Mia nodded dramatically. “Everything wasreallygood.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” the waitress said and set the black billfold on the table between Mia and me. “Well, here’s your check. Take your time, though. No rush.”
She walked away with a reassuring, pleasant smile as I glanced at the time on my phone. Seeing that it was half past two o’clock, I groaned. “Well, we do have to rush. We’re already thirty minutes late.”
Mia waved her hand so nonchalantly that I chuckled. She was unfazed because she and I had laid-back positions at Dream Realty. She was the office manager for the large real estate company based in Hyde Park. With control of the office, she had a lot of flexibility with her hours. As one of the rental agents at the company, she was my boss, as well as my best friend since elementary school, so I’d inherited the same flexibility.
The owners of the company, a pair of Polish twins in their late fifties, usually came into the office in the mornings for briefings with Mia, rental agents, and other staff, so we weren’t in a rush, but there were a few Karens in the office that we had to look out for.
Watching Mia glance over the bill, I asked, “How much is it?”
She sucked her teeth and waved me off without taking her eyes off it. “I got it.”
“Okay, Big Money,” I teased.
“Don’t hate,” she playfully boasted.
Laughing, I replied, “Nobody is hating.”
With her lips pursed, she answered, “It sounds like you are.”
“You know I’m not.”
She finally let her artificial guard down and admitted with a smile, “I know.”
Tilting my head to the side, I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “But how long are you going to keep doing this?”
She cockily shrugged. “As long as it’s putting money in my pocket.”
Sitting back, I shook my head, not bothering to hide the apprehension in my eyes. “I told you that the more money you make, the greedier you’ll get. Don’t you think it’s time to chill before you get caught?”
Mia’s perfectly tinted brow arched dramatically. “You know something about me potentially getting caught?”
Offended, my head reared back. “Don’t play with me, Mia. You know I would never say anything—”
“Especially when you’re reaping the benefits,” she interjected again, raising her brow even higher.
“Pause,”I pressed. “Don’t try to include me in your scandalous ways, heffa. You’ve bought me a few lunches and some drinks, but I don’t have anything to do with what you’re doing.”
“Don’t forget the bottles we’ve popped,” she quipped.
I sucked my jaws in, running my fingers through my hair. “Touché…Touché, bitch.”
“Mm-humph,”she snorted as she dug into her purse.
With a playful smirk tugging at the corner of my lips, I lifted my hands in surrender. “You won that. I was just trying to look out for you.”
As she placed a few twenties in the billfold, her haughty disposition vanished. She pouted as her eyes found mine again. “I thought you weren’t judging me.”
“I’m not,” I insisted. “I never would. I get it. I just don’t want you to get caught. I love you, and I’ve always got your back, but I can’t help you if you’re in prison doing five to ten.” As I laughed, she did as well.
Yet, as I gathered my purse and phone, worry still lingered in the back of my mind. I had been raised in the Wild Hundreds, a nickname for the Roseland area on the far south side. When I was growing up, the Wild Hundreds had an extraordinary amount of gang activity that caused it to be a high-crime area, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with criminal activities. But I was more used to being surrounded by the likes of gangs, drug dealers, addicts, and thieves—crimes more akin to people from impoverished neighborhoods like mine. But Mia was dealing with some white-collar crimes that would likely get her black ass real time if she was ever caught.
Though she and I had full-time jobs, for thirty-year-old women, we weren’t gainfully employed. Unfortunately, after highschool, we found ourselves in unhealthy relationships rather than in a healthy relationship with college. As a result, we were making seventy-five thousand dollars a year during a time of inflation, scammers, and social media that made money, status, and popularity a priority. So, when Mia revealed to me a year ago that she had figured out how to steal money from Dream Realty, I understood her thirst for more.
Through Dream Realty, she was creating fake invoices for services and supplies. As the office manager, it was her job to approve those invoices for payment. She’d create the invoices and approve them, then when the company paid the invoices, those payments were diverted into a business account that she created using a fake identity she’d purchased from one of her scamming cousins.
At first, she was only doing it here and there to give herself a couple extra thousand dollars when she needed it. However, as time went on, she’d upgraded from an apartment on the south side to one of the more modern and expensive condos owned by Dream Realty in the South Loop. Her clothes became more expensive, and so had her life. I worried that she had fallen so far down the rabbit hole that she would never be able to crawl out unscathed.
