Getting Played

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  I nod slowly. I know she’s right. But just for a minute I’m really tempted. “So what do we do?”

  “We put the money back.”

  “All of it? Are you sure?” I joke.

  Jade smiles. “Yeah, all of it, I’m sure and so are you.”

  But curiosity gets the better of us. We dump the rest of the rubber-band rolled money out on the bed first. They were jammed inside really tightly. We finally get them all out. There are twenty rolls, and each roll has between seventy-five and eighty one hundred dollar bills each wrapped up tightly in a rubber band. I grab my calculator, and we figure out the approximate total. When the LCD display shows the total, we just look at each other. There is over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars stuffed in the trophy. “That’s a lot of money,” I say.

  Jade nods. “Yeah, like I said, too much money,” she says.

  “But what if we give it to the police and they keep it?”

  “But what if they come back to look for it again?”

  We stuff all the money back inside the trophy and screw the top back on. It looks about how it looked before. Now we are just sitting there looking at it. Neither one of us speaks or barely even breathes. “Jade, Kenisha, I’m back,” our grandmother calls out from the second floor. We both jump and grab our chests and then burst out laughing. We keep laughing until tears start streaming down our faces. I grab the trophy and put it back behind my door. It is always open, so I guess that’s how they didn’t find it when they searched my room.

  “Hi, Grandmom,” Jade calls down, taking the gloves off.

  “Hi, Grandmom,” I repeat, taking mine off, too.

  “I brought some sandwiches in with me. Come on down and get something to eat.”

  We both say okay, and then look at each other. “So what do we do with that?”

  “We’ll leave it where it is for right now. We can think about it later, okay?” she says. I nod. “Come on, let’s go.”

  I head to the front stairs, and Jade heads to the back. “Where are you going?” she asks.

  I turn, seeing her opening the back stairs closet. I grimace. “I hate those stairs.”

  “Come on,” she insists, as she pushes the shelving away.

  “I hate these stairs,” I say, following her in darkness.

  “Why? It’s quick and easy and leads right to the kitchen.”

  “But it’s so dark. I always feel like I’m gonna fall and break my neck coming down this way or like I’m walking down into the pit of hell.” She laughs. “I’m serious, it’s scary.”

  “I used to be scared of coming down here, too, but then I guess I got used to it. Mom took me down one time when I was petrified. She helped me get used to them.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “I remember I must have been about nine or ten. She held my hand and told me to just close my eyes, hold tight to the rail and just keep walking. After that, whenever I’d be nervous about walking into the darkness I’d grab the rail tight like I did with her hand, close my eyes and, like she said, I’d just keep walking.”

  I smile. It was a great story, and for some reason, it does make me feel a lot better about coming down here.

  “You remember mom a lot differently than I do.”

  “She was there to help each of us when we needed her. She still is. Remember that.”

  “I know. I guess sometimes I forget,” I say.

  “You’re just like her. You’re a fighter. Look at what you’ve been through with Darien and with the Pizza Place.”

  “Nah, I see Mom more in you. You’re so calm and smart about things. You always know exactly what to do, just like her.”

  “I guess we have the best of her when we really need it.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “You know what? Maybe we can talk Grandmom into putting a light switch at the top and connecting it to the bottom. That way the whole area would be illuminated when we need it to be.”

  “That’s a good idea, ’cause seriously, I hate coming down these stairs,” I say again. Jade laughs just as she opens the pantry door. Our grandmother is standing at the table emptying a grocery bag. We greet her, then help put the groceries away. Then we all sit down and eat sandwiches and talk.

  Jade suggests putting a light in the back stairs, and Grandmom thinks it’s a great idea. Then we talk about school. Thankfully, Jade does most of the talking. I don’t feel like it. But I should have known my grandmother wasn’t gonna let me be quiet for long. “And what are you up to at school, Kenisha?”

  “I’m doing okay, hanging in there. Penn isn’t all that bad. And actually, one of my teachers was telling me about applying to hopefully be a congressional page next semester.”

  “Wow, that’s wonderful,” my grandmother says.

  “Hey, congrats, I was a page right before my senior year, too. We can make it a family tradition.”

  “I am so proud of you girls I could burst with joy. Just keep doing the right things and everything will be okay,” our grandmother says. Jade and I look at each other. We know exactly what she means. “So how’s it going upstairs?” she asks as we clean up the kitchen.

  “It’s going pretty good,” I say. Jade agrees.

  “Was anything broken?” she asks.

  “Nothing that really matters,” Jade adds.

  “Do you need any help?”

  “No, we’re okay. We got it.”

  “Well, I’m going to head on over to the hospital and then…”

  “The hospital?” I repeat nervously. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “With me, nothing. Are you okay?”

  “Why are you going to the hospital?”

  “You know I visit friends in the hospital and the nursing home on Saturdays before I go to bingo.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot,” I say.

  So after lunch and cleaning up the kitchen, my grandmother goes to visit her friends, and Jade and I go back to work upstairs. A few hours later, we finish cleaning and putting our rooms back to normal. We rearranged the furniture and both rooms looked great. Basically, I helped Jade with hers and she helped me with mine. After a while they were as good as new. Actually, better than new.

  Later Jade is exchanging clothes out to go back to the dorm. I sit on her bed while she packs. “So, you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to, but is there any possibility that you and Tyrece could be hooking up again?” I ask.

  Jade turns and looks at me, only half smiling. “Well, check you out, getting all up in my business.”

  I smile, knowing she is joking. “Nah, it’s not that. I was just kinda looking forward to being a bridesmaid.”

  “I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to help you with that.”

  “That’s okay, I was just asking.”

  “So what are you doing the rest of the day?” she asks.

  “Nothing. I’ll probably call Jalisa and Diamond and see if they want to hang.”

  “Did you need a ride to your dad’s house?”

  “Nah, things are too weird there.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “Oh, my God, I have to show you this.” I run into my bedroom and grab my cell phone. I start the video playback application as Jade sits down on the bed. We watch, laughing the whole time. When it is over, we watch it again, laughing the whole time.

  “So what did your dad do?” Jade asks.

  “He scared that guy to death. He ran out of there quick. But so far he’s not doing anything about Courtney. She keeps begging for forgiveness and saying it wasn’t her fault, but he’s just ignoring her. I don’t get it.”

  “Sure you do. Now he can do anything he wants to do and she can’t say or do a damn thing about it. Think of it as a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  “Oh, man, you’re right, that’s it. He’s never gonna be home from now on.” I close my phone and turn it off.

  “You’re still not using your phone. Why? Have you gotten any crank calls the
last few days?” Jade asks.

  “I don’t know. My phone is usually off.”

  “Look and see.”

  I turn it on again. As soon as I do, the white message light begins blinking. I open the message application and review the recent ones. “I have four missed calls and a text message from Diamond.”

  “Who are the missed calls from?”

  I press a couple of buttons. “They’re all from Diamond, Jalisa, Ursula and my dad.”

  “Nothing from anyone else?” she asks.

  “No, and nothing from the private caller,” I say.

  “Good, sounds like maybe they gave up,” Jade says.

  “Yeah, I hope so.”

  “The other day, you obviously had something to tell me when you came to me. I wasn’t hearing anything before. I am now. What’s going on? What did you need the money for, school?”

  “No, for hospital bills.”

  “What hospital bills?”

  “Grandmom has all these hospital bills. What’s up with that?”

  “What hospital bills?” Jade repeats, frowning more.

  Seeing her expression, I can tell she has no idea what I’m talking about. “They’re bills from the Northern Virginia Health Institute. They’re, like, for thousands of dollars. Is there something wrong? When was she in the hospital?”

  “I’ve never known her to be in the hospital or even sick. Where’d you see these bills?”

  “I saw them in the big envelope on the kitchen table. They were originally sent to Mom in Virginia and now they’re here.”

  “Did you ask her about them?”

  “Yeah, she just blew me off. I tried calling the customer service number, but it was a recording.” I pull out my cell phone, find the number, then hit redial, then hit the speaker button so she can hear the other end ringing. A few seconds later, the machine comes on again. It lists several options. Jade presses the zero button for more information. An operator comes on.

  “Hi,” Jade says. “Could you tell me what your hospital specializes in?”

  “Yes, cardiovascular medicine.”

  “Thank you,” Jade says, then presses the end call button.

  “Um, Courtney said that mom left some insurance policies. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who gets them?”

  “We do. You, me and Grandmom.”

  “How? When do we get it?”

  “It’s for college.”

  “So you’re already using yours?”

  “No. I have a full scholarship.”

  “So, can we maybe take some of your money and my money and pay the hospital bills off?”

  “I don’t know, maybe, but first we need to find out what’s really going on with this hospital thing. Let me see what else I can find out,” she says. I nod. “Okay, I’m ready to go. You sure you don’t want a ride to your dad’s house or to Virginia to hang with your friends?”

  “Nah, I have a ton of homework to do and a lot of reading.”

  She grabs her bag, laptop and purse. “You gonna be okay here by yourself until Grandmom gets back tonight?” she asks.

  “Yeah, no biggie,” I say, more calmly than I really feel.

  “Okay,” she says, then heads downstairs. When she gets to the foyer, she turns. I am on the last step. It always makes a loud squeaking sound when someone steps exactly in the middle. I bounce a couple of times, making the squeak louder and more annoying.

  “You know you’re only making that worse by doing that,” she says. I start chuckling and bounce some more. She shakes her head. “You are such a brat sometimes.”

  “Yeah, I know and you love it.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” she says, but we both know it’s true. We drive each other crazy, but we are still sisters and love it. “Now, call me if you want or need anything,” she says.

  “Does that include your Manolo Blahniks, too?” I joke.

  “Hell, no,” she says smiling. “I’ll lock myself out. See you later.”

  “’Kay, see ya.” I head to the kitchen as I hear her double lock the front door. I grab some orange juice, some homemade chocolate chip cookies and the Style section of the newspaper and sit down. I drink my juice and eat my cookies while I flip through the paper. There is nothing much in it except how somebody got arrested for something and was getting off easy. I think about Darien. I can’t believe he was out on bail after everything he did.

  I don’t feel like reading this anymore. I fold the paper and rinse out my glass. I grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then toss my napkin at the trash can. I usually hit it, but this time I miss. It fell behind the trash can against the back door. I move the can and drop it in.

  I look at the pantry door. It would be so easy just to run up the back stairs since the stairs and closet door are right next to my bedroom, but I seriously don’t want to go through all that. I take the front stairs, squeak and all.

  I don’t feel like television or music, so I just sit there in the quiet. I think about filling out my application to be a congressional page, but I’m not in the mood, so I just look it over. I have to write an essay about the most significant change in my life. I nearly laugh out loud. I have about twenty since last summer began. I am not in the mood for that, either. I grab my recipe book and flip through. That’s when I hear the first bang. I know exactly what it is. The trash can just fell over. Shit. Somebody just opened the back door.

  CHAPTER 20

  Three’s Company

  “I’ve always heard ‘out of the frying pan into the fire.’ Yeah, I know what that means. So now that I’m in the fire, where do I go next?”

  —Twitter.com

  Okay. My heart is pounding like a jackhammer. I’m shaking all over and I can’t stop myself. Now my breathing is getting crazy. I haven’t needed my inhaler in a long time. I’m not sure I even know where it is. I stop and listen. I don’t hear anything more from downstairs, but I still know somebody is here in the house. I quickly grab my purse and dump it on the bed. My inhaler falls out last. I take a deep breath and almost instantly my lungs clear.

  I tiptoe over to my bedroom door and push it to almost closed. I immediately see the trophy. I grab it and hold it to swing, and then it hits me. If they want it, they can have it. I tiptoe back over and sit it down on the floor between my dresser and my desk. They have to see it there. Then I go back to the bedroom door and peek out. I still don’t hear anything. Now I am thinking maybe this is all just my imagination. That’s when I hear it, the squeak.

  I back away from the door and look around. My phone is on the bed where I dumped everything. I grab it and look around again, hearing a second squeak. I know there has to be at least two people. I can’t fight two. I need to get out of here. I open my bedroom door more, then ease around to the closet door. Now I hear talking, or more like arguing. They are coming up to the second floor. I open the closet door and push the shelves aside. They roll easily like they always do. But I swear I never remembered them making a noise before.

  I duck inside quickly, then close the door and push the shelves back in place. I know not a lot of people outside of the family know about our back stairs, and those who do probably have no idea how to make the shelves slide. So I feel safe enough for right now. But I hear real talking now. One guy is asking someone else about my bedroom. “It’s on the third floor, come on.”

  “Shut up, man, be quiet.”

  “Man, ain’t nobody here. Your girl’s always in Virginia on Saturdays and I saw the old lady and her fine-ass sister leave.”

  I start down a couple of steps, then almost trip. I catch myself, stop and sit down. I do not want to fall. I press the button on my phone to call for help. A small area in the darkness instantly illuminates. I forgot all about that part. I dial 911 and tell the operator in a whisper what is going on. I also tell her about Detectives Clark and Wilson. A few seconds later, I hear Detective Clark. The operator was somehow able to connect me to him. “Kenisha, we’re on the wa
y to the house. Where are you?”

  “I’m hiding upstairs,” I whisper.

  “Okay, can you get out of the house without being seen?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Can you tell how many there are inside?”

  “At least two, I think, but maybe…”

  The closet door upstairs opens. I stop talking and look up, thinking maybe they heard me. Then I hear them talking again. “No, not that door, this one here,” another deep voice says. The closet door closes.

  “Kenisha. Kenisha, are you there?”

  “Yeah,” I whisper again.

  “Okay, try to get out of the house.”

  “I don’t have my keys and the front door has a deadbolt lock on it.”

  “How did they get in? Do you know?”

  “I think by the back door.”

  “Okay, can you get down the stairs to the back door without them seeing you?”

  I look around in complete darkness except for the phone’s light. I keep pressing the button to keep it lit. “Yeah, maybe. I think I can.”

  “Good, go now. Be careful. When you get outside I want you to go to a neighbor’s house and don’t move, understand? We’ll find you.”

  “Okay,” I say, hearing my voice trembling.

  “Now wait, don’t hang up. I’ll be right here with you the whole time. We’re on our way. Detective Wilson and I are going to wait at the back door for them to come out. We’ll pick them up then.”

  “Okay,” I say again, my voice trembling even more now. I take a deep breath and think about what Jade told me about our mom helping her climb down the stairs. I stand up slowly, grab the rail really tight like I’m holding my mom’s hand and just start walking in the darkness. Even before I know it, I am standing in the pantry. I think about turning the lights on, but decide not to just in case there is someone on the lookout in the kitchen.

  I listen at the door and don’t hear anything. Then I open it slowly and peek out. There is trash all over the kitchen floor where the trash can had been knocked over. I look at the back door. It’s pushed but not completely closed. I open the panty door all the way and stand in the kitchen. I hear the squeak on the front stairs again. There is somebody down here still. I tiptoe to the back door, open it, and, just as I am closing it, I hear another voice. “Come on, come on, hurry up, ya’ll taking too long,” the girl’s voice says. I stop. Ursula?