Cover Girl

by Brittani Williams

  The beautiful woman that she used to be had disappeared. Even if she quit shooting and inhaling all of the poison she did daily, that woman could never return. So what could she do? At that moment she wished she was the one dying instead of Stacey, but then her life would most likely have been spared. Death was something she’d stared in the eye on many occasions, but for some reason, God had always left her here to see another day.

  What is He trying to tell me? Is there something else that I’m supposed to be doing?

  Brooklyn got up from the ground. She thought she could run and get help for Stacey if she could just pull her out of the lot and into one of the houses. She grabbed her by the arms and tried dragging her, but weighing no more than 110 pounds soaking wet, she couldn’t move her more than a few inches. She got back in position beside her, deciding she’d wait there with her until someone arrived to aid them. Her own body was stiffening to the point where she could no longer feel her limbs, or even her fingers that rested on Stacey’s forehead. Was she finally going to get her wish? At least that’s what she hoped.

  In the distance Brooklyn could hear sirens, but she couldn’t move to meet them at the street. If anyone was looking for them, it would be almost impossible for the duo to be found, as the sun was going down and the alley was darkening. Her voice wasn’t as loud as it was previously. In fact, she could barely catch her breath as she felt herself getting weaker by the second. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the way her life was supposed to end—in a dark alley, like a piece of trash.

  Suddenly the sirens became inaudible, and her body fell to the ground next to Stacey’s. Her head rested on Stacey’s arm. Her eyes slowly closed, her body mirroring the unresponsive figure next to her.

  Chapter Thirty

  Take Me as I Am November 2007

  Brooklyn opened her eyes and immediately noticed that she was no longer laying in the cold alley next to Stacey. As she blinked a few times to focus on her surroundings, she could hear an irritating beeping noise and the patter of feet in the hall. She tried to sit up, but something was holding her down, preventing her hands from getting loose. A chalkboard on the wall directly in front of her read “Welcome to Room 312. Get well soon!”

  What the hell? she thought. By the looks of things she was in a hospital. Why the hell are my arms tied? And where the hell is Stacey?

  Her body instantly filled with trepidation when she heard the commotion going on in the hallway just outside of the room with the nurses, doctors, and other hospital staff, and the fact that her best friend was missing in action.

  She heard a voice on the intercom say, “Code eighty in Room 320, Anesthesia stat.”

  Brooklyn said a silent prayer hoping that it wasn’t her friend who was dying in the other room. She tried again to free herself from the restraints that had her strapped to the side railings of the bed but was unsuccessful.

  “Nurse! Nurse! I need a nurse in here now!” She yelled as loud as she could, but no one came. She continued to yell for the next five minutes until finally a nurse’s aide entered her room.

  “It’s about damn time. I’ve been yelling for over five minutes. Why are my hands tied? And where is my friend Stacey?” she screamed, her face frowned, eyebrows raised.

  “Miss, there’s no need to be rude. Your hands are tied because you were combative when the ambulance was bringing you in.”

  “Listen, don’t tell me about needs. I just woke up tied to a fucking bed and screamed for damn near ten minutes for help and no one came. So, sorry if you can’t take the heat, but I need to know what the hell is going on here.”

  “OK, well, there is a code on the floor, so as soon as I can get a doctor to come in and talk to you, I will. In the meantime, is there anything I can get you? Maybe some water?” The nurse’s aide was visibly annoyed by Brooklyn’s anger. Never looking Brooklyn in the eye, she walked around to the side of the bed, picked up the pink jug filled with water, and poured some in a paper cup.

  “I don’t want any water. I want to know where my friend is.” Brooklyn would have smacked that cup clean out of her hand if her hands were free.

  “What is your friend’s name?”

  “Stacey Hicks,” she quickly replied.

  The nurse’s aide looked at Brooklyn as if she had just seen a ghost. She stood there silent for a few moments before speaking. “Um, I don’t recall a patient by that name, but let me check and I’ll get back to you. Is there anything else before I leave?”

  Feeling uneasy, Brooklyn replied, “Listen, lady, I wasn’t born yesterday. Don’t stand there and bullshit me. I know that if I’m here, she must’ve been here too, so I need to know now where the hell my friend is.”

  The nurse’s aide looked around the room and then out toward the hallway. After a few seconds of looking back and forth, she walked toward the door and slowly closed it.

  Brooklyn felt as if she was about to hear something she wasn’t prepared for. As the nurse’s aide was walking back over to the bed, Brooklyn started babbling. “Wait. If you’re going to tell me she’s dead, I don’t want to know. I’m not ready to hear it. I mean, I know I asked, but I was just concerned. I know you can understand. I’m sure you have friends. I mean, she’s all I have and—”

  “I’m not going to tell you that she’s dead, OK, so slow down. I don’t have good news though, and I can get in big trouble even telling you this, but I can see how much you love her.”

  “Well, if she’s not dead, then where is she?” She braced herself for the response. In her heart she already knew what was coming next but she also hoped that her heart was wrong.

  The nurse’s aide took a deep breath. “She’s coding. Which means her heart stopped, and they are working hard to bring her back. All of the commotion you hear is from her room.” She put her hand on Brooklyn’s shoulder, to console her.

  Brooklyn sat still as statue. Instantly her mind flashed back to the days when they were teenagers and all they cared about were boys, the weekend sleepovers, and the pact that they’d always be there for one another. She felt helpless because there wasn’t anything she could do.

  The nurse’s aide felt sorry for the woman who just a few minutes earlier was ready for war. She too knew how it felt to lose someone close, her mother having passed the previous year.

  “Listen, if I know anything, I know prayer helps. If it’s her time to go, she’ll go, but God will bring you through it.”

  Brooklyn still sat silent, but tears were flowing freely from her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Even hearing she had cancer wasn’t enough to break her down. She’d been through so much, her insides were hollow. She didn’t know how to care or how to love because she didn’t care about herself. If they’d told her at that very moment that she was going to die, she would’ve been fine with it. But she still couldn’t face losing her best friend.

  When the tears turned into an uncontrollable sob, the nurse’s aide felt that maybe she shouldn’t have been the one to relay the information. She walked over toward the cabinet near the window and retrieved a box of tissue. Then she walked back over to Brooklyn and wiped her eyes.

  “Thank you,” Brooklyn replied, her face filled with grief.

  “I’m going to go over and check on your friend.” The aide figured that was the least she could do, especially after getting her all bent out of shape. “When I find out more information, I will come back and update you.”

  “OK, thanks again.”

  Brooklyn lay staring out of the window for the next twenty minutes before a familiar voice called her name from behind the curtain. She turned to face the direction of the voice and smiled when her friend Wanda appeared.

  “Wow! Look what the cat drug in.” She smiled. “I would hug you, but they have my arms tied.”

  “Oh, hell no. We won’t have that!” Wanda sat her purse down on the chair before walking over to the bed and trying to figure out how to free Brooklyn’s hands from the restraints.

 
One hand at a time, Brooklyn was freed. She rubbed her sore wrists before sitting up and hugging the friend she hadn’t seen in almost a year.

  The two women rocked back and forth and laughed aloud, holding on tight to one another. After a few seconds, they let go of each other.

  Wanda placed her hands on Brooklyn’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “What’s been up, girl? It seems like eons since the last time I saw you.”

  “You know me—Same shit, running the street trying to stay alive. You look good.” Brooklyn smiled. “I see life’s treating you well. At least one of us is living up to the PYT name.”

  “You’re still beautiful, Brook. Hell, I’m still jealous of you.” Wanda laughed as she turned to glance out of the door. She was trying to make small talk to avoid the inevitable. Eventually she would have to give Brooklyn the bad news.

  “Bullshit! You could always give me a run for my money.”

  “Yeah, right. Everybody wanted you, all the top hustlers, like Sincere. You were the supermodel on the runways and in the magazines. I was just the skinny chick from the projects.”

  “Shit. Now I’m just a crackhead with a bunch of kids spread all around North Philly, so none of that matters, right. Shit, if Sincere could see me now, he’d be disgusted.”

  Brooklyn was no longer laughing; in fact, her smile had turned into a frown. She began to think about Stacey again and focused on the fact since Wanda had sat down she’d kept looking out into the hallway. “So what brings you here anyway? How did you even know I was in the hospital?”

  Over the years she and Wanda hadn’t stayed in touch, especially during her drug binges, but she had stayed close to Stacey.

  Brooklyn immediately felt a cold breeze, as if someone had just opened up a window to let Mother Nature spill into the hospital room. An inexplicable shiver took over her body as her friend stared at her with a perplexed look.

  Her last round of questioning having gone unanswered, Brooklyn asked, “What’s going on, Wanda?”

  Wanda took a deep breath. She was afraid that her answer would devastate an already fragile woman. Carefully letting the words slip, she answered, “Brook, I have some really bad news,” her voice trembling. The tears she’d been holding back began to fall freely from her eyes. “Stacey didn’t make it. She died about a half-hour ago from cardiac arrest.”

  “No, Wanda, don’t bullshit me like that.”

  Brooklyn got up out of the bed and ran toward the door, her body full of adrenaline. Wanda followed behind her and grabbed hold of her from behind, but Brooklyn, who’d always been the strongest of the bunch, easily pulled herself free and pushed the door open. She ran over to the nurses’ station, where a couple of nurses sat talking. Her hands slammed onto the top of the counter, sending a few sheets of paper to the floor.

  “Excuse me. I need to know which room is Stacey Hicks’ please!” she yelled loudly. She was confused, angry, hurt, sad, and afraid all at the same time.

  “How did you get your restraints loose?” The Asian nurse quickly stood up from her seat. She’d been there to witness Brooklyn kick and punch the admitting nurse when she’d arrived a few days earlier. Afraid that she too would be assaulted, she slowly moved toward the phone to call security.

  “Lady, don’t fuck with me! I know you speak English. Now, I said I need to know what room is Stacey Hicks’! Somebody better give me answers before I start going off!” She turned back to look at Wanda, who was standing with tears streaming down both sides of her face and falling onto her shoulders.

  The Asian nurse picked up the phone and dialed security after noticing she wouldn’t be able to calm the patient down.

  Wanda pointed in the direction of Stacey’s room without speaking.

  Surprisingly, Brooklyn still hadn’t shed a tear. She ran over to the room and took a deep breath before pushing the wooden door open. On the bed was a black bag that she knew contained a body, the body of her friend. She could hear Wanda in the background arguing with the guards to allow her to say her good-byes. She almost wished that they wouldn’t, afraid that she’d never be able to erase the image of Stacey’s dead body out of her mind.

  While taking baby steps toward the bed, Brooklyn felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around looking for a fight. It was the nurse’s aide who had spoken with her earlier that day in her room.

  “I’m not here to stop you. I just wanted to be here to support you.”

  Brooklyn didn’t reply and turned back around to face the black bag. She couldn’t move. Her feet felt as if they were glued to the floor. As she stood there, flashbacks of their friendship crossed her mind—Stacey would come over with her Barbie sleeping bag and they’d lie across the living room floor and watch movies. As teens they chased boys together, and as adults they got high together.

  She felt someone grab her hand. She turned and saw Wanda standing next to her.

  “Come on,” Wanda whispered, “we’ll do this together.”

  Wanda nodded to the nurse’s aide, who had since walked over to the bed and placed her hand on the opening of the bag. Slowly she opened the bag that would reveal Stacey’s face. Instantly tears poured from Brooklyn’s eyes with the confirmation.

  Brooklyn and Wanda walked hand and hand toward the bed. Wanda released her hold on Brooklyn’s hand but stood next to her, feeling a need to support her. She’d failed as a friend and wanted to make up for all of the years they’d lost. She’d allowed envy to take hold of her emotions, and instead of taking a step closer, took two steps back. At that moment she knew she would never walk out on Brooklyn again because she couldn’t bear to lose her as well.

  Brooklyn was staring at Stacey and rubbing her fingers across her forehead. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you. I’m right here, Stacey. I love you more than I love myself, Stacey, you hear me? Friends to the end, remember that. You were always the mushy type; now look at me crying and shit. Thought we’d never see that day.” she paused. “Remember that time you broke your ankle and I laughed because you wouldn’t stop crying.” She laughed for a second, stopping the flow of tears.

  The nurse’s aide had left them alone, and Wanda stood near the door allowing Brooklyn to have one last chat before they took her away. She couldn’t hold her own tears back as she dreaded the moment they’d have to pull Brooklyn away.

  “Damn, Stacey, why did you have to break us up? We were supposed to get clean together. I can’t do it without you. I’m not strong enough. I need you.” Brooklyn cried as she put her head on the edge of the bed.

  She lay there silently for the next twenty minutes without being disturbed. She knew something in her life had to change, and the day she walked out of the hospital, she planned on doing just that, making a change.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Time Will Tell

  “Thanks for coming, Mom. I really appreciate it!” Sasha smiled.

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I just can’t believe I’m going to be a grandmom.” Brooklyn smiled as she glanced over at the monitor that showed Sasha’s growing baby. Everything with the baby was perfect, not to mention, her relationship with her daughter was better than either of them could have ever expected.

  Brooklyn had been clean for the past six months. Stacey’s death was traumatic for her and just the thing she needed to help her kick the habit. She missed her, feeling at times like she had no one to talk to. Sure, Wanda was around, but she and Brooklyn didn’t have as much in common. Their life experiences had been the total opposite of each other’s, and she couldn’t really relate to someone who had no clue what she’d been through. She also didn’t want Wanda, or anyone for that matter, to look down on her. Most people thought of her as a survivor, but others looked at her like trash. She had learned the hard way that sometimes one’s past is not easily forgotten.

  After the ultrasound, the two headed home.

  Sasha had recently moved in with Brooklyn and her half-sister Janelle. Janelle, the daughter of Sincere and Stacey, was as close t
o Brooklyn as her own mother. After Stacey’s death, Brooklyn made sure to do everything in her power to keep Janelle around.

  The months passed by quickly, and Brooklyn was able to lay eyes on her granddaughter. Every pregnancy of hers had been different. Every situation that revolved around their lives was tough. Every time she gave birth, she was detached. She’d never felt the motherly connection that most women felt when they gave birth, and she saw every delivery as a problem because the fathers had been nothing but.

  Sadly, for the first time in her life, she felt connected. Though the baby wasn’t hers, she looked into her puffy little eyes and fell in love. When she’d learned of the cancer, she truly believed that life was over, and at that point she didn’t care. With her cancer in remission and the forgiveness of her daughter, she truly believed that all of the pain was worth it. Now she had someone to live for.

  There was a time when she could see herself in her daughter and prayed that somehow Sasha would ignore the temptations that she hadn’t be able to resist. Now this little bundle of joy was going to make all of the difference in her life, and her relationship with Sasha was going to be stronger than ever.

  Going down to Stacey’s grave was a weekly ritual for Brooklyn. Oftentimes she’d be alone and would get down on her knees and chat with her friend, reminiscing on the good times they’d shared. She’d even talk about the times they argued and wanted to pull each other’s hair out. Somehow, they had always been able to come back together. As many times as their friendship had been tested, they still remained friends to the end. Hell, not even Sincere could keep them apart for long.

  She found that at times, when she had a lot on her mind or things she felt she couldn’t share with anyone else, she’d do it there.