Hold Me in Contempt

by Wendy Williams

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to single power girls everywhere.

  I wrote this novel with you in mind.

  I hope you enjoy it!

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Wendy Williams

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The worst thing about being a black lawyer is that everyone you know thinks you’re their lawyer and they can call you about anything at any time. And while I’m sure that happens to all lawyers—white, yellow, brown, and beige—because I’m black it’s almost a guarantee that whatever my people need me for at whatever time is likely so ghetto and/or hood, there’s simply no way I can tack my signature to anything having to do with the situation. Now, that may sound uppity to some black folks and flat-out hateful to others, but I bet not one black lawyer considering my statement will disagree. And that’s because it’s the truth. Ugly. But true.

  Case in point: My cousin Tyree got pulled over last month for speeding on the FDR Drive. Doesn’t sound too bad. Add, though, that it was 4 a.m., Tyree is a convicted felon with hard-time muscles and shady gang prison tattoos from wrists to neck, he was high on crystal meth, naked, and his car was packed with frozen hot dogs he’d stolen from Gray’s Papaya. (In case anyone is wondering, I can’t even try to make this crap up. It was on the news.) Now, this little string of drama is totally in Tyree’s range of ridiculousness, so no one should judge him. But according to the actual police report, when officers in squad cars and helicopters had their bright lights and guns pointed at his muscly black body in the dead of night on one of the busiest highways in New York City, this fool stepped out of the car and demanded that someone call his “fucking lawyer Kimberly Kind.”

  This was repeated more than fifty times before they wrestled his silly ass to the ground and got him into one of the police cars.

  Did I mention that this was in the actual police report? And on the news?

  I should’ve stayed my black behind in bed because I was due in court in the next morning, but you can’t say no to your aunt Sissy when she calls you wailing in the middle of the night to go get her “baby boy” out of jail. No matter what I had going on, at that moment I was expected to make some kind of black lawyer magic happen—or I’d face a jury of my peers who’d find me guilty of “acting funny” or, worse, “forgetting where I came from.” Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you see it), I saved my reputation by getting Tyree off on a technicality.

  Now, I knew whatever my twin brother had going on when he called this morning asking me out to brunch wouldn’t be too far from Tyree’s antics on the FDR Drive. As my grandmother used to say, Tyree and Kent were cut from the same cloth, and though my brother had fewer strikes behind his name, the last time he’d called at 6 a.m., it was because he’d gotten caught selling black-market Newports at Rucker Park.

  Still, I agreed to meet him in Hell’s Kitchen at my favorite Sunday brunch spot, 44 & X. He was paying, so it was all good.

  I showed up late, but he wasn’t there, so I chose a table out on the street where I could see the sun and enjoy the loud white noise of a city that had no tolerance for standing still. I ordered a mimosa, sat back, and tried to think of something lovely, but a huge black fly kept buzzing in my ear.

  When Kent finally pulled up on his big black motorcycle, the engine roared so loudly that everyone seated at the sidewalk tables turned to see what was going on. He slid into a slender space right in front of the door and hopped off the motorcycle like someone was about to ask for his autograph.

  Kent had been born less than two minutes after me, but thank God we looked nothing alike. My “baby brother” was always the biggest man in any room (save Tyree and his prison muscles). He’d been six foot seven, 290 pounds, and solid since we were in high school. While he was my father’s only son, when he took on our father’s nickname, Mook, folks in our neighborhood in Hamilton Terrace started calling Kent Big Mook and Daddy Lil Mook.

  “Kiki Mimi!” Kent called out with his arms extended toward me as he padded over to my table.

  He was an hour late for a brunch he’d invited me to, but I stood and grinned at him anyway. I let him pick me up and spin me around like we hadn’t seen each other since emancipation. More than anyone in the world, Kent always seemed to know how to make me smile. He was my little brother and big brother at the same time.

  “You’re late,” I said after he’d hugged me half to death and we’d settled into our seats.

  “Nah. I’m right on time, love. God is always on time,” he responded mystically. He’d joined the Five Percent Nation when we were in high school and still referred to himself as God.

  “Well, maybe God should be an hour early next time,” I said.

  “Don’t stress me. You been late the last few times we were supposed to meet up, so don’t play,” he said as our wide-eyed white waitress wearing a gold name tag spelling out Holly approached the table licking her lips in his direction.

  “Wha chu havin’ to drink, Papi?” she asked all sexy in hipster hip-hop lingo. She had a huge wooden dagger in her ear, a thin gold ring in her nose, and a tattoo of a feather on her neck. She looked like one of those Montana-bred recent NYU grads who’d been sleeping with black men since she moved out of the dorms and into an overpriced studio in the newly gentrified Bed-Stuy I hated.

  “What are you drinking, Kiki?” Kent pointed at the glass in front of me.

  “A mimosa.” I looked at him, perplexed.

  “Oh, that’s what I want.” Kent turned to the waitress. “Hook me up with a mimosca—”

  “A mimosa,” I cut in, correcting him.

  “Yeah, that shit, yo. Gimme that shit.” He grinned like he knew the classy order sounded odd coming from a black biker in Timbs and a crisp white tee.

  Hipster Holly skipped away in her Vans as I kept my skeptical eyes on Kent.

  “What you looking at?” he asked.

  “A mimosa? You’re drinking a mimosa?”

  “Yup. That’s cool.”

  “Whatever, Kent,” I said. “Look. What do you want?”

  “Want?”

  “Need? From me.”

  “I don’t need anything. Why I gotta need something?”

  “Negro, please. You’re ordering mimosas when I’ve never seen you drink anything but Heineken. You asked me out to brunch in Hell’s Kitchen when you never leave Harlem. And you’re being all nice to me. You have to want something. Just say it.” I sat back and looked at little bits of skin peeling off Kent’s forehead. Then I noticed that he was a little darker than he’d been the last time I’d seen him at Aunt Sissy’s second born-again baptism. The one thing we had in common was our clear sable complexion. Out here in the daylight, Kent looked a little more mahogany. “And is that a skin tan?” I added.

  “Sho is a tan!” Kent grinned and sat back, taking his drink from the waitress.

  “From where? Where you been? Virginia Beach?” It was late May and the city was heating up, but the sun wasn’t nearly hot enough to microwave his brown skin so neatly.

  Holly came to take our orders. The desire she showed toward Kent matched only by the hatred beamed my way. We gave our orders, and he answered my question with too much enthusiasm: “I was in Rio—Rio de Janeiro!”


  “Brazil? What were you doing in Brazil?”

  “A little vacay with the fellas. You know I gots to unwind. A god be putting in work and shit. Especially now that I’m one hundred percent legit and have a job. Workingman’s money is funny, yo.”

  “Humph.” I frowned. “Interesting. I didn’t even know you had a passport.”

  “Well, you don’t know everything about me,” he said. “Just like I don’t know everything about you.”

  “Very true. And I’m happy about that because God only knows what kind of foolishness went down in Rio. You went with Maurice and them?”

  Kent nodded with a huge smile.

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” I said, annoyed.

  “Why?” He pretended to be surprised at the look on my face.

  “Because everyone knows why men go to Brazil. And in a group? You guys were probably sleeping with everything that walked by in a thong. And paying for it. Horrible. Do you know most of those women are underage? And we won’t even talk about the HIV rates.”

  “All praises to the Creator, those hoes were bad as hell, but I didn’t touch not one of them,” Kent protested, holding up his hands in mock innocence.

  “Double negative,” I pointed out.

  “What?”

  “The double negative you just used means you actually slept with many prostitutes in Brazil,” I explained, and heard myself sounding like a complete nerd. “Look, never mind. Whatever. I’m happy you enjoyed your nasty man vacation. Cheers!” I clinked my half-empty glass against his.

  “See, look at you judging a brother. Ain’t even ask why I didn’t sleep with none of those Mexicans.”

  “Brazilians. They’re Brazilian,” I corrected Kent, laughing. He liked to play dumb, but Kent was just as smart as I was—maybe smarter—and I was sure he knew the difference between a Mexican and a Brazilian. Racist? No. Silly? Yes. “But I’ll throw you a bone. Why didn’t you sleep with any of the prostitutes, Kent?”

  “I fell in love.” He smiled and looked off like he was starring in some Jay-Z music video on a beach with Brazilian chicks draped over both of his shoulders and a bottle of Alizé Red Passion in each hand.

  “In love?” I actually laughed as Holly slid our plates onto the table. “You? With whom?”

  “Her name is Lydia. Lydia Santiaga. I met her at the airport. When we walked out, she was standing there just greeting people. Shorty was mad ill, yo.”

  I closed my eyes and exhaled deeply before choosing my words.

  “You know what, that’s great,” I offered lazily. “I’m happy you fell in love with Lydia, who was randomly waiting outside the airport to greet some random dudes she doesn’t know. But now you’re back home and everything is back to normal. Have you spoken to Keisha?”

  “Keisha? I ain’t fucking with her. Why you bringing my baby moms up?”

  “Because she’s your baby mama and you’ve been with her forever.”

  “I just told you I’m in love,” he said. He leaned across the table and added softly, “I’m gonna marry her.”

  I was about to laugh before I realized that he was dead serious. Then a wave of confusion mixed with anger and maybe a little bit of caution washed over me, leaving me silent.

  “That’s why I invited you to brunch,” Kent went on, “to tell you I’m in love and I’m getting married. I need you, yo.”

  “Need me? For what?”

  “It’s nothing really. Small fries for my big sister. See, Lydia got into some shit, so it’s gonna be hard for us to get her into the country.”

  “Us? What? Are you kidding me? So that’s why you invited me here? To get your prostitute girlfriend into the country?”

  “Don’t call her a prostitute,” Kent said, raising his voice. “She ain’t like that. She’s a good girl. She just got into a little trouble. That’s all.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I looked at him as crazily as he sounded.

  “She has some family in BX, and she was here last year visiting. Five-O picked her up in Hunts Point, saying she was hoeing, but it wasn’t nothing like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Nah, yo. She was there for her cousin’s bachelor party. That’s all.”

  “So, the police just randomly found her walking the street in Hunts Point, which is known for prostitution, and arrested her?” I hoped he’d hear the insanity.

  “Word!” Kent confirmed, chewing on a bite of the smoked salmon omelet he’d ordered. “And that’s why we need you to pull some strings for her. They say she can’t come back to the US. Not even if I marry her. And you know a nigga ain’t moving to Rio to be with the meda-medas for the rest of his life, so I need you to get shorty here.”

  “No can do,” I said flatly.

  “Yes you can.”

  “Sure can’t.”

  “Why not? You’re the assistant district attorney for New York County. I know you can pull some strings. Call in some favors. Fuck it, call the mayor!” He laughed.

  “No. I don’t work in immigration, and I certainly don’t call in favors for this kind of crap. I save that for things like Rucker Park . . .  ​and what was that drama you got caught up in on the turnpike?”

  “Oh, you’re going to bring up that cracker trooper? A nigga was just taking a piss.”

  “On the highway,” I reminded him.

  “So? That’s in the past.” Kent sat back again, deflated. “See, I knew you’d bring that shit up. Knew you’d act funny. I thought inviting your sadiddy ass out to this spot would actually make you act right. But you ain’t got no act right for your baby bro.”

  “That’s a double neg—” I started, but stopped myself. “Act right? So, I don’t have any act right because I don’t want to get involved with you trying to marry some woman you just met?”

  “Yup. That’s how you act,” Kent said in a way he knew would get to me. “Like you always forget what it’s like out here for niggas like me. Just trying to find love and shit. Nah mean? Folks blow up and forget where they came from. Forget how they got where they at.” His eyes cut me accusatorily.

  For all of Kent’s faults, his many shortcomings, he never failed to support me at whatever I was doing. Our parents became addicted to crack when we were in elementary school, and though he was ninety-eight seconds younger than me, Kent jumped into the role of caretaker. He stopped going to school and ran errands for the drug dealers so we had something in the refrigerator and coats in the winter. And even though our father eventually went to rehab and got clean, Kent stayed on the block to pay my way through Morgan State University and gave me a suitcase filled with hundreds when I was accepted to Columbia Law. It was the classic story of many families in our neighborhood at that time. Drugs took a lot away from us, but then drugs also made it possible for us to survive.

  “Lydia is gonna be my wife. I love her. She’s everything I’ve wanted in a woman—soft, beautiful, nice,” he said as I ate and looked away, rolling my eyes. “She ain’t nothing like these chicks here.”

  “I’m sure she’s great, but why do you have to marry her? Why get married at all? I thought you said you didn’t want any more kids. What’s the point?”

  “That’s the thing, yo. Lydia don’t want any more kids either. She already has four. She don’t want no more shorties.” Kent smiled like this was a plus.

  “I can’t listen anymore. I can’t even listen anymore. This is crazy. Are you serious? You’re a thirty-one-year-old man. There’s no way you could think this is a good idea.”

  “See, you’re judging Lydia. You don’t even know her. Look, why don’t you come through the crib tonight? We gonna be on Skype and shit. You’d like her,” Kent said, trying to make it sound as if the idea had just come to mind, but it was evident that it was all a part of his plan to pull me in. “And you can see your father. I know you ain’t been home in a minute.” Kent still lived in his childhood bedroom in the brownstone our grandparents left our father.

  “I’ve
been drowning at work,” I said. “And I can’t come tonight. I’m busy.”

  “Too busy to meet your future sister-in-law?”

  “Meet? What am I supposed to say to her?”

  “Well, you ain’t gonna be saying much.” Kent laughed slyly. “Because she don’t hardly speak no English.”

  “What? How do you—I don’t even want to know,” I said. “I’m busy tonight anyway. Tamika’s son has a fencing match, and I promised I’d be there to support him.”

  “Fencing? What the fuck cuzzo have Miles doing that shit for? That tall-ass nigga need to be balling. He’s, like, five-seven at ten. I got connects at Christ the King and St. John’s, too. Get him that fat scholarship.”

  “She just wants him to try different things. Expand his range, so he’s not stuck on the basketball thing like everyone else where we came from,” I said, realizing that Kent wasn’t listening to anything I was saying.

  His eyes were molesting something behind me that I knew from experience likely had a big behind and huge breasts. I turned to see what he was eyeing so I could blast him for mentally groping a woman after he’d solemnly sworn his love and devotion to Latin Lydia. But when I twisted my neck, I wished I’d stayed set on Kent.

  Hipster Holly was seating two people I never wanted to see again in life. Two people I’d wished dead on more than one occasion. My ex-fiancé and my former roommate/best friend. At once I wanted to disintegrate into the concrete and dribble down into the sewer—well, maybe I wanted that for them. I just wanted to disappear. Poof.

  “Yo, honey is bad. Ass and titties on an Asian chick?” Kent was fantasizing in his own little world and probably had no idea he was speaking aloud. “She got a little black in her though. Skin kinda brown. She sexy as fuck.”

  “Shit.” I turned back to the table and struggled so hard to swallow a gob of sad spit that had gathered at the back of my throat that I was sure everyone outside of the restaurant could hear me. I could feel my enemies turn to the table and notice me. Suddenly, I was overly aware of how my black linen slacks weren’t ironed, my Hebru Brantley T-shirt looked dingy, and I was in worn-down flip-flops—​not the chic stilettos I’d purchased for the sole purpose of running into them at some point. But here? Why here? 44 & X was my favorite brunch spot, and everyone knew it. They knew it. The three of us had had brunch here together. I looked like a budding lesbian who couldn’t get anyone but her twin brother to take her out to brunch on Sunday afternoon.