Free Let Me Whisper in Your Ear by Mary Jane Clark

name to a customer—and only for thirty days, please. You paid your thousand bucks, got a name, and waited. If the month went by without a winner, everyone was assigned a different name in the pool. Casper, of course, kept the same name: that was the plan. The pool grew and grew, one hundred thousand dollars amassing each month. Now over two million dollars sat in the account.
    For twenty months it had been hard to sit and wait. But now the payoff was near.
    Just another week.
    Casper offered up a “Friendly Ghost’s” prayer. Please, God, don’t call any of the other names home to their heavenly rewards.

20
    Sunday, December 26
    T HE E AST H ARLEM Tutorial Project was housed in an old four-story brownstone painted neon blue on a horrible inner-city block, Second Avenue between 105th and 106th Streets. No sessions were being held Christmas week, but Laura hurried to meet her student anyway, the sound of boom boxes and police sirens blaring in her ears.
    East Harlem was the city’s original Puerto Rican enclave. Traditionally an entry-level immigrant neighborhood, arriving waves of Germans, Irish and Italians had settled there. But in the fifties, when Puerto Ricans began coming to New York in significant numbers, East Harlem became home for those who had left the sunny island.
    East Harlem, Spanish Harlem, El Barrio were interchangeable names for the area roughly defined by 96th Street to the south and 140th Street to the north, from Fifth Avenue to the East River. El Barrio was widely acknowledged as the birthplace of salsa music, and in the busy streets, pulsing rhythms filled the air.
    The neighborhood was poor. Junky stores lined the trash-strewn sidewalk. The abandoned lot next to the tutorial building was strewn with cans, broken bottles, cigarette butts, used condoms and, more often than not, Laura noticed, hypodermic needles. A wonderful atmosphere for learning.
    The tutorial program was not remedial. The kids enrolled were bright enough. But they needed to be given opportunity and exposure to life beyond their limiting city blocks and economic situations. Once a week, for two hours, Laura had signed on to help a child develop the life of the mind.
    Ten-year-old Jade Figueroa was Laura’s student. They had been meeting on Saturday mornings since school started in September and Laura was happy with the relationship that was developing between them. The little girl with black bangs and pigtails lived with her mother and grandmother in a small apartment near the tutorial building. Jade’s dad was not on the scene. Jade didn’t talk about him.
    As Laura approached the building, she spotted Jade and her mother, Myra, waiting outside the entrance. They’d arranged to meet here. Laura knew that it would save time. The Figueroas’ apartment building had just two elevator banks for hundreds of apartments. Laura had dropped Jade home once, and they had had to wait almost a full half hour to catch the smelly elevator.
    Jade stood on the sidewalk now, looking excited. Her dark brown eyes shone, her white uneven teeth beamed from her scrubbed round face. Myra had carefully braided her daughter’s shining hair and adorned it with little plastic butterflies. As she held tightly to her mother’s hand, she bounced up and down. Laura knew that this would be Jade’s first trip just forty blocks south, but a world away, to FAO Schwarz.
    When Laura had told her that the toy store let every kid play with any toy in the place, Jade had listened wide-eyed.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œUm-hmm. You can try out anything you want and see if you want to buy it.”
    Jade’s face fell.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Laura asked.
    â€œYou need money to buy the toys. I don’t have any.”
    â€œWell, I’ll tell you what,” Laura had proposed a few weeks ago. “You ask your mother if it’s okay with her, and I’ll take you to FAO Schwarz for Christmas and you