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  I looked over at her mother, who was obliviously talking on her cell. She did tell her to sit down a couple of times, but the little girl didn’t. Kierra put her hands over her ears and snuggled in my lap. I patted her back and looked around. Nobody else would say anything. So I said, “Excuse me,” to the mother, and she didn’t respond to me. She just placed her phone on the chair and yanked her daughter up and made her have a seat. Thank you, I thought.

  We waited about forty-five minutes before we were seen. They were calling names by severity. The doctor knocked on the door. He took a quick look in both of Kierra’s ears and said she had a double-ear infection.

  “Can I have a sticker?” Kierra asked, perking up.

  He pulled one from his pocket. “Yes, here is a Shrek sticker for you,” he said. Then he turned to me and said, “Mom, some antibiotics will get this all cleared up. She will be feeling better in a few days.”

  All day waiting just so he can take five minutes to see her, I thought as Kierra redressed and placed her sticker on her forehead. We walked out of the doctor’s office and she announced to me that she was hungry. I promised her McDonald’s after we got her prescription filled.

  It was just past noon and raining like crazy. I walked into the pharmacy and handed the prescription over, then noticed a woman looking deathly sick in the chair. I just shook my head like “stay away from me.” Then the woman sat up, and I couldn’t believe it was the nurse Adrienne from the eighth floor.

  “Adrienne,” I said, shocked.

  She looked up at me.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m all right. I just have that bug that’s going around. I’ll be fine.”

  “You should get some rest.”

  “I am. See you later,” she said as the tech handed her her medicine.

  I sat down where she was seated and waited for Kierra’s medicine. It took about fifteen minutes, and Kierra was begging me to buy her a toy and to have someone spend the night and call her father. I just couldn’t wait to get home and make her take a nap. The doctor’s office had drained me. We walked out of the pharmacy and I opened the car door and instructed Kierra to put on her seat belt. I put on mine, then looked to my left and saw Adrienne slumped over on her steering wheel. I didn’t want to be too nosy, but she looked like she shouldn’t be driving. I got out of my car and tapped on her window. She looked up and rolled down the window. I asked her twice if she was okay. The second time she admitted she was in pain and asked me to take her home. I cleared out the front seat of my car as she staggered into my car.

  “Who is that, Mommy?” Kierra asked loudly.

  “Miss Adrienne from my job.”

  Kierra came through the split in between the front and backseat. She looked at Adrienne, and said, “What’s wrong with her, Mommy?”

  “Girl, get in the back and put your seat belt on!” I yelled.

  Adrienne gave me her address and I drove her home. Once we reached her building, I helped her up the steps to her third-floor apartment. I stood behind her so she wouldn’t fall, and Kierra carried her pocketbook. She staggered over to the couch, thanked me, and asked me for her purse.

  “Well, I hope you feel better. And I hope what you have isn’t contagious. I had to call out from work today, and I don’t want to call out again,” I joked, handing her purse to her.

  “No, the procedure I had is not contagious, trust me,” she said in a halfway laugh.

  I caught on immediately and walked toward her door. She tried to get up and hand me forty dollars. I told her to keep it and gave her my number to call me if she needed anything. I closed her door and held Kierra’s hand as we walked back down the steps.

  The next day, I was mean to Jeremy. I don’t even know what happened between him and Adrienne, but I knew more than likely it was his fault. And something about seeing her in all that pain made me really dislike him. They were dating for a little while, so it was probably his baby. And he was walking around the office all smiling. She wasn’t even my friend, but I felt allegiance to the sisterhood. I hated him right now just because he was a man. I hoped I never got pregnant again. As a matter of fact, I know I’m not getting pregnant again. I’m going to make an appointment to get my tubes tied.

  At lunch I called my insurance company to see if they covered getting my tubes tied. They informed me that I had to go to ob-gyn and get a referral. I couldn’t wait. I didn’t ever want to have another baby. I met the criteria, and I was one hundred percent sure I wanted it. I knew this lady down the street who was forty-five and she just had a surprise. Her son was in college, and now she had a newborn. That was not going to happen to me.

  I went into my room and fell asleep on the bed. I woke up with thoughts of Adrienne.

  “Alexis, what is Chardae doing here? It is twelve-thirty.”

  “Mom, can she stay here? Her mother kicked her out.”

  “What she do? What happened?”

  “Her mom was like ‘Be in the house by nine’ and she got home at eleven, and when she came in, her mom said, ‘Pack your stuff and leave.’”

  “Get me her mother’s number so I can call her.” I dialed Chardae’s mom.

  “Hello, how you doing? This is Tanisha Butler. My daughter Alexis is a friend of Chardae.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, I just wanted to let you know that Chardae is here and she is safe. If you want me to bring her home, I can.”

  “No, don’t bring her home. I’m tired of her grown ass. She want to run the street, let her. I’m done. She just ain’t going to do that shit here.”

  And the call ended. I looked down at my phone. It was one in the morning, and I couldn’t believe she didn’t care where her daughter was.

  “Alexis, come here,” I said. “What else she doing besides coming in late?”

  “Nothing really. She just be getting into it with her stepdad. He mean and her mom be listening to everything he say. And she just be saying it is not fair how her mom listen to him and not her.”

  “Well, she can stay here tonight, but after that she has to go home. Give her something to sleep in, and bring some sheets and a comforter to her. You still got to get ready for school.”

  I yelled downstairs to Chardae, “Tomorrow you going to have to go home, sweetie, okay?”

  “Yes, thank you for letting me stay.”

  There would never be a day I’d put anything or any man before my child. That’s just crazy.

  Chapter 15

  Dionne

  We occasionally double-dated with Terrance’s friend Darren and his wife, Jasmine. We were all going out to celebrate me taking the bar and our engagement. I was sure that I passed. Jasmine and I were friends only because of our men. She was very ghetto, petty, and always pricing your lifestyle. “How much you pay for that?” is her favorite question. She is a know-it-all who really didn’t know anything. She wanted to know how much your house cost and how much you put down on it, how many square feet. She was just a prying, materialistic, negative person. But something attracted Darren to her. And he was her ticket out of her blue-collar existence. All evening I caught her staring at my engagement ring. I knew before the night was over she would ask me how much it cost.

  In the bathroom, Jasmine finally had her opportunity to ask the burning question she wanted to ask all evening.

  “What’s your secret?” she asked.

  “What secret?”

  “You know, how did you get Terrance to propose to you?”

  “I didn’t have to do anything,” I said, offended.

  “Let me see your ring,” she said as she reached for my hand. After she evaluated it for a few moments, she said it was nice and Terrance probably spent five thousand for it. “So he just asked you to marry him without an ultimatum or you threatening to leave him?”

  “No.”

  “Damn, he is a good man. Do you know what I had to do to get Darren to speed up the process?”

  I didn’t really want to know,
but she told me anyway.

  I couldn’t take any more of Jasmine. I announced to them that we had to go home because I had to get home and prepare for my first day of work.

  I wanted to get to work early on my first day. I showered and curled every piece of my hair perfectly into place. First impressions are important, and I wanted to make a great one.

  Before I walked out the door, I looked at myself in the mirror once more. I looked great, like a seasoned attorney. I was carrying my briefcase and wearing my navy suit. My stilettos click-clacked as I strutted into the public defender’s offices. There were people waiting in line and phones ringing, and it wasn’t even eight-thirty. I walked up to the front desk, introduced myself, and was told that I was early and to go and have a seat.

  A few minutes later, a man walked in and introduced himself. His name was Joseph. His face read that he worked too much and was stressed. His nails were bitten down to the corners of his pink fingertips, and he had permanent bags under his dark-circled eyes. I said hello and reached out to shake his hand. He told me he was waiting on two other new hires.

  After the other two new hires, James and Martina, came in, we introduced ourselves and Joseph showed us around the office.

  “Okay, you all will report to me with any questions or concerns. This week you’ll be shadowing Alyssa. She will be joining us shortly. Unfortunately, we are understaffed and have a very heavy caseload. After this week, you’ll be on your own.”

  He showed us to our office. It was small with three desks in it. There was a desk on the left of the room and one to the right. The other desk was directly in front of the window.

  “We don’t get our own offices?” I asked.

  “No, you will all share this office. This will serve more or less as a home base. You guys will be in court most of the day.”

  I didn’t know I would be sharing an office; that really sucked. A Hispanic woman dressed in a black suit with a white shirt came in and introduced herself as Alyssa Hernandez. She had very straight, pressed black hair and light brown eyes. Her look was more model than attorney.

  Alyssa took us across the street to courtroom 11-B. We went in and had a seat in the back of the courtroom. The jury was coming back in and taking their seats. The jurors were a mixture of young and old, and white and black. Alyssa was defending a twenty-year-old woman named Jamia Gilbert who was charged with distribution and intent to sell narcotics. She was facing up to five years. The D.A. brought charges up on her because her boyfriend made bail and was on the run. She looked innocent; she didn’t look like a drug dealer. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail with braces on her teeth. Every time the prosecutor asked about her involvement, she began crying and saying she didn’t know. They showed her pictures of people pulling up to her house and someone coming to the window passing drugs out. The prosecutor asked who it was, and she said she didn’t know.

  In the row in front of me, an older woman was sniffling. Her sniffles became louder. Then she stood up and said, “Tell them it was Devon. Don’t take a case for him. He is not here to support you.”

  The judge asked for the woman to be taken out of the courtroom.

  “She don’t sell no drugs. She don’t know anything. She only twenty,” the woman screamed as she was pulled unwillingly out of the courtroom.

  Once she was out, the woman on the stand began to cry louder as the D.A. made his closing testimony.

  While the jurors went to deliberate her fate, we took a quick lunch break. We ate at the Reading Terminal. It was a big warehouse setting that housed a bunch of little restaurants, from Mediterranean food to soul food. I wasn’t hungry, so I just grabbed a soda at the table. I realized the three of us had nothing in common except for our occupation. James was a cute know-it-all from Florida. He only took the job for inner-city experience, and Martina didn’t seem like an attorney at all. She would be better suited as a librarian because she spoke like one and was dressed like one.

  “So, how do you like it so far?” James asked me.

  “I don’t have much to go on. But very interesting, I’m learning. I can’t believe we don’t have our own offices,” I said.

  “Not like law school, it’s the real world,” Alyssa said, joining us at the table.

  “So, do you think she is going to be found guilty?” James asked Alyssa.

  “I don’t know. When I was picking that jury, I tried to get a few more black women on the trial. I wanted this girl about Jamia’s age, but the prosecutor dismissed her. But if she does get convicted, it’s her own fault. She had ample opportunity to tell on her boyfriend. I did the best job I could.”

  It only took the jury an hour to find Jamia Gilbert guilty. She would be sentenced in one month. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get the entire five years. She began sobbing uncontrollably as they put the handcuffs on her wrists and led her to jail.

  I went home still thinking about Jamia Gilbert. I couldn’t believe they found her guilty. I came into the house and Terrance was cooking dinner.

  “How was your first day?”

  “It was okay. Not what I expected, but okay,” I said as I took a seat on the sofa.

  “You ready to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry. I feel like I just want to take a shower and get ready for tomorrow.”

  “What happened?” he asked as he sat next to me on the sofa.

  “This girl refused to snitch on her boyfriend and is about to do five years for him, and they weren’t even her drugs. It was a shame. Her grandmother was crying.”

  “How do you know they weren’t her drugs?” he asked.

  “Because I can read people, Terrance. She didn’t look like a drug dealer either. She was just young and dumb trying to protect her boyfriend.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to get emotionally involved.”

  “I’m not. It was like she didn’t even care. That’s horrible.”

  “You can’t carry all the weight on your shoulders. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, but I do want to make a change,” I said.

  “You can only help one person at a time.”

  “I know and I’m going to try.”

  Chapter 16

  Adrienne

  My disability was approved. I was home on a short-term medical leave for six months. That was more than enough time to get rest and find a new damn job. There was no way I was going back to that hospital. I kept thinking about how foolish I must have looked, fighting and acting crazy.

  Being home was so good for me, especially after the abortion. I was real sad for weeks. I wanted to have a baby one day, just not by any ol’ body. I wanted to be more selective and at least be with the guy.

  That night of my abortion I really felt like I was at death’s door. I really came to the realization that no one was in my corner, and knowing that hurt. I never, ever wanted to feel like that again. But I know now I had to start giving a fuck about me in order for anyone else to care. Like I hated Jeremy, but some of the things he said made sense. Like why didn’t I have any friends, and why didn’t I have a man? I had to be doing something wrong. Why was I coming home every day after work to this apartment by myself? I wanted some friends and a boyfriend. I wanted to get my apartment together and buy furniture. I wanted a new life and new attitude. I just wanted change in my life.

  I got me a new wardrobe to go with my new stance on life. I went shopping, something I hadn’t done in a long time. I had credit cards I hadn’t even touched yet. I wanted to feel pretty, feminine, and good about myself. I bought a maroon Gucci bag with upturned Gs all over it that I had seen in Saks. I got my makeup done at the counter in Macy’s and spent about three hundred dollars on MAC Products. Before I left, I bought five perfumes and three pairs of jeans, a bunch of dresses and shoes. I wanted to feel pretty and look good.

  From there I drove to IKEA and purchased a green-and-white-striped sofa and love seat. Then I bought a forty-six-inch television to hang on the wall from Best Buy. I even bought
new dishes to eat off. I bought my mom a few pieces, and she was very appreciative. I hadn’t been really keeping in touch with her like I should have been.

  I really wanted to thank that woman Tanisha too. I wanted to do something nice for her. I really felt like I owed her so much. She saved my life twice. She was the only reason I didn’t go to jail and totally lose my job, and she helped me home that night at the pharmacy. I located her number and dialed.

  “Hi, Tanisha, this is Adrienne. I wanted to take you out to lunch to say thanks.”

  “Thank you, but that’s okay. You don’t have to,” she said.

  “I know, but I really want to. What you doing later? I just wanted to say thank you in person. I can meet you near the job.”

  She agreed and we met at a little restaurant a few blocks from the hospital.

  She walked up to the hostess. I stood up and waved at her. She came over to the table.

  “Hi,” she said softly as she had a seat.

  “Hi, I know this awkward, but I really just wanted to give you this,” I said as I gave her an envelope with two hundred dollars in it.

  “What’s this?” she said as she opened the envelope. “No, I can’t accept this. This is not necessary.”

  “Please take it. I just wanted to thank you. Like if you wasn’t there, I might have killed Jeremy and been in jail and out of a job.”

  “It was nothing, trust me,” she said as she gave the envelope back to me.

  “Well, at least let me buy your drink.”

  We ordered drinks. I had a margarita; she ordered a piña colada. We sat in silence for a moment looking at our menus. Then Tanisha said, “Well, you look great.” She smiled.

  “I got a lot of rest. I needed it. Plus, I’ve been taking better care of myself.”

  “I don’t want to be out of place, but I wanted to tell you Jeremy was very wrong, and don’t worry about him. He is an asshole.”