drawer. She and Kenya left the office. Freezing in her tracks, Terri’s mind worked to remember what she had forgotten. Without a word, she returned to her office and retrieved the packet that Kenya picked up for Chapman. Tucking the envelope under her arm she waltzed out of her office closing the door behind her. When they exited the school and stepped into the bright afternoon sunshine, Kenya quickly moved in the direction of her car and Terri to hers.
“Do you want to take my car or yours?”, asked Kenya.
“Mine.”
Exiting the parking lot, Kenya followed as Terri leads the way out onto the street. As she drove, Terri found herself fumbling for the radio controls. She quickly became frustrated and remembered that she violently changed the appearance of her stereo while she listened to the Tom Joyner Morning Show just a few short hours ago. Kenya drove up beside Terri at the first red light. Lowering her window, Terri waited for Kenya to look her way.
“We need to take your car. Mine is acting up.”
Kenya appeared to be a little tired of riding on Terri’s rollercoaster. The normal cycle of Terri’s self-pity was out of the cage and Kenya was not in the mood to ride or play. Kenya rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth as she gripped the steering wheel just before she forced a very sarcastic smile. She gestured with her hand for Terri to continue to lead the way to her house. Reaching the intersection of the street leading to her house, Terri hesitated at the stop sign a few seconds too long. Not sure what was going on, Kenya lightly tooted her horn and Terri began to drive forward. After parking, she gestured with her finger to let Kenya know that she would only be a moment. She rushed into the house and dropped the packet onto the music stand that Chapman had designated as his work space. She paused and mustered up a smile as she stroked the envelope for good luck.
Exiting the house, Terri appeared to have a fresh bounce in her step. She plopped down in the passenger seat, and closed the door. Kenya pushed her sunglasses down from her head onto her face, adjusted her already firm grip on the steering wheel, and literally stomped on the accelerator pedal. As she approached the stop sign, she firmly applied the brakes, bringing her car to a firm and abrupt stop. Terri looked at Kenya as if she was out of her mind. Finally, Terri was able to engage her seat belt and regain her composure. Kenya continued down the street with the music blaring as if nothing had happened. Silence road shotgun and loomed omnipresent in the car. Both women concentrated on looking straight ahead, wondering who would break this pane of silence first. Kenya drew the short straw.
“So what’s on your mind? Remember you had a question to ask me this morning.” Kenya reminded Terri as if the question had been burning a hole in her mind like sulfuric acid on a silk handkerchief.
“Come on girl ask me.”
“Kenya...If you had a family, or even as a single woman, and a job opportunity arose paying $40,000 more than you make right now. Would you take that job?”
“Hell yeah!”
“I thought so.”
“So you got a job offer? At a college? In another county? I mean you can tell me. I won’t be too jealous. I’ll be happy for you and all. I promise. I’m sure gonna hate it when you move away.”
“Aren’t we all working for the same thing? More money, right?” Kenya is silent. “Right Ken?”
“I guess so. In a way. But all of the things I want are not just motivated by money.”
“Like what?” Terri snapped.
“Well, I think I have a great body and all but I don’t believe I would strip naked in a room full of strange men for $2 million dollars.”
“Would you do anything in your field of interest for that amount of money?”
“Anything but be the principal of a middle school. Them damn kids are too young to be old, and too old to be young. They don’t know what the hell they want to be. So they all figure, until they decide, they’ll just get on my damn nerves. And they do that very well.”
“Not even for the big bucks? I don’t even believe that” chided Terri.
Terri pointed to the I-95 South sign. The song, “I need your love today”, by Sweet Thunder (Youngstown, Ohio band) played on the radio.
“Now girl, these were some good times. I saw this group with the Ohio Players, and Maze. Now you talking about a good afternoon. I thought I was so cool. I had on my tube top and the men were trying to get next to me.”
“I bet you were so excited,” cracked Kenya.
“Oh no, not me! You must have forgotten who my mother was. She had my head so tight until I believed that she actually had a GPS mechanism that could notify her if I was taking my panties off.”
“The GPS must have broken when you hooked up with Chapman. Or being that he was in ROTC, he knew how to jam the signal, if you know what I mean? The pun is intended.”
“Go straight to hell on the express train. That is the last thing I want to even think about,” snapped Terri.
Before Terri could complete her statement, Kenya was rolling down the off ramp to Northwest Sixty-Second Street in Miami. They passed the open air market where a few brothers were selling T-shirts. Preparing to turn left onto Seventh Avenue and head south, they were approached by a young man wearing a suit and a bow tie. He cautiously approached the passenger side window. Terri was startled by the sight of the Final Call newspaper in her face.
“Oh my God!” sighs Terri sighed as she concluded the young man posed no threat them.
“Ah my sister, how are you today? Can a brother interest you in some inside information to assist you in making sense out of the madness we live in day today?”
Kenya leaned forward across Terri’s lap and flashed a seductive smile at the man. “If a brother acts right, he might be able to get a wife.” Terri elbowed Kenya on her arm.
“Well, if you don’t want to purchase a newspaper, how about donating to our save the family unit fund raiser?”
Kenya was still leaning over Terri’s lap, until Terri nudged her on the arm and urged her to look at the green light. Taking a dollar from her ash tray, she deposited it in the donation bucket as she playfully batted her eyes at the handsome young man. They both smiled and waved goodbye. They were laughing wildly and pulling at each others hand as the car rolled south on N.W. 7th Avenue. Kenya almost missed her turn. Finally negotiating the turn, she parked in the rear of the Afro –In Books & Things bookstore. They were laughing to the point where it took them a couple of minutes to catch their breath.
Composing themselves, they entered the store from the 7th Avenue side, which allowed them to see the vast array of murals that were painted on the front wall of the building. The mural was composed of the faces of many men and women from the halls of black history’s Who’s Who. This bookstore was a haven for the Who’s Who of Black America. You could bump into Sistah Soldier, Mike Baisden, or Malcolm Jamal Warner, just to name a few. It was filled with books, art, videos, and pretty much anything dealing with the Pan-African experience. Terri and Kenya went straight to the fiction section. They were always captivated by the suggestive covers that plastered the front of the sexy love stories. They knew what they wanted; they just didn’t know what it looked like. Their search was based on scant information they had received about some new black romance novel by some up-and-coming writer.
