Bad Girls Finish First by Shelia Dansby Harvey Page A

remember our names.”
    â€œYeah, and you don’t care if we get embarrassed. When Waleed messed up you barely tried to help him out,” Trey added.
    â€œProbably think I’m too dumb to help,” Waleed mumbled under his breath.
    Grace’s top lip trembled. “I’m sorry. What can I do to make the class better?”
    â€œGet us a tutor who likes kids,” Trey said. That set the boys off on another laughing jag, but Grace knew it was no joke. She picked up her book and walked out.
    â€œHey, hey, where are you rushing off to?” John Reese asked as he trotted to catch up with Grace in the parking lot. He got to her just as she opened her car door.
    He grabbed the door handle. “Don’t leave, Grace. Don’t run. Talk to me.”
    She turned to face him, tears streaming down her face, “I’m sorry, John, but I can’t do this.” She slammed her fist on the top of the car. “I should’ve known better! Look at me! What do I have to offer to anybody? Not a damn thing.” Grace motioned toward the school. “Even those kids can see that.” She covered her face with both hands.
    John put his arm around her. “There’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be fixed,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go back inside.”
    John set a cup of coffee in front of Grace. They were in the little room the school set aside for the literacy program.
    â€œIt hurt me so bad, me and Maggie both, when you and Michael broke up. I can’t even imagine how much it hurt you.”
    Grace let out a low moan. She hadn’t talked to anyone about her divorce.
    â€œYou’ve been in the valley, all by yourself, and that’s to be expected. You lost something important and you needed to grieve that loss.” John grabbed Grace’s hand and forced her to look at him. “But Grace,” he said in an urgent voice, “you’ve been wandering in the valley for too long. If you don’t come out now, you might just stay lost there forever.”
    â€œAnd what would be so bad about that, John? Michael was my life.” She shook her head as she remembered the last year of her marriage. “I tried. You don’t know how much I tried. I prayed. I fought. I tried to cook better meals, to have better sex. But nothing I did was good enough to make him want me.”
    â€œMichael wasn’t your life, and you were wrong to ever put him on a pedestal like that. God gave life to you directly, Grace, not through Michael. You can’t spit in God’s eye by letting your spirit die just because Michael walked out.”
    Grace stood and walked over to the window. Her class, the boys who wanted “to do better” were outside playing basketball. “I feel so empty,” Grace said as she watched them. “Those boys thought I didn’t care about them, and you know what? They were right. But it’s not just them. Since Michael and I broke up, I can honestly say that I haven’t cared much about anything, except trying to figure out where I went wrong.” She turned and faced John. “I’m not even as interested in my own sons as I should be, especially Evan.” Grace picked up her handbag. “Find another tutor for the boys, John. I won’t be back.”
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    The Juneteenth gala, held on the nineteenth of June, turned out to be Michael’s coming out party, the prein-augural ball, as black radio stations called it the next day. The guest list was a Who’s Who of black America—actors rubbed shoulders with scholars, ministers danced with hip-hop queens, and politicians wheedled money out of millionaires. Everyone else in Texas who mattered was there as well, and in a reversal of roles, it was the whites who had to fit in. Most of them handled it—what was the Cha Cha Slide, after all, but the Cotton-Eyed Joe minus the flair?—but a few fled the scene in