Free Show and Tell by Niobia Bryant Page B

give another bitch the chance to take your spot.”
    Feeling properly reprimanded for not jumping all over her invitation, I still stick to my guns. “I had a prior engagement and I would not want to be rude and accept without making sure I can change my plans.”
    She paused again. “Well, call me as soon as you can. Here’s my cell number.”
    Even as I am writing it down I am wondering if I upset her.
    â€œWell, I have to go. I have a spa appointment. Danielle, make sure you make the right decision.”
    The line goes dead.

    I cannot explain what made me drive through Newark instead of hopping on the interstate to get to Mohammed’s house. Newark is called the comeback city and I cannot disagree that some areas look better. The rough and rowdy crowd is gone on blocks where they used to rule the streets. Hard-working people now live in the townhouses that replaced ten story multi-apartment dwellings that bred apathy and crime (too many people in one spot is never a good thing).
    Still, there is a lot more to be done for sure.
    I turn my car on the corner of Nineteenth Avenue and Nineteenth Street. There is nothing but the remnants of the house left after the fire but in my mind’s eye I can see it and my days in it so clearly . . .

    â€œDanielle! What are you doing in there?”
    I hear Mrs. Davies but I ain’t listenin’ to her. I’m too busy flippin’ through the pages of magazines and imaginin’ that their great lives, fancy cars, and pretty clothes on the pages are mine. The magazines are years old but I don’t care.
    I stay in the bedroom a lot. Most of the other foster kids are in the livin’ room watchin’ TV but I just want to be alone in here whenever I can. Sleepin’ four to a bedroom is crazy. Ain’t no space in this place that you can call your own. No secrets. No hidin’ places. Just two bunk beds squeezed in these four walls. And between the four foster kids stayin’ here there still ain’t enough stuff to fill the closet and the drawers. Closet and drawers I don’t use. Ain’t no need shoving my few pants, couple of T-shirts, and my precious magazines in no drawers.
    I been here for a year and I still ain’t tryna call this place home. I done been down the road of gettin’ comfortable and just havin’ the rug snatched from under me when they come to take me to another house and another family that ain’t my house or my family. Or another group home that don’t feel nothin’ like home.
    The bedroom door swings open and Mrs. Davies walks in lookin’ mad as always.
    She already got bad ass kids of her own. I don’t know why she asks for all these foster kids when she mad about it. Wait a minute. Yes I do. I know about the money they get for each of us. Humph.
    â€œWhere you get them magazines from? You steal them, girl?” she says to me in the nastiest voice. Dang on shame I been livin’ here for a year and every time she see me readin’ these same old magazines she ask that same dumb question.
    I always gave her the same dumb answer.
    â€œNo ma’am, these my same old magazines.”
    She bends down and snatches one from me, looks at the cover, sucks her teeth and drops it back down on the floor where I’m sittin’ before she turns and leaves the room. Same-o-same-o.
    I shrug and go back to readin’. I compared sequin gowns to my washed out T-shirt and high-heeled sandals to my no-name sneakers with the big Velcro straps across the top. These black stars talkin’ ’bout big mansions and lots of cars and I had my squeaky bottom bunk bed.
    I got dreams. I promised myself that I can’t do nothin’ ’bout this now but I ain’t gone be poor forever. There’s a better life out there for me and I’m gonna find it.

    It was hard growing up and knowing nobody wanted to adopt me and my foster parents mainly had me and the others