rest of last month’s rent, and I’m still waiting on that,” she says. “Now I need this month’s too, and your begging ass got the nerve to—”
“‘Begging ass’?” I echo.
“Now wait,” Trey says. “Don’t be talking to my momma like—”
“Y’all!” Jay says.
For the record, I’ve never liked Ms. Lewis. Yeah, my house is technically her house, but she can choke on her spit for all I care. She’s always got her nose in the air, acting as if she’s better than us because we rent from her. Like she doesn’t live two streets over in the hood, too.
“Ms. Lewis,” Jay says calmly, “I’ll get you your money. But please, do me a huge favor and give me a little more time.”
Ms. Lewis points her cigarette in Jay’s face. “See, that’s what’s wrong with so many of y’all black asses. Think somebody supposed to do you a favor.”
Um, she has a black ass too.
“What? You back on that stuff? Wasting my money on drugs?”
“Hold the hell up—”
“Brianna!” Jay snaps. “No, I’m not back on drugs, Ms. Lewis. I’m simply in a bad situation at the moment. I’m begging you, mother to mother, to give me more time.”
Ms. Lewis drops her cigarette on the porch and puts it out with the toe of her shoe. “Fine. You lucky I’m saved.”
“Are you really?” I ask.
Jay glares at me over her shoulder.
“This the last time I’m doing this,” Ms. Lewis warns. “I don’t get my money, y’all out.”
Ms. Lewis storms off, mumbling the whole way down the steps.
Jay closes the door and rests her forehead against it. Her shoulders slump and she releases the deepest breath, as if she’s letting go of everything she wanted to say. Not fighting is harder than fighting.
“Don’t worry, Ma,” Trey says. “I’ll go to one of those check advance places on my lunch break.”
Jay straightens up. “No, baby. Those places are traps. That kinda debt is impossible to get rid of. I’ll figure something out.”
“What if you don’t?” I ask. “If we get evicted, then we’ll be—”
I can’t say it. Yet the word fills the room, like a foul odor.
Homeless. One word, two syllables.
This whole mess
May make us homeless.
“Somehow, it’s gonna work out,” Jay says. “Somehow, someway, it will.”
It sounds like she’s telling herself that more than us.
The whole thing throws me off. When Mr. Watson blows the bus horn, I’m still getting dressed. Jay takes me to school instead.
She holds my headrest as she backs out of the driveway. “Don’t let this rent situation distract you, Bri. I meant what I said, it’s gonna work out.”
“How?”
“I don’t have to know how.”
I’m so sick of folks saying that. First, Aunt Pooh and now Jay. They really don’t know how it will work out and they’re hoping it miraculously will. “What if I get a job?” I say. “It would help.”
“No. School is your job,” she says. “I got my first job when I was thirteen, after my momma died, so I could help my daddy out. I didn’t get to be a teenager because I was so focused on bills. Thought I was grown. That’s partially why I ended up with Trey at sixteen.”
Yeah, my mom and dad were those stereotypical teen parents. They were grown when I came along, but Trey made them grow up way before that. Granddaddy says my dad had two jobs at sixteen and still pursued rapping. He was determined that . . .
Well, that we wouldn’t end up like this.
“I don’t want you to grow up too fast, baby,” Jay says. “I did, and it’s not something I can ever get back. I want you to enjoy your childhood as much as possible.”
“I’d rather grow up than be homeless.”
“Hate that you even have to think like that,” she murmurs. She clears her throat. “But this is on me. Not you and not Trey. I’m gonna figure something out.”
I stare down at my dad’s old chain, hanging from my neck. I probably shouldn’t wear it around the Garden—that’s like asking to get robbed—but school should be fine. Besides, everybody will be showing off the new clothes and shoes they got for Christmas. I wanna show off something, too. But if we need rent . . . “Maybe we could pawn—”
“We’re not getting rid of that chain.” Damn. She read my mind.
“But—”
“Some things are worth more than money, baby. Your daddy would want you to have it.”
He probably would. But he wouldn’t want us to be homeless, either.
We pull up at Midtown-the-school. It’s too