HE LEFT TOWN for two weeks. Bet I called him a hundred times. He never picked up. “I missed you,” I say. “Can’t you … take us next time?” I look at Cricket. “She won’t be no bother.” Maybe he didn’t hear me. ’Cause he act like he didn’t. He says he knows I need my hair done, my nails. “I have a woman friend at another shop.”

I write down the address. Think about Maleeka. She got no time for fun at her school. She had to study all last week, and take a bunch of tests, so we ain’t talked much. She gave me homework before she disappeared. I never did it. Haven’t even colored. Mostly, I been thinking about Anthony and what I done wrong. I always screw up, JuJu say. I wanna do better. Gotta.

His voice is smooth as sixty-dollar Scotch. “When you get there ask for Lilly. Tell her to put it on my tab.” And he’s a gentleman. He ask my permission to discuss the way I dress. He don’t mean to be offensive, he say, “But you could use some new clothes. Outfits that show off your figure and how mature and sophisticated you are.” Before I open my mouth, he says, “I’m speaking like your father, your daddy.”

“Thank you, Anthony.” He so good to me, I got no words.

He know a Asian woman at another shop not far from the nail salon. He’ll pay for me to get my hair done too. “If I don’t look out for you, Char, who will?”

“Nobody, Anthony. Only you.”

I think about Maleeka coming and going whenever she want. About my sister still mad at me, Miss Saunders who never cared. Cradling Cricket in my arms, I whisper in her ear, “I can’t do everything. I need somebody grown to help me. Anthony’s willing. There’s worse people in the world.”