“Slay’s resourceful,” Cydney admitted. “He was approached by a lot of people when it looked as if he might do something with his football talents. He befriended a lot of different people, from different walks of life, some of them very respected. Slay’s smart in his own way…he chipped in on those alliances later, I guess. He just started living this lavish lifestyle a few years back with no visible means of support. Whenever I’ve asked him about it he just smiles at me or ignores me.”
“And you took money from him?” Victoria asked. She turned her mouth up.
“For my place and school,” Cydney said. “Yes, I did.” She gave Victoria a hard look, waiting for her friend to impart her high-principled judgment. Cydney had done it to better herself, to change her station in life. She wouldn’t let anyone make her feel bad about the decision. She’d still be catching the back of Byron’s hand and probably be the mother of two or three of his children if she hadn’t chased her dreams.
“Have you said anything to the police?” Faith asked, noticing the tension between Cydney and Victoria.
Cydney shook her head. “I told Desmond. I’m sure he’ll let them know. I got out of there as quickly as I could when the officer said my brother’s name. It was like my life was coming to an end, my heart started racing, my legs tightened, my stomach doing backflips.”
“Desmond must be devastated,” Victoria said.
Cydney sighed. “I haven’t spoken with him since then. I don’t know what to say to him. Obviously, he doesn’t have anything to say to me.”
“You’re not going to let him get away?” Faith said.
Cydney looked down at her own full cup of café con leche. “I can’t imagine why he’d want to stay with me. I lied to him.”
“Because,” Faith said. Her voice was loud and strong across the divide of the table. “You’re beautiful, intelligent, ambitious and you two were building something really strong. It’s not like you cheated on him. Practically everyone embellishes their past to some degree.”
Cydney didn’t seem too convinced. “Our foundation is based on lies, though. That poor girl, she’s just a baby really. I can barely sleep thinking about what my brother did to her. I never thought he’d mess with Desmond this way. I can’t shake the look of hurt and surprise in Desmond’s eyes when I told him Slay was my brother.”
“Are you falling in love with Desmond, Cydney?” Victoria asked.
Cydney looked to her friend. Victoria seemed to have come down off her high horse. “Falling hard and fast,” Cydney admitted.
“And he with you?” Victoria pressed.
Cydney nodded. “I believe so. At least, I thought so.”
“Then you got to go clear the air, explain yourself, and see what you two can do about fixing that foundation.” Victoria picked up the pastry and took her first bite, licking her lips to get a sliver of apple filling from the corner of her mouth.
“You make everything sound so easy,” Cydney said.
“Has getting where you are been easy?” Faith chimed in.
Cydney smirked, rolled her neck and eyes. “Hell no. Girls where I’m from don’t often go to college, don’t better themselves…”
“Was all the hard work worth it?” Victoria asked.
Cydney gripped her coffee cup with both hands. Her head was bowed. “Yes.”
“Then you have to decide if Desmond is worth the hard effort it’ll take to make your relationship survive,” Victoria offered.
Faith looked at Victoria. “Darn. That was well said.”
Victoria licked her fingers. “Besides food, the other thing I know well is relationships. I’ve had plenty of practice.”
Cydney looked up, reached forward and touched both of her friends’ hands. “Thank you, both of you. Thank you.”
She hadn’t told them the other thing that was caressing her brain into doubt.
The thing Slay told her.
About Hot Tails and some dancer named Jacinta.
A turn for the worse.
Slay stood outside his mother’s room looking through the door’s window. Nancy was wrapped in three thin sweaters, but Slay could still see her shivering. The nurse he spoke with earlier informed him that his mother was suffering from withdrawal and that even though the hospital normally handled addiction recovery on an outpatient basis, because of Nancy’s years of abuse, the drugs had wracked her body and left her with serious ailments in addition to the addiction. The nurse lowered her voice as she neared the end and said in an even tone, “She’s really taken a turn for the worse. We’ll do our best to extend her life.” Those words were even more painful to Slay than the words Cydney had said to him.
“Why don’t you walk on inside, son?”
Slay turned to the foreign voice. A white man, dressed very conservatively, with fat red cheeks and a generous smile, stood next to him. Slay looked down at the man’s feet. He wore a clunky pair of black shoes with scuff marks on the front and laces with the ends frayed and missing the plastic tips. Despite the clunky shoes it was as if the man walked across a thick carpet, his footsteps were so quiet.
Slay moved his eyes to the man’s face. “What was that?”
“I’m Reverend Jameson Pinckney, the head of Pastoral Services here at the hospital. I’ve stopped in on your mother a few times and prayed for her. The nurses told me that her son comes in all the time and I asked them to let me know the next time you came.” He smiled at Slay and put his hand on his shoulder.
“You Catholic?” Slay asked. “Because my mama, she a Baptist.” He looked back into the room. “Was a Baptist.”
“Presbyterian,” the reverend said. “But I’m under the same umbrella of God’s graciousness that your mother’s under.”
Slay smirked and nodded to the room. “You call that in there graciousness?”
The reverend nodded in acknowledgment. “Sometimes it is hard to see. Yesterday I performed my first marriage ceremony here in the hospital. Twelve years, and yesterday was my first wedding. Beautiful couple.” The reverend sighed, looking off beyond Slay. The reverend’s face held his smile like a child holds his protective blanket or toy. “Young man, terminally ill, couldn’t change himself, couldn’t eat on his own, but he held his fiancée’s hand tight, tight.” The reverend’s grip tightened on Slay’s shoulder and Slay turned and looked at it.
“And the young woman,” the reverend continued, his grip still firm on Slay’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have pried the joy off her face with a crowbar. So I married them yesterday afternoon.” The reverend shook his head as if to brush off flecks of rain or flakes of snow. “That young husband died this morning. I just left from praying with his wife.”
Slay smirked again. “Graciousness you called it?”
“You’re standing here loaded to bear, filled with hurt, son,” the reverend said. “I can see the care and love in you though, under that hard exterior you’re presenting. The graciousness is that God brought someone into your life that created enough happy memories, thoughtful interchanges and loving experiences with you so that you could hurt when you see them slipping away. The graciousness is that God chose to share her with you in the first place.”
Slay thought about the heartbreak on his mother’s face when he was sent to juvenile detention, the times she’d come out in the street, down alleys and avenues she shouldn’t have been on, looking for him. He thought about her in the stands at his football games, braving the cold, carrying those big signs she wrote on poster board. Number 13 Is My Son, the signs read. She loved Slay. Slay loved her. He turned to the reverend, a lump in his throat. His love for her hadn’t kept him from letting her down, though, hadn’t kept him from breaking her heart. Her love, likewise, hadn’t kept her from breaking Slay’s heart. That’s all love was—heartbreak.
“She wasn’t always a junkie, Reverend. She was a good mother. Things just twisted her up and she didn’t know how to handle them.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t, son.”
Slay
looked at the reverend. “There’s this real thick sweater my mama has at home, I’m thinking it might keep her warmer.”
The reverend smiled. “You need to go on and get your mother that sweater, son. And when you put it on her, give her a kiss, tell her you love her and thank God.”
Slay felt the urge to do something he never would have imagined himself wanting to do. He struggled with his emotions for a moment and then just decided to do it.
Slay leaned over and hugged the reverend.
Sometimes life has you run smack-dab into the walls that imprison you, the hurdles that confound you and the obstacles that challenge you. Cydney was moving through the doors of Cush when Desmond came hurtling out, his head down. They collided in the pass-through.
“Oh, man,” Desmond said, “I’m so—” The sight of Cydney halted him in his tracks and forced his apology to the background. He rolled his eyes with disgust and looked up at the dim light fixture flickering on its last legs in the lobby. He had to remember to change the bulb later.
Cydney hadn’t prepared enough for this quick meeting. “Hi, Desmond,” she said. She cringed at the simplicity of her words as she thought about those movies she loved on Lifetime, how different the line would have come out in one of those dramas, how something clever and enlightening would have been delivered by the actress.
“Excuse me,” Desmond said, and he moved to past as if they’d never shared more than this head-on collision.
Cydney stepped to the side, blocking his exit. “We need to talk.”
“I’ve got to get to the bank,” Desmond said, raising his arm to show her the leather pouch gripped tightly in his hands.
“I don’t mind riding with you,” Cydney said. “In fact, I kind of wanted to talk to you away from here anyway.”
“Okay,” was Desmond’s reply, delivered quicker than he meant it to come and than Cydney expected.
Cydney stepped aside and allowed him to move through the door. She followed close behind as he stepped with purpose to his truck. That one small word, okay, was a big step toward Desmond and Cydney recovering what they’d built. Cydney swallowed the word with delight, her heartbeat returning to normal as she eased inside Desmond’s truck. The leather seat welcomed her unconditionally, molding itself to her instead of her having to mold herself to it.
“How’s your sister doing?” Cydney asked as Desmond started the engine.
The words set something off in Desmond. His forehead bunched tighter than a fist. “How’s your brother doing?” he shot back. He moved the transmission gear from park to drive and pulled from his spot with reckless energy propelling him.
“I made a huge mistake not telling you about him,” Cydney admitted. She wanted to tell Desmond to slow down but decided against it.
“And why was that?” Desmond asked. His voice was high and it cracked as easily as model-airplane wood.
“I don’t come from the same kind of place as you, Desmond. I guess I just thought you wouldn’t understand where I come from, who I come from.”
“We all have black sheep in our families,” Desmond reasoned as he made a turn. He seemed to settle down, the odometer needle dropping like the temperature.
Cydney sat back in her seat, the tension in her upper body settling. “Do we all have a family of black sheep?” she asked him.
“Come again?”
“My mother isn’t in a home, she’s addicted to crack cocaine and my brother is a street thug, a hustler. I don’t have anyone besides the two of them. My stepfather, the only good in the family, was murdered down on the beach not too long ago. I grew up in a neighborhood where the biggest ambition was to hit the numbers. My first real boyfriend was a creep with three other girlfriends. He beat me less than the other two because I was prettier. My brother got in a fight with him, protecting me, and ended up stabbing him. I took the boyfriend back even after all that because I thought he could get me something better in life. He’s in jail now for shaking the baby of one of his other girlfriends to death.” Cydney stopped to catch her breath. “I’ve got a shoplifting offense in my past because I didn’t have a dress to wear to the prom and I took matters into my own hands.” She smiled and shook her head at the memory. “I couldn’t boost for shit…”
“So you grew up rough,” Desmond said. “I would have just respected all that you are now even more.”
Cydney shook her head. “You ever have a bad dream when you were younger and your mother came in the room to quiet your screams?”
“Sure.”
“What did she do?”
“She’d rub my head, tell me it was a dream and that I should try and forget it.”
Cydney nodded, smiled a smile that was more pain than joy. “Try and forget it. That’s what we all do with bad dreams.”
“Your brother has been on my trail for a while, Cydney. I just know it. I’m sure you knew it, too. You should have warned me.”
“I know Slay has his ways,” Cydney said, “but I never suspected he’d take it this far. I would have told you if I did, you’ve got to believe that.”
Desmond rolled into the bank’s parking lot. He parked the truck and turned to Cydney. “So you believe he had something to do with what happened to Felicia?”
Cydney dropped her gaze. “He said he didn’t, but I don’t believe him. I’d told him—shortly after I began with you—that I didn’t want him in my life anymore. He knew about you, he blamed you. My brother has always felt it was his job to protect me. He means well but he doesn’t have any concept of walking right. Everything with him is thug rule.”
Desmond shook his head, sighed. “You should have told me, Cydney. You should have told me.” He banged the steering wheel in frustration.
Cydney reached over and touched his hand. He didn’t pull from her. “I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“My sister is coming along,” Desmond said. “Slowly.” He looked away for a moment and turned his intense glare on Cydney. “I needed you with me these past few days. I’ve been trying to figure this out and all I know is…I missed you, Cydney.”
Cydney gripped his hand. “I missed you, too. I swear I did. I want to make everything right. I want to be there for you. No more secrets.”
“I hope not,” Desmond said.
“If it means anything to you, I’ve been lying to myself about Slay, too.”
“I don’t understand,” Desmond said.
Cydney sighed. “When we were younger, he did a few things to me, things brothers shouldn’t do to their sisters. It was a weird situation. It started innocently, and he took it places it didn’t need to go.”
Understanding registered in Desmond’s eyes. “You’ve never told anyone that?”
Cydney shook her head. “My stepfather confronted me about it and I denied, denied, denied. My mother tried to ask me about it once, but she could barely get the words out.”
“So why are you telling me?” Desmond asked.
“Like I said,” Cydney told him, “no more secrets.”
Desmond nodded, gripped her hand.
Cydney hesitated. “Desmond?”
“Yes?”
“My brother mentioned that club around the corner from your restaurant where they have the go-go dancing—Hot Tails—and a dancer named Jacinta.” She looked at the new wrinkles that formed on Desmond’s forehead, how his eyes stayed on her but seemed to want to run for cover. “No more secrets,” she said to Desmond.
Desmond pursed his lips. He didn’t have to say anything; his eyes, his lips, they said it all. Cydney squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and dropped her head back against the plush leather headrest. “Okay,” she said as she reopened her eyes. She increased the strength of her grip on Desmond’s hand and said “okay” a second time, but much softer than the first.
It didn’t escape her that a short while before, the word okay held such a different meaning for her.
Slay stepped off the elevator in his mother’s apartment tower with her thick swea
ter under his arm. The door to the right of the elevator, Kenya’s door, was opening and for a moment he considered getting on the elevator and heading back up. He didn’t though. Kenya stepped outside her apartment, a large green bag of laundry at her feet. She locked her door and turned to find Slay standing there staring at her. She dragged the bag of laundry with her and stopped about ten feet from Slay, with the plump bag resting against her leg.
Kenya spoke first. “Hey.”
Slay nodded at her the same way he nodded at his people in the streets.
Kenya looked down at her green bag. “Heading off to get these clothes washed,” she said.
“Bag looks heavy.”
Kenya squeezed her lips together, shook her head. “I can manage it all right. I’m not going to carry it over my back or nothing crazy like that.”
Slay fidgeted in place. “Things good?”
“Damon got his report card,” Kenya said, speaking of her youngest son. “He made the honor roll.”
Slay seemed warmed by the news; he stopped moving and listened to her.
“Shamar,” Kenya said of the oldest, “got a D in Social Studies that messed him up.” She smiled. “He has Mrs. Wakefield.”
Slay smiled, too. “Damn, is she still teaching? What was that she used to always say to me?”
“You lie like a rug,” Kenya answered.
Slay threw his head back. “Right, right. Mrs. Wakefield couldn’t stand my ass.”
Kenya nodded. “Maybe she’s taking that out on Shamar now.”
A breeze cut through the lobby, one of the local winos walked in and searched the garbage can by the front door. Slay looked over his shoulder, gritted his teeth at the sight of the wino. He turned back to Kenya with a new look in his eyes. “Mama isn’t doing so well. I was taking her this sweater.”
Kenya pocketed her keys and moved forward another few steps, dragging the overstuffed green bag of dirty laundry. “Sorry to hear that. They still got her at the hospital?”
Slay nodded. “Yeah.”
Kenya stayed a decent distance from Slay so she wouldn’t mess up and take him in her arms. “I’ve missed you.”
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