by Tracy Brown
Sunny and Malcolm had shared a whirlwind of dinners, wine tastings, dancing, and incredible lovemaking. Malcolm was the most fun and romantic man she had ever met. They had flown back to New York, parting ways at the airport. Sunny had her brother, Reuben, pick her up at JFK with Mercedes in tow, thus sparing herself the misfortune of having to face her mother while high—and paranoid.
Sunny had hugged Reuben, her eyes shielded behind shades, and handed him her bag. The moment she turned to hug Mercedes, unexpected tears came. She had no idea what had triggered them at first, but later realized that the sight of Mercedes—twelve years old, sweet, innocent and genuinely glad to see her mother come home—had flooded Sunny with an intense sense of guilt. How could she have gotten high again after so many years being clean?
Mercedes had chuckled, happily, when she saw her mother tear up. “Oh, Mommy, you’re so emotional! I missed you, too.” Mercedes had thrown her arms around her mother, hugging her tightly around her waist.
Reuben had taken them home, careful not to mention the drama in the news in front of Mercedes. Marisol and Dale had insisted that their granddaughter not be exposed to the media’s version of what had happened during Sunny’s trip to L.A.
“Sunny will explain it when she gets home,” Marisol had said.
Sunny knew that her mother would be expecting an explanation, without question. Hearing that her daughter was on the other side of the country and had been on the scene of a drug overdose, while she was unsupervised no less, had Marisol concerned to say the least. She wanted to hear how Sunny had found herself in such a precarious situation—and what had led her to stay for an extra two days afterward.
Despite their mother’s insistence that he make no mention of “the incident” in front of Mercedes, Reuben had looked at Sunny sitting in the passenger seat of his Jaguar and his face showed genuine concern.
“You okay?” he asked.
Sunny nodded, grateful again for the sunglasses that shielded the truth in her eyes. She was far from okay.
“We’ll talk after I get some rest,” she had told him.
Reuben had dropped them off, and Sunny had gone to her room to lay down. While Mercedes unpacked and gave Jenny G her laundry to wash, Sunny had shed tears of regret over getting high, gratitude over having a piece of Dorian in their child, and of longing for some more of what she’d felt again in L.A.
Today was Thanksgiving, and two days had passed since she had returned from the madness of California. She had been tempted since her return to pick up her old habit again. After all, she reasoned, Mercedes was busy hanging out with her friends doing adolescent things over the holiday break. Jada was probably busy up Born’s ass. Olivia was busy with her clothing line. Sunny was bored and she knew that a few white lines were just a phone call away.
Sunny hadn’t copped cocaine in a very long time. In the days when her habit had been at its most intense, she had been pilfering her coke from Dorian. Having kicked her habit before he passed away, she hadn’t gotten high again until she hibernated in Puerto Rico for several months after Mercedes’s birth. Despite the fact that she had been clean in the years since then, she had always known where to get it, who sold it. But she hadn’t been playing with fire then. She was feeling like a pyromaniac these days, though.
Sunny got her Percs from Gillian Nobles, and knew it would be easy to get some coke from her as well. Gillian was discreet, having been brought up in the game among some of the most thorough hustlers—her own father, most of all. Gillian had learned to play the game expertly and there was a mutual admiration between she and Sunny. Sunny admired Gillian’s cojones, since a female boss of a family was a rare occurrence. Gillian admired Sunny’s success at inheriting the vast majority of Dorian’s fortune despite not being married to him. No one had really questioned the fact that Dorian had set things up so that she would hold the keys to his kingdom. She had proven herself worthy, too. Mercedes, DJ, and all of Dorian’s brothers thrived due to her continuous generosity.
Sunny stared at her cell phone, and knew that she shouldn’t do it. And she hadn’t yet. But the past couple of days had been hellish.
Malcolm had been calling her, but she was sending his calls to voice mail. She wasn’t even sure why she was avoiding him. All she knew for sure was that she wanted to be alone and she wanted this feeling inside her to go away.
Sleepless nights had plagued her. She felt irritable and knew that she was snappy toward Jenny G and Raul. She hadn’t meant to be bitchy, but the yearning for the thrill of that high was making her that way.
She felt that some coke would level her out, make her less irritable. It was early and Mercedes was asleep. Jenny G and Raul were off spending the holiday with their own families. Sunny felt so intensely alone. She thought of years past when Dorian was alive, when things had been different. Then she suddenly sucked her teeth and shook her head. She was sick of having the blues.
She reached for her cell phone and dialed. Gillian Nobles answered on the second ring, even at this early hour.
“Hey, girl. It’s Sunny. I know it’s unusual for me to call you—especially so early in the morning on a holiday.” Sunny’s voice was more anxious than she intended it to be. “A friend of mine needs a favor.”
* * *
Lamin and Zion sat in the living room of Lamin’s grandmother’s house on Staten Island. Olivia was in the kitchen helping Grandma and Aunt Inez prepare all the food while Lamin, his son Jordan, and Zion and his daughter, Adiva, relaxed in the living room. They were flipping back and forth between the football game and Nickelodeon. Jordan and Adiva were the same age—eleven—and were the best of friends. It was an added bonus that their fathers were best friends as well.
The kids were sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV, half their attention focused on the game of Connect Four they were playing. Zion turned to Lamin and smiled.
“They’re getting big, La. Soon they’ll be teenagers.” He shook his head, as if the thought of that was hard to swallow.
Lamin nodded, smiling proudly at his son and niece. “Time flies, right?” He chuckled a little. “I wish Papa was still alive to see them.” Lamin’s grandfather, Papa, had been a central figure in their family, playing role model to all of them. Papa was known as much for his signature hat cocked to the side as he was for his old-school wisdom and nonjudgmental demeanor.
Zion smiled at the thought of Papa. “I think of him every time I put a hat on. He was smooth!”
Smiles graced both of their faces as they reminisced on the good ole days.
Aunt Inez came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She began to set the dining room table and Lamin watched her. His relationship with his aunt had been strained ever since he had shot and killed her son, Curtis—her only child—back in 2000. Despite the fact that Lamin had shot him in defense of his own life, as well as Zion’s, Inez had lost a son. It was a loss she had found impossible to get over.
When Curtis was killed, Inez had been dating a man named Fred and the two of them had seemed to be very much in love. But grieving the loss of her son had proven to be more than Inez could stand and her relationship with Fred had ended as a result. These days, she was alone and looked beaten down by life. Lamin felt wracked with guilt every time he looked at her.
“You need some help, Auntie?” he asked.
Inez looked at her nephew and forced a smile. “No thanks, Lamin. I got it.” She went back to her task and Lamin turned his attention back to the TV.
Olivia came out to set the kids’ table and Grandma was right behind her with a smile on her face. “Dinner will be served in ten minutes,” Grandma announced. Lamin couldn’t help but smile at her. She was truly the matriarch of their family. Since Papa’s death, then the death of her daughter—Lamin and Olivia’s mother, Nadia—and the death of her grandson Curtis, many had expected Grandma to dissolve into a shell of her former self. Everyone would have understood if she had fallen apart. Instead, she had thrived in the y
ears since one tragedy after another had robbed her of loved ones. Grandma stayed active in the church and had found true solace in Jesus. The light that shined from her was magnetic and she had become the glue that held the family together.
“Grandma, let me help,” Zion offered, rising to his feet. “What can I do?”
Grandma waved him off. “Sit down and relax, Zion. We got this.”
Zion asked if she was sure, and after she assured him that the women had everything under control, he sat back down. His phone rang and he saw Gillian Nobles’s name and number flash across the screen. Business was business, even on a holiday. So he answered. “Hey, Gillian.”
Olivia sucked her teeth loudly, annoyed that Zion couldn’t leave the streets alone for one moment.
“Sorry to bother you on Thanksgiving,” Gillian began. She was sitting in her town house on the East Side of Manhattan, sipping some eggnog. The holidays didn’t mean much to her since her father’s death. She was estranged from her adulterous mother and her brother, Baron, was spending the holiday with his mother, Celia, out on Long Island. Gillian was single, having ended her once hot and heavy romance with Frankie Bingham. These days her love was reserved for the empire her father had left to her. She was faithful to the family business and seemed determined to stay in power no matter what the costs.
Gillian had earned a great deal of respect from her counterparts in the game. Men who had been seasoned in the drug trade for decades watched as she stepped in and seamlessly picked up the torch after her father and brother were felled by a rival’s bullets. Today, she oversaw a drug empire that dealt in everything from cocaine to prescription drugs, money laundering to extortion. It was an impressive burden for one woman to carry, and she managed it with grace, class, and unmistakable beauty.
“I’m curious about something.” She took a sip of her eggnog before continuing. “Sunny Cruz. How well do you know her?”
Zion raised an eyebrow. “Very well,” he answered. Sunny’s ex, Dorian Douglas, had been one of Zion’s dearest friends. The two of them, along with Born and Lamin, had made a lot of money together in the streets over the years. Sunny and Olivia were close friends as a result of the closeness between the men in their lives. “Why are you asking?”
Gillian set her mug down on the table beside her sofa. “I got a call from her this morning, which wasn’t unusual since she does call me from time to time.” Gillian wouldn’t divulge to Zion why Sunny called her from time to time. It wasn’t important that he know about Sunny’s weakness for Percocet. “But this call was … different. She asked me for a favor for a friend and … I’m just hoping that the friend isn’t Jada.”
Zion’s frown deepened. “What kind of favor?” He prayed that it wasn’t what he thought it was.
Gillian pondered the question, deciding whether or not to answer it. Sunny had called her that morning, not for her usual pills. This time, she had called to cop an eight ball of cocaine for “a friend.” Gillian had driven to Sunny’s place and brought her what she’d asked for. The two women had handled their business and Gillian had returned home. But since meeting with Sunny, Gillian had been unable to stop wondering who the friend was. Had Jada slipped back into using cocaine? Or was Sunny herself getting high again? Gillian wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t even sure why she cared. One of the toughest things she’d had to learn as a queenpin was to not get emotionally attached to the people she served. Still, she had always liked Sunny and Jada. She had rooted for them as they proved themselves to be survivors of all they’d been through. She hoped that Zion might be able to shed some light on the situation.
“She just mentioned that the friend was trying to go skiing.”
Zion read between the lines. He knew the kind of snow that Sunny was interested in.
“Damn,” he said. Aware that there were ears around, he chose his words carefully. “And you’re wondering if it’s an imaginary friend or if it’s her best friend.”
“Exactly,” Gillian confirmed. “It’s none of my business,” she allowed. “I’m only mentioning it because I know you’ve been friends with both families for a long time. I thought you might know what’s going on.”
Zion sighed. He had been friends with Born since their childhood. They had lived in the same group home at a time when they were lost boys trying to navigate their way through the concrete jungle of New York City in the late eighties and early nineties. They had developed a friendship while in juvenile detention together, and it had been Zion who had introduced Born to Dorian Douglas—and to the life of a kingpin. Zion knew all about Jada’s struggles with addiction—Sunny’s, too. And he prayed that the friend Sunny had gotten coke for wasn’t Born’s soon-to-be wife.
“I don’t know,” Zion said at last. Sunny and Olivia were close friends and he was reminded why he had such reservations about that friendship. He didn’t like the thought of Olivia being so close to Sunny these days when she was clearly still playing with fire. “Hopefully, the person she was doing the favor for isn’t somebody that we know.”
Gillian agreed. “I hope you’re right. Maybe it’s a onetime thing and there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Dinner’s ready!” Grandma sang from the dining room. “Everyone come on and eat.”
Hearing this, Gillian smiled. “I can hear the dinner bell being rung,” she joked. “Go on and enjoy your holiday. We’ll talk later.”
“As a matter of fact,” Zion said, “I’m gonna call you tomorrow so we can meet and talk about that thing.”
Gillian smiled. “I was hoping you didn’t forget about that.” Zion had approached her about possibly expanding their business relationship. As it stood, he was one of her family’s biggest wholesale clients. He bought weight from the Nobles clan and distributed it via his network of reputable hustlers throughout the city. But he was starting to see that the game was changing and he wanted to discuss ways in which they could cut out some of the middlemen.
“I never forget a thing,” Zion said, smiling. “Thanks for calling, Gillian. Keep me posted on that situation.”
“I will,” she promised, hanging up.
Zion got up and joined the family seated in the dining room. Lamin held a big knife in his hand, prepared to carve the big turkey that Grandma had set down in the center of the table. Adiva and Jordan sat at their smaller table, while all the adults were in seats around the large cherrywood dining room table. Olivia hadn’t sat down, though. She stood beside Lamin. When their eyes met, Olivia scowled at Zion and rolled her eyes.
He felt his pressure rising. “What’s your problem?”
“You can’t even enjoy a holiday with your family without interruption.” She was pissed.
Grandma watched the exchange between the two of them and intervened. “All right now, this is a happy occasion. Let’s not start fussing.”
“I’m off the phone now,” Zion said, sitting down.
“And when it rings again in ten minutes, you’ll be back on the phone. So what’s the point?” It seemed like Olivia was itching for a confrontation. The truth was, she was sick of pretending that everything was okay between them when it wasn’t. She wasn’t the type to put on a happy face for the sake of company. This was her family, and she saw no problem airing Zion out in front of them.
“Sit down.” Zion looked at her, his expression serious. “This ain’t the time for all of that.”
Olivia didn’t sit. “Why not, Zion? You scared to let them know the truth? You complained about me never being home, so I started cutting my days short. I’ve been working on my label less and spending more time cooking, cleaning up, sitting at home the way you asked me to. And where’s the trade-off? What have you changed?”
Zion was growing angrier by the second. “Not now, Olivia. Have a seat. We’ll talk about it later.”
Olivia was far from done. “Did you try … did you even try to go legit like I asked you? No! In fact, you can’t even turn off your phone on a holiday so that you can spend time with your
family.”
“Olivia, you should sit down and eat,” Lamin said. “Don’t do this in front of the kids.”
“Fuck that!” Olivia cursed.
“Hey!” Grandma seldom raised her voice, but she was clearly at the end of her rope. “This is not the time for all that foolishness, Olivia.”
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” she said, “but I can’t hold this in anymore. I’m sick of pretending like nothing’s wrong. I’m not trying to be some hustler’s wife for the rest of my life.” She laughed at the absurdity of that. “I’m not even your wife! I must be a damned fool!”
Zion sat in his seat and looked at Olivia. A smirk spread across his lips, but he didn’t find anything funny. “You sound like your mother right now.”
Lamin had tried to stay out of it, but that sounded like a dis toward his dead mother. He frowned. “Hey! Watch what you say, Zion.”
Zion looked at his friend and felt ganged up on. He realized, as he often had throughout the years, that this was Olivia’s family and not his own. Their loyalty was to her, not to him.
Grandma shook her head. “No,” she said. “He’s right! You do sound like Nadia. Angry, confrontational, cursing, and carrying on.” Grandma looked at Olivia like she had lost her mind. “You sound just like her.”
“Sit down, Olivia,” Zion said again. “Let’s eat dinner and we’ll talk about this shit later on.”
Olivia didn’t budge. “I’m not a child.”
Zion pushed his seat back from the table. “Sit down!” he roared.
“Yo, don’t talk to her like that!” Lamin took a step closer to Zion, and it was clear that the situation was about to escalate. “You’re my man, Z, but this is my sister. Don’t talk to her like that in front of me. What you do in your house is one thing, but as long as I’m around you watch how the fuck you talk to her.”
Zion looked at all the faces around the table; at the kids, gazing in silence. Thanksgiving dinner had already been ruined. There was no way that he could sit down and break bread with all of them after this. He shook his head and walked out of the dining room.