One Way or Another

by Rhonda Bowen

  “Toni, wait!” Jasmine caught up with her just before she got to the end of the driveway.

  “Look.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I went off on you. I just really like this place, and sometimes I feel like you shoot down everything I do. Like the things I want for Trey aren’t good enough. It’s not easy being a wife. But you have to know I’m just doing things the best way I know how.”

  Toni sighed as Jasmine turned her large sad eyes on her. Her sister-in-law pouted a little and Toni shook her head.

  “Is that the look you use on Trey to get him to do what you want?” Toni asked, grudgingly.

  “Yes.” Jasmine nodded. “Is it working?”

  “Maybe.” Toni tried to maintain her annoyed look.

  Jasmine grinned widely and Toni knew that she couldn’t stay mad at her.

  “Okay fine.” Toni rolled her eyes and cracked a small smile. “I’ll try and zip it more often.”

  Jasmine grinned and threw her arms around Toni in a hug.

  “Okay, can we wrap up this Lifetime moment so I can get something to eat?” Afrika asked, tapping her foot impatiently as she stood by the car door. “I can’t believe we’re gonna have to spend another half hour battling through traffic to get somewhere decent.”

  “Actually, there’s a little bistro at the corner,” Jasmine said. “We could leave the cars here and just walk down to it.”

  This time Jasmine caught the look that passed between Toni and Afrika. “I know what you’re thinking, so don’t worry,” she said, . “I’ve been there before with a friend. It’s not expensive.”

  “Okay, fine.” Toni put her keys back in her bag. “But if I have to spend more than fifty dollars on lunch, you’re paying.”

  Afrika snorted. “Make that thirty for me. I’m self-employed and it’s hard out here for a pimp.”

  Toni side-eyed her friend. “Bet you paid more than thirty for that piece of rock hanging ’round your neck.”

  “Hey!” Afrika grabbed her wooden beaded necklace and pendant and held it close to her chest. “You know it was my only indulgence this month. You were with me when I bought it!”

  “What’s with you today?” Jasmine glanced over at Toni as the three of them walked together. “You’re a little more acidic than usual.”

  “She’s right,” Afrika agreed, still fingering her jewelery, a hurt expression on her face. “That was below the belt.”

  Toni sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a really bad day, that’s all.”

  “What happened?”

  Toni frowned. “I got reassigned.”

  “What?” Jasmine asked, surprised. “When?”

  “This morning.”

  Toni scowled as she remembered her boss and editor in chief Naomi’s words after she had left the meeting with Gordon, the newspaper’s publisher. Gordon’s decision had stood. She was back to being a general assignment reporter.

  “Umm-hmm. It’s ’cause of that foolishness from last night, ain’t it?” Afrika cut her eyes at Toni.

  “Girl, I’m still mad at you about that. You’re lucky my cousin Mikey could pull some strings to get us out. You know I ain’t built for that kinda mess.”

  “What mess?” Jasmine looked back and forth between Toni and Afrika as she rubbed her oversized tummy.

  “Is this where we’re going?” Toni asked, as she pulled the door open to a small café-style shop. She stepped ahead to be seated, not waiting for the girls to catch up.

  She didn’t want to talk about last night. Afrika might have been mad about being locked up for less than an hour. But Toni was still mad about Mikey’s nasty hand on her behind. Plus she would be lying if she said she wasn’t just a little bit worried about what might come out of her kneeing him in the stomach. If that wasn’t enough, she kept having random thoughts about Mr. Hotness, and his chocolate eyes.

  “So anyone gonna tell me what happened last night?” Jasmine asked once they were seated. She looked back and forth between Toni and Afrika, ignoring the menu the waitress had placed in front of her.

  “Your sister-in-law got us arrested,” Afrika said grudgingly.

  “Seriously?” Jasmine sighed. “Again? This is what, the third time you’ve been picked up?” Jasmine shook her head. “They must have a special spot for you downtown now.”

  “Not downtown,” Afrika said, her lip curling in disgust. “Just in the mini-precinct near Bankhead where my cousin happens to work.”

  She turned to Toni. “Why are you and him so familiar anyway? Mikey’s my cousin and all, but I know you ain’t messin’ with his nasty behind.”

  “Of course not,” Toni said with disgust.

  “So how’re you getting him to pull those kinda strings for you on a regular?” Afrika asked.

  Toni picked up a menu and yawned. “I let him take me out one time. He probably thinks there’s a chance for something more. So sue me if I dangle the carrot a little.”

  “Dios mío.” Jasmine looked up at the ceiling.

  “Well, you make sure that all you do is ‘dangle,’ ” said Afrika, picking up her own menu. “Otherwise I might have to end this friendship quick.”

  Toni laughed and handed her menu to the waitress as the tiny young woman took their orders.

  “So how did you end up getting reassigned from this?” Jasmine asked after the waitress had left. “I thought you had the one boss in the world who doesn’t care if you have a record.”

  “It was Gordon,” Toni said, her mood souring again. “He caught some heat from the city over my story.”

  “I’m guessing the mayor wasn’t happy about this morning’s photo-op?” Afrika asked, scrunching up her narrow caramel-colored face as she wrestled her long black dreadlocks into a ponytail.

  “No, and that coward Gordon demoted me to assignment reporter.” Toni pouted. “Can you believe it? I’ve been working major stories for over a year and now they want to dump me on random assignments. This week I’m supposed to be covering city court. What am I? A first year intern?”

  “Well, you knew something like this was going to happen eventually.” Jasmine took a sip of the drink the waitress had just put in front of her. “You can’t keep blowing up all the big names in the city and think you can get away with it forever.

  “Don’t worry too much about it, though,” Jasmine added. “I know you, and even you can find a good story in courts.”

  Afrika snorted. “Don’t hold your breath. My niece Jamelia, who works in booking, says it’s pretty dismal over there. But there are some hot lawyers.”

  Toni rolled her eyes. “Please, they’re probably as corrupt as the criminals they represent. Plus you know I don’t do lawyers.”

  “Or doctors ... ” Jasmine added.

  “Or politicians ...”Afrika piped in.

  “Or CEOs ... ” Jasmine dropped.

  “Or pro athletes ...” Africa noted.

  “Or anyone who wears a suit or a uniform to work,” Jasmine and Afrika finished together.

  Toni rolled her eyes again. “Hey, I have standards for a reason,” she said. “It’s so I don’t end up with soul-sucking basketball players or spineless investment bankers,” she finished, referring to Afrika’s and Jasmine’s ex-boyfriends.

  “Okay, okay.” Jasmine waved away the memory with a flick of her wrist. “Before you burst a blood vessel, I actually might have a story for you.”

  Toni sighed and bit her lip. She had heard Jasmine’s story ideas before. And it made her even happier that her friend had chosen psychology and not journalism as a career.

  “Is this another conspiracy theory piece?” Afrika asked wearily as the waitress came back with their food. “ ’Cause I gotta get back to the shop in about an hour.”

  “No, this is real,” Jasmine said, ignoring Toni’s skeptical look. She wiggled her eyebrows. “And it’s really good.”

  “Okay.” Toni took a mouthful of tuna and vegetables in pita bread. Now that she was actually being fed, she was feeling a bit more
generous. “Let’s hear it.”

  “So there’s this kid down at the center where I volunteer on Tuesdays,” Jasmine started. “Apparently he was involved in some stuff and got caught by the police. But instead of sending him to prison, they sent him to the center, where he more or less works off his time.”

  “Is this a touchy-feely story?” Toni grimaced. “You’re not going to tell me that he cleaned up and now he’s going to Harvard or something.”

  “Please, I know your heart of stone isn’t into all that.” Jasmine pursed her lips. “The story is that he’s been at the center for two years, but now they’re trying to make him serve the original term in prison, even though a judge already allowed him to serve his time at the center.”

  Jasmine shook her head in disgust. “That poor kid doesn’t even have a good lawyer to help him fight the charges. In fact, right now it looks like he’s gonna end up serving a double term if the prosecutors have their way.”

  “Wow, that’s messed up.” Toni paused to take another bite. Her lunch was better than she had expected. “Can they do that?”

  “Looks like they plan to,” Jasmine answered.

  “You should look into that,” Afrika said between hearty bites of her chicken sandwich. “That sounds like something you could stretch out into a couple stories. You know, interviewing the kid, getting viewpoints from either side, that sort of thing.”

  Toni raised an eyebrow at her friend, who had heard so much about her job over the years that she probably could do it herself if she wanted to.

  “What?” Afrika asked when she caught Toni staring at her. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Toni didn’t answer but pondered the thought as she chewed on the head of a broccoli spear. If she was going to be stuck in general assignment she might as well make it interesting. It couldn’t hurt to look into Jasmine’s story anyway. At the very least it would get her sister-in-law off her back and earn her some Brownie points with her brother.

  “Okay,” Toni said reluctantly. “I guess I can check it out. When can I come by?”

  “Maybe early next week. I’ll talk to the guys at the center, find out if it’s okay, and give you a call,” Jasmine said.

  Toni turned her attention back to her pita sandwich. “What’s this kid’s name anyway?”

  “Jerome Douglas.”

  Toni spun her motorcycle into the parking lot of the Jacob’s House Young Men’s Center. She shut off the engine, removed her helmet, and looked wearily up at the three-story building. She had spent the last few years actively avoiding the group home that was connected to her brother’s church, Immanuel Temple Atlanta. It’s not that she had anything against the place. It was just that she heard enough Jesus-talk whenever she was around Jasmine and Trey, who were heavily involved with the church. She didn’t need to be preached to at Jacob’s House as well.

  Jasmine had been a Christian all her life. Toni had had the pleasure of learning this the first time she met her when Trey brought her home for Christmas. At that point Toni was almost positive that her brother’s relationship with the high-society Latina woman wouldn’t last. Both Trey and Toni had given up on the Christianity thing for various reasons.

  But either Jasmine didn’t know this or she didn’t care, as she never stopped trying to get them to come to church with her. Toni had resisted. Trey hadn’t. But Toni had always suspected that her brother had only done it because he knew he wouldn’t have had a chance with Jasmine otherwise. But somewhere along the way he had changed, and by the time he had married Jasmine they were united in their campaign to save Toni for the Kingdom—whether she was interested or not.

  With a sigh, she pocketed the keys to her bike and trudged up the front steps. She tried not to laugh as the two young men in headphones sitting on the steps gawked at her. She was used to getting that look every time she showed up somewhere new with her Honda CBR250R. It was her second motorcycle, definitely an upgrade from the scooter she’d had before. And she loved every second on it, even though it kept her brother and sister-in-law on heart medicine.

  She winked at the boys before slipping through the double doors into the main lobby where Jasmine was already waiting.

  “Hey, mami, you got here quickly!”

  Toni grinned at her sister-in-law, who was looking stylish in black slacks and a white wrap blouse. Her long, thick black hair, left hanging loose, was curling slightly around her face, contrasting with her smooth olive complexion and making her small nose and full lips look even more Latina than usual. She might not agree with Jasmine on a lot of things, but she had to admit, that was one beautiful woman her brother had married.

  “Time is money,” Toni said, accepting Jasmine’s warm embrace.

  “Ugh, don’t tell me you rode that thing over here.” Jasmine flicked at the helmet in Toni’s hand.

  “You know, Jasmine, you might love it if you give it a try,” Toni teased. “And think of how sexy Trey will think you are on the back of a bike.”

  “Please,” Jasmine scoffed. “There’s nothing sexy about being dead, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen if you don’t give up that thing soon. Especially with the way you ride.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before,” Toni said, looping her arm into her friend’s and changing the subject. “Show me your office. I can’t believe you’ve worked here for almost two years and I’ve never seen it.”

  “Well, technically, I don’t really work here—I volunteer,” Jasmine corrected as the two ladies turned into a wide open corridor with large windows that opened up to a field on one side, and doorways to what looked like classrooms on the other.

  “And my office is actually a common room used by all the staff.”

  Toni followed Jasmine into a large room that looked more like a staff lounge than anything else. Several school-teacher desks that had seen better days with similar looking chairs were set up strategically at the front and at one side of the room. At the other end of the room two battered couches and a coffee table created a makeshift lounge area. Beside the lounge area was a door that led into what looked like another office. From what Toni saw through the slightly ajar door, it was pretty tiny. Definitely nothing to write home about.

  “Geez, this place is tighter than our newsroom at the AJC,” Toni murmured.

  Jasmine chuckled. “I know.” She guided Toni toward one side of the room. “But none of us really spends a lot of time in here anyway, so it’s not that big a deal. Plus if we have less, it means the boys can have more.”

  “I guess this is your desk?” Toni asked, sinking into a battered chair at the side of a desk that looked like it used to be mahogany.

  “How’d you guess?”

  Toni pointed to the picture of Jasmine and Trey. “You must have made a hundred of these and stuck them up everywhere,” Toni said, shaking her head at the picture. “It’s your own personal Jasmine-was-here stamp.”

  “Whatever,” Jasmine said, shrugging, even though Toni could see the redness staining her cheeks. “For your information, I share this desk with my husband. That’s why the picture is there.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Toni said, knowing better. She had seen that exact picture in Jasmine’s office at the clinic, in her car, and also in her purse. Her friend wasn’t fooling anyone. Nonetheless, Toni thought it was cute that Jasmine and Trey were still crazy in love after five years of marriage.

  “Okay, so who’s the dude who gets that piece of real estate?” Toni asked, nodding toward the one solo office.

  Jasmine looked up from the files she was gathering. “Oh, that’s our director’s office. He pretty much runs things at the center.”

  “Hmm,” Toni murmured.

  “Yeah, in fact, we need to talk to him,” Jasmine said, biting her lip. “He has to give the okay for you to do the piece on Jerome.”

  Toni’s head snapped up. “Jasmine!”

  “What?” Jasmine asked, avoiding her friend’s eyes guiltily.

  “You told me on the phone th
at the whole thing was okay!” Toni groaned and covered her face. “You know how much I hate the politics of these things. I thought everything was already set for me to meet this kid.”

  “It is,” Jasmine insisted, glancing away. “Sort of.”

  Toni folded her arms and glared at her fidgety friend.

  “Look, he was a bit skeptical,” Jasmine conceded. “But I am sure once he meets you and you give him your pitch for the story, he’ll be all over it.”

  Toni groaned and buried her head in her hands.

  “Come on, it won’t be that bad,” Jasmine cajoled, springing to her feet and dragging Toni with her. “All we have to do is find him.”

  Toni sighed. This was why she picked her own stories. She should have known better than to get Jasmine of all people involved.

  “Oh, here he is now,” Jasmine said brightly. “Adam, this is the person I spoke to you about earlier. Adam, meet my sister-in-law, Toni. Toni, this is our director, Adam Bayne.”

  Toni turned around and let out a laugh. It was Mr. Man from the station.

  “This is your friend?” he asked, an eyebrow raised as his delicious eyes glanced at Toni and then back at Jasmine.

  Toni took up her purse and helmet, already knowing the end of this particular story.

  “We already met.” He smirked. “And my answer is the same as before, Jasmine. No.”

  Chapter 3

  “So I hear you met my sister today.”

  Adam grimaced, faked Trey on his left, and dribbled past him on the right side before doing a clean layup at the basketball net.

  “Yeah. For the second time,” he said, tossing the rebound back to Trey, who was still panting a few feet south of center court. “Remember the girl I told you about from the other night when I picked up Rasheed?”

  Trey let out a laugh. “No way!”

  “Oh, yes. It was her,” Adam said, shaking his head.

  “Oh, man. Jazzy told me you met her.” Trey dribbled the ball while he tried to catch his breath. “That’s our Toni,” he said. “Also known to the newspaper world as T. R. Shields.”