Should Have Known Better

“I was a dreamer,” Sarah said.

“I could give a great massage!” Juanita said.

“I was a good hiker. I hiked the Appalachian Trail,” Vivica said.

“The whole thing?” someone asked.

“The whole blasted thing!”

“What about you, Jennifer?” Madonna asked me. “Do you remember anything good about yourself?”

I couldn’t remember doing anything that was good. I’d gone to school and said my prayers. But those were things that were expected. I didn’t have any talents or hobbies. I hadn’t hiked a two thousand-mile trail. I was just living.

“I was open to life,” I said after a while. “Open to where my life was going.”

There was a collective sigh and I felt Madonna’s hand on my back.

The ringleader shared the assignment for the next week. We had to define our power. I followed everyone else and wrot

e this short question on the writing pad I’d brought. While I thought it was vague and kind of odd, I looked at the words and thought I’d at least try to answer.

The women skipped out of the meeting like kids heading to recess. They laughed so loud I thought maybe the punch had been spiked. It was interesting though; I was wanting to laugh with them.

“Good first day, Jennifer,” a short black woman who’d been wearing a name tag with Kelis on it said to me as I stood outside searching for my mother’s car. She pointed to the name tag I’d accidentally left on my shirt.

“Oh, I forgot to take this off,” I said, unpinning the card.

“Oh, keep it. I’m sure you’ll be back.”

“Why did you say I had a good first day?” I asked.

“You just seem furious enough to make it. It’s the ones hiding their pain that I worry about. The quiet ones.”

“I can’t be quiet. I tried that and I almost hurt myself.”

“Didn’t we all,” she said, stepping off the curb to get into a car that had pulled up. “Didn’t we all.”

I waved at Kelis as she rode away and noticed a camera crew standing in front of the building on the opposite side of the street.

It was already dark outside, but I could see a camera with lights focused on a man holding a microphone.

“Is that . J. Holmes down there with his fine self?” a woman asked Juanita as they walked out of the picket fence behind me.

“I think it is,” Juanita answered, stretching her neck forward so she could get a better look. “Give me back ten years and he might be my second husband!”

“You’d have to get past me first!”

They laughed and walked down the street arm in arm like teen girls.

I watched A. J. for so long I didn’t notice that my mother had pulled up right in front of me. He was like something from a movie. Past good-looking. He didn’t even look real. I thought to wave a few times, but then I figured he must have women waving at him all day and he looked really busy. And there was no way he’d remember me. Not in my mother’s pink sweatshirt. And I was sure my unibrow was back. I think I was blushing before I reminded myself that I was supposed to be angry. Or furious. And working through that. Not looking at A. J. Holmes. That’s when my mother honked the horn.

The camera crew, A. J., me, and everyone left in the house jumped at the sound of the horn.

“You see me right here?” my mother yelled to me, lowering her head to look at me through the passenger side window.

“Yes, Mama,” I said, opening the door, completely embarrassed and wanting to get off of that street as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Dawn? Is that you, Dawn?”