Dance Into Destiny

by Sherri L. Lewis

  Shara pulled back the little privacy curtain to Tangee’s room. She walked over and sat on the side of the gurney and looked at Tangee’s tear-streaked face. Lakita sat quietly in a chair next to her.

  “Well, Miss Shara, at least I don’t have to have a abortion now.” Tangee wouldn’t look at her.

  Shara smoothed Tangee’s hair back. “You okay?”

  A few tears slid down Tangee’s face, as she shook her head.

  “Are you in pain?”

  She shook her head again. “She’s gonna make me go live with my grandmother down in the country. Ain’t nothing to do and the people all dumb. All my grandmother do is make me go to church and I don’t get to have no fun.” More tears flowed down her face. “The schools ain’t no good. I’ll never get to go to college now.”

  “Maybe not, Tangee. We’ll talk to her and see—”

  Tangee sat up. “Don’t try to talk to her, Miss Shara. She don’t listen to nobody and it’ll only make things worse. She ain’t gonna change her mind. I might as well pack my bags now. Goodbye track program, goodbye college, goodbye future.”

  Shara tried to tell her that everything would be okay, but Tangee kept shaking her head. “You don’t know my momma,” was all she would say.

  The three of them sat there in silence for a while. Tangee fell asleep and Shara nodded off in the chair next to her bed.

  The nurse kept coming back to check on them. She finally said the ER was busy and they would need the room soon. Tangee was going to be discharged, so if her mother didn’t come soon, they would have to sit in the waiting area. Tangee put her clothes back on from her gym bag Lakita had grabbed before they left the church.

  As they were about to leave, the curtain flew back. Ms. Madison came in, still in her housekeeping uniform. “Tangee! If I didn’t think the people in this hospital would call Child Protective Services on me, I’d beat your tail right here in this room. All the times we talked about this? All you had to do was come to me. We woulda got you some birth control and all this wouldn’t have happened. But you had to go sneakin’ around behind my back with one of those li’l knucklehead boys.”

  Tangee burst into tears. “I’m sorry, momma. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Didn’t mean to what? Have sex? Or get caught ’cause you got pregnant? I always told you, Tangee. It only takes one time. All these years, did you ever hear anything I said?”

  “Yes, momma, I’m sorry, momma. I promise I’ll listen from now on, momma, whatever you say.”

  “From now on? Oh no, Miss Fast-tail, ain’t no ‘from now on’. You know what this means. You going to live with your grandma, now. Let’s see if she can do anything with you, ’cause I’m tired. You need to be down in the country to keep your li’l hot tail outta trouble. You can go to church with your grandma every day. Maybe her Jesus can do something to help you.”

  She huffed and paced around the little room, then came back to face Tangee. She was clearly oblivious to the fact that there was another patient on the other side of the curtain. “I work everyday to provide for you and this is what you do? Why ain’t you go to County? I ain’t got no insurance and I ain’t got no money for no foolishness like this. You think I go to work to pay for hospital bills for some foolishness?”

  Shara tried to come to Tangee’s defense. “Ms. Madison, I—”

  Ms. Madison whipped around to face Shara with pure fire in her eyes. “I don’t want to hear nothing you got to say. You call yourself running a program to help these kids? Well, look like ain’t nothing you doing working.”

  She looked Shara up and down. “I don’t know who you think you are, trying to tell me how to raise my child. Have you fed her? Clothed her? Dealt with her mess? I bet you ain’t even got no kids, so what you know about raisin’ one? You one of them educated Negroes. Done read a book so now you think you can tell me how to raise my child. She probably got pregnant while she was supposed to be at your track program. Shoulda had her fast tail come home everyday like she used to, but nooo—she had to run track and Miss Shara this and Miss Shara that.”

  She turned back to Tangee. “We’ll see about that. Let’s see how much track your grandma gon’ let you run. Now git your stuff together. Let’s go.”

  Shara spoke softly, not wanting to induce another tirade. “Do you need a ride home?”

  Ms. Madison glared at Shara. “We don’t need your help no more. Don’t come around my house and don’t call. Just leave us alone.”

  Shara started to say something again, but decided against it. She walked out of the room with her shoulders sagging and head down. Lakita followed her.

  Shara turned to her. “I’ll take you home.”

  “I’m all right, Miss Shara.” Lakita held up her MARTA bus pass. “Why don’t you go on home and get some rest.”

  “No, it’s late. Anything could happen to you.”

  “Please.” Lakita put on her tough face. “You think anybody gon’ bother me?” She smiled. “Really, I’ll be all right. You go on home.”

  Shara didn’t have the energy to protest any further. She watched Lakita walk away.

  She sat on a bench in the hallway. After a few minutes, her shoulders shook silently as she cried from deep in her belly. That old feeling she had those years as a teacher resurfaced. No matter how hard she tried, it wasn’t enough. No matter how much she prayed for and loved these kids, life had a way of snatching them back into darkness and despair. Now what was going to happen to Tangee?

  Shara felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Lakita standing there with a tissue in her hand. She accepted it and wiped her face.

  Lakita barely spoke above a whisper, “It’s not your fault, Miss Shara. You do right by us.” She patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t give up on us, okay?”

  Shara nodded. They shared a silent moment and Lakita walked away again.

  Shara finally got up and walked down the long hospital corridor and out to the parking lot. The cool crispness of the March night air whipped against her cheeks. She pulled her jean jacket tighter and quickened her steps until she got to the van.

  She didn’t feel like going home. After she traded the church van for her car, she drove up to an old, large house in Grant Park, rang the doorbell and waited. She heard footsteps and saw Mother Hobbs peering through the window.

  The door opened. “Child, what are you doing here? It’s after midnight.” Mother Hobbs took one look at Shara’s face and led her into the house. She sat her down at the kitchen table.

  “What is it, child? What happened?”

  Fresh tears poured down Shara’s face as she told Mother Hobbs about the miscarriage and all the blood and how scared she had been. She told about how Tangee’s mother acted on the phone and at the hospital—how she had blamed her. “And now I’ve lost Tangee forever,” Shara sobbed.

  Mother Hobbs put her arms around her, rocking her and smoothing her hair. “My poor baby girl.” She patted her on the back. “Saving the world is hard work, huh?”

  Shara laughed a little between sniffles and accepted the napkin Mother Hobbs gave her to blow her nose.

  Mother Hobbs walked over to the kitchen counter and started fiddling with her large canisters. Shara knew she was mixing some herbs together to make one of her infamous pots of tea. Mother Hobbs hummed silently, no doubt preparing the words of wisdom Shara would need to deal with the evening’s events. Shara rested her back against the wooden chair, calmed slightly by the humming.

  A few minutes later, a medicinal fragrance of plants and flowers drifted into the air. Mother Hobbs poured two steaming cups and brought them over to the table with some shortbread cookies.

  “What happened to Tangee is not your fault. All you can do is pray that the good you put into her stays with her—that she’ll continue to dream and even with everything that’s happened, she’ll still get to go to college.”

  Shara bit into a cookie and crunched slowly. “It’s not just Tangee. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m rea
lly making any difference with any of the kids. Sure they’re doing something positive after school instead of hanging out on the street. But Tangee still got pregnant, Jamil got suspended from school last week for fighting, and if Lakita does graduate this year, her highest hope is to get a job at the mall so she can get clothes at a discount. It seems like—”

  “Shara, what are you saying? Your program has been going on for less than a year. You can’t expect everything to be better in that short period of time. You’re fighting years of negative mindsets, poverty, hopelessness—not just in the kids, but also in their parents and their parents’ parents. You’re talking years of generational curses. It’s gonna take a lot more than running after school and a little tutoring to change that.”

  “So what do we do? What hope do we have in fighting against that?”

  “We remember who we have fighting for us and in us.” Mother Hobbs stirred a large dollop of honey into her tea. Soon its sweet fragrance floated up from her cup. “The power of God is the only thing that can break those types of strongholds. Just keep praying and loving. I promise, you’ll see a change—in time.”

  Mother Hobbs mentioning praying brought that sick feeling back to Shara’s stomach. “Oh no.”

  “What?”

  She told Mother Hobbs about the feeling she got in prayer that morning and how it got progressively worse as the day went on. “And instead of stopping to pray, I sat in Starbucks eating a blueberry muffin. If I had prayed like God was trying to get me to, this might not have happened.”

  “Shara, you don’t know that. It might have been the Holy Spirit warning you about what was going to happen so you’d have the strength to face it as you did. Or maybe your brief prayer this morning was the difference between Tangee bleeding to death at home by herself versus in the bathroom where the other kids found her. You don’t know what that feeling was about.”

  Mother Hobbs rubbed her back. Shara felt more relaxed as she sipped her tea. The warm steaming mug took the chill from her fingers. “What’s in this?” she asked.

  “One of my secret recipes—Chamomile, Valerian, and St. John’s Wort. You’ll sleep good tonight. You staying?”

  Shara nodded.

  Even though she’d moved out almost four years ago, she still came over to visit Mother Hobbs on a regular basis. Often, they’d stay up talking so late Shara would go up to her old room to sleep rather than go home.

  Mother Hobbs always kept her room ready for her. Shara knew she missed her living there. Her own children had gone off to school, and then got married and started their own lives. They were all doing well, but were busy and only visited on holidays. She would never admit it, but Shara knew Mother Hobbs was lonely in that big house by herself. She had rented the room to Shara not too long after her husband passed.

  She sometimes talked about selling the house and moving into a condo, but then she wouldn’t have anywhere for her children and grandchildren to stay when they did come to visit. Plus the house had almost tripled in value since Grant Park was experiencing massive gentrification and becoming an “in” neighborhood.

  Mother Hobbs got up from the table. “Time for bed, baby girl. Try to sleep late. You need the rest.” She glanced at the clock. “I do, too. I got my senior yoga and water aerobics classes in the morning.”

  Ever since Mr. Hobbs died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack, Mother Hobbs had made a concerted effort to exercise regularly. She even traded in her soul food for healthier fare. She planted a motherly kiss on Shara’s forehead and went upstairs.

  Shara sat for a few minutes more. She took off her shoes and padded through the house admiring the decorative crown molding, rich, brown hardwood floors, high ceilings and oversized rooms. The toasty beige paint added warmth to each room. Mother Hobbs’ antique furniture fit the house perfectly.

  Shara tipped up the stairs and into her room. It didn’t take her long to rummage through the drawer of clothes she kept at Mother Hobbs to find some pajamas. She climbed up onto the antique four-poster bed, pulled up the comforter and lay staring at the ceiling. She felt relaxed from the tea, but still had trouble falling asleep. After tossing and turning for a while, she decided to pray.

  Please, God, tell me what to do. I know You love these kids. I know You gave me a heart for them for a reason. Please help me to help them. I’m getting discouraged. I feel like nothing is helping. Help, God.

  She lay praying and thinking about the kids for a few minutes. If what she was doing wasn’t enough, then they needed to do more. She thought about all the ideas she’d had over the past year while working with the kids. Every time a problem or situation arose, it seemed like God gave her an idea for a program that would be a solution. As she continued to pray, God brought the ideas back to her remembrance.

  She wanted to start a mentoring program to pair young people with adults in the church to shadow them in their careers. Many of the kids had not given much thought to their future. Some didn’t realize that they should. Those who did have dreams never imagined they’d ever be able to achieve them. If they got to shadow someone doing what they dreamed, perhaps it wouldn’t seem so unattainable.

  She also wanted to do some sort of music program. She knew kids involved in the performing arts tended to do better in school and were more likely to go to college. Maybe they could even start a dance and theatre program.

  Shara also wanted to throw Christian youth parties. Many kids thought when they got saved, they had to give up parties, music and dancing. She definitely felt like she missed out on those things when she was young.

  Then she wanted to do a computer training class. None of the kids had computers in their homes, although they had PlayStation or Nintendo. Many of them didn’t even have access to computers in school. Shara didn’t understand how in the same school district, some schools could have a computer for each child, and others only had outdated computers in the library.

  She also knew it would be important to get their parents involved at some point. It wouldn’t do much good to make all these changes with the kids and then have them still go home to the same living environment. She wanted to do parenting programs and job training and . . .

  She got excited thinking about it all. She couldn’t wait to finish school so she could write grants and get funding to build the programs.

  Shara thought about a sermon Pastor Kendrick preached recently about writing the vision down and making it plain. She sat up and turned on the little lamp on the nightstand beside her bed. Moving over to sit at the desk, she pulled a notebook out of her book bag to jot some of the ideas down. After she had written down everything that had poured into her spirit, she climbed back into bed filled with a strange sense of peace and hope. She would have to trust God that these were His ideas and that He would bring them to pass in time.

  Chapter Nine

  Keeva looked at the large silver clock on her wall. It was 11:30 am. She and Shara had agreed to meet at 11:00 to work on their project. She hoped Shara didn’t forget.

  Keeva was about to pick up the phone when the buzzer rang. She buzzed the downstairs lock, and after a few minutes, opened the door to find Shara out of breath with her hair flying all over her head worse than usual.

  “Sorry I’m late. I had major drama last night and ended up not falling asleep until about three in the morning. So, of course, I overslept,” Shara said.

  “Don’t worry about it. Come on in.” Keeva said.

  “Your apartment is great. I love the big windows and high ceilings.” Shara looked around as Keeva led her to the dining table. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Almost four years. I love this place. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” So you’ve got to help me get an A on this project.

  “Want something to drink?” Keeva walked to the refrigerator. “I have cranberry juice.”

  “Sure, that sounds great.”

  “What happened last night?” Keeva brought over two large glasses and sat down across f
rom Shara.

  As Shara described the events of her evening, Keeva’s eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped. “Are you serious? How did you handle all that blood? I can’t believe you kept a clear enough head to get her to the hospital. I probably would have fainted the minute I walked into the bathroom!”

  “It wasn’t so much the blood, although the blood did bother me. More than anything, what upset me was the feeling of loss for Tangee’s future. She has so much promise and potential. I’m afraid she’ll never get to become all the things she had learned to dream about.”

  Shara took a long sip of cranberry juice then set her glass down on the table. “If you take away someone’s dreams, you might as well kill them. Without some sense of purpose and destiny and some hope for achieving it, what do you have? You know?”

  Boy, do I . . . Keeva thought. In those few words, Shara had summed up everything that was wrong with her. The phone rang, pulling Keeva from her thoughts. She hurried to the kitchen to get it. “Hello?”

  She rolled her eyes, but said sweetly, “Honey, I told you I had a study group today. Remember the project I told you about?”

  She pulled her hair while listening to Mark rant. “I know, honey, but I have to get this done. I have to work with other people’s schedules too. It’s not that I’m . . . I understand honey, but . . .”

  She held the phone away from her ear. “Yes, dear . . . yes, honey . . . Okay, I’ll call you as soon as I’m finished.”

  She hung up the phone and stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, taking a few deep breaths. She put her smile back on and walked back into the dining area where Shara was bent over her notebook.

  “Sorry about that. I guess we should go ahead and get started. Looks like I have plans later this evening,” Keeva said tightly.

  Keeva saw the look on Shara’s face and felt the need to explain. “My boyfriend . . . he’s a great guy. I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with him lately and—”