by Earl Sewell
“No, that’s okay. She’ll probably just look at a few things and leave. That’s what most of the young girls pushing a baby do.”
“Okay, so if they turned the book into a movie, I think that girl from the television show The Parkers should play Winter.” I paused as I tried to think of the actress’s name. “You know that one that plays Kim Parker, oh, what is her name?”
“Wait a minute, it’s coming to me,” said the salesgirl. “She has a weird name, like, Count something.” I immediately snapped my fingers.
“Countess Vaughn. That’s her name,” I finally said.
“I don’t know if she could pull it off,” said the salesgirl.
“You don’t think she could play the part of Winter from the book?” I said, surprised.
“I think you need someone who looks a little harder and rougher. I think Vivica Foxx could play the part.”
“She’s too old,” I quickly pointed out.
“I know, but she could probably pull it off,” the salesgirl countered. For the next half hour, the salesgirl and I discussed and debated the character and situations within the novel. I’d gotten so caught up with talking about the book with someone who’d actually read it that I forgot all about meeting back up with Toya. When I finally realized how much time had gone by, I said thank you to the salesgirl and rushed out of the store.
“Hey, what’s your name?” she asked before I got out the door.
“Keysha,” I said and rushed down the hall before I heard her tell me what her name was. When I caught up with Toya, she had an attitude.
“Dang, Keysha, I just said talk to the girl about the book not have a damn study lecture on it. You’d better watch yourself with all that geek nonsense. You and that girl were talking like the people in that book were real or something.”
I wanted to defend myself and tell Toya I really enjoyed reading and it was cool to actually talk to another reader, but she wouldn’t have understood. Toya and books just didn’t mix on any level.
“Come on, nerd girl. Let’s hit another store.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped at her.
“All right, bookworm, don’t go and get all sensitive on me.” I wanted to scream at her for calling me names but instead I kept my mouth shut and followed her down the corridor to the next store. Toya and I hit three more stores and by that time the stroller was loaded down and Junior had awakened and was fighting to be set free from his stroller.
“I think we should head back now,” I suggested as we approached the food court.
“Damn, I wanted to hit at least one more store. I haven’t gotten Junior anything yet.”
“Well, let me go to the bathroom first,” I said. We walked into the food court, and Toya took a seat at one of the tables so that she could release Junior from his stroller before he started shouting.
I was about to exit the bathroom but needed to wash my hands first. As I placed my hands under the warm running water, two restaurant employees walked into the restroom laughing and talking loudly.
“Can you believe that dumb girl is down here stealing clothes with her baby?” I overheard one of them say.
“Then she pulled out a bogus receipt talking about how she’d paid for everything.” The two girls started laughing uncontrollably. I rushed out of the bathroom and saw that three Chicago Police officers and mall security guards had handcuffed Toya to restrain her.
“Oh, damn,” I said as I began to panic. I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen with fear. Toya was yelling at one of officers to put Junior down before she filed a lawsuit against them. Toya caught my gaze for a minute and motioned with her head for me to come over to where she was at. I started to take a step towards her but I stopped. I suddenly wanted no part of any of the drama that was going down. To my right there was an exit. Toya must have sensed what I was thinking and so she called out my name.
“Keysha!” she shouted at the top of her voice. As calmly as I could, I turned my back on her and walked hastily toward the exit.
Chapter 5
My stomach was doing flips during the entire journey back home. I was nervous, afraid and confused. I placed my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands and tried to think. I wanted to cry but I didn’t. I was trying to figure out how Toya got caught. Everything was going so well. We’d moved in and out of stores without any problems. No merchandise alarms went off, and I know Toya was extra careful by making sure she was out of the sight range of the video cameras.
When I arrived home I found a big red notice stuck to our front door. It was an eviction notice. My mom and I had three days to either pay the rent or be set outdoors. Oh, God, not again, I thought to myself as I entered the apartment. I walked directly over to my sofa, rested my head on one of the cushions and went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night. My mother still hadn’t come home, and I needed someone to talk to. The first person who came to mind was my ex-boyfriend, Ronnie. Even though I hadn’t spoken to him in a while, I decided to call him hoping he’d be nice to me and listen to my problems. I gathered up some spare change and walked out of the apartment and onto the stoop. When I stepped out into the darkness I noticed that there were people just hanging out. Across the street, there was a group of kids I didn’t know listening to music and dancing. To my right, there was a gathering of men sitting on makeshift crates drinking alcohol and talking loudly. To my left, I saw a woman wearing coochie cutter shorts, leaned over into the passenger window of a car talking with two men. Other men who were passing by her on the sidewalk stopped to ogle her behind. At that moment everything in my life seemed to be going wrong. Everyone around me seemed to be crazy, and they were making me crazy just by being around them. I calmed myself down as best as I could and walked up the street to the payphone. I called up Ronnie.
“Yeah,” he said as he answered the phone.
“Hey, Ronnie, it’s me, Keysha. What are you doing?” I asked.
“Why?” he shot back at me.
“Um…” I lost my nerve for a minute. “Do you really not love me anymore?” I don’t know why I asked that question. I suppose in some sort of way I just wanted someone to care about me.
“You know I don’t,” he answered coldly.
“Do you want to come over? My mother isn’t home. We could talk and stuff.”
“Naw, I’m not even going to get down with you like that, Keysha. It’s over. A baller like me has got to move on.”
“You know what, Ronnie, I should come—hello, hello?” Ronnie had hung up on me. I slammed the phone against its cradle and started crying. I let go of my tears for a minute before I got myself together and headed back home.
The following morning, I got up and headed to my first day of school completely unprepared. I walked through the halls dazed and spaced out because I had so much on my mind. I was worried about Toya and Junior and didn’t know what to do. I was worried about my mother and how she was going to deal with the eviction notice. I was worried about school because, even though it wasn’t socially acceptable to say I enjoyed school on any level other than to socialize, I actually really enjoyed my literature class.
I had no idea of how I was going to make it through school, and the person I depended on would most certainly leave me hanging, just as she’d done so many times in the past.
I just entered my history class and took a seat at the back of the room. I was hoping the teacher, and everyone else, for that matter, wouldn’t notice me. Once the roll call was completed, the course syllabus was handed out. Just as we were about to go over it, the principal and two police officers entered the class room.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered loudly. Toya must have tricked on me, and now the police were there to arrest me. I wanted to run out of the room but I couldn’t because there was only one way in and one way out. The principal began searching the room, and I scrunched down in my seat as far as I could without actually going up under my desk. I was doing the best that I could to hide in plain sight. The prin
cipal finally found the student the police were searching for and I was thankful that it wasn’t me.
“Dang, girl, you were trying to get up under the floor,” said Lynn Jones, who was one weird girl.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said to her.
“What did you do that has you afraid of the police?” she wanted to know.
“None of your damn business,” I snapped at her for being nosy.
“Well, forget you, too. The next time the police come into this class I’m just going to start pointing my finger at you so they’ll see you.”
I leaned over in my seat and looked directly at her. “If you do that I’ll put superglue on all of your clothes during gym.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, not believing me.
“Try me,” I said, unafraid of her. She didn’t say anything else to me so I dropped our conversation.
When I arrived home, I saw Toya’s grandmother standing outside the building. She was wearing a one-size-fits-all flower-print dress, some run-over and worn-out looking brown sandals, her black sunglasses for the blind, and she had her white walking stick with the red tip. When I approached her I spoke.
“Hello, Ms. Maze.” She turned to the direction of my voice.
“Who is that?”
“It’s me, Keysha. Toya’s friend,” I answered her.
“Oh, how are you doing, baby?” she inquired.
“I’m okay. I’m just coming home from school.”
“That’s good, honey. I wish Toya was more like you and stayed in school.” Ms. Maze hung her head low for a moment. “Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl.”
“Um, where is she at?” I asked because I hadn’t heard from or seen Toya.
“She’s gotten herself and the baby into some trouble. I’m going to see what I can do about getting her out of jail.”
“Oh,” I said. I wanted to tell her everything but I couldn’t. I just didn’t have the courage. “Is she okay?”
“As well as to be expected,” she answered me.
“Do you think she’ll be getting out today?” I asked.
“I’m going to do my best to get her out,” she said.
“Um, where is Junior?” I asked as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.
“Oh, baby, I don’t know.” Ms. Maze got choked up and couldn’t speak for a long moment.
“Keysha, are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Do me a favor, and stand here with me until the cab I called comes along. I’d like for you to help me get in the car.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling very bad about her having to go down to the police station to see about Toya. What made me feel even worse was the fact that she didn’t know what had happened to her great-grandson, Junior.
When the cab arrived I made sure that she got in without any problem. I then turned to head inside. I was hoping that my mother had come home. When I walked up to our apartment I saw there was another eviction notice posted to the door. I snatched it down and walked inside. The notice said that we now had two days to either pay the rent or be put out.
“Mama!” I called out even though I knew she wasn’t home. The Murphy bed was still inside the wall and hadn’t been used.
“Damn!” I shouted because I didn’t know what to do. I paced back and forth across the floor trying to figure out where she’d gone and where she could be. It wasn’t uncommon for my mother to disappear for several days at a time. Especially when we lived with my Grandmother Rubylee and my Aunt Estelle. I really didn’t care about her disappearing then because I knew that either Aunt Estelle or Grandmother Rubylee would be around if I needed them. Now our lives were much different, and I had no choice but to worry about where Justine was. I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I should do. I finally decided that there wasn’t anything I could do. I could only hope that in my hour of need, my mother wouldn’t leave me hanging. I could only hope that by some miracle she’d manage to keep a roof over our heads.
Chapter 6
When I woke up the following day, I was hoping to discover Justine had come home during the night. To my horror, she hadn’t. I swallowed hard and tried not to panic. It was clear that she wasn’t going to make it back home. I held on to hope that she’d be home by the time I returned from school, but in the back of my mind and deep in my heart I knew the chances of her returning were slim to none.
I walked over to the bed and got down on my knees. I peeked beneath the mattress and removed a small box filled with photographs. I opened the box and pulled out the first one, which was taken when I was about six years old. My Aunt Estelle took the photo. In the picture I was wearing my favorite blue dress. My hair was combed and braided beautifully. It was Easter Sunday and I was holding a stuffed bunny rabbit and smiling as hard as I could. I remember being so happy that day. It was one of the rare times that everyone was happy. I pulled out another photo of my Grandmother Rubylee and me. I was nine years old in this photo, which was taken at Rainbow Beach. My skin was so brown because I’d been out in the sun all day, and I had brown sand on my legs up to my knees. I was always pretending that my daddy lived in a real castle somewhere very far away and he was waiting for me to come and visit him. When my mother came over to see it, I told her that I thought my daddy lived in a castle like the one I was building. She laughed and said that I had been out in the sun too long and was becoming delusional. She didn’t like to talk about anyone being my father. She always told me that she was both my mother and my father.
The final photo was taken at my eighth-grade graduation. I was standing in my blue and silver cap and grown. I’d graduated at the top of the class. I was a straight 4.0 student. I never missed a day of school, did all of my homework and studied hard because I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth something. I wanted to feel validated in some way. I was so happy that day because I’d made everyone proud of me. It was one of the few times that I can remember where I felt good about myself. That day was perfect, well, at least as perfect as it could have been. Rubylee and my Aunt Estelle were there, but my mother wasn’t. Rubylee insisted that she not show up and ruin my day. At the time of my graduation, my mother was in rehab for drug addiction. I remember wanting to do everything that I could to help her stay healthy, but my mother just kept getting into trouble. It was like trouble followed her as if it were a gray storm cloud on a mission to make her as miserable as possible. I didn’t work nearly as hard back then. I thought good grades would somehow not only validate me but also motivate my mother to be more supportive and proud of me, but she didn’t care at all. I figured, if she didn’t care then why should I?
I put the box away because it was depressing me to look through it. I placed it in a bag with my other belongings and left everything sitting on my sofa. I got dressed and headed off to school, even though I really didn’t want to be there. But in my mind, it was better than sitting around the apartment worrying myself into sickness. In many ways, school was where I escaped from my reality.
I didn’t go directly home after school because I was afraid to. I spent an hour hanging around the basketball court at the park watching shirtless boys shoot baskets. It was cool for a while, but then a gang of girls who were there started making fun of me because of my bad skin and damaged hair, so I left. As I walked home I began to think. If my mother hadn’t come home to pay the rent then I knew I’d have to leave, but I didn’t know where I’d go. As I approached my building, I saw Toya sitting on the stoop with Junior’s father. I was happy to see her, so I rushed up the street calling her name.
“Toya!” I shouted out. Toya gave me a nasty look that made me drop the smile from my face.
“What’s going on, wench?”
“Excuse you?” I snapped at her.
“Give me a minute to deal with her,” she said to her boyfriend. He glanced at me with judgmental eyes before stepping away to sit in his car, which was parked in the vacant lot near the buil
ding.
“Why did you leave me hanging like that?” Toya asked. Her voice was edgy and full of confrontation.
“Toya, I got scared. I didn’t know what to do. The police were arresting you. You were yelling and hollering at them. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to have my back!” Toya pushed my shoulder and I backed up. She wanted to fight me. I could see it in her eyes.
“Toya, look. We just have a big misunderstanding here,” I said, trying to calm her down. Other people who were just hanging out on the block started paying attention to our conflict. If we kept up our loud argument, it wouldn’t be long before a crowd would form and encourage us to knuckle-up our fists and beat each other senseless for their entertainment.
“No, there is no misunderstanding. All I know is that I should kick your ass for what you did. Because of you, the department of family services took Junior away from me.”
“They took Junior from you?” I was surprised by that.
“Yeah, and it’s your entire fault,” she said, absolutely convinced of her reasoning.
“How is that my fault? I told you not to bring that boy in the first place.”
“I called you, Keysha, because I wanted you to come and get him for me. I didn’t care about going to jail because I knew I’d get out. But I didn’t want Junior to go with me. Instead of helping me, you ran your scary ass out the door.”
“You know what—” I stopped backing away from her and stood my ground. “—that is not my fault. I told you that if something went down and we needed to get away, Junior would be a problem. You should have thought about the consequences before taking him along with us. Plus, why are you always blaming other people when things don’t go right for you?”
“No. That’s not the way I see it.” Toya pushed me hard and I pushed her hard back. “Everything that went wrong is your fault. We would have gotten out of there quicker had you not been lollygagging for thirty minutes with that salesgirl.”
