Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
NYROBI
The automatic doors slid open, and the Florida heat smacked me dead in the face.
I closed my eyes for a second.
Lord...
It felt good to breathe something that didn't smell like bleach.
The doctor had finally convinced me to go home, shower, grab a few days' worth of clothes, and get some real sleep before my mama woke up asking why I looked like I hadn't bathed in two days.
Truth was though I hadn't.
I dug through my purse until I found my phone.
This shit still dead.
"Damn."
I looked around the hospital entrance. People climbed into their cars. Families hugged each other goodbye.
Nurses rushed in with coffees the size of flowerpots.
Everybody had somewhere to be. And then there was me...
I was trying to figure out how I was getting home.
My Buick had been acting funny for the last week, and I wasn't about to risk it breaking down when every dollar I had was already spoken for. Besides, I’d caught the ambulance up there.
I opened the Uber app.
Estimated fare: $28.43.
I stared at the screen.
Then I laughed.
Ain't no damn way.
Twenty-eight dollars could put gas in my car and buy my mama's low-sodium groceries for the week.
I backed out the app. I guess Uber wasn't happening. I looked toward the city bus stop across the street.
"Well..."
I pulled my hoodie a little tighter around me.
"I guess we're riding the bus today."
After crossing the street, I dropped onto the metal bench beneath the faded blue bus sign.
A woman in purple scrubs sat a few seats away scrolling in her phone.
An older man pushed a shopping cart full of aluminum cans down the sidewalk.
A little boy kept begging his daddy for chips from the vending machine inside the hospital. I was aggravated as fuck.
My phone finally caught enough charge from the portable charger buried at the bottom of my purse to blink back to life.
Immediately, the notifications started rolling in.
Walmart (3 Missed Calls)
Tamika - Coach: Call me ASAP.
LIGHT BILL REMINDER
I sucked my teeth.
"One thing about life…fuck."
I muttered.
The bus pulled up with a loud hiss.
I climbed aboard, swiped the last few dollars off my bus card, and found a seat near the back. As the bus rolled away from the hospital, I rested my forehead against the window.
I told myself I was just going home for clothes and that's it. I made a mental note to myself:
Grab a bag. Feed my fish. Take a shower. Charge my phone.
The bus jerked to a stop every few blocks, letting people on and off while I sat there staring out the window. My mind wasn't even on the ride anymore. I was trying to figure out how I was gonna explain all this to my mama once she got discharged.
She already blamed herself for enough.
There was no way I was telling her the lights were about to get cut off too.
"Next stop..."
The driver called out my neighborhood.
I stood up, adjusted my purse on my shoulder, and stepped off the bus. The Florida heat wrapped around me all over again. It was hot as fuck but fuck it…I started walking.
Our apartment complex wasn’t the best but it was the same every day. I knew what to expect.
It was the same kids playing football with a flat basketball. The same old lady sitting on her porch watching everybody else's business but her own.
Shit nothing looked different. At least...not at first. I reached into my purse for my keys while climbing the stairs to my apartment. Reaching my door…
Apartment 204.
I stopped so fast my keys slipped right through my fingers. They hit the concrete with a loud clink.
"What the..."
A bright orange paper was taped right in the middle of my front door.
My stomach dropped.
"No..."
I snatched it down so fast it almost ripped.
My eyes ran over the first few lines.
FINAL NOTICE.
PAYMENT REQUIRED OR PREMISES WILL BE RECLAIMED.
I read it again hoping I was tripping. Like maybe I was reading somebody else's damn notice. Mrs. Johnson from across the breezeway, opened her front door with a grocery bag hanging off her arm.
"They finally caught you home, huh?"
I looked over at her.
"What?"
"The landlord been looking for you."
My chest tightened.
"He came by yesterday too."
Yesterday. I was in the hospital.
"He said if the balance ain't paid..." She hesitated. "...they gone start the eviction process."
I looked back down at the paper in my hand.
Everything around me suddenly got quiet. The kids, the traffic, all dat shit. It all faded.
Because one thought kept screaming louder than everything else.
Where the hell am I supposed to go?
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the concrete landing outside my apartment.
The eviction notice was still balled up in my hand.
I couldn't even cry.
I was too damn tired.
I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
"Come on, Nyrobi," I whispered to myself. "Think."
I needed money.
Not next week.
Not on payday.
Today.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
For a split second I thought maybe it was Walmart again.
It wasn't.
Facebook Memories
7 years ago today.
I frowned and tapped the notification anyway.
A picture filled my screen.
Me and my daddy.
We were standing in front of Lake Eola feeding the swans.
His arm was wrapped around my shoulder, and I was cheesing so hard my eyes were almost closed.
The caption underneath made my chest tighten.
Daddy always said, "As long as we got each other, we'll figure it out."
I stared at the picture until it started to blur.
"Damn, Daddy..."
My voice cracked.
"I could really use you right now."
Before I could wipe my face, my phone started vibrating again.
Kendra Calling...
I looked up toward the sky.
"Lord...if she asking me to loan her some money, I'm hanging up."
I answered anyway.
"What?"
"The hell kinda greeting is that?" Kendra snapped.
"I've had a long damn morning."
"I can hear that."
She got quiet for a second.
"How Ms. Juanita doing?"
"They got her stable."
"Thank God."
I nodded even though she couldn't see me.
"Yeah."
"You sound tired."
"I am."
"You been crying?"
I looked down at the eviction notice still crumpled in my hand.
"I don't even know if crying gone fix this one."
"What happened?"
I let out a long breath.
"My mama in the hospital..."
"I know."
"My lights due."
"Damn."
"My job blowing my phone up."
"Damn."
"And I just came home to this."
I looked back at the paper.
"They finna put me out,” I said clearly.
The phone got silent and I could tell Kendra was trying to think before she spoke.
"How much?"
I laughed.
"You ain't got it."
"You don't know what I got."
"Kendra..."
"How much?"
I rubbed my forehead.
"A little over two grand."
She whistled.
"Okay...I definitely ain't got it."
Despite everything...
I laughed.
"I told you."
"But..."
There she go.
Whenever Kendra said "but," some bullshit usually followed.
"I know somebody."
I rolled my eyes.
"Girl..."
"Nah, hear me out."
"I'm listening."
"My cousin work with this property preservation company."
"The hell is that?"
"They clean out houses, organize foreclosures, help rich folks get vacation homes ready, little stuff like that."
I frowned.
"I ain't never cleaned nobody house."
"You ain't gotta be no maid."
"They pay by the job."
"How much?"
"Depends."
She paused.
"But the last house she did paid eighteen hundred."
I sat up straighter.
"For one house?"
"Mhm."
"They been short on people all week."
My heart started beating a little faster.
"You think they'll hire me?"
"I don't know. But I know my cousin. If she can get you in..."
She let the sentence hang.
I looked at my apartment door, then at the orange notice and, thinking about everything I'd worked so hard not to lose.
"Call her."
"I already am."
The line clicked.
Kendra had hung up before I could even say bye.
I looked at my phone and shook my head.
"Crazy ass."
But if there was one thing I knew about Kendra...When she said she was gone make a call, she actually made the damn call.
I slipped my phone into my back pocket and finally picked my keys up off the ground.
My hands were shaking so bad it took me three tries to get the key in the lock.
The second I stepped inside, the apartment was quiet.
Usually my mama had gospel music playing somewhere in the background or Judge Judy fussing at somebody on TV.
Today it was just me. I kicked my shoes off by the door and looked around. The couch we'd had since I was in high school. The little dining table with one chair that always wobbled. The family pictures hanging crooked on the wall because every time I fixed one, another one leaned.
It wasn't much but it was ours.
I walked straight over to the fish tank sitting in the corner.
"There y'all go."
The two little goldfish swam to the top the second they saw me.
"I know...I know."
I grabbed the food from the cabinet and sprinkled a little into the tank.
"Y'all probably think I forgot about y'all."
Watching them swim around made me smile just a little.
I headed toward my bedroom, grabbing an old duffel bag from the closet and tossing it onto the bed.
Leggings. T-shirts. Underwear. Phone charger. Toothbrush.
I threw everything in so fast it barely mattered if it matched.
I stopped when I opened my mama's dresser. Her favorite purple housecoat was folded right on top. I knew she'd ask for it the second I walked back into that hospital.
I smiled.
“Her dramatic ass."
I folded it anyway and tucked it into the bag.
Just as I zipped it closed...My phone rang.
Kendra.
Damn already, I thought.
I answered so fast I almost dropped it.
"Well?"
"I talked to my cousin."
"And?"
"She got somebody she want you to meet."
"When?"
Kendra didn't hesitate.
"Today."
I looked around my apartment.
"Kendra...my mama."
"I know."
"And the hospital."
"I know."
"And I gotta get back."
"I know."
She cut me off before I could keep making excuses.
"Listen to me."
Her voice got serious.
"If you don't come up with this rent, you ain't gone have nowhere to come back to after the hospital."
That shut me up.
"She said pull up around one."
"What exactly am I doing?"
"I don't know all the details yet."