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As people started to leave, Sherrena and Lora found a quiet spot in the hallway. “I got drama,” Sherrena began. “Drama for your momma! Me and Lamar Richards are going at it again—the man with no legs. He shorted me on my rent this month.” “How much?” Lora’s voice, with soft traces of the island accent, belonged to a librarian. She was older than Sherrena and that night was elegantly dressed in dark slacks, gold earrings, and a layered red blouse. She folded her fur-lined coat on her lap. “Thirty dollars.” Sherrena shrugged. “But that’s not it. It’s the principle….He already owes me two sixty for that bad job for the painting.” When Lamar and the boys had finished painting, he called Sherrena, and she came over. She noticed that the boys had not filled in the holes; had dripped white paint on the brown trim; had ignored the pantry. Lamar said Quentin had not dropped off hole-filler or brown paint. “You’re supposed to go and ask for it, then,” Sherrena snapped back. She refused to credit Lamar a cent toward his debt. “And then,” Sherrena continued, “he did his bathroom floor over without my knowledge and deducted thirty dollars out of the rent.” When painting, Lamar had found a box of tile in Patrice’s old place and had used it to retile his bathroom floor, securing each piece with leftover paint. “I told him, ‘Do not—do not ever deduct any more rent from me ever again!’ Plus, how can you deduct when you owe me?” Lora recrossed her legs. “He’s a player, that’s all he is. Time for him to go….They just try to take, take, take, take, take.” “The thing is”—Sherrena circled back to Lamar’s painting job—“I would have never paid anybody two sixty to do that.” “I can get painting done in five rooms, thirty bucks a room, a hundred and fifty dollars.” “No, no, no. Our people do it for twenty dollars a room, twenty-five at the most.” “Exactly.” “As far as I’m concerned, he still owes the two sixty. Excuse me, now it’s two ninety.” The old friends laughed. It was just what Sherrena needed.
”
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