In Your Dreams, Chapter 4: Ericka

Chapter 4: Ericka

I ended my workday around one-thirty by dropping off some blueprints downtown and grabbing a quick bite, so I could go with Toy to check out a potential wedding venue on the riverfront. She already had the best planner in the area, courtesy of her rich fiancée. But she wasn’t comfortable with all the pretense and ran every one the planner’s suggestions by me first as if I was the expert. When I climbed into her shiny black GMC truck, I was horrified to see her sitting there in some dirty coveralls and her face covered in black smut.

“What the hell?” I gasped.

Toy was about to be a married woman, but still couldn’t fully get past the fact that she was not the man in the relationship.

“What?” she asked, innocently. “I’ve been priming cars most of the day. And then the new guy didn’t bang the quarter-panel back in place good enough for my tastes so I had to replace it myself at the last minute. I didn’t have time to go home and change.”

She took a washcloth from a plastic baggie out of the middle console and wiped the smudges from her face. Her smooth skin glistened like a ripe peach from the moisture. Then she went over her lips with a Chap-Stick she removed from her pocket.

“Girl, your face is clean, but look at them nasty overalls. You ain’t going with me in no fancy venue like that. They’re liable to call the police on us to keep you from tracking dirt into their establishment.”

As I was complaining, Toy snatched open her breakaway overalls, revealing a red shirt with the logo of her business Toy Cars and a pair of blue cargo shorts that accented her long, athletic legs. She then removed the scrunchy from shoulder length hair, smoothed it back with a hairbrush she also had stashed in the middle console, and then tied her hair back into the scrunchy. A pair black Timberland work boots completed her outfit, and for a grimy tomboy, she looked cute.

“Do I look decent enough to be seen in public with you, now?” she pouted.

I gave her a side eye before snapping in my seat belt. “Stop playing. You know you was about to go up in them people’s place looking a damn mess. Are you trying to get dragged in the gossip blogs?”

Toy answered me with an indignant huff before putting the truck in gear to pull off.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Whatever. This is your event. I’m just along for the ride.” I said, failing miserably to stifle another rather loud and rude yawn. My third since getting into her truck. “And where’d you get those boots?” One thing she and I had in common was our tomboy swag. Although, most of the time, I looked a lot softer than she did. It still amazed me that she was able to land such a good catch. Or any catch at all, really.

She glanced down at her feet briefly and grinned. “Germaine gave them to me.”

“That’s one thing I miss about being with Maurice. If there was one thing he was good for, it was buying a decent pair of kicks. He always kept me and Tomika in the freshest footwear.” I tried unsuccessfully to stifle yet another yawn. It had been a long day with my therapy appointment, and the nightmare I had interrupted my rest.

“Ericka, stop all that yawning! That mess is contagious and I gotta go back to work when we leave here.”

“Sorry. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

Toy grinned.

“Bout time you came to your senses and hooked up with Desmond,” she said, slyly, looking like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Shut up. I told you; I’m not going there with him. And you either.”

“Well, I’m just saying,” she continued, “the brother is in love with you. Any man willing to do everything he’s done for a woman who ain’t giving him none has got to be in love. And you love him, too. I can see it.”

“Here we go with this mess again. You're worse than Natalie. I told you, Desmond and I are just friends. And besides, I got enough problems. Y'all get on my nerves.” I touched my head and looked out the window.

“Okay, okay!” she sighed. “So, what’s keeping you up at night, then?” she inquired.

“It’s kinda silly, really. I’ve been having nightmares.”

Toy stole a quick glance at me as she drove.

“What kind of nightmares?”

“The kind that force me to relive getting shot almost every night after I go to bed. It’s weird because if you think about it, it was really an accident. If you can really call getting caught in the cross hairs of a bullet meant for somebody else an accident. But I wasn’t even the target, so it’s not like I’m worried about anyone coming after me now. But every time I close my eyes, the fear paralyzes me. I hear the shots, I feel the bullets, and I can even smell my flesh burning.” Talking about it was making me tremble.

“Wow, that’s crazy. How long you been having them?”

“Since right after we moved here, but they’re becoming more intense.”

I could see the growing concern on my friend’s face.

“Has the hospital offered you any type of psychological counseling?”

“They did right before I started outpatient physical therapy, but I refused. How does an accidental shooting warrant therapy? And I know therapy is the ‘it’ thing to do, now, but I’m not convinced that it helps all that much. People still crazy.”

“Don’t knock it till you tried it,” Toy commented absently, now appearing to use her driving as an excuse to avoid eye contact.

I stared at her inquisitively. Did I hear her right? Out of all my friends, she was the last one I expected to seek therapy.

“Don’t tell me you’ve had to lay on a couch and talk to a stranger,” I responded, silently scoffing at the notion that Toy would seek help from a mental health professional.

No response. My stare bore a hole into the side of her face as she continued to stare straight ahead as though the road had her full attention.

“Toy?” I probed.

“Yes, Ericka. I see a therapist,” she finally blurted out.

“You ‘see’ a therapist?” I cried. “As in present tense, you do right now, on a regular?”

“Yes! And stop yelling!”

I was shocked. “How come I never knew about this?”

She pursed her lips and jerked the truck into Park as we arrived at the venue finally.

“It’s not something you broadcast to everyone. And besides, it’s not that big a deal.” She fumbled in the armrest for her wallet. “I promise to tell you about it later if you get out of the car and come on so we won’t be late, and if you consider going to talk to my doctor.”

I was still sitting there with my mouth open, unable to speak. Toy rolled her eyes at me, jumped out of the truck, and slammed her door. She came over and opened my door for me. “Heifer, get out before I take that cane from you and make you hop around without it for the rest of the day!”

Forgetting momentarily about therapy, I gave her the finger and snatched my cane from her. She laughed as I jerked away from her trying to help me out of the truck to go see what seemed like the millionth wedding venue in the area.

On the way home, Toy avoided any talk about shrinks and therapy which was okay with me because I wasn’t all that interested in rehashing the details of my latest nightmare. Instead, we focused on whether she had finally found a place for her and Germaine to get married at this latest venue. She decided, to my dismay, that she had not, and we made plans to venture outside of the area or even consider a destination wedding. I took notes while she rattled off all her upcoming appointments and her growing to-do list. She touched my hand as I reached for the door to exit her truck when we reached my waiting vehicle.

“I think you should seriously consider talking to somebody,” she earnestly implored. “Don’t be scared to ask for help.”

“Scared?” I asked with a false sense of bravery. “Remember, I can stop a bullet like 50 Cent.”

© 2024, Evelyn Outlaw

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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products are intended or should be inferred.

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