Mama Dearest by E. Lynn Harris

of all the germs crawling around down there. Isn’t there a cleaning service that could be called? Where are city tax dollars being spent?
    Ava averts her eyes from the many stares she is getting. Stares from men and women in cheap work outfits, carrying poorly made briefcases and purses. They had to know that she doesn’t belong here among them. She is special, above having to wait at subway stops, above having to tolerate the kids at the back of that subwaycar, wearing baggy jeans and hoodies, cracking vulgar jokes and acting ghetto. People can look at her and tell by the expensive jewelry she wears, the sparkling gold bracelet that hangs from her wrist, the watch her last husband had surprised her with that cost more than ten thousand dollars, the huge diamond ring she bought on Rodeo Drive, that she isn’t one of them.
    These people don’t know that I was once damn near royalty, Ava thought to herself. Then why haven’t any of the men jumped up, quickly offering their seat when they saw a woman of her stature step through those sliding subway doors? Maybe it’s the fifteen pounds she put on while she was incarcerated. No, she isn’t a perfect size four anymore, but she still has the body of a woman half her age, or she will very soon.
    If this was Rome or Paris, even Beverly Hills, she tells herself, the men would’ve behaved as gentlemen, begging her to take their seats. But these workday commoners act like they haven’t seen her in the social pages in newspapers across the world. By the vacant looks on their faces, and the time of day, Ava knows they are heading to jobs they hate. Poor trash, she thought. Ava is so thankful she has never had to live that life.
    Yes, over the last seven years she had lost touch with many of her social connections, hasn’t been to a dinner party or high tea, but she is free now. It is only a matter of time before her wealthy friends learn of her release and begin calling her for brunch and vacations. Maybe she can even revive her show business career.
    She’ll do one spectacular performance, then another, and another, and her phone will never stop ringing. She’ll be back on top, and this momentary misstep will be a thing of the past.
    The conductor’s voice came over the train’s speakers: “Harlem, 125th Street.”
    The train lurched to a stop, and Ava thankfully prepared to de-board behind a wall of other riders.
    On the subway platform, she pulls out the slip of paper she had written her parole officer’s address on. She looks left, then looks right at the signs pointing up toward two separate sets of stairs. This is the stop where she is supposed to get off, but she has no clue as to which direction to continue in. People busily crossed back and forth in front of her, still paying her no mind.
    “Excuse me,” Ava finally said to a man wearing a T-shirt so long it looked like a nightgown. “Can you tell me where to find the Adam Clayton Powell Building?”
    The man looks at Ava like she is crazy, hunches his shoulders and says, “Lady, quit playing. Everybody knows where that building is.” He turns and keeps walking.
    Fine, she thought. Ava decided she’d find it on her own. How could she expect to get any useful information from anyone making minimum wage?
    Half an hour later, Ava steps off an elevator into a long, sour-smelling hallway of the Powell Building. She passes several open-door offices until she finally reaches her destination. She enters an office with drab walls, a split-pea soup color, a ratty sofa in one corner and in front of that, a chipped and marred coffee table covered with outdated magazines fanned across its top. Ava can’t believe this is the building that houses the offices of former president Bill Clinton.
    “Can I help you?” a squeaky-voiced woman said from behind a high counter on the other side of the room.
    “I have an appointment with a William Lomax at ten A.M .”
    The overly made-up middle-aged woman chewed a wad of gum like