The Banks Sisters

by Nikki Turner

  Bunny kicked Pocahontas, who was still lying on the floor looking like she was a permanent resident of la-la land. Bunny added, “And that’s a promise on her dead baby soul.” She headed for the door.

  The second Bunny’s back was to Kimmy; she jumped on her back and started pulling her hair. This sent Bunny in rage. Like she was a feather, Bunny swung her around and body slammed her.

  Still unsure, if the funeral director, was trying to break up the fight or get a few licks in, but at this point nobody gave a damn. When Ginger slipped into building and all she saw was this man on her sister, she picked up a folding chair that was in the hallway, tucked away and busted him over his backside. “Fuck off my sister, nigga.”

  At that point, it was about to get popping, but Tallhya knew they needed to leave there. “Come on y’all. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  And the siblings fled the scene like a shern-head jacked up off of embalming fluid.

  -12-

  Tears streamed down Simone’s face as she drove the shitbox car from the company her dad once owned and not because she was sad. Nah, she had already been sad for way too long as far as she was concerned. The sadness she’d experienced after her father passed had threatened to swallow her whole, but she had gotten to the other side. She realized that instead of the full on pity party she had been throwing herself she needed to be grateful for the time she had with him, the one where all her needs were met and all the life lessons he had taught her. Hell, she knew up close and personal what it looked like not to have the kind of daddy that she had been blessed to have for twenty-nine years. Two of her three sisters both had trifling deadbeat good for nothing fathers while Ginger didn’t have any idea which of two many to count sexual partners had deposited the lucky sperm into their mother that helped create her. Simone had a daddy, dedicated to her and able to express his love every single day so no matter what she would always have those memories to fall back on. And right now all she could wonder about is, What would my daddy do?

  “Dammit,” she spat out to no one in particular at all the emotions spilling over inside of her. So, no these were not tears of pity or sadness, these were the full expression of the rage bubbling up inside of her at the plain ole bullshit that had gone down today. If her father knew the dirty dog way Marjorie treated her after he was gone he would have thrown her out on her ass a long time ago. So come hell or high water Simone planned to make that happen, she didn’t know when, but as long as her ass could breath out a breath that conniving bitch would pay for the way she disrespected her father’s wishes to have his only child taken care of. With God as her witness she swore the shit was going down.

  And the way Tommy, that fake-ass buster had pretended to be her father’s best friend all those years when in reality he was a disgusting predator waiting to pounce on her; his no good-ass would get his too she thought as she sat there adding up the offenses. Before she could begin to formulate a plan Simone glanced down at her phone ringing and recognized the same number she’d seen earlier, but hadn’t wanted to answer it. Of course the first thing that came to mind that is was one of her favorite stores calling to inform her of a sale or an item she had been waiting on. Being a spoiled daddy’s girl, Simone had developed an over the top shopping addiction that had been funded by her daddy. Every high-end clothing store within driving distance of Richmond had her number on speed dial just in case any of her favorite designers new lines came in. She ticked off her favorites; Louie, Celine, Balenciaga, Chloé, and Prada. Damn, she was missing her former life. She sure did her share of damage, but those days were gone and she wasn’t in the mood to explain to the over eager sales woman on the other end why she hadn’t seen her black card running through their credit machines lately.

  I need to ignore that damn call, she thought, but since the person was being persistent she’d have to take out her frustration on them. Simone pulled her car over and answered the call. This no Bluetooth having bullshit was already wrecking her goddam nerves on top of everything else.

  “Hello,” she snapped into the receiver for once not using the perfect ladylike telephone manners her daddy had taught to her. The person on the other end of the phone took a deep breath before responding probably trying to figure out how to deal with the big no that they were guaranteed to hear.

  “I’m looking for Simone Banks,” the woman on the other end spoke. “Is this her?”

  “Yes, this is her,” Simone answered, desperate to get off the phone and back to her thoughts. She had a lot of things to figure out the first being how the hell she’d get another job which was only a close second to when would she put her whole entire foot up Marjorie’s ass.

  “This is Dr. Cohen’s office. The doctor would like to see you at your earliest convenience, today if possible. It’s about your test results.” Upon hearing that Simone felt all the blood rush out of her body. That particular statement usually led to the person hearing it to begin playing out worse case scenarios in their head except this wasn’t the first time she’d experienced those words. Her father’s doctor started with those words and just a short time later his daughter stood over his wet gravesite as his casket was lowered into the hole in the ground, as buckets of rain fell blending with the outpouring of Simone’s own grief.

  “I’m sorry what did you just say?” Simone’s voice lost all the anger and attitude as she tried to process exactly what this woman was saying. By the time she hung up and redirected her car in the direction of the doctor’s office downtown Simone had gone through an entirely different barrage of emotions. She had all but forgotten the mandatory physical she had recently taken that had been required for her new job at the bank. They’d done a battery of tests including taking blood samples, but nothing she’d given a second thought too especially since she was so young and healthy. Her immediate reaction was the reach for the phone to call her father and to have him meet her at the doctor’s office, just a knee jerk reaction before reality came flooding back knocking her into the presence. She could have called Bunny, but as much as she loved her sister, the thought of her no-patience-ass in the doctors’ office did not comfort her. Plus, all she had to do was call one sister to have them tell the other two and her grandmother. And the last thing she wanted was to worry her Me-Ma. Her grandmother would immediately remind her to pray and throw this whole medical thing up to God. Then, Me-Ma would insist on meeting her at the office with any available prayer warrior she could bring from church. So in the end she decided to go alone figuring how bad could it be? Just thinking about how her grandmother would handle the situation reminded her to pray, Her grandmother’s feet didn’t hit the floor in the morning without a prayer on her lips and of all her grandchildren Simone was the only one who maintained a close relationship to God. “Trust in the Lord for He knows your every need,” Simone whispered to herself as she entered the office.

  “The doctor will see you,” the pert bottle blonde stood up and led her into one of the three patient waiting rooms. “You can put this on,” she smiled as she handed over a paper hospital gown. Simone took it and had just tied the strings in the back when the door opened Dr. Cohen, the internist entered in his white lab coat and carrying a clipboard like something out of a medical drama. Simone had been coming for her once a year checkup since she’d turned eighteen with another one of the doctors at the practice who had recently retired which is why she didn’t really know this man about to deliver some hopefully not so bad news.

  “Did you come alone?” his brow furrowed as he approached staring from her to the papers attached to his clipboard.

  “Uh, yeah. I was already in the car when I got the call. I figured how bad could it be?” Simone joked as she waited to see if the doctor would join in. He didn’t. Now her ass was starting really worry.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this but your blood tests indicate an abnormality that point to ovarian cancer.” He couldn’t help, but look glum giving this kind of diagnosis to someone so young.

&n
bsp; Wait, what? Cancer? I have cancer? My father just died from cancer. These thoughts swirled in her head as she began to dry heave, her mouth feeling dry. She stood up pacing the room like a caged rat except it wasn’t the room it had more to do with wanting to get out of her own skin.

  “Ms. Banks, right now we need to administer a scan and some other tests to determine if you have cancer. But just know that with early treatment this form of cancer has an 80 percent chance of full recovery.”

  She didn’t respond because Simone couldn’t hear anything it all sounded like the Charlie Brown character, ‘waaa waaaaa waaaaa waaaa,’ his words were incoherent. Everything started to spin around her and she felt as if she were in some kind of tunnel. She could barely make out the nurse who rushed in helping the doctor pick her up and place her on the examining table. When Simone came to, the nurse was fanning her and rubbing ice on her face.

  “What. . . . what happened?” she sputtered although to both the doctor and nurse it appeared obvious.

  “You fainted.” Both the doctor and the nurse answered. “We tried calling the name of next of kin on your contact forms and the number was disconnected.” Simone sat there staring into space trying to connect when another woman entered with a glass of water and handed it to her. Simone began to drink, but what she really wanted to do was to throw the glass against a wall and smash it. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. The doctor, nurse, and assistant fawned over her like a newborn baby. They checked her blood pressure, took her temperature and even offered to get her some food. Simone might have been hungry when she got there, but the news of her health crisis dissolved any hunger she may have had. All she wanted was to get home and to have Me-Ma tell her that God would take care of everything. That she would be all right.

  “We need to schedule this surgery as soon as possible, Dr. Cohen spoke in a calm manner.

  “Surgery?”

  “Yes, it’s a standard laparoscopy so that I can take a look and find out what’s going on. We will biopsy a small piece and that will tell us everything we need to know.” He’d been doing this for a long time, but ever since the practice switched from regular to concierge medicine the care they showed was something out of the 50’s. Hell, they even had an advertisement in the waiting room announcing that they now made house calls. Simone wished she were sitting in her Me-Ma’s house with her family around her as she heard this news.

  “Do you still have the same insurance? Blue Cross PPO?” the receptionist asked in a syrupy sweet way, same as the cashiers of all her favorite couture shops when they knew you were about to sign for some really expensive shit as Simone scheduled her laparoscopy. Simone didn’t even have her wallet. The cop hadn’t given it back yet and if it wasn’t for the fact that bitch of a step monster had canceled all of her credit cards she might have insisted he release her wallet.

  “Yes,” she responded grateful that at least she could count on something in her life still working even if the reason sucked.

  “Let me just get approval for the procedure,” she smiled up at Simone, dialed a number and waited. The Bach piano concerto playing took Simone back to all the years of piano lessons that helped her to play this piece perfectly. She even played it at her first beauty competition and of course she won. Simon had been so proud, his attention lasered in on his baby girl up on that big stage making the other girls fade like background players next to her.

  The receptionist had to call her name three times to get Simone’s attention she had gotten so carried away with the memories of the music that for a moment she had forgotten where she was or why.

  “Ms. Banks, the insurance company informed us that your policy is no longer current.” The woman’s thin lips pursed together, her eyes fixed on Simone as she moved her chair back. The receptionist had experienced the mercurial nature of patients and she didn’t want to be caught off guard.

  “I’m sorry, that’s impossible,” Simone sputtered and then had to listen as the woman patiently explained that because she was no longer an employee at her father’s company they had canceled her coverage. With everything going on she hadn’t bothered to check her medical insurance status. She hadn’t held a real job at her father’s company in years, but every two weeks he cut her a check that kept her flushed, able to pursuit her interests. And she had a three-month trial before she became permanent at the bank, which came with full benefits. But she hadn’t planned to go back to the bank after the stick up.

  By the time they hustled her out of there, she had received a list of free clinics mostly in neighborhoods that just a few months ago, she wouldn’t have even dared to drive through. She couldn’t bear to look directly into the doctor’s face when she left. She felt so embarrassed that her insurance was no longer valid that she grabbed her keys, clutched the paperwork she had been given and walked back to her crappy car. She didn’t know what the hell she was going to do, but she knew not to play around with her diagnosis. Her father had refused to go to the doctor for an annual check up no matter how much she prodded him over the years. Last year he began complaining of aches and pains and by the time Simone was able to convince him to see a doctor because he felt terrible, his prognosis was dire with doctors giving him less than a month to live.

  “Seriously?” She fumed watching a meter maid affix a ticket on the windshield of her car. Simone picked up the ticket and threw it onto the ground giving the meter maid a hard stare just begging her to open her mouth because all of her manners were balled up in her fists ready to take someone down. But then she realized that the car wasn’t in her name so she wouldn’t get the ticket, the only silver lining in this shitshow of a day.

  -13-

  Me-Ma had too much energy to sit around waiting to hear what happened with her girls down at that funeral parlor so she did what she always did when worry got the best of her. She put on her the blue dress with the white buttons that the girls had gotten, for Mother’s Day, at some store called Anne Klein. As much as she liked to act like she didn’t care about creature comforts, the soft silk and linen fabric against her skin made her feel like the Queen mother. The blue Taryn Rose shoes that Tallhya insisted she allow her to purchase with her “monthly lottery winnings” certainly made walking the six blocks to the church much easier. She would have been happy with the orthopedic shoes her doctor prescribed, but the girls took one look at the ‘prison warden’ shoes and refused to allow her to wear them. Those damn shoes conveniently went missing and no matter how much she yelled they all feigned innocence. Because these were hand made by a doctor without looking like she was an old fart she gave in and let them purchase them for her.

  “Save your money,” her words fell on deaf ears as usual when one of her girls made up their mind to do anything same as it had been with their stubborn mother Deidra. She had to cover her eyes at the register as the saleswoman rang up the purchase. Me-Ma had lived her entire life being frugal, making the little she and her husband earned stretch to feed every mouth and she never compromised with the 10 percent she placed in the collection basket. She knew a lot of people called themselves children of the Lord except when it came to adding their weekly 10 percent. Then they were heathens and charlatans who pretended at serving God.

  “Lord, I hope that wasn’t Walter,” Me-Ma talked to herself thinking about that newspaper lying on the kitchen table although she already knew in her heart that it was. She had a strong sense about things like this.

  Tell the truth, shame the devil, tell a lie, shame yourself, she thought as she finished getting dressed for an impromptu visit with the pastor. Congregation enrollment dropped to their pre 1990’s numbers down since the former pastor died and too many of the older members, accused Pastor Street of appearing too secular to be a real man of God in his flashy clothes, but Me-Ma had taken the time and gotten to know him. She had been able to convince some of the old members to stay and to trust that the Lord had brought this man to serve them. Me-Ma had a lot of power in that church, and Cassius took full advant
age of it by appointing himself as the son she never had. Oh, he certainly played on her need to be close to God, doting on her whenever she was around, making himself available whenever she needed him. But lately she was coming to the church a lot more often just to talk with him and that was getting in the way of his extracurriculars, but what could he do.

  Unbeknowing to her, she helped raise money for all his pet projects shaming people into opening their pocketbooks and checkbooks for every little thing he swore would improve the church. Cassius even talked Me-Ma into helping to raise money so that they could televise their Sunday services on some second rate cable channel.

  “If one person in pain or shame watches my sermon and because of it finds his way to the Lord then isn’t that what God would want?” Me-Ma contributed generously and convinced the elders that the pastor needed to be given a clothing budget since he shouldn’t be responsible for his television wardrobe. She cursed the small-minded people who talked about Pastor behind his back. She’d told many of the parishioners that she would pray for them, but coming from Me-Ma it sounded closer to a curse. She figured out that all the Reverend needed to solidify his image was to find himself a wife, settle down to stop the tongues from wagging on the fools running their mouths. She couldn’t understand why her grandbaby Simone didn’t return the pastor’s interest.

  “Hello Mrs. Banks,” two young girls in those shamelessly tight fitting spandex pants that exposed all their business waved at her as she passed. Boy did she want to stop and tell those fast children to go put some loose clothes on and to start acting like they had some good sense. “Lord, give me strength,” she said to herself realizing that they were barely out of diapers and here they were looking like straight up hootchies shaking their butts at grown-ass men as they passed.

  “Girl, come on over here with alla that ass,” one of the older boys shouted as the girls passed. And of course they stopped. Took everything Me-Ma had not to send those children back to their homes to put on something appropriate, but today, she had more pressing matters to take care of. Without meaning to she’d become the neighborhood matriarch, and as much as she protested she wound up accepting the position since very few adults had the good sense to “pick up after their dogs” as was the old school expression. These were lay down with dogs and get up with flees kinds of people and Me-Ma hated it. Any good therapist would say that her incessant need to help others stemmed from her inability to aid her own child, but she didn’t come from that self-help generation where therapy was even an option so for her she was simply being a good neighbor.