She took my glass and poured me a drink. As soon as she poured herself a shot, I raised my glass.
“Didn’t mean to make you mad,” I said and drained my glass. Rain followed suit and drained hers.
I took the glass from her hand and poured her another and one for myself.
“I would rather drink to something else,” Rain said.
“What do you wanna drink to?”
Rain raised her glass. “Anything that don’t have nothin’ to do with Lakeda Johnson.” Rain turned up her glass. “Talk to me about something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know; anyth
ing.”
“I’d rather talk about you.”
“Why you wanna know about me?”
“You already know ’bout me. Only thing I know about you is that you’re twenty-two. I know you can handle a gun.”
Rain looked at me and smiled. I was starting to like the way she smiled. Rain had those pouty lips I seem to like so much. “My daddy taught me how to shoot.”
“You daddy’s little girl?”
“Yup. Everything I know that’s important I learned from him. He taught me a lot about dealin’ with people.”
“How to get them to do what you want them to do?”
“That too. But he taught me to look and listen. Said that’s why we got two eyes and two ears.”
“And only one mouth.”
“Exactly.” Rain poured herself another drink. “I remember once when I was in high school.”
“What school did you go to?”
“Immaculate Conception.”
“Catholic school girl.”
“And I ain’t even catholic. Pops sent me there after I got kicked out of public school.”
“What you get kicked out for?”
“Fightin’. Let this mouth get me into somethin’ I had to fight my way out of. That’s when he told me about lookin’ and listenin’ to mugs, see where they really coming from. But when I first got there these girls wanted to try me, you know, ’cause I’m new and shit. But I just got kicked out of school for fightin’, so I’m tryin’ to be cool. But these bitches won’t let up. So I tell Pops about it.”
“What he say?”
“He listened, and then he said, ‘I can’t tell you what to do. I could tell you what I would do if I was in your place.’ Then he said that I had to start makin’ my own decisions, and once I made those decisions that I had to be willing to stand up and be responsible for those decisions.”
“Good advice.”
“Yeah, I’ve lived by it since. But anyway, he said this is a matter of honor. You already know what the right thing to do is. The right thing is not to fight in school. So if it just a question of right and wrong, the choice was easy.”
“Don’t fight in school.”