Free Can't Stop the Shine by Joyce E. Davis Page A

presence.
    â€œWell, it is,” she said, wondering why she was there in the first place. If her daddy had shown up on time, she wouldn’t be stuck with Asha, whom she was beginning to wonder whether she could ever really like.
    â€œIt is nice, ain’t it?” Asha admitted. “I do wish it was bigger. I wish we could have a real gym. That would be fabulous, then I’d have somewhere for Pierce to hook me up in the mornings. You know I gotta keep my edge over you,” she added, opening the door to the largest stainless steel refrigerator Mari had ever seen.
    â€œThanks. What kind is this?” Mari asked, taking a bottled water from Asha.
    â€œThat water is enhanced with minerals. It’s the only kind I drink. You never know what’s in tap water, girl. Let’s go upstairs.”
    â€œCool. And hey, you’ve got one more time to bring up track, and it’s gonna be you and me. I’m in a slump, but that’s how I set up my prey.”
    â€œUmm, hmm… okay. This is my room,” said Asha, flinging open the door with a grand sweeping gesture.
    Mari felt like she was in a fairy tale. Asha’s room had everything any teenager could ever want. First of all there was so much space in it, Mari knew she could do three back flips and not hit a wall or a piece of furniture. Asha’s huge cherrywood four-poster bed, draped with a butter-yellow spread and yellow curtainlike material over the posts, sat in the center of the room on an expansive plush yellow rug into which her feet were disappearing. There were butter-yellow window treatments that matched the cushions in the rocking chair and ottoman set in the corner and the window seats in the side window that nearly rose to the ceiling.
    Every piece of furniture was a rich cherrywood, including several overflowing bookcases against the walls, an old-fashioned stand-alone rounded full-length mirror, an entertainment center that held a flat-screen television, a DVD player, a stereo and tons of CDs and DVDs, and the intricately designed desk and chair where Asha did her homework. The multicolored throws and blankets draped across the bottom of the bed and on the window seats matched the green, orange and red throw pillows on the bed, the rocking chair and the cushions of another couple of comfortable oversized chairs placed on either side of a huge walk-in closet that was filled with designer clothes, shoes and bags.
    â€œI can’t believe this,” said Mari, walking around the room. “Asha, you’ve got everything in here, plus, enough space to host a track meet. I bet I could run the 100 in here. At least I could long jump.”
    â€œI thought we weren’t talking about track.” Asha laughed.
    â€œShut up.”
    Asha kicked off her shoes into the closet and fell backward onto the bed, observing Mari looking at the different paintings on the wall of young black women and then walking over to a wall-mounted photograph of a field with wild yellow flowers growing for miles and miles. The flowers seemed to meet the horizon. Something about the photo gave Mari the feeling it was taken in another country.
    â€œWhere was this taken?” she asked, then noticed the outside through what she’d thought were floor-to-ceiling wood-trimmed windows. “You have a balcony, too?” asked Mari, switching gears and swinging open the floor-to-ceiling glass-and-wood doors to step on a balcony that overlooked the side of the house where the gardener maintained a beautiful spread of flowers. Asha joined her on the balcony, and they both sat in a swing that was suspended from the ceiling of the overhang.
    â€œThe photo was taken in a little town not too far from Paris,” said Asha.
    â€œYou’ve been to Paris? Like overseas?”
    â€œYep.” They were swinging back and forth now.
    â€œSo what was it like?”
    â€œThe shopping was crazy. I mean, everything in Europe is like three