Maxine peered over her Armani glasses as she sipped a double latte. “He got Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message all wrong. Harrison Boyd does not have a dream, he’s got a scheme. What do you need his sorry butt for?” “Maxine, maybe you don’t understand what it is to love a black man who has hopes that aren’t that easy to come by,” Abeni answered. “Sometimes you just have to have faith in a man. I think there will come a day when Harrison will definitely get over. And I want to be the black woman by his side that day.” “Oh, I get it.” Maxine rolled her eyes. “It’s a black thang and I wouldn’t understand because I’m not as black as you. Is that the four-one-one?” “I didn’t say you weren’t black,” Abeni said. “But check it out, Maxine, you’re nineteen and you already have an associate degree, and you have a smoking job. Do you really think that life is that easy for every black person out here?” “No, I don’t,” Maxine said. “But I know this.
