LOVING THE HEAD MAN by Katherine Cachitorie Page A

request.  “Oh, and sir,” she said, “I’m sorry to ask it, but do you think I could get a couple days off?  I need to go home to take care of some business.”  She said this to help make clear that the money was indeed personal and necessary, but she also meant it.  She really needed to get back to Mississippi.  Ricky getting arrested was one thing.  Ricky was always getting arrested.  Her mother’s arrest, however, could completely collapse their already fragile family.
       Robert, however, wasn’t as quick to intervene.  “That’s Alan’s call,” he replied.  “You’ll have to get with him on that.”
       It wasn’t quite the answer she had wanted, but she knew not to push her luck.  “Yes, sir.   And thanks again.  You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
       When he didn’t respond, she took the check and began leaving, her heart faint.  Why good fortune could never come her way without strings, she wondered.  She had a chance to make it to the top of her profession, to get a position with Colgate, and what happens?  She had to ask the firm’s head for money to bail her mother out of jail.  If it wasn’t for bad luck, she almost wanted to say, she’d have no luck at all.  Until she heard his voice.
       “Brianna?” he said, and she quickly turned back around.
       “Sir?”
       “If Alan denies your request, come and see me.”
       This warmed Bree’s heart.  She smiled.  “Thank-you, sir,” she said, and left.
 
 
 
 

 
SEVEN
 
The trip to Nodash, Mississippi was as painful as she expected it to be.  And it wasn’t just because of her mother’s arrest.  Thanks to Robert’s much-appreciated generosity, she was able to get her out on bail.  And although the evidence was overwhelming and her mother did indeed attempt to sell crack to an undercover cop, Malcolm, Bree’s ex-boyfriend and the attorney she phoned as soon as she hit town, spoke with her public defender and he believes they might be able to get her off if she’d agree to snitch on her supplier.  So all wasn’t hopeless.   Until they were all seated around in the living room of their small, family home, and Malcolm asked about the auction.
       “What auction?” Bree asked, puzzled.  She was seated beside Malcolm on the sofa, with her fourteen-year-old sister, Titianna, seated beside her.  Candace was seated on the floor, and Ricky, her older brother, and her mother, were seated in the two flanking chairs.  The rest of her siblings were outside playing.  The house was already small, but with all of them in that tiny living room, it almost made Bree feel cloister phobic. 
       Malcolm looked at Bree.  “You mean you don’t know?”  He was a handsome man, with a low-cut fade, walnut-brown skin, and glassy green eyes.  He was the one who had called it off with Bree, deciding that she was too ambitious, that any wife of his would have to put family first and forego any heavy duty career.  Other than that, Bree thought as she stared into his beautiful eyes, he would have been perfect.
       “What are you talking about, Mal?” she wanted to know.
       “It’s all your mother’s been talking about since you phoned and asked me to talk with her PD,” he said as he looked at Bree’s mother.  “I just assumed you already knew.”
       Bree looked at her mother.  Francine Hudson was pushing fifty hard, and had a hardcore edge to her appearance, but she still had a nice figure and attractive face.  She puffed on her cigarette, sipped from her can of beer, and shook her head.  “What’s going on, Ma?” Bree asked her.
       “I ain’t wit it,” her mother said.  “You hear me?  I ain’t wit yo’ shit today, Bree, I ain’t wit it.  Just spent all that time in some pissy-ass jail, you taking you precious time to get here, don’t even think about looking at me