Redemption

by CaSandra McLaughlin

  “Get her a date. She didn’t tell you?”

  “Date with who? Professor Sherman Klump? And where they going to, a buffet?”

  Tania brushed off those insults. She couldn’t afford to let Mona get to her. Not now. This was too important.

  Vivian followed Tania back to her room, where they went through the closet and found a cute outfit—a pair of tights and cute sequin top—that Tania never would have thought to put together without Vivian’s help.

  Naomi perched herself on a stool and watched the transformation with amazement on her face.

  Vivian freed Tania’s ponytail and spiral-curled her hair into flowing ringlets. She even showed Tania how to apply light make-up that made her look naturally radiant. When the impromptu makeover was complete, Tania admired what she saw in the mirror.

  Vivian began to clap and screamed, “Girl, look at you! I knew you had it in you!”

  “You look beautiful, Tania!” Naomi agreed.

  Just as Tania was enjoying her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door, Mona busted up in the room. She looked Tania up and down, then said, “You still need to wear a girdle. I see your puppies.” Mona grabbed a chunk of her own midsection. “You look like you ‘bout to give birth any day now.”

  Vivian put a hand on her hip. “Quit trippin’. You know that girl looks good! You just mad ‘cause she looks better than you. I tell you what, soon as she lose her baby fat, this girl gon’ take all your men.” Vivian began to sing the chorus to Salt ‘n Pepa’s I’ll Take Your Man.

  “Take my man, chile please, that's the least of my worries.” Mona rolled her eyes.

  Vivian smacked her lips and looked Mona dead in her eyes. “Tania you look fabulous and don't let nobody tell you nothing different. Most people who spend time putting others down are nine times out of ten jealous of you.”

  “Jealous of what? Her ability to eat a whole pizza in less than two minutes?” Mona laughed.

  “You know what? I can't deal with you, you're just rude and evil. Your sister hasn't done anything to you. It ain't right for you to treat her like this. You can't blame her for what happened,” Vivian spat as she vigorously packed her bags up.

  Tania was confused and wanted to know what Vivian was talking about but she didn't ask because she didn't want to add fuel to the fire.

  “You ain't got to worry about dealing with me; as a matter of fact, you can get out now!” Mona yelled.

  Vivian grabbed her things and rushed toward the door like she was headed to put a fire out. Mona, Tania, and Naomi followed her up the hallway.

  “Tania sooner or later you'll find out the truth,” Vivian said and slammed the door behind her.

  Tania went back to her room and finished getting her things prepared for the next day of school. Whatever Vivian was talking about had Mona pacing the floor. Tania didn't bother to ask because her focus was on DeWayne.

  After getting her clothes and accessories together, Tania showered and hopped into bed. She tossed and turned all night and couldn't sleep because of her excitement.

  When her alarm clock buzzed, Tania hit the floor running. Her excitement caused her to skip breakfast. The day seemed to drag by slowly, but she finally made it to the class that she and DeWayne shared. All morning, people had been complimenting Tania on her hair, clothes, and makeup, so she knew DeWayne would be pleased.

  DeWayne entered the classroom and Tania quickly turned her head. She didn't want him to know how anxious she was. Tania tossed her hair to the side and pretended to be looking over her homework.

  “I really like your hair,” DeWayne said to her.

  “Thanks,” she quickly replied. Tania wasn't used to anyone complimenting her, especially not a guy.

  “So is this your new look for the morp?”

  “I guess so.” Tania smiled.

  “That's cool. So who’s they lucky guy you’re going with?” DeWayne gave her a big smile as if he were on a billboard.

  Tania felt her pulse rising. She took a deep breath and found the courage to ask him to be her date.

  “I was hoping that you'd go with me.” Her voice shook.

  “I don't know...I need to check my calendar.” He licked his lips.

  Tania lowered her eyes. She felt her face flush.

  DeWayne must have noticed. He quickly grabbed her hand and placed it in his.

  “Tania, of course I'll go with you; I was only kidding.”

  “I knew that.” Tania gave him a nervous giggle.

  “Cool, I'll meet you in the gym tomorrow night at 7:00.”

  “Ok great,” Tania said, trying to keep her composure.

  Tania spent the rest of her day in a daze. She couldn't concentrate and she couldn't wait to get home to tell Mona her good news. Mona spent so much time downing her, this would be the one thing to make her proud.

  The school day finally ended and Tania listened to her headphones to drown out the noise of her peers on the bus. The trip to her house seemed to take forever and when she finally arrived, she ran to the house.

  Slightly out of breath, Tania unlocked the door and went inside.

  Mona was on the phone talking in a low tone. It couldn't have been Vivian on the phone because Tania knew from experience that once Mona kicked someone out of her life, it was over.

  Tania went to her room and sat on the bed as she waited patiently for Mona to get off the phone..

  When Mona ended her call, Tania walked into the living room where Mona was thumbing through a magazine.

  “Mona, guess what?” Tania sang.

  “What is it, did they put Chips Ahoy on sale?”

  Ignoring her snide comment, Tania placed her hand on her hip and continued.

  “I asked DeWayne to go to the morp with me tomorrow night and he said yes!” Tania exclaimed.

  “Ain't no sense in you getting all excited. You can't go. I need you to stay home with Naomi.”

  “Stay at home with Naomi, why? You knew I was going to ask him to go. This is so unfair and besides, I'm always watching Naomi and this is the last dance of the year. Tomorrow is the last day of school. You're always going out and leaving us here!” Tania yelled.

  “Oh well. Too bad. You staying home and he probably wasn't going with you for real anyway. He probably bet someone that you would ask him. I doubt very seriously if he wants you. Didn’t you ever see that Carrie movie where they made a joke out of that ugly girl by having a cute boy invite her to the dance?”

  Tania searched her memory for a second. She did remember that movie. Maybe Mona’s right.

  “They’re all gonna laugh at you! They’re all gonna laugh at you!” Mona chirped a line from the 70’s flick.

  “Ugh, I hate you!” Tania screamed and ran to her room and slammed the door, locking it behind her.

  Tania threw herself across the bed and sobbed until she fell asleep. When her alarm sounded, she didn't bother getting up. There was no way she was going to school to face DeWayne.

  Hopefully he'd forget all about her over the summer.

  Chapter 3

  The summer after her junior year brought nothing but more humiliation for Tania. Mona had gotten into the habit of conducting some of her “business” in the house since she and Vivian were no longer hanging out anymore.

  Tania was counting down the days until school started again. And after school resumed, she began the countdown to graduation.

  Naomi was getting old enough to ask questions about why men were coming in and out of the house. Though Mona was careful to make sure the men walked straight to the master bedroom and then back out the door again (said she didn’t want any of her belongings to come up missing), Tania didn’t trust that Naomi would remain in the dark much longer.

  Without telling all of Mona’s business, Tania begged her cousin Leslie to ask Aunt Jean if Naomi could spend time at their house on the weekends. She also got to know some of the girls in Naomi’s grade since they all rode the same bus home. With Tania’
s help, Naomi made friends and found people to play with away from the house.

  Tania endured the noise that accompanied Mona’s part-time occupation by diving headfirst into romance novels and listening to music. The more she read about handsome men who didn’t care about the heroine’s flaws and helped main characters overcome their sordid pasts, she began to hope that maybe someday she would meet someone to love her.

  The library became her home away from home, but it closed at six on weekdays and it was closed altogether on the weekends, so Tania had to endure.

  Mona continued to tease, “You always got your head in one of them love stories. Might as well keep on reading them ‘cause that’s all the love you’re ever going to see in this life.”

  One day, when Tania was walking home from the library, a car pulled up along the sidewalk. Tania clutched the books against her chest and kept walking.

  “Hey. Lookin’ good, lil’ mama,” a male voice said to her.

  Tania walked faster.

  “You just gonna ignore me like that?”

  Tania hadn’t even looked at the person yet, but already she was remembering a scene in a book where the main character, the daughter of a verbally abusive preacher, fell madly in love with the neighborhood drug dealer named Mo’ Money. In the final chapter, they got married and he moved her from her father’s house.

  Could this be the beginning of my love story? Mona said it would never happen. But then again, Mona was wrong about a lot of things.

  “I know you can hear. I’ve seen you talking to people. And I know your name starts with a T.”

  Tania stopped in her tracks. She looked at him for the first time. Deep brown skin, cornrows, a cross tattooed on the side of his neck, and yet he sported a boyish smile just like she imagined Mo’ Money had. He had to be about 22 or 23 years old. Kind of old. But now that Tania was 18, she was an adult, too.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I heard the lady at the library say your name when you were checking out books.”

  She squinted harder to get a good look inside his blue Chevy Impala. “You been following me?”

  He shrugged. “I guess you could say that.”

  Tania felt her pulse quicken. “I...I don’t know you.”

  “But you could get to know me. My name Kevin. Come on. Let’s go get something to eat, then I’ll take you home.”

  “You know where I live, too?” she panicked.

  “No, but I know you can’t live far from here since you’re walking.”

  Made sense.

  Tania heard his doors unlock.

  “Come on. You hungry?”

  She searched his face to see if he was making fun of her weight. There was no hint of sarcasm. In fact, Tania saw nothing but friendliness, just like in the novels.

  Don’t believe Mona. Take a chance. Despite all the lessons she’d learned as a kid about stranger-danger and all the times she’d watched the news and seen stories about girls her age being kidnapped, she decided she should go for it. What could be worse than living life with Mona anyway?

  She got into the car and rode with Kevin to McDonald’s. He made small-talk along the way. Complimented her hair. Her face. All Tania could say was “Thank you,” because she really didn’t know what else to say to men.

  Tania thought they would go inside, but instead he pulled to the drive-thru. “What do you want?”

  She didn’t want to sound greedy. “Just a Coke and some small fries.”

  He gave her the side-eye. “Really?”

  She smacked her lips and repeated, “Yes. A Coke and fries.”

  “You don’t have to eat like a bird around me ‘cause I’m about to order a super-sized quarter pounder with cheese meal and an apple pie.”

  That meal sounded so good to Tania’s ears. But still.

  “Look. What’s your name again?”

  “Tania.”

  “Tania. I know you ain’t get to be no big fine girl on Coke and small fries. I can’t have you getting all skinny on me,” he said, rubbing a finger along her chin.

  Tania dropped her head, trying to hide the smile. The tingle left by his finger was amazing.

  “So what you want? Same thing as me?”

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  Kevin paid for their food and handed her the bag. Tania ate her hot fries and held his container of fries so he could eat them while driving her back home. Everyone knew where the “black” side of Sweet Lily was, so it wasn’t as though he didn’t have a general idea of where she lived.

  “Here’s my street. Turn right,” Tania informed him when they got close to her house.

  Suddenly, Tania’s breath caught in her throat. What will Mona say? “Stop! You can stop right here.”

  “Here? Is this your house?” Kevin pointed at Ms. Willis’s green shack.

  “No. But...” Tania couldn’t think of a lie fast enough so she decided on the truth. “I don’t want my sister to see you. She’s crazy. Mean. She’ll clown both of us. She thinks I’m...never mind. Just let me out here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Please. I wish your sister would say something to me. I’ll let her know she don’t run me.”

  Tania paused, looking into his eyes. Finally, someone who understood. Someone who would stand up to Mona. Someone who might be able to take her from this madness. The girl in the novel named Shaquinna had run away on her eighteenth birthday to go live with Mo’ Money. Maybe Kevin would be Tania’s savior, too.

  She took a deep breath and pointed down the street. “Third house on the right.”

  Unfortunately, Mona was nowhere to be found when Kevin dropped Tania off. She wished her sister had been home so there could have been a showdown.

  Kevin met Tania a few more times outside the library. He stuck to the routine: He took her through a drive-thru and then back home. They probably hadn’t spent more than an hour together total each time, but the possibility of true love and an escape from Mona kept Tania up at night and invaded her thoughts throughout the day. She could hardly pay attention in class for wondering...what if?

  So when Kevin asked, “Can I come inside your house?” on their fifth outing, Tania’s eyes bucked wide in disbelief.

  “What? No! My sister would kill us if she saw me with a boy in the house.”

  “First of all, I ain’t no boy. Second, she ain’t gon’ do nothin’. She’s your sister, remember. Not your mother.”

  Tania dropped her head. “Yeah. I know. My mother’s dead.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Kevin said. “I know the feeling. My mom’s dead too.”

  With tears in her eyes, Tania looked up at him.

  He leaned in and kissed her. Softly.

  My first kiss. We’re soul-mates.

  Fire shot through her like she had never known before.

  “So. You sure I can’t come inside?”

  Tania’s hormones were so busy doing jumping jacks inside her, she began craning her neck to see if she could see any sign of Mona being in the house. It was a Friday evening. Naomi would have ridden the school bus to Aunt Jean’s house. Mona and her “company” might have gone to a hotel or to his place for a while.

  “Let me look around inside.”

  Tania hopped out of the car, ran into the house and surveyed. Mona was nowhere in sight.

  She rushed back to the car. “Park down the street.”

  Kevin obeyed.

  Tania could hardly believe she was doing this. She waited for him to walk back and then quickly smuggled him inside.

  Once he was in the house she took him straight to her bedroom and pointed to the window he could jump from if Mona came home.

  He nodded in agreement.

  Seconds later, Tania and Kevin were kissing madly on her bed. She didn’t have time to think about what was wrong or right. She didn’t think about the fact that she’d only known Kevin for a few weeks. She didn’t even think about the fact that she didn’t know Kevin’s las
t name. All she could imagine was him taking her away from this place, and all she could feel was the pounding in her chest.

  And once Kevin told her things she’d never heard, “You’re a beautiful woman, Tania,” she decided to do something she’d never done.

  Tania gave herself to Kevin that evening.

  To her surprise, it only took about seven minutes from start to end. It was every bit as painful as she’d read in the young adult novels, but now that she had done it once, it wouldn’t be as bad in the future. Maybe next time she and Kevin would have flower petals and candles, like Shaquinna and Mo’ Money had.

  As soon as Kevin was finished, he hopped off of her and zipped up his pants.

  “Umm...what...wait,” Tania fumbled through her words. This ain’t how they do it in the novels.

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your sister.”

  Just then, Tania heard the front door open.

  “Go! Go!” she squealed, shoving her curtain aside and opening the window.

  Kevin slipped his feet into his shoes and crawled the length of her bed.

  But he wasn’t fast enough. Before he could even get one arm out on the windowsill, Mona busted into the room.

  Tania could have fainted from fear. She grabbed a pillow and squeezed it tight.

  A sly grin crossed Mona’s face as her eyes slid from Tania to Kevin, then back to Tania.

  Mona put a hand on her hip. “Y’all finished in here?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin answered in a tone much lower and softer than Tania had expected.

  Mona held out her other hand. “Then it’s time to pay up.”

  Pay up?

  “Can we go outside?” Kevin asked.

  Mona looked him up and down. “I know you ain’t tryin’ to get all in your feelings, James. Business is business. I need my money. Now.”

  “What business?” Tania finally heard herself say.

  “I got your money. Outside.” Kevin stood and walked out of the room.

  “What’s happening?” Tania yelled at Mona.

  “I just made a pretty penny off of you. That’s what happened. It’s about time you came in handy around here.” Mona laughed. She followed Kevin’s trail.