by Tracy Brown
Camille could see the rage burning in her sister’s eyes after her conversation with her ex. She followed Misa at a safe distance, knowing that she would talk about it when she was ready. Camille quietly perused the shelves at BJ’s, a wholesale store just over the bridge in New Jersey. Coming to this “low-budget” warehouse was beneath her, but she’d come along with Misa anyway. The plan was for them to do some school shopping for Shane before he and his mother headed home to meet Louis for his weekend visitation. Camille seldom turned down an opportunity to shop, so she had happily tagged along. Stopping off at this superstore wasn’t on her agenda, though. She walked behind her sister, hoping that she was almost done shopping, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Misa heading for the cash registers.
They stood on line, and finally Misa filled the silence. “That son of a bitch is so selfish, Camille.” Misa looked at the floor and shook her head. She was truly hurting for her child, who was always disappointed by his no-good father.
Camille wished there was something she could do to make it easier on her sister. She couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have a rat-bastard husband abandon you. “Misa, Shane is loved. With or without Louis’s dumb ass.” They moved forward slightly in the line. “You don’t need him. If you want to go out this weekend, I’ll keep Shane.”
Misa brightened a little. That meant that she wouldn’t have to cancel her plans with the guy she had met at Almond earlier in the week. “Thank you, Camille,” she said. “But that’s not the point. Louis should want to spend time with his son. I shouldn’t have to argue with him to get him to do that. And he should be man enough to step away from that bitch he’s living with so that he can build a relationship with Shane. I’m sick of him, for real.” Misa took a deep breath. Her eyes seemed almost sorrowful. “I don’t want to wind up like Mama, living alone, struggling to get by. This single-mother thing is so hard!”
Camille wanted to hug her younger sister and assure her that things would get easier. But they were next in line, and so instead she helped Misa load her laundry detergent, toilet tissue, and paper towels—enough to stock most homes for an entire season—onto the conveyor belt. Misa handed over her store card and then foraged through her purse for her credit card. Coming up empty, she leaned against the shopping cart and rifled through her bag in search of enough cash to pay the $87.46 total.
As she saw her sister struggling to come up with the money, Camille came to the rescue, handing over her own credit card to pay for it.
“Thank you,” Misa said again, smiling slightly. “I mean that, Camille. I’m just gonna go home, pick up Shane, and stay home this weekend. I’ll go shopping one day after work next week, since I forgot my wallet at home.”
Camille helped Misa load her bags into the shopping cart, and they headed for the parking lot. On the way, Camille stopped her. “Let’s still go shopping,” she suggested. “My treat. We’ll get Shane whatever he needs for school, and we’ll get a little something for ourselves, too. Whatcha think?”
Misa lit up. “Wow, Camille.” She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Okay. I guess that’ll take my mind off of Louis’s dumb ass.”
They laughed and walked to the car, ready for some retail therapy.
Toya was on her way to her car after locking up her home. As she shut her gate, she saw her neighbor from across the street strolling over in her direction. She had only seen this character on a few occasions, exiting and entering his house. He always had a smile and a wave for her, and she would barely acknowledge him before scurrying inside her own plush surroundings. She unlocked her car and opened the door, tossing her Chanel bag onto the passenger seat as she prepared to climb inside.
“Excuse me,” her neighbor said as he approached her car. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Toya turned around and got a good look at her neighbor up close for the first time. He was average height with a muscular build and a deep voice. But that face! Toya recoiled slightly, thinking that he had to be the ugliest man she’d seen since meeting Flavor Flav back in the nineties at a Brooklyn rally for Tawana Brawley.
“What’s up?” she asked curtly, eager to get away from this ugly bastard. “I’m in a rush right now.”
He nodded. “I understand. I just wanted to introduce myself. We live across the street from each other but I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced.” He held his hand out. “My name is Russell.”
She took his hand and shook it lightly. “Toya,” she said, before she turned and got behind the wheel of her car. She pulled the door, hoping to shut it right in this ugly dude’s face, but he put his arm out and stopped the door from closing. She looked at him, taking in his Southpole jeans and plaid shirt. He had no flavor and he was ugly as sin. She glared at him icily.
“Okay, Toya,” he said, smiling. Toya couldn’t help noticing that smiling only made the situation worse. He looked like a monster! “Well, I noticed that you’re single.”
“You noticed that, huh?” she said sarcastically. She hated neighbors who were so aware of her comings and goings. Most of the homes on her residential block were occupied by families—husbands with wives who watched Toya like a hawk, insecure around the single femme fatale who could afford to live in their tony neighborhood without the luxury of a husband. Now she was finding out that this beast was watching her as well.
He nodded. “Yes, I did. So I was hoping that you’d let me take you out sometime. Maybe go to dinner or—”
Toya was immediately offended. “Why would I go out with you?” Her face expressed her disgust and complete amazement that a man this hideous would ever think he had a chance with a woman like her.
The beast seemed taken aback. “Well . . .”
“Sorry,” Toya cut him off. “I gotta go.” She pulled her car door shut and started her car, then peeled away, leaving her dejected neighbor staring off after her. She glanced at him again in her rearview mirror and shuddered. “Ugh! The nerve!”
Octavia sat on the train heading to her dance class after a tough day at school. It was Friday afternoon, and that meant that her grandfather was attending kidney dialysis.
Bill Storms’s kidneys had begun to fail six years ago, and he opted not to have a kidney transplant. The list for a donor kidney was incredibly long, and the odds of him getting one before his own kidneys completely shut down were small. When he broke the news to his daughters, their responses had been as different as they were. Whitney, his eldest child, told him that she would do research to aid him in his search for a kidney—even going so far as to suggest that they could buy one with all the clout and connections she had. She knew that in foreign countries there were channels through which these things could be done for a reasonable fee. Bill had declined, though he thanked Whitney for her offer.
Dominique, on the other hand, had a different response altogether. “You can have one of mine, Daddy,” she’d said. “You only need one to survive. And I’m young and healthy. Let’s get tested to see if I’m a match.” Bill had been extremely touched by that. Within a week, Dominique had gone with him for a battery of tests to determine if she was a viable kidney donor for her dad. As it turned out, she was a perfect match. Still, Bill refused to take her kidney.
After the results came back, he had sat his daughter down and explained why he was opting for dialysis as opposed to a transplant. “What if I take your kidney, and then something goes wrong? I saw a segment on Dateline where a man got his son’s kidney and the son died during the operation. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened to you.”
Dominique had laughed. “Daddy, that’s not gonna happen.”
Bill had shaken his head. “Well, if it did, they might as well bury me, too. ’Cuz it would kill me. I’m going on dialysis. It’s no big deal. Just three days a week for three hours. It ain’t like I got a whole lot of other stuff to do.”
Reluctantly, Dominique had acquiesced. Through the years since then, Bill had become a favorite patient of t
he staff at the dialysis clinic he attended. In a way, he enjoyed the three days a week when he could go in and flirt with nurses and techs who were half his age. The other two days of the week, he looked after Dominique’s daughter, which was another highlight for him. He loved his granddaughter and enjoyed the time he spent with her. Octavia enjoyed it, too, although she wished that just once she’d have the opportunity to do whatever she wanted with her afterschool time.
Today, she had a modern dance class scheduled for four o’clock, and as usual, her mother would be picking her up afterward. She felt trapped and babied, while all the other kids her age seemed to be enjoying freedom and privileges that Octavia only dreamed about.
As she sat on the train with her long legs crossed, a young man got on with an iPod in his hand. He sat across from Octavia and smiled at her. She smiled back. He was cute! He looked like he was from the same tribe as Kobe Bryant. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and he seemed to only have eyes for Octavia.
The boy checked her out and smiled again, liking what he saw. Her prep school uniform looked sexy as hell to him. Her long bare legs were on display in the pale blue skirt she had hiked up higher than she wore it at school. Octavia had rolled the skirt up at the waist and folded it over in order to shorten it to about midthigh. On her feet she wore a pair of ballet flats, and her crisp white blouse was unbuttoned nearly halfway, her red bra visible beneath the fabric. She had a North Face book bag sitting on the seat beside her, and he wondered if she was a stuck-up private school chick. He decided to find out.
Taking the headphones out of his ears, he leaned toward her. “How you doing? My name is Dashawn.”
Octavia felt like she was in a movie. Guys never seemed to notice her—at least, not the ones she found attractive. The boys at her school were either white boys from wealthy families or black boys who wished that they were white boys from wealthy families. Octavia’s type was the athletic, rap-music-listening, basketball-dribbling category that Dashawn seemed to fit into.
She smiled back. “Hi,” she said. “My name is Octavia. Nice to meet you.”
Dashawn thought she sounded very proper, unlike the girls who lived uptown near him in Harlem. “You got a boyfriend, Octavia?”
She shook her head. “Nope.” She was enjoying flirting with a handsome stranger on the train this way. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Sixteen,” Dashawn said. “How about you?”
“Fourteen,” she lied, though she rationalized that it was only a little white lie. She would be fourteen in a couple of months.
“That’s wassup,” Dashawn said. “So can I get your phone number so I can call you and get to know you?”
Octavia nodded and exchanged phone numbers with the handsome stranger. When her stop came, she waved good-bye to him and sauntered off the train as if she were strolling down the catwalk. She knew that Dashawn was watching her and she wanted to give him a show. As she went to dance class and changed into her leotard, she suddenly felt more grown up. And she liked it.
Frankie walked into his house and found it empty. Breathing a sigh of relief, he tossed his keys on the coffee table and headed straight for the kitchen. On the counter he found a note his wife had scribbled for him on her way out the door. It read,
Baby, I went with Misa to do some school shopping for Shane. I’ll be home soon. There’s a dinner plate in the microwave for you. I love you.
Camille
Frankie was glad that she wasn’t there. As much as he loved Camille, she had been smothering him with attention lately and he was tired of it. She woke him up with breakfast in bed, came into the shower while he was in there so that she could wash his back, walked him to the door when he left, called him several times throughout the day, and was standing there when his car pulled into the driveway most nights. His dinner was always ready, his laundry and dry cleaning were always done, the house was always spotless. And while Frankie appreciated the fact that he had a good wife who loved him without question, lately he found himself wishing that she had some interests other than him to keep her occupied. In fact, he wished she had more interests so that she could be more interesting to him! She was so predictable, and it was beginning to bore him. He sincerely loved Camille, but lately he wondered if love was enough.
He took a bottle of water out of the fridge and went upstairs to his bedroom. Stepping into the huge room covered wall to wall in plush carpet, he kicked off his Timbs. Camille was an impeccable housekeeper, and Frankie appreciated that because he was a neat freak. Growing up in a strict household, he and his brother had been treated like soldiers. Cleanliness and organization were things that were ingrained in him from early on, and they were qualities that he still valued. He flipped on the TV and watched the news while he stepped out of his jeans and peeled off his sweater. After turning on the shower in his big adjoining bathroom, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He admired his good looks with a smile and then left the bathroom to allow the water to get piping hot, the way he liked it. Now clad in just a wifebeater, boxers, and a pair of black socks, he sat on the edge of his California king–size bed and watched a story about a brazen bank robbery in South Ozone in which two people had been shot. The robbers had escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash, but the whole scene was captured on surveillance cameras. Frankie shook his head, thinking that it was just a matter of time before the guys who did it were caught. Bank robberies had too much potential to go wrong. Dye packs, silent alarms, armed guards . . . there were bound to be casualties.
He didn’t liken the casualties of the bank robbery on the news to the casualties of the life he lived as part of the Nobles crime family. Frankie had little sympathy for those who played the drug game and lost. He did, however, hate to hear of innocent bystanders, people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time because a gang of young fools got some guns and played with them as if they were toys. He had seen many innocent people fall victim over the years, and it fueled his belief that the game had changed forever.
Back when Frankie came into the life, there had been three or four top hustlers, each of whom controlled a crew of soldiers, all of whom made money. There were guns, and there were also violence and casualties. But not on the scale that existed today. In Frankie’s opinion, once guns had become available to young knuckleheads in the hood who had no leaders to follow, the whole game changed. It became a free-for-all instead of the grown man’s game that it once was.
His cell phone rang, and he reached for it. Glancing at the caller ID, he had to suppress a smile.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Gillian said softly. She sat on a stool before her vanity mirror, her makeup all laid out before her and her hair pinned up in curlers. She looked at her reflection and hated how her heart rate sped up when she heard his voice. She was in her old bedroom at her parents’ home. It was a place where she had pined for Frankie in silence for years before she’d grown up and gotten over it. Even though she was four years younger than Frankie, Gillian had had a secret crush on him from the very beginning. When Frankie married Camille, Gillian had suffered in silence. She had hoped that Frankie would see her as more than a “lil sis.” Unfortunately, he had only had eyes for Camille back then. Gillian often wondered what might have been.
Sitting in her old bedroom brought back tons of old memories of the days when she had yearned for him. The party was just an hour away, so she’d opted to get dressed there as opposed to going all the way home. After Frankie left, as she sat there in the familiar surroundings of her childhood, she had felt the need to come clean with him. The last thing she wanted was for Frankie to go to bed that night thinking that Gillian was a snake. “Are you busy? I wanted to explain what happened earlier,” she said.
Frankie walked into the steamy bathroom and turned off the shower, then sat back down on his bed. “I’m listening.”
Gillian sighed. She tweezed her eyebrows as she spoke. “Besides you, Baron is my best friend.”
Franki
e didn’t bother to fight the urge to smile this time. The bond between the two of them was often an unspoken one, so it was nice to hear her express the fact that he was special to her.
“We didn’t grow up in the same house, but we were as close as possible under the circumstances. I look up to him. You know that.”
“So why did you tell Pops about the shit with Dusty?” Frankie asked, turning the volume on the TV down.
Gillian stopped midpluck and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She searched her own eyes as if she were searching her soul for the true answer to that question. “ ’Cuz I can’t watch this shit fall apart right in front of my father’s eyes, Frankie. It would kill him.” Gillian found herself choking back tears. Struggling to keep her voice under control, she continued. “Daddy spent his whole life building this business. All of the connections he’s made over the years, all the time he spent on the grind, and all those years he spent in jail while me and my brother grew up . . . he paid his dues and he put this together. And when he came home he gave it all to Baron. I respect that. In fact, I think it would be great if my dad could retire for real, Frankie. Really hand this shit over to his firstborn and kick back somewhere in retirement. I could go legit. Every opportunity to go straight is available to me. But Baron is squandering this shit. He’s been doing it for years. The parties, the fucking payoffs, the gambling, all the losses we suffered, all because of Baron spiraling out of control. You know it and I know it. But Daddy doesn’t know. He thinks he knows, but he really has no idea.”
Frankie frowned. “Yes, he does, Gigi. Don’t get it twisted. Pops is not out of touch with what’s going on with Baron.”
“He doesn’t know the half,” Gillian said, tweezing again. She began to tell Frankie the whole truth. “My brother came to me a few months ago for money. He said he wanted to take some money out of the restaurant and invest it on some bullshit—”
“Wait a minute,” Frankie interrupted. “Baron took money out of Conga? Who let him do that? Your mother?” Conga was the upscale Cuban restaurant in Harlem that Nobles had opened for his wife. Mayra ran the day-to-day operations, and both Baron and Frankie held meetings there from time to time. It was the family restaurant in more ways than one. But Baron had always assumed that Mayra was in control of the finances for the successful venue.