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Sitting in front of my bedroom window I watched the sun descend into the horizon, causing an array of colors to blend across the fading blue palette that was day. The bright fuchsia-colored clouds quickly swept towards the west, pushed hastily by the brisk January air. During a brief moment of drifting between thoughts, I remembered what I realized on the train to school this morning.
A homeless man came into the first car carrying a cardboard sign expressing his misfortune, a soiled old coffee cup and an unbearable stench. I just happened to be looking around at the people’s reaction to him and they were all different. Some turned their heads in the other direction, some closed their eyes and pretended not to see him, some got angry that he was there, some looked at other people for someone else to share their disgust and some threw a few coins in his cup; but none of them actually looked the man in the eyes. The reason why I found this so interesting is because the way the people responded to the homeless man is the same way most people respond to the truth.
They just don’t want to see it.
Chapter 28
ASHA
Dr. Singh is supposed to get back to me today at three o’clock with the results of my blood pregnancy test and I’m nervous as hell. At the company meeting this morning while my boss rambled, all I could think about was my distorted body draped in a long sack-like dress with an ugly floral print on it. I was horrified by the visualization and I blinked hard to squeeze it out of my mind. The suspense is killing me and I’m seriously considering running to Duane Reade’s for a pregnancy test even though I don’t really believe in over-the-counter diagnoses.
Patience is not one of my virtues and I can’t take it anymore. I jumped up from my desk, quickly grabbed my coat from the closet and bolted out the door. When I got to the store I was annoyed by the vast selection of products, so I just grabbed the one that showed the plus or minus sign.
After squeezing a couple of drops of urine in the disk in the company bathroom, I carefully carried the gadget to my office wrapped up in some toilet tissue. I placed it on the desk and sat there staring at it. The laughter outside of my office broke my concentration and just when I was about to close the door, my supervisor walked in. I froze in place.
“Excuse me, Asha, I don’t mean to disturb you but I just had to come and thank you personally for the wonderful job you did representing the company last week at the buyers’ conference. Everyone said you were quite remarkable,” he said, extending his hand in congratulations.
“Thank you, Mr. Delrossi, I appreciate that. How have you been?” I asked, shaking his cold clammy hand.
“I’ve asked you before to please call me Ralph,” he said, smiling, with his hands folded.
“All right—Ralph. How is everything?” I chuckled.
“Everything is fine, thank you. My eldest son Ted just got accepted to Yale and my wife and I are very proud of him.”
“You have reason to be. He’s a very handsome boy.” I wanted to tell Ralph that his little Yalie was boffing his assistant but it seemed like a bad idea.
“Why, thank you; good looks run in the family, you know.” He winked and smiled.
I suppressed the desire to slap my knee as I looked at his big red sweaty face and sparse gray hair slicked down over a gigantic bald spot.
“May I use your phone, please?” he asked, already motioning towards the desk.
“Sure.”
I was mortified as he moved the wad of tissue over to clear his way. As I turned my back so he wouldn’t see what must have been a real stupid look on my face, the unimaginable happened. I heard something drop on the floor and when I turned around, I could tell by his uncomfortable expression and the sheer brightness of the new shade of crimson he had turned that it was the test. Somebody just shoot me now I thought as I dived on the floor for the small plastic stick. It had managed to roll underneath the desk and I was forced to tap his leg for him to move over so I could reach it. What could he possibly be thinking as I scrounged around for a pregnancy test with my ass in the air?
When I finally came back up grasping it tightly in my right hand, he was staring out the window muttering commands on the phone to his assistant but I could tell that he was just as embarrassed as I was because he was shifting from one leg to the other. Humiliated already, I decided to go ahead and look at the damn result and I was thrilled to see the tiny minus sign emblazoned in pink on the surface. I threw it in the garbage hastily and straightened out my clothes. My stockings now had a run on the left leg that went straight up to my thigh but that was irrelevant. I walked over to my fax machine and pretended to fax someone a letter but a stupid-ass computerized voice called me out by saying loudly “No receiver, no receiver!” I turned around to see if he was looking and we locked eyes briefly. As his conversation wound down I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.
“Thank you for letting me use your phone, and I’ll see you later,” he said, smiling uneasily.
“Good-bye, Mr. Delrossi,” I said softly.
He waved without looking back and disappeared down the corridor. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. What a fool he must think I am and tacky too. Well who the fuck cares. The little stick says that I’m not pregnant!!!
When I got home I saw the red light flashing on my answering machine and I couldn’t believe it said I had twenty messages. Two of them were from Saundra and the rest were from that crazy bitch Velma. I have had enough of this shit and I’m not taking this anymore. This whole scenario has taken too much of my time already and I’ll be damned if this ghetto heifer is going to keep me where I don’t want to be. I pressed *69 to tell this stupid-ass welfare-check-gettin’ ho of a sister to leave me the hell alone or I’m going to get her fat ass arrested.
“Hello?” a little voice answered.
“May I speak to Velma please?”
“Hol’ on,” she said, dropping the phone to the ground. I flinched from the sound of the impact. “Mama! Mama!” I heard Alize frantically calling in the background.
“What!” I heard Velma ask.
“Some white lady’s on the phone, she wants to talk to you.”
White lady? I thought to myself. This poor girl hardly hears proper English so she thinks I’m white. How unfortunate.
