This was for the birds. All I could think about was how I treated Rae, how I hurt her by throwing him in her face.
Every time the thought crossed my mind, my heart broke more and more.
Omari
I woke up to sounds of Simone heaving in the bathroom. Her morning sickness was worse than Aeysha’s. Like clockwork, she threw up every morning before taking her shower while getting ready for work.
She was about five months at this point. Finally, I was getting excited about having a baby. Since Dahlia’s death, I was missing the sound of a baby’s cries and the smell of baby lotion.
As Simone walked into the bedroom wearing her robe and rubbing her stomach with an uncomfortable frown, I noticed how I was finally looking at her differently. She wasn’t just my woman. She was the mother of my child. She had gained only a few pounds. She had a small bulge that was just now starting to poke out.
“You okay?”
Simone smiled at me while sitting at her vanity. While taking the satin cap off her head and allowing her long weave to fall twenty-two inches down her back, she answered, “I’m fine. I just hate throwing up.”
“Did you reschedule your appointment yet?”
Simone was scheduled for a prenatal appointment last week that got canceled because her doctor had a family emergency in California. She didn’t want to see a different doctor, so opted to reschedule her appointment. I was a little let down because I had yet to be able to go with her to an appointment, so I made sure that I was free and available to go with her that day. I was looking forward to seeing my baby in the same 3D ultrasound that I’d seen Dahlia on so many times before finally seeing her face to face.
“No, not yet. I’ll do it today though.”
“My mama told me the other day that Erica is having a boy. I know she's happy as hell. That’s what she wanted.”
As she flat ironed her hair, I caught Simone roll her eyes hard as hell. Every since she heard that shit Tre said about me, she hated even talking about my sister. It didn’t matter to me. I mean, I was mad about the same shit, but Erica and I didn’t fuck with each other like that anyway. So it didn’t bother me.
“She's going to have to have a c-section though. She got diabetes, or some shit my mama was saying.” Now I was just fucking with Simone by continuously talking about Erica. I liked to see her turn up her nose. I liked that bougie shit about her, especially when she hated a motherfucka just because of me. That’s that loyalty that made me fall for her.
“That’s interesting,” Simone replied nonchalantly. “Anyway… What do you want us to have?”
“I don’t care, baby. As long as it’s healthy. Are you going to find out the sex of the baby at your next appointment?”
“I’m not sure if I am far enough along for that.”
“Aeysha was able to find out when she was…”
She put her hand up and cut me off with a stare that shut me completely up. “Don’t compare me to, Aeysha.” She was literally glaring at me.
“I wasn’t. I was just sayin’…”
“Do not compare me to Aeysha!”
I stared at her from the bed, still under the comforter hiding from the cold morning air. “Whoa, baby. Calm down. Why you gettin’ upset?”
“I’m sick of everything being about Aeysha. I expect you to mourn for her, but will it ever be about me? You walking around here mad because you’re obsessed with Ching because of her. You can’t even make an appointment with me because you so busy in the streets trying to find him. Now you’re comparing my pregnancy to hers!”
I expected Simone to be sensitive about hearing Aeysha’s name. She knew that Aeysha was the woman that had my heart. She knew that if Aeysha was still alive, I would not be in that condo with her. I would be at home with the woman that I planned to live the rest of my life with. Therefore, Simone’s taking offense to Aeysha’s constant presence in this relationship didn’t even upset me.
“I understand how you feel. I’ll try not to mention her name around you. I don’t want you to be upset, especially with you being pregnant and everything.”
“But you’re still going to kill Ching, aren’t you?”
She’d completely stopped doing her hair and gave me her full attention.
“I’m not discussing that with you. I don’t want you knowing anything about that. I don’t want you involved.”
“Too late, Omari! I already know.”
“Well, you won’t know anything else. I’m not discussing it. Period.”
She called herself glaring at me like that shit was supposed to scare me, but I didn’t give a fuck. I closed my eyes and got comfortable in a position that was not facing her. I was also very comfortable with spending most of my days finding Ching’s ass.
Simone
About an hour before leaving work, I locked my office door and began to search online for 3D ultrasound pictures that I could manipulate and print on the glossy paper that I bought from Office Max on lunch.
I was desperate. This pregnancy scheme was unraveling along with every other lie, scheme, and move I’d pulled.
After searching Google, I was presented with hundreds of pictures that I could manipulate to my liking. All I needed to do was change the patient’s name and doctor’s name, after finding one that was the same amount of weeks that I was supposed to be.
Talking to Omari that morning caused an epiphany to hit me. I realized how I could successfully carry this pregnancy out and produce a baby. I just needed to come up with a plan to make it so that Omari missed the delivery.
I wasn’t about to let things fall through the cracks. I had done too much to get where I was. I was his woman. I was the only woman. I wasn’t sharing him with anyone. I had the position that I always wanted, and I wasn’t about to let it go. Not for Aeysha. Not for Dahlia. And definitely not for Chance. So after successfully using Photoshop to add my information to the ultrasound picture, I printed it. Then I finally returned Omari’s text from about an hour ago, asking how I was doing. I text messaged back, saying that I was sorry for taking so long to get back to him. I added that I was in the clinic with no reception since my doctor called and said that she was in town and had an available appointment for this afternoon if I wanted it.
I knew that he would be upset for missing yet another appointment, but I planned to go home and give him such a dick sucking spa treatment that he would forget all about it. Yet, fear that I wouldn’t be able to continue to dance around these appointments gave me chills.
Of all the lies I’d told, of all the secrets I’d had, this was the most wretched and outlandish of them all.
Before slipping the ultrasound picture into an envelope, I looked at it and wished desperately that it was really Omari’s baby that I was laying eyes on. However, I knew that I’d come up with the picture perfect plan to give him the baby that he was expecting.
I’d bought myself a little more time with that ultrasound. I felt much better than I did this morning sitting at the vanity literally with the bubble guts as I felt the walls crashing in on me. I was now leaving the office and heading to the parking lot feeling slightly better.
Full relief would come once I got Chance the fuck out of the picture. Like the baby, I had a plan in the works to accomplish that as well. So I headed towards the spot in Riverdale.
I text messaged Chance on my way there to make sure that he wasn’t there. Then I confirmed that Omari was at home. Twenty minutes later, I was pulling up in front of the house. Fred, one of the block boys, was posted on the porch. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how these little boys stood outside in twenty degree weather all day.
“What’s up, Simone?”
“Hey, baby.”
“Omari isn’t here.”
“I know. I just wanted to grab some more of his things since I was in the area.”
Fred opened the front door for me. I hurried inside as the biting cold felt like it was damn near chasing me.
Paula was in th
e kitchen bagging mollies, weed, and heroine.
“Hey, Paula. How you doin’?”
“What’s up, Simone? What are you doing here?”
“Grabbing some of Omari’s things. I won’t be long.”
“Yea, you betta get outta here. Your bougie ass don’t belong in no trap, baby.”
We both giggled as I headed down the hall. I bypassed what was Omari’s old bedroom and slipped into the pantry. I took my heels off in order to be as quiet as possible and disappeared into the back of the pantry. In the furthest corner was a lose floorboard that I opened. In the floor was Omari’s drug stash. I took three bricks from the stash and put them in my Celine tote. Then, while on my knees, I crawled to the front of the pantry to make sure that Paula was still posted at the kitchen table. She was, so I crept out of the pantry and headed into the bedroom to grab what of Omari’s things that were still there.
Fourteen
Omari
“What’s up, Capone?”
“We got a problem, boss.”
I wasn’t in the mood to hear no shit like that. It was too early in the morning for dumb shit.
“What’s the problem?”
“We have a thief in the crib.”
“A thief? Which crib? What’s missing?”
“Three bricks are missing from the spot in Riverdale.”
My stomach did three summersaults so serious that I got a little sick. Three bricks was worth at least ninety-thousand dollars on the street.
“Somebody broke in?”
As Capone replied, “Hell naw,” I went ahead and got out of the bed. It was obvious that I was gone have to hit the block much earlier than usual. “When Chance told me that the count was off, first thing I assumed was Ching. But them niggas wouldn’t come in here for three bricks.”
“Hell naw they wouldn’t.”
“You think Chance grabbed them?”
“Hell naw, man. You don’t come off to me as that type of dude.”
“Paula?”
“She swears to God it wasn’t her.”
I moaned and groaned in frustration as I climbed out of bed. This shit wasn’t cool. It put me in a fucked up position because whoever stole the shit had to get dealt with. The only nigga I was focused on dealing with at the moment was Ching, who was still somewhere hiding. He hadn’t been to any of his spots. Black, Smoke, and Burt ran most of his errands. Ching had disappeared.
Ching wasn’t a punk. He wasn’t a runner. He wasn’t the type of nigga to just let me get away with shooting at him and stealing from him. I knew at some point he would resurface. I had to find him before he found me.
“You at the spot?”
“Hell yea.”
“Be there in a minute.”
I hung up, threw the cell on the bed, and just paced with my head in my hands. I did not want to deal with this shit. Everybody that worked for me, I fucked with heavy. I trusted every block boy and every hype with my life. They were loyal.
But they knew me not to be some crazy trigger happy savage. So it was possible that one of them was taking my kindness for weakness.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
Simone came into the room wearing a black long sleeve sweater maxi dress that fell to her ankles and over a pair of Christian Louboutin boots that cost me three thousand dollars. Her pudgy stomach stuck out of the cashmere.
She really wasn’t on my good side either. She went to the doctor without me again, and it really pissed me the fuck off. She was treating me like I was some nigga too busy to be a part of my child’s life, when she knew that I would go over and beyond to do every and anything for my children.
She watched me pace curiously.
“Somebody stole some work out the spot,” I told her, answering her curiosity.
Her eyes bucked as she took her usual seat at the vanity. Her hair was already done. Now she was doing her makeup.
“Who do think did it and when?”
“Ain’t no tellin’. We only go in the stash when we gotta make more packs.”
“Your people wouldn’t steal from you.”
“I didn’t think so, but apparently somebody did.”
“Maybe it was Tiana.”
Though they had ruled out abuse and stopped investigating Tiana and her boyfriend, I still hadn’t been fucking with her. I heard from her brother, Fred, that she felt some type of way about that. But he was so loyal to me that he was also mad at Tiana for having that dude in my crib anyway.
I pondered over the thought as Simone continued to convince me. “She still has a key.”
“It would honestly make me feel better if she was the one that did it. At least it wouldn’t be one of my people turning on me.”
Chance
I felt weird as hell looking at Lexington House. I hadn’t seen it since I left for transitional housing last year. It’s funny how sitting in that parking lot felt like being at home.
Back then, I hated being there. I hated my life. I was lost.
At that moment, I would have given anything to go back to that place in life. Now I was realizing that my past was a cakewalk compared to the shit that I was facing now.
Ever since leaving Lexington, I had hit roadblock after roadblock.
The biggest boldest dirtiest roadblock in my life came walking towards my car in a black sweater dress. I noticed that she was either pregnant or had gained some weight.
When she opened the door and sat in my car, the smell of Aqua Di Gioia overpowered the smell of weed that Capone left in there earlier that day.
“Here,” was all that she said as she handed me a plastic bag. It was heavy. I looked in it curiously and immediately recognized the bricks.
“Tuh,” I grunted. This chick was unbelievable. “So you the one who stole them bricks.”
“Yes, for you. That’s worth almost a hundred thousand dollars. Now you can leave.”
I wasn’t excited. Had she bought these bricks with her own money, this would be great. If I took these three bricks and left town, I would never be able to come back to Chicago due to the price on my head that Omari and Capone would put there because they would assume that my disappearance was due to me stealing from them. I couldn’t just go to Minnesota either. I would have to go so far that word of my come up and whereabouts didn’t make it back to the Chi.
“Was Omari at the spot when you left?”
I shook my head, barely paying attention to what she was saying because my thoughts were taking over.
“Where is he? Do you know?”
“He and Capone moved all the product out of the spot on Riverdale. They takin’ it out south.”
I sighed heavily as the bricks lay on my lap.
Simone saw me contemplating. “Chance, this isn’t money, but this is your opportunity to leave and start all over. You can work for yourself. You don’t have to stand on some block all winter anymore.”
I didn’t want to leave. I liked my life. I had done some pretty terrible things, but I finally liked my life. I liked my homies. The thought of just walking away from Gia tugged at my heart, but knowing that I was also walking away from that pussy damn near brought a tear to my eye.
Noticing my reluctance, Simone began to beg me to leave. “Please, Chance.”
She slipped her hand softly on my thigh. I immediately smacked her arm so hard that her hand flew off and she screeched out in my pain.
“Nigga…”
She called herself getting hype, but my anger far surpassed hers. I was damn near in the passenger seat with her as my rage poured out of me like smoke as I pointed aggressively at her face.
“You lyin’ ass, bitch! You can stop playing these fucking mind games! Don’t fucking touch me!”
Simone just sat there, coolly and innocent, as always.
Finally, my anger subsided. Reluctantly, I put the bricks in the backseat on the floor. The happiness in Simone couldn’t be hidden, no matter how hard she tried to act nonchalantly at my conceding to yet another one of her
devious moves.
“Get the fuck out of my car, Simone.”
“Are you leaving?”
“GET THE FUCK OUT!”
The audacity of this bitch sent my anger off the meter. I reached over her, opened the door, and started pushing her so hard that she had to get out of the car before she fell out. It took everything in me not to beat the shit out of her like I wanted to. She had taken everything from me and still was. I was still a pawn in her game just to get another man.
I was mad at her for being a conniving bitch, but I was angrier with myself for being so weak.
I was putting the car in reverse before she was even able to slam the car door. Then I sped off and out of the parking lot. I never wanted to see that bitch again.
Simone
I let out a big sigh of relief as I watched Chance speed out of the parking lot. I didn’t give a fuck how mad he got, he needed to leave town. Though he didn’t tell me that he was leaving or when, I knew that he was. He was young, but he was far from stupid.
Now that Chance was out of the way, I had one more trick up my sleeve before I headed home. I noticed how much better I felt as I drove towards the suburbs. Getting Chance out of Chicago had been such a burden. However, the burden was lifting rapidly by the second.
When I pulled up in front of the house in Riverdale, I spotted Fred on post.
I rolled my window down and asked, “Is Paula in there?”
“Yea, Simone. She in there. What’s up?”
“Tell her to come here.”
Then I hurriedly rolled my window back up to block out the cold. It was almost April, but it was still barely the high forties during the day. It always took Chicago a long time to convert from winter to spring.
About a minute passed before Paula came bouncing out of the house. Her hair had grown longer, but it was unkempt. It was dirty blond hair that fell almost to her butt, but it was literally dirty and appeared to be greasy. She was an older hype. Paula had to be in her forties. Because of the drugs, she looked to be in her late fifties. Skin that was once clear and pink was now filthy with needle marks, bruises, and deterioration from the drugs. Her body was frail and looked weak and sickly.
Secrets of a Side Bitch 2 Page 13