Page 2 of Justice

She sucked her teeth and looked out the window. “Send in the next clown.”

The next one came in with six-inch seashell-designed nails.

This bitch had platinum-blonde hair styled up high and sculpted, done like Ronnie out of The Players Club. She sported gold hoops big enough to fit my fist through. To top it off she had severe drag-queen make-up. Underneath it all, she was gorgeous, I’ll give her that. She was also, before she reached the couch, an absolute no.

“La’Monakita,” she announced, popping a piece of gum, as she reached across the coffee table to take Rita’s hand.

Every one of us flinched at once. Those nails came at my grandmother’s thin skin like little curved blades, and I actually moved forward in my seat, ready to catch her wrist if I had to.

“Now how you gon’ bathe her with them things?” Quest asked, looking at her sideways.

La’Monakita looked down at her own hands like she’d never met them before. “Oh, these? I can do anything with these. I just gotta be real careful.” Pop went the gum. “Most of the time, anyways. This a nice house y’all got here,” she said as she looked around. “She got jewelry? ’Cause my last old lady, she had this real nice necklace, and when she passed, God rest her sweet soul, the family said I could keep it, so.”

Rita raised one hand without so much as turning her head toward the woman.

“Baby. No. Bye.”

La’Monakita shrugged, unbothered, gathered her enormous purse, and let herself out like she had three more of these lined up before lunch.

“I’m starting to think this is a setup,” I said to the room. “Like somebody at these agencies got money on how long before I catch a charge.”

Prime finally let the laugh out. “Bruh. I think she would’ve been thinking about it.”

“She was eyeing my chain,” Rita said with a hand going to the gold at her throat.

We all laughed because it was true. We would’ve had to handle that Temu-Ronnie if she crossed the line.

Serenity wiped her eyes and looked down at her clipboard. “That’s a no. I’m writing a no. I’m writing a big, underlined no.”

I sat back and dragged a hand down my face. I was about to tell Serenity to cancel the rest of the day, but we only had one more to go, and Serenity said the woman was already outside parking. So fuck it.

When she walked in the room changed temperature.

She came through the door soft like a breeze. Just a woman in a simple wrap dress the color of cognac, hair pulled back off a face that made me lose the sentence I’d been building in my head. Thick enough to make a man’s eyes slow down and take the long road. A warm cocoa round face, with a pair of almond eyes that tipped up at the corners, and when she said “good afternoon” to the room a dimple pressed into her right cheek like the sweetest afterthought God ever had.

I sat up in my chair without deciding to.

Here is what got me, though. Every single person who had come through that door looked at us first. At me, at Quest, at the money in the room, sizing up whose approval they needed to win. This woman walked past all of that and went straight to my grandmother.

She crossed the floor and lowered herself into a crouch in front of Rita’s chair, bringing herself down beneath my grandmother’s eye line, both her hands closing gently around Rita’s.

“Miss Rita? I’m Skye. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”

“Ooh.” Rita’s face lit up. “She got manners. Y’all see that? She came to me first.”

“Well, you’re the one I’d be keeping company,” Skye said, sweetly.

Quest, who did not smile at strangers, smiled. “I’m Quest, the oldest. That’s Prime by the window, Serenity with the clipboard, and that’s my brother Justice.”

Her eyes came to me then. She extended her hand and shook mine. She held it for a while. And then I felt a sensation somewhere in my chest that hadn’t been touched since I put Monica in the ground. Then the dimple showed. She turned back to Rita, and I made myself take a breath.

“Miss Skye.” Rita leaned in like they were about to trade secrets. “You know these fools trying to put a nurse on me. You a nurse?”

“CNA, ma’am. But I’m not here to nurse you.” Skye squeezed her hand and let it go. “You don’t look like you need nursing. You look like you need somebody to keep the house running, keep you good company, and stay out your way when you want to be left alone. That’s a different job.”

“Mm.” Rita studied her hard with those brand-new eyes. “What you cook?”

“Everything. My grandmother raised me in her kitchen. Smothered pork chops, oxtails, greens with the neck bones in ’em. I make a cornbread that’ll have you speaking in tongues.”