Mama Shujaa

Pete weaves between the small round tables. There is a loose rhythm beneath his skin, waiting to release to the surface; when he is not thinking precisely, when the red wine (rocking and rolling in his glass) hits his palette, when he lets the blues pass through his body. And if the wine's viscosity provides good legs, the up-to-the-shoulders kind, like Ramona's, Pete will dance. Crisp black pants and shiny shoes compliment the night's pizazz. A black waistcoat, white shirt and black tie add a hint of gravitas, as his platypus feet step towards their table. Guess Who Loves You More   is piping through the speakers. The singer's falsetto tracks a love lost then found; self-delusion at its worst. "Good evening, ladies," his greeting is met with still air, the dead calm before the descent of dark funnel clouds of a tornado. All five feet and nine inches of Ramona is stretched taut, beyond irritation. Moments ago, she and Amani had succumbed to giggles over ...

For first two installments click 1 and 2 . Ramona is particular about the pronunciation of her last name. Moreover, she is selective in educating coworkers and the umpteen late bloomers she has met in Atlanta’s social settings. Not every moron who mistakes her for a slender Mexican gets details of her mixed heritage. Atlanta is a city with a deeply historic eighty-twenty percent cultural more that recalls segregation. On a given evening, nightclubs hosting at least eighty percent African-American clientele will balance out with twenty percent Caucasian clientele; flip numbers, race, and the same is true. It is boring, and Ramona’s cosmopolitan nature struggles to stay afloat. In her view, the so-called ‘Little Apple’ she relocated to must grow in leaps to the multiculturalism of her tri-state New York-New Jersey-Connecticut stomping grounds. Fortunately, the workforce has provided some solace; because when she felt the stirring recognition of a fellow multiculti’s sensibility, she...

“Big plans this weekend, Larry?” She forced herself out of her reverie with a rote question void of sincerity, and prepared herself for his legendary preview of a football viewing booze filled weekend. “Sure do,” he said boastfully, “unlike you, Amani, I have plans. Matter of fact, you are welcome to join me and my boys at our get-together; bring your own beer!” “Thanks for the invitation, but I have stuff to do.” She preferred her mind-numbing chores to potentially tedious hours with her amply endowed cube-mate Larry and his bruisers; and their mouths, vessels of slipshod utterances passing from one to the other like an award winning ping pong competition. “You guys have fun,” she said merrily, returning to her cubicle, certain she would be regaled with the events of the weekend the following Monday. In the meantime, Ramona, the new secretary was on her mind. And the ‘idiot’ attorney Pete, who by chance walked by her cubicle at the exact moment he crossed her mind. He appear...

She hastened the clatter of her fingers on the keyboard. Like most people, she detested eavesdroppers. Yet, given the cloistered confines of their workspace, who could fault her for learning of his dreadful connections? "You are not a materialistic person," she overheard his affirmation to the caller, and she angled her head further towards the cubicle partition, fingers arrested mid-air. His unusual positive message was a sharp contrast to his habitual excuse-filled avoidance of tasks-at-hand, petulant complaints and nagging criticism of office policies. "But, what you need to do is put your foot on his back and kick him to the concrete, that's what you need to do," he continued. Her memory of the rumor-mongering lesson she learned as a teen was as fresh as the dewdrops on the banana leaves in Bibi’s* plantation. Nobody would ever finger her as feeder of the office beast. "If that doesn't work, we'll wait and see," he continued, "...