by Ni-Ni Simone
ALSO BY NI-NI SIMONE
The Ni-Ni Girl Chronicles
Shortie Like Mine
If I Was Your Girl
A Girl Like Me
Teenage Love Affair
Upgrade U
No Boyz Allowed
True Story
Hollywood High series (with Amir Abrams)
Hollywood High
Get Ready for War
Put Your Diamonds Up
Lights, Love & Lip Gloss
Heels, Heartache & Headlines
The Throwback Diaries
Down by Law
Dear Yvette
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
Dear Yvette
NI-NI SIMONE
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
ALSO BY NI-NI SIMONE
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Let’s go back in time . . . waaaay back . . .
1 - Y’all Ready for This . . .
2 - Do My Thing Wit’ an ’89 Swing . . .
3 - Cover Girl
4 - Lemme Hear You Say . . .
5 - Ain’t Sayin’ Nothin’ . . .
6 - The Bridge is Over
7 - Holy Intellect
8 - Microphone Checker
9 - Bust a Move . . .
10 - Check Yo’self before You Wreck Yo’self . . .
11 - Can’t Stand Rain
12 - Gas Face
13 - If I Could Turn Back . . .
14 - How Can I Fail . . . ?
15 - Lucky Charm
16 - Express Yourself
17 - Three Feet High and Rising . . .
18 - Me, Myself, and I
19 - New Jack Swinga
20 - Every Little Step . . .
21 - My Prerogative
22 - Ah Ya Know What . . .
23 - Ain’t No Half-Steppin’
24 - Ah One-Two, One-Two
25 - Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . .
26 - Push It . . .
27 - Love Saw It
28 - Rump Shaker
29 - Faker
30 - Top Billin’
31 - It Never Rains in Southern California
32 - Caught Up in the Rapture
33 - No Scrubs
34 - It’s Love
35 - Ride the Rhythm
36 - Back to Life
Teaser chapter
Teaser chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2016 by Ni-Ni Simone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-8776-2
ISBN-10: 0-7582-8776-3
First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: December 2016
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-8777-9
eISBN-10: 0-7582-8777-1
First Kensington Electronic Edition: December 2016
Dedicated
to the Yvettes of the world.
Acknowledgments
Thanking the Creator for the gift of storytelling and the outlet to express it.
Everyone who has ever supported me in my career: thank you, thank you, thank you!
To my husband for the early morning and late night reading sessions!
Sara Camilli, you are truly a gem! Thank you for your hard work and dedication.
Selena James, thank you for your patience and your continued support.
The Kensington family, thank you all for everything. I truly appreciate each and every one of you for all that you do.
The bookstores, book clubs, schools, librarians, and social media outlets: thank you for your support!
And saving the best for last: the fans! I have the absolute best fans in the world! Thank you so much for continuing to read my stories, thank you for your emails, and most of all thank you for your words of encouragement, they mean the world!
Please email me at [email protected] and let me know what you think!
One Love,
Ni-Ni Simone
Let’s go back in time . . . waaaay back . . .
Brick City, May 1989
No iPhones.
No iPods.
No CDs.
No Internet.
Pimps had brick phones.
Drug dealers had beepers.
The bigger your radio, the more respect you got.
Rap battles and mixed tapes regulated if you had the juice, or not.
Top rockin’ it, windmills, and beatboxin’ electrified the cardboard and the concrete.
Beat bitters and dope style takers were straight suckers.
Hip-hop was real.
Kool DJ Red Alert was on the attack, and Mr. Magic couldn’t make him disappear.
Fab 5 Freddy was the underground mayor.
Jesse Jackson had hope and was so dope that he wanted to be president . . . twice.
Don Cornelius had sooooooooul.
Ronald Reagan crowned the welfare queen, while his wife, Nancy, wanted the subjects to “Just say no.”
Crack was on a mission.
AIDS was dissin’ and dismissin’.
And yo rep was everything. Period.
1
Y’all Ready for This . . .
Let’s be clear: I’m not no snitch.
I ain’t no chicken-head neither.
Yeah, I got high. A couple of times. Offa weed.
But e’rybody smoke weed.
Includin’ my cousin, Isis, and my ex-homegirls, Cali and Munch, who been out here draggin’ my name.
And maybe I popped a pill here and there. Or sometimes laced my weed wit’ some coke.
But so what?
And ok . . . yeah, I hit the pipe. Once. Okay, twice. Maybe three times wit’ my daughter’s father, Flip. Mainly ’cause he was doin’ it and I needed somethin’ to clear my mind. And Flip was always chilled, so smokin’ rocks wit’ him seemed like a good idea. Plus, he swore it would take the edge off.
It didn’t.
It made me feel sick. Twisted. Paranoid. Scared the cops was always lookin’ for me.
So I stopped.
I had to. ’Cause I wasn’t about to be nobody’s junkie. Turnin’ tricks. Or holdin’ down no pimp. Now that woulda made me a chicken-head.
All I wanted was to get my buzz on.
There’s a difference.
Anyway, that was then and this is now.
Now I got a daughter to take care of.
Somebody who loves and looks up to me.
There’s only one problem though.
My rep is ruined and thanks to my old crew who turned on me, e’rybody lookin’ at me like I’m some crack whore, wit’ ashy lips, beggin’ for money, and wildin’ out in these streets.
Lies.
All lies.
I barely leave Douglas Gardens, better known as Da Bricks, the complex where I live, in apartment 484.
Twenty L-shaped, seven-story buildings that take up four blocks. All connected by a slab of cracked concrete—dubbed as “the courtyard.” And a scared security guard, who stays tucked away in a locked, bulletproof boot
h that sits behind the black-iron entrance.
To the right of the gate is a basketball hoop. No net. Just a rim. To the left is a row of twenty rusted poles, where clotheslines used to be. It is always somebody movin’ out and a squatter movin’ in.
Old ladies stay preachin’ out the windows one day and cussin’ out anybody breathin’ the next.
Winos stay complainin’ about yesterday, e’ryday.
Ballers stay servin’.
Then there is me and my two-year-old baby girl, Kamari, usually in the middle of the courtyard, chillin’ on the park bench, and mindin’ our bissness.
Sometimes I’m sippin’ on a forty.
And sometimes I’m not.
Sometimes, I take a long and thoughtful pull offa loosie.
And sometimes I don’t.
Depends on how I feel.
But still.
I’m not sellin’ pipe dreams and droppin’ dimes to pigs.
I’m too busy tryna decide my next move. Like how I’m gon’ get a job. Raise up outta Newark, New Jersey, and finally live.
Yeah, I am only sixteen, five feet tall, and a hundred and ten pounds. Smaller than most girls my age, but I am grown. I ain’t no punk. And I ain’t gon’ let nobody play me for one.
Family or no family.
Friend or no friend.
My rep is not a game.
That’s why, when my ex, Flip, spotted me earlier this evenin’, on the corner of Muhammad Ali and Irvin Turner Boulevard, comin’ out the bodega, I couldn’t believe it. The last time I’d seen Flip was a year ago, right before he got locked up over jailbait. Flip was thirty, and the broad was fourteen, same age I was when I got pregnant with Kamari. Only difference was the broad told on him when she had her baby. I didn’t.
So anyway, about an hour ago, I’d looked Flip over in disgust, from his untamed high-top fade to his worn-out BKs. His six-foot frame was raggedy as ever, and his half-rotten mouth was loaded and leveling a buncha bull. “Heard you been out here snitchin’,” he’d said.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He returned my nasty look. “You used to be down. But now e’rybody say you buggin’. Guess I’ma have to watch my back fo’ you drop a dime on me too.”
He was tryna play me. I looked around and the block was buzzin’. The sun was fallin’ and the night crawlers was makin’ they way outside. People was e’rywhere. Some pouring out the bodega and some on the block just standin’ around. I caught a few folks peepin’ at me, like they’d heard what Flip had said and was tryna figure me out.
My grip tightened on Kamari’s umbrella stroller. I needed to do somethin’ to keep from stealin’ on this mothersucker, so I snapped, “Word is bond . . .”
“A rat’s word could never be bond.”
My heart raced and my chest inched up from me breathin’ heavy and being heated. I pointed into Flip’s face. “You must be talkin’ about them rattin’ young cherries you bustin’. ’Cause from where I’m standin’, you ain’t nothin’ to drop no dime on.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Ain’t nobody tryna hear all that. All I know is my mans told me that he messin’ witcha fat homegirl.”
I curled my upper lip. “Who? Munch?”
“Yeah, that’s her name.”
“And? So?”
“And she told him that you a rat. And the reason they got locked up was ’cause you ran to the cops shootin’ off ya trap. Mad ’cause you broke.”
Out of shock, I took a quick step back, then a quicker step forward. “What the . . . Excuse you?”
“Don’t front. You know that Isis, that white girl, Cali, y’all used to hang with, and Munch all got busted for slangin’ in school. And Munch said you was the one who told on ’em. And I believe it ’cause you stay in e’rybody’s bidness.”
“You need to . . .”
“No, what you need to do is learn how to shut up, carry yo’ li’l azz in the house sometimes and keep my daughter out these streets.”
I paused. I couldn’t spaz on Flip ’cause I had Kamari wit’ me, so I swallowed the urge to slide the blade from under my tongue and said, “Yo’ daughter? Boy, please. I don’t know why you worried about her being in these streets when that’s all you do. Held up in some alleyway suckin’ glass dicks. Or is you skin poppin’ now? Yo’ daughter? You better off bein’ moondust than somebody’s freakin’ daddy. You shouldn’t even wanna claim that title. Yo’ daughter? Know what, let me just get away from you before I end up slicin’ yo’ throat for talkin’ slick!”
“Whatever, Snitch. Bye.”
Flip was still running his mouth and poppin’ off when I walked away.
Once I got home to Da Bricks, I went straight to my room. My mind was spent and my stomach was in knots. I hated my hands was tied for the night, and it was nothin’ I could do. Isis, Cali, and Munch had all moved out Da Bricks. Accordin’ to Nana, Isis moved out of state with her mother, Queenie. She ain’t know what happened to Cali.
But Munch.
I’d seen her from time to time, and I knew she lived somewhere around here. Plus, she still went to the same school. And one thing was for sure and two things was for certain, her lyin’ behind caught the city bus to school, e’ryday.
At the same time.
E’ry mornin’.
I smiled.
Closed my eyes.
And waited.
2
Do My Thing Wit’ an ’89 Swing . . .
7:49 a.m.
I was runnin’ late.
Tried to get outta here twenty minutes ago, but Nana was up surprisingly early. Usually, her midnight cocktails of Seagram’s 7 and grapefruit juice had her tossin’ back some serious slobs and snores until at least about eleven.
But not this mornin’.
This mornin’, she was up cleanin’ and hummin’ gospel. So I waited for her to finish her solo and head to the bathroom, The Watchtower in hand. Then I knew I could leave Kamari asleep on the bed while I eased out and attended to my bissness.
Once I made it out the apartment, then past Da Bricks’ security gate, I took off runnin’ down Irvin Turner straight for the bus stop.
All I could think about was how Munch had me twisted.
But I was gon’ straighten her out today.
First, I was gon’ ask her . . .
Wait.
Scratch that.
I wasn’t gon’ ask her nothin’.
Matter fact, that was the last thing I was gon’ do.
First I was gon’ bank her. Then I was gon’ investigate.
Munch ain’t deserve to be asked no questions, ’specially since she was out here comin’ for me and I ain’t send for her.
Like she thought I was a joke.
I wasn’t no joke.
Never have been.
By the time I reached the bus stop, the block was packed and there was a line of people waitin’ to get on the bus. Some goin’ to work and some goin’ to school. Munch was nowhere in sight. All I could see through the bus’s windows was people standin’ up, ’cause all the seats looked to be taken.
Munch had to be somewhere on this bus, though; she had to be.
But.
If by chance she wasn’t, then that was cool too. ’Cause then I’d just go up to the high school and rake her across the concrete in front of her li’l friends, so they could all get the message too.
I tapped my foot as I stood in line behind this freakin’ lady and her stupid baby carriage. She was takin’ nearly five minutes to fold it up. Finally, she made it onto the bus and bingo! There was Munch, standin’ to the right of the driver, countin’ out her fare.
E’rything in me wanted to hook off. But I didn’t. I listened to the one thought that had told me to chill. So I stood on the bus’s bottom step, stretched out my arms, blocked the doorway and said, “You called me a snitch?”
Munch turned toward me, her back now to the driver, her face to me.
The look in her dark eyes told me I’d snatched her by surprise.
She hesitated.
Swallowed.
And I could tell she was thinkin’ a million things at once, none of which I had time for. So I repeated myself. “You called me a snitch?”
“You either on or off the bus?!” the driver barked.
I waved my hand, then flipped him the bird. He wasn’t important.
I sank my copper brown eyes dead into Munch and said, “You got one minute to answer before I slide you across this sidewalk.”
Nothin’. Not. One. Word.
“Look, young lady, you need to move!” the driver snapped.
“’Cause I’m going to be pissed off if I’m late!” came from behind me.
“That’s what I’m sayin’!” came from another direction. “Folks up here have to get to work. Nobody has time for this schoolyard foolishness!”
I sucked my teeth, tuned out the static, and continued to drink Munch in. A part of me wanted to simply catch her real quick in the jaw or slap her dead in the mouth for being stupid and doggin’ my name. But I couldn’t do just that; her violation called for more.
After all, she used to be my homie.
I met her when I was ten and she was eleven. It was the same day my mother left me, my sister, and my two brothers with Nana and took off for a neverending drug run. Munch came up to me in the courtyard and said, “Who you? You new around here ’cause I never seen you before.”
I wiggled my neck. “I never seen you before either; you new around here?”
Munch shoved a hand up on her chubby hip, looked me over, and smacked her lips. “It’s all good, girl. I just wanted to know who you was. My name is Grier, but e’ry-body call me Munch.”
I twisted my lips and tried not to laugh ’cause both them names was ugly. I failed though and a slight snicker came out. “Grier?”
“Yeah, Grier. You got a problem wit’ that? I was named after my grandmother.”
“Nah. I don’t have a problem wit’ it. It’s your name, not mine. But why e’rybody call you Munch?”