Out of the Storm

THE YOUNG MAN and young woman caught each other's eye from across the room, smiling and flirting for all to see in a Hampton, Va., restaurant.

Finally, a friend of the man's walked over to the young woman, Kijafa Frink, then 21. " 'Do y'all know who that is over there?' " Frink recalled him asking. She didn't.

It was January 2001 and the buddy told her that the young man was Michael Vick, a standout football player at Virginia Tech.

"I was like, 'Who is Michael Vick?' " Frink said.

The North Philadelphia native was quickly informed about Vick's football prowess, prompting Frink to halt the flirtation because she didn't want this Vick character to think that she was "a groupie," she said.

Frink moved further away, out of view, but Vick found her. The two soon exchanged phone numbers, "And we've talked to each other every day since," she said.

Kijafa Frink, 28, is back in her beloved hometown - she grew up in Yorktown, attended St. Malachy's Church every Sunday and worked at the Foot Locker in the Gallery - and is at the side of her fiance, Vick, 29, the high-profile quarterback signed by the Eagles over the summer.

Frink admits that the couple had to navigate "a storm," but now, she said, "the puzzle is back together, my life is fixed right now. It seemed like it was broken before."

Vick, a former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, served 18 months in federal prison for bankrolling a pit-bull dogfighting operation at a property he owned in Virginia. He was suspended without pay by the NFL. Sponsorship deals soon ended. He later filed for bankruptcy protection.

Frink declined to discuss the dogfighting case, saying only that "that chapter is closed, it's in the past and we have brighter things to look forward to."

But the Bodine High School graduate, who grew up loving art and fashion, said that she wasn't about to leave her man and the father of her two daughters when he headed to prison.

"I love Michael with all my heart, and I felt like you just don't stay with a person just for the good times, you have to toughen out the bad times and in between," Frink said yesterday, over lunch at the Union Trust restaurant in Center City.

"What kind of a woman would I be [to leave] 'cause the money went?

"I wanted to stand by him and hopefully he stands by me with whatever I face in my life going forward," Frink said. "It seems like we're getting out of the storm right now."

The two are planning their wedding for next year and are pondering which city to marry in. Besides those two nuggets, Frink declined to offer further details.

But for a while it was rough seas for the pair after Vick's arrest, especially when her older daughter, Jada, who turns 5 later this month, had questions. She wondered where he was going.

Vick "would tell her he's going to training camp," Frink said. But Jada saw a TV report and broke the news to her mother: "Daddy's not going to training camp, he's in jail," Frink recalled her daughter saying.

"Did you know that, mommy?"

Frink said she "was sad. It hurt. It hurt."

Everything in her world that she knew came "shattering down," she said. "He was gone. The breadwinner, no longer there."

Her younger daughter, London, who will turn 2 next week, was just one month old when Vick went to prison. And being a single parent was just plain tough, she said.

"It was hard, not even without the money, it was hard to raise two kids by yourself," said the Hampton University graduate. "I don't care if you have money or you don't have money, it's hard."

She said that she had newfound respect for single mothers.

That period was a "life-changing situation" for both Frink and Vick. "It made us realize that all this superficial stuff in life really don't matter," she said. "At the end of the day, it's about your family and your loved ones."

When Vick left prison, he emerged "a totally different person," she said.

Vick, the superstar player who was reinstated by the NFL and played his first game as an Eagle on Sept. 27, now cleans around their Philadelphia residence. He bathes the girls - he didn't do that before - and reads books to them, she said.

She jokes that she wished Vick knew how to do their hair, however. "You know he's a father, he's a brother, he's a regular person."

Frink said that she still can't describe the joy she felt the day Vick was released from prison in Leavenworth, Kan.

"He's made some, I don't want to say mistakes, he's made some bad choices in his life, that he knows," Frink said. "He paid the consequences greatly, dearly and he wants to close that chapter and move on."