Playing Hard To Get

“But I…this is a check for $60K! I can’t…It’s—” Naudia tried. “You know this is crazy?”

“You’ve been my assistant for so long, trying to chase your dreams. Now here’s your chance. Take the money and go to school.”

“But I—”

“I’ve never seen anyone who works as hard you. You know exactly what you want and you know exactly where you want to be. You deserve this money, Naudia. Take it.”

“You really mean this?”

“Just promise me that when you get to where you want to be, if it’s nothing like you thought, that you’ll see it for what it is and you won’t be afraid,” Tamia said, “you won’t be afraid to walk away.”

“Yeah,” Naudia said, knowing that in her words her boss was telling her that that was exactly w

hat she was doing—walking away. “Thank you.”

They hugged and laughed, agreeing that Naudia would actually beat Tamia by becoming the first black female Supreme Court justice.

“I guess this is it,” Naudia said, looking around the full courtroom. “You think he’ll show up?”

“What I think and what he’ll do are two different things,” Tamia answered. “I can only control myself.”

“Hey,” Naudia said before turning to take a seat. “I know this might be a bad time and all, but you do realize this check is made out to you…. I’m just trying to say I can’t use—”

“Naudia, deposit it into my account and we’ll get you a check in your name,” Tamia said, laughing. “You’re a mess.”

“I’m just saying…No sense having a great big check I can’t use.”

“Hey, Ms. Lovebird,” Troy said, coming up behind Naudia. Behind her was Tasha, asking where the wig was.

“Ts, you’re here!” Tamia said excitedly.

“We wouldn’t have missed this,” Tasha said. “We had to come out to support our favo bestie.”

“Thanks, guys.”

“So, where’s Nelson Mandela? He here yet?” Tasha asked.

“No,” Tamia said.

?

Fifteen minutes after Tamia took her seat at the front of the courtroom and the rows were full of every face she’d ever seen at the Freedom Project, the district attorney walked in with his case full of papers and slammed them on his table. He was confident. The case was in the bag. An easy kill. In a while, the bailiff would seat the judge, and court would be called to order. Everything was a go. Everything was together. But everyone wasn’t there.

Tamia sent Naudia into the hallway to call Malik, but there was no answer.

“Have you seen him?” Kali asked, bending over the railing separating Tamia from the spectators.

Tamia only shook her head and looked at her watch.

She couldn’t believe that after all they’d talked about, after all they’d been through, he would pull this in the end. If he didn’t show up, he’d go to jail. Bottom line. Then he’d be locked up and the Freedom Project, the place she loved so much, the place that changed her life, would be shut down. She didn’t care about Malik anymore. She didn’t even care about herself. But that place. What it did for her people, for all people, it had to keep on going. And if she was willing to sacrifice her feelings, to put aside her anger, so that could happen, why couldn’t he? Why did his brave heart have to be so foolish?

“All rise,” the bailiff said as the judge, whom Tamia had seen twice for other cases, walked into the room, “the Criminal Court for the District of Kings County is in session. The Honorable Judge Sadie Tanner is presiding.”

The judge sat and as the reporter and she conferred about the day’s cases, Tamia felt her palms sweating to the beat of her heart. She felt heavy, so heavy she could fall to the floor and lay there and sleep forever.

Lehman, the district attorney, looked at Tamia and then past her, a grin coming together on his face.

“Are the parties present?” Judge Tanner asked, looking down at the papers on her desk.