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Just Like Candy

Page 8

by Kimberly Kaye Terry


  “She said I could go, but she forgot to sign the slip.”

  “Well, if you can bring the slip tomorrow, it’s not too late. Just make sure you bring it to me before the party starts, okay?”

  “Yes ma’am. I will.”

  When the girl made no move to go, Candy knew there was something else on her mind. “Is there something else, Tasha?”

  “The other day, Sister Pauline was talking to me about responsibility and all that stuff.”

  “Yes,” Candy prompted her, waiting for her to continue.

  “She started quoting something I never heard of before. She told me I had a purpose to my life…called to be something more, and fulfilling my destiny of greatness…Don’t know exactly what she was trying to say.” Tasha’s voice trailed off and then a faint blush stained her sienna-colored cheeks. “Sister Pauline is a trip,” she laughed.

  “Yes, she can be.” Candy gave the young girl a smile. “But her heart is good. She wants the best for you, for all of us, I think. Sometimes her delivery is a bit odd,” Candy laughed lightly. “But she’s a good woman. And a wise one, as well.”

  “What did she mean, though? About all that destiny stuff.”

  “Tasha, you were destined for great things in your life. Don’t shortchange yourself by allowing others to dictate who or what you should be. You’ve had some hard breaks, but it doesn’t have to define who you are. Sister Pauline was trying to encourage you. You are intelligent, beautiful inside and out and destined for greatness, sweetheart.”

  When Tasha turned her face away and rolled her eyes, Candy forced her to turn back around.

  “But you have to believe that.” Candy lightly ran her hand over Tasha’s long, corn-rowed hair. “If you do, then it doesn’t matter what others think. You’re the one in charge of your destiny.”

  “Since my mama died, I’ve learned to take care of myself. My foster mother sure isn’t going to do that for me. But that’s cool, I don’t need her, I’m almost grown.”

  “I know you’re almost grown up, Tasha. But still, I’m always here if you need me, okay?” Candy wanted to instantly reject the girl’s statement with a screaming denial, as the young girl was barely out of childhood, but knew better. To do so would be seen as a rejection of her burgeoning womanhood.

  With a half smile which didn’t quite reach her dark eyes, Tasha picked up her backpack. She pulled her arms through the straps and turned and walked toward the door. She said goodbye to Angelica, who was hovering nearby, before she left.

  Candy gathered her things and allowed the girls to talk to each other briefly, before she walked over to join Angelica.

  “Ready to go?” she asked and turned off the light in the room.

  “Go where?” Although she said it with a bit of an attitude, Candy felt her nervousness.

  “I thought you and I could have a talk in my office, as we wait for your aunt to pick you up,” Candy replied after locking the door to the room.

  “I guess so,” she mumbled, her enthusiasm dim.

  “Come on, Angelica, it won’t be that bad!” Candy replied lightly. Angelica slumped her shoulders forward and dragged her feet as though preparing for the guillotine.

  10

  A s they walked down the long hallway, Candy smiled at the few girls they encountered. The center normally closed at seven o’clock, but tonight they were closing an hour early so the night crew could clean the entire center, top to bottom. It was within thirty minutes of closing time and most of the kids were heading home.

  “Aunt Milly is going to be here any minute. I told her I’d wait out front for her,” Angelica told her as she walked alongside Candy. “Some of the other girls are waiting for their parents to pick them up so we’re going to sit out front together.”

  “After I lock up I’ll wait outside with you. Would that be okay?”

  Candy knew Milly and Davis both were adamant about picking Angelica up inside the center. There was no way on God’s green earth they would allow her to wait outside for them to pick her up, as late as it was.

  “Hmmm. I guess so,” Angelica grudgingly agreed.

  Candy hid a smile. More than likely one of the girls had asked Angelica to come outside and talk. Rather than say she couldn’t, she’d agreed. Candy’s suggestion let her stay inside without losing face.

  “What did you need to talk to me about, anyway? You’re going to tell my dad I almost got into a fight, aren’t you?”

  “No, I won’t tell your dad. As long as you hold up your part and come and volunteer early for the dance, you and I are cool.” She winked at the girl and instantly saw Angelica’s thin shoulders sag in relief. “I just thought maybe you and I could have a chat. Nothing major. Maybe we can talk about school, how you’re doing in class.”

  “Okay. I guess so.”

  As they walked down the corridor toward her office, Candy saw Angelica looking at the murals on the wall.

  “Those sure are pretty. Tasha is good at art. I wish I could do something like that,” she said, in a hushed tone of voice.

  “Yes, Tasha did a beautiful job, didn’t she?” Candy admired the way the murals were all coming together wonderfully. “You’d be surprised what talents you have, Angelica,”

  “I couldn’t do something like this,” she scoffed.

  “Maybe not this. This is Tasha’s talent. Doesn’t mean you don’t have another talent all your own. You just have to search for it, or it could be there just waiting for you to discover yourself. That’s usually how it works.”

  Several months ago she’d come in very early one Saturday and had caught a young girl spray painting on the side of the building and was furious. With the money from Mildred Strong’s latest fundraising efforts, Candy had been able to hire a crew to power wash the outside of the building and it looked better than it had in years.

  And when she saw a dark hooded figure outside, spray paint in hand, poised and ready to deface, she saw nothing but red. At the time she’d wanted to strangle the offender.

  With a primal yell, Candy had run up on the delinquent and snatched the hood off his head and ripped the spray can right out of his vandalizing hand, spinning him around to face her.

  Surprised wasn’t the word when two long ponytails tumbled from beneath the hood, and a defiant, but very feminine and very familiar young face stared up at her belligerently.

  It was Tasha, one of her girls from the center.

  Candy had asked Tasha why she was defacing their building, gently grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to turn around and face the damage she’d done.

  And when Candy had turned to face the building along with her, she’d been stunned.

  Although the girl had been defacing the property, had no right to do what she did…the art was beautiful.

  She’d been in the process of drawing a trio of angels. One was an older-looking black woman, one was middle-aged, and the last one was young, maybe in her early twenties. All three were smiling down at a small child jumping rope. There was something about the picture that pulled at Candy’s heart.

  She’d looked down at Tasha and saw the belligerent stamp of anger on her face. But more than anything, she saw the sadness lurking in the back of her dark eyes and didn’t ask any questions about what the scene represented.

  She already knew.

  She hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know all the girls then, or go over all of their files in depth, but she’d familiarized herself with Tasha’s story. Tasha had recently lost her mother when the woman had overdosed. She was now living in foster care.

  Candy’s first reaction had been to punish Tasha. The girl needed to pay for her actions. But instead of the normal route of reporting what she’d done to her caregivers and banning her from the center for a determined time, she thought of a much more suitable “punishment.” She’d commissioned her to recreate the same mural, along with others, inside the center.

  Candy could still recall the look of surprise and hidden delight o
n the girl’s face when she’d given her “punishment.”

  But, Candy didn’t allow her little behind to get away with what she’d done to the building. Additionally, Tasha had to help clean the building for the next four Saturdays to make up for her transgression.

  In the end, the center, as well as Tasha, benefited from her trip into delinquency.

  When Candy and Angelica reached the door to her office, Candy opened it and allowed Angelica to enter before she did.

  “Why don’t you have a seat while I gather my things together for the night? It won’t take long.” Candy then invited Angelica to sit down in one of the chairs scattered around the cluttered office. “If one of the chairs you want to sit in has something on it, just place it on the floor neatly, next to it, ’kay?” she turned back around and started to gather her things together.

  “Suuure thing, Ms. Candy,” Angelica drew out the word, and Candy glanced over at her and saw her brows were knitted together. “It’s a little messy in here, Ms. Candy. How do you ever find anything?”

  Candy laughed out loud.

  She’d tried to keep it neat, but it always seemed to find its way back to the typical organized chaos she normally operated with.

  “I have a system,” was all Candy said.

  “Hey, that’s what my dad always says!”

  “Your dad has a messy desk?” She found it hard to believe Davis could function in an unstructured environment.

  “Yes, and Aunt Milly said it the same way you just did! She doesn’t believe me either!” Angelica laughed and Candy could see the small dimples appear in her round cheeks.

  Candy smiled at her resemblance to Davis. Although they weren’t biologically related, they shared an eerily familiar smile, complete with deep, slashing dimples. The only difference was Angelica’s dimples were in both cheeks, and her daddy had one, which only served to make him more enticing to Candy.

  Everything on the man was enticing to her, Candy thought. Who was she trying to fool?

  She listened to Angelica prattle on about her father, obviously one of her favorite topics.

  “He never lets anyone in there, though,” she chattered, as she began to walk around the office. “’Cept me, of course.”

  Candy noticed how she stuck out her little chest, proud she was the only one her father allowed inside his hallowed grounds.

  “That’s good. Obviously your father trusts you. I bet he doesn’t let just anyone in there.”

  “Nope. Just me. He won’t even let Aunt Milly go in there!”

  “Wow…now that is special. Just goes to show how much he trusts you,” Candy replied and watered her plants nonchalantly.

  She was carefully watching Angelica out of the corner of her eye as she wandered about her office. Her small face was a study in concentration.

  “Things going okay between you and your father, Angelica?”

  Candy spoke casually. She didn’t want Angelica to know she was on a fishing expedition. She was a bright child; if she had an inkling Candy was now working with her school and her father, Angelica would clam up, unwilling to talk to her.

  Candy placed the watering can to the side. She bent down to scoop up the wadded-up pieces of paper littering the area near her trash can, where she’d missed several hook shots. Her fantasy of being the first five-foot three-inch, female NBA player was a dream she needed to just let go of.

  She glanced over and saw Angelica holding the small framed photo from the bookshelf. The picture was of Candy and her father when she was not much older than Angelica.

  Candy smiled and placed the last of the trash inside the can. She dusted her hands over her skirt and walked over to where Angelica stood, fingering the small, faded picture.

  “Is this your father?” Angelica asked her as she turned with the picture in her hand.

  “Yes, this is my dad—how could you tell?” She stood next to Angelica and smiled, remembering the day the picture had been taken.

  11

  I t had been taken during one of the few trips her father had taken with her to an amusement park. A rare treat for her, she remembered.

  “I don’t know. You two kind of look alike, I guess.” Angelica shrugged her thin shoulders.

  “You think so?” Candy asked. She glanced down at the picture and smiled. “I suppose we do. I look a lot more like my mother than I do my father, though. I think because my father passed along this,” she lightly tapped the small gap between my two teeth. “And we have the same big ole forehead.” Angelica uttered a startled laugh at Candy’s self-deprecating humor. “But if you saw a picture of me with my mom, you’d probably think I look more like her,” she finished.

  Angelica nodded her head and placed the picture of Candy and her father back on the shelf, in the exact spot she removed it from. She kept her hands close to the frame, and when she looked up at Candy, she could see the curiosity shining in her dark eyes.

  “Do you have a picture of your mother?” she asked, her face a study of feigned nonchalance.

  “I do. But not here.”

  “I don’t have pictures of me and my mother, either.”

  She sighed deeply, her small shoulders slightly slumped, and returned her attention to the picture of Candy and her father.

  “You don’t have any pictures at all?” Candy asked, prompting her.

  “No, not really. I have a few baby pictures of the two of us. But none of me and my mom and dad together though. And then she died when I was little, so—” she allowed the sentence to trail off and shrugged.

  “Yes, I know. I’m sorry, Angelica.” Candy laid a consoling hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s no big deal, I guess. I mean I don’t even know what she was like. People say I looked like her, though. From looking at the pictures, I kind of think I do.” She shyly looked at Candy. She pointed to her small round forehead and finished, “She and I both have the same big ole forehead too.” They shared a laugh, although Candy detected a hint of sadness lurking in Angelica’s eyes.

  “Were you living here when she was still living?”

  Candy perched on the edge of her desk and smiled at her, gently. “No, sweetheart. I didn’t know your mother. I don’t think she and I moved in the same social circles.”

  “Mama wasn’t always rich, you know,” Angelica said almost eagerly, as though wanting to put Candy and her mother on equal social footing. “Before she and daddy got married, she used to live in North Stanton, too,” she referred to the section of town where the center was located, as well as some of the less-affluent neighborhoods.

  “I was at the University during the time your mother lived here, I believe. After I graduated, I lived in a city not far from Stanton before I was hired as the director and moved back. I didn’t know your mother.”

  “Daddy never tells me anything about her, you know. When I ask about what she was like, how they met, stuff like that, he won’t say anything.”

  The unexpected comment took Candy by surprise. She didn’t show her shock, but instead remained silent, allowing Angelica to speak freely.

  “What does he do, when you ask?”

  “Well, whenever I ask anything about my mother, anything about what she was like, he says the same thing. She was nice, smart and she loved me, a lot. Then he smiles in that way grown-ups do, when they really aren’t happy. Kind of like this.”

  Had the subject matter not been so serious, Candy would have laughed out loud at the way Angelica stretched her lips in a parody of a smile. The little girl completely captured the strained smiles adults gave, trying to smile when it was the last thing they wanted to do.

  Candy was easily able to envision Davis giving such a smile.

  “I know I shouldn’t have said what I did to Chandra, Miss Candy. But I don’t know what to say when people say mean stuff about my mama.”

  “This isn’t the first time someone said something like that to you, about your mother, Angelica?”

  “No.” Angelica ducked her head. “
And I can’t stick up for her, either, because I don’t know anything about her!”

  Although she valiantly fought against it, one fat teardrop eased down Angelica’s round cheek, landing in the corner of her full, quivering lips.

  “It makes it hard, you know?” she turned completely away from Candy, wiping her wet face with the sleeve of her shirt and sniffing.

  Candy walked over to Angelica and enveloped her in a hug. Angelica’s arms tightened around her waist, briefly returning the embrace before she moved out of her arms.

  “I’m sorry this has happened to you, Angelica. I am. Have you spoken with your father about it?”

  “That some kids make fun of me and whisper about me not having a real family? That me and my daddy aren’t even real family? No,” she finished angrily swiping an arm over her eyes again, wiping away her wash of tears.

  “Listen, Angelica, it isn’t true and you know it. You and your father are family. Just as much as any other family. And you know how much he loves you. And how much he loved your mother.”

  “If he loves me so much, if he loved her so much, why won’t he talk about her? Is what Chandra said true? Did my mama trick him into marrying her?”

  Candy was at a loss. She didn’t know what to say to the child. She had no idea what the story was behind Davis and his wife. Over the course of the last weeks, he hadn’t spoken about her, although she’d asked him once, during a conversation. He’d quickly led the conversation in other directions and Candy didn’t press for details.

  “I’m sure it didn’t happen at all, Angelica. Sometimes it’s painful for us to talk about loved ones who aren’t with us anymore. It doesn’t mean your daddy didn’t love your mother, sweetheart.”

  “I guess,” she allowed, and walked away, returning to the shelf where Candy’s pictures and knickknacks were placed. Candy leaned against her desk, her worried gaze following Angelica.

  “Why don’t you have a picture of your mother up, but you have one of your father?” Angelica returned to her earlier question, lightly tracing her fingers over the smiling picture of Candy and her father.

 

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