Free What's His Is Mine by Daaimah S. Poole

years—now it is my turn.”
    â€œBut he is trying.”
    â€œWhatever, I don’t care. He wants to be the best husband now that he has no money. I think not. No, keep going out and doing whatever you want. Forget about Dave. I need for you to get dressed and go out with me,” she said as she pulled the covers off of me.
    â€œI really can’t, Toni.”
    â€œLet me ask you a question. Are you getting hyphenated this year, or what?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou know, your Cherise Long-hyphen-Smith or Cherise Long-hyphen-Thompson.”
    â€œToni, you are crazy. I need my hyphen, but you have yours and you don’t want to go home to the man who gave it to you. Okay, makes sense. I’m going to sit right here and get my rest,” I said, pulling the covers back over me.
    â€œ ‘I’m going to sit right here and get my rest.’ You sound like an old lady,” she said, mimicking me. “What you need is a life.”
    â€œI need a career more than I need a life. I have to get up early. I have a big meeting. Then I have to work the rest of the day. I do not want ugly eyes. The last thing I need are viewers writing in, saying I need more rest and ‘buy her some eye cream.’ ”
    â€œSo I have to go out alone,” she said as she stood up and headed for the door.
    â€œYes, ma’am. Maybe next time. Have fun, but not too much fun.”
    â€œI’m not listening. Good night—have fun at work.”
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    I always got to work at least a half hour ahead of schedule. I walked into the busy newsroom. Something was always going on. Lights, cameras, and lots of live action. I loved it. I fed off of the news. When I was younger, I didn’t even know what a newswoman’s proper title was, but I knew I wanted to be one. I looked it up one day and learned the correct name was anchorwoman. I remember thinking, What a dumb name. I thought anchors had something to do with boats and sailing. I didn’t like the name, but I decided at about eight I wanted to be one on television. Every time I would watch the news, there was this pretty woman on television named Lisa Thompson. She was just so smart and pretty, and I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to tell the news, talk to the people, and get to the bottom of the story. She represented everything that I wanted to be: beautiful, intelligent, successful—and she was brown like me. I knew if she could be on television, so could I.
    I sat at my desk in my cubicle and checked my e-mails. I had to prepare for the morning meeting. In the meeting we usually discussed what stories we’re going to cover and be assigned to. If it was a slow news day, you were supposed to be enterprising and come up with new story ideas. Because I was new to the city, I didn’t have any strong ideas. Just as I logged off my computer, my news director, Thomas Oliver, came over to my desk and said, “I need to speak with you in my office.”
    â€œYes,” I said. He asked me to please close the door. As soon as I went to close the door the sports director, Paul DeSantis, entered with a cup of coffee and had a seat. I was seated and waited for them to tell me what was going on.
    â€œWe like the job you are doing. You have showed a lot of growth in the short amount of time you have been here.” Okay, I’m doing a great job, so what’s going on? I thought.
    â€œAs you know, we had to let Phillip Goodwin go because of that whole underage sex scandal investigation. Anyway—well, we wanted to speak with you about bringing some femininity to our sports team in the interim.”
    â€œBut I’ve never covered sports before,” I said, puzzled.
    â€œWe know, but you’re pretty and have an infectious smile and people will like you, whether you know sports or not. And we can guide you. You will pick it up easily, and your photographer, Gary, can assist you with anything else