by Tracy Brown
“I know this wasn’t part of the plan,” she said, nodding discreetly toward her son. “But my sister wasn’t trying to hear me and I had no choice. You sounded like you needed a friend today, so I came over with food.” She held a casserole dish in her hand. Looking at the disappointed expression on Ishmael’s face, she wasn’t sure that this had been a good idea after all. “If you want, you can take the food and I’ll come back for my dish tomorrow. I understand if you have other plans.”
Ishmael wasn’t thrilled about kids. He rarely dated women who had them and had only made an exception with Robin because she was so sexy. He looked down at young Hezekiah and the little boy peered back at him through wide eyes. He was a cute kid, Ishmael had to admit. And Hezekiah seemed calm enough not to fuck up Ishmael’s high. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t have any other plans. Come on in.”
Ishmael ushered them inside and up the stairs to his apartment. When they got inside, he heard his cell phone ringing and knew without looking that Nina was calling for the millionth time. He picked up his phone and turned it off. While Ishmael and Hezekiah sat awkwardly beside each other on the couch, Robin went to the kitchen and began heating up the chicken, macaroni and cheese, and cabbage she’d made.
Ishmael looked at the little boy and smiled. Hezekiah smiled back and looked around the room, taking it all in. Silence filled the space as Robin got Ishmael’s food together. Hezekiah wondered why they were there. He wondered who Ishmael was and why his mom had gone through so much trouble to make sure that dinner was perfect tonight. Ishmael caught Hezekiah staring and he looked away quickly. His gaze fell on a video game system and he shifted excitedly in his seat.
“Is that Xbox 360?” he asked, his voice revealing the enthusiasm bubbling just below the surface.
Ishmael nodded and smiled. “Wanna play?”
Hezekiah nodded quickly and Ishmael passed him the wireless control. Picking up the second control, he challenged the little boy to a game of Madden. “You don’t mind if I beat you, do you?” Ishmael asked jokingly.
Hezekiah laughed. “You can’t beat me! I’m nice at this game!” Hezekiah sat Indian-style on the floor and prepared for war. They started the game and chose their teams, both of them talking trash. Robin watched them from the kitchen and smiled. They laughed and yelled at the TV when their plays didn’t go as planned. It felt good to her to see Hezekiah finally have the chance to interact with a man other than his grandfather. Ishmael connected with the little boy easily and found himself enjoying the game so much that he didn’t pause to eat when Robin brought his plate of hot food to him. Instead he gulped down the delicious meal in between plays, genuinely enjoying the battle with the six-year-old. Hezekiah beat him fair and square and Ishmael demanded a rematch. As they played a second game, Robin washed the dishes and imagined that every day could be like this—her, Hezekiah, and Ishmael, one big happy family.
It was close to eleven o’clock when Ishmael and Hezekiah prepared to play for a third time. “I hate to interrupt this little male-bonding session, but Hezzy’s bedtime passed a long time ago. I need to get him home.”
“Aww w, Mommy! I was gonna beat him again!” Hezekiah protested.
Ishmael laughed. “I let you beat me once; you can’t do it again.”
“Yes, I can! Don’t be embarrassed to tell your friends you got beat by a little kid.”
Ishmael liked Hezekiah a lot. “Okay. I see you got a lot of confidence, kid. Tell you what. Next time Mommy brings you over to visit me, we’ll play our tiebreaker. Whoever wins is the ultimate Madden champion. Deal?”
Hezekiah liked the sound of that. “Deal!” He put the control down and followed his mother to the door.
Ishmael stood tall over Robin and smiled at her. “Thanks for dinner. It was really good. I don’t believe you cooked all that all by yourself. I didn’t know you could cook like that.”
Hezekiah chuckled. “She said it had to be perfect for you—”
“Stay out of grown folks’ conversations, Hezzy!” Robin chastised him, embarrassed. She looked at Ishmael and said, “I’m glad you liked it. Next time it’s your turn to cook.”
Ishmael laughed at that and gave Hezekiah five. “We’ll see. See you next time, little man.”
“Okay,” Hezekiah said, wondering why his mother seemed so shy around Ishmael.
Ishmael smiled at her. “I had fun. I’m glad you brought him over.” Ishmael didn’t kiss Robin good-bye out of respect for her son. Instead he pulled her into a firm hug and whispered in her ear, “Good night.”
She melted. “Good night,” she said, and then she and her son went home. On the way, Hezzy couldn’t stop talking about Ishmael. Hezzy really liked him. Robin did, too. And she spent the whole drive home reminding herself that Ishmael wasn’t the kind of man whom it was safe to give your heart to. Trouble was, it was already too late.
“You dirty, nasty, rotten pussy bitch!”
Robin sat up in bed and held the phone steady, hoping that her ears were deceiving her. “What?” she managed, her voice thick with sleep. It was one o’clock in the morning.
“You wait till I see you, Robin. Just wait. I know where you live, where you work, where your son goes to school,” Nina said. “I will catch you. And when I do I’m gonna kick your filthy ass!”
Robin couldn’t believe her ears. “Nina, you can’t be serious. I know you’re not threatening my son, you stupid bitch!”
“I’m not making threats, Robin. I’m dead serious. You’ll see.” Nina hung up the phone and Robin sat in the dark in disbelief. She dialed Ishmael’s number and he answered on the fourth ring.
“Yo, Ish, your girl is really bugging out. She just called me and threatened me and Hezekiah.”
“What?” Ishmael rubbed his hand across his face in exasperation. “What did she say?”
Robin recounted her conversation with Nina, and Ishmael listened closely. He knew that the shit was out of control now. “I’m sorry, ma. But she ain’t really gonna do shit. She’s just talking.”
Robin shook her head. “I’m not taking no chances, Ishmael. I can’t fuck with you no more. If she comes near me or Hezekiah I will kill that bitch. Seriously. And I can’t deal with you anymore. This is too much.”
Ishmael sighed. “Come on, ma—”
“Nah,” she said. “It’s over. Deal with your bitch and keep her away from me.” She hung up the phone and Ishmael was left sitting in his apartment alone in silence. He lay back on his bed and looked at the ceiling feeling drained. He wished this was all a bad dream. In one day he had lost his childhood friend and Robin as well. As much as Ishmael hated to admit it, he was beginning to develop strong feelings for Robin—and her son. And now, thanks to Nina, Ishmael’s relationship with Robin was over.
His phone ringing snapped him out of his trance. He saw Cito’s number and quickly answered. “Whattup?”
Cito sighed. “Ish,” he said in his heavy Spanish accent. “I cannot do business with you anymore, my friend.”
Ishmael frowned. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Rah-lo gave me a call,” Cito said. “He said you told him about our deal and he was very unhappy. Basically, what he told me is that if I keep dealing with you, he will find a new supplier. I can’t afford that, Ish. Rah-lo brings me a lot of business—more than you will right now. And I assured him that I would not fuck with you anymore.” Cito spoke very matter-of-factly and Ishmael was livid.
“Come on, Cito! You can’t do this shit to me. I’ve been working with you just as long as Rah-lo has. How you gonna choose his side in this shit?”
Cito wouldn’t budge. “You have both been dealing with me. This is true. But now Rah-lo has the bigger clientele, the bigger empire. He told me that you walked away from your partnership with nothing. That you will be building from the ground up. All the soldiers will remain with him. That means he will be doing bigger business with me than you will right now. You can’t give them what he’s giving them and therefore yo
u won’t bring in the money that he does. It’s simple arithmetic, my friend. Rah-lo is a bigger player in this game. So I have to do what’s best for my business.”
Ishmael couldn’t believe his ears. “So now I gotta find someone else to get my shit from. I got money, Cito. I got clientele. You gonna cut me off just like that?”
“I’m afraid so. It’s nothing personal. I like you, Ish—”
“Fuck you, Cito!” Ishmael hung up and paced the floor in a rage. Rah-lo was playing hardball.
Ishmael picked up his cell phone and scrolled through the numbers until he found Celeste’s name. He dialed the number.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hey,” Ish said. “Change of plans. I think I’m gonna come down there sooner than I thought.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Georgia on My Mind
Hours later, Celeste’s phone rang again. She knew that Ishmael was on his way. He had told her that he would be on the first flight out in the morning. But it was still dark outside. Surely he hadn’t arrived so soon. She answered the phone, cursing under her breath, eager for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
A familiar voice came through the receiver. “Don’t hang up.”
Celeste looked at her bedside clock and saw that it was 4:40 A.M. “Rah-lo?” she asked, holding the phone close to her ear. “Do you know how late it is?”
Rah-lo was aware of the late hour but didn’t care. He had to talk to her. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I just had to say this to you and I couldn’t wait.”
Celeste clicked on her Tiffany bedside lamp and propped herself up on her elbow, sighing. “What?”
“I still love you.”
The words hung in the distance between them as Celeste closed her eyes and pictured his face. She thought about all the times he’d said that he loved her over the years, how good it used to feel to hear him say it. But those days were gone. It was too late for that now. “Raheem, I have to work in the morning … .”
“I know.” He thought about it. “What kind of work do you do?”
Celeste stifled a yawn. “I work in marketing. Advertising, promotion, things like that.”
“Wow,” Rah-lo said. “That sounds official. You like it?”
“Yeah,” Celeste said, rolling her eyes. “But I won’t like it tomorrow if you keep me up all night talking.”
“I know it’s late,” he said. “And I don’t mean to be inconsiderate. But I need you to know how I feel about you. I never stopped loving you, baby girl.”
Celeste shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
“Just listen. I should have been with you all along. I was just trying to do right by my kids,”
“So then what gave you the guts to leave now?” Celeste frowned.
“I asked you to just listen.”
She fought the urge to smile. Who did he think he was?
“I got with Asia for all the wrong reasons. By the time I realized how miserable I was, I had three little girls and a wife who was teaching them wrong. So I thought the right thing to do was stay there and be a father to my kids. Asia just came along with the deal. I never loved her like I love you.”
“Listen—”
“Nah. You listen. Why can’t you just understand that I was stupid to let you leave here? I wish I would’ve come down there to get you when you left. I didn’t see how I could have you and my daughters at the same time. Asia wouldn’t have let me see them if I left her back then. Now they’re older. They understand more, and they can get to me on their own. I just wanted to tell you that I’m serious about seeing you again. I need to look you in your eyes and tell you some things. That’s why I contacted you.”
Celeste couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you done?”
“Yeah.”
“First of all you contacted me because Nina gave you the number. Ishmael is the one who found me. So who really wants to see me again, Rah-lo? You or your boy?” Celeste knew she was hitting a nerve and she loved the feeling. “Second of all, you’re crazy for even calling me at this time of night. You don’t know if I got a man or what.”
“Do you?”
“That’s none of your business,” she spat. “Stop calling me. I’m not interested in your sob story. You had a wife. You had no time for me. I walked away and you let me.”
“Is that how you see it?”
“That’s how it is. Good night.” Celeste hung up the phone and then turned the ringer off. She threw herself back on the pillows and covered her face with the sheet, hoping to run from Rah-lo’s voice in her ears.
In the morning, Rah-lo thought about his conversation with Celeste. She sounded so mad at him, and he hated that. She wasn’t giving him a chance to explain. In his mind it wasn’t that he had chosen Asia over Celeste. Instead, he believed that he had never had much of a choice to start with. It really was all about his little girls. He reasoned that all he needed was to see Celeste face-to-face to convince her that he loved her. He made up his mind that he was going to Atlanta to get her.
He packed his bags and called the airport to book a flight. Ishmael crossed his mind and Rah-lo shook his head. Yesterday he had paid a visit to Cito. He hadn’t confirmed that Ishmael was indeed doing business for himself on the side. Cito refused to go so far as to snitch on the guy. But Cito did acknowledge that Ishmael—and a lot of dudes who played the sidekick role—would eventually get hungry. Cito told Rah-lo to keep in mind that Ish wasn’t working a day job anymore. Chances were that Ishmael would want to make more money, and Cito told Rah-lo that he had to expect that. While it wasn’t the admission of guilt that Rah-lo had hoped for, his discussion with Cito had been all that Rah-lo needed to hear. He was finished with Ishmael both as a friend and as a business partner. Rah-lo called one of his workers and left him in charge. Then he loaded up his car and headed for the airport.
On the way, Rah-lo scrolled through his Blackberry. Dialing a number, he weaved across the nearly empty expressway. “What up, Uncle James?” Rah-lo spoke into his cell phone. “Yeah, I’m on my way down there and I want to crash at your crib for a while.”
Rah-lo’s uncle James was older than Rah-lo’s mother by seven years, which meant that he was about sixty-seven years old. He had been a very protective older brother to Rah-lo’s mom. When she died at the age of fifty, James had taken it the hardest. He left New York City, moved to Atlanta, and had a modest home there, which he shared with his much younger wife and her two young sons. It was the family joke. Clearly, Uncle James was the twentysomething woman’s sugar daddy, but he didn’t give a damn. Rah-lo had only met his uncle’s wife once, and she and her kids had left a lasting impression. Her boys were rude and they asked questions and said things that they had no business asking or saying to grown folks. Rah-lo wasn’t really looking forward to spending time with his uncle and his newfound family. But Rah-lo didn’t know how long he would be in Atlanta before he found Celeste. And in the event that he did find her, he might need some place to stay for a while. Staying in a hotel long-term could end up being costly. That’s where Uncle James came in.
“Yeah, come on down here, boy. You can stay for as long as you want.” Uncle James was thrilled to have Raheem coming to stay with him for a while. Ever since his sister Vivian had died years prior, James had wanted to connect with her son and make sure that the young man was living right. James knew enough about Rah-lo to know that he sold drugs, that he was fresh out of jail, and that he had a wife, with a girlfriend on the side. But James didn’t know much more than that. This trip, his nephew coming to stay with him, would be a great opportunity for James to get to know the young man better.
Rah-lo was grateful to have his uncle’s house to crash at. James made his living as a loan shark and dabbled in illegal numbers. His house was comfortable and he drove the flyest cars. Rah-lo laughed to himself as he hung up the phone, thinking that his uncle’s gold-digging wife was probably driving all the fly cars now. He parked his car in the long-term parking section in the
Continental Airlines terminal and dialed Asia’s number.
She answered almost immediately. “You can call and talk to the girls and not me?” she asked, not even hesitating to start her usual bullshit.
“Up until now I had nothing to say to you,” he told her. “I’m leaving town for a couple of weeks.”
“Rah-lo, don’t play with me. Ishmael said you been left town.” Asia frowned.
“Ishmael don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Either that or he just threw some shit in the game. I never left town. But I’m leaving today. I parked my car at the airport and there’s money in the glove compartment. Come get my car and hold it till I get back.” Rah-lo knew that he’d never see the money again. And there was a chance that he might not see his car again, knowing Asia. She was likely to do anything. But he knew that she would ensure that his daughters were taken care of as long as he gave her the money to do so. Rasheeda had already told him that they’d been staying at their grandmother’s house, with Asia dropping off money every couple of days. Now she could give her mother a lump sum, which would keep Mrs. Hudson’s mouth shut. At least then he would know that his girls were safe. Asia’s mom may be a bitch, but she took good care of her grandchildren.
Asia couldn’t believe her ears. She was excited at the prospect of a lump sum of cash but concerned about where Rah-lo was running off to. “Where the fuck are you going, Raheem? We still never got the chance to talk about what happened.”
Rah-lo shook his head. “There ain’t shit to talk about, Asia. Just come get my car and get the money. When I get back I’ll give you some more dough. Where’s the girls?”
“They’re at my mother’s house,” Asia answered flatly.
“They were at your mother’s house on Wednesday when I called. What’s up with that?”