“I wanted to apologize,” said Damon. He was barefoot, holding a pair of white sock stuffed basketball shoes in his left hand.
“You already did,” said Brielle, her voice muffled by the towel.
“Yeah,” he explained. “I said sorry for what I said. Now, I’m apologizing for hurting your feelings all those years.” Brielle looked up from the towel into his eyes. She cocked her head to the side in inquiry.
“I didn’t know that it hurt you for me to call you Baby Shaq,” he said, softly. “You should have told me.”
“Everybody is always calling me stilts, and stork and Shaq,” said Brielle, her face burning with embarrassment. “I didn’t think it would do any good to tell you to stop it.”
“You never know until you try,” he said. “Forgive me?”
Brielle just looked at him in shock. That her idol should be here apologizing, floored her.
“Brielle,” his voice was coaxing, “please forgive me.”
“Okay,” she said, softly.
He visibly relaxed.
“Don’t let it happen again.”
“Jada always makes me sweat before she’ll let me off the hook,” said Damon.
“That’s what sisters do,” said Brielle, with a shy smile. “I have one, remember.”
“Yeah,” said Damon, looking down at his shoes and then back into Brielle’s eyes.
“So, how come you’re so easy on me?” he asked.
“I like you,” said Brielle. “And I’m not your sister.”
“I noticed,” said Damon, flashing a quick grin. Brielle blinked in surprise.
“You did?”
“Yup,” he said, nodding. “I notice everything about you.”
The swim coach, Mrs. Harris stepped out of her office.
“Brielle,” she called. “Is there a problem?”
Brielle and Damon looked across the pool.
“No, ma’am,” said Brielle. “This is just my friend, Damon. He wanted to know if I needed a ride home.”
“Hello Damon,” said Coach Harris.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said Damon with a wave.
“Practice is finished, Brielle. Head home.” With a stern look of warning, Coach Harris coach headed back into her office.
“You little liar,” said Damon sotto voice, with a chuckle. “Do you need a ride home?”
“No, my mom’s coming,” said Brielle, with a quick smile. “The coach doesn’t like boys hanging around the pool.” She reached down and picked up her black swim bag. She stuffed her goggles, swim cap and towel inside and started towards the showers.
“See you later,” said Brielle.
“Brielle,” he called softly. She turned around just as she started to open the locker room door.
“What?” she asked, turning quickly and looking at him over her shoulder. Her braids whipped around behind her.
“I see now why they call you the Black Swan,” he said, with a cocky grin.
She blushed and waved at him and then disappeared through the locker room door.
Sasha
“You have to apply for benefits to help you through this difficult time,”
Sasha stifled a sigh and tried to sit up a little straighter. Her back was hurting and her stomach was queasy from lack of food. Sasha listened to the woman in front of her drone on and on about the conditions for staying in the shelter. Bursting into tears was an option, but she was all cried out in the last couple of weeks. Her visit to the Planned Parenthood clinic had netted her a three month supply of prenatal vitamins, a lecture on the importance of prenatal care and the news that she was nearly five months pregnant. She also got a pamphlet on adoption. Overwhelmed, Sasha had stumbled out into the mid- September sun and gulped in the sharp sixty five degree air. This was real.
Her next chore, on the bus, was to Human Services to fill out an application for welfare benefits. And wasn’t that one of the most humiliating moments of her life. The entrance was blanketed with what looked like a bunch of tattooed criminals, smoking stinking cigarettes. One of them was even smoking weed, and to her pregnant nose, smelled like a skunk.
“That’s a nice jacket you got on, young thang,” said weed head. She pulled her light jacket closer and put her head down.
“You so fine,” said another, who wore cornrows, expensive sneakers and a baggy black tee shirt with Scarface on it. “You wanna be my baby mama?”
“No,” she said, haughty and stiff. “I already got a man.”
The men laughed.
“That’s what they all say,” said the pot head. “Where’s he at?”
“He can’t be all that since you’re at the welfare office,” said another, following her up the steps. She hopped up the last step, prepared to run.
“Call me, pretty,” said Scarface, but she scooted inside and was relieved to see a security guard. She hoped there was a back way out of this place so she didn’t have to run the gauntlet of grubby men again.
The inside was teeming with the poor, drunk, drugged and unwashed. Babies howled. Phones rang. The line for applications snaked around the building and the receptionist behind the thick glass window was not happy about having so many customers. She snapped papers though the slot at the bottom of the window and hollered out “Next,” like a barker at an auction. Posters, advertising counseling for substance abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse and benefits available, printed in both Spanish and English, plastered the mustard colored walls. The despair and unhappiness were almost thick enough to taste. Sasha spent the whole time with her small designer bag clutched in her hands so tightly her knuckles were nearly white.
The people in the welfare office treated her like the benefits were coming out of their own pockets. The caseworker, a big old fat bleached blond with mountainous acne scrunched up her face like she smelled something bad and had
