CHAPTER THREE

AWE

“Let me go get Katera. This really can’t go on,” my principal said. My mouth was already wide open, but that comment practically made it drop to the ground.

“No, no, no, I can’t turn her in,” I quickly retracted, knowing the horrible fate I would cause this girl.

To think I just thought she was unsanitary. I felt like she should be ashamed of herself because she hadn’t taken a bath. Now, I was ashamed of myself because I didn’t even realize she couldn’t take one. I could only imagine where I’d be if the Sharps hadn’t taken me in. Yeah, I knew I had maternal grandparents in Europe somewhere, but they hadn’t really reached out to know me and my sister.

My dad was raised by a single mom, and she died before I was born. If not for grace, Kateras’s rough situation could be mine.

“Please, please forget I even said anything.”

“Ms. Sharp, I’m going to have to report it.”

“Report what? What do you think I said?” I questioned, thinking I could recant.

Mr. Garner frowned at me, basically wanting me to know I needed to remember. “That she stole your food.”

“No! No, I didn’t say that.”

“You said she stole food in the cafeteria.”

“Nope, didn’t see a thing,” I said as I winked for him to get that I was changing my mind.

He smiled. “So you’re saying … ”

“Exactly,” I said without him even finishing it, then I walked away. “Nothing to report!”

“I will talk to her though!” he shouted out.

Walking to class, I was all screwed up ‘cause every person who looked a little untidy, stressed, dirty, wrinkled, smelly, and worse, I wondered if they were one of the twenty homeless kids who didn’t have a place to go that was secure from the bugs, the weather, and any other dangers. It really was a thought that I had never comprehended. Sure I was angry at Stanley and Sherri, but when I saw the shelter Hugo, his mom, and his brother were in, I didn’t want any part of it. I’d rather be mad at home than have to fight life out there on my own.

I had to find her. I had to apologize. I had to help.

“Hey, it’s Katera, right?”

With a stank attitude, she said, “What do you want? I’m probably not even going to be able to come back to school thanks to you.”

“It’s all good.”

“What do you mean it’s all good? I heard what you told the principal. I ain’t have no mo’ chances with him.”

“Yeah, when he told me that, I took back what I said.”

“He told you?” she said, focusing on the wrong thing. “He’s not supposed to tell any student in this school my business.”

“No, I mean he told me that … ”

“Don’t try to make up anything.”

“Well listen, don’t get all smart and uppity when you stole food. I did see it. I did take it back, so what difference does it make what I know? I’m sorry,” I said, getting as testy with her as she was getting with me.

“You think I want your help? Thanks, but no thanks.”

I had never thought of cutting school, until that moment. The truth remained, Katera needed a bath. While my parents were at work, my sisters had more classes at school, and I had weight training next, which was a class I wasn’t interested in because I wasn’t an athlete. Since the class was filled with a whole bunch of football players, the coach wasn’t going to miss me.

“I owe you this. How about we go to my house? I get you washed up, a meal if you’d like, and we can go from there.”

“You’re taking me to your house and helping me? No, I don’t trust you. Too dang-on good to be true. Ain’t nobody trying to help me. Plus I don’t have any other clothes to change into.”

“We can wash the clothes you have, and I have some you can have.”

She stepped closer, looked me up and down and said, “Are you fruity or something?”

“You mean am I gay?” I asked her, a little insulted with how she asked me. “I’m not interested in you if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So you do like girls?”

“What does that matter, Katera? I genuinely want to help. That’s all. I’m not trying to be in the bathroom with you. Please trust me when I say I’m not at all attracted to you.”

“When I clean up, you will be.”

I just gave a quick grin and a short laugh. Then we headed out. She knew which ways to walk out so we didn’t get caught. Deep down I knew I was angry to be so reckless and defiant.

As we drove to my house, Katera was fascinated.

“You live on this side of town? Wow, I never even come over here, only heard it was upscale. You got a maid or butler? Not only are you high-yellow, but you’re rich too. You’ve got it made in life.”

“What does being high-yellow have to do with anything?” I said, admiring her pretty, dark, mocha skin.

When we got home, I forgot that our housekeeper Senora Romez was there. She started speaking to me in Spanish when I walked through the door. While I couldn’t understand everything she was saying, I knew she was asking, “Why are you home so early?” and “Who is this smelling like a stinky cat?”

“We’re working on a project,” I lied.

I didn’t want to get into the habit of lying, skipping school, and just plain old being bad, but I had to tell her something. When I took Katera to my room, she was google-eyed. She picked up the small globe on my dresser and shook it extra hard. I couldn’t help but feel like my real world was shaking too.

“This is awesome. Look at all your clothes. This furniture. I saw the picture coming in that you’ve got a bunch of sisters. How many of y’all share this room?”

“It’s mine alone.”

“What?”

“Yeah, all of us have our own bedrooms. There’re five bedrooms upstairs. I have to share a bath with my sister Shelby, and my three other sisters have to come out in the hallway to share their bath.”

“Oooh, that’s so bad. They have to come out in the hallway,” Katera mimicked. “I don’t even know why that’s bad.”

“I wasn’t trying to belittle your situation. I just was explaining mine.”

“And I shouldn’t be so quick to get angry at all you got.”

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked her, and she nodded. “How’d you get like this?”

“It was just me and my mom. She’s on drugs somewhere. When I was little, we were staying in this nice house. I thought it was ours, but turned out it was this drug dealer’s my mom was working for. When she lost all his money, smoked up all his money, gave away all his money, or whatever she did to all his money, he got pissed. He beat her almost to death. She hasn’t really been in her right mind ever since.”

“Where is she now?”

“She got locked up.”

“Isn’t there a Department of Children and Family Services where you can go?”

“I slipped through the cracks, and now that I’m eighteen, there really isn’t much they can do for me. So, I don’t like stealing, but I gotta do what I gotta do to make it.”

She took the towel and soap from my hands, went into the bathroom, and shut the door. And I thought I had problems. Nope, not really. My issues paled in comparison to hers.

I was driving with Katera in my car, and I needed to keep my eyes on the road; however, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. The transformation was amazing! It’s crazy what a little soap and water would do. For most folks, a bath makes us better, for her, it made her blossom. Before, her natural locks were so tangled up and dingy looking. Now, they were fresh and cool. I want to run a comb through them, play with them; her hair reminded me of a doll I had when I was little. Most people looked at my straight hair with admiration. I actually wished mine had some resistance.

“What? Haven’t you ever seen Trading Places?” Katera asked me.

“No, what’s that?”

“It’s a movie with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.”

“Okay, what’s it about?”

“It’s a comedy about two men. One was a bum, and one was a rich guy.”

I knew she was insinuating that that was like the two of us. However, I didn’t see anything funny in the contrast, nor did I get the correlation as to why I should care. I just looked at her.

Huffing she said, “You’re staring at me like I can’t clean up, like I couldn’t be your equal. If I had all the things you had, well, that’s the same thing that happened in the movie. The stupid men who owned everything thinking they could pull strings made a bet that if the rich guy was stripped away from everything, becoming poor would crumble him, and if the poor guy was given much and taught how to be successful, he could be sustained and remain classy.”

“They both bet that?”

“No, one thought he could and one thought he couldn’t. You should just see the movie because you’re making me uncomfortable by looking at me like I’m a freak.”

“No, I’m looking at you because you’re beautiful.”

“Exactly, that’s my point. Homeless people can be beautiful if they had the same help everybody else has,” Katera schooled.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I was still a kid myself, and so was she. I had lost my parents, and so had she. Why was I on one side of the tracks, and she was on the other? Was it fate? Was it God? Was that just the way it was? I didn’t have the answers, and I didn’t want to fuss with her. I was getting text messages that I needed to get back home because we had an appointment with my dad for a charity event.

It was now September, and with each day, there was more pressure put on our schedules to accommodate his so we could possibly help him win.

“Where am I taking you?”

“Not some place you would want to stay, but home for me. Turn right here.”

We were turning into an abandoned warehouse. I knew she didn’t have a true place to live with brick, mortar, a floor, and a ceiling. The place I was pulling up to looked condemned. I kept driving as she insisted, and when we got closer in, even on the outside of the building were little camps, tents, and make-shift structures.

These suspicious guys with gang symbols were hanging out around a couple motorcycles and a beat-up truck. One dude with a patch over his eye spotted Katera. She slouched down. I wouldn’t want to cross that crew.

“Hurry, keep going,” Katera said, confirming she wasn’t comfortable with the guy. “Park here. Come on. I need to introduce you to Momma Dee because she’s going to be mad if I don’t bring you in to say thank you. We won’t be long, and our spot is set up right when we go inside. So you won’t have to walk far. No one is going to touch your stuff, but lock your doors.”

I reached in my car to get my camera out of the glove department because what I saw was amazing. No words could describe it. Only a picture could adequately tell the story of strength in the midst of suffering. I snapped one man sleeping on a palate like he was lying on the beach with no worries. I saw another lady feeding her two children soup out of a cold can, but the kids were smiling. Then there was an elderly man who had holes in his shoes but who was still walking tall.

Katera snapped, “You really should ask people before you snap their pictures.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not going to put it on the Internet or anything. I just … I don’t know. I followed my instincts, and I really need it for a class project.”

“Who is this you have with you?” sweet, plump, Momma Dee said.

“A rich, brat who took pity on me,” Katera rudely said.

Momma Dee swatted her arm. “Oh, don’t give her a rough time. You look beautiful Katera. I sure wish I had the means to make you look like this every day.”

“I don’t need to look like this,” Katera assured her caretaker when she saw a bit of sadness in Momma Dee’s eyes. Then Katera perked up, “But I don’t want to get dirty tonight because when I get to school, people are going to be looking!”

The two of them hugged. Momma Dee twirled Katera around. They were so giddy.

I got another text message. I knew I needed to get going. The precious lady couldn’t thank me enough. I could tell Katera wanted to as well when her eyes got watery, but she was all tough and only said “bye.”

About an hour later, I was getting out of the limousine with my family, a steep contrast from the place I’d just been. I was quiet in the car. My parents thought it was because I was still mad at them, which I probably was, but I was also quiet because I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I was even more shocked when we pulled up to a similar place. We were at a soup kitchen.

Our dad prefaced our community service by saying, “Now I know you guys aren’t used to this, but our family’s got a chance to serve dinner tonight to some folks having a tough go at it. I expect you to be respectful. We’ll be about an hour, and then we’ll get going. I know you all have school tomorrow.”

I hadn’t even looked up in the car, but when we walked in and I saw a lot of the Hispanic people, I realized I was on Hugo’s side of town. Just as I thought about him, I saw him at a table giving his food to his little brother. I held Shelby’s arm and made my head nod in his direction.

“Go, talk to him. I’ll take care of Daddy.”

He didn’t know what to say when he saw me. I could tell he wanted to smile, but it also looked like he wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your dinner. I’m not following you. My family, we’re … ”

“What? Volunteering here tonight? I didn’t even know you were here. I got you.” He stood and shocked me when he said, “I’ve been over the top mean to you, and I’ve been wrong. The one good thing that was going on in my life was you. You helped me see that my doodling is art and uh, if we can be close friends again … ”

I leapt in his arms and hugged him so tight. I probably shocked everyone in there, but it didn’t matter to me. A guy who had nothing and a girl who had everything, in the eyes of the world, were not really equal. However, to me we were equal because everything to me was him, and he finally realized he was nothing without me.

“Oooh, alright now. Step back! You’re hugging my baby a little too close. Ansli, give me an introduction. Who is this young man?” my dad embarrassed me by saying.

Reluctantly, I said, “Dad this is Hugo.”

“And Hugo is?”

I didn’t know whether I could say he was my boyfriend. I thought Hugo was saying we could get back together, but I was trying not to be embarrassed in front of my dad, and I wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to tell my dad I had a boyfriend.

Rolling my eyes, I said, “A friend.”

“If I may, sir?” Hugo said, surprising me by talking in such a polite tone. “I’m Hugo Green, and Ansli and I are really good friends.”

I held my head down at that moment. Really good friends is not what I wanted him to say. But whatever.

“I don’t know if I buy ‘really good friends’ from that hug,” my dad said in a cool tone.

“Alright, well I know y’all are busy, sir, so I’m not going to keep you talking to me,” Hugo said, starting to walk away.

My dad touched his shoulder, “No, no, no. Anyone who’s a friend of my daughter and has got her interest, which I can see by her eyes you’ve got her interest, I’m interested in.”

“Well, I just don’t think I’m worthy to be her friend. I mean you’re meeting me at a soup kitchen. How do I look asking you if I can talk to your daughter?”

“It’s not where you are that impresses a father, son. It’s where you plan to go. How high you’re aiming? What kind of heart you have? What you do with your time … giving your little brother your food is honorable. I understand you’re only able to get a certain amount here so that they can feed everybody.”

I hadn’t even realized my dad saw that. I saw that too, but to know he did and was impressed made me feel good. Hugo was a good person, even if I wanted to kick him in the shin for not saying he was my boyfriend. I could see my father was helping to give him pride. His mother came over and talked to my father about her struggles, and he said he wanted to help her.

Hugo’s mom said, “I knew you were a good man. There’s something I want to show you. Hugo, give me your drawing pad.”

“No, no … I’m embarrassed. No.”

“What’s on the drawing pad?” my father asked.

I was wondering the same thing. When Hugo’s little brother handed his mom the tablet, there were so many drawings that were out of this world. Then she flipped to a page where it had, “Stanley Sharp, Mayor of Charlotte,” and it wasn’t in my father’s current logo for running for mayor, but it was one he would be able to use if he won.

“See, my son believes in you. When you win, you could license this. ‘License,’ that’s the right word, Hugo, right?” his mom asked with bright eyes and big hopes.

“He’s not interested in that, Mom. They’ve got professional people for that.”

“Well, I can’t imagine anyone creating anything better. Most things are digital, but some of the greatest designs come for sketches. You’re talented. Can I have this? I don’t want to be presumptions that I’m going to win, but right now, I’d love to buy it from you. Is two-fifty good?”

His mom was so excited. Hugo didn’t know what to say. I was thankful too. My dad wrote his mom a check. It was time for us to go after my dad met more people.

My dad stepped over the door and said, “Can I have your attention?”

There were about seventy people in the room, and I loved that there were no cameras. My dad began.

“I’m Sterling Sharp. This is my wife Sherri and our daughters. Many of you may know, but if you don’t, I’m a candidate running for may-or of this great city of Charlotte. Last time I checked, anyone who was a citizen of our great city had the opportunity to go out and vote, so I’m hoping you guys do. I’m here today because I wanted to show you that I care about who you are and what you’re going through. Life is tough and can knock us down sometimes, but as your mayor, I’ll understand that we need to help each other rise above our challenges. I’m going to put together a task force that can help people transition out of poverty. So over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be coming back. Not only to serve food, but to listen to things you think your city government can do to help. When we get all of our citizens on their feet, the taller Charlotte can stand. So, you stay encouraged. I’m a man of faith, and I believe we can handle a rough night, but joy comes in the morning. You might be going through your season, and you might not feel good where you are, but that’s alright. We’re going to put a plan together to get you back to work. Stay Sharp.”

People stood to their feet and clapped for him. Hugo was among them, and that made me feel good. It was good that my father was giving people with no hope something to hope for, but it wasn’t good when I got in the car and all of my family wanted to know what was going on with me and Hugo.

I actually couldn’t wait to see Hugo the next morning when I walked into Marks High School. I hoped he would say we were boyfriend and girlfriend again, but I couldn’t find him. Instead, the principal walked up to me.

“I’m having a meeting with the homeless kids in our school during second period, and because of what happened earlier in the week, I just felt like maybe you would want to be there and encourage them.”

“Yes, sir. Count me in.”

“Alright, I’ll get you a pass out of class. I know you’ll be able to share something encouraging.”

When I was standing before about fifteen of the twenty homeless kids, I was a little uneasy because they were looking at me like, “you’re not homeless; why are you here?” They were sizing me up like most kids do them, thinking I was cocky, had a hard heart, and didn’t really care. I wasn’t trying to look down on them, and I wanted them to know it. If only Hugo and Katera were in there to vouch for who I was, it wouldn’t be so hard, but they weren’t, and I couldn’t worry about that now because there were people in front of me whom I needed to connect with.

“I don’t even know why you’re in here, rich girl,” said this guy who sported a necklace with the name Freddie on it.

“Yeah, why should we listen to anything you have to say?” one girl said.

“Because it’s not fair that other people look away like your problems don’t matter, and I can’t speak for other people, but your problems matter to me. I know how it is to go through stuff. I’ve been living for the past fourteen years without my biological parents. I was told that they were killed when I was three, but that’s not even true. I just learned that my dad killed my mom and then killed himself. If it wasn’t for a family who took me and my little sister in, who knows where I’d be. So, I’m not standing before you because I’m perfect. I’m standing before you because I’m just as broken. If you can look at me and see someone who you think has it together, then you can be just like me, if not better. We’ve just got to help each other and figure it out.

“No one should be homeless, be hungry, and have to deal with adult problems at our age. I don’t know a lot of people, but I know some people who can help. They just need to know. So, I need you guys to tell me what’s going on so we can try to fix some of this stuff. I care. Until we get you all some better situations, I’m not going anywhere.”

It was like the people I was talking to changed. They sat up straight, and their eyes got brighter. I saw some smiles and grins, and the frowns went away. They were looking at me like they believed what I was saying finally. I was happy that they did because I was real.

Freddie said, “I just can’t believe you told us your real business. Your dad killed your mom and himself? Dang, that’s deep. Maybe you are being straight up with us. We do need some help. I’m not just believing you care like that for real, for real. I’m in awe.”