A Woman's Work: Street Chronicles

A Woman's Work: Street Chronicles

The Preacher's Daughter

I walked through my front door at 11:15 p.m. and headed straight to my bedroom because I was exhausted and damn near drained from tonight's performance, but I knew that I wasn't going to reach my destination before checking in with my parents, who were still up waiting for me to come home. Week after week, it was the same fucking routine: I would come home late, they would be in the living room waiting for me to give them an explanation, and I would tell them the same bullshit!

"Melissa, why didn't you make curfew tonight? You are supposed to be in the house by ten p.m. sharp, and even that's too late. I'm getting sick and tired of you strolling through these doors after hours like your name is written on the deed. You know people look up to us, and you're not setting a good example for the kids in the neighborhood."

Growing up in a strict Christian household can do some serious damage to a girl's social life. I never got the chance to go to any parties or social gatherings with other kids my age. As far as my parents were concerned, Bible study, choir rehearsal, and the children's ministry group were all the social gatherings that a sixteen-year-old needed. You see, my father is Pastor Earl T. Booker James, and trust me, he always said his entire name wherever he went because it rang bells in our community. He loved the attention and praise that everyone gave him, but my mother, Sister Patricia James, loved it even more. Because my father's pastor of one of the biggest churches in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he and my mother always seemed to focus their attention on impressing others, and I for one was becoming very tired of it all.

"Melissa, you live in a Christian household, and you are going to walk in the right path, young lady. How do you think it looks when someone drives past the house and sees the pastor's daughter living like she doesn't have any rules to follow? What kind of example are you setting?"

First of all, no one should be driving past here minding my fucking business in the first place, so if they see me doing anything that hurts their precious feelings, then it serves them right. But of course I wasn't stupid enough to say that shit. "Ma, you knew that I had a game today in Wilmington, Delaware. It's not my fault that the bus came back to the school late. The game ran into overtime, and I couldn't just pick up and leave."

"When you asked us to join the volleyball team I didn't know that it was going to cause such a problem. You come home from practice late in the afternoons, and you've missed dinner almost every night since we allowed you to join that team.

Excerpted from A Woman's Work: Street Chronicles by Nikki Turner presents. Copyright © 2011 by Nikki Turner. Excerpted by permission of One World/Ballantine, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.