Authors: Stephanie Perry Moore

Work What You Got (12 page)

BOOK: Work What You Got

3.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

“Our checking account is wrong.”

“I don't know what you mean, start over.”

“Well, after the dance, I counted the money with Trisha and I know we counted five hundred and eighty dollars, but the deposit was only for two hundred and eighty. I wasn't three hundred dollars off. I did have a wine cooler or two, but I wasn't that off,” Dena said in a panicked tone.

“Well, did you ask Trisha about the discrepancy?” I asked, trying to give Trisha the benefit of the doubt.

“Yeah, and she says that I signed for two hundred and eighty. My signature is on the deposit slip, but I know it's more than that.”

“Well,” I said, scratching my head, “I didn't even count the money, and I know it was more than three hundred. That doesn't even sound right.”

“She said we bought drinks and stuff, and that we had to pay for the clubhouse and that took up money, but there's not even a record of us taking in five hundred and eighty and then spending it out somewhere. It's just not right, Hayden.”

“Alright, thanks for calling me. Have you talked to anyone else?” I asked her, trying to really get an understanding of the situation I was dealing with here.

Already suspecting that Trisha was dipping into our account, I knew this was serious. The old heads had already let me know we had tons of money in our account. Then we have a party and we still come up with practically no money.

“No, no,” Dena said, “I just saw this. She wanted to go over the books before our chapter meeting.”

“Okay girl, I'll see you at the meeting.”

Immediately, I got into my car and went over to see Bea. She was elected first Vice President. I knew she cared about Trisha like I did. The three of us went way back to the underground line. Bea could help me figure all this out.

“What am I supposed to do? Penelope told me there was fortyâfive hundred dollars in the account. Dena says that they counted almost double what was actually put into the bank account from the party. I don't know what Trisha is thinking. You of all people understand what we have gone through with the underground line being dropped and being the only ones who went through all of that crap. For her to take us through more is ridiculous. Come on, Trisha is our girl. She had my back on the line. I can't believe she is taking money. I don't want to have a meeting and reveal this with everybody there. What should I do?”

“I'm supposed to be the one that's telling you to keep it under wraps, she's our girl, let's clean it up and fix it. And if I were president that is probably what I would do, Hayden. But I'm not president. I don't have the backbone that you do to stand up against wrongdoing. Everybody in our chapter has a right to talk to her about this. She needs to be caught off guard so she can't fix her story. If there is nothing to tell, we'll just call the whole ordeal a mix-up. She loves you, Hayden. She'll understand.”

“Alright, will you pick Trisha up and I'll text everyone else to get down here and meet in our sorority room on campus.”

An hour and a half later, I had all of them in front of me. My heart felt sick believing all this could be true about my girl. I so hoped it would come out that this was a misunderstanding.

“I've got studying to do,” Trisha said, standing up. “What's this all about?”

Bea said, “Girl, we just got back on campus and exams are over. Come on, you've got the lowest GPA out of all of us.”

“Alright, well let me cut to the chase,” I said, not in the mood for her to yank my chain and play me anymore. “Trisha, we need to see the bank account books.”

“Umm, Dena and I are working on that and going over it. Let us get it exactly straight before we show you. Right, Dena?”

“No,” Dena said, “we went through everything. And there's some stuff not adding up for me.”

Trisha laughed. “Oh Dena, don't exaggerate. I can show you guys that stuff tomorrow. This isn't urgent.”

“Yeah, it is urgent, Trisha,” I said boldly to the girl we all trusted with our money. “Penelope told me there was forty-five hundred dollars in our account when they turned everything over to the Regional Coordinator and the advisor. But you said there was no money in the account.”

“Well, how much did we bring in from the party?” Sharon said. “It had to be like six hundred dollars, because when I counted with y'all it was like four something. . .”

“See, I knew it,” Dena jumped up and said. “You took some money, Trisha.”

Dena went over to Trisha's face and got ugly. Then the two started arguing. Bea went over and pulled the two of them apart. All the sorors were hot at Trisha.

“Okay, y'all, okay,” Trisha finally admitted with a scratch over her eye. “I've been taking some money. Sorry.”

“How could you do that to us?” Audria asked.

“Because I'm going to get kicked out of school. I don't have the tuition money. I'm applying for a few grants and they look promising. I figured once I got the money I was going to put it back before anyone would notice. I betrayed everyone's trust. I'm sorry, I just felt I had no choice. I couldn't throw my education out the window. As chapter treasurer, I know I have abused my powers. I'm guilty.”

PROBLEM

I
went over to Trisha. I really appreciated the fact that she came clean to all of us. We needed to be told what was going on. Though her confession was a good start there was a lot of animosity. None of us in the chapter had money coming out of the butt, we all had monetary issues.

“Trisha, you're not the only one with problems, girl,” Bea yelled out in disgust.

“Yeah, I don't even know how I'm going to pay my rent,” Dena replied. “I can't believe that you put the wrong amount of money in the bank and forged my name on a deposit slip. Trisha, that messes up my name.”

Audria said, “We need the money back now, Trisha.”

“I don't have it, y'all, that's what I'm sayin',” Trisha responded in tears.

“Well, we need to call the Regional Coordinator about this then,” Sharon said.

“No guys, no, you can't call and tell on me. I will pay the money back. I promise.”

Most girls looked away. They couldn't stand to face her. She went over to Bea, desperately seeking sympathy.

With distraught red eyes, Bea looked at Trisha and said, “You've become my girl. I've always had you and Hayden's back on line and in my heart. The three of us have started to rap about everything. Maybe if you would've just come to us, Trisha, told us what was going on, we could have figured out a way to help you. But to just go into the account and withdraw the money, forging people's signatures on stuff for your own personal gain, is just something I can't accept.”

Bea sat down in a chair and bowed her head. I knew this was hard for her. She was right, Trisha was our girl. This was tough.

Bea stood and continued, “We got to report this or all of us could be reprimanded. That's the same stuff that happened to Penelope and Edythe. They knew what happened to us on line was wrong, but they went with it. They weren't strong enough to stand up against it, and now they're suspended just like Keisha and the rest of them fools. Well, baby, I'm not losing my letters. I worked too hard to get them. I thought you did too. I can't believe you did this. Dang!”

Then Bea got up and walked to the other side of the room. Trisha fell into my arms and sobbed even harder. I was so torn. I knew the right thing to do was to call the officials in our sorority right away to report all this. Yet, I also wanted to protect my friend. Either way, it was up to all of us to decide what to do, so we held a vote and decided to turn this in to Ms. Nixon.

I just hugged her tight and said, “We love you so much, and sometimes good people make bad decisions. Just because we're not going to stand behind your actions doesn't mean we're not standing behind you.”

“But when you all turn me in, how is that standing behind me?” Trisha sobbed.

I touched her chin and said, “Girl, we are in college now. There are consequences for our actions. If you don't study for a test you get an F, you take money from the sorority and we got to report it. That doesn't mean we don't love you.”

“Whatever, speak for yourself,” Dena called out.

“Dena, come on girl,” I said, hoping my soror would ease up from verbally kicking Trisha when she was down.

“No, because if I wouldn't have caught the discrepancy, I could have been kicked out of the sorority, or worse, gone to jail,” Dena said.

She had a big point.

Trisha left my side and went to try and convince Dena to forgive her. “I'm sorry, Dena, I'm sorry. I just didn't see any other way to help myself.”

Dena didn't respond. I nodded to Bea, who went over to her cell phone and dialed Ms. Berry instead of calling the Regional Coordinator.

“You calling her now?” Trisha said, with a trembling voice.

“Yeah, we got to report this now. We can't hold on to this information,” I answered, completely wishing I didn't have to do this.

“This is going to ruin me. What if I go to jail? Please think about this,” Trisha pleaded, as Bea ignored her and dialed.

“There is some kind of infraction code the sorority has,” Sharon called out, remembering some of the information we had to memorize.

Sharon and a few others went over to find the discipline booklet and look up what was listed as a recommendation for this kind of offense. Bea came over and gave me the phone. All of this was so unfortunate. We'd just had Penelope, Keisha and all of the rest of our prophytes suspended. Now Alpha chapter was going to have more drama.

“So, your treasurer just got the checkbook and is already embezzling money?” Ms. Berry said to me.

“Yes ma'am,” I said, quickly wanting this whole conversation to be over.

Ms. Berry said, “Well, you know being chapter president, you also have to sign each of the bank statements.”

“One just came in. I was going to look at it, but I trusted Trisha had it under control. I have to do better.”

“Yeah, you are going to have to do better. I'll call the Regional Coordinator now. We will get to the bottom of this.”

Sharon came running over to me and said, “The booklet says that a person who steals money from the sorority will face a three-year suspension, a five hundred dollar fine, and they have to pay the money back.”

“Well, Trisha isn't going to jail, right?” I said to Ms. Berry. “In the discipline code booklet, it gives a recommendation that's much lighter than that.”

Ms. Berry said, “Yeah, but that's just a recommendation. You've got to send your own recommendation to the Regional Coordinator that your chapter has signed off on, and I've got to send one too. Then she makes her own judgment on whether to take this higher, and with all the trouble that Alpha chapter is already in, with a whole twenty or so girls suspended, she may be willing to throw the complete book at Trisha. She's in serious trouble. We won't get a final verdict on what will happen till next semester. All this takes a while.”

Trisha saw the gloom on my face after speaking with Ms. Berry. She cried some more, as if our chapter wasn't broken enough. Here we were again, with more drama. Could we ever recover?

A month later, Sharon said, “So you the one who told us we been partying too much, but now you drag all of us to the Pi Lambda Beta Valentine's Day dance.”

“Having to go through all those hearings and stuff over everything with Trisha, I figured y'all needed to come out and relax and release all that pent up frustration.”

“Whatever,” Bea said, giving me an eye like she had me pegged. “Hayden, you just wanted to come because you been dissing your boy.”

Not wanting to entertain a discussion of her analysis, I said, “Dance, you guys, dance.”

There were so many other sororities all over the place. We were so out-numbered because we had lost all the old heads. I couldn't even see my sisters when we split up. Then again, I really wasn't looking for them. I was looking for Creed. Bea had it right. I didn't want to try and find him by myself.

I missed my man. I had been so consumed with school and chapter drama, and catching up with my father, that I didn't spend enough time with Creed. Because I knew he was frustrated with me, it just seemed easier to keep my distance, even though deep in my heart that was far from what I wanted to do.

“Hey Chandra,” I said to my roommate, as I bumped into her.

“Do I know you?” she turned and said to me sarcastically, letting me know I was no longer her favorite person.

“See, why are you trippin'?”

“I see you out at parties before I see you in our apartment. You're that busy that you can't call nobody and check on them, but now you gonna say, âHey,' all fake and phony. I should be leery of folks who treat me like you do.”

“What do you mean leery?” I asked, getting a little offended. We weren't joined at the hip. Because I was busy didn't mean I didn't care.

“You're saying hey like we're tight. Like we're cool. Like we got a bond, and we don't have that. I'm going to treat you like you treat me. You don't deal with me at all, so see ya.”

“Chandra, wait a minute,” I said, totally not wanting our friendship to be over.

“Just like you lost a good man, you lost a good friend. I know you think you and your sorority sisters are all tight and everything, but word is going around that one of them took some money from y'all. If you left your wallet on my bed, I wouldn't take any of your money. But you chose to have a bond with a thief over the one we already had. You've completely put me down now that you're a Beta. Whatever girl, I hardly have time for it.”

“It's not like that. Yeah, I got a lot of stuff going on, but you know I love you. I mean, I didn't think you were going to take it so personally,” I said to my roommate.

“I didn't think you were going to diss me severely. When your girls don't show up you call me, but as long as they're around you can't manage to dial my number. I got severe issues with that,” she said before walking away.

“Wait, Chandra, what do you mean I lost my man?”

“Girl, I just saw him over by the restroom, hemmed up with some MEM, lockin' lips in a serious way. I thought you were the one who called it off. Heck, you been spending all your time with them girls. I didn't know if you swung another way or something.”

Rolling my eyes, I huffed, “Oh see, Chandra, you didn't even need to go there with me.”

“I'm just saying you lost your boy.”

And then she was gone for real. I didn't know if she was pulling my chain just to annoy me or what. However, I walked to the restroom where she said she had seen Creed. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw him with gorgeous Tammy Knight, the MEM chapter president. I was stunned by their display of affection. His tongue was in her ear.

Part of me wanted to slide in between them and say, “Excuse me, what the heck is going on? Get your crusty, yucky lips off of my guy.” But seeing how much he was enjoying himself, I knew I would be embarrassed. If I couldn't even make Chandra understand that though I had been absent, it wasn't because I didn't care, I knew there was no way Creed would understand. I guess that's what hurt the most, because even though I wasn't with him, it wasn't like I was dying to get with another guy. He was so into Tammy, he didn't even realize I was standing there.

Lord, where did I go wrong
? I asked.

I couldn't take it anymore, I had to find Bridget. When I spotted her, she was with some of her other MEM friends, but I didn't care. I tugged on her arm and pulled her over to a corner.

“Ouch,” she said, hitting my hand. “What's going on? Why you want to embarrass me like that?”

“How you gonna let your president get with my man?”

“Everybody has been teasing her for a couple weeks because she likes underclassmen, but she said he was the hottest thing on the line and she just wants him.”

“And you didn't tell her he was with your roommate?”

“We're roommates? Myra, Chandra, and I haven't even had dinner together lately. We have all been in our own separate worlds. You have been too. I figured that if you were doing your job, Tammy wouldn't be able to take him, and if she did catch him, you wouldn't want him anymore. I stayed out of it. You're a big girl. Why would I get in all that mess and cause more drama?”

“Because I thought you were loyal to me.”

“Like you would help an MEM over a BGP, girl please,” Bridget said to me, shoving me aside. “Plus, Tammy is my prophyte. What was I going to tell her?” she said, hoping I'd understand her plight.

“I guess that's just it, Bridget. Anything would've been better than nothing. Thanks for staying out of it. I lost the only guy I ever cared for.” I could not hold back the tears from dripping down my face.

She shrugged her shoulders. I guess we were just at that point in our relationship where it was clear things weren't what they used to be. Not only had I lost Creed and Chandra, but it looked like Bridget too.

As I walked away from Bridget, Dena came over and grabbed my arm. “Girl, you've gotta come see this.”

“I'm ready to leave. I want to get out of this place.”

“No, Bea's about to fight.”

“What!” I said, emotionally not able to take another thing.

“Yes, and with your man.”

I was so confused. “I don't understand.”

“Come here, come on.”

Dena took me back around the corner where I had seen Creed with Tammy.

“You suppose to be with my homegirl and you gonna be with this chick,” Bea said to him.

“I know you not about to put your hand all up in my face,” Tammy said, sporting an ultra sheer pink mini-dress.

BOOK: Work What You Got

3.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub