The Keysha Diaries, Volume One: Keysha's Drama. Earl Sewell

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СКАЧАТЬ I questioned her again. I’d gotten so tired of her being gone all of the time.

      “Because I’ve got things to do. If things work out, I may be able to make a little money today.”

      “Doing what?” I asked suspiciously.

      “I don’t know. That’s why Simon has come over. He’s going to tell me about his business.”

      I didn’t like her answer, and before I could stop my words I found myself interrogating her once again.

      “Is it a legitimate job?” She didn’t answer me. “Why don’t you look for a real job, Mom?” I asked in a softer tone of voice.

      “Because I don’t have to. That’s why I have you, so I can collect a check.” She quickly turned icy on me. Her comment made me feel as if I had no emotional value to her. I was just a person she could get a welfare check for.

      “You know that the back rent is due, and if you don’t pay we could be put out again. I don’t think the landlord is playing around.”

      “I’m not worried about it,” she said and didn’t offer up any type of comfort to assure me that everything would be okay. I wanted to scream and yell at her. I wanted to explode, but instead I just built a wall around my emotions for her. At the moment I refused to allow her to cripple me emotionally. If she didn’t care, then I didn’t, either.

      “Have fun with your friend Simon,” I said as I walked off.

      “I will!” she yelled back at me as I rushed off down the street.

      * * *

      I thought for sure the lines for registration would be long, but they weren’t. I was able to go through the process fairly quickly. One of the school administrative staff printed out my class schedule and handed it to me. I glanced down at it and noticed that I had math first thing in the morning.

      “Nine o’clock in the morning is too early to have a math class. Can you switch it for me?” I asked the lady who’d printed out my schedule. She looked at me for a long moment, as if I’d lost my mind.

      “I guess that means no,” I said sarcastically.

      She frowned and yelled out, “Next.”

      My biggest concern now was school supplies or my lack of them. I hated being unprepared but I really didn’t have a choice in the matter. I’d have to recycle the folders that I had from last year and latch on to someone when I needed additional supplies. It was an embarrassment I’d have to contend with.

      By twelve-thirty that afternoon I’d arrived back home. As I came up the block I saw Toya still hanging around the front of the building toying around with her deck of cards.

      “What’s up, girl?” I asked as I took a seat on a kitchen chair that Toya had placed on the stoop.

      “How are you just going to walk up and take my seat?” Toya tried to sound angry, but I didn’t take her seriously.

      “My feet hurt from walking in these cheap shoes,” I explained as I allowed my fingertips to massage my scalp, which had suddenly started itching. It was a telltale sign that I needed to wash my hair and oil my scalp.

      “Do you want me to braid your hair for you?” Toya asked.

      “No, I need to wash it before I do anything with it.”

      “So, how did registration go?” Toya asked.

      “It went okay. It went quickly. I have to figure out how I’m going to get my school supplies because my mother—well, you know that I can’t depend on her.” A mischievous expression formed on Toya’s face at that moment.

      “You’re right, Keysha. We can’t depend on our parents because they aren’t cut out for the job. What we need to do is look out for each other. Don’t you agree?”

      “Yeah, I can agree with that,” I said as I scratched the dry skin on my left leg.

      “Listen, I’ve been thinking of a way that we can help each other.” Toya stopped shuffling her cards and focused all of her attention on me.

      “Why are you looking at me like that, Toya?” I asked, sensing she was calculating something in her mind.

      “I’ve got a plan. Junior needs some new clothes and so do you and I. My baby would look so cute in some baby Nikes and some new gear from Sean John. I want some stuff from Phat Farm, and I know that you do, as well. So here is what I say we should do. Let’s go down to the mall and get what we need.”

      “You must have come into some money,” I said, joking. She didn’t say a word; she just looked at me and forced me to read her thoughts. Toya had a very serious expression on her face.

      “You want to go out boosting again, don’t you?” I knew that’s what she wanted to do, but I wanted to confirm it.

      “Yeah I do.” She paused in thought for a moment. “I have got the perfect plan that includes you, me and Junior.”

      “Toya, you know you’re my girl, and I’m all for heading out to the mall for a five-finger discount deal, but why do we have to drag Junior into this? Last time we went out you and I both almost got busted.”

      “That’s exactly why we’re bringing Junior with us. He’ll act as our decoy,” Toya explained, completely convinced that bringing Junior along would work.

      “I don’t know, Toya.” I had a very uneasy feeling about dragging her son along with us. Boosting is not as easy as it sounds. Whenever I go, I’m always on edge because I don’t want to get caught.

      “Keysha, you know we both need stuff. You need clothes just like I do, and you know that we can make money selling the stuff that we can’t fit to the kids at school. You’ve done this before. Why are you acting as if it’s a problem now?”

      “I don’t know,” I answered her as I searched my mind for a reason as to why I was feeling the way I was.

      “Listen, we’ll put all of the stuff that we get in the bottom of Junior’s stroller. If someone tries to stop us, I have a purse full of old receipts that we can use, okay? Trust me, it’s going to work. This plan is foolproof.”

      “How in the world did you come up with that one?” I asked because Toya’s mind was always working a mile a minute.

      “I saw someone else do it like that,” Toya said, going into more detail. “I went to the grocery store over the weekend for my grandmother. As I was walking past one of the aisles, I saw this woman tearing open a package and stuffing its contents into her baby’s diaper bag. Once she was done, I watched her stroll right on out of the store without paying a damn dime. So I thought, Damn, that’s slick, because no one would ever suspect a woman with a baby in a stroller to be out shoplifting. The security people aren’t paying attention to people like her. She was dressed like someone’s mother who was just out shopping. The security people are harassing the person who walks in the door looking like a thug. Do you see where I’m going?”

      “Yeah,” I answered as I began to understand her thinking a little better.

      “So СКАЧАТЬ