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trouble like these other girls around here. I look out for her, you know.” He smiled at Edna, and she seemed to relax.
    Both Edna and Charlie looked at Jada. Jada’s brow furrowed slightly, wondering what was going on. She
had
seen Mr. Charlie the night before. But she hadn’t been with Shante at all. She had been in the corner store with Sean. While she had gone to get a soda from the back, Sean had been at the counter asking for condoms. When Jada had joined him at the register, Charlie had walked in. She had cringed while Charlie ordered a pack of cigarettes and watched her walk out of the store with Sean’s hand on her ass. And here he was lying for her. As her mother searched her face for confirmation, Jada nodded. Charlie winked at her.
    She suppressed a smile as she left. Charlie followed her out, as he went to retrieve the air conditioner from his car. When they were out of Edna’s earshot, Charlie said, “You know I saw you last night, right? Now, what would your mother think about what you were doing with that boy?”
    Jada looked at him. “I know you came to give my mother more than an air conditioner. And what would your wifey think about that?”
    Charlie smirked. “I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine,” he said.
    Jada smiled back. “Deal.” She strutted off toward Broadway, and Charlie couldn’t help watching.
     
    From then on, Jada felt that Mr. Charlie was her ally. He saw her from time to time, being fast and acting grown. And she turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the loud fucking he did with her mother twice a week. Charlie treated Edna as his chick on the side. Whatever she needed, Mr. Charlie could provide. Charlie always brought them something. He gave Edna money, groceries—whatever. He’d give her money to take Jada shopping, and he drove them to the mall. But what Jada liked about him was that he seemed to understand
her.
He seemed to remember what it was like to be young and to want to have freedom—to have fun. Whenever Jada told her mother that she had been at the after-school center, while she and Ava had really been riding around with niggas smoking weed, Charlie knew the truth. And he never told their mother. He would even cover for Jada if Edna caught her in a lie. He became her coconspirator.
    One night Charlie bumped into Jada as she stood in the stairwell of his building smoking weed with Shante. He stopped and warned her that she would get in trouble if the cops caught her smoking there. “You should be careful where you do your dirt,” he said. He could tell that she was moving in the wrong direction, because she was hanging out with Shante more and more. Shante was bad news, and everybody knew it. Her mother seemed blind to it, and she was grown long before the law said so. She was a booster. She smoked weed all day, boosted her shit, and got her money. Shante hardly ever went to school, and she seemed to be able to come and go as she pleased. Her mother worked all the time, and was obsessed with her younger boyfriend. Shame’s mom had time for little else than young Raymond, so her apartment was the hangout spot. Shante was fast, and she didn’t give a fuck. Jada would get high with her just about every day after school. Some days they would inviteguys over and get busy with them, but usually they would just chill, drinking and smoking, talking and acting grown.
    Jada nodded. “I’ll be careful. Thank you, Mr. Charlie.”
    He walked up the stairs, and she kept right on smoking. She took his advice, though. And after that they started smoking at Shame’s house.
     
    They opened all the windows and sprayed air freshener to keep the scent out. By the time her mother got home, the place was always back in shape. This became their routine. It was on one such occasion that smoking with Shante changed Jada’s life forever.
    They were smoking at Shante’s place with her friend, Lucas. Lucas was a guy everybody knew yet no one was really close to. He was ugly,