Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Monday morning found me unable to keep my eyes open as I sat listening to the counselors complain about the lack of security in the various rehab houses the Ain’t I A Woman Foundation sponsored throughout various inner-city communities.
My head had started pounding as soon as I sat down and switched on my computer, and that had been around eight o’clock. Now, after two hours and two Tylenols, the marching band that had been rehearsing inside my head was giving a concert, with encores.
“It’s not fair, Ms.Atkins,” a slight, dark-skinned girl with long braids named Camika complained.
She looked every bit of the part of a gutter rat, with her electric blue fingernails and powder blue mascara, but was far from it.
She’d grown up in Baldwin, Long Island, and had graduated summa cum laude from Barnard.
She was the perfect reminder that one really should never judge a book by its cover.
“Our houses have two security officers for sixty in-house residents. That’s not enough.
Have you seen the reports on the violence we’ve had over the past ninety days? ” she continued.
I nodded my head yes.
“We need more security personnel—there’s no way around it.”
“One woman was sodomized by a resident, another was beaten and cut up in a stairwell. Ain’t I A Woman shelters are experiencing real problems in Houston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but Detroit is the worst,” Cameron, a tall wiry white boy with red hair, quietly interjected.
He was the junior director and though he looked only twenty-two he was actually thirty and studying for his doctorate.
I looked across the mahogany table at the dozen or so faces that looked back at me representing a variety of ethnicities, all eager to give back to communities that most of them had never even set foot in until they came to work for this organization.
I remember when I was in their shoes: young, eager, and ready to link hands in solidarity with others who wanted to see homelessness, disease, war, and anything else we thought destructive and inhumane obliterated.
Now I was just a paper-shuffling delegator with a fancy title and a fat paycheck. Was I really making a difference sitting behind my desk? I didn’t think so.
“Ms.Atkins?”
I blinked and came out of my daydream. The band in my head had actually taken a break, but the tension in my neck told me that it would be a short one.
I looked at the faces once again and tried to put together something that wouldn’t send them away too disappointed and disillusioned with life.
I straightened my back and dove into the same old bullshit I’d been spouting since I’d assumed my position.
“Like I told you before, AIW has been strapped financially the past year. Donations are down and unfortunately we have had to cut services in some places, and security hire is one of them,” I said in the most apologetic voice I could muster.
“The new budget is currently being prepared, and I promise you that we are working on trying to increase funds for security personnel,” I lied and abruptly stood up, signifying that this meeting was at an end.
I turned my back on a lot of angry faces and could have sworn I heard “bitch” thrown at my back as I walked through the doorway and out into the hall.
Back in my office, I settled myself down behind my desk, allowing the cool blues and warm whites of the room’s decor to work their soothing magic on me.
The spearmint tea my secretary brought in for me had succeeded in quieting the pain in my head but did nothing for my mind, which was locked on Chevy and Noah.
I was becoming very concerned about them and could have kicked myself for not having emergency contacts for them.
Chevy’s mother was living somewhere in Phoenix, remarried, so her last name was a mystery to me.
Noah’s mother was right in Queens but had changed her telephone number two years ago.
I’d never gotten the new one from Noah, and Mrs.Bodison’s paranoia prevented her from being listed in the telephone directory.
I didn’t want to sound like some crazed, irrational friend, but if neither one of them contacted me soon, I would have to call the police.
I turned to my computer monitor and stared at the seventy-six emails that awaited my attention. My eyes roamed to my desk clock, which indicated that noon was just around the corner.
I would try to knock out as many emails as possible and take lunch at one.
Problems, problems, and more problems. I answered each email feverishly, eager to be done with them. Then I opened one from Sweet Cheeks.
Sweetie,
I’m sorry that I have been AWOL—but I am going through something that has me upside down and inside out. I’m sorry that I have not returned your emails or telephone calls, but I am working through some issues at the moment and need some time alone.
Will call as soon as I find some footing.
Smooches,
Noah
P.S. By the way, Chevy is alive, well, and unemployed. I think there is a new man in her life.
I read the email five times, but the relief I felt was short-lived and replaced by anger. We’re all supposed to be best friends, I thought to myself. Anything that affected them, affected me, and vice versa, or so I thought.
I felt hurt and tossed aside. I hit the delete button, switched off my computer, grabbed my bag, and headed out to lunch.