Angelica, who knows enough

Dear Diary, (Morning of May 22nd)

I recognized the house ****, Angelica, before she even fully stepped from the shadows. The knowing smile on her face told me everything I needed to know. The deferential nature exhibited the night before was replaced by something far more dangerous.

“The Old Master, Miss, he would ramble on sometimes ...” Angelica shrugged her pretty shoulders casually, “... you know after we did our dirty thing.” The image of my father grunting and huffing as he and this young woman a third his age rolled about on his bed further disoriented me and I could only stammer incoherently as Angelica walked closer. “He talked enough that I started wondering when you first got here.” She smiled innocently as she held out my missing butter knife on her palms like an offering. “Then I find this here knife in your baggage - and I know.”

Angelica, holding a trump card:

The words felt like a punch in my gut, and I sat back on my bed as the world whirled. “What do you want?”

“Master Heyward say he was gonna to free me, Miss.” I wasn't even a little surprised when I heard her demand. I was however when she continued, “but that's no good for me.”

“You don't want to be free?”

“Being free, Miss, don't do a fancy girl no good.” The pretty **** set the knife down on my dresser and turned back to meet my gaze with a presumptiveness that would normally have earned her a whipping, “There just be some other man, and then another ... 'til I'm too old to catch their eyes.” It was, I remember thinking at the time, a brutally clear-eyed appraisal of her future, free or ****.

Seeing this stark future through Angelica's eyes brought clarity to my mixed feelings about my mother's seemingly endless supply of lovers. I have (although never said this to her face) always felt that the way my mother entertained Philadelphia's finest politicians, artists and entrepreneurs in her solons, fancy dinner parties and yes - in her bed, made her little more than a high scale whore. Perhaps, I owe her an apology. Angelica was speaking again, and I had to put this disquieting thought away for later consideration.

“You take care of me, Miss. You do that for me, we both be good.”

Angelica sauntered closer until she was standing just in front of me, and she gently stroked my hair almost like a lover. “You and me, Miss. I think we gonna have some fun.” I thought for just a second that Angelica was going to kiss me, but then instead she gently patted my cheek and was gone as quickly as she appeared.