Plenty Good Room Read online

  Wonder why, thought Tamara as she glanced at the small girl. She looked twelve, although she was supposed to be fourteen, but eighteen? No way. Still silent, Tamara blocked out the angry rambling of the teenager. Placing a skillet on the stove, she cooked sausage and eggs, then toasted bread in the oven. With a spatula she slid the food onto two plates and placed one before the young girl at the table.

  The girl stared at the plate of steaming food sullenly for a moment and then looked up at Tamara and smiled widely. “Now, this here is what I’m talkin’ ’bout! This here is breakfast,” she said as she gestured down at the plate with one small finger.

  Tamara watched unbelievingly as the small girl began to shovel in the food so quickly that she did not seem to breathe at all between bites. Totally immersed in the act of eating, she did not look up once. Now that Tamara could see how hungry the tough-talking teen was, her heart immediately softened.

  “Can I have some more?” the girl asked without even looking up from the once-full plate. Tamara noticed that this was the first time since they had met that the girl did not have a rough edge to her voice.

  “Sure,” said Tamara. She retrieved the plate of food that she had prepared for herself, and set it in front of the girl.

  The girl gave her a wary look then. “Is this yo’ plate? What you gonna eat? Shoot, I don’t need nobody givin’ me nothin’ ’cause they feel sorry for me or nothin’ like that,” she said as she eyed the plate of food with hunger still apparent on her face.

  “I wasn’t hungry anyway,” Tamara lied, “so I would be throwing it away if you didn’t eat it.”

  The girl looked at her for a moment and then said, “Well, ain’t no use in lettin’ no good food go to waste, is it?” She pulled the plate in front of her and attacked it with vigor, just as she had the first.

  As she watched the petite girl, who still seemed famished, Tamara was astonished by the enormousness of her appetite. She had never seen someone so small put away such a massive amount of food in such a short time.

  With the girl’s attention diverted, she examined her more closely, noticing that her smooth skin, pale as vanilla cream, made scattered freckles stand out in her small heart-shaped face. In fact, Sienna Larson reminded her of a small wood sprite, or a fairy from a storybook, with her uptilted eyes, delicately placed features, and wildly curling reddish hair. Suddenly that thought seemed so funny to Tamara that she had turn away to hide the smile that had suddenly lifted the corners of her lips.

  She walked over to the sink and began to scrape the dishes and wash the pots and pans while the girl continued to eat.

  “Can I have something to drink?” Sienna asked loudly. “You know a sistah gets thirsty when she eatin’ all this food.”

  “A sistah does, huh?” Tamara said with a small smile as she poured the girl a glass of cranberry juice. With her light complexion and unique hair texture, Sienna certainly looked biracial to her, yet it was clear from her comment that Sienna considered herself all African-American. With a slight sigh she cleared the girl’s plate from the table. She had no intention of asking her to do anything right now, since she had no desire to experience the girl’s fiery temperament yet again this morning.

  The girl picked up her glass, loudly gulped down the juice, and then pursed her lips and frowned as the tartness of the cranberries affected her youthful palate. “Dang! What kinda juice is that? It gots a bit of a twang to it, whew!” she said as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and loudly placed the glass on the table.

  Tamara frowned, tired of hearing the girl’s coarse language, and replied, “Young ladies should not repeatedly say ‘Dang.’ It does not sound right, and I do not want you saying it while you are here.”

  The girl twisted her mouth, made another annoying loud click with her tongue, and rolled her neck as she turned her head from Tamara’s gaze.

  “Young lady, did you hear me?” Tamara said quietly, but insistently.

  “My name is Sienna, not ‘young lady,’ first of all; and I heard you!” the girl said loudly, with the streetwise edge fully apparent in her tone again.

  Then, before she knew what happened, Tamara heard herself retort loudly, “Don’t yell at me!”

  The girl gave her a surprised look but this time mumbled under her breath, “Shhhooot! I’ll yell anytime I get good and ready.”

  Tamara turned away, more than a little surprised that she had actually raised her voice at the girl. She was thankful that Sienna had given in this time with no further argument, since she really needed a respite from all this heated back-and-forth talk. Exhausted and even feeling a little sick now, she realized she was unused to this type of drama. Her head was beginning to ache from it all, and her stomach was a little queasy, too.

  By contrast, Sienna was gazing at her complacently, sucking her small teeth loudly while using one fingernail to remove a bit of food from between them. “Do you have TV in this spot, or what? I ain’t seen none yet.”

  “In the living room, inside the cabinet. Open the doors, and the remote is in there as well,” Tamara said without looking at her.

  She was surprised at how relieved she was to hear the girl’s fading footfalls on the carpet. Finally, she thought gratefully, a few moments alone.

  As she finished cleaning the kitchen, Tamara glanced up at the wall clock and said aloud in a weary voice, “I can’t believe it’s only ten! This is going to be one long weekend.” She heard the TV playing loudly now, and as she thought of her unexpected visitor sitting in her front room watching it, she shook her head ruefully and added, “Lynn, I think you will owe me for this one, big-time!”

  4.

  Anyway

  Jayson put the cup of steaming coffee down in front of Tamara and, standing with one arm leaning on top of her cubicle, said sympathetically, “Tam, it sounds like you had one heck of a weekend.” He rubbed his neatly trimmed goatee, as he did whenever he was anxious or pondering a thought, and then ran one hand over his bald, shiny head.

  Jayson Johnson was six feet two, chocolate brown in complexion, and had worked for the Care agency for about five years now. Although thin, Jayson’s taut body was naturally muscular, and his dark eyes were mischievous. He flashed his white, dimpled smile often, making it clear to those who knew him that he considered himself quite a ladies’ man. Tamara and he worked closely together and often traveled together as a duo of Stabilization and Family Training caseworkers.

  With a solemn shake of her head, Tamara replied to her coworker while wrapping her fingers around the hot coffee cup, “That’s putting it mildly, Jayson. Thank you for the coffee—this is decaf, right? I’ve been overly hyped up since Sienna has been at my house, and I certainly don’t need anything to add to my anxiousness.”

  “Did you get any sleep at all?” Jayson asked, concerned that Tamara looked a bit tired. Like Lynnette, he worried that Tamara’s naturally reserved manner made her too much of a pushover, and while one saucy sister like Lynn was more than enough for him at the workplace, he did wish that the young woman could be a little more assertive.

  Actually, he was surprised that Tamara was being so forthcoming today, since this was the first time she’d ever revealed this much about her personal life to him. He had often wondered what she thought of him, because he found her very attractive, even though he’d never even tried to get next to her, as he did with most women. Jayson was pretty sure Tamara wouldn’t give him no play anyway, but normally that didn’t stop him from trying. Something was different about this girl, though, because without even trying, Tamara brought out a protective and caring side in him that he hardly recognized in himself.

  Tamara wiped her eyes as she answered his question with a yawn. “I got very little sleep, Jay—very, very little. In fact, it seemed like each time I closed my eyes, Sienna was complaining or going on about something or other, and for some reason she had to do so in a rude or unpleasant fashion every time. One thing I can be thankful for, though: she tried to be sneak
y or greedy or something and drank up about two gallons of cranberry juice . . . Jay, the coffee is decaf, right?”

  Pushing his wandering thoughts about her from his head, Jayson glanced at the coffee she held, and replied, “The java juice . . . it’s decaf, Tam—I know what you like by now.” And then he questioned her, “Now, tell me about the cranberry juice. What’s that about?”

  Tamara smiled and took a swallow from the now lukewarm cup of coffee. “If you have ever drunk lots of cranberry juice, you’d understand, Jay.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, one cup can clean out your system, if you know what I mean, and when you drink too much . . . suffice it to say that Miss Sienna spent almost all of Saturday night and Sunday in the bathroom. She was so busy running in and out of there, she had no time or energy to terrorize me anymore. Thank God!”

  Jayson blurted out a loud laugh and then looked behind him toward a larger office as he put his hand over his mouth to stifle his continuing chuckle. “I got you now, Tam. Little Miss Sienna was riding that bathroom seat, huh?”

  “Shhh! Don’t say that, Jayson!” Tamara’s face reddened, and her dimples deepened as she pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Jay, it just doesn’t sound right when you say it like that, and anyway we wouldn’t want Joan to hear you—you know how she is,” warned Tamara.

  Joan Erickson had joined the agency several months ago as the new director. She was aggressive and ambitious, and at times it seemed to them that the white woman was more than a little bit racist as well.

  Jayson made a face and added flippantly, “I’m not thinking about Joan, ’cause she shouldn’t be watching us all the time like she’s waiting for us to do something wrong!” Gesturing toward their supervisor’s office, he added, “The girl is such a racist, and the sad part is, she doesn’t even realize what she’s doing, does she?”

  “I don’t think she does, Jay. She actually believes she is being fair to everybody, but in truth it seems like when white people who look like her do wrong, she doesn’t even notice.”

  Shifting the subject, Jayson said, “Anyway, after that weekend, I bet you want to kill Lynnette, huh, Tam? And where is little Miss Sienna now, anyway?”

  “I was kinda mad with Lynnette. In fact, I suppose I was actually pretty ‘salty,’ as you say, Jay. I called Lynn’s pager number and her cell phone repeatedly, and she didn’t call me back the entire weekend. She didn’t even return my messages!”

  He turned his lips up and rubbed his goatee. “That’s a shame. You know, I love that girl, but Lynnette can be pure-D triflin’ sometimes. She must have been out on a hot date or something.”

  “She was—on a date, that is . . . Well, I don’t know if it was hot or not,” she added with a small giggle. “But she was out on a date.”

  “So, Tam, where’s the child now?”

  “I was desperate, Jay, and actually didn’t know what to do, so I brought Sienna in with me this morning. It was pure luck that we ran into Lynn in the parking lot. By then I was already upset ’cause I thought—well, knew—that Lynnette was trying to dodge me. Then, to add insult to injury, before Sienna got her things from the car, do you know what that little girl said?”

  “What?”

  “First of all, she slammed the door really hard when she got out of the car; then she stuck her head in the window and said, ‘I didn’t want to stay at your dumb house another day anyway!’ Then, in a huff, she got her belongings out of the backseat, slammed that door loudly, and flounced her little self over to Lynn’s car, and before they drove off, she rolled her eyes at me.”

  Jayson’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. “She didn’t. She ain’t that bad, now is she, Tam?”

  Tamara nodded her head affirmatively. “Oh, Jayson, yes, she did do that, and believe me, she is that bad! In all fairness, I’m sure she must have a good side, but I certainly didn’t get to see it. This weekend she cussed like a sailor and was nasty and unpleasant most of the time. I actually yelled, and that’s not usually my way, you know?”

  With a small smile, her coworker replied, “Well, you getting mad and yelling some might be a good thang. Tamara, everybody needs to let their anger out sometimes, even you! You are just too nice, Tamara, too nice.”

  Tamara got tired of Jayson and Lynnette always riding her about the fact that she was reserved and slow to anger. She ignored Jayson’s comment, but she reminded herself reassuringly that she was just not the “snapping” type; that type of aggressive interaction was just not her style.

  Abruptly she changed the subject. “Jay-Jay, how was your weekend?”

  Always ready to share nuggets about his love life, Jayson grinned and raised his bushy eyebrows dramatically. “Girl, let me tell you ’bout my weekend: it was sweet, Tam.”

  “Sweet?”

  “Oooh, I had a date with a sweet honey, took her out to a sweet play, and then we went to dinner, and then we went to her place and ‘thangs’ got even sweeter.”

  Her interest piqued, Tamara suppressed a giggle and asked, “Really, Jay? Is this someone I know?”

  “You remember Desiree?”

  Tamara frowned and asked, “Isn’t she the one that I met at lunch that day when you, me, and Lynnette went to Simply Salads downtown? Didn’t you say that you weren’t going to ask her out anymore? In fact, wasn’t she the one who flattened the tires on your car and then called you and told you about it?”

  Jayson looked a bit sheepish for a moment as he said, “Yes, that’s her—she’s a bit feisty, I guess.”

  “Feisty? Are you sure about that? I mean, slashing someone’s tires is behavior that is sort of criminal to me!” said Tamara in a concerned tone.

  “Aw, come on, Tamara, she ain’t no criminal, now.”

  “But, Jay, if you had called the police and pressed charges on her about your car, she would’ve been,” the girl said seriously.

  Jayson stroked his chin and said, “Well, you know what, Tamara? You right about that—I could’ve gotten her locked up. And getting those tires fixed wasn’t cheap, either.”

  “So, why are you seeing her, then?”

  He grinned widely and winked at her, “I guess the girl just gots some assets that I can’t fully explain to you.”

  Tamara looked at Jayson quizzically and then reddened and turned away quickly once the assets that he was speaking of became clear to her.

  “Uh-oh, somebody’s comin’; look busy, now,” said Jayson as he slid down into his chair and disappeared from her sight. She heard him sit hard with a loud thud.

  Joan Erickson and her peculiarities were one thing Tamara did not feel like having to deal with today, not after the weekend she’d had. Quickly she spun around and began busily typing her contact notes into the computer terminal, documenting the family visits she had performed during the past week.

  5.

  Tricked and Bamboozled

  “Good Morning, Joan,” Tamara heard Jayson say, and she knew he was flashing his best dimpled smile at the woman when she passed his cubicle. His deep voice was dripping with feigned sincerity when he added, “That’s a slammin’ outfit that you are wearing today! But then, you always look good, and you know it!”

  “Thank you, Jayson!” cooed Joan in a girlish tone.

  Tamara made a face and stiffened in her cubicle while thinking how much she hated it when Jay did that phony flattery stuff with Joan. Silently she prayed, Please just let her walk right by my desk. After the weekend I’ve had, I am in no state of mind to talk with Joan Erickson today.

  But instead, almost as if on cue, the smell of her boss’s Clinique Happy perfume wafted into the air in front of her nose.

  “Tamara, may I speak with you for a moment in my office?”

  Tamara rolled her eyes and then tightened her lips before looking up. Quickly gathering her emotions, she turned to face Joan Erickson. As usual, the woman was dressed stylishly, today in a black crepe de chine pantsuit with a beige silk shirt. A matching peach, copper, and beige prin
t silk scarf was casually tied around her neck.

  The woman’s hair was streaked with just the right touch of buttery blond highlights, and her makeup had been applied with a light, natural touch. Her thin lips were pressed into a closed-mouth smile, and Tamara quickly twisted her own, fuller mouth into the same expression as she rose to follow her boss to her office.

  As the two women walked by Jayson’s cubicle, Tamara hastily answered his quizzical expression by raising her eyebrows expressively while shrugging her shoulders slightly. Tamara truly had no idea why Joan wanted to speak with her, and she just hoped that it wasn’t about some of the nitpicky borderline-racist stuff that Joan was becoming well known for among the African-American employees.

  Once seated in Joan’s office, Tamara looked into the white woman’s green eyes and tried to cover her own curiosity about the purpose of their meeting.

  “Before we get started, there’s one small thing I want to talk with you about, Tam,” said Joan with a quick, upturned twist of the corners of her lips. “Then I’ll get to the thrust of why I called you in here.”

  Tamara cringed inside at the woman’s shortening of her name. She really hated when Joan called her “Tam,” since it was a pet name of sorts that Jayson and Lynnette had given her, and not to be used by everyone. She said nothing about it, though. Again reciprocating the closed-mouth smile the woman had given her, she said, “Sure, Joan.”

  “Not that I’m just singling you out or anything, but I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to get back a few minutes late from your break on a regular basis,” Joan commented while gazing at her intently. “You know, I really do like you, Tam,” the woman said, and then quickly curved her lips upward again, “But, if I let you do it, soon everyone will think it’s okay, and we can’t have that, can we?”

  “No, Joan, we can’t,” said Tamara in her usual professional tone, but even while she was saying the words, she was thinking of all the other employees who routinely arrived late or left early, and she began to understand that there were different standards for white employees. Joan probably did not even notice what they were doing, because she was far too busy watching the black folks all the time.