Free Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan

policy’s in a dresser drawer. I been through all their papers and I know all about her family down there in New Orleans—it’s too many of ’em to count, that’s for damn sure.
    I have also sat in that old people’s chair in the living room and read almost all Dexter’s letters that Miss Betty opened, but there’s a shitload of ’em she ain’t read. I don’t blame her. Some of ’em almost longer than the Bible. At least Dexter can spell and sounds like he went to a junior college for a hot minute. My granny gets some from my cousins that just make you crack up. You know they looking at a dictionary or a thesaurus while they writing and some of the shit don’t make no kinda sense. It’s not like they gon’ get on
Jeopardy
when they get out. But Dexter is intelligent and I like some of the stuff he writes about. You can be smart and stupid at the same time, but stupid is the one that weigh a whole lot more and the one that got their stupid asses locked up. Dexter got the same sob story a whole bunch of ’em got. Everybody innocent. I was set up. My own lawyer didn’t believe me. The justice system is racist and want all brothers behind bars. That last one I do buy.

    Since I don’t make much money doing this kind of work, I had to get a roommate. A roommate I can’t tolerate much longer ’cause I didn’t know she was a real alcoholic until after I saw how much she could put away. Not to mention being country as all hell. She’s from some wooded area in Alabama. A three-hour drive from Birmingham. She drinks whiskey like a man. I met her in nursing school. But she dropped out and became a flight attendant and just got fired ’cause she got written up for being late or hungover too many times. She’s been blowing up my phone since I got here and I been blowing her off ’cause last night we had it out all because her latest boyfriend got to the apartment before she did and we was just sitting on the couch having a civilized conversation while she ran to change clothes.
    “So, what kind of nurse are you?” he asked. He sounded like he’d been to college, so I decided to use my college voice.
    “I’m an LVN.”
    “Interesting. Have you ever considered becoming an RN?”
    Have I ever considered becoming an RN? I couldn’t believe he was even asking me that, but I heard myself say, “I’ve thought about it, but I’m thinking about applying for a position as a traveling nurse. Fortunately, I’ve got six years’ experience, so I’ll see.”
    “Very interesting,” he said. “And how’s that work?” He crossed his legs and was just about to lean back and, I suppose, get comfortable when Tierra came charging outta her bedroom and stood there like she was ready to take off her earrings and put Vaseline on her face and said, “Let’s go,” like she was giving him a direct order or something. He didn’t act like a punk until that very minute.
    “I just need to go to the bathroom first.”
    She didn’t buy it. Me neither.
    “I’ll meet you downstairs,” she said, and he changed his mind and kind of ran after her but not before he turned to me and said, “Nice talking to you, Kim, and good luck in your nursing career. Maybe I’ll see you again.”
    As soon as he was out of range, Tierra shut that door and locked him out, then looked at me with those cheap-ass Betty Boop eyelashes and put all her weight on one of those cheap-ass Payless pumps and put her hands on her hips in that tacky-ass Hervé Léger knockoff and said, “I knew you couldn’t be trusted.”
    “What did I do?”
    “You ain’t have no business talking to my man about yo’ personal shit when I was not in the room.”
    “I was trying to be polite since you’re the one who got here late.”
    “For somebody you just met, you was awful chummy chummy. What the hell was y’all talking about?”
    “He asked me about being a nurse and I just answered his questions.”
    “Yeah, and what if I had got here a half hour later?