Platinum

by Aliya S. King

  “This is Eden.”

  “Rehab?”

  “You can call it that.”

  “Was Z ordered to come here?”

  “We don’t accept court-appointed rehab patients,” the man said. “We only accept people who are ready. They have to get here on their own and check themselves in.”

  “My husband came to Anguilla to go to rehab?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I found him passed out on the front steps a week ago. I put him in one of our rooms and prepared for him to detox. The next morning he told me he wanted to detox on his own and that he would be back when the drugs were out of his system.”

  “And he left.”

  “He did. And now he’s back. You should be very proud of your husband. I’m not sure how he did it, but he did the worst part on his own.”

  Beth squinted in the bright sunshine and looked up at the house. “Now what?”

  “Now we work on repairing him. Making him ready to deal with the demons that led him to drugs in the first place.” The man smiled and offered his hand. “I’m Dr. Smith.”

  Beth shook his hand. “Thank you.”

  “Thank your husband.” The doctor gestured to Beth’s belly. “He told me the child you are carrying would never know him as a drug addict. He came here on his own. I think he wanted to do this without burdening you. I believe his goal was to get himself cleaned up in time for your delivery and not let you see him until then.”

  “My husband has been sick for a long time. And it’s not just drugs.”

  The doctor nodded. “Your husband has a lot to recover from.”

  “And you think he can be saved?”

  “Saved is not the right word.”

  “He can be helped?”

  The doctor led Beth back to the door of her car. “He can help himself.”

  BETH STAYED IN ANGUILLA, TAKING THE BOYS TO THE BEACH, SHOPPING downtown, and going to the spa for prenatal massages. A massive snowstorm had hit New York and she was in no hurry to get out of the sun.

  She’d had the boys’ teachers send assignments and hired a local woman to tutor them. Bunny popped up. And though she had her own room at a local bed and breakfast, she was up under Zander whenever he wasn’t being tutored. They spent hours together in the only studio on the island. Beth rolled her eyes whenever the girl came around but stayed silent. She was losing her hold on Zander. And if she told him not to see this chick, it would be World War III. Beth could only deal with one catastrophe at a time.

  She wasn’t sure Kipenzi had left the island until she saw her on BET’s 106 & Park a few days after Z’s breakdown. She put the television on mute and simply watched her friend’s movements for a few minutes and then turned the set off.

  After a month, she knew she had to get back home. She began packing their things, sending most of them ahead of her so she wouldn’t have to deal with luggage. She called Boo back at home and told him to book tickets for everyone and inform the boys’ teachers that they would be returning to school on the following Monday morning with all the completed assignments.

  On the night before her flight was to leave, she called Eden to leave a message for Z.

  “Your husband’s not here at the moment,” the doctor said.

  Beth’s heart dropped. “He left? Is he still … in treatment?”

  “Yes. But he is free to come and go as he pleases. He usually takes a walk after dinner and before bed.”

  “I’m flying back home tomorrow. I just wanted him to know that. And I want him to know that I love him and that I’m pulling for him.”

  “You should work on yourself too, Mrs. Saddlebrook.”

  Before Beth could ask him what he meant by that, there was a knock on the door to the villa. The entrance was heavily guarded and she knew security would never let anyone inside except Kipenzi. Or Z.

  Beth dropped the phone and dashed across to the front door. She looked through the peephole and saw her husband. She threw open the door and grabbed him around the neck.

  “Damn, girl. Slow down!” Z laughed and rocked his body side to side, holding his wife tight in his arms.

  Beth moved back and covered her mouth with both hands. Z smiled and turned in a slow circle.

  “I clean up pretty good, right?”

  Beth drank in her husband’s new look. His skin was shiny and clear. He was wearing stiff, dark denim shorts that actually fit. They weren’t sliding off his butt as usual. He was wearing a plain white V-neck T-shirt and had the nerve to even have on leather huaraches. The man who believed that construction boots were perfectly fine beachwear was wearing sandals. The bushy afro was gone. His hair was in a tight Caesar and shaped up expertly.

  But what made Beth cry was his eyes. For years they’d had a dull lifelessness to them. The whites of his eyes were usually yellow, the pupils often dilated. There was often mucus or other foreign matter in the corners of his eyes. And they were always shifting. He had trouble making direct eye contact and he was always squinting.

  As he stood in the living room of the villa, he looked at his wife with wide, clear brown eyes. And a soft, sincere smile that took up his whole face.

  “Did you miss me?” Z asked.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen this version of you since I was seventeen,” Beth said, tears streaming down her face.

  “This is the only me you will ever see,” Z said, wiping his wife’s face with his hand. “I can promise you that.”

  “Can we go home now?” Beth asked. “We’re all packed. The boys are ready too.”

  “You guys go. I need more time. At least a month. Maybe more.”

  “But the baby …”

  “Beth. If you go into labor and I miss the birth of our daughter, so be it. I will be there for her, for you, for all of us, forever. I can’t rush this. I can’t leave here until I know I’m ready.”

  Beth nodded and looked at her husband’s outfit once again. “I love your outfit. You went shopping?”

  Z shook his head. “Kipenzi sent me a new wardrobe.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. With a note. Said she loved me. And that she was proud of me.”

  Beth felt her eyes welling up again.

  Z looked down at his feet. “After how I talked to her that day when I was detoxing, I didn’t deserve anything from her. She’s a good woman.”

  Beth nodded. “She is.”

  “She gave me something else,” Z said, reaching into a canvas messenger bag. He pulled out a CD. “It’s the new single she’s putting out on her farewell compilation.”

  “You’re doing a verse?”

  “Did it already. Recorded it at the studio out here.”

  “And she didn’t get Jake to do it?”

  “She said she wanted me. Thought I might need some work.”

  “And you’re happy with it?”

  Z smiled. “Shit is fire.”

  Beth grabbed the CD and placed it on top of her carry-on bag. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Go home, baby,” Z said, pulling Beth in for another hug. “Let me do this.”

  Beth took both her husband’s hands into her own and kissed his fingers. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “It’s because of the baby,” Z said. “A girl … a girl is different. I just couldn’t have my daughter seeing me like that. I feel like I already know her. I feel like I know what she looks like, what she sounds like. I couldn’t look this little girl in the eye until I got my shit right.”

  “Z, you’re killing me with this. We don’t know if it’s a girl!”

  “I know,” Z said, stroking Beth’s hair. “Maybe you don’t know. But I do.”

  ON THE FIRST WARM DAY IN MARCH, ZANDER AND BUNNY SAT ON THE bed of her attic bedroom, staring at the stick.

  “Why didn’t you just get the one that said pregnant or not pregnant?” Bunny said.

  “Why didn’t you just take the pill like you said you would?”

  “Why didn’t you just wear a condom anyway like you s
aid you would?”

  Zander and Bunny glared at each other and then both looked back down at the stick, resting between them on the bed on a folded paper towel.

  “Robert said Universal and Interscope both have firm deals on the table for me,” Bunny said, chewing on her thumbnail and staring at the test.

  “I know. They both want me too.”

  “You wanna be on the same label?”

  “Makes sense. I guess.” Zander didn’t move his eyes from the stick.

  “You wanna be a father?” Bunny asked.

  “No.”

  Bunny’s heartbeat quickened. Of course he didn’t want to be a father. They were both teenagers. She didn’t want to be a mother either. But Zander didn’t say it right. He just said no. He was supposed to say, Yes, but not right now.

  “I could have this baby and still do my thing,” Bunny said. “I’m not even done recording yet. By the time I had a firm deal and a finished album, the baby would be born and I’d be ready to go.”

  Zander looked at Bunny. “Hell no,” he said. “We can’t have no fucking baby.”

  “Why you gotta say it like that?” Bunny jumped off the bed and stood over Zander, her hand pulled back.

  “Don’t hit me, Bunny. I told you about that shit. I’ll be wrong if I—”

  Bunny socked Zander in the shoulder as hard as she could. Zander grabbed his arm and fell over on the bed.

  “Why the fuck are you always doing that shit!” Zander barked. He scrambled off the bed, tackled Bunny onto the floor, and held her neck in his hands.

  “Put a mark on me and I’ll have you in jail in thirty minutes,” Bunny said, her voice smooth and even.

  “You love putting your hands on me and then threatening that shit!”

  “Rob!” Bunny screamed.

  Zander put a hand over Bunny’s mouth, listening for anyone coming upstairs. When no one came running up, he pulled Bunny to her feet and then shoved her. Bunny smiled.

  “Stop hitting me, Bunny.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. That shit is not cool.”

  “Whatever. You know you—”

  Bunny’s cell phone alarm went off and they both stopped and looked at the pregnancy test again.

  “It’s two lines,” Zander said, picking up the box. “Is that good or bad?”

  “I guess that would depend on how you’re looking at it,” Bunny said.

  “But one line is lighter than the other,” said Zander. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Bunny scanned the box and then threw it on the bed. “I’m pregnant, Zander. Now what?”

  “Now we make you an appointment to handle this.”

  “Just like that? We don’t talk about it?”

  “What is there to talk about? You’re seventeen! We’re both about to get signed to major deals. This is not baby time.”

  “Can you see yourself ever having a baby with me?”

  Zander closed his eyes and remembered a story his father had told him about telling a groupie what she wanted to hear so you could get what you wanted. But he’d never thought of Bunny as a groupie.

  “Yeah, I can see that. Not right now. But after we both get established. We could make a little superstar.” Zander tried to smile.

  “Lying ass,” Bunny said, pushing past Zander and going into the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and locked it.

  “I’m not lying,” Zander pleaded. “In a few years, if we’re still …”

  Bunny opened up the bathroom door just enough for Zander to see that she was crying. “Get out of my house, Zander,” she said.

  “Are we going to … make an appointment? I mean, don’t wait too long …”

  “Get out.”

  Bunny slammed the door and Zander could hear her sobbing. He sank down to the floor, his back against Bunny’s bathroom door. He dropped his head into his hands, Bunny’s cries piercing him. He waited for them to subside. Then, when he heard her calming down and running bathwater, he slipped out of her room and out of the Greenwich home.

  “ I CAN’T BE A MEMBER BECAUSE I’M NOT FIFTY?” KIPENZI asked Ian.

  “AARP is for people over the age of fifty,” Ian said. He was sitting at Kipenzi’s dining room table, arranging photos of Kipenzi’s outfits for a spring museum exhibit at FIT.

  “I thought AARP was for retired people,” Kipenzi said.

  “It is.”

  “Well, that’s me. I’m retired.”

  “Yes. But you’re only thirty.”

  “Doesn’t AARP stand for American Association of Retired Persons?”

  “Actually, no. It used to. But it’s no longer an acronym.”

  “What are you talking about? What does it stand for now?”

  “Well, when I called, they told me it doesn’t stand for anything. It’s not an acronym now. They’re just … the AARP.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Do they now call it arp?”

  “No. They still call it A-A-R-P.”

  “So those letters have to stand for something!”

  “I’m just telling you what the woman told me, Ms. Hill,” Ian said. “You have to be over fifty, period. Retired or not. I know you think it would be cute to have your little AARP card to show you’re really retired. But you can’t. Sorry.”

  Ian didn’t even look up from his binder. He was the only person, besides her husband and Beth, who could tell her no without feeling like he was going to lose his place in her life.

  “I was totally looking forward to using my AARP card to get a discount at the movie theater.”

  Ian rolled his eyes. “I know. ’Cause you’re on a fixed income now, right?”

  “Is Beth back in town?” Kipenzi asked.

  “Yes. She’s staying close to home. Doing well. I spoke to her nanny this morning. You could call her, you know.”

  “Not yet. I want to give her some space. It was ugly in Anguilla. Do you know how Z’s doing?”

  “That I don’t know. Have you asked your husband?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I heard your song this morning,” Ian said. “The one with Z on it.”

  “It didn’t ship yet!” Kipenzi yelled. “You heard it where?”

  Ian waved a hand dismissively. “My dial accidentally ended up on one of those loud rap stations. They were having a call-in contest. Hot or Not or some such nonsense.”

  “Right. Accidentally landed there.”

  “You’ll be happy to know that the song received a ninety percent ‘hot’ rating.”

  Kipenzi climbed onto the bar stool in the kitchen and fiddled with her phone. “I wonder if Beth knows. This could be big for Z.”

  “I’m sure she knows. And I’m sure she appreciates you taking a chance on her husband when he was at his lowest point.”

  “I’ve always loved Z as a rapper. His voice. His lyrics. He’s always been dope to me. Even better than Jake in some ways. Though I’d never tell Jake that.”

  “You don’t have to. He knows.”

  “Can you have a tailor come by the house this afternoon? All my pants are too long.”

  “Did you shrink?”

  “Kinda. I’ve been wondering why all my pants have been dragging the ground lately. Just realized it’s because I’m not wearing stilettos every day! I’m wearing comfortable flat shoes and now all my pants are too long.”

  Ian flipped through the appropriate binder. “I’ll have someone here by six.”

  Kipenzi’s phone buzzed on the counter and she flipped it open. She read a text message and then crinkled her brow.

  “It’s Zander. He’s downstairs. Needs to talk to me. Can you tell security to send him up?”

  Kipenzi walked over to the living room and sat down, arranging pillows behind her back. In five minutes Ian was leading Zander into the living room.

  “Auntie Penzi, I’m sorry I didn’t call you first.”

  “You don’t have to call first, Zander. Give me a hug.”

  He hugged
her stiffly and Kipenzi thought about the day she babysat him when he was eleven. He’d eaten a live goldfish out of her tank on a dare from Jake. She had taken him to the emergency room to get his stomach pumped and the doctor laughed at her. Their picture had been in all the tabloids that week, with captions that got the story all wrong. One magazine said he’d been poisoned. Beth had never let her live it down and even framed one of the stories and hung it up in Zander’s room.

  “I got followed here by a photographer,” Zander said, his eyes wide in amazement.

  “Tall, dark curly hair?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jackson,” Kipenzi said. “My own personal paparazzo. That’s what happens when you get a million views on YouTube and a bidding war for your debut album.”

  “How much do you think Jackson’s getting for a picture of me?”

  “Right now? Probably a thousand dollars.”

  “Word? I’m gonna start telling him where I am and splitting the profits. Didn’t Britney do that?”

  Kipenzi laughed. “Why are you here, Zander?”

  “It’s a few things, actually.”

  Kipenzi narrowed her eyes and twisted her lips to one side. “How far along is she?” she asked dryly.

  Zander hung his head. “I think like six weeks.”

  Kipenzi shook her head back and forth very slowly. “Bunny?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kipenzi dropped her head in her hands. “What about her career? She’s got so much talent. Please don’t tell me she’s keeping this baby.”

  “We don’t know what to do yet.”

  “What about your career, Zan? You can’t remake your image. Once you’re a father, you lose an entire fan base.”

  “I know,” Zander said.

  “And I’m not a big fan of Bunny,” Kipenzi said. “She’s dying to get you locked up for hitting her. And you played right into her hands.”

  “Nah, things are better now. But I have another … situation.”

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. Someone else is pregnant too?”

  “I don’t even know this other chick. She’s saying it’s mine but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Zander, what has your Uncle Jake been telling you since you were thirteen?”