“Hello.”

“Geneva said you could have her phone number to call her,” my mother told me.

“Yeah, she told me that last night.”

“Why didn’t you take it then? I told you she’s a good girl. You need someone to take you off these streets. I know what kind of trouble you can get into out there.”

“Are you on lunch break?” I asked her. She was getting rather personal in her conversation with me from work.

“You know, you got a way of always dodging questions, Terrance,” she commented.

“Of course I do,” I told her. “I get it from you all.”

“Well, I’m gonna give you Geneva’s number right now. So take out your cell phone and put her number in.”

I went ahead and took the girl’s number, but I wasn’t planning on calling her any time soon. I was the wrong guy to be thinking about settling down, and I had half a dozen other phone numbers that were more pressing than hers. Geneva was no Andrea, and we had no history together.

My mother asked me, “So, when are you leaving for Atlanta again?”

Honestly, I didn’t see any reason in staying in Gary long. I still hadn’t seen many of my old friends, but so what? They weren’t going to cry over not seeing me. We could all wait until the next time.

“What time you get off work tonight?” I asked her. “Same time?”

“No, since I cut out of here early yesterday, I promised to work a little later tonight.”

I said, “I might get out of here today then.” I expected to get an earful over that, but I didn’t.

My mother grunted, “Mmm-hmm, I figured that. Once you stayed out late last night, I knew you would want to leave today. The old hit-and-run move. But if it was Geneva, she’d make you stay.”

My mother sure had a lot of faith in that girl.

I said, “Mom, has it ever crossed your mind that she may not even like me?”

“Good, I’m glad she doesn’t. A man needs to learn how to work for something. But she likes you enough to give you her number.”

I didn’t have anything else to say. I thought about asking her about my sister to get the subject off of me, but that would have started another long conversation, and I didn’t want to be on the phone that long.

I said, “Well, we’ll see what happens, Mom. We’ll see.”

As soon as I hung up the phone with my mother, my cell phone rang from my hip. I looked down at the number and saw that it was Theresa calling me.

Should I answer this? I thought to myself. I felt we had a peaceful night together, so I hoped she wasn’t calling to ruin it. Sometimes you just had to let things be. However, I answered her phone call just to make sure everything was okay.

She said, “I hate to bother you, but you still haven’t answered my question from this morning. Am I going to see you again?”