“Don’t you want to know what’s in your future, dear one?”
Karen laughed. “I already know what’s in my future, lots of irritated teens if I don’t get in here and get things ready. The summer is a busy time of year for a youth center.”
“I’m seeing love in your near future. Don’t you want to come and find out when you’re going to meet your soul mate?”
Karen stopped laughing then and stared at Dicey really hard. She thought about the journal again and the story Amina had told her about Karla and Daniel. She shook her head, both to clear it and to say no.
“All right then, but my offer stands whenever you stop being afraid and you’re ready to embrace your destiny, dear one.” Dicey offered a melodious laugh before heading into her shop.
Karen unlocked the door to the center and went about her day.
“If you can’t follow the rules then you won’t be able to come here again.” A familiar sadness began to creep into Karen’s heart as she kept her stern frown focused on Clarence.
She had pulled him into her back office after she caught him trying to sell a marijuana blunt to one of the other young men. She went back and forth in her mind about the right thing to do and decided against calling the police. She hoped she wouldn’t regret that decision.
The boy was only fifteen, and already she sensed it might be too late for him. But she didn’t think being sent back to juvenile detention would have helped him either. She knew that she might have been able to reach him eventually. But if he was bringing drugs into her center, then there was really nothing she could do. She couldn’t condone that.
No way.
She leaned back a little in her rolling office chair. The high-end office chair was one of the items in her office that she had spent a little extra money on. The rest of the furnishings were low-end Office Max cherry-stained plywood. But at least everything matched and looked professional. Her office was the only space in the center that she had cut back on when it came to furniture. She really invested all of her money and her time in making the center a nice, welcoming space for the youth, a space where they could come and get away from the lures of the street.
Allowing Clarence to remain at the center would jeopardize everything she was trying to accomplish. And more than just Clarence’s future was at stake. So many young people needed the space that the center offered. Still, anytime she had to sacrifice one for the whole it hurt. She really wanted to save them all.
“That’s cool. Whatever, yo, whatever.” Clarence shrugged his shoulders and twisted his face in a harsh manner.
The bravado he put up didn’t fool Karen at all. She knew that he cared more than he let on. And if she could give him another chance she would have. But he had a long way to go before he stopped letting the wrong folks influence him.
“I’ll tell your parole officer that it just didn’t work out here. But I’m sure he’ll be able to find another place for you.”
“That’s jacked up, Ms. Williams. You pretend like you care and that you want to give us a chance. But then you just throw us out ’cause we mess up. I said I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t mean to get caught. That’s all.” Karen ran her hands through her locs.
Was she being too hard on Clarence? Could she allow him to stick around? She thought about the other young people at the center—the ones Clarence had tried to sell drugs to.
No. No, he had to go.
“Whatever, Ms. Williams. You just like everybody else. You ain’t really trying to give a brother a chance. You just talkin’, you don’t mean that shit you be saying.”
“That’s not true, Clarence! You have to take some responsibility here. That’s the problem. You’re not taking responsibility. You just want to blame others.”
Clarence pushed his chair back harshly and leaped out of his seat, knocking the cherry-stained wooden chair he’d been sitting on to the ground. “This place was wack anyway. I got better stuff to do with my time than waste it here.”
“Clarence, don’t leave mad. Let’s talk about the other options available to you. I can’t let you continue to hang out here. But there are—”
“Man, fuck this! I’m out.” Clarence went bursting out the door.
Torn between following him and hoping that his leaving would help things remain on an even keel, Karen took a deep breath and placed her head on her desk instead. She wondered if she had done him any favors by just barring him from the center and not calling the cops. She told herself it was just weed. But she wondered if calling the cops on him would have ensured that he didn’t move on to other drugs in the future.
As she mentally went over the reasons yet again why Clarence had to go, the phone on her desk rang, jolting her.
She picked up the phone and paused before answering.
“Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center, Karen Williams speaking.” Dragging a halfway pleasant greeting out was easier than making her voice sound like she meant it, so she settled for brevity.
“Hello, Ms. Williams. My name is Cullen Stamps, and I represent Darius Rollins. He’s a rapper. You might have heard of him?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of D-Roc.” Twirling her locs with a pencil, she waited for some sort of explanation.
Who in the world hadn’t heard of hip-hop’s golden boy turned Hollywood movie star? A person would have to live under a rock not to have heard of D-Roc, especially a person in the East New York section of Brooklyn. He was the boy from the hood who had made it out and done good.
“Yes, well. He is interested in devoting some time to your center as a way of giving back. You might have heard that his young cousin was just murdered and—”
Cutting people off was rude, but she didn’t have the patience to let him go on.
“Don’t tell me… He wants to spend a few hours here as a part of some publicity stunt, right? My goodness, what celebrities won’t do for a little bit of attention. Is he really trying to turn his cousin’s death into some kind of image or marketing opportunity? Sheesh.” She clicked her tongue in disgust.
Not that her center couldn’t use a little free publicity, but she was really protective of the kids, and allowing a celebrity—no matter how fine that celebrity was—to use them wasn’t going to happen on her watch.
“Ms. Williams, I know that you are probably overworked, and we certainly appreciate the good work you’re doing with the youth. That’s why Mr. Rollins is determined to volunteer at your center. He has researched several, and he likes what you’ve done in such a short period of time with so few resources. He intends to volunteer a large amount of time while he is between films. He’s even holding off getting right back in the studio for his much-anticipated third album. Against my better judgment, I might add. To be frank, Ms. Williams, you really could stand to gain a lot from his presence at your little center. The publicity would work both ways. He’d put you on the radar, and you might just get more donations for your little cause.”
Each time the man said the word little in reference to her center—her life’s
