,” my mom said, wiping the inside of the refrigerator.
“You should be happy. I’m tryin’ to save you money.”
“Child, please. Aunt Jackie hooked me up with one of Hasaan’s friends, and he turned the electric on for free. I don’t gotta pay no monthly bill no more,” my mom bragged.
“Oh, well, in that case,” I said as I walked in the living room and turned The Price ls Right back on.
“What you cleaning all crazy for? We having an inspection or something?” I asked, grabbing a box of cereal out the cabinet.
“It’s spring cleaning time,” my mom answered.
“Oh.” I got out a bowl and a spoon and poured me some cereal. “Mom, pass me the milk out of there.”
My mom paused her scrubbing and handed me the carton of milk.
“You must not have morning sickness, you drinking milk.”
“No. I feel fine today, thank goodness. I think it’s because I’m in my second trimester now.”
“Well, good. You can go to the Laundromat,” my mom assigned me a duty. “I have a couple loads for me and Kindle. You can get you and Naja’s stuff together. Just don’t go over five loads. That’s all I got enough for until next week.”
“Why? What happened to your money? Didn’t you just get ya stamps?” I asked, overprotective of my mom’s spending. I was concerned she might have relapsed.
“Yeah. But I bought food. Plus, I lent Aunt Jackie some money to pay her rent. She goin’ pay me back when she get her money next week.”
“Don’t Aunt Jackie get Section Eight?” I inquired further.
“Yeah, they pay most of her rent, but she still gotta pay two hundred out her pocket.”
“A three-bedroom house for two hundred a month, I wish.”
“I’m tellin’ you. I wish I could get Section Eight, shit, I would get another house. Let them give me Section Eight, I’ll get a vacation home down on the beach like in Wildwood or something, rent that bad boy out for like a thousand dollars a month, give the landlord the little hundred to two hundred and keep the other eight or nine for myself. I could get rich off that shit.”
“Dat’s a good plan. How you get on Section Eight?”
“It’s a bunch of bullshit involved. You gotta be homeless just to get on the waiting list.”
“Oh.” I finished my bowl of cereal and got dressed to go to the Laundromat. I wanted to go as early as possible before it got crowded. I gathered up Naja’s bag of dirty clothes and the few outfits I had and put them in the trash bag with my mom and Kindle’s stuff. I put the bag in the cart along with the soap powder and bleach. Then I dragged it out the door and down the steps. The weather was nice compared to the cold snowy days we had in January and most of February. It felt like that early March cold where you needed a coat but not a hat and scarf.
I walked up to Newton’s. It was a few people in there, but there were plenty of washers available, which was why I went early. I put the white clothes in first, and as I was putting the darks in something told me to check the pockets to my jeans. Inside one I found a business card. It had information about an outreach program on it. Then a vague image of the man who gave it to me popped in my head. I held on to the business card and planned to call the number later, but I was bored waiting for the clothes to wash so I fulfilled my curiosity and called from the pay phone in the Laundromat.
“Hello, Street to Runway, how may I direct your call?” the professional woman’s voice greeted me.
“Hello, may I speak to a…Ron Washington?” I hesitated because it was funny how the man had the same last name as me.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Angel Washington,” I answered.
“Please hold.”
The woman must have thought I was related to the man because she didn’t ask the other question that usually followed “Who’s calling?” which was “What’s this is in reference to?”
“Hello, this is Ron,” the man said when he picked up.
“Hi, I’m Angel Washington, I got your card a while ago and I wanted to know more about your program.”
“Well, Ms. Washington, first, let me ask you this, is your grandmother’s name Edith?”
“No,” I replied reluctantly, not knowing the relevance of his question.
“Oh, well I guess we’re not related,” he joked.
I chuckled at his not-so-funny humor.
“I’m just joking. I’m in a good mood today. But anyway, Streets to Runway is a nonprofit organization I started to help get women runaways, prostitutes, and drug addicts off the streets and back into society as functioning and productive citizens,” he explained. “It’s a modeling agency that caters to outreach programs. For example, our women are called on to host community events, assist at job and health fairs, and speak at schools, prisons, detention centers, rehabs, etcetera.”
“Oh, okay,” I said.
“Do you mind telling me where you got my card from?”
“A friend of mine gave it to me,” I lied.
“Oh, well, if you’re interested in seeing what we’re about, please come down to the office. You can drop in any day of the week between nine and one and then again between two and five. We will gladly give you or your friend more information. Okay?”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Oh, and the address should be on the card. We’re in Harlem.”
“Okay. Thank you,” I said.
“Thank you. Bye now.”
I hung up the phone and was intrigued. I was interested in finding out more. I made a mental note to go down to the office that next day. I figured I would see about getting a job there, maybe something part time just to have a little bit of money to help my mom out and to save up for the baby.
It took about three and a half hours to wash and dry the five loads. I went home and c
alled Elaine.
“Well, hello,” Elaine sang.
“Hi, Elaine,” I sang back.
“How are you?”
“I’m doing good. What about you?”
“I’m hangin’ in there.”
“Listen,” I said. “I want you to go somewhere with me tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“It’s right in Harlem. Not too far from you. It’s a modeling agency.”
“You wanna model?” Elaine grew excited.
“Well, not really like model like magazines and fashion shows, but like speaking to kids and helping people out and stuff.”
“Oh, okay. Well, what time do you want to go? I have to take the kids to school at seven thirty. So any time after that will be fine.”
“We can go from nine to one or two to five. I was thinking being there at like ten. You know I like to handle all my business early to beat the traffic.”
“You and me both. Well, okay. That’s a plan. How’s your mom doing?”
“She’s doing good. She’s still going to meetings and stuff, so…”
“Good, good. Well, I’m glad you called me, but my stories are on, so call me in the morning okay?”
“Oh, okay. No problem. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Bye-bye.”
I borrowed a black blouse from my mom, ironed it, and hung it up. I laid my jeans across the banister in the hall. I was ready for the trip to the agency. I felt good about it.
Knock! Knock! The bang on my bedroom wall woke me up. I reached down to the floor and placed my hand on the phone. It rang almost instantly.
“I’m up,” I answered on the first ring.
“What time you have to be down there?” Jamal asked.
“I’m trying to be there by ten.”
“Well, my mom said I can hold her car. I’ll take you.”
“You don’t have to. I know you have to go to work.”
“I got a little bit of time to spare. If I get you down there at ten I can be back up here by like eleven. That’s enough time for me to get to work by twelve.”
“Aww, Jamal, I appreciate it.”
Jamal avoided the mushiness and said, “So you can lay back down and get you some more sleep. I’ll wake you up in a hour.”
“Thank you, baby.”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
Jamal loved me so much but it was obvious sometimes that since I messed up and cheated on him he was holding back.
The extra hour I had to sleep went by so fast it might as well have been five minutes. I got up and got dressed. My mom was still asleep when I left out the house. I left her a note explaining where I was going and what time I expected to be back.
I called Elaine from Jamal’s cell phone and told her I was on my way to the place. She said to call her when I was like five minutes away and she would leave her house and get in a cab.
“Elaine, I’m about five minutes away,” I told her when the time came.
“Okay. I’ll see you there.”
“Now where do you know her from again?” Jamal asked. He had become so inquisitive.
“I met her through Antione. They used to work together, and when he got locked up he asked her if I could stay with her,” I said, making sure I repeated the exact answer I had given him the first time he asked me where I knew Elaine from.
I kept a lot from Jamal, and not out of being sneaky or nothing. It was just that it was too sensitive a time to tell him about me getting locked up and having to stay with Butter and meeting Elaine on a damn hooker strip. That would have ended our relationship for sure, and I didn’t want that. Besides, Jamal didn’t need to know all that, because it had nothing to do with where we were at that point. It was irrelevant.
“Thank you so much, boo,” I told Jamal as I leaned over and kissed him on his cheek.
“Um hum,” he mumbled.
I got out of the car and walked up to the building with the address that matched that on the business card.
“Good luck,” Jamal said out the window.
I smiled at him and went inside. I waited a couple minutes for Elaine. We greeted each other with a hug when she got there and then took the elevator to the seventh floor.
“Good morning, ladies,” a tall, dark-skinned lady said to us when we walked through the office door.
“Good morning,” Elaine said.
“Hello,” I said.
The woman looked at Elaine with wide eyes, as if she was waiting for her to tell her what she was there for. Elaine stepped to the side and pointed to me. “I’m just here with her,” she said.
“Oh. What brings you in today?” the woman asked.
“I spoke with Ron Washington yesterday and he told me I could come down here and get more information about the program.”
“Oh, okay. You’ re Angel Washington?” she quizzed, glancing down at some scribbled notes on her desk.
“Yes.”
“Oh, okay. I’m Margie. It’s nice to meet you. Have a seat, and I’ll call Mr. Washington for you.”
“She is so polite,” I whispered to Elaine as we sat down in the chairs a few feet away from Margie’s desk.
Waiting for Mr. Washington, I looked around the office. There were pictures hanging up of women in groups, at speaking engagements, and at fairs. In between the pictures were framed quotes that said things like ONE STEP AND WILLPOWER CAN GET YOU THROUGH A DAY. ONE DREAM AND DETERMINATION CAN GET YOU THROUGH LIFE. A good feeling came over me. I hoped the place was everything I had imagined it would be, and most important I hoped they were hiring and I qualified.
A few minutes went by and Mr. Washington came into the waiting area and invited Elaine and me into his office. He looked at me strangely, like he recognized me, but he didn’t say anything. I guessed he figured I didn’t want to discuss how we met since I had lied and told him I got his card from a friend. Inside his office, he explained the organization in detail for Elaine and then answered our questions. He gave us some literature to take with us and then took us on a tour of the building. He told us they were always hiring because their mission was to get as many women off the streets as possible so they never turned anyone away. The only thing was there was a process you had to go through before officially being one of their employees. An application, a criminal background check, and a drug test were the major components. I was cool with everything but the background check. I wasn’t sure if they had put a warrant out on me since I never went to my court hearing and I didn’t want Mr. Washington to find out and turn me in.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” I told Elaine as we waited for the elevator.
“Why do you say that?”
“They do background checks and I might have a warrant out on me,” I revealed.
“For what? Oh goodness, girl. You come fully loaded, don’t you?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. When they raided Shake’s they locked me up for being underage. That’s all. I just never went to court for it.”
“Oh. That’s nothing, and anyway, the way Mr. Washington was talking, he can help you clear that up. He said they didn’t mind criminal records because of the type of women they hired. He just said that you couldn’t have any open cases without addressing them. So, shucks, you might wanna let him look you up. For one, he can tell you if you even have a warrant and two, he can help you clear it up,” Elaine said, shedding light on the situation.
“That’s true,” I said. “Well, I’ll probably fill out everything and bring it back down here. I wouldn’t mind working at a place like this.” We got in the elevator.
“Yeah. It’s nice. The people are nice,” Elaine commented.
“You should work here, too,” I said, getting to the point of why I asked Elaine to go with me in the first place.
“Oh no, not me. The pay isn’t enough for a woman with three kids. Now for you, it’s fine. You’ re young, you stay at home with your mom, and you’ll only have one baby.”
“Well, you should think about
it. It’s better than working the strip.”
Elaine frowned at me and said, “Oh, Angel, don’t go there. I ‘ve been doing what I do for long enough to know my options, trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’m a grown woman.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just speaking out of concern.” I said, trying to clear things up.
“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. But you don’t have to be concerned about me, sweetie. You have so much to worry about as it is. I appreciate it though—but I know what I’m doing.”
Elaine gave me a hug and got in a cab to go home. I thanked her for going with me and apologized again for the comment I made. I truly didn’t mean to offend her, and I felt bad that I did because she had been nothing but nice to me.
I took the train back to Brooklyn. I walked pass C&S’s. It was clear that the weather and time had discolored the stuffed animals and killed the flowers, but they were still there. Even the bag of quarters I left was intact. That just showed how much love and respect people had for Cat and Stacey. Not even a smoker resorted to stealing the change. I walked down my block, skimming over the application I had. My mind immediately started mapping out a plan. I would get the job at the agency, pass ninth grade, and then by the time I would have the baby I’d have a little stash and could chill for a little while then start tenth grade like in October. My mom could watch the baby while I went to school and the money I got from welfare to pay for day care I could use to help my mom out and buy the baby some stuff.
I got to my front door and turned the key. I walked in my house and almost fainted.
“Hey, Angel,” Marvin said with a smile on his face.
I stared right through him, disgusted at his presence. I didn’t speak to him out of shock, fear, and anger. Where is my mom, I thought. She better not be planning on letting him stay here. How the hell did his an get out of jail? And why is he back in my house?
“Hey Angel, how did it go at the job interview?” my mom asked, walking downstairs.
I looked at her suspiciously, my eyes roaming to her arms, her eyes, and her balance. I wondered if she had been up in the bathroom getting high. With Marvin sitting there, you never knew what was going on. He was bad people, and wherever he was a storm was sure to follow.
