Free Slightly Single by Wendy Markham Page B

from Brenda and Yvonne, he’s got skank written all over him. It’s obviously a dead-end relationship, but Latisha doesn’t seem to mind that it’s not going anywhere. She says she’ll get out when something better comes along, and that so far, nothing has.
    “I know where I’ll be on Sunday afternoon,” I tell her. “Crying in my bed.”
    “’Cause Will’s leaving?” She shakes her head. “He’ll be back in a few months, right?”
    “Yeah.” I straighten the sheets of memo that have been faxed and pick up the confirmation sheet the machine has just spit out. “But a lot can happen in a few months, Latisha.”
    “If you’re that worried, girl, you’d better get your ass on that train with him.”
    I never told her that I attempted to bring up that very subject with Will a few weeks ago, and that he was so thrown by it that he avoided me for a few days afterward. He claimed he was just busy packing, but how complicated can it be to throw some shorts and T-shirts into a few boxes and ship them upstate?
    “I can’t go with him, Latisha,” I say now, as though that’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. “I mean, what am I supposed to do? Pick up and leave my life for the entire summer?”
    “That’s what I’d do if Anton ever tried to leave town without me.”
    “What about Keera?”
    “I’d bring her,” Latisha says. “It would do hergood to get away from her friends on the block. I don’t like what I’m hearing out of their mouths lately. I don’t trust any of them, and I don’t want her goin’ the way of my sister Je’Naye.”
    Okay, so my troubles pale next to Latisha’s. She’s a single mother trying to raise an adolescent daughter in a rundown neighborhood where her teenaged sister was shot in a drug-related drive-by shooting a few years ago.
    I sigh. “We both need a margarita, Latisha. Maybe a couple of margaritas. Let me go find out what’s up with Jake and I’ll meet you guys downstairs.”
    “You got it.” She heads off down the hall, shaking her butt in her distinct walk. The way she dresses, you’d think she was built like Jennifer Lopez. She’s shorter and heavier than I am, but you don’t see her wearing black tunics. Today she’s got on a low-cut red V-neck shirt tucked into a beige skirt that hugs her hips and thighs.
    I catch Myron, the mail-room guy, checking her out as she passes by him.
    “Mmm-mmm,” he says, shaking his head. He stops pushing his package-laden cart and turns his head to keep watching her. “Damn!”
    “Cool it, Myron,” she calls over her shoulder, but I know she’s loving it.
    “Girl, you are lookin’ fine.”
    “Mmm-hmm, and don’t I know it,” Latisha says smugly.
    I wish I had half her confidence. But somehow, Ithink that if I wore that clingy outfit Latisha has on, Myron would take one look and run screaming for cover.
    I round the corner into Jake’s office. Sure enough, there he is, sprawled behind the desk taking aim at the basket overhead. The place is big enough for a couch, a couple of chairs, and four wide windows looking out over Forty-second street. My cube barely has room for my desk, my chair, my computer, and a framed eight-by-ten head shot of Will.
    “What’s up, Tracey? Yesssss!!!!” Jake pumps his arms triumphantly as the ball sails through the hoop.
    “You wanted to see me before lunch,” I remind him.
    “Right. Two things.”
    “Do you need me to write them down?”
    “Nah.” He straightens in his seat and gestures for me to take the chair opposite.
    I do, glancing at the framed wedding photo of him with Laurie. If you ask me, she’s way better-looking than he is. She’s a pretty, skinny, sophisticated-looking brunette. He’s a round-faced, reddish-haired frat boy type, and his cheeks still bear remnants of what must have been a nasty case of acne a few decades ago. Not that looks are everything, but I can’t help wondering why Laurie married him.
    Then again, he can be charming when he