Lashay was a trip. She was kind of chubby with a big cute face. She was one of those girls who decided that she didn’t care if her body was a size 16. She was still gonna wear size 11 clothing. She had big hips, a big booty, and a waist that was small compared to the rest of her butt. You couldn’t tell her she was fat, though. The way she figured it, if the hips are forty-eight inches and the waist thirty-six and the titties forty, that’s a perfect hourglass shape!!! She wore halter tops when it obviously should have been a crime. She wore Daisy Duke shorts, and shoes with laid-to-the-side heels that were begging for forgiveness with every step she took. Her thing was “the boys” who, if you let her tell it, all were in love with her. She had damn near every issue of Word Up! magazine with all her favorite pictures of rap stars glued to the wall in a raggedy collage. She was the show-off type. It was more like she was a comedian to me ’cause how you gonna show off in busted shoes and clothes you bought from some Indian at a candy stand in the train station?
Rashida was into her own little world. She was pretty, but it didn’t count. She never made it work for her. She wore her hair back in a ponytail all the time, every day. She had no flavor about cuts, wraps, twists, nothing—no style. She had a cute little figure, but kept it covered up like it was on punishment or something. She had the nerve to, in this day and time, wear dingy no-name kicks on her feet. You know the ones they sell in the supermarket for four dollars. She didn’t decorate her side of the room at all. If you looked over there it was plain, period. She was extra clean and tidy. All she did was read. She didn’t even watch television unless it was the gloomy-ass news.
Noni was the girl whose bed I got. She was transferred to another room. The girls said Noni smoked cigarettes like a smokestack even though there was no smoking allowed. She had taken a roll of string, made a line and a curtain around her bed out of a sheet. It didn’t matter, they said, ’cause the smoke kept stinking up the room anyway. They said she had a nervous problem, was molested by her stepdad and beaten by her mother. Smoking made her feel good and she would kick any ass who tried to take her cigarettes or report her. They said the counselors who did the overnight just let her keep smoking ’cause it was easier to be Noni’s friend than her enemy. As a consequence, other girls just followed her lead and lit up, too. When one girl in the other room turned eighteen she was released and had to go and make it on her own. When her bed got free they put Noni in there ’cause there were three more smokers in that room. I got her bed and ended up with Claudette, Lashay, and Rashida.
My first week was crazy. They took me into the office for an interview with my newly assigned social worker. Her name was Kathy Johnson. As soon as I got in the room, I peeped her. She had her hair pulled back in a neat sweep. Her perm needed a serious touch-up. I could see she tried hard to lay the naps down with some gel that was turning white and flaking. She did her own nails, but believe me she was the type who was too lazy to take off the old layer of polish, so she just piled the new layer on top so it didn’t lay smooth on her nails. On her feet were some pleather knockoffs. The kind that when you flipped them over, had a stamp on the bottom that read “man-made uppers.” Her pantsuit was JCPenney’s or Sears, definitely polyester or rayon.
“Come in, Winter. Have a seat,” she said, like I needed her help. She pushed the manila file open and flipped through some papers. I checked her left hand. No engagement ring, no wedding ring, nothing. On the wall she had some kind of degree from Fordham University.
“Winter, where do you go to school?” she asked.
“I use to go to Half Hollow High in Long Island.”
“Then what happened?” she asked.
I sucked my teeth and said, “What’s the sense in having all those papers in the folder about me if you gonna ask me what you already know?”
“OK, Winter. Did you drop out, did you reregister at another school after Long Island, and how do you plan to finish your education? These are the type of things I need to find out from you.”
I gave her answers, short ones. No sense in getting all involved when she was a walking, talking example of what education amounted to. What was I supposed to do? Struggle to be like her? Pay some big school big, big money so I could get a little job in some little place making an iddy biddy bit of cash. What do I get? To hang a stupid-ass degree up in my little office where I don’t make enough dough to get a regular manicure, pedicure, or perm. I should be interviewing her, asking her what’s her problem.
She asked me about my sisters, who, for the most part, I had put out of my mind. She asked me about my mother and father and every nosy thing she could nose around in, at which time I gave her any answer that popped in my head. She asked me could I read and write. I told her, “Of course, and I can talk too.”
After two hours I was leaving her office. I asked how do I get money in here? As she explained it, I got sixty dollars a week. The institution got eight hundred per month, per child. The sixty dollars a week represented my spending money after the institution paid its expenses.
“What expenses?” I asked. “We take care of everything else you would need, Winter. We purchase the food, clothes, shelter, etcetera.”
“You mean to tell me you bought those clothes all them girls is wearing?”
“No, not exactly. There’s a voucher system. Your social worker, that’s me,” she said proudly, “will accompany you once every two months or three months to get what you need.”
“You’re gonna help me shop?” I repeated and laughed.
Ms. Johnson said, “You know, if you don’t follow the rules in here you forfeit all of your privileges. That includes nights out, weekend passes, and your weekly stipend.”
“Stipend?” I asked.
“Your money. You know, Winter, you’re one of the older girls around here. Most of the sixteen-and seventeen-year-olds get after-school jobs. You’re not going to be here long. I suggest you focus on making specific plans for your future. I’m here to help you in any way I can.”
After a box lunch, I saw the institutional psychiatrist. She was a nut. She asked me all kinds of questions about my mother and father. Did my father touch me, did I ever want to have sex with him, did my mother ever beat me. No matter how many times I told her ass no she would put the question another way but still be asking me the same shit. She asked me dumb things like how did I feel when they took my sisters away. She might as well of asked me is a burning building hot! She asked me about my relationship with my friends and men. I looked at her like, lady, do you really think me and your old ass is gonna sit here and have girl talk? To entertain myself, I started making things up—I break out in a rash when I’m in the room with more than two people. I’m a virgin and would like to be one until I’m thirty. I masturbate to the sound of the washing machine—I was cracking myself up. She was sitting there with a long yellow pad actually trying to come up with an explanation for all the gobbledygook I was giving her.
More tests. Reading and math. If they found out anything, it’s that I can read, write, and count. As Santiaga would say, everything else is just extra unnecessary. I met with the birth control lady who really wanted to get personal. I wouldn’t tell her nothing, but I did take sample foam sponges and those free condoms even though there were no men in the house. I figured when they loosen up on me I can have them just in case.
At night most of the girls were gone. They got evening passes, which allowed you to leave until 11 P.M. Some had jobs to go to, others had free time. If you came in after 11 P.M. and missed curfew, you forfeited your passes for the rest of the week. If you were late three times in thirty days, you permanently lost your evening “opportunities.” I was stuck inside with the girls on punishment, the newcomers who had to be evaluated like me, and the uniformed ladies who guarded the door, registering girls in and out.
Laying on my bed, I put together a list of things I needed. Top of my list was a lock. I needed to lock up my suitcase before somebody pulled one of Aunt B’s capers and tried t
o lift some of my clothes. I had already decided if anybody put their hands on my stuff we’d go head up. After I got my list together, I sat and thought. The challenge for me now would be making something out of nothing. How to make money when I had no money to start with.
Then I was hit by a brilliant idea. I jumped up from my cot and walked into the bedroom across the hall. “Noni, let me borrow a dollar. I need to make a couple of calls.”
“When am I gonna get it back?”
“Friday.”
“Alright, I’ll lend you one dollar, one time. If Friday comes and I don’t see you or my dollar, your credit is dead and don’t ask me for shit no more.”
“Cool,” I responded, got four quarters, and waited on this chick Jinja to get off the pay phone.
“Simone. What’s up girl, I got a deal for you. You got any money?”
“Yeah, I got a little something. Heard you were in some trouble.”
“Nah, I ain’t in no trouble, at least nothing I can’t handle. Listen, I got a list of shit I want you to pick up for me. It will run you about two hundred.”
Simone laughed. “It ain’t going to cost me nothing.”
“All the better,” I said. I read the list, told her to pack everything in a box. “I’ll call you back Friday morning. You’ll meet my girl, give the box to her. I’ll pay you for the stuff on Sunday night.”
I figured there were forty girls in here including me. Every one of us had sixty dollars a week, at least. Some had jobs. That meant altogether the girls in the House of Success took in a minimum of twenty-four hundred per week. There was no way I was gonna be standing around in some polyester McDonald’s suit saying May I help you, sir? Would you like a Coke with your fries? I would set up shop in here and provide everybody with what they needed. I would even help them to understand what they needed. I was locked in for three more weeks. That was three Fridays, which meant at best there was a maximum intake of seventy-two hundred. All I need is five thousand for myself. When I got my evening “privileges,” I’d invest my money in the streets, triple it at least, and get my own place, loot, and life. I might as well have Simone for a partner ’cause she understood business and wasn’t a gossip like Natalie. She was gonna have a baby soon and would need my help as well. We’d get paid together.
I spent every day up until Friday getting to know the girls in the house. It wasn’t hard. Everyday I would get up, do my hair in a different fly style and rock my clothes like I was going out on a real special date. Only thing was, I really wasn’t going anywhere and everybody knew it. The girls watched me and asked me how I did my hair in a certain style, how I manicured my own hands, pedicured my own toes, and where I got my clothes and shoes from. I gave them answers. After a while they started asking questions about me, who am I, my background.
Eventually they started telling me about their lives. They liked my stories better, though, ’cause theirs were mostly hard-luck stories. I told them about the big birthday party Santiaga gave me on my fifth birthday. It was in the ballroom at a local hotel. Santiaga filled the room up with five hundred balloons, a hundred for every year I had been alive. All the little kids from the block came. I got my first party dress, the kind you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in when you’re thirteen but are delighted with when you’re five. I had Gucci patent leather loafers and white lace stockings. We took family photos together and Santiaga gave me a charm bracelet with a 24-karat gold elephant. Every year until I was twelve he gave me a new gold animal. When I turn thirteen, I turned the charm bracelet into a necklace. I didn’t wear it because by that time I had even better stuff, but I treasured it. Of course they asked where all my stuff was and I lied and told them in storage until my parents worked out their situation.
I found out which girls had jobs and which didn’t. Who had extra money and what kind of taste they had. All the while I was talking, my mind was organizing what kind of stuff I could sell, what type of services I could perform, what type of prices I could charge, and how much I could expect to accumulate over the first couple of weeks. Friday, when Lashay was leaving on a weekend pass, I told her to meet Simone in the local pizza shop to pick up the box she was delivering to me.
First thing I did was pull out my lock and chain for my suitcase that I had been guarding with my life since my arrival. I put all of my new stuff inside and locked and chained it up. I organized the magazines I had asked for on my desk and I officially opened up shop. My first customer, the person I volunteered to be my best customer, was Claudette. I figured if I could fix her up, make her pay for it, she’d be a good example of what my work was worth. I also found out that Claudette never spent her money. She was seventeen years old, worked on weekdays, and sent a hundred and fifty dollars a month to that whacky preacher she listened to. She stashed the rest.
“Claudette, you gotta boyfriend?”
“No,” she said shyly.
“Oh, I guess you can’t have a boyfriend because you’re a Christian.”
“No, I can have a boyfriend. There are just some things we can do, some things we can’t.”
“So what happens,” I asked her. “You meet a nice guy and he finds out you aren’t gonna give him none so he breaks out.”
“No, we don’t even get that far. I like a guy. He doesn’t like me, that’s it.”
“I know what you need.”
“What do I need, Winter? I am sure that you know. You seem to know so much.”
“If I show you what you need, and give you what you need, it’s gonna cost you.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t want to spend any money.”
“But after I hook you up you will meet any man you want to meet. Your whole life will change. You give money to your preacher right?”
“Oh yes, this is different.”
“But he doesn’t do anything for you.”
“You don’t know that. He makes me feel good, better everyday.”
“But I can make you feel better than he can and once I show you, you can do it for yourself. Alright let’s make a deal. I’ll fix you up. If you like what you see, you pay me. If you don’t, you don’t owe me nothing.”
I handed her a stack of magazines, told her to flip through and tell me who she wanted to look like. I talked Claudette’s ear off, got her hyped up on change. When I had her settling in the chair ready for a new cut, I could’ve cried with laughter. The only thing I knew about cutting hair was what a good haircut was supposed to look like when it was done and whatever I had peeped from Earline’s. What made me calm though was there was no way for me to fuck up Claudette’s hair any more than it already was. So I started cutting until she was damn near bald.
The way I figured it she needed to start all over again. I gave her finger waves. If I say so myself, it looked fly. I gave her a facial, unclogged all the Vaseline and that cheap one-dollar drugstore makeup she wore. I busted out my nail kit, gave her tips, a French manicure and pedicure. I made her take off that red skirt with tube socks and sandals and told her that, because I liked her, I would let her take a quick look in my suitcase. I unlocked and unchained it carefully to make her fully understand that she was about to enjoy a special privilege. From now on, I told her, she could order her clothes from me. “Let’s just take it slow,” I told her.
She selected one of my designer dresses. When she glanced in the mirror, saw the French manicure, fingerwaves, natural face with quality MAC lipstick, and the Donna Karan dress, she smiled at herself, turned to the left side, right side, front and back.
From what I could tell she was stuck in a state of shock.
“Now try these on,” I said. I took my shoes out of the shoe box I kept them packed in. They were one size too small for her but she got the concept.
“Now Claudette,” I said, holding her face between my hands, making her look me dead in the eye, “I have to take my dress and shoes back, but look at yourself and know that you can look like this if you let me help you. Your life will change.”
&n
bsp; “How much?” Claudette asked.
“For the face, hair, nails, and feet?”
“Yeah, and the dress.”
“Oh, you can’t afford this dress, it’s mine. But I can show you something just as nice. I’ll show you my catalog later tonight. You pick ’n pay and we’ll be in business.”
“How do you know I can’t afford the dress?” Claudette asked with a funny accent.
“Even if you could, which I doubt, you can’t have it. It’s a designer exclusive,” I lied just to gas her up. “They only made a few of these, but you can get something almost as nice. Let me work on finding the right thing for you.” I charged her sixty dollars. She paid me. I watched as she got an extra switch in her walk. For another sixty, I convinced her to buy a pair of my jeans and a blouse, shit I got from the Banana Republic. I talked to her about toning down her colors. All in all I made a permanent customer. That was week two in the House of Success and I already had a hundred and twenty dollars plus my sixty-dollar stipend. Once Claudette spread the word—not through talking because she was kind of shy, but just by being different from the fresh-off-the-boat girl she used to be—I was gonna rake in the dough.