If You Want Me by Kayla Perrin Page A

doubt to the offices. She pushed her weight against one door and walked through. That’s when she heard the voices. While she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, she could distinctly make out male and female voices. She moved closer.
    “God, you are impossible,” Tanisha said, frustrated. “This conversation is over.”
    “Why won’t you listen to me?”
    “I don’t have time for this.”
    “You need me. You know you do.”
    “What I need is for you to leave.”
    “Damn you, Tanisha!”
    Alice contemplated turning around and going back out the doors, and was about to do just that, when someone whizzed through the office door like an out-of-control freight train. Alice quickly flattened her back to the wall. Seeing her, the man stopped momentarily, clearly surprised.
    Their eyes met.
    Willie Thompson.
    He was angry, no doubt about it, and after a brief pause, he continued on his way, stalking through the double doors into the main area of the theater. Then he was gone.
    Alice stayed where she was, her back pressed against the wall. She wondered if he’d recognized her. Willie Thompson had always hated her. Marcus had come to her defense against Willie more times than she could remember.
    What was he doing here? And what had he and Tanisha been arguing about?
    Alice counted to five, then continued to the openoffice door. Tanisha, who sat with her elbows propped on a cluttered desk, her face in her hands, didn’t see her. Alice softly rapped on the door.
    Tanisha’s head whipped up, anger flashing in her eyes, followed by relief when she saw it was Alice. “Oh, Desirée. Come in, come in.”
    Alice stepped into the room. “Was that Willie I just saw?” she asked. She knew it was, but she merely wanted a conversation opener.
    “Yes,” Tanisha replied, punctuating the statement with a groan.
    “He’s not coming back, is he?”
    Alarm flashed in Tanisha’s eyes. “You heard us?”
    “No, not really,” Alice quickly said. “I didn’t hear what you were saying. But I did hear loud voices.”
    Tanisha’s shoulders sagged, as though a burden had been lifted. “No, he’s not coming back. I don’t even know why he bothered coming here today.” Sighing, she lifted some papers from a spot on the desk and added them to an already massive pile. “Please, have a seat.”
    Alice sat in the black chair across the desk from Tanisha. It was well worn, with a tear through the fabric of the seat, revealing the yellow foam beneath.
    “All right,” Tanisha said as she straightened a pile of folders. “What can I tell you about this job? Well, as you know, you’ll be teaching children. They range in age from nine to thirteen. We used to offer a class as well for older students, but we didn’t get enough enrolled in the last couple years to continue with that. Maybe we will in the future, but for now, the older kids seem more interested in video games, computers, and school sports.
    “Anyway, each child in the class pays a nominal fee. A hundred and fifty for a session, which is spring and summer. A total of ten weeks.”
    Alice remembered. It had been the same when she’d taken classes at the theater, except that all those years ago the fee had been fifty dollars.
    “We try to keep the costs low with sponsorship so more children in the community can benefit from the theater, but I have to tell you, we haven’t been very successful in getting major sponsorship in the last few years.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t know.” She folded her arms across the desk and stared at Alice. “In the spring, the children meet here once weekly for ninety minutes and learn different aspects of acting. They do monologues, improvisation, role playing. Stuff like that. Once school is out, they have classes three times a week in preparation of the summer play. God, not even that’s picked out yet.”
    “You don’t know what play you’re doing?”
    “Willie was in charge of all that, but he left us high and