“Sounds romantic. I’d sure like to find me a superfine, supersmooth brother to be my soul mate.” Karen realized that her voice was getting wistful, and she actually meant the words she was saying.
Where the hell did that come from?
She frowned and rubbed her hand across the soft scuffed leather again. The last thing she needed was a soul mate. A soul mate would mean a relationship. And a relationship would mean time away from her beloved youth center. And all her time and energy was wrapped up in her “hood work,” making the neighborhood a safer and more productive place for the youth. She didn’t have time for love or a relationship. And she certainly didn’t have time for any kind of soul mate.
Perish the thought!
So why did she all of a sudden want one more than she wanted the money to buy all new computers for the technology room in the Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center?
She scrunched up her face as she continued to rub the journal and let the leather lull her into thoughts of finding the one. “What are you going to do with her journal?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to just give it to Goodwill. Karla found her man after she found the journal. I had that thing for years after she and Daniel were killed in that freak automobile accident back in 1980.” Amina shuddered and closed her eyes for a moment. She frowned as she stared at the journal before shrugging and continuing.
“The journal didn’t bring me a soul mate or even a halfway decent man to warm my bed at night.” Amina rested her finger on her chin in contemplation. “In fact, since she died and I took her book, all I got was eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush, the end of the Black Liberation Army, the blissful, almost willful ignorance of the Clinton years, a revolutionary’s worst nightmare in eight years of W and the murder of my only child. That journal has probably been jinxing me! Nothing has gone my way personally or politically since I took it. I don’t know where that journal is going, but it’s not going with me to South Carolina and messing up my new start. Call me superstitious if you want!”
“Hey, but we have change we can believe in now. So maybe the tide is turning, at least politically.” Karen shook her head and laughed. Then she realized that if Amina didn’t want the journal, maybe she’d be willing to let her take it.
“I could take the journal off your hands. I want to read all about your sister’s love affair with her soul mate.” She flipped through the pages, noting the different handwritings and the hearts drawn on some of the pages throughout. “It looks like a lot of different owners have written in it. Maybe I can live vicariously through them, because Lord knows I don’t have time to have a love life.”
“You can have the journal. Maybe it’ll bring you a man.” Amina twisted up her face and stuck out her tongue. “Because Lord knows you need one.” Amina laughed and ducked when Karen threw the kente cloth at her.
“Girl, you better go on and get you some love! Don’t wake up my age and alone. It’s not a fun place to be. Whatever happened to that Saul guy you met in college that used to work with you at the center? Didn’t you and he have something going on? What happened with him?” Amina frowned. “I never really liked him, but he seemed like he was stuck to you like glue.”
“Saul finally saved up enough money to take a trip to the motherland. You know he was Mr. Africa via Alabama.” Karen laughed. “But we weren’t a good match. He needs his African Queen, and I hope he finds her over there. I just miss the fact that I could really count on him to help out at the center. And the sex wasn’t bad when I had an itch that needed scratching. He was all right as an FWB.”
“What the hell is an FWB?”
“A friend with benefits!” Karen chuckled.
Amina paused, and her eyes widened when Karen told her what it meant. “Girl, he was just taking up space and keeping you from finding the man you were supposed to be with. But I might have to look into this FWB thing a little more.” Amina laughed. “You wait and see. I’m gonna call you from my house on the beach and tell you all about the fine young hottie that’s gonna fall in love with me and knock me off my feet. I’m gonna get me a young tender roni.”
“Watch out now, cougar! I see I’m gonna have to keep you away from the youth center. You might start scoping out the youth to give them more than just a little hope and inspiration.”
Amina laughed. “I like them young, but not that young! They have to be at least drinking age. And since I’m a black woman, that would be panther, not cougar. Get it right, girlfriend!”
Both women cracked up then.
“You’re a hot mess, Amina. A hot mess!”
“And don’t you forget it. Come on, girl. I need some lunch if I’m gonna tackle the rest of this. Let’s go downstairs and eat. I know you’ll be talking about how I worked you to death and didn’t feed you.”
Karen got up and followed Amina down the stairs. But their conversation about love struck a chord. She had just turned thirty. Was it time for her to find a man? She shook off the thought.
“You know me so well. I sure will talk about how you worked me like a slave and didn’t offer me a sip of water. Not to mention it’s hotter than hell up in here. You would pick the start of summer to want to clean out your attic and move down South. Only you, Amina, only you!”
“Girl, stop complaining and come on!”
They laughed and continued walking. Karen barely realized that she still had the journal in her hands.
Darius “D-Roc” Rollins stood in the finished basement of the home he’d purchased for his grandmother, not really listening to the chatter that was going on around him. He still couldn’t believe that his younger cousin—his only cousin, who had been just like a little brother to him—was dead.
He had dispensed with his normal entourage for the funeral and was thinking about taking a break from his boys for a little longer. He just needed a change. He needed a break from everything that had kept him away from his family for years.
And the way he was feeling about the loss of his cousin, he really didn’t want a large group of people just hanging around him following his every move. The group mentality had lost its appeal. Most of his core entourage were his homeboys anyway, so they took the respite as a chance to visit with their own families.
He looked around the room. The newly finished room had state-of-the-art electronics, a minitheater, wall-to-wall cream carpet, plush rust-colored sofas and light olive-green paint on the walls. The large mahogany sofa tables, end tables and table and chairs off in the corner tied the entire room together. It was actually his first time seeing the room since it had been remodeled. He was glad that he had surprised his grandmother by paying for it and hiring someone to make sure no detail was left to chance. The large space was now a family recreation room that was perfect for entertaining large groups. He’d had it remodeled a year ago for his grandmother’s birthday, thinking it would keep his cousin home more. He had no idea then that they would be standing in the same room mourning the loss of the boy.
How could you account for an eighteen-year-old college student with his entire life in front of him being gunned down in a neighborhood that he no longer lived in but couldn’t seem to stay away from? How did a person come to grips with the fact that no matter how much money he sent home to get his family out of the hood and keep his cousin out of the streets, the streets still managed to claim his cousin?
He looked around at all the faces standing around the basement, eating the food he’d had catered for the repast. The sad thing was that most of the people there probably couldn’t care less about Frankie. Most of them were only there to get a glimpse of “D-Roc.” Some had even asked for autographs and some had snapped pictures with their cell phones.
Pathetic. He didn’t regret his celebrity by any means. But he did regret the way people behaved because of it.
“It’s good to have you home, son.” His grandmother came and stood by him.
The tall, bronze-complexioned woman with her salt-and-pepper hair cur
led softly around her face looked older than she ever had. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and he could tell she’d been crying again. It broke his heart to see her so torn apart. She’d raised him after his mother was murdered, and when her youngest daughter had gotten pregnant as a teenager, she’d essentially taken on raising that child, too—Frankie. Burying Frankie probably felt as bad to her as when she’d buried Darius’s mother.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come home more often. Maybe if I had—”
“Don’t you go blaming yourself, Darius! Wasn’t nothing you could do to keep Frankie out of them streets. Lord knows we tried. He just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t have listened to you either.”
“How you know that, Mama? He might have. He looked up to Darius.” His aunt Janice was only six years older than him. She’d had Frankie when she was eighteen. She was also tall with a bronze complexion and looked like a younger version of his grandmother. She wore an expensive weave with jet-black hair hanging well down her back. Despite her tears and sorrow at the moment, she was still in her typical perpetually angry state of being.
Unfortunately, this time she had a right to be angry with him.
Darius knew he should have done more to make sure his cousin stayed away from dangerous situations. It took more than buying a nice big house in New Hyde Park and moving the family to the safer Nassau County suburb. It took more than footing the bill for private school and guaranteeing a full ride to college.
Neither he nor Frankie had ever had a father figure—just Grandma and Janice. What Frankie needed—hell, what the little thug who had shot and killed Frankie probably needed, for that matter—was someone there who understood what it meant to be a young man in the hood, someone willing to be there and talk to him and talk him out of foolishness.
All the money in the world didn’t make up for time. It was funny how it took tragedy to bring some lessons home. For the first time in his life, he knew more than ever that nothing beat time. The death of his cousin brought that lesson home with enough poignancy to last several lifetimes.
His chest felt heavy. So much pressure was building up; it felt as if it was going to cave in and all of his insides would be exposed. Something had to give, and he had to let it out or he knew he might just explode.
He tightened up, holding it in. He couldn’t break down. He had to be a rock for his grandmother and aunt. He let out a stuttered breath and then another.
Frankie was dead.
It was his fault, even if he hadn’t held the gun. He needed to own up to that and not cry over it like a little boy.
Man up!
That’s what he needed to do. At thirty years old, he was the man of his family. He needed to start doing more than throw his money around to prove it. He loosened his tie. The central air was blasting, but he still felt closed in wearing the suit and tie he’d worn to the funeral.
“You’re right, Janice. I should have been here for Frankie. He needed me, and I failed him.”
“I’m glad you know it! Too bad it’s too late.” Janice glared at him before cutting her eyes.
“Janice, stop that! This child is grieving just like we are. It’s not fair for us to put this all on him. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. He did all he could for Frankie. We all did.” Grandma’s voice cracked, and she started sobbing again.
Darius wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. He held her together and tried to keep everything he felt inside from tumbling out.
He could just see someone with a fancy cell phone or digital camera shooting a video of him breaking down. And he could just see the video showing up on YouTube if he gave in to what he was feeling and cried—if he let the pain take over.
The tenuous street cred he had as a so-called positive rapper-turned-Hollywood-movie-star would be gone if someone caught him slipping and he ended up bawling like a little baby on the Internet.
He shook his head and frowned.
Street cred.
That’s the reason Frankie was dead. He hadn’t wanted to leave the hood behind. He’d wanted to show that he was still down. There had to be a way to be down and not end up in the ground. Hell, he didn’t want to forget where he came from any more than his cousin had. He’d given back financially to lots of good causes and charities in the hood.
He threw money at the hood, the same way he’d thrown money at his cousin.
“Can’t talk now, Frankie, I’m on set about to shoot a scene. I’ll call you later. Hope you like the new wheels.”
“Gotta hit the studio, man. Tell your moms and Grandma I said hi. I’ll try and call y’all this weekend.”
He wasn’t even going to think about all the times he’d let calls from his cousin go straight to voice mail because he was busy with a sexy model or Hollywood starlet. He had dropped the ball, and his cousin had paid the price.
“I’m going to stick around for a little while. I’m between films, and I can put off the studio for a min—”
“Oh, don’t stick around now! We don’t need you now! Go back to Hollywood. Go back to your busy life!” Janice choked out in an angry hiss. “Frankie needed you. You couldn’t make time for him….” Her voice trailed off and she bit back angry tears.
He wasn’t mad at his aunt. She needed someone to blame. Hell, even he blamed himself. So why should he expect any different from her?
“I’m thinking about devoting some time down in the old neighborhood, some time in East New York. There are a couple of youth centers. I could spend some time… I could try and honor Frankie’s memory.”
He had to do something.
“Oh, son, you don’t need to be down there. It’s dangerous. Anything could happen. You should just go on back to your life where it’s safe.” The worried expression on his grandmother’s face tugged at his heart.
He knew the last thing she needed to worry about was the possibility of burying yet another child.
“You don’t have to worry about me, Grandma. I’ll be fine.” He wanted to say that he wouldn’t be involved with the kinds of things that his cousin had been involved in. But he knew that would have set his aunt off unnecessarily.
At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what Frankie had been involved in. Darius had failed him.
“The old neighborhood? Why would you want to be down there? No one wants you down there. Go back to Hollywood, Darius! I can’t believe you’re going to use my child’s death as a part of some bullshit publicity stunt!” The ugliness of his aunt’s voice and the distrusting glare in her eyes shook him to his core.
When had it gotten this bad? When did his own family actually forget who he really was? The fact that his aunt could even accuse him of such a thing let him know that he had really dropped the ball where they were concerned.
“That’s not what I’m doing, Jan… You should know that. In spite of everything… You should know…” He shook his head. The basement was starting to close in on him and that sinking about-to-cave-in feeling in his chest had him thinking if he didn’t get out of there soon he really would end up broken down and sobbing on the floor. He took a deep breath. He needed air, so he walked away from them.
“Son, don’t go. Don’t let Janice upset you like this. We know you, son. We know you! We love you.” His grandmother’s voice trailed off as he walked up the stairs.
Even though he knew he could never make things right for his cousin, the tragic loss demanded that he try, demanded that he do something.
Chapter 2
Two weeks after helping Amina clean out the attic, the woman Karen thought of as her “other mother” moved to Myrtle Beach. Karen had gone out to dinner with Amina the other night and said her tearful goodbye. Even though it felt like her connection to her deceased best friend was gone, she still had the youth center to hold on to.
It was Monday, and Karen walked up to the Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center with the same sense of optimism she started each week with. Her building was two stories of prime Brooklyn real estate—tw
o stories of space, opportunity and possibility.
No matter how things had gone the week before, she started each day of the week with a continued steadfast belief in the change she could evoke in people’s lives. Her mother had always called it her stubborn streak. But Karen thought of it as sheer determination.
She was determined to make a difference all day, every day.
As Karen lifted the gate at the entrance to the youth center, Dicey “Divine” Stamps walked up and lifted the gate to her storefront palm-reading spot, Divine Intuition. It was right next door to Karen’s youth center. Ever since the quirky woman opened up the store a year ago, she had been trying to get Karen to come in for a reading.
Karen always said no. While she might have embraced a sort of eclectic style when it came to hair and clothing, she was really traditional when it came to certain things. She didn’t do the woo-woo stuff! Period.
“My offer to read you still stands. I’ll give you half off my normal rates.” Dicey hefted up her gate with a smile. The tall, almost Amazon-like woman had deep, dark skin and wore her long curly hair in thick goddess braids. The braids were wrapped around her head and had an almost crownlike appearance. She always wore African-print goddess gowns. Today she had on a short-sleeved long dress made of mud cloth.
“Girl, you know I don’t believe in all of that.” For some reason, she thought about the journal that she had taken from Amina’s house and how she had felt so compelled to take it with her. She hadn’t picked up the journal since she took it, so she had no idea why it popped into her head at that moment.
“Don’t you want to know?” Dicey said in a way that almost made Karen think she knew what was going on in Karen’s head.
Confusion crossed her face as she looked at Dicey.
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