by Meesha Mink
Junior is walking up the cracked sidewalk from the Circle K, laughing…with his arms around Geneva.
I’m watching.
They’re laughing.
He stops and leans forward to kiss her.
I shift the car into park and reach for my purse.
They’re kissing.
I open the car door and I walk over broken glass toward them.
They’re kissing.
I’m close.
They’re kissing.
I’m aiming.
They’re kissing.
I’m crying.
They’re kissing.
Junior looks up. “Molly—”
I’m shooting. I’m shooting. I’m shooting.
Epilogue
Miz Osceola
I wake upthat morning and just feel like things are gonna be different. Change done gone come. Life is ready to move off pause. Or at least I hope so.
I’ve seen a lot during my forty-plus years at Bentley Manor. Good times. Bad times. Better times. Worse times. Drugs, poverty, anger, hopelessness, and helplessness has a way of making life “interesting.” Still, nothing I ever seen here could have prepared me for what all went down last month. Nothing.
For the first time in a long time I thought about leaving, but I didn’t. The death and the pain nearly aged me twenty years, which is twenty more than I got to spare. All of it touches me so close ’cause I wasn’t lucky enough like Cleo to have kids of my own. These people at Bentley Manor is like my children. My family. Besides, I can’t leave Cleo. She’s my homey, like the young folks say.
And I know it bothers Cleo, too. Me and her see a lot and we talk a lot about it but neither one of us has said one word about any of it to each other. We sit in each other’s apartment but we haven’t made a move to go downstairs and sit like we used to. Still we see and we know. If not talking about it is some crazy way to make us forget, then fine, mum’s the word.
But we still see and we still know.
Three murders. One vicious attack. Prostitution. Drugs. AIDS. Adultery. Men sleeping with women and men.
Sex, drugs, and violence.
Humph. And them women on them TV talkin’ ’bout being desperate. They didn’t even know the half.
Aisha. Her momma pulled up in a U-Haul a couple of weeks ago. Her and two teenage boys started moving all Aisha’s stuff out her apartment. Lord, all the clothes, TVs, highfalutin furniture and things they brought out that place. Looked like a going-out-of-business sale at Macy’s. I had got Cleo and we went down and let her know we was sorry ’bout Aisha getting hurt. It was kinda funny how as hot as it was the momma just held on to this ratty-looking wool coat and said her daughter would be just fine. Such a pretty girl and now her face all cut up. Thank the Lord she’s alive, though. Far as we know they ain’t catch that white man who did it to her, but the Lord has final say.
Kaseem busy spreading the word about Aisha prostituting herself and Reema adding fuel to the fire about how she has Aisha’s husband. Big deal bragging ’bout a drug-dealing jailbird who just got sentenced to ten years. Whoopdee damn do! So many people here at Bentley Manor is glad to see Aisha fall since her head was always so high. They saw what they wanted to see. I saw a little girl trying to buy her way to importance.
Just like Devani. Yeah, that one still makes me weep. Especially when I see how broken up her momma is. Can’t be easy losing another child—especially the way Devani died. Sometimes I dream about her and that baby of hers. And I even pray for Tyrik that the Lord give him some sense. A damn waste is all it is. A waste. But if you do the crime you do the time, so he went from the NFL to the PEN. Rather kill her than take care of her. Ridiculous. Too bad Devani was so blinded by that money that she couldn’t see the love Shakespeare had for her—love he ain’t gone ever get back now.
And poor, poor Molly. That child ain’t the first person I seen deal with that wild mix of undying love and the pain of betrayal. And Lord knows he put that white girl through some shit. Tried to give her a hint but love made her blind. Loving Junior too much led her to kill him. And she was wrong. Even a scoundrel like Junior didn’t deserve to die that way. No doubt about that. But Cleo and I still clutched each other tight that night as the police put her in handcuffs. We seen the papers she handed out about having that AIDS. We knew the hard and painful road she traveled to become a murderer. Heard her parents wouldn’t even come get her belongings from out the apartment. So the managers set what little stuff she and Junior had out and the vultures ’round here picked them bones clean in less than an hour.
Well, Junior. Junior was Junior. Sometimes the life you live and the way you treat people dictates the way you die. And Lord knows we seen that boy in a man’s body do some crazy stuff through the years. Some downright crazy stuff. Hell, what could be more sick than sleeping with the man married to the mother of your children? To be honest, Luther was hardly the only man Junior slept with here in Bentley Manor. You’d be surprised what the eyes of two old ladies see late at night while people think the shadows hidin’ their secrets. Everything done in the dark comes to the light.
Now Lexi wounds run deep. Every scar in her soul caused by the betrayal of some man. But sooner or later she has to learn that she caused a lot of them wounds herself, always in search of men. Five kids. Not a daddy in sight. Husband gone. Marriage over (thank God). The father of two of her kids brutally killed. Yeah, she got a helluva uphill struggle to make sure she get right and them kids don’t turn out wrong. Her sister told me Lexi bought a small house outside Atlanta somewhere. Guess that’s a step in the right direction. Only time will tell.
Funny thing about time. It will tell. It will be on someone’s side. It’s all someone needs. It will heal all wounds.
I make myself a big glass of ice water and shove my pack of cigarettes into the pocket of my shorts. I walk to the hall closet and pull out my chair and my bat before I leave my apartment and walk down the hall a bit to Cleo’s place. I knock twice with the end of the bat and wait. I hear her gospel music playing.
The door opens and she looks down at my chair, my bat, and my jar of water. She turns around and doesn’t say one word. When she comes back she has her chair and her slugger too. She locks her door and we make our way on downstairs.
We just settle in our chairs when a big U-haul turns into the parking lot. Me and Cleo look at each other before we look back at the truck.
It’s a young woman and two kids.
“Wonder what her story is?” Cleo asks.
I shrug.
All we have to do is wait and see.
Acknowledgments
God, I thank you for blessing me with my life. Every up and down, every bit of good and bad got me here. I know you walk with me as I go even further.
To my family: Thanks for understanding when I have a deadline and I have to shut myself up inside the world of my books.
To all the readers, bookstores, and book clubs (especially the Niobia Bryant News Yahoo group)—thanks times a million for your support.
Tony: Thanks for understanding when I was too tired to cook dinner. You would cook for me, make a run to Checkers (the #4 with a tea is the BOMB), or make me walk away from that computer to go relax and chill at a restaurant. That’s love and I have a lot for you.
Ma: Thanks to you for teaching me how to be a woman. You are the greatest example.
Caleb, my big brother: I love you so much and you make me proud.
Daddy, Granny, Claudie, Aunt Marion, Little Marion, Aunt Mugger: Watch over me from heaven.
My aunts: Rogers, Marsha, Marie, Mae, Dottie, and Dab “Zsa Zsa.” My uncles: Lloyer, Jim, Pete “Slim and Trim,” Ernest “Dickey Boy,” Randy, Donald “OG.” I love ya’ll to death.
My cousins: Cheryl—you read my books more than ANYBODY in the whole family and I love you for that. Shine and Londa, you two stay on phone patrol. Felisha, Andre, Chuck, Bobby, Marvin, Derrick, Stacy, Angie (thanks for reading all my books, too), Gina, Tony, DeAng
elo (I love you, Rat), Blair (The Big Bammer), Sade (Miss Saddity), Pam and Auriel (Ya’ll crazy), Terry (I’m so proud of you), Brenda, Shane (I thought you were gonna e-mail me, heifer), Bobo (I love you, cuz), Brandon, Michelle, Connie, Bam, Gina, Kenny (aka CRUNCH—boy, you crazy), Trav, Keion, Monte, Eric, and Tracy (you are too laid-back, girl). Ebony, Felicia (Where are you, cuz? I love you), Donna, Nasir, and Dashon. (I ain’t forget ya’ll.)
De’nesha bka Adrianne: Thank you for your talent. You really impressed me with your pen. Two Sagittarius got together to do a book? We’re both a little bruised during the process but in the end I am so in love with this book. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Deidre Knight (The Knight Agency) and Claudia Menza (Menza-Barron Literary Agency): Thank you ladies for such a great deal. We all worked really hard on this one. Here’s to continued success.
Cherise Davis, Meghan Stevenson, Celia Knight, Jamie McDonald, and the rest of the Simon & Schuster/Touchstone team: Thanks for guidance and help. Cherise, you really kicked this manuscript up a notch. Thanks.
Kim Louise: Thank you for your ear and your addictive calmness. Bryant & Louise Productions coming at you in 2008!
Thanks to the ladies at Morrison’s Creative Trends: Thanks for the laughs, the book talks, and the hottest hair in the Dirty South.
Thanks to Compliments Hair Studio in Irvington, New Jersey, on North Maple Avenue—the hottest hair salon on the East Coast (www.myspace.com/compliments hairstudio).
If I forgot anyone blame my head and not my heart.
Peace.
—Meesha M.
Dear God, I’m so jealous that you and Granny are probably kicked back and having a grand old time. Watch her though; she’ll hide your keys! But seriously, thank you God, for blessing me and answering each and every one of my prayers even when I didn’t care for the answer. To my sister Channon, for always having my back and being my shoulder to cry on. (Girl, keep your dancing butt home sometimes.) To my other sister, Charla, perhaps the funniest person I know, for dubbing me Chef Boyardee Negro. To Mom, we may not always get along but hey, we’re stuck with each other. My beautiful niece, who always brings a smile to my face as long I’m not babysitting more than two hours at a time. To Kathy Alba, thanks for being my best friend for twenty-odd years and always coming through in a pinch. Charles Alba, thanks for taking care of my girl—and hell no, I ain’t paying you two dollars.
To the ByrdWatchers fan club: You’ve always been so loyal and thanks for encouraging to me to do what I do. To Angie Clark: Miss those late office work hours—NOT! Luanne Segars, Tammy Reynolds, Donna Davis, Alda Townsend, Tiffani Johnson, Kathy Pope, Pat and Robert Barrett. My favorite cousins: Josephine Johnson, Melanie Rogers, and Remel Rogers.
To my film production company 5onfilm: Michelle Auda, Jef Blocker, and David Walters. Plus Eddy’s Kids group: Lydia Phillips and Andy Ausley. Also to Bridget Anderson and Shirley Harrison for being my writing warriors.
A big, big thank you to Deidre Knight of the Knight Agency for sticking with me for the past ten years. The minute you heard about this idea you were all over it. I love you for that. To Cherise Davis at Touchstone, for being extremely pumped about this story and making us see it in a whole new light.
And to Meesha aka Niobia—we did it. I don’t know how but we did it. Thanks for putting your foot in these stories. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished.
—De’nesha
About the Authors
MEESHA MINK is the pseudonym for Niobia Bryant, a national bestselling and award-winning author with nine works of fiction in print in multiple genres for multiple publishing houses (Kensington/Dafina and Harlequin/Kimani Press). Desperate Hoodwives is her first work of sexy urban fiction but definitely not her last. Currently the author splits her time between her hometown of Newark, New Jersey, and her second home in South Carolina. For more on Meesha visit: www.myspace.com/meeshamink and for more on the author’s works under her real name visit: www.niobiabryant.com.
DE’NESHA DIAMOND is the pseudonym for Adrianne Byrd, a national bestselling author of twenty-four multicultural romances. Adrianne Byrd has always preferred to live within the realms of her imagination where all the men are gorgeous and the women are worth whatever trouble they manage to get into. As an army brat, she traveled throughout Europe and learned to appreciate and value different cultures. Now, she calls Georgia home. For more information on De’nesha Diamond visit: www.myspace.com/christianwrites, and for more on the author’s romance work visit: www.adriannebyrd.com.
Both authors can be reached at the official
Desperate Hoodwives website:
www.hoodwives.com.