Money Hungry

by Sharon Flake

  “I am never too tired to speak to you,” she says. She’s talking to Dr. Mitchell.

  I grab my can of money from behind my dresser and dump the bills onto the floor. I count my cash while I listen in on Momma and the doctor. This is the only way I’ll know what’s really going on with them two.

  Soon, it’s two o’clock in the morning, and Dr. Mitchell’s still talking to Momma. I’m thinking, shoot, I wouldn’t want some sleepy doctor prescribing me no pills after he’s been up all night gabbing on the phone with some woman. I feel my eyes burning, and closing shut no matter how hard I try to make ’em stay open. I pull out a sock full of change and start counting that, too. At three o’clock, when I take myself to bed, I can still hear Momma laughing.

  I wake up screaming. Crying and screaming so loud that Shoe bangs on his floor upstairs and tells me to shut my big mouth. Momma yells for him to mind his own business. Then she holds me tight for a long time, even after I tell her I’m okay. Even after I tell her about my stupid dream.

  In the dream, we’re back on the streets. This time, we ain’t in a van. We’re walking up and down the streets pushing a cart. Begging. Always begging people for something.

  The weird thing is that in the dream, I have money. I have a whole cart full of cash, but nobody lets me use it to buy anything. So I just push the cart around, and beg somebody to take the money. To let me use it to get some food, or a house, or a ride somewhere. But everybody keeps shaking their heads and saying, “Your money ain’t no good here.”

  Momma don’t say a word when I tell her about my dream. While I’m talking, I remember that Dr. Mitchell, Sato, and Zora were in my dream, too. They turned away my money like everyone else in the dream.

  And when I showed Dr. Mitchell all the money I had, he just laughed and said it wasn’t enough. “Not enough for what?” I asked. He said, “It’s just not enough. It won’t ever be enough.”

  Later, on the way to school, Momma tells me that good things are finally going to happen to us. She’s all excited when she tells me she got another part-time job.

  My face gets hot. “I never see you now,” I say, looking at her like she’s lost her mind. I remind her that she’s taking two classes at the university. That when she ain’t in school, she’s writing papers and trying to figure out math problems, or working, or getting ready to go to work. She’s trying to explain that she’s doing this for me—for us.

  “We don’t see each other now,” I say. “We do everything together in this stupid, broke-down car,” I say, slapping the taped-up rearview mirror. “We go over my homework in the car. Make up grocery lists in the car. Write notes to teachers in the car. We might as well be sleeping in here, too, like we did in the van,” I snap.

  Momma gets real quiet. I stare out the window so I don’t have to look at her. When she turns the corner, our tires go up on the curb. A woman standing at the bus stop points at us, and curses Momma out.

  I start counting in my head the number of blocks we got till we get to school.

  We’re almost there when Momma tells me something she thinks will make things better. We’re moving out of the projects, but she ain’t saying where or when.

  She looks at me. “That’s why I need this other job. So I can have enough money to put a security deposit down on the house. To buy stuff we need for it. Curtains. New dishes. Bedspreads. Stuff like that.”

  I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t care if Momma gotta work another gig long as we’re getting a new house out of this. But then I think, all her working is only gonna get us a bigger place for me to be by myself in.

  Momma’s going on and on about the new job, and our new place. But I’m wondering, how many jobs does it take for her to make enough money for us to live good? Too many, I guess.

  Ja’nae’s got a big mouth. She told Zora and Mai about me taking the money. She said she wasn’t trying to say I was a thief. Just that I was the kind of person who couldn’t do wrong no matter how hard I tried. Zora and Mai don’t see it that way, though. They say I’m straight up wrong for what I did, and they think Ja’nae is crazy for forgiving me.

  “I might have to search you the next time you leave my house,” Zora says, sounding like she’s serious.

  I give Ja’nae the evil eye. She tries to apologize. “I didn’t mean nothing by it,” she says.

  “Well, if you didn’t mean nothing, why’d you tell?” I say, getting mad at her.

  Mai is walking by us, shaking her head. “Why’d you take Ja’nae’s money, then?” she asks me.

  “It was stupid, all right?” I snap. “But she owes me money. Plenty of it,” I say. “Still does.”

  Ja’nae tells everyone that they’re missing the point. “A real thief don’t give you back nothing. They keep on rolling. A real friend don’t do you wrong. Raspberry proved she was a real friend,” she says.

  Zora’s eyes are the color of sand today. They make her look weird, like somebody on Star Trek. She makes a sucking sound with her teeth and says, “Ja’nae told me how much money you two got for cleaning that old lady’s house. Next time you go to clean, count me in,” she says, kicking a balled-up piece of paper out of her way.

  “I still need sixty dollars to buy sneakers. If I can’t pay my half, my father won’t let me get them. And I really need those sneakers. They go with a new outfit my mother just bought me.”

  Ja’nae sees Ming and starts waving him over. She tells Zora that all she needs to do is work with us two times and she’ll be able to pay the costs of her half of the sneakers, plus have some money left over.

  We change the subject when Ming walks up. Right away he starts rubbing Ja’nae’s cheeks with his hands. She’s smiling all over the place. Ming’s saying he’s gonna walk Ja’nae home before he goes to his parents’ food truck. Mai’s right behind Ja’nae and her brother, complaining about working the food truck. But Ming ain’t paying Mai no attention. He’s got his arm wrapped around Ja’nae’s shoulder, telling her how good she smells.

  After school, Zora and me are outside the building, talking, when Momma pulls up to the curb and tells us to get in. “I’ll drive you home, Zora,” Momma says, handing me a pack of gum. I give two sticks to Zora. I stack three sticks together like a sandwich and bite down.

  When we pass Zora’s street, we tell Momma that she needs to turn the car around. But Momma ain’t listening. A few minutes later, she stops the car in front of somebody else’s house. The brick house is the color of warm milk with a hunk of butter in it. The roof is shaped like a dunce cap. A faded white picket fence goes all the way around.

  “Who you know live here?” I ask getting out the car on Momma’s side.

  “You like?” Momma asks me. She turns to Zora with the same question in her eyes.

  “I guess,” Zora says, frowning at the mess in the front yard, and in the alleyway. Three old tires are sitting on the lawn by the tree, right next to a rusted bathroom sink. The window shades are rusty, too, and they’ve got giant pieces missing from them. The paint on the front door and around the windows is cracked and peeling.

  “We—we’re—gonna be living here, I hope,” Momma says, following me onto the porch.

  Zora and me look at each other. We can’t afford a new paint job for our car, how we gonna afford a house? I think.

  Momma sticks her face up to the window and looks inside. I look, too. The place has wooden floors, nice ones. A kitchen counter with tall, wooden stools. A fake fireplace. But still, it needs a paint job real bad. And them rusted blinds and torn-up shades gotta go.

  When we’re back in the car, Momma explains that she’s trying to get a Section 8 so we can move in this messed-up house. She says that the last family who lived here got evicted. “They trashed the place. The neighbors put up a fuss and got them kicked out. But it’ll be fixed up real nice before we move in.”

  Zora ain’t hip to Section 8, so she asks all kinds of questions. By the time we get to her house, Momma’s still trying to set her straight.<
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  “Section Eight is the government’s way of making it possible for people, poor people like us, to move into nice places at cheaper rates,” Momma explains. “We pick out a house or apartment we like, and the government pays part of the rent every month. We pay the other part of it. A small part.”

  Momma starts to get out of the car with Zora. “You don’t have to walk me in, Miz Hill,” Zora says, trying to pull down her skirt and get out the car at the same time.

  But Momma keeps going. When she’s halfway up the front walk, she turns back to me and says, “Come on.”

  Zora looks at her, then at me. She’s as confused as I am.

  When I’m out the car, Momma says to Zora, “Your father invited us to supper.”

  That’s when it hits me. Momma and Dr. Mitchell got a thing going on between them. And, just like that, everything’s clear. Momma ain’t trying to get a house for me. She wants this house so she can get closer to Dr. Mitchell.

  Zora looks at Momma real suspicious-like when she opens the door and lets us inside.

  Dr. Mitchell is standing at the door. He reaches for Momma’s coat and kisses Zora on the cheek at the same time.

  Momma rubs her cold hands together. “Nice place,” she says.

  We all walk into the kitchen. Dr. Mitchell dumps wet, hot spaghetti into a strainer. He turns his face from the steam rushing at him. “Dinner’s in thirty minutes. You girls can go upstairs and relax in Zora’s room until we’re ready to eat,” he says.

  When we get upstairs, Zora slams her bedroom door shut behind us. Her finger is stuck in my face. “What’s up with your mother?”

  I push her finger aside and lie down on her bed. I pick up one of her old dolls and start playing with her hair. “What?” I say.

  “Why is she trying to move here to Pecan Landings, trying to make my father like her?”

  I’m sitting with the doll’s stringy hair in my lap, trying to think of something that will hurt Zora as much as she’s trying to hurt me. “My mother wouldn’t want your dad, anyhow. He’s a wimp. Dr. Wimp.” I make my hand like a microphone. “Dr. Wimp, please come to the emergency room,” I’m saying.

  “Well, at least my father is taking care of me,” Zora says, fixing her sandy eyes on me like she’s trying to beam me right back to the projects. “At least he’s not some dope addict living in a crack house someplace,” she says.

  I sit there real quiet, twisting the doll’s hair around my finger, not saying nothing.

  “Sorry,” Zora says after a few minutes. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I’m still twisting the doll’s hair around my finger, not looking Zora’s way at all.

  The whole time, I’m wondering if Zora thinks what I think: What does somebody like Dr. Mitchell want with somebody like Momma, who lives in projects . . . who comes from nowhere?

  “Your mother doesn’t really like my dad, does she?” Zora asks.

  “Not that much, I guess.”

  Zora shakes her head up and down. We are thinking the same thing. “I don’t care really,” she says. “But my mother, you know . . .”

  I rub the doll’s eyelashes. They feel like toothbrush bristles against my finger.

  “My mom and dad, they could get back together, you know,” Zora says.

  I feel sorry for Zora then. I know my mother and father ain’t never getting back together. Knowing that makes it easier. You don’t spend your time crying over something you know won’t ever happen.

  “If your parents were getting back together, I would know,” I say. “Momma tells me everything,” I say, knowing full well that things with Momma and me ain’t like they used to be. That Momma’s got secrets she don’t tell me nothing about.

  Zora says, “I don’t have nothing against your mom, for real I don’t.” She gets up when her dad calls us to dinner. “It’s just, my mom . . .” she says, taking the doll from me and putting it back on the bed. “I have to look out for my mom, you know?”

  Zora reaches her arm out to pull me up from the bed.

  I look straight at Zora. “Does your dad love your momma, Zora?” I ask.

  Zora takes a breath. “No. Not no more.”

  “But your momma still loves your dad?” I ask, heading downstairs.

  “No—I don’t know—maybe. My mom’s used to my dad. Like your mom’s used to that raggedy car of hers,” she says, straightening a picture of Martin Luther King on the wall.

  I don’t tell her that Momma would get rid of that old junker in a minute if she could afford something better.

  At dinner, Momma is talking and smiling and asking me and Zora stuff about school. The usual words that come out her mouth ain’t good enough for this place. So all her “ain’ts” are turning to “are nots.” She’s making her “y’alls” into “you all.” Tonight, every word Momma says that would just be fine in the projects gets all dressed up and made into something more dignified and elegant.

  At first, I get mad at Momma trying to act all proper. I want to say something to really embarrass her good. But then I see Dr. Mitchell handing her the creamer for her coffee. Asking if she wants some fresh Parmesan cheese for her spaghetti. Pouring her some wine in one of his fancy glasses. And looking at her like she’s special. Beautiful. The way I wish Sato would look at me. So I keep my mouth shut.

  The day before we’re supposed to go clean for Miss Neeta again, Miss Neeta calls me and says she made a mistake. She paid us too much money for cleaning her place. Losers weepers, I’m thinking. Then Miss Neeta starts talking about how she has to hold off on paying her gas bill, because her money is short. And how she can’t use her lights so she can save on electricity.

  I want to say, “Dag, you act like you gave us a thousand dollars.” But Miss Neeta’s on a fixed income. Her money is tight. I hold my tongue. “How much you want back, Miss Neeta?” I ask, hoping she will just get off the phone.

  “You girls did such a nice job,” she says. “You can keep ten, ten dollars each.”

  Ten dollars for all that work. For lugging boxes, and sniffing dust, and almost breaking my neck on top of a ladder. Ain’t no way, lady, I say in my head. Then I tell her I’ll talk it over with Ja’nae.

  When Ja’nae and I talk it through, I realize I never should have bothered mentioning it to her in the first place. Ja’nae tells her grandmother, who says we should clean Miss Neeta’s house out of the goodness of our hearts. No way. I don’t work for free. So, we give Miss Neeta fifteen dollars back and tell her we can’t clean for her no more.

  Ja’nae’s grandmother says she knows somebody else looking to hire us. I tell Ja’nae I ain’t listening to her grandmother no more. But when she says the person owns an elderly care home, and don’t mind spending money, I straighten up. “We can give your grandmother one more chance, I guess,” I say, thinking about all the money we can make.

  At school, Zora acts like she’s mad at me. She don’t invite me over to her house or nothing. I’m thinking it’s cause of my mom and her dad. I guess she don’t like what’s happening no more than I do.

  For the next few days I stay clear of Zora. But going straight home to an empty place ain’t my thing. So today I go with Mai to her folks’ food truck. It’s parked a few blocks from school. That way, her parents get kids from our school, the college crowd, and the high schoolers two blocks away. Mai is embarrassed working on that food truck. She’s got to serve food to the same kids she sits next to in class all day. And she’s got to hear them make fun of her dad’s English, or her mother’s weight.

  To make matters worse, kids is always loud mouthing her dad.

  “This ain’t the right change,” Jo Jo Miller says to Mr. Kim.

  Mr. Kim takes the money and counts it out for Jo Jo again. “Right,” he says. “Here is the quarter I owe you.”

  “Y’all always trying to get over on us,” Jo Jo says, walking away.

  Mai’s mother goes over to Mr. Kim. She rubs his back with her soft brown hands, and says something to hi
m in Korean.

  “English. Speak English!” Mai yells, rubbing her eye. “And you ain’t even Korean,” she snaps at her mom. “Why you talking that talk?”

  Mai can speak and understand Korean, too. When she was little, her dad took her and Ming to a Korean church for language lessons. But after a few weeks, the man who ran the place asked him not to bring them back. Said they didn’t fit in. After that, Mr. Kim taught them at home. Mai says he just wasted his time. She ain’t never gonna speak a word of that stuff.

  Mai’s really got an attitude, now. She puts on her headphones and turns up the music on her CD player.

  Something happens to Mai when she’s around her parents. She gets so mean.

  Mr. Kim is a proud man. A nice man. He wouldn’t hurt or cheat anybody. But the kids around here are just plain mean to him. Mai don’t treat her father no better. But she checks herself when she’s around Ming, cause he don’t play that.

  Ming got his leather coat open, and an apron hanging from his neck. He’s standing by his father. When someone orders rice and vegetables with hot sauce, or black bean sauce and noodles, like the next guy in line, Ming repeats their order in Korean. “One bibimbap and chajang mein,” he says, grabbing a piece of corn bread and a napkin and sticking it in the bag along with the order.

  “Don’t forget the collard greens. He ordered collard greens, too,” his dad says, counting out change for the man.

  Ming scoops up a big spoonful of collards and stuffs it in a cup. When Ming turns his back, I stick my finger in the pot of greens, and sneak a piece of bacon. The red pepper flakes his mom uses in the greens burn my lips.

  “One mandu,” Ming says scooping up some dumplings, “and three dak jims,” he says, heading for the chicken stew with potatoes. Next he’s taking orders for sweet-potato pie and black-eyed peas.

  Mai rolls her eyes at Ming. That’s when some kids from school walk up. Mr. Kim starts speaking in English, then ends in Korean.

  “English! English! Speak English!” Mai says again.