“Will I what?” asked Brielle, tapping her black patent leather flat.
“Be my girl,” he said in exasperation. He was frowning fiercely, the late sun glinting off the rims of his glasses.
“This is how you ask?” asked Brielle, smiling slightly. She was enjoying his frustration. For a minute he looked really ticked off. She thought that he was going to stalk off and leave her standing there. The smile dropped off her face.
Suddenly, he smiled.
“You’re such a brat,” he said. “You know that don’t you?”
“I am not,” she said, flirting with her eyes.
“Okay,” he said, taking her hand in his. He tugged on her braid with his other hand. “Will you please be my girl?”
“Yes,” she said.
“All right, then,’ he said. Then he added casually, “You’re going to the homecoming dance with me in two weeks, right?”
“I have to ask my parents,” said Brielle. “But I’m sure it will be okay.”
He flashed a big white toothed grin that had Brielle blinking and trying to catch her breath. His eyes shown brilliant and he gave her a quick hug and light kiss on the lips before he led her into the football game. He paid to get in and bought her popcorn. He held her hand to help her up the bleachers.
Damon turned his attention to the football game. To his surprise, Brielle actually seemed to understand what was going on. She yelled with the cheerleaders and hooted when the Warriors made a bad play. Damon watched Brielle, drinking in her warm cocoa beauty and feeling like nothing could ever go wrong in his life again. Jada snorted at the sight of the two of them holding hands and rolled her eyes, but he didn’t care. Brielle was his girl.
Sasha
“Hold, please.”
Sasha rubbed her hand over her face and punched numbers in to the switchboard in front of her.
“Miss Shelton,” she said. “I have a call to transfer in to you.”
Sasha had finally gotten a job after two weeks in the shelter. She was working as a temporary receptionist at Tender Comfort, the nursing home a few miles from the shelter. Gail had gotten her the job. It paid eight dollars an hour and did not require her to be on her feet much. Sasha hated every minute of the job. The place stank like a toilet because most of the old people were sick, miserable, and incontinent. Half the time they were wandering the halls, crying and begging to go home. The exhausted nursing aides were run off their feet trying to keep too many patients – no, residents – from wandering off the grounds or harming themselves.
Sasha sat at a desk in the middle of a circular counter. In front of her was a telephone switchboard and pads of paper and a jar of pens. The nursing home had four halls that ended at the receptionist’s desk like spokes on a bicycle, so Sasha could see everything that went on just by swiveling her chair. When she’d first gotten the job, she thought that working the night shift would be quiet, but she hadn’t known that old folks rarely, if ever, kept regular people’s hours. Visitors came at all hours of the night, as Tender Comfort had a twenty-four hour open door policy.
“Hey, Sasha,” said one of the young orderlies. Clifford was tall and thin with honey brown skin and dreadlocks pulled back in a ponytail. Dressed in dark blue scrubs, he was dragging a mop and bucket around, mopping up whatever disgusting mess was always on the floor. He stopped by the desk she was sitting at to talk to her every chance he got. “How’s it going?”
It was seven in the evening so the day time activities were winding down as more of the residents were sedated and put to bed for the night.
“It’s nastier than usual,” said Sasha, wrinkling her nose. “Old man Hadrian messed his pants and it took them an hour to convince him to go back to his room so they could change him. I was so sick to my stomach.” She shuddered.
“Yeah,” said Clifford, nodding his head. “I hate when that happens, but the old people can’t help it.”
“I just wish it wouldn’t happen on my shift,” said Sasha. Clifford stood up straight and swiped his mop around in desultory fashion. “There was a couple of deaths today, too, a lot of people crying and stuff. I had to call the ambulance about four times, because we got a bunch of codes.”
“Yeah, it runs like that,” said Clifford, nodding his head. “Seems like the old people kick off all at once.”
The phone buzzed and Sasha answered, “Tender Comfort Convalescent Home. How may I help you?” When she finished explaining to the caller that she needed to call back between eight and five to speak to a residential representative about placement for her eighty year old mother, Sasha looked up to see Clifford leaning against the counter.
“So,” he asked casually. “What are you gonna do when you get off?”
“Grab something to eat and then come back here,” she said. “I’m working a double tonight because the night shift receptionist called off sick and they don’t have anyone else to cover.” Clifford was nice to talk to. He kept some of the horrible loneliness at bay.
“What time you get off?” he asked.
“Seven,” she said. “I get to take an hour and go eat and then come back here. I squared it with Miss Gail.”
“That’s a lot of hours, little mama,” he said. “What you gonna do with all that money?”
Sasha dreamed about buying a new cell phone. Without one, she was cut off from the world. She had the minute phone from the welfare office but it only had a certain number of minutes on it. Besides, the only numbers Sasha knew by heart were her mother’s and father’s. She certainly wasn’t going to call them. Sasha wished she knew one of her friend’s numbers. She couldn’t get e-mails because the
