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"Ms. Wade has given us a story that both captivates and alarms......This is a story well worth reading. A story of friends
bonding over soda and Oprah I felt I knew these women. Ms. Wade has
brought them to life and given us a very real peak inside the hearts and
minds of women who struggle to put food on the table, laughing and
loving each other and their children. They are any of us."
"The Women" received a great review and I must shout and dance.Go on over and read the review.
This is a sample of life on The Hill.
The very first time I came in contact with Sam, life had already beaten and humiliated me into thinking I was a worthless human being. I’d talked myself into having a very low opinion of the sorry way I was living and providing for my six-month-old daughter. We were trying to live off funds acquired before I was terminated from my job as a medical office assistant and it wasn’t working. Things were so tight I was having a hard time keeping food on the table and the bills paid. After three months of scrimping, I was just about ready to give up and move in with my mother and when my friends hooked me up with Sam.
Whenever my girlfriends and I got together for our daily ‘4:00 Bash the Stress’ sessions (which was really our way of legitimizing watching Oprah everyday), I cried on their shoulders. I’d been doing this so often they began to laugh at me as soon as I opened my mouth to complain. Each one in turn advised me to get in touch with Sam. ‘Sam is the man’ said one. ‘He could solve all of your problems’ said another. I heard them say ‘Sam could do this and Sam could do that’ so often that one day as we sat in my living room chewing on chips and watching Oprah, I found the courage to ask….
******
“Who is Sam?”
“Girlfriend…”
This was Tone’ya Knoes about to answer. Tone’ya is thirty-two years old, the encyclopedia of our group. She’s loud, assertive, and the well-informed mother of two daughters. No truer friend could be found.
With a Humph at the end of the word, she stood in front of me with her hands resting on her well-endowed hips and shook her head from side to side like a broken shutter. She snapped her fingers two times in an arch above her head and clicked her tongue to the rhythm of the snapping fingers.
“Girl, don’t you know anything? Wake up, girl.” She snapped her fingers under my nose.” Sam is the only person that can help you. He takes care of us.” She swung her arm to include the three women sitting in front of the television. “How do you think we all make it?”
“I thought you all had a ‘man’.”
They all laughed.
“Of course we do. The thing is; can we depend on them?” Tone’ya questioned with a smirk.
“No.”
All of the women shouted in unison and laughed even louder. They shared high-fives and fell all over themselves in merriment.
“How many of you here can depend on your ‘man’ to remember that you need your bills paid?” She pounded her fist in her opened palm like a frustrated lawyer making a final statement. “Food on the table, pampers on the baby’s butt and most important…money in your pockets?”
Tone’ya did the snap and arch thing again and everybody in the room cheered while laughingly bemoaning the faults of their men.
“Well, I can.” Skinny Rayne Moore, the youngest woman in the group stood next to the television and put her hands on her hips in imitation of Tone’ya.
Whoever this Sam was, I thought. It was obvious it didn’t matter to him how old or young a woman was. Rayne was just making twenty years old. She shook her shoulders, making her breast bounce heavily and gave a very seductive smile.
We continued to laugh.
“You laugh, but I know my man takes care of me.”
“Who are you talkin’ about girl?”Jenny Needs questioned. “I know you not talkin’ about that fat, sorry ass, cradle-robbin’ Shamel.”
“Honey, please.” Rayne raised her opened hand, in that talk-to-the-hand fashion, towards Jenny.”You know what Shamel is for and he’s not ‘fat’ he’s muscular.” We all snickered. “I’m talkin’ about ‘Sam’.” Rayne ignored our side comments and continued. “Sam will do me no wrong. Sam is the man. Can I get a witness?”
She raised her arms in the air and danced around as if she had gotten the Holy Spirit. Amen sister and you go girl were repeated over and over as we laughed.
“So all of you get something from Sam, huh?” I asked after the laughter stopped. “Did you all meet him at the same time?”
“No.” They all answered together.
“I hate to ask this and don’t get mad or think I’m skanky, because y’all just don’t seem the type, but do you all sleep with Sam? Cuz I’m gonna let you know right now, I’m not into ‘kinky’.” I quickly added the last so they would know where I stood. Getting help was one thing, selling my butt and odd sexual acts were another story.
“What? Are you kidding?” Jenny giggled. She pressed her hands over her mouth as if she were trying to hold in a secret. “Girl, you don’t know what you’re missing.” She looked around at the other women and began chuckling like an idiot.
“Oh my….” Frankie choked back laughter by making quick fanning motions near her eyes with the fingers of both hands, as she tried to finish her sentence. “Oh, my God we all meet at Tone’ya’s house…” Tears of merriment ran down her face. “Around midnight on the first Wednesday of each month and take turns screwing him on her kitchen table.”
Letting a loud burst of laughter erupt into the room as she finished speaking, Frankie fell backwards on the couch laughing uncontrollably. Her shoulder bumped Jenny who fell on the floor chuckling and snorting. Rayne and Tone’ya stared at me opened mouthed, before they too started laughing. Rayne, jumped around in small circles in her delight and Tone’ya, in her enjoyment practically skipped around the room. It was a little while before the loud laughter quieted down to giggles, suppressed snickers and one of the women were finally answer.
“Girl, I think you need some help.” Tone’ya tapped me on the shoulder in a consoling manner, wiped her eyes and resumed her seat. “I’ll have Sam come over here next Wednesday and we’ll do it in your kitchen.”
The raucous laughter started in the room again. The merriment was contagious and this time I had to join them. Ignorant to what they found so funny, but happy to shed some of my misery.
“Seriously now,” Frankie straightened herself before continuing. “Girl, are you crazy. No one sleeps with Sam.”
Stunned, I looked around the room at the smiling women.
“Okay, so none of you go that way, thank God. So why does he help?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” Tone’ya swiveled her neck side to side. “I don’t ask why when someone is giving me something. I just take it.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’.” Rayne agreed. “If I can get me some money and some help and don’t have to give up no coochie…I’m there.”
Rayne and Jenny high fived each other as everyone else concurred with the statement. Still not convinced, I questioned them further.
“Tone’ya, how long have you known Sam?”
“Let’s see, my girls were three and seven when I first became involved. That makes it three years. John and I had recently separated and somehow he’d gotten into the house and taken everything. On that day, I’d just come home from a horrible day at work. As a matter of fact, I’d just been fired, ‘downsized’ as the boss said, but same difference as I see it. John had cleaned me out. He’d taken everything, the furniture, the food from the cabinets and even the furniture from the girls’ bedroom. To make things worse, when I went to get the girls from the baby-sitter, they were gone. Oh, my God I could have killed John. It's only by the grace of God he’s alive and wherever he is, now. I couldn’t believe he would do such a thing. I was afraid I would never see my children again. This is how it happened, a few days before the big clean out, John and I had a serious argument, you know me, if it comes to my mind, it comes out of my mouth.” Tone’ya nonchalantly shrugged off her fault. “God, I can remember that argument, I should say fight, as if it were yesterday…
*****
*****
"Tone'ya, I've had it with you.” John held Tone'ya pressed against the wall by the grip he held around her throat. “I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but I'm sick of you thinking you can order me around.”
The malodorous smell of his breath rushed through her nostrils and made her want to vomit. Trying to keep herself from gagging, Tone’ya twisted her head from side to side to move her nose from his breath's direct noxious path and he pressed his face closer to hers until the tip of their nostrils touched.
"If you went out and got a job," She belligerently squeezed the words around his clenched fingers. “I wouldn't have to feel like the man in this marriage. I'm tired of taking care of your business. And I’m not a dog that you can curse and kick whenever you feel like it. I won't accept it in my house.”
"Yeah, you’re a dog. You seem to keep forgetting you’re my bitch and you do what I say when I say it. You seem to have a hard time remembering that you talk when I say so. You don't know when to keep your mouth shut.”
John stressed the last four words by banging the back of Tone'ya's head against the wall. The pain of her head hitting the wall, and the vibration of the thuds ricocheting through the bones in her head brought tears to her eyes. She could feel that her nose was still bleeding from the slap received when he had slammed the back of his hand into her face. Its warmth was sliding down her lips and dripping off her chin to the top of her shirt. As a matter of fact, her nose felt like it was broken. It hurt miserably.
"Okay. Alright, alright John, come on. Let go. You're hurting me.” She implored hoarsely.
Tone'ya pulled uselessly at his arms. Her nails scratching his skin, put gauges in the flesh, but nothing could dent his anger. The tears were running down her cheeks and air was becoming harder to drag in around his clenched fingers. She looked into his eyes in useless appeal, John was beyond caring. Turning her head to the right, she could see their youngest daughter standing and brokenheartedly crying in the bedroom's doorway.
"John," She looked back into his eyes. “The baby is in the door; please stop this for their sake.” She pleaded.
"You're damned lucky.” He pulled her from the wall and shoved her towards the king sized bed where she landed awkwardly. “I'm gonna get me a beer. You better make it your business to hurry downstairs and get my dinner on the table. Come on kid.” Picking up the little girl when he reached the doorway, John carried her away as he left the room.
Enjoy intimate, light hearted conversations with the characters from many of the stories in my ebooks. A way to really get to know the people you read about. They talk on Wednesdays and Fridays. Have fun reading the interviews with the characters.
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Oh dear, that John looks like a nasty piece of work. :(
Oh, he is a bit of a problem. Causes more throughoyt the story.
Great postt thanks