“Who you talkin' to?”
Unique turned to see Sinclair standing there, looking nervous. She also noticed Cammie reaching over and taking Apple's bacon slice. Unique snatched the bacon from Cammie's mouth and popped her lips hard, and Cammie screamed and ran to the room she shared with Gina.
“Mommmmyyyy! Cammie is cryyyyin'!” Apple tattled again.
“Shut up, Apple!” Gina, sitting at the table, held out the remote and flipped through the channels, settling finally on a loud cartoon station.
Unique went to the window with the phone still at her ear. She had hoped to see Marquis down below on the stoop. He'd been acting out more than usual lately, and she was starting to worry about him.
“Who you talkin' to, Nique?” Sinclair asked again. She was truly nerved up.
Unique glanced over her shoulder at Sinclair, who been acting funny ever since she'd come in last night with her friend Malcolm. Maybe she was still reacting from the house going up. Maybe she had seen Gold Mouth again while hanging out in the
P
. Nah, she would have said something.
Who knows with her? But she needs to tighten up. I don't have time to take care of no crazy folks.
Unique shook her head and pointed at the phone, as if to tell her not to worry.
“Debonair, do you want to see me, or do you want me just to leave the money with the people at the desk?” Unique realized that all her big brother cared about was the material things.
All Sinclair cared about was Gold Mouth. And who the hell knew what Tanqueray cared about, or where she was.
Am I the only one who cares about the house
? Unique was feeling overly righteous at that moment. Yet, not for once did she want to admit to herself that she'd done more trying to keep Curtis around than getting the house fixed.
“Of course, I want to see you.” Debonair wanted her to see him with his hair all dirty and wild, his skin all pocked up from the break in his normal grooming routine.
Or me see you
.
Smooth and red toned, Debonair was indeed a pretty boy. If he wasn't such a street runner, Unique would've figured him for “sweet,” and even with him running the street like he did, she still wasn't sure about his sexual orientation, with his pedicures, manicures, hours in the mirror, and no girlfriends to run him money every other damn day.
“Look, I gotta go, Deb,” Unique finally said after a few more minutes of his bitchin' and moanin' about life in the clank.
Meanwhile Apple and Gina had finished eating, and Cammie's plate had long been cleaned even before getting sent to the room, which was why she was stealing Apple's food. The girls were screaming like banshees now, and Sinclair was peeking out the window every few minutes, as if looking for somebody.
Unique ran her fingers through her thick hair and sighed heavily. After she hung up the phone, she took a moment in the bathroom to compose herself. Her brain was searing. How had this become her life?
As soon as Unique walked out the bathroom, Sinclair asked, “So what we gon' do about Mama's house?”
Apple and Gina were going at it, fighting over the remote now, and Cammie had come back out of the room and was eating something, probably the cookie she'd wanted earlier.
What a hellish morning! Unique could barely think straight. When was summer going to be over so these bad kids could get back to school? And, now, she had just enough time to catch the bus to the welfare office.
“Sinclair, I don't know. You act like this is my responsibility. I need to find Tanqueray.”
“Maaama!” Apple screamed, just to be screaming.
“But I gotta go. Can you please lock the door if you go somewhere this time?”
“I locked it last time,” Sinclair lied.
Unique's eyes widened. Had everyone lost their mind? “Oh, I guess you just want Mr. Gold Mouth to just be waiting his ass up in here then,” Unique said, hoping to scare her.
Sinclair audibly gulped.
“You act like that man can't find you, whoever the hell he is.”
“Unique, that's what Malcolm said,” Sinclair said, her eyes welling up with tears.
Unique instantly regretted scaring her little sister. “Sinclair! Stop cryin'. That fool ain't coming into the W.E. for you. Foo knows better than comin' in here looking for anybody.” Unique chuckled.
Cammie's incessant whining over food, Marquis's bad tenth-upcoming-birthday attitude, Gina's tomboy bullying, and Apple's tattling, not to forget a trip with all of them on the bus to the welfare office for an annual review, and all the humiliation that brought, had chunked this Wednesday morning into the crapper for Unique. Her face was snarled by the time she unloaded from the bus into the supermarket parking lot after her appointment was over.
“Are we gonna get some sweets?” Cammie asked.
“No! I'm not getting your fat ass nothing sweet, dammit!”
Cammie burst into tears.
Unique regretted her words immediately. “Cammie, please just shut up. Please!”
Cammie's bellows increased in volume.
“Shut the hell up! Shit!”
Unique heard a man say, “You shouldn't talk to your little sister that way. Where's y'all's mama?”
She turned to cuss him out, but stymied by his handsome face, she changed her mind. “These are my bad-ass kids.”
He smiled. “Oh, well then, do ya thang, ma.”
Marquis, upset that he'd been dragged through all this, mumbled under his breath. “Phsst, punk.”
Unique was just happy the boy realized how important these little trips to the county office were.
You can get mad all you want Li'l Marky, but when it comes to the welfare office or Section 8 office, you gotta go with the flow or end up living outdoors.
“What you call me, little boy?”
“I called you a punk. Quit tryin' to get at my mama, so we can get in the store. Damn! Ain't nobody got all day to fool wit' choo.”
“Marquis, that's rude. I know you are not talking to that grown man that way.”
“It's okay, Miss . . .”
“Unique.”
“Unique. What a pretty name. It's unique.” The handsome man chuckled.
Marquis rolled his eyes, and Apple giggled, as if sensing her mother's excitement to be talking to a man of some substance. If she was thinking that, she was right, because Unique was immediately taken. There was something about him that caught her attention. Sure she felt that way about every man at first, but this one was different.
“It's okay.”
“No, no it's not.” Unique squinted her eyes at Marquis, letting him know he was in for it, like she'd been able to discipline him lately. It had been nearly a year since she'd whupped him. He was nearly as tall as her already, so wrestling him to the ground was out too.
“I work for the Department of Justice. I see our angry young men and work with them every day.”
“My son is not angry.”
The man's brow furrowed “You think not? That's too bad because, trust me, he is.”
Suddenly Unique began to feel something else coming from the man, something parental, judgmental. She didn't like it. “Well, I need to get going,” she said, excusing herself, and herding her bunch toward the automatic door. “Come on, Cammie,” she barked at the chubby child who was listening intently to the conversation.
“I'm angry,” Cammie said.
Mortified, Unique's mouth dropped open. “Angry about what?”
“I'm just angry about everything.” Cammie quickly moved toward the market's automatic door.
Out of the corner of her eye, Unique caught the man's concerned expression.
“I know what she's mad about, Mama,” Gina busted in.
Cammie swatted her.
“Cammie, stop it. What you mad about, girl? You're only nine,” Unique said, trying to move in front of the child, and still holding the hand of four-year-old Apple.
Just then the man took the liberty to touch Unique's arm, and she looked at him straight on. Her eyes must have reflected her emotions and have been blazing, because he stepped back slightly.
“I'm just mad, that's all.” Cammie stomped off into the store.
The man reached into his jacket and produced a card. “Here's my card.”
Unique stared at it as if frightened by what it could mean for herâconfessions, more case workers. Maybe they would be trying to take her kids from her. Perhaps it was more of a reality check attached to it than she was ready for.
Gina snatched it and looked at it as if she could read. “What's your name?”
“Derrick. Derrick Winfrey.” He looked up at Unique, hoping she was listening too.
“You a social worker?” Marquis asked. “You trying to take us from our mother?”
Unique was shocked at how much Marquis's thoughts reflected hers at that moment.
“No, no. I just want to be her friend. Your friend. Maybe give her somebody to talk to.”
“You sound like a white man. I don't believe you. I think you're trying to take us from our mother.” Marquis snatched the card from Gina and tore it in half. Then he threw it in Derrick's face and stormed into the market behind Cammie.
Unique gasped. “I'm sorry. I'm sooo sorry.”
“He's angry, ma, and you need to check that.” Derrick handed Unique a fresh card, which she took quickly and dropped in her bag.
“It's his birthday, and his father didn't even call, so . . .”
“What's wrong with our men? A fine woman like you shouldn't have to wait for a phone call. Give me your number.”
“555-659-9311. You got any paper?” Unique asked, a smile creeping to her lips.
Apple began to pull on her arm.
“Sounds like a song I heard once,” he teased, doing a quick shuffle to the rhythm of the tune by The Time. “I won't forget it.”
Unique giggled and followed the tug of her child into the store.
Unique thought about Derrick the rest of the day. Maybe life could turn around, with just a little push. Just thinking about a nice man in her life made the rest of her day pleasant. She didn't care that Marquis had “acted his ass” and refused to get on the bus with them after she'd spent the last of her food stamps in preparation for his party.
Nothing fazed her, until the bus driver stopped for his break in the
P
. She'd forgotten that, from this direction, she'd hit the Palemos before the West End. It was break time for the drivers at this time of day. That morning she'd taken another bus, which sideswiped the old neighborhood, so she had avoided all this. Now the scent of the burnt air filled her nostrils as soon as the door opened. Apple was clearly excited, jumping around in the seat, as she apparently recalled her feelings. It was obvious she was remembering what she'd seen the just two days before.
Unique thought she would die from embarrassment. But how many people really connected her with Javina Nation, who clearly favored her other children more than her? It wasn't as if people got to see Unique grow up here. By the time she started being a real person, she was on her back, and her feet in stirrups, giving life to another poor child. Did the people think Marquis was Javina's child? Her brother, not her son?
Unique pushed all those dark memories to the back of her mind. She knew, if she kept thinking this way, she would be glad the house was gone, glad her mother was gone. She stared out the window, trying to pretend she didn't hear her baby daughter yapping about the explosion, telling everyone within earshot, “The dope man blew my Big Mama's house up!”
Since Javina threw Unique out of that house, she had always tried to pretend she didn't care about the house or this neighborhood, that she had no ties to it. But already she missed the house tremendously. For her sanity she knew things needed to get put back like they were. She had barely come to grips with her mother's death. Either way, she needed to do whatever she could to get that house rebuilt. Surely the insurance company was going to help them . . . if only she could find out which insurance company Javina used.
Unique thought about the last time they were all together in that house, Apple's first Christmas. Nobody knew how sick Mama was, or how much trouble Larry was in. With Larry being a little slow, who would think he was associated with such bad people?
Mama's longtime boyfriend, Mr. Ralph, had brought by a ham. He was always bringing something good to the house like that. It seemed that every time Mama got short, Mr. Ralph was there. Unique smiled at the memory. Mr. Ralph, bald and with a braided gray goatee, liked to think he was an old-school pimp. He wore furs and a lot of jewelry and always called everybody “
Baby
,” and sounded a lot like Sammy Davis, Jr. when he did. He even called the boys that. Funny thing was, the boys respected him. There was something about Mr. Ralph that just commanded the deference.
Mama treated Mr. Ralph like a king. Sometimes she and Mr. Ralph would disappear into her room for hours, and nobody even cared. Mr. Ralph would even stay with them sometimes when Mama went out.
Wonder where she used to go?
Unique thought
.
Suddenly the bus jerked to a start. Break time was over for the driver.
Unique's heart filled with emotion when she glanced over at Cammie, who was eating a Pop-Tart she'd taken from the box. She had been silent for a long time, so Unique must've failed to notice her digging around in one of the bags for the snack.
An older woman said, “Po' baby.”
“She ain't hungry, she's greedy.” Unique wanted to snatch the treat from Cammie's crumby mouth. “Always into junk!”