Keisha started school on Monday. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. This was her ultimate chance to prove all the naysayers wrong, to move forward with her life and show the world what she could do. She was really nervous in the morning, to the point of getting snappy with me, but I didn’t take it personally. This was the first time since her sophomore year of high school that she was entering a school of any kind. I dropped her off on my way to work—she could take the bus home afterward—and texted her at lunch, asking how it was going.
Keisha: This is going to be so hard.
My stomach sank, but I responded with optimism and encouragement.
Shannon: You can do it. I know you can! Tomorrow will be better.
Tuesday wasn’t better, though, but I had high hopes for Wednesday until she came home with a list of things she needed to buy—$1,500 of equipment, makeup, and accessories! She hadn’t finished her financial aid application but had to have all her supplies by Monday.
“Maybe this is a sign that I’m not ready for this,” Keisha said, flopping onto the couch and throwing the papers into the air. They fluttered down to the ground almost poetically. She threw an arm over her eyes. “It’s just so much . . . stuff.”
I picked up the papers and sat down in the chair, smoothing them out on my lap and reading the list of supplies included in the kit: a mannequin head, pin curl clips, blow drier, ceramic straightener, brushes, combs, foils, curlers, picks, etc., etc., etc. My eyes focused on the price at the bottom of the page again. Nine hundred and fifty dollars for the complete hair startup kit. And another $600 for the required makeup kit. Holy cow. I took a deep breath, though, and schooled my expression. “It’s stuff you’ll use once you’re fully licensed though,” I pointed out. “And it says right here that it’s all top-of-line, so it will last.”
Keisha took her arm off her face. “I don’t have fifteen hundred dollars,” she whined.
“Well, how much do you have?” I’d paid off Tagg and made the first payment for her school. She had to have saved up something in the meantime.
“I only have, like, two hundred, and now I can only work evening shifts. And the course work is so hard, Shannon.”
Two hundred dollars? I wanted to ask why she only had that much, but it was her confidence and commitment I was the most worried about. “It’s always hard to start new things, but I really think this will be a good thing. You need something to focus on, something that will build a future.”
She groaned and threw her arm over her face again. I looked back at the list. “Okay, what if I buy this stuff for now, and when your financial aid comes through, you can pay me back.”
She didn’t answer right away and kept her arm over her eyes. Finally she sighed loudly. “I guess.”
It wasn’t quite the grateful answer I had hoped for, but I had to remind myself of how overwhelming my first few weeks of college were. I remembered looking over my course syllabi and thinking there was no way I could keep up. She needed a cheerleader right now, and I needed her to make this work. How else could I keep justifying all I had done? “You’re going to do great, Keisha,” I said, reaching over to shake her leg. “We’ll get the kit and you’ll get into a new groove, and eighteen months from now you’ll get a job in an awesome salon and fill your pockets with cash every day.”
She still didn’t respond. When her phone buzzed in her pocket, however, she sat right up and pulled it out, reading the text before looking up at me. “You really think so?” she said while typing a response into her phone. I didn’t know how people could carry on a verbal conversation at the same time they were texting with someone else.
“I know so,” I said, still using my cheerleader voice. “I’ll go order the kit right now.”
“Okay,” she said, putting her phone in her pocket. “I’ve got to go to work.”
“I didn’t realize you worked today,” I said as I stood along with her. She still hadn’t written her schedule on the calendar.
“Until midnight,” she said.
“That late? You have class again in the morning.”
She headed down the hall to her room. “The joys of a twenty-four–hour restaurant and being completely broke.”
Less than five minutes later she was back, dressed in her uniform with her hair pulled back and wearing more makeup than usual. “Can I take your car?”
I’d hoped to meet John and Landon at Landon’s practice tonight, but I’d expected Keisha to be going with me since her schedule wasn’t on the calendar. “Maybe I could drop you off,” I offered.
She made a face. “Then you have to pick me up at midnight. Or, well, maybe I can get a ride home from someone.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. I hated her being a burden on her coworkers, and she was already taking the bus from school, which I knew was really hard for her. I wouldn’t like taking the bus either.
“It’s fine,” I amended, heading into the kitchen. “Let me get the keys.”
After she left, I ordered her kit, having to charge it to my credit card because funds were low in our account thanks to the money I’d given her to pay off Tagg and the tuition I’d paid. I was going to have to talk to John about this one and didn’t look forward to it.
When he came home, I explained about the kit.
“I wish you’d have talked to me before you paid for everything,” John said, opening cupboards in search of something to eat. I hadn’t made dinner, and Landon was at a friend’s house. “Maybe she should have waited on school if she isn’t prepared to pay for at least part of it. Why doesn’t she have any money? She’s been working for almost a month, hasn’t she?”
I didn’t know where all her money was going either, but it wasn’t like waitresses made a ton, and she’d been out of work for a long time. I explained to him, much as I’d explained to Keisha, about how important it was for her to be working toward her future. He agreed.
“What can we do to get the financial aid stuff done?” John asked.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll talk to her about it.” Having one more thing added to my to-do list reminded me of how much other stuff was on it. I’d have suggested John help with that part if not for fear he’d look too closely at things.
“That would be good,” John said, sitting down and taking off his shoes. He looked up at me and held my eyes. “Before you put more money into her school or anything, let’s talk about it, okay? It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t have the cushion we have right now. I don’t want to blow through it.”
“Of course,” I said, but mentally I was adding up all the money I’d spent on Keisha since she got here. We’d done some shopping—she hadn’t had much of a wardrobe when she got here, at least not an appropriate one—and she’d needed makeup and things. There was the money to Tagg, tuition, the school kits, and then the twenties I handed her here and there to cover little expenses and for gas money. All told, it added up to more than $5,000, which was a shocking number. John would freak if he knew I’d put that much toward helping her get on her feet, and yet every expense was justifiable, and most of it she would be paying back. Still, I needed to rein it in. I’d ensured she got started and now she was in school, so it was the perfect time for me to pull back and let her spread her wings. And hope that John never found out the dollar figure on this investment.