Satin Nights

by Karen E. Quinones Miller

  “Well, y’all had time to talk about everything else,” Renee huffed. “I guess I’m just not important anymore.”

  Smiling, Regina got up and walked over to Renee, who was slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

  “Stop being silly, Ray-Ray,” she said, straightening the ball cap on the girl’s head. “You know you’re my girl. And you know Charles is crazy about you, too.”

  “I know,” Renee said reluctantly. She paused for a moment and looked down. “Aunt Gina, I need to talk to you about something. But, I mean, just between us, you know? You can’t tell my mother or anything.”

  “Well, sure, honey . . . wait a minute.” Regina took a few steps back and looked at her niece, especially eyeing the oversize sweatshirt. “Renee, please tell me you’re not pregnant.”

  “What?” Renee put her hands on her hips. “Now, see, Aunt Gina. Why you wanna try and go there? No, I ain’t pregnant! I can’t believe you asked me something like that.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” Regina said soothingly. “What do you need to talk about?”

  Their conversation was interrupted by someone leaning on a car horn outside the house.

  “That’s Liz.” Renee gave her aunt a quick peck on the cheek. “I gotta go.”

  “But you said you had to talk to me about something important,” Regina protested to Renee’s back.

  “I do, but I’ll do it another time,” Renee said, closing the door behind her.

  Damn, Regina thought as she walked back to the couch and sat down. Now what am I going to do for the rest of the night? She should have started working on one of her articles as soon as she walked through the door, but she used Renee’s presence as an excuse to put it off. Truth was she simply didn’t feel like working. And she didn’t feel like reading her book anymore. She didn’t know what she felt like doing. She was actually feeling a little lonely.

  She glanced at the clock. Almost nine, Camille’s bedtime. She reached for the telephone to call Tamika and wish her daughter a good night, but the call went straight through to voice mail. Tamika’s son, twelve-year-old Darren, was probably online playing Internet video games, Regina figured. She considered hopping into the car and going over there but decided against it. Maybe she’d head over to Yvonne’s and hang out with her and Puddin’ but decided against that, too. She wanted company, but those two were probably high as a kite by now and would be loud and silly. It was fun sometimes—most times, as a matter of fact—but she wanted something a little more sedate at the moment. Damn, she thought, it would have been nice if Renee had stayed around for the night.

  Maybe she should call Brenda. It was about time for their once-a-week telephone call, anyway. With Brenda living in Queens and Regina in Harlem, and neither being crazy about the other’s area of the city, they probably didn’t see each other as much as they should. To be honest, Regina had to admit that their lifestyles also had something to do with their staying apart—and there might have been another reason, too.

  Still, it was nice talking to Brenda on a regular basis. Yeah, she decided, she’d give her big sister a call. She reached for the telephone, but just before she could pick up the receiver, it rang.

  “Hey, Aunt Gina. It’s me again,” Renee’s voice greeted her.

  “You okay, sweetie?” Regina said hopefully. Maybe she changed her mind and was coming back over.

  “I’m fine, Aunt Gina. But I just wanted to tell you that . . . um . . . that I’m . . .”

  “You’re what?” Regina asked suspiciously. Shit, she really is pregnant.

  “Aunt Gina, I like girls. I’m a lesbian,” Renee said in a rush.

  “What?” Regina shouted into the telephone. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Oh man. I knew you was gonna be mad.” Renee’s voice had turned into a whine. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Or soon. Or something. I gotta go.”

  “Ray-Ray, wait!” Regina said, but the phone went dead.

  Regina sat on the couch in shock, still holding the telephone in her hand. Puddin’ killed a man. Yvonne was getting back with a man whom she almost committed suicide over. Brenda was a Buddhist. Charles had some big secret. And her eighteen-year-old niece had just announced she was gay.

  “Fuck it,” Regina said as she got up from the couch and headed upstairs. “I’m going to bed before I find out that Tamika’s really a man.”

  chapter three

  I don’t know, Tamika. I guess I’m in shock is all,” Regina said as she put her hand over her eyes to partially block out the sun shining down on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. “It’s not that I have a problem with Ray-Ray being a lesbian, but I just wasn’t expecting it when she told me last night. I mean, she’s only eighteen—how does she even know for sure herself?”

  “Well, has she ever had a boyfriend?”

  “Not really. I mean, she’s been out on dates with a couple of boys but nothing serious as far as I can tell,” Regina said with a sigh.

  “Does she have a girlfriend?”

  “Hell if I know!” Regina threw her hands up in the air. “I’m telling you, Tamika. She dropped the news and then got off the telephone before I could ask her anything. When I called her at home this morning, Brenda said she’d already left for her part-time job.” She squinted her eyes a moment, then shouted out, “Darren, don’t walk so fast if you’re going to hold Camille’s hand. You’re going to make her fall.”

  “I’m okay, Mommy,” Camille called in a little singsong voice.

  “Darren, slow down. You’re getting too far ahead of us,” Tamika called out.

  “Okay, Ma,” the boy answered sullenly.

  Regina smiled. Tamika was such a good mother, insisting that she and Darren walk Regina and Camille to 125th Street, saying that she and her son both would benefit from a little fresh air. She was right: Darren did need to get out more. His ten-year-old sister, Sissy, had begged David to take her with him to the office, but if it were up to Darren, he would spend the whole day in the house playing video games. And now he couldn’t wait to get back home to play more.

  “So,” Tamika said, turning back to Regina, “Ray-Ray has a part-time job?”

  “Yeah, she’s working as a security guard at Lord & Taylor.”

  “Really?” Tamika started to giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” Regina looked at Tamika in puzzlement, then she, too, began too giggle.

  “It is kind of ironic, huh? I used to boost from there to support Ray-Ray when she was a baby, and now she’s the security guard.” Regina shook her head. It seemed so long ago, she thought, that other life.

  Regina’s mother had raised her to be “a good West Indian girl,” but when she died, and Regina was left to take care of one-year-old Renee on her own, she had to find some way to support them, and no legitimate employer was hiring thirteen-year-olds—at least none that paid enough for her to pay the rent and utilities and buy food and clothing. She had lucked up one day when she went into Lord & Taylor for a job. She didn’t get the job, but she met a young white girl there, Krystal, and the two became friends—and coworkers of a sort, once Krystal taught her to boost clothing. Regina was making money hand over fist stealing from fancy boutiques and high-end department stores. Until both she and Krystal were busted at Bloomingdale’s.

  She’d gotten off with probation, since she was only sixteen at the time and had no record. But since Krystal was nineteen and had been caught twice before, she was sentenced to three years in prison. It was then that Regina decided to switch careers, becoming what she liked to call “a professional girlfriend.” Meaning that she graced the arm and shared the bed of big-time drug dealers and gamblers who didn’t mind showering her with gifts and throwing money her way. When one got tired of supporting her, she’d find another to take his place. It was going well until someone put a contract out on one of her sugar daddies, and she had the misfortune of being with him when the contract was fulfilled. Her boyfriend was killed in front of her eyes, and sh
e’d been shot in the shoulder. It might have been worse if Tamika hadn’t rushed out the building just then, forcing the assailant to run off, but it was enough to make Regina realize that she had to make some serious changes. After Brenda cleaned herself up and took in Renee, Regina got her high school equivalency diploma and moved to Philadelphia, where she attended Temple University and obtained a journalism degree before returning to New York and starting a freelance writing career.

  And now Renee was working at the store where Regina’s shoplifting career began. “Life has a way of coming full circle,” Regina mused aloud.

  “Sure does.” Tamika nodded. “In the most delightful way.”

  “So what did your sister say about Ray-Ray being gay, Regina?”

  “Huh? Oh, I didn’t say anything about it because I got the impression that Ray-Ray hadn’t told her yet.” Regina chuckled. “Brenda’s going to have a fucking fit. You know how she is.”

  “Oh but don’t I?” Tamika said. “I remember how she used to get on Ray-Ray for wearing clothes that had animals in the print, because it was against Islamic tradition. And you know Muslims don’t be playing that homosexuality stuff.”

  “She’s not Muslim anymore.”

  “Oh, that’s right. She’s a . . .” Tamika’s eyebrows furrowed in thought. “Right! Right! She’s a Jehovah’s Witness now. Well, I’m guessing they’re not too keen on homosexuality, either, huh?”

  “Don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Brenda’s a Buddhist this week.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  Tamika shrugged. “Well, better her worshipping Buddha than a crack pipe.”

  “I thought the exact same thing. But then, you know, great minds think alike,” Regina said with a grin. “Speaking of great minds, how are things at school?”

  “They say the first year of medical school is supposed to be the hardest, and I hope that’s true, because this stuff is killing me.” Tamika sighed. “I’ve always been good at biology and chemistry, but I ain’t never seen some of the stuff they’re throwing at us now.”

  “But you can handle it,” Regina said as she gently placed her hand on Tamika’s shoulder. “Look at how far you’ve come already. From a high school dropout working as a supermarket cashier to medical student in only five years. Who would have thought our little sweet giggly Tamika would someday be studying to be a pediatrician?”

  “Missy, missy. We do your hair real quick,” a woman wearing colorful African attire said in a Senegalese accent as she motioned Tamika toward her small storefront with posters of women wearing cornrows. “We have two people do your head, make it real quick. You want microbraids? Box braids. We real quick. Very cheap.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Regina said with a polite smile as she continued walking. “I’ve been considering getting micros, though,” she told Tamika as they crossed the street. “Maybe it’s time to get rid of the perm and go natural. Of course, I just bought a perm yesterday, which I plan to put in my hair tonight, so I obviously haven’t decided for sure to go natural.”

  “Mommy, can I get some money to buy a Popsicle?” Camille said, running back toward her mother. “And can I get enough money for Darren, too?”

  “Darren,” Tamika said reprovingly.

  “I ain’t ask her to ask her mom,” Darren said defensively.

  “It’s okay,” Regina said, pulling a dollar from her purse and handing it to Darren. “I can treat both of you.”

  “Um, Aunt Gina,” Darren said sheepishly, “they’re sixty cents each.”

  “Well, you can dig in your pocket and come up with the other twenty cents,” Tamika said sharply.

  “But, Ma! I was just—”

  Tamika’s eyes narrowed. “Boy, don’t you play with me.”

  “Yes, Ma.” Darren poked out his mouth, turned around, and stalked off into the candy store, with Camille skipping behind him.

  “Remember when Popsicles only cost ten cents?” Regina asked while they waited outside the store.

  Tamika nodded. “Yeah, and we used to get the twin pops so we could break it down the middle and share it. And P.S., you know your four-year-old daughter has a crush on my twelve-year-old son, right?”

  “That’s pretty obvious.” Regina pointed at the sidewalk. “Watch that dog shit, Tamika. I don’t know why people have dogs in the city. All this dog shit is why we have so much pollution in Harlem.”

  “I don’t like stepping over dog crap, but I really don’t think it contributes to pollution,” Tamika said as she sidestepped the brown pile. “After all, manure is nature’s best fertilizer.”

  “Yeah, right. I guess the guy that let his dog shit there on the sidewalk was hoping to grow roses. Ooh!” Regina snapped her fingers. “Talking about crushes, that reminds me. Guess who’s moving to New York?”

  “Who?”

  “Robert!”

  “Robert who?”

  “That Robert. Old married Robert who Yvonne was so in love with. The one she almost killed herself over. You know, Charles and David’s friend in Philadelphia.” Regina lightly pushed Tamika’s shoulder. “According to Yvonne, he finally left his wife, quit his job, and is moving to New York.”

  “Oh, girl, stop!” Tamika’s mouth opened wide in astonishment. “You know you’re lying.”

  “I’m only telling you what Yvonne told me,” Regina said with an exaggerated shrug.

  “Well, honey, she obviously didn’t tell you everything!” Tamika leaned forward. “Because Robert didn’t finally leave his wife, she threw his butt out. He didn’t quit his job, his ass got fired!”

  “What!” Regina’s eyes widened. “Girl, stop the madness.”

  “I’m not kidding.” Tamika continued, “David was telling me just the other day. But that’s not even the worst of it.”

  “What do you mean? There’s something else?”

  Tamika paused and looked around as if to make sure no one was within hearing range. “Gina, Robert is strung out!”

  “No! Robert’s a crackhead?” Regina asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “Honey, worse! He’s dusty.”

  “What!” Regina almost shouted. “Robert’s smoking angel dust? You’re killing me here!”

  “I kid you not. He called David to see if he could maybe partner with him in his law practice, and at first David was going to do it, but then when he called down to Philly, he found out the real deal.”

  “Shit,” Regina said slowly. “We gotta pull Yvonne’s coat, because I know she doesn’t know.”

  “Gina, she’s going to have a fit.” Tamika shook her head. “You know how crazy she was about that guy.”

  “Yeah, don’t think I don’t know it. Remember, we almost broke up our friendship over him,” Regina said with a snort. “She was so stupid over him she actually thought I played her. Thought I knew he was married and didn’t tell her.”

  “Yeah,” Tamika said sadly. “I remember.”

  “Well, you know we gotta tell her,” Regina said with a sigh. “What you doing tonight? Maybe we can go over there.”

  “I don’t think I’m doing anything. David should be getting back from the office by about four o’clock, since it’s Saturday. How about, say, six?”

  “Yeah, that’ll work.” Regina peered into the candy store. “Let me go in here for a minute so I can get a newspaper.”

  Regina’s brow furrowed as she walked into the store and saw Darren off to the side reading a comic book. She had to look around a few seconds before she spotted Camille, off in a corner talking to a middle-aged man who was wearing dark sunglasses and chewing a toothpick.

  “Excuse me,” Regina said as she snatched Camille by the hand and pulled her out the store. “Didn’t I tell you about talking to strangers?” she said, kneeling down in front of her daughter once they were outside.

  “But, Mommy, he was just telling me that I looked like—”

  “Camille, did you hear me? I mean, never, never talk to strangers. Especially s
trange men.”

  “What happened?” Tamika asked in a worried voice.

  “Darren is in there reading comic books, and Camille was off in a corner talking to some man she doesn’t know.” Regina’s lip curled as she talked.

  “What? I’m going to kill that boy,” Tamika said before stomping off into the store.

  “But, Mommy, for real, he was just saying—” Camille began again.

  “He was just saying that she looked like someone he used to know,” a man’s voice cut in.

  Regina stood up, trying to make herself look taller than five feet two.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said coldly as her hand tightened around Camille’s arm.

  “I beg your pardon, huh?” The man chuckled. “You always was polite, though.”

  “Pardon me?” Regina said in a more cautious tone. The voice was familiar, she thought, but she couldn’t place him. Then the man smiled, revealing a gold tooth with an embedded diamond. She gave a sharp intake of breath and released Camille’s arm. “Little Joe,” she said breathlessly.

  “In the flesh,” the man said with a quick smile. He bent down and chucked Camille under the chin. “Didn’t I tell you that you look like a young woman I used to know?”

  “You mean my mommy?” Camille said in an amazed voice.

  “Yep. Your mommy.” Little Joe straightened up, took off his sunglasses, and looked Regina straight in the eyes. “Prettiest girl I ever met in my life. My own little Satin Doll.”

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” Regina said slowly. She couldn’t help herself. She touched his arm to make sure he was real. He was. For some reason, tears sprang to her eyes and her knees began to weaken. His closely cropped hair and short beard were snowy white rather than the salt-and-pepper she remembered, but his face looked as smooth and his dark brown eyes were just as piercing as when they first met when she was fifteen. “When did you get out?” she finally stammered.

  “Day before yesterday.”

  “But how . . .”

  “It took sixteen fucking—excuse me,” Little Joe interrupted himself as he looked down at Camille, who was staring into his mouth. “Sixteen years and a good two hundred thousand dollars, but my lawyer finally found an appeal that stuck. So here I am.”