"I'm glad we found the time to sit down and talk this over," Dr. Ahmed tells Judith. They're settled at the dining table with him and Kacey next to each other on one side and Judith alone on the other.
"Me too. I've been telling her about you so much that I probably sound like a groupie," Kacey admits with a nervous, awkward chuckle. Judy flashes her a faint smile with her brows low. "And I can't apologize to you both enough for what happened yesterday."
"Don't at all," Judith says, shaking her head with a stern gaze and tone. "I'll admit it was frightening, but I needed a new perspective on - well, everything."
"Me as well." He nods with his head turned to Kacey. "Your ability to remain propulsive is a quality that I'm positive will not only expand our campus population, when you transfer your Christian group to the Morehead campus, but it'll lift us past Ivy Leagues like - Harvard."
"Wait, how did you get a scholarship, again," Judy asks her, and Kacey shifts her eyes from one to the other.
"After you were arrested, I may have boycotted the program. I mean, La'Shawna wasn't showing up, so it was just me bringing in resources and finances," she explains, taking a weary breath. "Anthony and William stopped coming after she went on her hiatus, then Mary ditched us. But getting back on track, I sent a letter to him, and yeah, he says we can move our project to North Carolina."
"Where it'll be appreciated beyond your comprehension." They look at Dr. Ahmed when he chimes in. "Since I don't have much time to get to know you before my train arrives, I'll get straight to it."
He leans to his right, and as he reaches for his brown briefcase leaning against his chair's leg, Kacey and Judith share a glance. He lifts it onto the table between him and Judy.
"I brought the paperwork my assistant typed up," he begins, pushing the flap back to reveal the clusters of white papers. "Your Dean was, for lack of better words - a jive turkey."
Being middle-aged, Dr. Ahmed's choice to use slang causes the girls to chuckle in response. They exchange a look of almost mockery, like teenagers at their parents when they force a sense of hipness.
"Yeah, um, he's as liked as Hitler by black people, but the others love him; obviously," Judith says, rolling her eyes. "You know he wanted me to move into the dorms?"
"So that's what he was going on about." He lifts a sheet from the bunch and lays it in front of her. "It took me what felt like forever to convince him to give me your admissions manuscripts, and he mentioned you not coming back to sign some paperwork."
Oh, shit. Did I forget?
"But I'm glad you didn't." Bringing his hand to his chest, he lifts a black pen from his suit pocket and sets it on the sheet. She scans the paragraphs from the title to the date and signature lines at the bottom.
"So, I just - sign my name and the date, and I'm officially a student," Judith asks without looking at him, and he hums a flat note in thought.
"Not quite." She meets his gaze. "There's still a lot I need to do on my end, mailing the rest of your paperwork, overseeing the redecoration of your dorm, and what have you."
Judith feels her heart beat a few notches faster, and she vacuums her bottom lip into her mouth, gnawing it with her two front teeth.
I can't leave Stevie and Vera.
"We're sharing a room, you said?" When Kacey asks, Dr. Ahmed hums yes, and the girls look at each other with opposite expressions.
Judy darts her worried gaze off Kacey's ecstatic one and watches him flash her an encouraging smile. Judith parts her lips, catching a breath in her inflated chest, but it dissolves with her next question when a thump echoes from upstairs.
"Give it back, Stevie," Vera releases a banshee-like scream that Judith knows all too well. She flinches along with Kacey and Dr. Ahmed, both expressing concern as they stare through the kitchen arch.
What the fuck?
Judith's chair squeaks as she pushes herself from under the table. When she turns to her left to prepare to stand, Sheryl yells, "I told you two to cut it out. Your sister is working, and she needs silence!"
"He took my candy necklace!" Judith slowly faces them but maintains a look of humiliation hidden under the veil of her dark hair.
"She tore my baseball card in half," Stevie says before their mother can respond.
"I don't care," Sheryl yells, her voice laced with frustration and weariness. Kacey and Judith share a glance before lowering their eyes. Kacey tugs the hem of her white cropped shirt.
"You never do! You always take her side," Stevie screams, then an earth-shattering boom proceeds the short silence.
Judith pins the paper under her left hand, and the cold material contrasts her natural warmth. Licking her lips, she slides the pen into her other hand, clicks the button with her thumb, and swiftly inscribes her signature in sloppy letters.
"Do you have any questions about the school or anything else," he asks pitifully. Judith shakes her head no and watches his hand drag the contract toward his side of the table, her eyes briefly landing on his gold and black Masonic ring. She sits the pen where it was, then leans back with her arms crossed for comfort.
"I told her about the dorm and the campus already," Kacey informs him, and he nods. Judith's eyes heat up, and her jaw aches from subconsciously grinding her teeth. "Anything else, I'll tell her; we're fine."
"Okay, well, you have the number to my hotel room, so call me with any other questions or concerns." Dr. Ahmed slips the sheet with the stack of others, and he lowers the briefcase hood. "I'll be in the car."
They watch him rise with his bag and take the pen, dropping it in his pocket as he strolls to the arch. When he exits the dining room, then the kitchen, Kacey's eyes beam with the thrill of knowing that the process is underway.
"Oh, my God, I can't believe we're actually moving to North Carolina," Kacey fawns with a toothy grin. Judith leans forward, props her elbows on the table, then rests her forehead in her palms. "Just think, the five of us strutting around campus with -"
"Five?" Judith darts her confused glare at her. Kacey's mouth is slightly open, with words waiting to be said. "I thought it was just me and you. Who else is going?"
"Well, Ronnie, La'Shawna, and Cyrus," she says. Judy takes a breath to speak, but she continues, "Jenny wants to go, but Juniper doesn't, so she's stuck here."
"Let's table that while we're on the subject of Juniper. Why'd you lie about her being at your house?" Kacey squints upward before exhaling the breath she was holding.
"I - suppose I needed the incentive to get you to come over," she hesitantly confesses. Judith scoffs incredulously.
"I would've come over if you wanted me to." When Kacey bites her lip and lowers her gaze, Judy narrows her eyes. "Or did you not want me there? Was it just an ambush?"
"Judy," Kacey pleads, and Judith scoffs again.
"Oh my God!" She jumps to her feet, startling Kacey, who flinches and draws a sharp breath. "You scheming bitch! So, you didn't want me there as a friend; you brought me there to set me up, to make me feel sorry for you and your situation."
"It's not like that," she starts to say while leaning forward, but the rotary phone buzzes and they glance in its direction.
Judith approaches it, leaving Kacey staring at her hands on her lap. She wraps her fingers around the handset and lifts it to her ear.
"Hello?" Her voice is soft - cautious - with the longing of it being Ja'liyah but the knowledge of her death lingering as a memory.
"Hey, Jude." The sound of David's croaky voice puts a sour taste in her mouth, and she rolls her eyes. "I need you to do me a favor."
"No." She pulls the phone from her cheek as he verbally protests. Licking her lips, she returns it to her ear and says, "Also, stop fucking calling me."
Kacey stands from her seat, and Judith watches her walk into the kitchen. With a forced smile, she folds her arms as best as her brown cropped jacket will allow. Her black boots tap the wood floor as she makes her way into the living room.
"Judy, Mary has my great grandmother's ring," he practically yells in desperation. She clenches her eyebrows together and licks her lips. "I know I shouldn't have given it to her, to begin with, but that's - anyway, I tried to get it while I was at her place, but she wouldn't -"
"Take a breath, David," she gently instructs him, and he obliges. A cloud of silence forms between them as she thinks of what to say. "What do you expect me to do? Aren't her parents racist?"
"Yeah, but maybe they'll go easy on you since you're - y'know." Judith narrows her eyes, and she bites her lip, ignoring her desire to ask him to elaborate. "Look, I'll swing by in a few minutes. Please, Judy?"
No. Say no.
The silence is almost deafening, but he patiently waits for her answer.
The date. Say no.
"Judy," he pauses when his voice cracks. He sniffles his running nose, and she shuts her eyes in pity. "Please, I need it back. It's all I have left. You know this."
***
They walk across the short ivy grass of brown patches and weeds, passing nazi paraphernalia. David takes a step up the porch with Judith behind him, his suede shoes and her clogs weighing down the creaking old, dusty boards.
They reach the platform stained in dust-covered footsteps and mud daubers beside the battered storm door, under the flickering bug zapper.
The dingy door squeaks like a cry for oil when David jerks it toward them, his eyes and hers on the dead bugs. He bangs his fist against the trailer door, then glances at Judith.
"You must come here often," she mumbles monotonously, and he squints his eyes, pondering over her tone. "You don't have to say anything."
A man opens the door in faded jeans, a tank top that they can tell was once white, and a teal, white, and black Carolina Panthers snapback.
"Didn't I tell you not to come 'round here again," he slurs, tobacco sloshing behind his few black and yellow teeth. "You must want an ass full of shotgun slugs."
"Sir, I don't want any trouble. I just really need the ring I gave Mary." Judith gazes past his shoulder into the trailer. Across the shag-covered floor is an arch leading to the kitchen. She sighs through her nose at David.
"Yeah, well, my daughter said she don't have nothing of yours, so you best git," the man raises his voice, and David furrows his brows, then huffs his lips into a straight line. Without a word, he shoves past Mary's Dad. "Have you lost your goddamned mind?"
"David, what the hell," she whisper yells at him, quickly walking in his footsteps. The man slams the door, and she flinches toward him.
He's standing at the door with a tin can in hand, glaring at her, but when they lock eyes, he spits the tobacco into the can, and it slides out with a slimy consistency.
"Judy, I need that ring," David sternly tells her. She scans the room before they step into the hall. A shotgun's leaning against a bookshelf next to a box television flickering on the static screen. Above the sofa are tall and wide American and Confederate flags large enough to blanket a king-sized bed.
To the left of the long hall are three doors and to the right is a wall beside them. Pressing forward into the messy kitchen with a lighter brown shag carpet, he approaches the older blonde woman with an iron dangling at her side and a cigarette held to her mouth in the other hand.
"Mrs. Hendricks, is Mary home," David asks, ignoring the fearful expression on Judith's face and the contemptuous one on the woman's. The woman lowers the cigarette to her side.
"No." She puffs the smoke at them, and Judith flutters her eyes to avoid fanning it away when it reaches her face.
"Well, do you know where she is because I need my ring back," he presses, and Mary's mother scoffs. Judith looks behind them, watching the father stroll toward them with a double-barrel shotgun. His arm's around the stock, and the front sight is dragging beside him.
"Didn't John tell you to leave?" She returns the cigarette to her thin, red lips and locks eyes with her husband.
The sound of a baby crying draws their attention, and they turn to the long woven basket beside her. She sits the steaming iron on the ironing board, then turns to the basket of blankets.
"I got her, Mom," Mary announces, sprinting down the hall with her hair wrapped in the spirals of a cut telephone cord. She slows down when she reaches the arch, staring at her father's gun. "What's going on?"
"Where the fuck is my ring?" Mary and David meet each other's gaze. She locks eyes with Judith. Mary's mother lifts the strawberry-blonde infant onto her left hip. The baby's wearing nothing but a rag for a diaper, and her deep blues are on her mother's.
"Why? You fixin' to give it to her?" Her country accent contrasts what Judith's used to hearing, and she wears confusion on her face. Mary looks at his sapphire and diamond ring on her left index finger, shifting it with her other hand.
"Mary, I'm not playing. Give it back," he yells, and as Mary jolts back, her father lifts the front sight toward David. John's finger is hovering over the trigger, and his opposite hand is squeezing the fore-end. He raises his hands, and Judith stares at the men with wide eyes.
"I told you not to bring him to my house," he says to his daughter through clenched teeth, and she lowers her saddened eyes to her white socks. "You best be goin', boy."
"David, let's go," Judith begs in a low, quivering voice. She feels her heart beating up her neck, stopping at the forming lump.
"I'm not leaving without that ring," he says to her before turning to Mary. "Give it back. We're done."
"Davie, we have so much more in common than what you two had." His eyes grow void of emotion, and when John cocks the gun, preparing to shoot, Judith feels a droplet of sweat glide down the back of her neck. A shell casing drops from the gun.
Oh, my God.
The sound reminds her of the night with John Lewis, when he held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. She feels her heart pulse through the lump in her throat, banging against it to knock it down like the walls of Jericho.
"Fuck this," David mutters through his teeth, then sprints toward her. Her eyes widen with the fear of a deer caught in headlights, and when he tackles her to the hall carpet, Judith's legs weaken.
"Get off of me!" He positions himself between her legs, and she kicks them in a futile attempt to push him away. She bangs her fists against his chest, huffing and groaning, her face turning red.
"Give me the fucking ring!" John aims the shotgun at him, and the woman with the baby steps toward her eggshell-colored Northstar fridge.
"Oh, God, David, stop it before you get us killed," Judith yells over the commotion, and the five-month-old bursts into a bawling mess, startled by her voice. The woman bounces her on her hip, shushing her with the cigarette ashes dripping near them.
John fires the gun but the bullet whizzes past the two, leaving a hole in the carpet above Mary's head. Judith sucks air between her teeth, tensing her muscles. Mary yelps and David flinches.
"Get the hell off my daughter, or the next one's between your eyes," he calmly threatens. David and Judith lock eyes.
He notices her chest rising and falling faster than her shoulders. When tears glide down her cheeks, he pushes himself to his feet.
"Now, this is my last warning. Get the hell on." Mary raises herself onto her elbows, then stands up. As she tugs the hems of her yoga shorts down, she glares at them on their way to her living room.
She steps toward the arch just when they reach the front door and tugs her mouth into a menacing smile.
"Daddy, I think I wanna sell this ring," she says when David sits his hand on the knob. He squeezes it, fighting the urge to respond. "I think you could use the money for your truck. Right?"
Dragging her tongue across her trembling lips, Judith sits her hand on his back and whines, "Just go."
He turns the handle, and when the door cracks open, she shuts her eyes and sighs with relief. David steps onto the porch with her in tow and the sunlight burning their faces.