Obsession 3

by Treasure Hernandez

  “It’s just ringing up and bagging groceries. Doesn’t take a college education to do, that’s for sure,” Secret replied with a sigh.

  While in the grocery store a few days ago Secret had noticed a HIRING sign hanging up. As she stood in line staring at the sign it dawned on her that she couldn’t sit and live off of welfare forever. What kind of example would that be setting for Dina? Even if Secret felt that she’d never move away from Flint, she’d at least be able to tell her daughter that she tried. Plus, she did not want to be at Uncle Sam’s mercy receiving a welfare check and food stamps for the rest of her life. She needed to have her own. Minimum wage at the local grocer wasn’t much, but it was hers.

  She filled out the application, did a phone interview, and was hired on the spot. They’d wanted her to start that very next day, but she had to figure out her childcare situation. Luckily Yolanda would be on vacation from her own job for the next week, so she would be able to keep Dina at least for the next few days. Secret had called her case worker about assistance with childcare. She’d gone in that same day to fill out the paperwork and was expecting any day now the letter in the mail telling her what percentage of the childcare the government would pay. She’d also received a list of childcare providers to look into. She had several home visits scheduled to go check a few of them out. Everything looked to be falling into place. Not being a procrastinator was paying off for Secret.

  “Well, uh, you know, at least a job at the grocery store is something,” Yolanda said in a fidgety voice, then changed the subject. “Let me go get the baby. She’s in your old bedroom.” Yolanda walked off to the back bedroom down the hall. She returned a few seconds later with Dina in her arms. “Look who’s here to get her baby.” Yolanda rubbed her nose against Dina’s and the baby cooed.

  The sound and sight of her little one put a smile on Secret’s face. She extended her arms to take Dina. She began planting kisses all over her baby girl’s face once she had her in her arms.

  Yolanda stared at the sight before her for a moment before she spoke. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill her? And you can thank me for that.”

  Secret stopped immediately and looked up at her mother. “Excuse me?”

  “Aren’t you glad you didn’t get an abortion, you know, like you’d planned on doing at first?”

  Secret felt a rush of embarrassment and even humiliation. Even though Dina had no idea what was being said, it pained Secret that she had, in fact, thought of aborting the baby. She could only imagine how that would make her daughter feel if she ever found that out.

  Suddenly a sense of selfishness came over Secret as well. She’d had dreams of going off to college, which was one of the main reasons why she had planned on getting an abortion once she found out she was pregnant; that and the fact she had no relationship with the baby’s father and didn’t think she’d ever see him again for as long as she lived. In being honest with herself, Secret could truly admit that had she gotten that scholarship and been accepted to OSU, Dina would not be in her arms today.

  Determined not to be like her mother and end up a bitter woman in Flint for the rest of her life, Secret was going to get a college education and make something of herself and she wasn’t going to let anything interfere with that, not even her unborn baby. But the day her mother gave her the news that she hadn’t received the scholarship, Secret felt she had nothing to live for, nothing to lose, and nothing to gain, so why not just have the baby? She was destined to end up like the women in her family one way or the other.

  Yolanda was bitter and broke working at a subpar job. Secret’s grandmother had managed to make a come up, living in a nice suburb. But let Yolanda tell it, she had to sink her claws into and marry a white man to make that happen. Had Secret inherited the many traits of the Miller women? She looked into her baby’s eyes. And would she pass them on to her daughter.

  “I’m glad Dina is here,” was Secret’s response to her mother’s query. Secret began looking around. “Are all her things together?”

  “Most of them, yeah. Let me go get the rest of her stuff.” Yolanda went back into the bedroom. She exited moments later with a couple of items. She went and placed them into Dina’s diaper bag that was sitting on the couch. She gathered a couple more items and then stuffed them into the bag as well. “I think that’s everything.” She swept the room with her eyes. “It ain’t like she won’t be right back tomorrow. If you left anything you can get it then.”

  Secret got Dina together and then walked to the door. Seeing that Secret’s hands were full, Yolanda hurried over to open the door for her.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Secret said.

  “You’re welcome,” Yolanda replied.

  “I mean for everything. I appreciate you watching Dina for me.”

  “That’s my grandbaby,” Yolanda said proudly.

  Secret smiled. It was still hard for her to believe this was her mother talking. But then again, there was something special about Dina. She could soften the heart of Satan himself, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Secret that she could chip away at Yolanda’s cold heart. This made Secret reflect, again, on what Yolanda had asked her about being glad she hadn’t aborted her baby. Perhaps Dina was just what was needed to actually bring Secret and her mother together again. God surely worked in mysterious ways, but Secret would soon find out that so did the devil.

  Chapter 17

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Secret said as she scoured her living room looking for her car keys. She’d already overslept this morning and had to hurry up and get Dina over to her mother’s so that she could make it to work by eleven o’clock. Dina had been cranky and restless last night. By the time Secret got her settled and to sleep, her alarm was going off. She thought she’d just hit the snooze button, but she’d actually turned the alarm off. She happened to roll over and see that the clock read ten-thirty. She had jumped out of the bed so quickly that she got a headache. Her heart was beating out of her chest as she’d stumbled to the bathroom.

  She didn’t even have time to change Dina out of her pajamas. She’d placed her outfit for the day in her diaper bag. Yolanda would just have to bathe her and get her cleaned up.

  Secret looked up at the living room clock that read ten forty-five. She wanted to cry. It was only her second day of work. She could not be late, but it looked as though she would be. If she didn’t find her keys in the next five minutes, she’d have to ask Yolanda to come to her house and give her a ride. Her mother was already keeping Dina for her; she hated to have to ask her to be a chauffeur as well. That might have been the breaking point for Yolanda and bring out the beast in her. Things were going well between them. Secret didn’t want to push her luck.

  “Yes!” Secret shouted upon finding her keys tucked in Dina’s diaper bag. She must have accidentally placed them in there when throwing things haphazardly into the diaper bag.

  She placed the diaper bag on her arm, grabbed her purse, then snatched up little Dina who had been watching her mommy run around the apartment like a chicken with her head cut off. “All right, baby girl, let’s go.”

  Secret did one last sweep of the room and then opened the front door. She gasped immediately at the figure standing on her doorstep.

  “I heard you were looking for me.”

  Secret didn’t know whether to throw her arms around her best friend or slam the door in her face. She had mixed emotions for sure. But this was her best friend since the age of ten. She had to give her the benefit of the doubt. She’d heard Lucky’s version of things. She owed it to Shawndiece to hear hers.

  “Oh yeah, and where did you hear that from?” Secret asked.

  “A mutual friend.”

  “Friend, huh?” Secret said, raising an eyebrow.

  “I wanted to talk.” Shawndiece lifted up a McDonald’s bag. “I brought breakfast.” She looked at Secret’s arm full of items. “But it looks like this isn’t a good time.” She looked at Dina. “Oh, is that my li’l goddaughter? She is so b
eautiful.”

  “I’ve been worried about you,” Secret told Shawndiece. “I didn’t hear from you anymore after you visited me in jail.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been kind of busy.”

  “So I hear.”

  Shawndiece looked downward. “We need to talk. We have some catching up to do.”

  “Definitely, but right now I have to get the baby to Yolanda’s so I can make it to work.”

  “Yolanda?” Shawndiece snapped her neck back. “As in your momma Yolanda?”

  “The one and only,” Secret confirmed.

  “So you two made up, huh?” Shawndiece had a smile on her face.

  “Yes, and I guess I have you to thank for it. She said you gave her my address. She stopped by once she heard I was out.”

  “Good for her. I didn’t think she’d do it, especially since I called her a sorry excuse for a mother when I gave it to her.”

  Secret laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “You know me.”

  “Yeah, I thought I did.” Secret’s laughter stopped. “I have to go, but my break is at four. I’m working over at the grocery store on Fenton Road.” Secret thought for a minute. “On second thought, I’m probably going to have to work through my break since I’m going to be late. But I’m off at eight.”

  “That works,” Shawndiece said. “I’ll see you then.”

  “Cool, see you then.” Secret stared at Shawndiece for a minute. The next thing she knew Shawndiece pulled her in for a hug. The two friends embraced. Both unknowingly closed their eyes to fight back tears. These two had a bond that ran deep. They’d been joined at the hip since day one of meeting one another. And even though at this very moment the two were so close, they felt so far apart. Something had changed, and at eight o’clock tonight, Secret hoped she’d find out just what it was.

  “Secret, it’s seven-thirty. You’re good to go,” the store manager said to Secret as she rang up a customer’s groceries.

  Secret looked at the time on the register. “But I don’t get off until eight.”

  “According to the time clock you didn’t take a break today.”

  “I was a half hour late this morning, so I worked through my break.”

  “You were scheduled to come in at noon. You clocked in at eleven-thirty. You’re still over like a half hour.”

  “Really?” Secret was confused as she continued to scan grocery items.

  “Yeah, and you’ll wanna watch that,” the manager warned. “You don’t want to go over your forty-hour workweek. That will push you into overtime pay. That comes out of the store budget.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry,” Secret apologized.

  “I’ll send Ramona to come relieve you.”

  “Thank you.” Secret apologized again.

  A couple minutes later Secret was finished ringing up the customer and her coworker took over. Secret was about to leave but then realized that she was supposed to be meeting Shawndiece at the store at eight. She hadn’t gotten Shawndiece’s new cell phone number so she couldn’t call her and tell her she wouldn’t be there. Secret didn’t know what she was thinking by not having Shawndiece meet her back at the house in the first place. Secret decided she would get a little grocery shopping in to kill time.

  Secret strolled her cart through the aisles of the store picking up little odds and ends. She was comparing the price of a store brand box of cereal to that of a name brand when she heard someone say her name.

  “Secret Miller. My star student.”

  Secret turned to see a blond-haired older woman standing in the aisle behind a cart of her own.

  “Mrs. Langston.” Secret was so surprised to see her high school guidance counselor, but apparently not as surprised as her guidance counselor according to the look of shock on her semi-wrinkled face.

  “Secret? What are you doing here?” Mrs. Langston asked as she abandoned her cart and walked over to embrace Secret. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good, Mrs. Langston,” Secret replied. She put her head down. Such a rush of shame and embarrassment fell upon Secret and she began to fidget around with some items in her cart.

  Thoughts of Mrs. Langston, one of the only other people to ever believe in her, about to watch Secret whip out her food stamp card made Secret feel bad. After all this woman had done to guide Secret down the road of success during her high school years, this was the way Secret repaid her for all of her time: by becoming a welfare, teenage, single mother. That was what the rest of the world had expected of Secret all along, but not Mrs. Langston. Never Mrs. Langston. But that’s exactly what she’d become. Secret could barely look the woman in the face.

  “How are you?” Secret figured she’d at least ask that and then get as far away from the woman as she could. “Are you still counseling over at the high school?”

  “Yes, well no. Yes and no.” Mrs. Langston giggled. “I’m still counseling, but at a different high school. One in which I can see the fruit of my labor.” Mrs. Langston leaned in to whisper to Secret. “You know not all of your peers were like you, Secret. They’d be content with living in Flint for the rest of their lives doing nothing.” She pulled away and began to speak at a regular tone. “But you were different, so determined. That’s why when I received a copy of that letter from the scholarship committee that you’d received the full ride, I wasn’t even surprised. I was happy for you, yes, but not surprised at all. If anyone deserved that scholarship, it was . . .”

  Mrs. Langston’s lips were still moving, but Secret could not hear a word that was coming out of her mouth. Even when she had been able to interpret her high school counselor’s words clearly, had she actually heard her correctly? Oblivious to the fact that she was interrupting Mrs. Langston going on and on about the different caliber in students from the ones at Secret’s old high school to the one she worked at now, Secret spoke.

  “You said the scholarship committee sent you a letter?” Secret asked.

  “Well, uh, yes. They’d CCed me on the letter since I had submitted it on your behalf,” Mrs. Langston said, then moved right back to the subject matter Secret had ripped her from. “You know some of your classmates didn’t even want to put forth the effort to fill out a scholarship application, but the kids I work with now, like yourself, are willing to do whatever it takes to get a higher education.”

  Mrs. Langston followed Secret’s stare into her cart where she’d been fiddling in the entire conversation. She suddenly snapped her finger. “Oh, shoot. I forgot milk. I’m so glad I just noticed it in your cart.” Mrs. Langston put her hand on Secret’s shoulder. “It was so good bumping into you while you’re back in town.” She pointed into Secret’s cart. “Getting snacks for your dorm, eh?” She playfully elbowed Secret. “Beware of that freshman twenty, or whatever they call it.”

  Secret knew what Mrs. Langston was referring to. There was a myth that when kids went off to college for that first year they gained fifteen pounds because of the poor eating habits they engaged in and the lack of healthy foods on the college campuses.

  Mrs. Langston gave Secret the once-over. “Although it looks like you might already be five in the hole.” She winked. “But you still look fabulous.”

  Secret looked down at herself realizing she was heavier since the last time Mrs. Langston had seen her. But she had a good reason and opened her mouth to tell her old high school counselor just that. “Oh, that’s because I just had a . . .” Secret’s words fell off. No way was she about to tell this woman she’d had a baby. She wasn’t ashamed of Dina nor did she want to deny her, but she refused to be privy to the look of disappointment she knew would take over Mrs. Langston’s face. “Never mind.” Secret shooed her hand. “I guess I am a little thicker.”

  “Well, as long as you’re feeding that brain that’s all that matters.” She looked at Secret with such admiration in her eyes. “I’m so proud of you. You made it. You worked hard for four years for a free ride to college and did it.” Mrs. Langston’s eyes
began to water. “I know I can’t take credit for it of course, but I’d like to think that my guidance had a little something to do with it.”

  “It did, Mrs. Langston. It did.” It was harder now than ever for Secret to focus on the conversation with Mrs. Langston. She was still stuck on the fact that she’d said she’d received a letter from the scholarship committee granting her the scholarship to OSU. Mrs. Langston thought that Secret had made it. That she was off living the college life. She didn’t want her to think any differently.

  “I wish you nothing but the best in life, Secret,” Mrs. Langston said. “I know you are going to get everything out of life that you’ve always dreamed of. Take care,” were Mrs. Langston’s final parting words before going back to her cart and rolling off.

  Secret watched as Mrs. Langston hustled her cart down the aisle in pursuit of her forgotten milk. “There . . . there has to be some mistake,” Secret said softly, to no one in particular. “My mother said the letter said . . .” Secret couldn’t even get the words out she was full of emotions. Devastation, disbelief, hurt, anger, confusion. She didn’t know how to feel. She was mad. She didn’t know who to be mad at. Somewhere someone was confused. Was it Mrs. Langston or was it her mother?

  There was only one other way to find out.

  Chapter 18

  “Mrs. Langston?” Secret said, out of breath after abandoning her cart and racing to the dairy section to find Mrs. Langston.

  Mrs. Langston turned around stunned. “Oh, Secret. Yes, dear, what is it?”

  “The letter. You said you got a copy of the scholarship letter.”

  “Yes.” Confusion laced Mrs. Langston’s smile.

  “I was wondering if I could have a copy of it. I’d really like to have it as a keepsake. I, uh, lost mine. Probably with all the packing and the moving to the dorm, you know. It would really mean so much to me if you could give me a copy of that letter.”

  “Oh, of course,” Mrs. Langston said. “I still have it. I, too, wanted it as a keepsake. When I retire someday I’m going to go through all my letters and see how many of my students made it big. I know you’re going to be one of them.” She smiled. “Just give me your address and I’ll mail it to you.”