IT’S NOT LIKE I planned it. It just happened, me walking down to the first floor and leaving the building altogether with her in the room by herself. I got the right to have some time for me, I think. I been a good mother, better than her real one. Plus, she asleep, washed and changed. If I stayed with her one more minute, she and me would both be sorry.

The line to the club next door is bananas—down the block wrapped around the corner. Weed and cigarette smoke call my name. Men in fast cars call me out my name, hang out the windows with their tongues dancing, ask if I need a ride, got someplace to go, wanna hook up. I give one the finger, ignore the rest, smile inside ’cause some girls don’t get no love.

Cars pull up to the curb across the street—junkers, SUVs, Lincolns. A Subaru full of white dudes, parked. Two women walk up to the car. The lady in the room up the hall from mine waves on her way out the building. “Watch yourself out here, sugar.” Gemini stops traffic on her way across the street. Her heels, tall as light poles it seem, don’t slow her down none. Her silver pleated skirt and see-through top mean she in a car before she get to the other side. She independent, on her on, got no master, she told me once. “And I don’t bring my work home.”

There’s plenty of ways to make money, JuJu would tell me. And ways not to make money. “I taught you the best I could. Make good choices.” I don’t judge. Folks got to eat. Now that I got a baby, I see how you end up doing things you never planned.

It’s nice out, breezy, warm. The moon ain’t full, but it’s bright like a searchlight shining on us. I got on my bunny rabbit slippers and pajama bottoms. I ain’t out here long when a little kid stops me. He begging for loosies. I laugh when he get to me. Grabbing my smokes out my back pocket, I ask if his kindergarten teacher know he out here. He crack me up when he say she the one that sent him. I give him the cigarette, light it up. He see somebody he know and walk off without saying thanks.

He long gone when I start to count every person in line outside the club. They got to pay to get in, so all I’m looking at is money, dollar bills. For a hour, I stay there thinking of ways to get some of what they got. I put in an application at the one-dollar store yesterday while Cricket was napping. Went in the club too, asking if they needed someone to wash dishes, sweep up. I’m too young they say, so did the pawnshop owner. How people expect me to eat, pay rent, and buy diapers if I can’t get paid?

When I head for the boulevard, it’s ’cause I got nothing better to do. He’s there, like usual, selling water. On his island, not far from him, I smile. He can’t help but check me out. I’m cute. He sweaty, making good money tonight. That’s what I want. What I need: money, lots and lots of it—like yesterday.

When he get a break, he sit in that chair, puts a book up to his face, ignores me. “You want those?” His eyes follow my finger pointing at the ground to a page full of Wendy’s coupons.

“I’ll sell ’em to you.”

“They free, ain’t they?”

“Not for you.” He laughing.

“Oh, so you got jokes.” I tell him my name, I ain’t sure why.

He says his name is Solomon. I ask his age. He’s seventeen since last month. He wanna know what school I go to. I tell him I ain’t from around here. He look over his shoulder at the Starfleet, then at me. He live with his grandmother, he says. She on Medicare. All her money goes to medicine and the mortgage. He pat his pocket. “I buy the groceries.”

Wanna buy me some? I feel like asking. But I ain’t that desperate—yet.

He asks about Cricket. I tell him I’m leaving to check on her right now. It ain’t true. I just don’t like people all up in my business. Walking away, I look over my shoulder, notice him checking me out again. Jiggling, I cross the street and almost go back inside. Only, I can’t. She might start up again, and I ain’t in the mood.

Leaning against the motel, I watch six girls walk by in red, tall heels with crisscrossed straps covered in yellow glitter. They dressed in skirts that almost ain’t. The tallest got two thick long plaits down to her belly, with silver ribbons running through ’em. The first two went to the hairdresser. Their weaves is tight. I’m wearing a baseball cap. The braids I left home with is in the trash. “Hey. What’s there to do around here at night?” I ask.

One girl pointing to the line in front the club. Another girl rolls her eyes. The last one say they going to a house party. She give the address, like I’d go dressed like this. When they far enough away, I start walking too. I’m four blocks away, across the street from a nice hotel when I finally stop. I didn’t know it was here, never seen it before. They got a doorman. A restaurant inside. People coming and going. I look at my slippers. Wonder if they’d hold it against me if I put in a application with ’em on. Then I remember the one-dollar-store man and take myself home.