If These Walls Could Talk Read Free

to the management.”
    â€œDawn, I really don’t think anyone cares. Look at Georgiana and all those other women who run day care centers out of their apartments. This isn’t Good Times, where Florida and James are always being threatened with eviction for breaking this rule or that rule. I always thought that was a stupid plot device, anyway. People don’t get evicted from the projects unless they’ve committed a major infraction, like going three months without paying their rent or something.”
    â€œThis isn’t a project, Milo.” Her voice came out sharper than she had meant it to, but as a child of the crime- and graffiti-ridden projects of East New York, she didn’t want anyone to infer that at this point in her life she still lived in a ghetto.
    He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “So it isn’t a project. Don’t bite my head off, will you?”
    â€œSorry,” she said, and took a breath. “I’m just so annoyed. And I’m a little worried, too, about these buildings going downhill and turning into something just a step or two removed from the projects. The maintenance is really starting to get bad. Remember those times last winter when the boiler wasn’t working? Winter is coming, and we’ll probably freeze again this year.” She sighed. “What we really need is a house.”
    â€œWe could use the winning lottery numbers, too, if you’re granting wishes.”
    â€œSeriously, Milo.”
    â€œDawn, you know damn well we can’t afford a house. Only rich people can buy houses, at least in this part of the country. People with incomes a lot higher than ours are renting.”
    â€œI know people our age at work who have houses.”
    â€œYeah? How many of them are black?”
    She hesitated just a moment. “A few.”
    â€œOkay. And how many of these black home owners aren’t from the Caribbean?”
    â€œOkay, you’ve got me there.” Dawn didn’t understand why such a great number of people from places like Jamaica or Barbados or Trinidad managed to amass more than the average African American. Popular culture viewed these islanders as exceptionally hard workers who weren’t averse to working two or even three jobs to earn their rewards in life. But she and Milo could hardly be called lazy. She’d worked steadily ever since graduating high school nearly twenty years ago, even putting in full days until her labor pains started with Zach, and returning promptly at the close of six weeks’ maternity leave.
    Dawn had spent her entire career at the same company, starting out as a receptionist, then moving into payroll and working as a clerk, and finally interviewing for the supervisory position when it became available. Milo’s first foray into the workforce was at a paint factory. He’d quickly decided he didn’t want to stay on there, doing hard physical labor, the strong odor of paint doing God knows what to his lungs, collecting tiny annual cost-of-living increases until retirement. He enrolled in a community college, learned to write code, and after getting his associate degree he got a job as a junior programmer at an office machines manufacturer. The “junior” had long since been dropped from his title, and he’d done quite well.
    But not well enough to be able to afford a home of his own.
    â€œHave you seen the prices of homes lately?” he asked.
    She unconsciously jutted out her lower lip, like a child who’d been told she couldn’t have the toy she wanted. “Well, I think we ought to start looking. I’m sure there’s something out there we can afford.”
    It looked to her like their building had begun what would likely be a long slide downward, and she didn’t want to take the trip with it.

Chapter 2
    The Curry Family
The Bronx, New York
October 2001
    C amille stirred at the sound of the Lexington Avenue line