Fire in the Streets by Kekla Magoon

sure Mama’s going to be home. I don’t want him coming by, catching me alone. Expecting to be let in to wait. Being out is what I do anyway, but when it feels necessary like this, it’s sometimes harder to find things to do to fill the time.
    Emmalee’s gone off to do her homework and Patrice is nowhere to be found. There’s plenty going on at the playground, but I’m not in the mood for any of it, so I skirt the park. Decide to take a walk instead. I’m thinking of going to the clinic to see what Sam is up to. It’s the very thing Emmalee and Patrice talk me out of doing on a day-to-day basis, but when they’re not around I forget all the reasons why I’m supposed to leave Sam alone.
    I’m headed that way when the mood in the street suddenlychanges. Just ahead of me, a shop door clatters open with little bells. Cherry steps out into the street, wearing one of her painted-on dresses. She pauses to light a cigarette. The guys hanging on the stoops start looking over their shoulders and nudging each other that way that they do.
    Cherry’s body talks and the men around her listen. The sway of her hips is something magical. She glides along the sidewalk and their heads turn like clockwork. Half a block behind, I try to copy her moves—the way her arm dangles over her handbag and the free wrist dances, flicking the ash of her cigarette. For a few seconds I become another kind of girl—no, woman—the kind who can’t and won’t be left behind by maturity or love or anything unnamed.
    â€œMaxie?” Rocco says. “You okay, girl?”
    He steps out of the convenience store, landing a couple of paces ahead of me. I roll around toward him, hand on my tilted hip. “Hi, Rocco.”
    â€œYou look dizzy. Is it the heat? You need a drink?”
    â€œYou buying?” I go for a low, husky, sexy voice.
    â€œGrab a Coke on me,” Rocco says, frowning. He extends two fingers toward me, a quarter trapped between. “You sound like you might be coming down with something.”
    I straighten up, real casual, hoping there’s no color giving away the warmth that flushes my cheeks. But I guess he’d only mistake it for a fever. I take the quarter and run inside.

    The cool Coke hits the spot. When I step back onto the sidewalk, Rocco’s gone. So is Cherry, but I try the thing with my hips again anyway. What I need are shoes with a heel, I think. They add a little something extra.
    I sashay my way down to the Panther office, wondering if I’ll find Cherry there. Sure enough, when I pop in the door, she’s got her hips propped on the desk nearest the window, chatting up Slim, who’s sitting at the desk and looking up at her like a fool grinning straight into the sunshine.
    â€œHi, Maxie,” Cherry says.
    â€œHey, sister,” Slim says, but his gaze is slipping toward Cherry’s southern real estate.
    â€œHi.” I glide by them, straight to my usual station, where a large stack of envelopes and sheets of stamps sit waiting. I wet a sponge in the kitchen and set to work sealing and stamping.
    Leroy, Jolene, Hamlin, and Lester are midconversation, gathered around the couch area. “All I’m saying is it’s a growing problem in Oakland,” Hamlin says. “There’s always someone willing to take a payoff to pass on information. Especially when it seems like small things that won’t hurt anybody.”
    â€œWhat’s your point?” Leroy says.
    â€œThe point is, it’s a slippery slope. Information is power. Tidbits matter.”
    â€œWe get that,” Jolene says. “So what are they doing about it?”
    â€œThat’s the thing,” Hamlin says. “They’re not sure what to do. It’s not only the leaks. There’s also significant misinformation coming back into the ranks from the informants. Trying to confuse things.”
    â€œI want to keep talking about