Eve - Iris Johansen [5]
“Would I?” She tried to smother the anger, but it burst free. “And are you happy jumping from job to job, Sandra? Are you happy sniffing coke to make you think everything is what it should be?” She looked around the shabby apartment. She tried to keep it clean, but everything about it was worn, drab, and depressing. “Are you happy living here? Well, I’m not, and I’m not going to stop thinking of ways to get away from here.”
Sandra was looking at her in bewilderment. “Don’t be ugly. There’s nothing wrong with smoking a joint or sniffing a little coke now and then. It’s not as if I’m one of those drug addicts on Peachtree Street.”
“No? Have you tried to kick it lately?”
“Why should I?” She opened the door. “You’re just too intense about most everything. You seem to be mad at me every time you see me. You work or read all the time. You don’t even have a boyfriend. Sometimes I don’t understand you, Eve.” She slammed the door behind her.
Sandra had never understood her, Eve thought. Even when she’d been a child, her mother had often looked at her as if she were some strange creature from another planet.
But then Sandra had been revolving in her own solar system ever since Eve could remember. Marijuana, crack, coke, acid.
Don’t think about it. Sandra wouldn’t listen to her, and she had her own battles to fight. She couldn’t help her mother, but she could help herself. She had grown up in the streets and learned every trick in the book to fight those battles.
She glanced at the clock. It was almost six. She had to get to work, or she’d be late. She’d hoped to finish her geometry before she had to leave, but Sandra had been home, and that usually meant a delay. She closed her geometry book and stuck it in her canvas book bag. Maybe she’d get a chance to finish on her break.
She locked the door and ran down the four flights of cement stairs that led to the front entrance of the housing development. The stink was overwhelming. Someone had thrown a sack of garbage on the third landing. All they’d had to do was take it down two flights more to the garbage cans, but that was too much trouble.
Don’t look at the garbage, the iron banister rails, the scrawled graffiti on the dirty gray walls. She had control of their apartment, but all she could do was ignore everything outside their apartment door.
She threw open the worn oak door of the front entrance. Two silver-haired black ladies were slowly approaching, and she waited to hold the door for them.
Then she was quickly outside, drawing a deep breath.
Fresh air. Sunlight. The smell of garbage was less down here.
“Hello, Eve, aren’t you late?” Rosa Desprando was sitting in the sun on the green bench outside the building with her year-old little boy beside her. She spent a lot of time outside; her father was always yelling at her because the baby was too noisy.
“A little.” Rosa was her own age, sixteen, and had been in her homeroom at school before she had gotten pregnant and dropped out. Eve had always liked her. She was a little slow, but that didn’t matter. She had a good heart and was always smiling, something that wasn’t common in Eve’s world. In fact, she had too good a heart. She’d been a target for every guy in school because they could con her into anything. Including getting pregnant with adorable Manuel, who she loved more than anything in the world.
Eve stopped by the bench and stroked the baby’s dark curls. “Hey, hot stuff,” she said softly. “How you doing?”
Manuel was gurgling and batting his long eyelashes at her. She had once told Rosa that he should be doing commercials for mascara. He was a plump, rosy-cheeked child, and completely enchanting.
Eve chuckled. “I think he’s doing fine. Is he still keeping you awake teething?”
“Yes, it doesn’t matter,” Rosa said as she adjusted the baby’s Braves baseball shirt. “He’s worth it. Doesn’t he look cute in this shirt you bought for him? Say thank you, Manuel.”
“No big deal. It only cost me fifty cents at Goodwill.”
“But he’s so cute in it.