“I’m twenty-two.”
“Oh, are you a student?”
“Yes, I am,” I lied. I figured that must be what she wanted to hear.
“Oh, that’s nice. What are you studying?”
I paused, couldn’t think of anything. I looked down at my shoes and quickly said, “Fashion.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Well you look good chile. I hear dem models make a good living. But that means you’ll keep irregular hours?”
Not understanding her, I said, “What? I mean, excuse me?”
“Well like I said, people in this building, we’re all working people so most of us are out during the day. So my husband and I turn the heat down during the day because nobody’s here. Around 6 or 7 P.M. we turn it back on. It’s a way to conserve and save money.”
“Yes, but in a few months spring will be here,” I told her.
“Oh, you are planning to be here in the fall, aren’t you?” she asked in a threatening tone. “I don’t rent by the week. This is not a hotel. If you want to live here you’ll have to sign a lease agreement for a minimum of one year,” she said. “Stay right here I’ll be right back.” She slid behind the closed door of her apartment and came back with a clipboard.
Who is she fooling? I thought to myself. What difference does it make if I sign a lease? When I’m ready to bounce, I bounce. What is she gonna do, call the rent police? There were twenty million people in New York.
“Come on,” she said, signaling me to follow her up the stairs. She pulled out a large circular key ring with a whole bunch of keys on it. One bedroom apartment with a little kitchen, fully carpeted. The place looked like a Barbie doll was supposed to live in it, that’s how cute and compact it was. For me it was perfect. I pictured maybe a leather love seat, a cable-ready big-screen TV, and a fancy designer phone. I pictured myself walking around the apartment barefoot with my pretty pedicure toes sinking into the thick carpet.
The living room was more than a little smaller than my bedroom on Long Island, but it was cool. I could definitely deal with it. “I’ll take it,” I said, smiling, looking at the lady, and grabbing my envelope with the cash. I began counting out the dough.
“First things first, chile,” she said, looking at my cash suspiciously. This was the first time I had ever seen anybody turn their nose up at cash. “You’ll have to fill out this application.”
“Why?” I asked nicely. “I’ve already told you everything.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s just the way we do things around here. I need this for my records.” She handed me a form, asking for my name, address, place of employment, education … “You know I’m the president of the block association,” she mentioned. “It’s small. We’re just getting started. Most of the responsible people on the block participate. But you know there are always those few … We’re trying to clean the block up, get rid of the drugs, make it better for everybody. We’re real careful because a lot of drug dealers have cash. They’ve got the money to spend. They send a pretty little thing like you in here. But you don’t know anything about that filthy way of living.” She smiled and added, “I can tell. Such a lovely face. Do you have a check?”
“No, I don’t.” I responded hesitantly.
“Oh. Here you must need a pen,” she handed me a ballpoint, stood close over me and the application. I filled it out, making stuff up as I went along, figuring I’d play along with her inspection, get my new keys, close my door, and never speak to her again except on rent day. I was Winter Shulman, I attended Brooklyn College, I was twenty -three years old, I previously lived at 123 Green Street, etcetera, etcetera.
She looked over the application, glancing up at me after each section as if she thought I was stupid enough to tell on myself. I smiled politely.
“I thought you said you were twenty-two?” she quizzed.
“Oh yeah, I’m sorry. I just had a birthday. I haven’t gotten used to being twenty-three yet.” I laughed.
“Don’t worry chile, the older you get the more birthdays you forget. I’m twenty-three, too.” She laughed, getting a real kick out of herself. I pulled out my envelope, counted out six hundred fifty dollars, and handed it to her.
She cleared her throat, “You must have misunderstood. The total to pick up the keys and move in is nineteen hundred fifty dollars. One month’s rent and two months’ security.”
“Security for what?”
“It’s a normal procedure. It’s just to cover anything you leave broken in the apartment, damage to the rug, if you fall on hard times, and miss a payment. Don’t worry chile, it’s fully refundable at the end of your lease. If everything is in order, you get your two months’ security back in full. If you lose your keys, it’s a hundred dollars because we have special locks and we’ll have to have the whole lock removed and replaced.”
There was no need to be nice anymore. There was no way I was giving her all the money I had left. She looked at my screwed up face. “Every decent landlord around here is gonna ask for the same thing.”
“Sorry miss” I said, “you must be bugging. Didn’t you hear me say I was a student?”
She shot me a mean look. “When I was a student I had two jobs. You have to work to make it in this country. That’s how I got where I am now. I had to work to own this property. No kind of work was too good for me either. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar.”
I handed her papers back and left. Sterling wasn’t that bad, I thought. I’d just tell him a new story. Something bigger and better. I’d stay at his place for a while until I figured everything out.
Sterling’s apartment was quiet from the outside, my key slid in the lock. Inside the door sat a suitcase. I pulled the case up onto the couch and opened it. My belongings were inside, carefully packed. I rummaged through my jeans, shirts, and dresses, checking to see if everything was there. The side pockets had my jewelry, and toiletries in a separate plastic bag. I laughed. Hmmm, too bad he wasn’t as neat with his own stuff!
Sterling startled me when he came out of the back room. I hadn’t realized anybody was home. On the way over, I had practiced for this moment. It was time to put my act into action. “How are you feeling, baby? You must’ve got home early?”
“You look nice,” he said checking out my outfit, the same one that didn’t work on Midnight.
“You like?” I playfully spun around.
“I always have,” he said softly.
“So anyway Sterling, sit down. I’m gonna let you in on my idea.” He walked over, hesitant and suspicious. “We been cool roommates for the past couple of weeks and—”
“And tonight you’re leaving, right?” he interrupted in a voice that attempted to be authoritative. He started mouthing words but no sound was coming out. It was like he wanted me to read his lips or something. In a low, low voice, “Winter, I have company.”
“Company,” I said loudly, surprised. He put his long finger over his lips to sshh me.
“Remember when you called me to come and get you from Long Island? Remember I told you someone was here. Well, she’s in the back room and I don’t want no trouble Winter. You did say you were leaving tonight. It’s been two weeks.”
Sterling’s eyes were concerned. Just looking at his weak ass made me sick to my stomach. But I had nowhere else to go. I remained cool-headed, or at least I tried to give that appearance. “Oh, there’s no trouble Sterling, just get rid of her.” I laughed. He didn’t say a word. So I came up with a new suggestion. “OK, I’ll just stay in the living room tonight but I think—”
A girl came out of the back room. She was overweight with a big chubby face like one of those church ladies you see singing in the choir on the cable channel on Sundays. She had on a long shapeless floral dress—I guess it was supposed to hide her fat. I was sure Sterling wasn’t about to replace me with this cow. “Sterling,” the woman said in a tone that sounded more like a mother’s than a lover’s. “You said five minutes.”
“Oh. Winter, this is Judy.”
/>
We both looked at each other but neither of us spoke. She came out and sat on a chair facing me. I could tell Sterling was uncomfortable with the silence. He kept playing with his fingers.
“So you live in Long Island?” Judy asked dryly.
“Yeah.”
“They have some really nice houses out there. The traffic must be really bad on a Friday night.”
“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes at Sterling.
“I packed your things up for you,” announced Judy. “You have some real nice taste.”
“Yeah,” I said, realizing the only way I could stay was to humiliate myself completely.
“So where do you plan on going to college next year? Sterling told me you were seventeen. You must have started thinking about it seriously.”
“Not really,” I said matter-of-factly; thinking to myself I hate these stuck-up college-type bitches. They think they too cute to get down and have a Brooklyn-style fight to keep they man. They want to do a lot of smart talking like they somehow better than somebody or at least they be thinking they can prove that they are.
“I had no choice except to go to college. My parents made that clear,” she added, as though I had asked her a question. She seemed fully prepared to have a conversation with herself. “What do your parents do, I mean for a living? They must be well off not to be stressed about whether or not you should go to college.”
Sterling interrupted, “Winter, I’ll help you carry your things downstairs.”
“But I don’t have a ride,” I begged. “Sterling, aren’t you going to drive me home?”
Judy cut in. “No, sorry, our movie starts at 8:05 P.M. Sterling already called your dad before you even got here. Your dad’s gonna pick you up downstairs at 7:30 P.M.”
What kind of game was this two-dollar nigga tryna run on me? And what in hell made this fat-ass girl think she was running things?
“So is your mother or your father Sterling’s mother’s sister or brother?”
“What is this, a goddamn interview?” I said, losing my cool.
She scooted over to Sterling’s side. “Sterling, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to aggravate your cousin. It was just small talk.” Then she turned to me. “I’m sorry. I just thought it was nice that your parents trusted Sterling to baby-sit. Your families must be really close. I’m telling you, I missed him so much for the past couple of weeks, I thought I would die. I will say, I was jealous at first, you know when Sterling told me you were coming over for two whole weeks. Jealous of you getting all of his time and attention. I can see that he was right. You are just a kid. He was just helping out and everything worked out perfectly.
“Come on, I’ll walk downstairs with you guys.”
She walked over to the closet, grabbed my jacket, and said, “This is yours, right? I left it out when I was packing your belongings. I thought it might get cooler at night. Here, don’t forget it.”
We went downstairs, dead silent in the elevator. In the lobby, Sterling handed me an envelope.
“Call me and let me know you got home safe.” I grabbed what I knew was some small sum of money, sucked my teeth, and walked away with his suitcase and everything I owned inside. I don’t know why I didn’t go off, I don’t know. I just didn’t have anything left inside to go off with. The whole thing was so unexpected.
If I would’ve beat up the girl what would’ve happened? If anybody was predictable it was Sterling. But not this time. Sterling couldn’t control me, so he picked this motherly girl to fill my shoes. She’s probably been around him for years hoping and praying for an engagement ring, but if you asked me it wouldn’t last. It was obvious her pussy is no good, otherwise he wouldn’t have lied to her to be with me in the first place.
At the train station, I broke down and called Natalie. There was only one place to go, a place I used to love—Brooklyn. When Natalie answered, she was all hyped up and happy to hear from me. “Where you been, girl? We all waiting to see you! Where you been hiding at? Why you treating us like we ain’t family? What took you so long to call?” For about three seconds I felt bad for not calling her. Maybe it was really all good in Brooklyn. Maybe I had been bugging out, making things worse than they really were. I told her I was on my way to my Aunt B’s apartment. I would be there around ten o’clock that night. “Good. Let’s hang out. Meet at my apartment at eleven. We’ll go to the club.”
“Why didn’t you call first?” That’s all Aunt B had to say when she opened the apartment door. I was thrown off ’cause Midnight, Momma, and Santiaga made it seem like Aunt B was gonna be happy to see me or something. She had an aggravated look on her face. She pointed for me to go straight to my cousin Bianca’s bedroom. Yelling down the hallway, she reminded me to use the bed on the left side of the room. “Remember to leave Bianca’s stuff just like she left it, ’cause she don’t like nobody fooling with her stuff.” As I passed the small kitchen to get to the bedroom, I saw a long set of male legs inside. There’s the problem, she has company, a man-friend, and I busted up her groove. I could dig it. I put my suitcase down, went in the bathroom, freshened up, and headed to Natalie’s.
When I banged on Natalie’s door, my girl Simone answered with a big-ass smile on her face and a little pregnant belly. My girl Toshi screamed out, “Surprise, bitch.” All my girls were there—Asia, Zakia, Natalie, with Hennessy and passion Alizé in hand and Ls laying on the table just like old times. I felt real good. In a few minutes I was sure I was gonna feel even better.
I thought as I sparked up my second joint, this is what made life worth living, good friends, free weed, and lots of laughs. Simone filled me in on the oohs and aahs of pregnancy. “Not as bad as people tried to make it sound,” she said. Her and Little Biz broke up. “No real bitch need a nigga to survive anymore. Plus the next nigga’s bound to be coming around the corner any day.” I told her I heard it wasn’t cool to drink liquor when you were pregnant. “As fucked up as the world is today, the baby will need some Thug passion just to be able to roll with the punches.” We cracked up. Simone couldn’t take it no more and laughed so hard she accidentally pissed on herself. I laughed until my stomach ached while Natalie sprayed enough air freshener in the living room to choke us all.
Zakia, Monique, Reese, and Toshi had a game of Spades going. I checked Toshi cheating as usual. She had them tricks down pat. She’d have you talking about the juiciest shit while her hands were switching shit around. Meanwhile she would use those eyes to signal to her partner. She even had coded songs to sing that Reese understood ’cause she was always her partner in Spades. For what she had going they should have been getting paid or in Vegas or Atlantic City with the big-timers.
Fun didn’t break up until about five o’clock in the morning. Natalie’s mom came home. I could see that she had her own high going on, but something about her being in the apartment just changed the mood. One by one, people started breaking out. I nudged Simone, who was passed out on the couch. “Come on, girl, let’s walk over to our building together.”
“Good looking out,” Simone muttered.
Outside night glided into early morning. Blue-gray skies framed what was the quietest time in the projects. At six-fifteen the sun snuck up and mugged the moon. Partygoers were inside their apartments passed out in their clothes. There was nobody outside except the crazy-ass crackheads. I was surprised to see my mother in the lobby of my aunt’s building, bald-headed and thinner than I last saw her. She smiled when she saw me, laughed for no reason at all, and started explaining that she heard I was here in the neighborhood. She was just out checking on me. She knew how Aunt B could be sometime. I could tell she had her buzz on too. I didn’t believe for one minute that she was down in the lobby checking on me at this time in the damn morning. I rode the elevator with her and Simone. Simone got off on the third floor, me on the fifth. As the elevator door was closing, Momma was huddled in the corner rubbing her arms like she was freezing. As the doors closed on her bizarre face, she was saying something like, “
You look good, Winter.” I was glad that door shut so fast ’cause I definitely could not return the compliment.
I woke up that afternoon to Aunt B wanting a loan. Since I wasn’t crazy, and Aunt B’s husband was locked up with my father, I knew that if I gave her any money I’d never get it back. If I gave her money today, she’d start to expect it from me. Eventually she would start to demand it from me. After a while she might even try to collect rent for the bed and six feet of space on my side of the room. She was flat broke like all of my aunts are now. Their houses didn’t get raided and ransacked like ours, though. Their belongings didn’t get repossessed and seized only to be auctioned off somewhere for pennies. They still had clothes, jewelry, stereo equipment, and all that good shit.
“Nah,” I replied.
“C’mon girl,” she pushed. “Just lend me a twenty spot. I’m expecting some money on this Wednesday. I’ll give it right back.”
“Seriously, though,” I said with a straight face, “I don’t got it. I need a loan myself.” I went over to my Coach bag and emptied my stuff onto the bed. “See. Nothing.” I didn’t keep my money in my bag ’cause that’s what people expect. I left it pinned to my bra, a trick my mother once showed me a long time ago.
Aunt B sucked her teeth, “Alright,” then disappeared from the room. She’s stupid, I thought to myself. She should’ve got some loot from that long-legged nigga she had in the kitchen last night. Pussy should never be free.
Simone called asking if I wanted to go shopping. “There’s a big concert tonight and we should both get outfits and go find us some cuties.” I agreed.
In the stores, my blood was rushing at all the new clothes. New styles seem to come in everyday and the stuff I bought weeks, even days ago didn’t excite me anymore. I teased Simone about looking for an outfit that would hide her pregnant belly. She denied it, saying men loved pregnant pussy and if she wanted to she’d sport a halter top and let her belly hang out! We laughed as we imagined how crazy that would look. Meanwhile Simone picked out a whole bunch of outfits.