White Lines III

by Tracy Brown

  Gladys held up her hand to halt Marisol. “It’s okay. She’s right. It’s probably best for us to leave now.” Gladys turned to look at her son. “Let’s go, Patrick.”

  Patrick watched as his mother pulled her purse strap up on her shoulder and rose to leave. Despite these signs of readiness, Patrick remained seated, staring at Sunny. She noticed, and glared at him.

  “What, Patrick? What the fuck is your problem?”

  “Sunny!” Marisol was livid. She didn’t like Dorian’s family sniffing around any more than Sunny did. But she was old-fashioned. And the thought of having guests in her home cussed at and yelled at was just too much for her.

  Patrick looked sympathetically at Sunny’s mom. “It’s okay,” he said. “She’s not herself right now.” He looked at Sunny and could tell that the stories were true. He had hustled drugs for years, so he knew an addict when he saw one. Sunny was fidgety, wild-eyed, and agitated. She was skinnier than the last time he’d seen her, only weeks ago. She kept sniffling absentmindedly, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. She was longing for another hit, and Patrick shook his head in pity as he watched her.

  “My mother is a nicer person than I am. She likes to pray about things, and she stays calm in situations like this because she don’t like confrontation. So she’s willing to let you off the hook right now, because she can see that you’re upset. But I’m not like her. I didn’t come all the way over here to get disrespected. And I don’t care how aggravated you get. You don’t scare me.”

  Sunny sucked her teeth hard. “Please, Patrick! You don’t scare me either!”

  “Good,” he said, calmly. “I’m not trying to. But I am gonna say what’s on my mind. And after that, I’ll leave.”

  “No,” Sunny said, her voice raised. “You can leave now! I don’t give a shit about what’s on your mind!”

  “Maybe you’ll give a shit when you get served with papers!” Patrick was done handling Sunny with kid gloves. “I’m gonna make sure that my niece is okay.”

  “You don’t even care about your niece! This shit is all about the cash, Patrick. And you can kiss my ass, cuz you will never get your hands on Dorian’s money!”

  “You’re paranoid! See what I’m saying? What the hell does this have to do with money, Sunny?” Patrick demanded.

  “You tell me!” she yelled back at him. “What’s the plan? Get Mercedes and then sue me for support? You must be crazy!”

  Patrick laughed. “Nah. You’re the one who’s crazy.”

  Jada approached the door to Sunny’s parents’ house and heard raised voices coming from the other side of the door. She could make out Sunny’s voice above the others, and a booming baritone countering her. Jada wondered what hell had broken loose in there, and for a moment she considered leaving. Perhaps this was a bad time. But she had to see Sunny. She needed to give her friend a hug and some reassurance, and to hear her version of the events in Mexico. Jenny G had answered the phone at Sunny’s apartment when Jada called, and warned her that the press was staked out all around Sunny’s high-rise. She said that Sunny and Mercedes were hiding out in Brooklyn and Jada had sped right over. She couldn’t leave now without seeing her friend. She took a deep breath, said a quick and silent prayer, and rang the doorbell. A minute later, amid the noise of the continuing argument, Marisol opened the door. An expression of pure exhaustion was etched on her face. She sighed with relief at the sight of Sunny’s one true friend.

  “Jada!” Marisol unlocked the screen door and ushered Jada inside. Pausing in the foyer, she turned to Jada and shook her head. “Mami, thank God you are here. Sunny really needs you.” Marisol stole a glance toward her kitchen before turning back to Jada again. “Dale ran out to get us some groceries. Dorian’s mother and his brother are here. They are threatening to fight her for custody of Mercedes.”

  Jada sighed. This was the last thing Sunny needed right now. “What the hell happened?” Jada asked in a muted whisper. “Last I heard, Sunny and Malcolm went to Mexico to celebrate her birthday. The next thing I know, Mindy Milford and TMZ are showing pictures of Sunny surrounded by cameras at JFK.” She searched Marisol’s face for answers. “Is it true what they’re saying? She’s getting high again?”

  Marisol nodded, then looked down at her hands and burst into tears. She sobbed silently, squeezing her eyes shut as she wept. Jada hugged Sunny’s mom, rubbing her back comfortingly.

  “My God.” Jada whispered. “Don’t cry, mami. Sunny will get herself together, you’ll see.” Despite that reassurance, Jada wasn’t really sure about that. She knew how hardheaded Sunny could be. This relapse could be hard to overcome.

  The sound of glass shattering in the kitchen caused them to put an end to their emotional exchange. Marisol wiped her eyes brusquely, shook her head in exasperation, and the two women rushed in the direction of the kitchen.

  The scene they beheld when they stepped inside was disheartening. Sunny and Patrick stood on opposite ends of the kitchen from one another. Gladys stood near the refrigerator with both hands clasped over her mouth, stunned. Mercedes stood in the center of the room near the island, surrounded by shattered glass, tears cascading down her lovely young face.

  “What happened in here?” Marisol asked, her eyes scanning the room for blood or other signs of trauma.

  “Mercedes overheard all the arguing and yelling, and she got upset,” Gladys explained. She looked apologetically at Marisol. “She broke your vase of flowers,” she explained, nodding toward the mess at Mercedes’ feet. “But it’s our fault because we should have left when I said we were leaving.” Gladys shot her son an evil sidelong glance when she made that last comment. Patrick stared at his hands in silence.

  Gladys walked slowly over to Mercedes, the sound of glass crunching under her feet audible. She stopped in front of her granddaughter and waited until Mercedes lifted her gaze to meet hers. Gladys reached forward and wiped Mercedes’ tears.

  “Don’t cry,” she said. “Crying won’t fix a thing.”

  Somewhere down inside, those words resonated with Mercedes. Mercedes sniffled, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, doing her best to control her heaving chest.

  Gladys stared into Mercedes’ eyes. “You are your father’s child. I see him in you, do you know that?”

  Mercedes nodded slightly. Gladys was a warm and loving grandmother, who told her all the time how similar she was to Dorian.

  Gladys smiled a bit. “If he was here, he would beat your butt for breaking your grandmother’s vase.

  Mercedes slowly came back to herself. “I’m sorry,” she offered meekly.

  Gladys nodded her approval. “Take a deep breath.”

  Mercedes did as she was told.

  “Good.” Gladys brushed an errant strand of hair out of Mercedes’ face. “Now listen to Grandma. The adults in this family don’t always do what we’re supposed to do. That goes for all of us, not just a few. We owe you more than the nonsense you’ve had to deal with.”

  Sunny and Patrick were both quiet, convicted. Marisol and Jada looked on in silence.

  “But don’t stoop to our level. Don’t be like us—yelling, screaming, throwing things. You’re better than that. You’re better than us.” Gladys smiled weakly at Mercedes, winked an eye at her. “We don’t get to pick our family. We have to play the hand we’re dealt. And all of us know that this family is a mess.” She laughed. “But hang in there with us. We’re gonna get it together.” Gladys stole a glance at Sunny. “I’m gonna call you tomorrow.” Then she turned to Patrick and coldly stated, “Let’s go.”

  This time, Patrick didn’t hesitate. He quickly mumbled good-byes to Mercedes and followed his mother outside.

  Mercedes was calmer now, thanks to Gladys. She took a deep breath and then walked over to the utility closet to retrieve the broom. Marisol took it from her and sent her upstairs. “Go put your shoes on. Dale and I will take you home to get some of your things.”

  “Ma, Raul can bring us—”

&n
bsp; “I’m taking her home to get her things!” Marisol was adamant. “You are staying here.” She shut her eyes against the pain of a migraine coming on. She took Gladys’s advice to Mercedes, and took a deep breath herself. Opening her eyes, her voice was calmer when she spoke again. “It’s a good chance for us to have a talk about what’s been happening around here.” Mercedes left the room and ran upstairs to clean her face and to get her belongings. Marisol took the opportunity to address Sunny.

  “You better have a talk with her, Sunny. Today! With no one else around. Just you and her, the way it’s always been. She needs to hear from you about what happened. She needs to be able to yell at you, and get mad at you, and tell you how she feels. So when she gets back here today, you make it happen. And I’m not fucking around, either!” Steamed, Marisol angrily swept up the glass, tied up the garbage, and marched upstairs to get her car keys.

  Sunny looked over at Jada and threw up her hands in defeat. “Well,” she said. “Guess who really fucked up this time?”

  “You.” Jada shook her head.

  8

  HEART TO HEART

  Once Marisol and Mercedes had gone, Sunny and Jada sat down on stools perched around the island in the center of the kitchen. Sunny opened the fridge and snatched the container of orange juice. She was clearly still upset. She slammed the juice down on the counter and grabbed two glasses out of the cupboard.

  “Mercedes is all upset,” she muttered. “She has enough shit to deal with, and now these fuckin’ Douglases want to come sniffing around trying to get their hands on Dorian’s money. They kill me!”

  Sunny sat down, but her hands kept moving, busying themselves with sweeping up miniscule crumbs, straightening the napkins in the dispenser, repositioning the salt and pepper shakers.

  Jada watched her. Twisting the top off of the orange juice, she poured some into each of their glasses, her heart breaking the whole time. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing herself all those years ago when she was strung out but convinced that she still had it all under control. Jada had once believed that all of her troubles were someone else’s fault. Hearing Sunny singing the same song made her sad. When she was done pouring the juice, Jada sipped hers slowly while she listened to Sunny rambling. After a couple of minutes, she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Sunny,” she said. “Calm down for a minute.”

  “Calm down?” Sunny repeated, incredulously. She scoffed as if the very notion was unimaginable. She had to keep going—and going fast. Because if she stopped and considered the enormity of her situation—her arrest, Malcolm’s abandonment, the shakedown by the authorities, the ambush by the tabloids, her daughter’s disappointment, her family’s judgment, the public scrutiny, Dorian’s family’s threat to fight for custody of Mercedes … If she allowed herself to calm down like Jada suggested, she might fall completely apart.

  “I can’t.” Sunny rubbed her arms, suddenly cold despite the warm June temperature.

  Jada watched her closely. Sunny stared absently at her hands while she chattered on about the conditions in the Mexican jail. She knew Sunny well enough to discern that she was unraveling. Jada had never seen her like this. She was angry, anxious, scared to death, and fighting for control all at once. Gone was the fun-loving life of the party Sunny had once been. In her place was a woman broken by her own choices. Jada stared at Sunny until her gaze bore into her. Sunny looked up. The friends locked eyes, and Sunny saw sympathy in Jada’s brown eyes.

  Jada offered a weak smile. “You know I’ve been there,” she said.

  Sunny laughed a bit too loud. “You’ve been in a Mexican jail cell?”

  Jada wasn’t laughing. “No. But, I know exactly what you’re going through.”

  Tears welled in Sunny’s eyes. She let out a long sigh to fight them back.

  “I remember how it felt … fighting for custody of Sheldon, trying to convince everyone, including myself, that I had it all under control, trying not to think about how much I missed getting high. ’Cause that’s what got me in trouble in the first place. But getting high was still the main thing on my mind. I was disgusted with myself.”

  A lone tear streamed down Sunny’s face. It was as if Jada was reading her thoughts and emotions.

  “Like I said,” Jada continued. She reached across the island and held Sunny’s hand. “I’ve been there.”

  Sunny squeezed Jada’s hand. She shook her head in dismay. “You ever want to get high, still?”

  Jada stared at Sunny, seriously. She thought about her recent excursion to Silver Lake Park. She kept it real with her friend. “Sometimes I do. But I think about all the hell I went through those other times. I think about how I lost everything and everybody, and how I lost myself.”

  “I hear you.” Sunny sniffled, took her hand back, and wiped her nose. “Everything is just … so fucked up.”

  Jada silently agreed. “Sunny,” she said, gently. “When did you start back using again?” During the drive from Jada’s home in Staten Island to Sunny’s parents’ home in Brooklyn, Jada had rewound the events of the past few months in her mind to try to determine when Sunny had relapsed. She thought about the signs she had clearly missed, distracted as she was by Sheldon’s shenanigans. Jada felt terrible, having missed the chance to save her friend from the clutches of the devilish drug that had stolen so much of their happiness already.

  Sunny shook her head and averted her eyes, shamefully. She didn’t answer for several long moments. Finally, she met Jada’s gaze again, her expression serious.

  “Remember last year when Malcolm told us about the movie deal? When I was so gung ho about going to L.A.?”

  Jada squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered it all too well. Both she and Sunny were supposed to go on that trip. But when she had told Born about it, he had asked her not to go. And Sunny had gone alone. Jada had agonized over that for a long time, and she felt terrible now that she knew Sunny had reacquainted herself with cocaine during that trip.

  “I went to Sean Hardy’s big bash at his house. It was crazy in there. He had a groupie passed out in his bedroom, and he asked me to sit there with her until he came back. He had been going in and out all throughout the party to check on her. But he felt like he was neglecting his guests, so he asked if I would keep an eye on her. There was a pile of cocaine on the dresser.” Sunny caught herself salivating at the memory. “Sean left me there alone with that coke. I sat there for a while and tried to fight that shit, Jada. But the urge to do it … it overpowered me. Before I knew it, I had snorted most of it.” Sunny shook her head. She hated Sean for that. He had left her alone with a drug that was calling her name. As she reflected on it now, Sean was the devil himself, ushering her into a hell which she could not escape.

  “So you were there when that girl died?” Jada asked.

  Sunny shrugged. “I guess so. Jada, I was in such a trance that I don’t even know when she died. I was too busy partying all by my damn self. When Sean finally brought his ass back to the room, he passed out. We woke up the next morning, and the girl was dead, and all hell broke loose. I left there with what was left of the cocaine and went back to my hotel room to get high some more.”

  Jada’s face was twisted into a deep frown as she imagined all of this. “And Malcolm? He knew?”

  Sunny wiped her tears angrily. “That muthafucka!” she hissed. “Don’t even mention his name!”

  Jada’s head tilted slightly. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t say his name again. But we do have to talk about him. Where is he? And did he know that you were getting high?”

  Sunny rolled her eyes. The very thought of him made her sick. “He wasn’t there. I stood him up when we were supposed to meet with producers. He picked me up at the precinct after they took out the dead body and brought us all in for questioning.” She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly bone dry. “He didn’t know I was getting high. He found out at the airport in Mexico, after I got caught with the coke in my bag.” She looked at Jada, and
said the words she hated to hear come out of her own mouth. “That was the last time I saw him. He left me alone in Mexico and flew back home without me.”

  Jada’s frown deepened. “What?”

  Sunny nodded. “He’s a pussy, Jada.” She sipped her orange juice and slapped the glass back down on the island after she drained it. “I mean … I knew he was no Dorian. But to do some sucker shit like leave me alone in a foreign country to face a drug rap by myself?” Sunny’s voice cracked. She toyed with a napkin just to have something to occupy her hands.

  Jada’s heart broke at the pain she discerned in Sunny’s voice. She didn’t know what to say, so for several moments they sat silently. Finally, Jada cleared her throat and broke the ice.

  “Remember when Born caught me getting high years ago? How he threw me out and had Miss Ingrid come and help me pack up all my things?”

  Sunny nodded.

  “At the time, I thought that was the worst thing anyone could do to me. I needed help, not abandonment. At least that’s how I felt at the time. But back then I was looking at the whole thing through tainted eyes. The truth is, Born had every right to throw me out of his life. I lied to him. I stole from him. And he had to find out what I was up to the hard way.”

  Sunny stared at Jada through narrowed eyes. “So you’re saying that Malcolm had every right to run like a bitch? Why? Because I lied and hid shit from him?”

  Jada shook her head. “I’m saying that people react differently to the news that someone they love is an addict.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Sunny’s voice was even.

  Jada frowned. “Why not? That’s what we are. Recovering a—”

  Sunny cut her off. “I’m still not understanding how you and Born compares to me and the coward.”

  “I’m saying Malcolm’s reaction wasn’t the best one, obviously. But, in some ways it’s just like what Born did. If he hadn’t left me then, I might still be getting high.” Jada thought about it for a moment. “When he left me, it forced me to hit rock bottom. And that’s what I needed. It was a scary, crazy journey back to myself, Sunny. But if I did it, you can definitely do it.”