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Anita, ’cause you’re starting to scare me,” I told her as I left the office.

4
Tanisha
    I’d been dreaming one of those good dreams. You know, the kind that you can control. The kind where everything you want just seems to happen exactly the way you want it to happen. Well, in my dream, I was on a deserted beach lying on a blanket while Morris Chestnut rubbed suntan lotion on my back and Nelly fed me grapes. It was one of those dreams where neither of them seemed to care about sex. All they cared about was making me happy, and believe it or not, that turned me on. There is nothing sexier than a guy who wants to be with you just because you’re you and not because his hormones or his boys are telling him he needs to get between your legs, because we all know guys don’t care ’bout nothing and no one but themselves.
    “Nelly,” I whispered. “Why don’t you take off your clothes?”
    “You sure?” he asked, smiling at me with those bedroom eyes of his.
    I nodded and he placed the bowl of grapes on the blanket. He stood in front of me then snapped his fingers and this slow, erotic music started playing. A few seconds later, he was swaying his hips to the beat, teasing me with his movements. Not long after that, Morris was standing next to him and the two of them were both taking off their shirts like they were Chippendale’s dancers.
    “Tanisha. Tanisha.” A voice called, but it wasn’t Nelly and it wasn’t Morris either. It was a familiar voice but I just couldn’t make it out, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. I had other things on my mind. Nelly and Morris were just about to take their pants off, but the voice just kept calling me. The more it called, the more my dream guys seemed to fade away until finally they were both gone.
    “Tanisha! Tanisha!”
    “What?” I growled angrily in frustration. I was awake now, and when I opened my eyes, there was my twelve-year-old brother Aubrey standing in front of the living room sofa I used for a bed. All he was wearing was a dingy pair of drawers. “What you want, Aubrey?”
    “I’m hungry,” he whined.
    “So? Go make you a bowl of Cap’n Crunch,” I snapped, closing my eyes as I tried to snuggle under the covers and get back to my dream. “I just got home from work a couple of hours ago.”
    “There ain’t no Cap’n Crunch and there ain’t no milk,” he answered.
    “Stop lying, Aubrey.” I lifted my head, shooting him a dirty look.
    “I’m not lying, Tanisha. Mommy’s friends came over last night and ate all the cereal and drank up all the milk.” His words angered me. I’d bought that cereal and a quart of milk before I left for work last night just so he’d have something to eat before he went to school.
    “Goddammit!” Now I was pissed off. Not at my brother, but my mother. This shit didn’t make any sense. What kind of mother lets people come in her house and eat the only food she has for her children? I turned back over and stared at my little brother. He was a pain in the ass at times, but he was a good kid. Unlike me, he liked school and was good at it. He was gonna make something of himself one day. Go to college and possibly be a doctor, or maybe a lawyer. I was gonna make sure of that.
    “Where’s Mommy?” I asked angrily.
    “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “She wasn’t in her room when I got up.”
    “It figures,” I mumbled.
    I glanced at the clock on the living room wall. It was 7:15 A.M . I’d only been home from work a couple of hours, but when I came into the house, my mother had been in her bedroom with the door shut, talking to somebody. Probably some trick or one of her smoking buddies—and I don’t mean cigarettes. I hate to admit it, but my mom’s a crackhead. Been one for years.
    “What you want for breakfast, Aubrey?” I sighed.
    “Pancakes.” He smiled.
    “Okay.” I sat up on the sofa. Morris and Nelly were gonna have to wait until I got my little brother off to school. “Hand me my