Kiss the Girl (30 page)

“Darryl!” she said, grabbing both his hands in hers as a pre-emptive strike.  “I was hoping you’d be here.”  She turned to Missy.  “I want you to talk to Mama Mel first, but Darryl here is one of Anacostia’s success stories.  In a neighborhood where more than half the adults are out of work, and young black men have a greater chance of being shot than graduating from high school, Darryl has both a diploma and a job.”

Missy smiled warmly at him.  “You must be an exceptional young man.”

“Yeah, baby, I got it where it counts.”

Nixie gripped his hands with a desperate strength.  “
Ow
.”  He frowned at her.  “You’re crushing my hands, girl.”

“Oh.”  Nixie didn’t release her hold on him.  “Sorry.”

Missy said, “I’m looking forward to our chat.”

Darryl’s eyes went unfocused, as if Missy’s dazzling charm were a sudden blow to the head. 

Nixie put herself into his line of sight.  “You’re going to represent the neighborhood, Darryl. 
On live TV
.  Be...
good
.  You understand?”

“
I’m always good, baby
.”  He beamed foolishly at Nixie.  “I’ll be right here,” he told Missy.

Nixie sighed and started across the room again. 

“What should I know about Darryl?” Missy asked.  Nixie could hear the distinctive tippy-tap of the woman almost trotting in those punishingly high heels.  She’d never understood how women did that.

“Good kid,” Nixie said.  “Not bright.  Tendency to flash his junk.”

“Seriously?”

“Unfortunately, yes
.”

“Okay.”  Missy turned to her camera man.  “Run tape on the kid.  Nothing live.”

“Got it.”

They arrived in front of Mama Mel who snoozed in her usual corner of the waiting room, her kids parked around in her various states of wakefulness.  The older ones slouched in the puke-colored chairs, plugged into their cell phones and headsets and iPods.  The younger ones tumbled on the floor at her
slippered
feet, where she could poke the appropriate one with a toe when his or her name was called.

“Mama Mel?”  Nixie sat in the vacant seat across the row and tapped the woman’s sharp knee through her house coat.  Her eyes opened a slit and she
humphed
out a snort. 

“I
gots
a bone to pick with you, Madame Rich and Famous.”

“Yeah?”  Nixie leaned forward, elbows on knees. 

“Yeah.”  She
slid
her irritated gaze to Missy, then back to Nixie.  “T
his place was
enough
of a zoo
b
efore your famous self started hosting parties for reporters.  I got eight kids to get through their breathing treatments.  That’s a lot of time sitting here in this place.  It
used
to be quiet enough for my babies to get som
e homework done.”  She sent Dar
yl, who was telling a loud, profane story two rows over, a killing look.  “
Ain’t
nobody getting no homework done today.”

“I know,” Nixie said.  “I’m sorry, Mama Mel.  I promise things will calm down soon.  But it’s for a good cause.”

“Yeah?  What cause is that?  Getting our neighborhood idiots on TV?” 

“No, ma’am.”  Nixie drew Missy forward.  “I want you to talk to Missy Jensen.  She’s a reporter.”

Mama Mel’s
slitty
gaze moved back to Missy.  “From Channel Four.  I know.  We may be poor, Nixie, but we got TV.  How
come?”

“We’re going to raise some money for the clinic, Mama Mel.  If we raise enough, we can pay for another doctor here.  Somebody who’ll focus only on kids, particularly kids with asthma.”

“Sounds expensive.”  Mama Mel
humphed
again.  “I
ain’t
got no stories that good.”

“I think you do,” Nixie said.  “But even if you don’t, at the very least, we’ll be able to buy more nebulizers.”

“More nebulizers?”  Mama Mel’s eyes finally opened all the way.  “How many?”
“A lot.  Enough to get your kids in and out of here in thirty minutes instead of four hours.”

Mama Mel sat up, smiled at Missy.  “What you want to know, girl?”

Missy motioned to her camera man, then perched on the very edge of the chair next to Nixie’s, tucking her skirt carefully under her rear.  “Are these kids all yours?” she asked.

“
Some’s
mine, some I picked up here or there, but yeah.  The courts gave ‘
em
to me right and proper.”

“They all have asthma,” Nixie said.  “To the degree that they need breathing treatments three to four times a week.”

Missy frowned.  “But they’re not all biological relations?”

“Well, let’s see.”  Mama Mel
gazed
into the middle distance and rubbed the single whisker that poked out of her chin.  “I
gots
one brother-sister pair, and another two are cousins, but they
ain’t
related to one another, no.  I mean the cousins to the brother-sister set.  Nor none of the others.  They come to me through the foster system, see?”

“Is it unusual to see rates of asthma like this among unrelated children?” Missy asked.  Her camera man crouched in the aisle between them, getting Nixie and Mama Mel in the frame.  He’d shoot Missy’s reaction shots later. 

“Not if they living in the Wash, it
ain’t
.”  Mama Mel’s mouth worked like she was chewing something sour.

“The Wash?”

“Washburn Towers,” Nixie said.  “It’s one of the low incoming housing facilities here in Anacostia.”

“Is there a connection?  What does Washburn Towers have to do with childhood asthma?”

A hand landed on Mama Mel’s thin shoulder, and a hearty voice boomed out, “Nothing!” at the same time she said, “Everything.”

Nixie knew that hearty boom.  She knew that hand, too, its tan a calculated contrast against the white of the shirt.  But it was the cu
ffs that gave him away. 
Senator Edward
Harper
--
James
Harper
’
s
father
--
always wore his cuffs rolled back exactly once.  More than once, and you worked with your hands for a living.  Closed cuffs
--
or cuff links,
God
forbid
--
and you might as well tattoo Ivy League Intellectual on your forehead and kiss the red states goodbye.  Cuffs
rolled back only once
said
I am educated but I am not unmanned.  I could clear brush if necessary
.

Edward
stood in the aisle between Nixie and Mama Mel, his go
od side toward the camera,
his
serious smile
trained
on Missy.  She leaped to her feet, pleasure at an unexpected rating
s bump flaring in her wide brown
eyes.

“
Senator
Harper
!  What are your thoughts on the idea that living conditions in Washburn Towers are contributing to childhood asthma?”

Edward
smiled at Missy, but reached for Nixie.  He leaned down and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. 

“Nixie,
it’s been months
!
  How have you been?”

“Okay.”  She smiled grimly. 
Better since your son stopped screwing my mother across Europe
. 

“
Never thought I’d see you stirring up trouble in my neck of the woods.
”
  He smiled at her, but they both knew he wasn’t being funny.

“It’s a living.”  She smiled sweetly. 

“Now what’s this about Washburn Towers giving kids asthma?  You know that’s not true.  The government goes through a rigorous bidding process that weeds out unscrupulous contractors.  There’s not a fiber of asbestos in that building, and it’s inspected regularly.”

“Asbestos causes cancer,
Edward
, not asthma
.”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. 
“And it was freshly carpeted and painted last summer.”

“With materials so cheap they’re
outgassing
enough chemicals to keep these kids on nebulizers through college.”

“Cheap-ass carpet,” Mama Mel muttered, sticking her fists into her armpits.

Edward
put on his concerned face.  “I had no idea such a thing was even possible.”

Missy stuck her microphone in
Edward
’s face and said, “Environmental toxins have long been suspected in the link between poverty and childhood asthma.  How do you address the accusation that the government itself is responsible for poisoning these children?”

Nixie smothered a smirk.  She decided she liked Missy Jensen after all.

“That’
s a very serious charge, Ms. Johnson.”

Missy smiled.  “Jensen.”

“And I give you my word as an elected representative of the people that I will get to the bottom of it.  Children are our most precious resource, and deserve all the protection we can provide.  I believe the children are our future.”

“Teach them well, and let them lead the way,” Nixie muttered, disgusted.

Mama Mel snickered.  “Show them all the beauty they possess
insiiiiide
,” she warbled. 

Missy turned her back on a baffled
Edward
to give the camera a serious face.  “Whitney Houston couldn’t have said it better.  From Anacostia’s Free Health Clinic, this is Channel Four’
s Melissa Jensen, reporting
.”

The camera man lowered his camera.  “That’s a good feed, Missy.”

She beamed at him.  “Thanks, Mike.  You were totally on top of it, as always.  You’re going to have to wear a tux when we win our Emmy.”  He shuddered theatrically, and Missy turned to Mama Mel.  “Thanks for the interview, ma’am.  I’ll see that Mike sends you a tape.”

“That would be real nice.”

Missy shook Edward
’s hand, then Nixie’s.  “Thanks again for the opportunity,” she told Nixie, then turned to
Edward
.  “I’ll be following up with your office about the carpet at the Wash.”

“I hope you do.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” 
Her
smile
this time was less shark,
more heat.  Edward
’s own smile went sleek and self-satisfied as he watched Missy stride off on those killer heels. 

“She looks a lot bigger on TV,” Mama Mel said.