uncoordinated. And the ten spot she wanted might go for crack or marijuana instead of hair tint. Yet what the hell could she do? Sandra hadn’t had a job in four months, and they needed any money that her mother could bring in. The rent at their apartment was a month behind, and Eve barely made enough working part-time at Mac’s Diner to pay the utilities. “I can give you five, Mother. Can you go to that beauty college in College Park and get it any cheaper?”
“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Sandra?” her mother said. “Everyone tells me I’m much too young to have a grown daughter of sixteen. Why, I’m just a little over thirty myself.” She reached over and patted Eve’s cheek. “I had you when I was only fifteen. I could have had an abortion, but I decided to keep you. It wasn’t easy for me. You owe me, don’t you, honey? Ten?”
Sandra always brought up how much Eve owed her when she needed something, Eve thought with annoyance. When she was younger, it had hurt her. But then she’d realized that her mother used it to get what she wanted, and that big sacrifice was probably because Sandra had been too far along to safely get an abortion. She reached into her wallet and brought out a ten-dollar bill. “Okay. But I want you to show me how pretty you look tomorrow after you get your hair done.”
“Do you think I’m pretty?” Sandra looked in the mirror. “You never say so.” She patted her hair again. “You’re not exactly pretty, Eve, but you have my hair. Everyone says that my hair is very unusual.” She picked up her handbag. “That’s why I have to keep it looking nice.” She headed for the door. “Do you know, I bet that manager at Mac’s Diner would give you a full-time job if you asked him nicely.”
It wasn’t the first time Sandra had made that suggestion. Her mother always conveniently forgot what she didn’t want to remember. “I’m not going to ask him. I haven’t graduated from high school yet, Sandra. And Mr. Kimble has already said he’ll keep me on and work around my hours when I go to college.”
“College?” Sandra smiled with genuine amusement. “People like us don’t go to college, honey. You’ll be much happier if you get that thought right out of your head.”
“Would I?” She tried to smother the anger, but it burst free. “And are you happy jumping from job to job, Sandra? Are you happy sniffing coke to make you think everything is what it should be?” She looked around the shabby apartment. She tried to keep it clean, but everything about it was worn, drab, and depressing. “Are you happy living here? Well, I’m not, and I’m not going to stop thinking of ways to get away from here.”
Sandra was looking at her in bewilderment. “Don’t be ugly. There’s nothing wrong with smoking a joint or sniffing a little coke now and then. It’s not as if I’m one of those drug addicts on Peachtree Street.”
“No? Have you tried to kick it lately?”
“Why should I?” She opened the door. “You’re just too intense about most everything. You seem to be mad at me every time you see me. You work or read all the time. You don’t even have a boyfriend. Sometimes I don’t understand you, Eve.” She slammed the door behind her.
Sandra had never understood her, Eve thought. Even when she’d been a child, her mother had often looked at her as if she were some strange creature from another planet.
But then Sandra had been revolving in her own solar system ever since Eve could remember. Marijuana, crack, coke, acid.
Don’t think about it. Sandra wouldn’t listen to her, and she had her own battles to fight. She couldn’t help her mother, but she could help herself. She had grown up in the streets and learned every trick in the book to fight those battles.
She glanced at the clock. It was almost six. She had to get to work, or she’d be late. She’d hoped to finish her geometry before she had to leave, but Sandra had been home, and that usually meant a delay. She closed her geometry book and stuck it in her canvas book bag. Maybe she’d get a chance to finish on her break.
She locked the door and ran down the four flights of cement stairs that led to the front entrance of the housing development. The stink was overwhelming. Someone had thrown a sack of garbage on the third landing. All they’d had to do was take it down two flights more to the garbage cans, but that was too much trouble.
Don’t look at the garbage, the iron banister rails, the scrawled graffiti on the dirty gray walls. She had control of their apartment, but all she could do was ignore everything outside their apartment door.
She threw open the worn oak door of the front entrance. Two silver-haired black ladies were slowly approaching, and she waited to hold the door for them.
Then she was quickly outside, drawing a deep breath.
Fresh air. Sunlight. The smell of garbage was less down here.
“Hello, Eve, aren’t you late?” Rosa Desprando was sitting in the sun on the green bench outside the building with her year-old little boy beside her. She spent a lot of time outside; her father was always yelling at her because the baby was too noisy.
“A little.” Rosa was her own age, sixteen, and had been in her homeroom at school before she had gotten pregnant and dropped out. Eve had always liked her. She was a little slow, but that didn’t matter. She had a good heart and was always smiling, something that wasn’t common in Eve’s world. In fact, she had too good a heart. She’d been a target for every guy in school because they could con her into anything. Including getting pregnant with adorable Manuel, who she loved more than anything in the world.
Eve stopped by the bench and stroked the baby’s dark curls. “Hey, hot stuff,” she said softly. “How you doing?”
Manuel was gurgling and batting his long eyelashes at her. She had once told Rosa that he should be doing commercials for mascara. He was a plump, rosy-cheeked child, and completely enchanting.
Eve chuckled. “I think he’s doing fine. Is he still keeping you awake teething?”
“Yes, it doesn’t matter,” Rosa said as she adjusted the baby’s Braves baseball shirt. “He’s worth it. Doesn’t he look cute in this shirt you bought for him? Say thank you, Manuel.”
“No big deal. It only cost me fifty cents at Goodwill.”
“But he’s so cute in it. Like a real baseball player. I’m trying to teach him to say thank you. He said it yesterday.”
Manuel beamed up at Eve. “Mama.”
“I don’t think so,” Eve said.
“He calls everyone mama,” Rosa said. “Even my papa.”
“He’ll get it straight soon.” She dropped a kiss on his head and opened the gate. “See you, Rosa.”
Rosa nodded. “I saw your mama a few minutes ago. She looked real pretty.”
“Sandra always looks nice,” Eve said as she started the four-block walk to the bus stop.
“Eve.”
“What?” Eve glanced back over her shoulder.
“Watch out.” Rosa’s gaze was fixed on the alley at the end of the block. “I saw Rick Larazo and Frank Martinelli and some of their gang around earlier this evening. Rick looked… wild. I think he’s on something bad.”
“I always watch out,” Eve said. “You keep away from them, Rosa.”
“They don’t do anything but call me bad names.” Rosa cuddled her baby closer. “They can’t hurt me, but I don’t like them talking like that about Manuel. He didn’t do nothin’. It was all my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” That wasn’t true. It was Rosa’s fault for trusting and believing and for being born in a world that victimized the innocent and the weak. “It was just something that happened. It can work out. You take good care of Manuel and look through that GED pamphlet I gave you. You’ll get your diploma, then you can get a good job.”
She shook her head. “I’m not smart like you, Eve.”
“You don’t have to be smart. You just have to want it enough. Look, Rosa, we don’t have to be like our parents, living hand to mouth, falling into the same traps, making the same mistakes. We can dig ourselves out of here.” She could never understand why that desire wasn’t there in the people around her. It had always been a burning passion with her. But she didn’t have time to argue with Rosa at that moment. “Study for that GED. I’ll talk to you later. See you.”
Her pace quickened as she kept a wary eye on the dark cavity of the alley as she passed it. She had been attacked more than once by scum hiding in that cluttered dimness.
This time she was lucky.
Evidently Rick Larazo and his gang had moved on and she didn’t have-
