One Way or Another (10 page)
Read One Way or Another Online
Authors: Rhonda Bowen
Toni looked down at Camille's hair and then at Afrika, who had transformed her own tresses the first time she had sat in her chair. She nodded at Camille.
“Okay,” Camille said, turning her eyes back to her own reflection. “Do it.”
As Afrika went to set up a sink to wash Camille's hair, Camille turned her eyes back to Toni and grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. Toni couldn't help but laugh, and even as she did, she felt a rush of nostalgia. She missed this. The laughing with her best friend. It was a part of her life that she had given up after her parents' deaths, along with many of her old friends, her church, and her relationship with God. She had thought she hadn't wanted any of those anymore. But just a few hours with Camille had made her start thinking differently.
Maybe being around the things of her pastâthe things that she had shared with her parentsâwasn't as bad as she thought it would be. Maybe she didn't want to give up those things anymore.
She sighed dejectedly. Too bad she didn't know the first clue about how to get them back.
Chapter 12
I
t was still dark outside when Adam reached over and hit the snooze button on his alarm. It was 4:00 a.m.âa lot earlier than everyone planned to be up. But it was their first working day at the Habitat for Humanity project, and Adam knew he needed the extra time to mentally prepare.
t was still dark outside when Adam reached over and hit the snooze button on his alarm. It was 4:00 a.m.âa lot earlier than everyone planned to be up. But it was their first working day at the Habitat for Humanity project, and Adam knew he needed the extra time to mentally prepare.
The last time he had come to Mississippi was with a group from the army to do some relief work after Hurricane Katrina. Adam and his fellow troops had done all they could. They had brought supplies. They had helped to rebuild where possible. Some of them had even given away their personal belongings. But instinctively he had known that it had not been nearly enough. He had been depressed for two weeks after that. But his outlook on life had also changed. That was when he had started thinking seriously about what he would do when his time with the army was over. And all his prior plans for using his business degree solely to line his own pockets had seemed juvenile.
The house barely stirred as he moved quietly through it and onto the back porch. From there the land opened up a few more yards before sloping downward toward the coast. His eyes traveled the vast stretch of natural landscape before him. As he scanned the beach his gaze fell on a figure standing near the edge of the water. Adam squinted to get a better look, wondering who would be out there at this time of morning. The wind shifted again, lifting long locks of silky hair off the shoulders of the curvy figure. Adam shook his head. He should have guessed.
“Trouble sleeping?” he asked a few minutes later when he was standing behind her.
“No more than usual,” Toni answered, not turning around. “You?”
“I wanted to get an early start,” Adam said.
Toni glanced down at her watch, then turned to look at him. “Four-thirty? That's pretty early.”
Adam knew he probably should have responded, but the minute she turned to look at him every thought left his head. She looked almost ethereal with the glow from the moon framing her in soft light. Her large eyes, which looked like balls of copper fire in the dimness of the early morning, seemed to look right into him as she spoke. He had to blink several times and take a step back just to focus.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, clearing his throat and looking away. “I, uh ... I need to make sure my head is in the right place before I start the day.”
Toni nodded as if understanding.
“How long you been up?” he asked.
She shrugged and turned back toward the sea. “Since three. I only came out here half an hour ago though.”
“Guess it beats staring at the ceiling,” Adam said.
Toni smiled. “It sure does.”
She didn't say any more and Adam was fine with that. A comfortable silence fell between them, punctuated only by the sound of the sea as it washed in gentle waves onto the shore before pulling back again.
As Adam watched the water move in and out, smoothing out all the ridges and pathways in the sand, erasing all the unevenness and making everything level, his mind seemed to settle into a hypnotic calm. For a brief moment, he forgot everything: the people in Mississippi, the boys sleeping a short distance away, the things back at Jacob's House that he would have to handle a week later, even the things in his life that he had been avoiding taking care of. For just that fleeting moment on the Gulf of Mexico, he had peace.
He let out a deep cleansing breath and wondered what it would be like to stay in this place forever.
“Want to talk about it?” Toni asked.
Adam made an amused sound. “You wouldn't want to hear it,” he replied.
“Don't be too sure,” Toni said, turning slightly toward him again. “Which reminds me, you owe me an interview.”
Adam stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yeah,” he said, turning to look at her. “At the end of the trip.”
“Come on, Adam. I'm already here. It's too late for me to back out.” She tilted her head slightly. “How about now?”
Adam raised an eyebrow as he stared at Toni questioningly. “Now? Don't you need to get ready?”
Toni smiled sweetly. “I'm always ready.”
Adam knew instinctively that she wasn't just talking about the interview. He watched her pull out her cell phone from the back pocket of her cut-off jeans and start surfing through it.
“I have a voice recorder on this thing,” she clarified.
“And what about your questions?”
“All up here,” she said, tapping her temple with one finger. She sat down on the ground and patted the space beside her, inviting Adam to join her.
He watched her make herself comfortable on the sand, his eyes drawn to her long bare legs like the waters of the Gulf to the shore. It wasn't like he didn't try. He did really, but she was wearing shorts and he was already having problems keeping his eyes off her on a whole as it was. He would find himself on his knees for where his thoughts were going.
However, in spite of how inviting she appeared, he was still apprehensive about being interviewed by Toni. Something about the way she looked at him whenever they were together made him feel like she saw right through him. He wasn't sure how much he wanted her to know about who he was, but he had a feeling that once she started asking questions, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from answering.
He sighed and sat down anyway.
“It won't be so bad,” Toni said teasingly. “I promise to be gentle.”
“You don't know how to do gentle,” Adam said dryly.
Toni tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. “Okay, you have a point there,” she admitted. “I'll do my best.”
She switched on the voice recorder. “How long have you been at Jacob's House?”
Adam squinted as he tried to remember the exact date. “Three and a half years.”
“What made you go there?” Toni asked.
Adam shrugged. “I had just finished my tour with the army, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I talked to the chaplain on our base and he told me about Immanuel Temple and how they had this home for delinquent boys called Jacob's House. He made a few calls to Pastor Reynolds and I ended up there.”
“Did you have any experience working with young boys?” Toni asked.
“Not past the squad I was in charge of in the army,” Adam said, resting his arms on his bent knees as he looked out to the ocean.
“So why did they think you could be in charge of twenty-one boys in the equivalent of a juvenile hall?”
Adam shrugged. “I guess I didn't realize what it would involve. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have agreed to it.”
“Tell me about your life before the army.”
Adam felt his body tense involuntarily. He looked at Toni, who was watching him innocently.
“I grew up in Baltimore in the projects with my sister and six older brothers,” he said. “My mom and pops were solid from as far back as I can remember, and they tried to keep us out of trouble.
“But I guess raising seven boys in the projects isn't easy. I got into a little trouble with my brothers every now and then, and when I turned eighteen my mother decided that the best way to save me was to send me away. So she made me enlist.”
“Were you the only one in your family who enlisted?” Toni asked.
“Yup,” Adam said with a nod. “Everyone else pretty much got their act together by the time they graduated high school. But my grades weren't the greatest and going to college without a scholarship would have been impossible. As well as keeping me out of trouble, the army was the only way I could afford an education.”
Toni nodded and looked out at the sea. “You said you used to get into trouble. Tell me about that.”
Adam swallowed a lump in his throat and tried to think of the best way not to lie. “You know what the projects are like.” He hoped he didn't sound as vague as he was trying to be. “There was always a gang or three to get mixed up in. It was pretty hard to avoid them. My mom wanted to make sure I didn't end up ...”
Adam's brow furrowed as he caught himself. “She wanted better for me than what Baltimore offered to young black men.” He looked away from Toni. “It's the same thing with the guys. I know what their community, the police, even their own families expect to happen with them. They're supposed to drop out of school, get some low-paying factory job, have a bunch of babies with a bunch of different women, and end up either selling drugs or going to prison or both. But that doesn't have to be their future. They can choose another option. God wants more for them than that, and I want them to want more for themselves.
“That's why I got mad when I saw Rasheed mackin' on that girl the way he was. 'Cause if he keeps going that way, then he's gonna end up with some kid he didn't plan for, and his life will be a lot more difficult. He should already know that.”
Adam forced himself to stop. He knew he was getting worked up about things, but the constant fear of seeing the boys fail always hung heavy on him like a lead vest. Theoretically he knew that he couldn't save themâonly the Spirit of God could set their minds on the right path. He knew that he could only give them the best options and after that it was on them to choose. But somehow in his heart he always felt responsible when they chose wrong. He took it personally when one of them ended up back in prison or dropped out of school. He felt like he had failed them all over again. It made him think of others he had failed in the past.
“You feel like your success and failure is tied to theirs, don't you?” Toni said, reading his thoughts perfectly.
He felt her eyes boring into him, seeing more of him than he wanted anyone else to see, getting too close to the things that Adam had tried to hide away from everyone, even God.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hit the pause button on the phone recording.
“You shouldn't do that,” she said quietly. She reached over and touched his shoulder. “You'll burn yourself out. Those boys are smart. They know what will happen to them if they mess up. You've given them all the opportunities you can. Stop feeling guilty because of the choices they make. It's about themânot you.”
Her last words made him look up at her. She was watching him with concern. She hadn't intended to insult him or put him down. She was just telling him the way it was.
He sighed. “I know,” he said after a moment. “I guess that's the control freak in me that you and Jerome like to talk about.”
Toni's mouth fell open a little bit. He grinned, loving that for once he had been able to catch her off guard. He knew she and Jerome had thought no one had heard them while they were talking about him in the back of the orientation session the previous day.
“You weren't supposed to hear that,” she stammered.
“Maybe both of you shouldn't talk so loudly during orientation then,” he said.
“Let's get back to the interview,” Toni said, turning the phone back on, and still a bit ruffled. “What does the future of Jacob's House look like?”
A thousand thoughts sprang to Adam's mind but he looked down at the sand and said nothing for a moment. “I don't know,” he said finally. “I would love to see the place expand, accommodate more boys. I would love to have more staff, and more equipment, and see the program do more for the boys once they get to the age where they have to leave. A lot of these guys are really talented, but they don't know the first place to go to get direction. I would love to see some sort of extension program that helps with that.” He watched Toni nod as if understanding.
“What about your future?”
He shrugged. “I don't know. If you had told me seven years ago I would be doing this, I would have laughed, but here I am. I am learning to take things day by day as God leads.”
“Final question,” Toni said, stretching and sitting up straight. “Any regrets?”
Images from Adam's past flashed before his eyes in quick succession, bringing with them the heart-wrenching emotions that were so tangible they often kept him awake at night. He looked out at the vast horizon, which seemed to go on into eternity. It seemed endless, like the pain that he had carried with him for so many years. He knew about regrets. Knew lots about them.
He could feel Toni's eyes on him again, waiting for his answer. But he was tired of answering questions. He stood to his feet and brushed the sand off his pants. “I think you have enough for your piece,” he said, reaching a hand down to her.
She looked at him curiously for a moment before grasping his hand and letting him pull her up into a standing position. She held onto his hand a moment longer, forcing him to turn his eyes on her. The expression there held him in place and sent a chill through his bones. Even moments after she let go and wordlessly began the trek back to the house, her last look haunted him.
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