Page 4 of Salvatore

Chapter Two

Adrianna

There’s a knock on my door. I look up to the wall of glass reinforced with wire to see Tamira Jones. At my smile, she opens the door. “Hey, Miss Aedry. You got a minute?”

I lift the file on Apollo Romero I was reviewing and set it aside. “Of course. Come in, Tamira.”

When I started working as a guidance counselor a year and a half ago, the students at James Harris High School took one look at my light skin and blue eyes and heard traces of my southern accent, and quickly sought help elsewhere. Two things worked in my favor: my patience, and the school’s limited resources. Aside from me, Miss Jalisa is the only other counselor available for an excess of thirteen hundred students, and the majority are in serious need of counseling.

Jalisa, with over a decade of experience in the Jersey City school system, hung on to her more challenging cases, but began shuffling kids my way. Among them was Tamira.

At first, Tamira was extremely tight-lipped and defensive. Like most of the kids raised in the inner city, she’s seen and experienced a dark side of life no one should ever know. She’s hard, way harder than she should be at fifteen. But she’s still a kid. And while she recognized how different we are, she also recognized I genuinely wanted to help.

She shuts the door behind her and plops down on my brown pleather couch, slipping her heavy bookbag from her shoulders and onto the industrial gray carpet. I sit beside her and cross my legs, causing the hem of my dark blue dress to brush against my shins. In one swoop, she takes me in, from my dark hair down to my tan pumps. My clothes are casual, comfortable, and very different from the tight jeans and shirt that hug and accentuate her generous curves. “You know you’re never going to get a man wearing that,” she tells me.

I smile. This isn’t the first time Tamira has inferred I need a man. I don’t bother to tell her that I don’t need one, even though it’s true. But there are moments when I really want one, despite how many have disappointed me in the past.

“Is it the shoes?” I ask, wiggling my foot.

She motions dramatically. “That’s part of it. Miss Aedry, you’re a hot woman. Hot women wear hot shoes. Get yourself a pair of red stilettos, and you’ll get yourself a man.”

I grin. “Are you saying there’s hope for me yet?”

“Yah. You just need to stop dressing like you’re going to church all the time.”

She laughs when I do. As my smile softens, so does her humor. “So how are you doing?” I ask.

Her lips tighten to a straight line before she says, “I’m pregnant.”

My heart breaks a little, but I try not to let it show. Tamira’s grades had started to improve last semester, following tutoring sessions with me after school. Just the other day, we’d met to discuss college, her hope building now that she was doing better in her classes. “Is this something you’d planned?” I ask carefully, knowing how lonely she always seems. She shakes her head slowly. “Would you want to talk about it?”

Her attention travels to the window, even though the shades are partially closed to ease the bright October sunlight. “I was out with Keon around three in the morning the other week. We had sex in his car over at Lincoln Park. The condom broke.”

The details she shares come from her trust in me, and because she’s scared. My grandma would tell her to go to church and get some morals. My mother would question what a fifteen-year-old was doing out at three in the morning having sex in a public place. And my father would point out that if she’d been taught abstinence in school, instead of being given condoms in health class, she wouldn’t be in this mess. But I was raised in the bible belt of North Carolina, and so were they. Yet, unlike me, they never left and saw how harsh the rest of the world can be.

According to her file, Tamira was raped for the first time when she was five by her mother’s boyfriend, then again at seven by the next man her mother invited into her bed. So, I don’t judge, or reprimand, or turn my back. Instead, I clutch her hand and give it a squeeze. “Aside from the condom breaking, what makes you think you’re pregnant?” I ask, keeping my voice soft.

“I was supposed to get my period last week and it didn’t come.”

“You’re still young and your cycle may not always be regular.”

She tilts her head in my direction. “You sayin’, I’m not pregnant?”

“I don’t know, Tamira. It may be too early to tell.” I release her hand and reach for the business cards I keep on my end table and pass one to her. “I think the first thing you need to do is see a medical professional. This is Autumn Stone. She’s a midwife at the clinic and a friend of mine. Call and make an appointment and ask to see Autumn specifically. If the receptionist gives you a hard time, tell her I sent you.”

“Is she nice?” she asks, keeping her attention on the card. “This lady you’re sending me to?”

“Yes,” I answer quietly.

When her dark brown eyes meet mine, it’s all I can do not to tear up. “Like you?” she asks.

“Autumn is really sweet,” I assure her, my voice splintering. “We were roommates in college.”

She nods and shoves the card in her backpack. When she meets my face again, she laughs. “Miss Aedry, you worry too much. I’m going to be fine. Me and any baby who comes along.”

It’s what she claims, but I recognize the fear behind that tough outer layer. I’m not supposed to touch my students. Given my line of work and the stories I hear, some days it takes all I have not to reach out and hug them. Today is one of those days. But I do give her hand another squeeze. “I know you’re scared, but I’m here if you need me.”

Tamira rolls her eyes, laughing, but then her resolve crumbles and the first of her tears release. I let her cry, because, for now, it’s the only way I can help her.

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