Far removed from the glitz and glamour of Austin and Houston high-rises, Dawn Wright slid her time card into a mechanical clock and exhaled pleasantly when the device stamped four digits on it with an audible CHUNK; indicating she was finally free to leave for the day.
“You out?”
Dawn turned to find her friend Rosalie watching her from the counter.
“Yeah, finally,” Dawn said. “I was supposed to be gone at five.”
Both girls could see clearly through the store’s front windows, and the lack of sunlight in the parking lot was a clear indication that 5 p.m. had come and gone a couple of hours ago.
“I’m sorry you had to stay late,” Rosalie said. “We’re supposed to be getting another girl in here pretty soon.”
“Yeah, right,” Dawn said. She went to the counter and removed her purse from the shelf under the cash register. “Ain’t nobody gon’ take a job here for what Mr. Le is offering—especially when they find out how shady he is with the overtime.”
Rosalie’s eyes widened, and she looked around in mock fret. “Girl, you’d better watch it. You know he’s still here, right?”
“You know I’se just kidding,” Dawn said in her best southern Negro voice. “I wouldn’t never talk bad about Massah Le. Nuh-uhn. Not me. You know I gots better sense than that!”
The girls laughed even though the subject matter was rather serious, and Dawn had come to understand that some of the things that went on at the cleaners were downright illegal. Their boss, Mr. Jin Le, was a hardworking man who had migrated to the United States four years ago after fleeing his oppressive Chinese homeland.
Given the newfound liberties and freedom he enjoyed in the great US of A, one would think Mr. Le would shy away from the brutal customs he learned as a child, but this was not the case. Mr. Le owned four dry cleaning businesses in Overbrook Meadows, and he ran all of them with an iron fist. Not only did he not pay overtime when his employees worked more than forty hours, but Mr. Le would fire anyone who complained about it too often.
“You’re crazy,” Rosalie said. She yawned and swiveled her head from side to side. Dawn heard her neck pop from six feet away.
“Damn, you all right?” she asked. “Sound like you broke something.”
“I’m just tired,” Rosalie said, rubbing the back of her collar. She gave her friend a robust smile, but Dawn saw the stress and fatigue in her eyes.
Rosalie was a young girl, just twenty-three years old, but she was already burdened with four young children, no education past the eighth grade, and an absentee husband currently serving twelve years for drug trafficking. Rosalie was petite and attractive. Most people wouldn’t know how bad life treated her unless they looked deeply into her eyes. Rosalie’s bright smile and rosy cheeks could lie to the outside world, but her gloomy orbs always told the truth.
“You gonna get some sleep tomorrow?” Dawn asked her. “You off?”
Rosalie got a chuckle out of that. “Course not. I’m closing tonight and opening up tomorrow. What about you?”
“I’ll be here bright and early, too,” Dawn said. “But I’m gon’ get some sleep tonight.”
“You and Henry ain’t doing nothing?”
Now it was Dawn’s turn to laugh. Friday night stopped being special for her a long time ago. “Yeah, right,” she said. “I can tell you what Henry’s plans are right now, and they got something to do with the TV, the remote control, and a six pack of Colt 45s—the tall cans. And if I don’t get home in time to put some food on the table, his plans prolly gon’ have something to do with going upside my head!”
Dawn snickered, but Rosalie didn’t laugh at that. In fact, her already dismal eyes became even more sullen.
“You need to hurry up and leave that asshole,” she advised. “Drop that Ike Turner like Tina did.”
“Okay…” Dawn said. “I’ma do that as soon as you see me walking around here looking like Tina.”
“Your looks don’t have nothing to do with it.”
“I’ll probably need me some of that Tina money, too,” Dawn went on.
“I make just as much as you,” Rosalie said. “And I been doing fine since Lupe got locked up. You don’t need that man.”
“Girl, you been working two jobs, ten days a week,” Dawn countered.
“It ain’t that bad.”
“Anyway, I was just kidding,” Dawn said. “You think I would stay with some man who be beating on me like that? I’m a big girl, but I ain’t desperate.”
“You not that big,” Rosalie said, but that didn’t help at all.
Anytime someone used a clarifier like “You’re not that big” or “You’re not that ugly,” it usually meant you were indeed big and ugly as hell. Besides, Dawn had perfectly good mirrors and a man who spoke his mind at home. She didn’t need anyone else to point out how overweight she was.
Always a chubby girl, Dawn’s weight issues came to the forefront in high school, where she struggled to maintain a size nine until graduation. That was ten years and two babies ago. Since then, her dress size blossomed to a meaty 18W.
Her only saving grace was that even with the added pounds, Dawn still considered herself pretty. Her skin was dark like molasses. She wore her shoulder-length hair in a ponytail on most days. Dawn thought her chubby cheeks made her look like a cherub. And she liked her full lips that could easily suck the meat off a chicken bone—or any other bone she was inclined to put into her mouth.
Plus her breasts were so big, she could really use a reduction surgery. And her ass and thighs were still desirable to the many brothers out there who liked a gal with a good deal of junk in her trunk. Dawn’s current boyfriend was apparently not one of those guys, but such is life. If everything fell in place perfectly for her, Dawn would be suspicious rather than grateful for the change.
She threw her purse over her shoulder and bid her friend adieu as she headed for the front door. “See you tomorrow, girl.”
“All right, you take it easy,” Rosalie said, but Dawn stopped short after a couple of steps.
“Oh, crap. I almost forgot those uniforms.” She went back behind the counter and scanned the garment bags on the clean rack.
“What uniforms?” Rosalie asked.
“I brought Henry’s work uniforms with me today,” Dawn explained. “I put them on the counter right here…” She pointed to an empty space to the right of the register.
“Oh, those gray uniforms?” Rosalie said. “I saw Irma take them back before she left.”
“Well, where are they?” Dawn asked. She pushed a button to make the hangers on the clean rack circulate slowly. The machine had a mechanical growl that sounded too much like work. Dawn couldn’t wait to get out of that place.
“I don’t know,” Rosalie said. She began to look around as well. “Didn’t you wash them?”
“I never did see them,” Dawn said, her eyes still on the plastic bags. “I thought one of y’all got them.”
“I didn’t do them,” Rosalie said definitively. “But I know I saw Irma take them back.”
Dawn frowned, and the two ladies watched the circulating hangers together. The clean rack was over forty feet long, and it took a while for every garment to pass before their eyes. When they started seeing duplicates, Dawn let go of the button and shook her head.
“I saw Irma take them,” Rosalie said again. Unfortunately Irma had been gone since three, so there was no way to ask her about it.
“I wonder what she did with them,” Dawn mused. She headed towards the back of the store with Rosalie on her heels. The farther into the maze of machinery and laundry they went, the stronger the smell of the dry cleaning chemicals became. The ladies found Henry’s uniforms on a table next to one of the pressing machines.
“Aw, hell.”
Dawn hoped against hope that they were clean, just not bagged yet, but she could tell from a few feet away they were still as dirty as when she brought them in.
“That’s them?” Rosalie asked.
“Yeah.” Dawn held one of the uniforms up and studied the dark stains on the chest and knee areas, her heart and posture sinking by degrees.
“I’m sorry,” Rosalie said. “I thought she–”
“It’s not your fault,” Dawn said. “You were working the register. I should’ve checked on them way before now.”
“I told her not to clean.”
Both girls turned and were startled to see their boss standing behind them. Mr. Le was a short man with thick, black hair and a pencil-thin moustache. He wore gray slacks with a white button-down and black sneakers.
“What are you talking about?” Dawn asked him.
“You bring your clothes from home too much,” Mr. Le explained. His accent was thick, but totally understandable. “You never make receipt,” he went on. “I know you don’t pay.”
Dawn’s mouth fell open. This man’s greed never ceased to amaze her.
“Everybody brings clothes from home,” she said.
“From now on, everybody pay!” Mr. Le snapped. “Uniforms seven dollar each. You pay thirty-five dollar, then you can clean.” The little man had the nerve to look her dead in the eyes.
Dawn’s blood went from lukewarm to boiling in 0.2 seconds, and the whole building exploded in a flash of bright red. Her nostrils flared like a bull’s, and she advanced on her boss before better sense could stop her.
“How you gon’ charge me for these uniforms after all the crap I put up with around here?”
Mr. Le stood his ground, even though Dawn was nearly twice his size. “Everybody pay!” he repeated.
“Well how come you not paying for all this damned overtime we working?”
“Dawn!” Rosalie stepped between them and tried to push her friend away.
“You don’t like it, you quit!” Mr. Le shouted. “Nobody make you stay!”
“Man, I’ma–” Dawn grabbed hold of Rosalie’s shoulders. She was half a second from tossing her friend to the side and giving Mr. Le a letter of resignation he would never forget, but Rosalie said something that took all of the fight out of her in the blink of an eye.
“Stop, Dawn! You need this job. Think about your kids!”
Her words cut like a knife, and the fire behind Dawn’s pupils was replaced with snapshots of her two young boys. How could she forget about Tim and Luther when they were the only reason she came to this hellhole day after day?
Dawn looked around the shop, seeing things with her physical eyes rather than her emotional ones, and embarrassment washed over her like a cold shower. She unhanded her friend and lowered her gaze.
“I’m, I’m sorry, Mr. Le.”
The shop owner expressed no fear throughout the whole episode, and he didn’t look angry now that it was all over. “You quit, or you still work here?”
Dawn almost choked on a throat full of humble pie, but she managed to say, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. I don’t quit. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” She reached for her boyfriend’s uniforms, and Mr. Le turned to go back to his office.
“You can leave them there,” he called over his shoulder. “I give you discount. Three dollars each.”
Dawn knew that was the closest he would ever come to apologizing. Plus three dollars to dry-clean a work uniform wasn’t a bad deal at all, but still tears began to stream down her face. She left the uniforms where they were and hurried to leave the cramped shop.
“I can give you fifteen dollars,” Rosalie called after her, but Dawn didn’t stop or acknowledge the gesture. Money was always a problem, but finances weren’t Dawn’s main concern at that moment.
The fact was Henry had to work tomorrow morning, and he needed his uniforms back tonight. There would be hell to pay if he didn’t have them. Dawn said her relationship with Henry was nothing like Ike and Tina Turner’s, but it was a lot more similar than Rosalie would ever know. It was a lot more similar than anyone in Dawn’s life ever dared to imagine.
***
Fifteen minutes later Dawn parked her two-toned Ford Festiva in front of her mother’s house on the east side of town. Her boys were usually glued to the television or out back playing with their grandmother’s chow/poodle mix, but both Tim and Luther emerged from the front door before Dawn made it out of her car. She continued up the walkway so she could give her mama a big hug and kiss for the day, which was usually the only payment she could offer for the babysitting services.
“What’s going on?” Dawn asked her sons. “Why y’all in such a hurry to get home?”
“I don’t like it here,” Tim said.
“Tim got in a fight,” Luther said, offering a better version of the truth.
Dawn’s boys were born within a year and a half of each other. Eight-year-old Tim was smart and skinny. He had almond brown skin, like his daddy, and long arms and legs that grew out of his school clothes like clockwork, always three months before the school year ended. Seven-year-old Luther was short and silly. He had chestnut-colored skin, like his daddy, and Dawn never had to worry about him wearing out his clothes in the middle of the school year. Most of Luther’s clothes were hand-me-downs from his big brother, and they were already pretty worn to begin with.
Dawn had enough stress in her life, but she always tried to be attentive to her children’s needs.
“A fight with who?” she asked.
“It’s these boys down the street,” Luther reported. “They was throwing rocks at us.”
“Throwing rocks? For what?”
“They always–”
“No,” Dawn cut her younger child off. “I want to hear it from you,” she said to Tim.
Tim looked away, and Dawn saw that he had a slight bruise in the corner of his mouth. She reached for it, her heart melting like butter.
“They always talking about us,” Tim said. He kept his hands to his sides and allowed his mother to inspect the wound. “They make fun of us ’cause we can’t get a haircut, and our shoes come from Wayless.”
The bruise wasn’t that bad, but Dawn saw that her son’s hair was noticeably kinky. Luther’s was, too. If she could afford ten dollars apiece, Dawn would take them to the barber every Saturday, but it was hard enough to pull that off during the school year. Haircuts became even less of a priority during the summertime.
“They hit you with a rock?” Dawn asked.
Tim shook his head.
“They was throwing them for a long time,” Luther offered.
“I told them to stop, but they wouldn’t,” Tim said.
“Why didn’t you just go in the house?” Dawn asked.
Tim couldn’t answer that, but his expression told the whole story: It’s a lot easier to talk about turning the other cheek than actually doing it in the heat of the moment.
“They woulda still been there when went outside later,” Luther deduced.
“That’s still no excuse for fighting,” Dawn said, but she rubbed Tim’s shoulder and ran comforting fingers through his nappy hair. She knew this nurturing was giving him conflicting signals, but that’s the way Dawn was raised, and she still didn’t know any better. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes it’s okay for a boy to raise his fists in anger. Defending yourself from a shower of rocks sounded like as good a reason as any.
“Hey, Dawn. I thought I heard you pull up.”
Dawn looked up and saw her mother standing in the doorway. Virginia was the strongest woman Dawn knew even though she was struggling with a debilitating illness that left her physically weak most of the time.
“Hey, Mama. You doing all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, child. We had a little mess up the street earlier,” the older woman said, “but everything’s okay now.”
“They was just telling me about it,” Dawn said. She continued up the steps and gave her mom a soft kiss on the jaw. “Do you know those boys who was throwing rocks?”
“I know their mama,” Virginia said. “She work at the post office; she ain’t there most of the time. She buy them boys whatever they want, and they ain’t got enough sense to be happy with the blessing. They’d rather run around making fun of everybody who ain’t got a lot.”
“I told Tim not to be fighting over here,” Dawn said. “Is everything all right now, or do I need to go down there and talk to their mama?”
“It’s all right, child,” Virginia said. “Just boys being boys.”
“I’ma buy some hair clippers,” Dawn said, “so I can cut their hair at home from now on.” She rubbed the top of Luther’s head, and he looked up at her with a smile.
“You don’t know how to cut hair,” he guessed.
“I can learn,” Dawn said with a grin.
“Why don’t you see if Henry can cut it?” Virginia suggested.
Her comment changed the mood on the porch immediately. Dawn’s smile slipped away, and the boys looked down at their Wayless sneakers.
Dawn knew Henry wouldn’t be comfortable with the closeness required for the haircuts, but it was her sons’ reactions that really hurt her. She used to think the boys were apprehensive about Henry because he didn’t father either of them, but deep inside she knew it was something more than that.
“Well, I’m sure you could learn to do it,” Virginia backtracked, and then she wisely changed the subject. “Baby, I made some chicken for dinner tonight. Do you want to take some home so you don’t have to cook? It’s already dark; I know you’re tired and don’t feel like fooling around in that kitchen. I got some corn and green beans, too…”
Dawn’s smile came back. “Thanks, Mama. That sounds real good.”
“Come on in here and fix you a couple of plates.” Virginia held the door open for her, and Dawn followed her inside, loving the homey feel of the place.
***
Twenty minutes later Dawn arrived at her home in a relatively quiet neighborhood known as Berry Hill. It was after eight by then, and her back and feet were killing her. Dawn wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and close her mind to everything until daybreak, but Henry’s truck squatted like a gargoyle in the driveway, and she knew her day of servitude was not yet over.
Dawn never had the greatest luck with men, but sometimes she thought she hit the absolute bottom of the barrel with her current boyfriend. Henry Turpin currently worked as a mechanic, but he was a jack of all trades. When Dawn first met him, Henry was a self-employed house painter. He dabbled in landscaping during the summertime, and last year he worked as a handyman for a struggling apartment complex.
His hard work ethic was one of the main things that attracted Dawn to him, but Henry wasn’t a bad-looking fellow. He had a thick goatee and bushy eyebrows that blended well with his coal black skin. Henry kept a full head of hair. It was usually styled somewhere between a shag and an afro.
Dawn’s boyfriend had a large nose and large hands. He was of average size and build—except for his big belly. Dawn used to tease him, telling him he looked about five months pregnant, but she stopped when she realized how much he didn’t like it and how important it was to show respect to the head of the house.
Henry didn’t have a sense of humor at all, but that wasn’t what made Dawn think about leaving him on almost a daily basis. It wasn’t his short temper, and it wasn’t his controlling nature, either.
The thing that gave Dawn the most grief was how Henry responded to her kids—but then again, Dawn knew she couldn’t really fault him for that. There weren’t too many men out there who were willing to raise two boys that weren’t his, and contrary to whatever child-rearing books got published, Dawn believed her sons needed to grow up with a father figure in the house. That was almost non-negotiable.
Inside, Dawn found her man in his usual spot: Henry had an old, green recliner that was officially his chair. The soft cushions had molded to the contours of his body over the years, and even if someone dared to take a seat on his throne, they wouldn’t be comfortable on it.
Henry was watching his favorite program, The First 48, on their twenty-nine-inch television. Dawn entered her home quietly, and the boys didn’t make a sound, either.
“Why you just now getting home?” Henry asked without looking away from the television.
Dawn paused in the living room, but Tim and Luther hurried to their room.
“I had to work late,” she said. “I already have dinner, though. My mama made fried chicken. I got some green beans and corn, too…”
Henry wore a dingy wife beater with faded Dickey pants. His hair was soiled and packed down in the back from lying under cars all day.
“I don’t want no greasy-ass chicken,” he said. “Yo mama can’t cook. That shit gon’ give me the runs.”
Dawn’s face burned. She was cool with him complaining about her, but she couldn’t stand it when he said mean things about her mother. “I can, I can make you something else if you want.”
Henry looked up at her with a long stare that spoke volumes: You failed me, woman. Every day I give you another chance, and every day you let me down again.
“Just hurry up and fix me a plate,” he growled. “I ain’t got time for you to make nothing else. It’s too damned late. I wanna go to bed.”
“Okay, baby.”
“Hurry up!”
Dawn rushed to the kitchen thinking that wasn’t so bad. It definitely could have been worse. Sometimes you have to count your victories one incident at a time.
***
Henry didn’t remember his work uniforms until halfway through dinner. Dawn could tell he was very upset about it, but he never let his anger get the best of him in front of the boys. He only asked a few questions, and Dawn tried to placate him as best she could.
“Why you didn’t pay for ’em when he said he was charging you?”
“He didn’t tell me until I was on my way out. It was too late by then; they were already closing up. Plus I don’t have no money.”
“Why you didn’t check on them before that? Better yet, why you ain’t wash ’em yourself?”
“I wasn’t running the washers today,” Dawn explained. “Another girl was doing it, and I thought she had done your uniforms.”
“What the hell am I supposed to wear to work tomorrow?” Henry wanted to know. “The same dirty-ass shit I had on today?”
“You still have another uniform in the closet,” Dawn reminded him. “I saw it this morning.”
“I can’t fit that uniform,” Henry said calmly. “That’s why it’s been sitting in the closet this long. Have you ever seen me wearing it?”
“I, I don’t know,” Dawn said. “They all look the same to me.”
“You can’t do nothing right,” Henry decided. “Gon’ have me at work tomorrow looking like a goddamned fool… Got me eating this nasty-ass chicken…” He looked down at his plate in disgust. “You worthless. I don’t know why I put up with this shit.”
That wasn’t a question, so Dawn felt no need to reply. Plus Tim and Luther were watching the argument like a tennis match, and there was no need to put them through any more of that.
They ate the rest of their meal in silence, and the boys retreated to their room when they were done. Henry cleaned his plate and let out a huge belch on his way back to his favorite recliner. Dawn cleared the table by herself and got started on the dishes, still wearing the jeans and tee shirt she put on for work fifteen hours ago.
Henry’s remarks swirled around her head like the swirling soap bubbles in the sink, and once again Dawn decided things didn’t go too badly. At least Henry didn’t raise his voice during the berating, and he didn’t put his hands on her, either. The boys didn’t look too happy about what they saw, but Dawn blamed herself for that. If she did better, Henry wouldn’t get upset so much.
That was simple cause and effect.
***
When the phone rang at eight fifty-nine, Dawn had no idea who it could be. She didn’t have any friends who might want to chit-chat at that hour, and it was the middle of summer, so it couldn’t have been any pissed off teachers either. Dawn took the call in the kitchen. She leaned against the counter just as Henry appeared in the doorway.
“Hello?”
“Hello? May I speak to Dawn?”
It was a woman’s voice she didn’t recognize. Henry’s eyes asked Who the hell is that? Dawn’s expression told him she had no idea.
“This, this is me,” she said.
“This is Dawn?” the caller asked. “Dawn Wright?”
“Uh, yeah,” Dawn said, now wondering if she’d unwittingly revealed herself to a bill collector.
“Well goddamn!” another voice on the line said. This one was a female also. “Yo ass ain’t never left the city, but you were the hardest one to find.”
Dawn did recognize the second voice, vaguely, but she still wore a mask of confusion.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me,” the second voice said. “This is Mona Pratt. I got Rene on the line, too…”
“Hey, Dawn! What’s going on?” Rene said.
Dawn’s mouth fell open, and her heart nearly climbed up her throat. The hairs stood on her arms, and she felt like she was thrust into a time warp. She heard school bells and clanging lockers. She saw glimpses of beautiful teenagers that used to be her best friends. “Oh, my God,” was all she could manage.
“Ha ha!” Mona laughed. “I bet you never thought you’d hear from us again!”
“It took forever to find you!” Rene added. “Where you been, girl? It’s like you fell off the face of the earth!”
“I, I been here,” Dawn said. “Y’all the ones who left. I, I been right here…”
Dawn’s smile was laced with wonder, and Henry’s frown grew steadily. Dawn put a hand over the receiver and whispered, “It’s my friends from high school!”
But that assertion only made Henry narrow his eyes in addition to his bulldog scowl. He continued to eavesdrop in the doorway, but not even his insecurities could spoil Dawn’s joy at that moment.
“Where y’all been?” she asked.
“I’m in Austin,” Mona said.
“H-Town, baby,” Rene replied.
“But we coming back to the ’Brook in a couple of weeks!” Mona announced.
“Really?” Dawn could hardly contain her elation. “What for?”
“You didn’t hear about the reunion?” Rene asked.
“No,” Dawn said. She looked up at Henry because he brought the mail in most of the time, but she had no intention of asking him about it.
“How you not gon’ know about it when you still live in the same damned city?” Mona wondered.
“I, I don’t know,” Dawn said. “What reunion?”
“Finley High’s having a ten year reunion,” Rene explained. “Me and Mona are coming home!”
“The Finley Sisters are gonna be back in effect!” Mona confirmed.
“Oh, my God…” Dawn’s whole body was engulfed in a calming warmth. Her head felt so light, she thought it would float away from the rest of her body.
“I know you didn’t forget about the Finley Sisters,” Rene said.
“No,” Dawn said quickly. How could she forget about the best years and the best friends she had ever known? “I could never forget about y’all. Not in a million years…”