by Nikki Turner
“What’s goin’ on then, baby?” Sandy lowered her voice and said in a whisper, “You didn’t murder anyone, did you?”
“Of course not, Mother.” Isis explained all the things that had transpired in her life regarding the men she’d loved and the conversation she had with Ty. She told her everything, even the part about Ty thinking she was the chosen one—the whole nine.
Sandy was stunned by what she was hearing. “Baby, you are special, but that don’t make you a bad person, nor does it mean that everything that has happened to those people is your fault,” she said. “How can you blame yourself for what happened to your father? You were just a little girl.”
“Of course you are going to say I’m special; you’re my mother.”
“Well, baby…” Sandy paused. “When you were delivered, the nurse at the hospital told your father that you were a baby born with the veil.”
“What the heck does that mean?”
“It means that you are special.”
“It means that I am possessed, that’s what it means.”
“No, it doesn’t, but—”
Isis jumped in. “I mean, Mommy, it’s like once I love a man with all my heart, giving him a part of me, it’s his destiny: life in prison or no life at all.”
“If you’re going to convince yourself that you are cursed,” her mother said, “at least tell me what you plan to do about it.”
“For starters, I’m not going to run from it. It’s like when someone’s dog charges at you; the owner usually says that if you don’t run, then it won’t bother you. Well, that’s how I feel about this,” she said. “I’m going to embrace it. I’m not going to run.”
“And how are you going to embrace it?” Sandy wanted to know.
“I’m going to make this thing pay off, that’s how. From now on, I’m going to call all of my designs Black Widow Jewels. And in all of my pieces, I’m going to put a spider web where the gold stamp would normally go.”
“That’s a great idea, Isis.”
“And from this day forward, I’m only going to wear all black or all white. I do wear a lot of black and white now, but I am going to not half-step on it—only black or white.”
“Okay.” Sandy smiled although she didn’t quite think that this is what the person who created the old cliché “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade” had in mind. But at least her baby was creative.
“If I am feeling shitty or in a kick-ass mood, then I will wear black. But if I am in a good mood or whatnot, I’ll rock all white.”
“I get it,” her mother added. “It’s like a ‘white reveals and black conceals’ type of thing.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way, but…yeah.”
“I think it’s a great way to flip something negative into something positive.”
Isis was distracted by the television when she saw a conservatively dressed lady who looked very familiar to her walking from the courthouse. Then a mug shot of Smooth Breeze flashed on the screen. Next, they showed a small piece from one of his concerts. Isis searched for the remote. “Ma, hold on.” She took the television off mute and turned the volume up.
The anchorwoman said, “It could be a while before the highly anticipated junior album from Smooth Breeze is released because of the startling charges filed against the Grammy award–winning rapper today. He’s being charged with sexual battery and forcible sodomy of a college student named Chrissie Berry, who was interviewed earlier by Jaqueline Doss.”
“He was my favorite rapper,” she cried. “All I wanted was an autograph and a picture. He took my virginity!”
“Oh my God,” Isis gasped out loud, recognizing his accuser. “I can’t believe this shit! Ma, I gotta call you back…I mean you gotta call me back…. Just call me back later, Ma.”
“Is everything okay?” Sandy was worried.
“No. I mean yes.”
“Which is it, Isis? You’re scaring me.”
“Okay.” Isis took a deep breath. “You remember the rapper I told you I went to see? I saw this little hoochie throwing herself at him, and now she’s taking him to court for rape.”
“Rape?”
“Look, Ma, just call me back tomorrow.”
She hung up the phone and flipped the TV channel to another news broadcast. They were covering the same story. The reporter stated, “The camp that rapper Smooth Breeze sponsors for the underprivileged children of Dade County has canceled a banquet in his honor pending the outcome of these charges, and the parade scheduled for next week to give him the key to the city has been postponed until further notice. It looks like the only numbers that he is going to be counting if found guilty are the jail numbers stenciled on his state-issued jumper.”
Isis was stunned. She ignored the ringing phone until she viewed the caller ID and saw that it was the number of Phoebe’s mother’s house. What was her sister doing back in Richmond? The last time Isis had checked, she was supposed to still be in Texas.
“Hey, sister,” Isis answered.
“This isn’t your sister, Isis. It’s Brenda.” This was the last person Isis thought would be calling her.
Hearing her sister’s good-for-nothing mother almost made her teeth itch. Isis didn’t have anything to say to that woman, and she didn’t want to hear anything that woman could possibly have to say to her. Isis was about to hang up the phone dead smack in her ear until a thought entered her head: What if something has happened to Phoebe? Brenda had always hated Isis because she was Ice’s child by another woman, and she was jealous of the fact that Isis had a stronger relationship with her own daughter than she did.
“What’s wrong, Brenda?” Isis asked. “Has something happened to Phoebe?”
“Yes,” Brenda replied. “Your sister has lost her mind, that’s what has happened to her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You need to talk to her,” Brenda said, ignoring Isis’s question.
Isis was tired of Brenda jacking off her time. If something was seriously going on with her sister, she wanted to know. “Talk to her about what? Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“She’s down there in Texas messing with that guy, and he’s whipping her ass. That’s what’s wrong.”
“W-whaaat?” Isis’s voice got louder.
“I don’t know what to do.” Brenda broke down crying. “I think he’s going to kill her,” she said in between sobs. Although Isis disliked Brenda with a passion because of how she’d tried to keep her and Phoebe apart by hating on their relationship, it wasn’t until Isis was older when she really understood that if Brenda hadn’t been such a bitch that day Sandy had showed up on her doorstep, then that day might have turned out very differently. Even so, Isis almost felt kind of sorry for Brenda just then because she had never heard Cruella De Vil show any kind of real emotion except hate and anger. But not quite. Fuck Brenda. All she wanted to know was the business with her sister.
“Brenda, how do you know that this man is puttin’ his hands on Phoebe?”
Brenda wasn’t really feeling the fact that Isis was asking her all these questions. She smacked her lips and replied, “Because her cell phone called me by mistake last week and I heard it with my own ears, him fighting her, although I’ve suspected it for a couple of months now.”
Isis couldn’t believe that Brenda had withheld this information for an entire week. “Why did you wait this long to let me know?” Isis wanted to know. “What if he had killed her?”
“It’s all my fault,” Brenda said.
Isis thought, You’re probably right. But she said, “No, it’s not,” trying not to make her sound as bad as she was probably already feeling.
“Yes, it is. I’ve nagged at her so much that it drove her away. I taunted her about everything: getting a career, going to college so she can meet a rich man, doing something with herself. And when she didn’t make the cheering squad, I rubbed it in.” She paused before continuing, “She’d rather stay there with that guy and get her ass whipped than come ho
me and listen to me tell her ‘I told you so.’”
Isis’s jaw tightened and her eyes became moist with anger. Just the thought of her sister getting smacked around was enough to make her blood boil. And the fact that all this time she’d thought that her sister had made the squad.
Brenda continued walking down memory lane and blaming herself. “It’s entirely my fault—if I wouldn’t have been so greedy, Sandra wouldn’t have killed Ice, and he’d be here. He woulda never let his two girls go through the shit y’all have been through. Ice wanted y’all to be strong black women. He didn’t want y’all to be submissive to no man. He wanted y’all to stand up for y’allselves, not be tied up in the web of these menfolks that don’t mean y’all nothing but trouble.”
Talking about Ice made Brenda feel a little better about the entire situation, but it also gave Isis a little more insight about how her father viewed life and wanted things to be mapped out for his daughters.
“Brenda, I got to get off the phone. I’m gonna call Phoebe.”
“She’s not gon’ come clean,” Brenda said. “She knows how to play it off over the phone.”
“Then I’ll fly to Texas,” Isis insisted. “She’s wanted me to go there anyway. I promised her I would.”
“Thank you.” Brenda actually sounded appreciative. “Will you keep in contact with me, please? I am really worried.”
“I will keep you posted,” Isis promised.
Isis got Brenda’s cell phone number, and then hung up. She sat on the edge of the bed wondering why she hadn’t had any indication of what her sister was going through. She knew they hadn’t talked lately as much as they used to, but she had chalked it up to the fact that they both were entering new phases of their lives. Isis picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s number anyway, just to feel her out.
The call went through. It rang a few times, and then Phoebe answered in a soft, low voice. “Hello.”
Her voice sounded a little pitchy, so Isis asked, “You crying?”
“No. I was umm…” Phoebe seemed to stall for a moment. “I was asleep.”
She’s never been able to lie to me worth shit, Isis thought. “I was just calling because I wondered what you were going to be doing over the next few days.”
“Uh, why?”
“Sister, can you talk, or are you busy?” Maybe someone was listening or monitoring her calls, so Isis wanted to give her sister the benefit of the doubt.
“No, I’m not busy or anything like that.”
“Then why you sound so distant?” Isis asked. Phoebe sounded more and more suspect by the minute.
“I’m just tired; told you I was sleeping when you called,” she snapped.
“Well, you never answered my question. What are you doing in the next few days?”
“I’ll be caught up doing a lot of stuff here,” Phoebe said. “Pretty much housebound.”
“Then call me back later once you’re more awake. And sister…I love you.”
“Me too.” Phoebe quickly hung up the phone.
The entire conversation was very awkward. Something definitely wasn’t right. It was final: Isis was going to the Lone Star State to see her sister, right after she took care of a few things in Miami.
As soon as Isis got off the phone with her sister, she called Tony. She hit his number three times; the first two times the calls went straight to voice mail, but he picked up on the third. She could hear in his voice that he didn’t really want to talk, but she told him that she had some information that could save the day. This got his attention.
“Where y’all staying?” she asked him.
“We moved to the Sheraton in Bal Harbour,” he told her.
“I’m going to send you a package with a few important things in it,” she said. “Be sure to call and let me know as soon as you get it.”
The next call was to Sly. Isis asked Sly to meet her at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in South Beach.
Isis was sitting in the hotel restaurant when she saw Sly walk through the door. She recognized her by the white-and-yellow L.A. Lakers Kobe Bryant jersey she said she would be wearing.
Sly looked nothing like Isis expected. For some reason she thought the girl would be some big burly chick. Sly was the total opposite, all skin and bones. She was light-skinned and looked sort of Spanish with long coal-black, curly, bushy hair. It looked like her hair might weigh more than she did.
Isis raised her hand in the air to get Sly’s attention. It worked. As Sly walked over to the table where Isis was sitting, she understood why Logic was so head over heels for this girl. She was breathtaking, and the all-white Capri outfit looked marvelous on her. Sly sat at the table, told the waitress to bring her a glass of water, and then addressed Isis for the first time in person.
“Please tell me you got something for me to do,” Sly begged. “I have to tell Logic something when I talk to him again. And I can’t lie to him.”
“I’m glad that you asked. First, I’m going to need you to take me to an Anne Fontaine so I can get some white shirts.”
“No problem. That’s in Bal Harbour.”
“Good. Do you know where the Sheraton is from there?”
“Yeah, it’s right across the street from there.”
“What about a Hallmark store?” Sly had been twisting her hair between her fingers ever since she’d arrived. Isis wondered how long she’d had that habit.
“One of those shouldn’t be far from there either,” she answered.
“Okay. Then while I’m in the Anne Fontaine, I need you to deliver a package to my boy, Tony. He’s staying at the Sheraton, and the package is very important, so you gotta make sure he has it in his hands before you leave.
“I’m going to Texas to check on my sister tonight, and I’m not sure exactly how long it’s going to take. But for every day that I’m away, I want you to send Logic a card from me.”
“That’s not a problem either.”
“I’ll pick the cards out and sign them before I leave. That way all you’ll have to do is drop them in the box so that Logic can get mail every day so that he knows I am thinking of him.”
“He already knows that. Trust me, if he didn’t, you would be just some miscellaneous chick. Believe what I am telling you. Logic has never been caught up over no woman before, and I’ve known him a long time.” Sly took a deep breath and then said, “Anyway, though, mailing those cards are small things. Count it as done. Anything else?”
“Not right now,” Isis said, “but thanks, girl.”
“If there’s anything that you think of while you’re in Texas, please feel free to call me.”
“Okay.” She smiled, knowing deep down that she had just met a real live thorough chick. A lot of people made the mistake of underestimating Sly because of her small stature, but no one ever made that mistake twice. She was stronger than a lot of men twice her size, and she was a crack shot with a pistol. The latter was thanks to her father, who’d taught her how to shoot when she was only ten years old. Isis was happy to have her on her side.
Chapter 22
The King of Texas
Isis’s flight had landed in Texas earlier that morning, so she had decided to stay at the Westin Galleria Hotel and start on her save-a-sister mission—if she needed saving—first thing in the morning. It was now a little after 10 AM. Isis had called Phoebe’s phone several times, but she wasn’t answering. Undiscouraged, Isis looked in the phone book for a car service. As her driver pulled the car up to the house for which Brenda had given her the address, they passed a couple of Mexicans working in the yard. They kept going around the winding road, up to the main house. Just when she was thinking that this might not be the right house, she saw a cute wooden sign with the name Vanz engraved into it. This was it. Little sis is living large!
Isis stood on her sister’s doorstep and pressed the long chiming doorbell. Just like the phone, no one answered. She was about to turn around and leave when an older Asian lady opened the oversized front door wit
h a blank look on her face.
“Yes?”
“Hello.” Isis smiled at the lady. “My name is Isis Tatum; I’m Phoebe’s sister.”
The lady stood there holding the door, giving Isis a cold look. “And?”
“And I came to see her,” Isis said calmly. “I’m not sure about how it’s done in your country, but here in America, it’s very customary for siblings to visit one another. Now is she here or not?”
Although Isis didn’t raise her voice despite her anger, the lady saw something in her eyes that said, I ain’t to be fucked with today.
“She no expecting you?” The Asian woman tried to look past Isis to see if anyone else was with her.
“No, she wasn’t.”
“She no say she expecting any company.”
“That’s because she didn’t know. It’s a surprise.” Isis threw her hands up and said, “Surprise!” hoping the woman would catch on. Instead the woman just stood there with the same old blank face. “She does live here, right?” Isis said, while nodding her head. “Phoebe here? Phoebe live here?”
“Yes, but her not here.”
“Do you know where she is?” Isis paused when she heard the grandfather clock inside the mansion strike noon. She and Phoebe used to always talk about getting an antique clock like that. “Do you mind if I wait?” Isis suggested, not giving up that easy.
“She back late. But I tell her call you.”
She really wasn’t satisfied with the outcome, but other than knocking the frail woman down and storming the place, what could she do? “Please do. Thank you,” Isis said.
She went back to the Lincoln town car thinking that she had seen crack stash houses that weren’t that hard to get into. Then she stopped. She had a strong feeling that someone was watching her from behind, but when she turned around, there was no one at the door or the windows. She disregarded the feeling and climbed in the car.
She told the driver, “You can take me back to the hotel.” She was going to lie down, then get up and do a little shopping, and wait on Phoebe to call.
Despite the mall’s being packed and her worrying about her sister, Isis felt that her shopping trip went quite well. She was carrying several bags from Versace, Ann Taylor, and Louis Vuitton when she stepped into the Gucci store. Before both her feet could cross the doorsill, a little blond saleslady walked up to her. “Hi. Welcome to Gucci. Is there anything that I can help you with?” The only other customers in the store were three guys, and it looked like only one of them was actually buying anything.