In a 92 bus shelter on U-Street sits a young lady wrapped in black wool and Ward 1 attitude.  Her arms are crossed, resting atop the plateau of her belly.  She is a young mother-to-be on her way to spill the secret to yet another unsuspecting family member: a red bone girl carrying a hybrid blessing behind her navel.

As she holds a bus schedule in her hand, a sneaky breeze carries it to the pavement — her belly shortening her awkward reach.

Handing it to her, she thanks me reluctantly, volunteering a disgruntled tale of how disturbingly long she had been waiting for the bus. “I just left school,” she tells me.  “I’m not really feeling well, and I wish this bus would hurry up and get here.”

Like anyone in the unexpected company of a teenage mother-to-be, I buried my judgment and chagrin in the grave-yards of my mind, wishing the metal bench she and I were sitting on were more suitable for maternal carriage.

When I ask her which grade she is in, she responds with emptiness — the kind of cavalier ambivalence one could only get from being asked that question a million times by concerned Principals too busy to know your name. “Eleventh,” she replies. “I’m almost done, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish.  I’ll probably get my GED after he [the baby] arrives.”

The uncertainty in her voice brings unease to our conversation.  My mind breaks out in hives of questions — the answers to which I have no right to know.  Suddenly, I find myself like the Oracle in the Matrix…a mysterious confidante offering this young girl a piece of my red-licorice, already knowing that she had made a choice, and had been sitting in this bus shelter on U-Street trying to understand why she made it.

She wears the protectionist mask of her decision on her face. A look of “don’t you dare feel sorry for me” flashes across her brow like a late-night neon “No Vacancy” sign on a motel.

If only she knew that her saving grace was not in the prolonged arrival of some unsanitary metro bus; or in the condescending kindergarten voice of a youth counselor at a 501 c3; or in the haphazard promise of a deferred GED program.  If only she knew that her saving grace was in the one place she would never expect it to be: that great ivory mansion on Pennsylvania Ave, fortified by inconspicuously armed white men with black sunglasses, clear-wire ear-pieces, and military-complexes.

Though not in the empty presidential slogans of “hope” and “change,” both of which are the middle-names of “poverty” and “hardship,” her saving grace exists instead in the East-Wing of the White House — a recently launched program by the First Lady, especially designed to empower local young women like herself.

The program is called “The White House Leadership & Mentoring Initiative;” it is meant to give local high school women unparalleled access to women in the White House.

In an event announcing the launch of the program, Mrs. Obama said the program was started to let local kids “know that the president of the United States hears you and values you and cares about your growth and development.”  The program is intended to inspire young ladies from public and private high schools in the DC-Metro area by giving them access to accomplished women.

“It’s also about understanding that all of us have had challenges and bumps along the way, and to know that there’s just a level of moving through it that all of us have had to do,”the First Lady said.

According to the White House, school Principals choose the students based on their understanding of who can benefit most from all the program has to offer.

It is obvious that this young mother-to-be, sitting next to me in an unstable bus-shelter, is not unlike the young women already participating in The White House Leadership Initiative. She has the most to gain from the program; and surely her Principal would recognize this if she were only in class.

As if I had no real knowledge of the White House’s initiative, I unearth the nerve to casually mention that I had heard about this program in the White House.  With reluctant intrigue, this young mother-to-be replies, “I’ll talk to my [school] counselor about it tomorrow.

But it’s cool if I can’t get into the program; if I can get some help, I think I’ll finish out.” Unfortunately, the bus never came quick enough for this young lady, who having waited for what seemed like an eternity, decided to make the wobbly walk to the U-Street Metro train station.

While I cannot be certain that her talk with the counselor will go as well as I hope, at least she’ll be in school one more day.

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