Derrick took the shoe off and handed it back to the salesman. “Too small.”

  As Derrick opened the box with the size elevens, Jasmine yelled for the salesman. “Hey, I need help over here. He’s not your only customer.”

  The salesman lifted a finger. “One moment. I’ll be right there once I’m finished with this customer.”

  “Oh, it’s like that, huh? Well, let me take my business to Foot Locker.” She put the Adidas back on the shelf and turned to walk out of the store.

  Derrick told the salesman, “Don’t miss out on your commission. Go and help her. I’ll try these on.” He held up the size elevens.

  “Wait! Wait!” The salesman rushed over to Jasmine. “I can help you.”

  “I thought so.” Jasmine handed the salesman the Adidas sneaker. “I want to try this in a size seven.”

  Derrick put the Air Jordans on and tied them. He got up and started walking around. Turning to the salesman as the man walked toward the storage room, Derrick said, “Bring me an eleven and a half. This one feels a little tight too.”

  “Coming right up.” The salesman headed to the back to get the shoes.

  Derrick bent down in front of Dana. Kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll come by your place later with the record player.”

  The forehead kiss seemed so sweet to Dana. A smile crept across her face. She was about to ask what time he would be at her place when he took off running out of the store.

  Jasmine yelled to her and Lisa. “Come on, let’s go!” Then Jasmine took off running behind Derrick.

  Dana looked down at the floor. Derrick’s old, ruddy Pro-Keds were on the floor next to the empty Air Jordan box. All at once it registered with her. Derrick had stolen those expensive sneakers, and if she kept sitting there, the salesman was going to think she was in on it.

  She jumped up and grabbed the arm of Lisa, who was looking as shell-shocked as Dana felt. “Let’s go, girl.” They ran past racks of sports bras, shorts, and jogging suits as they hightailed it out of the store.

  Escaping the store, Dana and Lisa went left. Running down the street, headed for the A Train. The whole while, Dana’s head swiveled from left to right as she tried to find Derrick or Jasmine.

  The salesman ran out of the store, yelling, “I’m calling the police! Every last one of you is going to jail!”

  Dana looked back. She saw the salesman shouting with an angry fist punching the air. Then on the opposite side of the street, bus number 26 came to a stop and picked up passengers. That’s when she saw Derrick move out of the crowd and jump on the back of the bus, gripping his fingers into the air vents. The bus took off again, and Derrick held on like he’d been riding the back side of the bus all his life.

  Dana was stuck. She stood there staring, not able to believe what she was seeing. After stealing those sneakers, Derrick was now the lone freeloading passenger on the back of a bus. He was her boyfriend. But he was a thief. And she didn’t know how she felt about being with someone like him.

  Lisa grabbed her arm and pulled her along. “What are you looking at? We’ve got to get out of here. My daddy’s going to kill me if I get arrested.” They started running again and managed to make it to the subway station.

  Dana wasn’t worried about what her mother might say. That woman had been to jail a few times herself. But Dana had never been locked up. The last thing she wanted was a prison record. She had just graduated high school, which as her mother kept telling her was something to be proud of. She had no plans to go to college and no direction for her life right now. She needed time to figure out what she wanted to do in this world.

  But she absolutely, for certain knew she didn’t want prison. When they got back on the train, she plopped down in her seat and breathed a sigh of relief. Then Lisa sat down next to her with the stank face.

  “You should have told me your boyfriend was going to meet up with us. My parents don’t like me hanging around thugs like him.”

  “Girl, you’re eighteen. I know you’re not telling me your mama still picks out your clothes and brushes your hair too.”

  “Shut up, Dana.” Lisa rolled her eyes.

  They sat in silence until the doors of the A Train opened at their stop. When they left the subway and headed down Lewis Avenue on their way home, Lisa told her, “I can’t hang out with you anymore.”

  “Why you trippin’? It’s not a big deal.”

  “I could have been arrested. I don’t consider jail a small thing.”

  “Chill out, Lisa. We’re good.”

  “If you’re going to keep going out with Derrick, then I’m out.” She waved at Dana and crossed the street.

  Dana’s nostrils flared as she blew out a heavy sigh. She wasn’t happy about what happened either. But Lisa was a church kid with two parents at home who kept her on the straight and narrow. Her best friend knew nothing about the hard knocks of life. But Dana had a front-row seat to the crash-and-burn foolishness people like her dealt with on the daily.

  Chapter 2

  “Lisa, girl, get out of bed right now. I don’t care if it is summertime, you’re not going to lay around this house all day.”

  Lisa heard her father call out to her, but her eyelids felt glued together. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and then glanced over at the clock on her nightstand. It was 7:52 a.m. on a Saturday . . . a morning she had planned to sleep in, but her daddy was screaming for her.

  “We need to get down to the store so we can pass out the hot dogs and hamburgers to our customers in the neighborhood,” he hollered up to her. “It’s good business to give back to the community on a day like this.”

  Lisa popped up and flung the covers off. She opened the curtain and looked out the window. She saw the sanitation street-sweeper truck as it slowly drove down the street. Mr. Rumbly ran outside in his pajamas and house shoes. He jumped in his car and made a U-turn in the middle of the street so he could get his car out of the way of the street sweepers.

  A truck with DJ equipment was parked across the street. Two guys got out and started taking the gear out of the bed of the truck.

  How had she forgotten? There was going to be a block party on Halsey Street today. She opened her bedroom door and stood at the top of the steps in their three-level brownstone. “Why do I have to work this morning? I want to go to the block party.”

  Her daddy, David Whitaker, was a tall man, about six feet four. He’d put on an extra seventy pounds over the years from all the red beans and rice he kept asking her mother to cook for him. He wore blue jean overalls to work most days. He thought it hid his girth.

  Daddy was a force and didn’t accept the word no when he wasn’t the one using it. Even Pastor Jonathan down at Praise Ministries didn’t like getting on Deacon David Whitaker’s bad side. His big hand wrapped around the banister as he stood on the parlor level of the house where the living room, dining room, one of the bathrooms, and kitchen were. The front double-entry doors were on the same level as well. “Lisa, don’t play with me. I don’t have time for this today.”

  “I’m eighteen, Daddy. I should be able to make my own decisions.”

  “You should also be able to help with some of these bills. You’re going off to college next month, and your mama and I are still scrounging up the money to pay for the books you need for fall semester, so you’re going to help me at the corner store. That way I don’t have to pay someone else to work.”

  Lisa wanted to object to the whole work-for-free racket her father had going on, but she knew how much her parents were sacrificing so she could attend school at New York University. She had a scholarship, but it didn’t cover all her tuition, nor did it cover books. The least she could do was help her dad out at the corner store until she left for college.

  “I’ll be ready in a few minutes. But remember, I have to be at church this afternoon.”

  “I remember. Help me this morning, and then you can leave.”

  Despite having to work at the corner store this morning, today was going to be one of the best days of Lisa’s life. When she was in junior high, her dad took her to hear Representative Shirley Chisholm at the YMCA on Bedford Avenue. And now, at the start of Evangelism Week at her church, her mother told her Elsie Richardson would be speaking at the church today.

  Lisa couldn’t get dressed fast enough. She had a scarf wrapped around her head, which she covered with a shower cap before getting in the shower. When she got out, she took the cap off, then untied her scarf and let her long black hair fall against her caramel shoulders. She then took her comb and ran it through the short, layered curls at the front of her head.

  Lisa loved her new hairstyle, even the temple fade around the front of her ears. A lot of the girls were wearing their hair short and layered in the front but long in the back.

  She went back to her room and put on her purple, ankle-length ruffled skirt with her black-and-white saddle shoes and a white tank top. The summers in Brooklyn were so hot that sweat leaked from her body like rain drizzling off the side of a house the minute she stepped outside, so even though her father thought tank tops showed off too much skin, Lisa had a different colored tank for each day of the week.

  Rushing down the stairs of their brownstone, Lisa waited for her father by the front door. Besides the parlor, their brownstone also had a basement, which was more like an apartment. Her daddy rented it out from time to time. Bedrooms and bathrooms were on the top level of the house.

  By the time Lisa and her father stepped outside, the street had been blocked off so there was no more through traffic. The DJ was setting his tables up in the middle of the street. Music was about to be blasted all the way down the street.

  Mrs. Mabel was sitting out on her stoop. She didn’t have air-conditioning in her brownstone, so it was often cooler out on her stoop than inside the house. She waved to Lisa.

  “Good day to you, Lisa. I hear you’re going to be leaving us soon.”

  “I will.” Lisa nodded. “But you know NYU isn’t far at all, so I’ll be back home visiting plenty.”

  “I sure hope so. We need to see more of your smiling face around here.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Mabel,” Lisa said as she helped her father tote his big cooler down the street. They lived two blocks from the Halsey Street corner store, which was on the corner of Halsey and Lewis.

  Neighbors were bringing out barbecue pits and placing tables and chairs in their front yards. Charcoal smoke permeated the air.

  “Good morning, Mr. Whitaker.” Cal Johnson stood behind the cast-iron gate that closed off the front area of his brownstone. He pointed toward his grill. “I’m getting it ready for the burgers and dogs.”

  Her father smiled and waved. “Hurry on over to the store before we run out. Wouldn’t want you to fire up your grill for nothing.”

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll be right there.” Cal sprayed lighter fluid on his charcoal.

  They set up their table outside the store. Customers came over to collect the hamburgers or hot dogs for their grills. A party was going on in the neighborhood. People were laughing, smiling, and having a good time. The DJ started playing “Party All the Time” by Eddie Murphy. Lisa didn’t like the song. She couldn’t figure out why Eddie Murphy didn’t stick to telling jokes.

  A guy with MC Hammer pants, the kind that were baggy and saggy in the middle and tapered at the ankles, started break-dancing in the middle of the street. Lisa turned to her right and caught sight of the “In Loving Memory” mural on the wall next to her father’s store.

  It had been commissioned a couple of years ago by a drug dealer, mourning all the friends from the neighborhood he had lost. The faces of the dead were painted on it in between clouds and gravestones. It was no longer just for gangbangers but for anyone who passed away in the neighborhood. Lisa found the mural creepy. She didn’t like walking past it, let alone standing near it.

  Once they passed out the last of the meat, Lisa waved to her dad. “I’ve got to meet Mama at the church.”

  A grin spread across Lisa’s face as she walked from Lewis Avenue to Praise Ministries on Decatur. No longer thinking about the block party, Lisa was practically giddy about church service. Her mother, Brenda, was waiting for her in the fellowship hall.

  “Do you think I can sit on the front row with you today?” She normally sat in the back of the sanctuary with her friends.

  Brenda patted her hand. “Of course, baby. I told the pastor how excited you were to hear Mrs. Richardson speak. I already saved you a seat on the front row.”

  Beaming, Lisa sat down and turned her attention to the pulpit.

  Pastor said, “I present to you Mrs. Elsie Richardson, one of the cornerstones in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.”

  “Thank you, Pastor,” Mrs. Richardson said as she stood in front of the podium, adjusting the microphone. The sanctuary could seat a thousand people, and it looked like they might have to set extra chairs out for the overflow if people kept coming.

  Elsie Richardson began. “Good afternoon, everyone. I am so thankful for this opportunity to speak to you as you begin Evangelism Week. Now, I truly understand the reason we evangelize is to bring wayward sinners to the Lord, but I want to challenge you this week to also encourage those you minister to to become advocates for change in our community.

  “And I pray you understand you’re not too young or too old to make a difference. I was a teenager living in Harlem when I took part in the 1941 New York City bus boycotts led by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. We were years ahead of the bus boycotts led by Martin Luther King Jr.”

  Leaning forward in her seat, Lisa soaked in every word. Elsie Richardson had done so much for this community back in the sixties. Lisa was determined to do a great work for her community once she graduated from college. Elsie Richardson and Shirley Chisholm were like royalty to her. She felt how Martha and Mary of the Bible must have felt as they sat in the same room with Jesus . . . mesmerized.

  Mrs. Richardson continued. “I have always been a fighter for human rights. My parents frequently told me I was as good as anyone else. So when the powers that be in this city tried to treat us as if we weren’t worthy of anything, something in me stood up and demanded they recognize our humanity.

  “Look around, young people. I, along with so many other people, fought to bring revitalization to this neighborhood. But the crack demon has taken over much of the Bed-Stuy community . . . destroying it. It doesn’t have to be this way, my brothers and sisters.

  “Help me revitalize our community once again. If you see someone going down the wrong path, and you know it will eventually destroy him or her—along with our beloved Bed-Stuy—lend a helping hand to them.” Elsie Richardson spoke a few more minutes, then when she was finished, she walked to the back of the sanctuary and shook everyone’s hand as they left the church to begin walking the community, telling the neighbors about Jesus and handing out flyers to invite the people to church tomorrow.

  Lisa got in line and tried to be patient as everyone else shook Mrs. Richardson’s hand and said their piece. But now she was wishing she had sat in the back with the rest of the teens; she would have been at the front of the line by now if she had.

  “Stop fidgeting, Lisa. Mrs. Richardson isn’t going anywhere.”

  “I know, Mama.” There were about fifteen people in front of her. “I’m grateful I get a chance to meet her. So glad I came.”

  “Of course, child. But don’t forget, I need your help passing out these flyers.” Brenda laughed.

  “Oh, so you want to put me to work too. Just like Daddy . . . trying to get as much work out of me as you can before I leave for college.”

  Putting a hand on Lisa’s shoulder, Brenda told her, “We only want to teach you responsibility before you’re all grown up and taking care of things on your own.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m going to make you proud when I come back and help rebuild our community.”

  “Where are you going, young lady? And why do you have to wait until you get back to do something for our community?”

  Lisa swung around. She had been talking to her mother and hadn’t noticed the line had cleared. She stepped closer to Mrs. Richardson. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she stuck out her hand. “H-hi, M-Mrs. Richardson. I loved your speech.”

  “Then why are you leaving?”

  Lisa’s eyebrows furrowed. “Huh?”

  “I heard you say you were going to do something for Bed-Stuy when you get back. Why not now?”

  “Oh.” Lisa relaxed a bit. “I’m going to college in a month. But I plan to become a community organizer like you when I return from college.”

  Mrs. Richardson smiled at her. “I went to college while I raised my children and took care of my husband. So if you see a place where you can make a difference, even before you graduate from college, I admonish you to do it.”

  “I will, Mrs. Richardson. I’ve always helped out at the church and will continue as long as I can.”

  Lisa headed outside with the rest of the ladies who were getting ready to walk the blocks to pass out Praise Ministries flyers. Taking a stack of flyers from her mother, Lisa began walking up Decatur Street, heading toward Lewis Avenue.

  “Good afternoon. How are you doing?” she said to a woman who was headed down the street, holding on to a little girl’s hand.

  “Doing fine,” was the woman’s reply.

  Lisa stuck out her hand, offering the woman the flyer. “This is Evangelism Week at our church. Can I give this information about Praise Ministries to you? I’d also like to invite you to church on Sunday.”

  The woman didn’t respond, but she did take the flyer as she continued on her way. She looked like she was in a hurry, but most New Yorkers walked at a fast pace, like they were always trying to catch up to life—or get away from something.

  She handed a flyer to the next person who zoomed past her. But before she could say a word, he said, “Can’t talk. Got to get to the library.” He had a backpack strapped to his back, loaded down with books.

  Some of the choir members had joined them. As Lisa reached the corner of Lewis and Decatur where they were standing, she smiled as they started singing “Jesus Can Work It Out.” This was a new praise song, but it was quickly becoming one of Lisa’s favorites.