Troy had been in charge of inspecting the building and he said that this one was good. The foundation was solid; there was no mold so no hidden water damage, no termites and the nearby shops kept it safe from hidden predators. He grinned and gave her the thumbs up. Later he approached the city with a request to purchase it for a dollar even though it had not been posted for sale. However, once the city's inspectors had shown evidence that the building had been used for drug activities, it was given the ok to sale. They had one year to rehab it. They did it in four months. Juicy would not be surprised on days when she would enter the building, while it was being rehabbed, to see several homeless men—including her own, sleeping there because they had pulled an all-nighter. She would stare at them with thankful admiration, knowing that she would never see these people in the same light again.One day Juicy and Troy stood in front of a building. Stenciled across the window were the

She did not understand why Troy had just left with those few words. It was now the middle of the night and he hadn't come back or called. They'd been living together since the nightmares had made it impossible for her to sleep through the night without him. Though living together was a slight stretch. He spent his nights with her and during the day, while she did heads, he did whatever homeless people did. Once they had the shop and there weren't people running in and out of the apartment, Troy could relax at home. They would lie in bed, snuggled under the quilt, watching a rented movie and Juicy would think, this is what other people do…Working closely together on the shop had allowed Juicy to see Troy in a different light. Maybe in her world he showed a lot of insecurity, but in his own world, with his friends and working with his hands, he was relaxed and very accomplished. He handled the deliveries, ordering the material, did most of the gutting of the old building himse

When Juicy was eighteen years old her Momma died; not immediately¡ªit didn't happen in one day, and perhaps Juicy could consider her mother's entire life as a slow death. But it was when Juicy was eighteen that marked the end of the life that Jassmina Robinson had once lived.Juicy had come home from school. It was one of the few days that month that she'd even bothered to go to school. At the age of eighteen she was only in the tenth grade¡ªnot because she wasn't smart enough, but because she just didn't bother to attend classes. She had absolutely no interest in school. Juicy figured that she could be more productive bringing home money than sitting in a classroom all day while her clients found other people to take their money! Besides, she wanted to do hair for a living, so what good was history and math when she already had her future mapped-out for her? Besides, she barely knew what was going on in class. She didn't do the homework because she was too busy with customers,

"So yeah, we knew that gal was a druggy but we didn't think she was stupid enough to steal drugs from the hospital. But then it was coming up missing way too much. She was just careless about it; taking too much."Anyway, they called your Momma into the office and said that they'd found evidence that she'd been stealing. They found one of those cardboard wrappers in your Momma's locker, which was dumb. No one would leave evidence just sitting in their locker. So it was bad enough to be set up, but worse to be set up by your own best friend."The two of them were in line, reaching for things to place on Mr. Joe's tray and her hand stopped in mid-grab."My Momma's best friend?""Yeah. That druggie gal and your Momma was tighter then a pair of pantyhose on a fat girl's legs! Actually, she got your Momma that job before you were even born. They used to hang out, go to lunch, have barbecues on the weekend."Mr. Joe slid the tray to the cashier and took a few precious moments to

Troy hung up the phone, staring at it for a full five minutes before he pulled himself around. It had been nearly two weeks now and Juicy hadn't answered the phone in days.He knew that meant that she was pretty peeved. So he made sure that his messages listed every single thing that he did. He would ramble on until the voice mail shut off and the busy tone was all that he could hear.He rubbed his tired eyes and lay across the single bed that had been his so many years before. It wasn't even night yet, but the medication didn't follow the same timeline that the rest of the world followed. When he got tired he slept and that could be even two hours after he'd risen for the day.Troy's eyes drooped and he was soon sleeping deeply and dreaming of the same thing; Juicy.The day that Troy had left their apartment, he had seen the hurt in Juicy's eyes, but all that he could think of is how piss poor of a father he would make. Troy knew the facts, and that fact is that a chil