One Way or Another

by Rhonda Bowen

  “That’s amazing!” Toni screamed so loud Adam had to hold the phone away from his ear.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I know. You should see Jerome out here. He’s doing the happy dance, like he just won the lottery.”

  He could hear Toni’s laughter on the other end. “I can’t even believe this is happening, Toni,” he said. “There were times when I thought ...” He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

  “I know.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Sometimes the things we pray for seem impossible. But when God answers, it’s overwhelming.”

  He nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him. “Yeah.”

  “We have to celebrate!” she said, her voice going up several decibels again.

  He laughed. “I was thinking the same thing,” Adam said, keeping his eye on Jerome as he followed behind him to the car. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Meeting up with you guys,” Toni said cheerily.

  “All right then. I’ll call Jasmine and Trey and let you know where it will be.”

  “Okay,” Toni said. “I’m so glad things are working out.”

  “Yeah, they are,” Adam said, grinning. He wasn’t really ready to get off the phone yet. “I got some more big news too.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, this morning we got—Jerome, don’t even think about it!”

  “Huh?”

  “Uh, sorry about that, Toni,” Adam said distractedly. “I gotta go. Jerome just got in the driver’s seat and started my car.”

  She laughed. “Oh yeah, you better go then. See you later.”

  “Yeah,” Adam said, breaking into a jog as he hung up the phone. “Jerome! Get your butt out of the driver’s seat!”

  Chapter 30

  By the time Toni got to Applebee’s, where they had agreed to meet, it was seven-thirty and everyone was already there. “Sorry I’m late,” she said with a sheepish grin, once she had maneuvered through the other diners and reached the small corner of the restaurant where Jerome’s celebration was taking place.

  On the phone Jasmine had said it would only be a couple of people. But a couple seemed to have turned into about fifteen. Along with Jerome, Trey, Jasmine, and Adam, a huge chunk of the staff from the center had turned out, as well as Afrika, Camille, Rasheed, and a couple of Jerome’s other friends. They had pulled three tables together, and even then few people seemed to notice when Toni showed up.

  “What took you so long?” Jerome asked. “We been waitin’ on you to order.”

  “Yeah, girl.” Afrika smirked. “What took you so long?”

  Toni didn’t miss the way Afrika’s eyes purposefully met hers and then dropped to her dress and shoes, and back to her face.

  “I got caught up in something and time got away from me.” She sent Afrika a warning glare, telling her to behave.

  The truth was Toni had gotten caught up trying to figure out what to wear. She had gone through three different outfits before going back to the one she had picked out first. She had told herself she just wanted to look nice to celebrate an important moment for Jerome—it had nothing to do with Adam. But she wasn’t that good at lying to herself. And from the amused look on Afrika’s face, it seemed like her friend knew the real reason she was late too. Toni hoped that she wasn’t as transparent to everyone else.

  “So where do I sit?” She smiled brightly, looking around.

  “You’re over here,” Afrika said, nodding to a chair across from Camille. “On the other side of Tina.”

  “So who’s sitting there?” Toni asked, pointing to the chair beside hers, which happened to be at the end of the table.

  “Me,” Adam said, appearing from nowhere and pulling out Toni’s chair for her. “And, no, you can’t have the seat at the end.”

  “Why not?” Toni asked. “What happened to chivalry?”

  “It got tired of waiting on you and left,” Adam said, seating himself beside her. “Besides, if you sit here, you’ll have to get up every time Jasmine needs to go to the restroom.”

  “It’s true,” added Trey, who had also just returned and taken his seat at the head of the table, adjacent to Adam on one side and Jasmine on the other. “She’s already gone twice, and we’ve only been here half an hour.”

  “Okay I concede,” Toni said. “Are we ready to order?”

  Afrika laughed. “We already ordered. You’re on your own, hon.”

  “No problem,” Toni said, glancing at the menu. “I already know what I want.”

  As if hearing her, the waitress, a slim young woman with honey blond hair and eyes the color of graphite, appeared at their end of the table. Once Toni had ordered she turned to Adam. She caught him staring at her and felt her cheeks grow warm.

  “What?”

  He smiled and leaned close to her ear. “You look nice.”

  She ducked her head down to hide the instant smile that broke her lips. Three outfit changes and thirty extra minutes getting ready for one compliment from Adam. So worth it.

  “Thanks.”

  She dared a look up at him and found herself trapped in his dark chocolate orbs. They conjured up memories of Sunday mornings, Christmas treats, chocolate Easter eggs, and a lot of other things that reminded her of home.

  “Okay, so what’s the big news?” Jasmine’s voice brought Toni crashing back into the present.

  “There’s more news other than the charges for Jerome’s case being dropped?” Camille asked, looking back and forth between Toni and Adam.

  “Yeah,” Adam said, sitting up. “Thanks for reminding me. You will never believe what came in the mail this morning.”

  “A straight-A report card for Rasheed?” Sam asked, tuning in to the conversation for the first time from beside Afrika.

  Trey snorted. “He said big news, not big miracles.”

  “Hey, I heard that,” Rasheed called from the other end of the table.

  “Well, you’ll want to hear this too,” Adam said, his eyes taking in everyone at the table. “Today we got a check in the mail. You’ll never guess how much.”

  “Forty grand,” Jerome threw out.

  “One hundred K,” another one of the kids guessed.

  “Try two hundred and fifty thousand,” Adam said, grinning.

  Shrieks and cheers went up from the table as everyone started talking at once.

  Toni couldn’t believe her ears. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That was enough money to do a lot of the things that desperately needed to be done at Jacob’s House. It could transform the whole center.

  “That’s amazing, Adam!” Toni exclaimed. “Where did it come from?”

  “I don’t really know,” Adam said with a laugh. “All that came in the envelope was the check. And the sender was the Platinum Foundation. I’ve never even heard of them before.”

  “Did you look them up?” Jasmine asked.

  Adam nodded. “Nothing online that I could find. All I have is their return address, which is some random Atlanta PO box.”

  “That’s really strange,” Toni said.

  “I know,” Adam said, nodding as he looked at her. “But I prayed about it. And until God shows me differently, I am just going to take it as a gift from Him.”

  At that moment their food came, via a new waitress. They were deep in conversation on what the money could be used to do at Jacob’s House when Adam’s phone rang. Toni watched him excuse himself from the table to take the call, immediately feeling the cool absence of his presence beside her.

  Even though Camille was saying something to her, Toni couldn’t help but find her eyes drifting over to where Adam stood a few feet away from the table. His back was to her but she saw his shoulders tense. A few moments later, her curiosity was further piqued when he came back to the table and said something quietly to Trey. The subtle change in Trey’s expression was all the confirmation she needed. Something was wrong.

  “You’re leaving?” Jasmine asked, as Adam grabbed his jacket off the back of the c
hair.

  “Yeah,” he said, attempting a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I have to take care of some things. But you guys stay and finish up. Sam, can you make sure all the boys get back okay?”

  “No problem, boss,” Sam said with a nod.

  Everyone seemed content with Adam’s explanation. Everyone but Toni.

  She grabbed his wrist before he could walk away and turned questioning eyes on him. He shook his head in silent answer, but that wasn’t good enough for her either. She waited a moment before excusing herself discreetly and following him outside.

  “What’s going on?” She almost had to jog to keep up with him as he walked to the car.

  “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he threw behind him.

  “Let me decide what I want to worry about,” Toni said.

  His jaw tightened.

  “Adam.”

  He finally stopped walking and turned to face her. The frustration, anger, and defeat that played games with his features made her heart turn over. She touched his arm and his eyes shifted to some point beyond her head even as the muscles in his jaw flexed again.

  “Tarik’s in trouble,” he said after a moment.

  The face of the young man who had been on the roof with Toni and Adam flashed in Toni’s mind.

  “The police caught him trying to bum a ride across state lines,” Adam continued. “They have him in custody.”

  Toni squeezed Adam’s arm. “I’m sorry. That does kind of put a damper on the night. So you’re going to pick him up and take him back to the house?”

  Adam frowned and looked at Toni, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since they’d gotten outside. “No, Toni,” he said quietly. “I’m going to talk to the police. Tarik won’t be going back to Jacob’s House. This is his third strike. Now he goes to jail.”

  Toni’s eyes widened. “But he’s a kid.”

  “He’s nineteen,” Adam corrected. “The state considers him an adult and he will be treated that way.”

  “Oh God ... Adam, I’m so sorry. I never realized ...” Toni’s voice faltered.

  “These things happen,” Adam said. “You can take the kid out of the hood and you can show him life outside it, but sometimes. . .” He shook his head. “Sometimes it’s not enough.”

  His voice was completely devoid of emotion, and that scared Toni almost as much as the hopeless resignation sitting on his face. He turned to head back to his car but Toni grabbed his arm again.

  “Adam ...”

  “I have to go, Toni. The cops are waiting for me,” he said. But he didn’t pull out of her grasp. Toni took that as a sign and slipped her arms around him. He let her hold him for a few moments before she felt him pull back slightly.

  “This is not your fault,” she said, her hands resting gently on his tense shoulders. “I know you’re thinking it, but it’s not.”

  He didn’t even meet her eyes. “I have to go.” His voice was so low she barely heard it.

  She let go of him and watched him walk away. Then she whispered a prayer that God would protect Adam’s heart. There was only so much a man could take.

  Chapter 31

  Adam followed the custody officer down the halls of the police precinct that had over the past three years become all too familiar to him. He silently wondered how it was that his day could go from 100 to 0 in only a few moments, but that was what had come to be his life at Jacob’s House. Every high moment, every achievement, was merely the calm before the next storm. And now that he was standing in the eye again, he was wondering how far-reaching the bands of this particular catastrophe would be.

  The court officer hadn’t been interested in much of what Adam or Immanuel’s lawyer—the one who occasionally helped out Jacob’s House—had to say. Technically this had been Tarik’s fourth strike. The first time he had been caught hanging out in his old neighborhood Adam had managed to squash it and keep it off his file. But the second time, the police had been there and so there was no hiding it. First strike.

  After that it was suspension from school for fighting. Second strike. Adam remembered sitting Tarik down and explaining how serious his record was. If he got in trouble again before his term was done, there would only be one option—real jail time. Three to five in a state facility. Tarik had said he understood, but as Adam followed the custody officer into the small windowless visitors’ room, Adam began to doubt that the young man in fact had.

  “Please be reminded that you are not allowed to touch the prisoner,” the officer said as he directed Adam to a chair on one side of the single table in the room.

  “Any sudden movements will be regarded as hostile and lead to an immediate termination of the visit. A guard will be in the room at all times. Any questions?”

  Adam shook his head and sat down. A few moments later, a door on the other side of the room opened and Tarik shuffled in with restraints on his wrists and a scowl on his face. When he looked up and saw Adam, a flash of something that he suspected might be regret passed over Tarik’s features. But it was gone before Adam had time to be sure, and replaced with the default emotion for most of the boys at Jacob’s House—indifference.

  Tarik slumped into the chair across from Adam as the guard took up position at the door. The two men looked at each other for a long time, neither saying anything. Adam had questions, and yet none of them really mattered, none of them would change the current situation.

  “So what, boss? You got something to say to me, or you just wanna get one last look at my mug before they lock me up and throw away the key?”

  “I’m not your boss anymore,” Adam said.

  Tarik nodded. “Yeah, you must be glad about that.”

  Adam narrowed his eyes, trying to understand what was going on in Tarik’s head. “Why are you here, Tarik?” he asked.

  “You know why,” he said dryly. “ ’Cause five-oh picked me up.”

  “Yes, I know that part,” Adam said. “What I don’t know is why you were trying to hitch a ride out of state.”

  The young man curled his lip and shifted his eyes away from Adam.

  “You knew the rules,” Adam said. “You knew that if you ever tried to leave the state without a judge’s permission that it would be over. You knew you were down to your last strike.”

  Tarik continued to give Adam attitude.

  “I don’t understand you, man. You had what, seven months left? By this time next year you would have been free and clear.”

  Tarik shrugged. “I wasn’t feeling the Jacob’s House vibe anymore. I’m nineteen. I can’t be hanging around a bunch of kids just waitin’ for something to happen. A brother needs to live his life.”

  “How were you planning to do that?” Adam asked angrily. “Did you even think it through? Don’t you think you would have been on the police radar once they realized you had skipped the program? How were you going to live your life with a sentence hanging over you?”

  Tarik shrugged and turned cold eyes on Adam. “The same way you did.”

  Adam felt his insides turn to stone as Tarik’s words slammed into him. He blinked several times and tried to recover, but he knew everything he was feeling was all over his face.

  Tarik laughed. “What, you ain’t got nothing to say now?” he asked, sitting forward and placing his cuffed hands on the table. “I thought you had all the answers, man.”

  Adam’s mind fumbled for a response but he was still reeling.

  “You gotta admit you got a pretty sweet deal though,” Tarik continued, his eyes narrowing. “Get all you can out of your crew, but when the hustle gets too hot, and the cops get too close, just bounce. Run off to the other side of the country until things cool down. The church scene is a nice touch too. I bet that’s why they let you out so quick in B-more. I mean, you got Jesus now, so you must be really different.” Tarik laughed again, shaking his head.

  “Is that how you think it is?” Adam asked.

  “Hell yeah,” Tarik said. “You might fool them other
little niggas, but I know what’s up. And if you weren’t stupid enough to turn yourself in, none of us would ever know anyway.”

  Adam felt his jaw tense. He wanted to reach across the table and shake Tarik until he got some sense in him. Tarik thought this was a game, but it wasn’t. He had no idea how sorry Adam was for everything that he had done in his past.

  “I turned myself in because I regretted what happened and because I was tired of running from my past,” Adam said through his teeth.

  “Nah, man,” Tarik said with a shake of his head. “You turned yourself in ’cause them niggas downtown found out about you. And don’t even try to say it ain’t about that. ’Cause you had what, ten years to feel sorry ’bout what you did, but you never felt like talking to five-oh back then.”

  Adam looked down at the table. He couldn’t deny the truth there. He had had many opportunities to do the right thing, many times when God had spoken to his heart. But he had delayed, until he couldn’t delay any longer.

  “You’re right. I should have come clean before. But I didn’t. And I regret that too. I know you probably don’t believe me but it’s the truth,” Adam said.

  “But just so you know, Tarik, it was never easy for me. And if you had disappeared like you wanted to, it wouldn’t have been easy for you either. It would be day after day of trying to stay under the radar, wondering if when people looked at you too closely they were remembering you from your old life. It would be worrying every time you applied for a job that your boss would run a check on you and find out your history. It would be that tightness in your chest every time you saw red and blue lights in your rearview mirror. Even when you weren’t doing anything wrong, you would always wonder if they were coming for you.

  “That’s not living life. That’s not being free.”

  Tarik smirked. “You did it for ten years. It can’t be that bad.”

  “Two minutes,” the guard at the door said.

  “I’m sorry, Tarik,” Adam said, his brow furrowed.

  “For what?”

  “For failing you.”

  The remorse Adam had seen before flashed across Tarik’s face again, lingering only a moment longer this time than before.